A HISTORY OF ROME / *s- ,mm HISTORY OF ROME TO THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM BY EVELYN SHIRLEY SHUCKBURGH, M.A. LATE FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE AUTHOR OF A TRANSLATION OF POLYBIUS, ETC. WITH MAPS AND PLANS iX^cto gork MACMILLAN AND CO. AND LONDON 1894 Ail 7-ights reserved Copyright, 1894, By malm 1 LI. an AND CO. ■i^^ ^ (-\i Xoriuooti iSrcsss: J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. IN • HONOREM • MATRIS • NOSTRAE • ALTRICIS • MAGISTRO • SOCIIS • QUE • COLLEGII • EMMANUELIS • CANTAURIGIAE PREFACE To write the history of a great people during a course of more than seven hundred years in about as many pages is a task of which the difficulty, best appreciated by those who have attempted it, may not unfairly plead for leniency of construction. No one can be more conscious than the author of such a book that there are many things that had better have been otherwise than they are ; that expansion would have been advisable here and com- pression there ; that much is to be said against some views that he has adopted as true, and much in fiivour of others that he has passed by or rejected. Such a writer can only plead that he has used his judgment honestly, and studied his authorities with such diligence and intelligence as he possessed ; and that neither space nor the purpose of his book admitted of frequent or lengthy dis- cussions on disputed points. As it was my object to present in as vivid a manner as possible the wonderful story of the gradual extension of the power of a single city over so large a part of the known world, I have dwelt perhaps sometimes at too great length on the state of the countries conquered and the details of their conquest. But Vergil saw that the keynote of Roman history was parcere subiectis et debellare superbos, and it is impossible, I think, that a history of Rome and her mission in the world can be other than a warlike one. The viii HISTORY OF ROME Republic won what the Empire organised ; and as each province was added some new principle of management was evolved which has had to be noticed at the time. I have, however, treated in separate chapters the internal development of the State up to the time of the Gracchi. The constitutional changes after that time are so closely entangled with foreign affairs that it is hardly possible to treat them so entirely by themselves. Yet I have attempted to set them forth clearly in the course of my narrative, along with some indication of the development of literature and the change of social habits.^ By the mechanical means of printing at the head of the chapters the names and dates of Italian colonies, provinces, and numbers of the census, I have tried to draw attention to the gradual expansion of the people and their Empire. The book is founded throughout on the ancient authorities ; and I have placed at the end of each chapter the names of those authorities on which it rests, as likely to be useful to students who care to read and compare for themselves ; but except in special cases I have not given references for each statement of the text. I shall seem no doubt to some to have been too credulous in regard to them. But the great genius of Niebuhr seems almost a warning against the construction of history by arbitrary selection of what to believe or disbelieve among a number of facts resting on precisely the same authority ; and I must be pardoned if I cannot always follow Lewis or Ihne in the summary rejection of all history up to and often beyond the time of Pyrrhus ; and if it has seemed to me that small discrep- ancies and apparent, though often not real, contradictions and repetitions have been seized upon to discredit this or that writer's 1 If chapters viii. xiii. xvi, xxi. xxvi. xxxv. xl. are read consecutively, what I have to say on this branch of the subject will be made clear. PREFACE ix statement when it conflicts with a favourite theory or a modern notion of the probable. I ' have tried to judge fairly in each instance, and have not hesitated to reject when a good case has been made out. No doubt human nature is the same now as it was two thousand years ago ; but human knowledge is not the same, and we must sometimes admit that men acted then as they would not act to-day. Even now the unreasonableness of a measure is not a complete security against its being adopted. Though the book is grounded on the ancient writers, it is almost superfluous to say that I also owe infinite obligations, directly or indirectly, to the great names that have illuminated Roman history, from Niebuhr and Arnold to Zwegler, Mommsen, Drumann, Ihne, Merivale, Duruy, and Pelham ; to the encyclo- paedic work on Roman Antiquities and Polity of Marquardt and Mommsen ; to our own dictionaries of Biography, Geography, and Antiquities ; to Willem's le Senat and Droit Public Roinain ; and to many works on separate episodes, such as Reinach's Mithridate Eupaior ; Napoleon's and Col. Stoffel's Jules Cesar; and others. It is impossible to acknowledge such obligations in detail. Every one knows that these books must be continually used. Lastly, I have the pleasant task of acknowledging the help of various friends, who have read parts of my book in proof and helped me with suggestions and corrections. They are Mr. W. T. Arnold, author oi Roman Provincial Administration ; Mr. A. W. W. Dale, Fellow of Trinity Hall ; Messrs. \V. Chawner and P. Giles, Fellows of Emmanuel College ; Mr. A. A. Tilley, Fellow of King's College. I would add a word of thanks to the Printers, whose patience, I fear, has often been tried but has never failed ; and to my friends the Publishers, who have been always indulgent in granting requests and pardoning delays. Cambridge, April 1894. CONTENTS The Beginnings of Rome and the Regal Period B-t:. 753-509 CHAPTER I The consolidation of Italy — Four periods of Roman history: I. Rise of the city; II, Conquest of Italy; III. The growth of a foreign dominion; IV. Civil wars, leading to the rule of a single Emperor — The place of Roman in universal history — Its continuity ..... Page i CHAPTER H The lie of the Italian peninsula — The ancient limitation of the name — Its sub- sequent enlargement, first,- about B.C. 280, up to the Rubicon, and secondly, in the time of Augustus, up to the Alps — The parcelling out of the peninsula by the Apennines — The difterent character of the Apennines in the centre and south of Italy — Their contiguity to the sea, and the consequent fewness of important rivers— On the north of the Apennines, Gallia Cisalpina ; on the west, Etruria, Lo^tium, Campania; on the east, the Senones, Picenum, Pretutiani, Vestini, Marrucini, p'rentani, Apulia, Calabria; in the centre, Umbria, Samnium ( — Sabini, Marsi, Samnites), Piccntini : continued into Lucania and Bruttium — Etfect of the geographical formation on the history of Italy, early causing a struggle between highlanders and men of the plain Page 5 CHAPTER HI The inhabitants of Italy — Iberian and Ligurian tribes in Italy before the beginning of history — First to arrive the OSCANS and Iapygians; followed by the Umbro-Latins, dividing into Umbrians and Latini — (2) The Sabellians or Sabines, which branch off as Samnites, Picentes, Peligni, and perhaps Marsi, Marrucini, and Vestini — The Samnites branch off into Frentani, Lucani, Apulia, Bruttium — (3) The Etruscans, their occupation of the north basin of the Po, and partial occupation of the south — Their gradual expulsion by (3) the CELTS, who came over the Alps in various waves, whence North Italy is called Gallia Cisalpina, which includes the probably distinct tribes of the Ligures and Veneti— (4) The GREEK colonies in southern Italy mingle with Oenotrians and Ausonians and Itali, but are eventually overrun by Bruttii, Lucani, and Apuli, who give their names to the districts . Page 10 xii HISTORY OF ROME CHAPTER IV Origin of Rome— Heroic legends of its foundation— Settlement of Aeneas in Italy— His wars with the Rutuli— His supremacy over the Prisci Latini— His son removes to Alba from Lavinium— The Aiban kings— The two sons of Proca, Numitor and Amulius— The birth of Romulus and Remus, and their education by shepherds— They restore their grandfather Numitor to the throne of Alba— Their foundation of a new city— Death of Remus— Romulus founds the city on the Palatine and calls it ROME— The gradual extension of the Palatine city to include the Septimontium— The Roman era B.C. 753 Page 21 CHAPTER V The situation of Rome— Latium, its different meanings— ROMULUS, 753-71^— The foundation of the city and earliest institutions— The joint reign with Titus Tatius— Laws of Romulus, and his death— Numa Pom pi li us, his relig- ious institutions and laws— The temple of Vesta and the Regia; the flamens, vestals, and Salii— His calendar— TULLUS HOSTILIUS— The destruction of Alba Longa — Wars with the Sabines — The Horatii and Curiatii — Provocatio — ANGUS Marcius — Makes the sacra known to all — Wars with the Latins — The jus fetiale — The pons sublicius and fossa quiritiurn — L. TarquiniUS Priscus — His arrival from Tarquinii, begins temple on Capitoline, city walls, circus maximus, and cloacae— W'\s murder— Servius Tullius, the agger and completion of town walls — His reforms, the four tribes, and the 193 centuries distributed in five classes — The comitia curiata and cotnitia centu- riata — The object and results of his reform — The patricians and plebeians — His first census — His death — TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS — His oppression of the Senate— His wars with the Volscians — Capture of Gabii — His works in Rome and his colonies — The Sibyl — Embassy to Delphi — Siege of Ardea — The story of Lucretia — Expulsion of the Tarquins — The credibility of the legerids — The authorities on which they rest — Their value . Page 28 The Growth of Rome to the end of the Latl\ League B.C. 509-338 CHAPTER VI The effect of the Revolution on the position of Rome in Latium — Attempts of the Tarquins to recover their property and royalty — Battle with the Veientines and people of Tarquinii on the Naebian meadow — Etruscan invasion under Porsena — Stories of Scaevola and Cloelia — Subjection of Rome to the Etrus- cans — Defeat of Etruscans before Aricia — Isolation of Rome in Latium — The Latins attack Rome — Battle of the lake Regillus — Gradual recovery of Roman power, and return to the Latin League (492) — Wars with the Sabines, Volscians, Aequians, Hernici — Effect upon the Roman character — Tales of Coriolanus and Cincinnatus . . Page 61 CHAPTER VII Enmity of Veii and Rome — State of Etruria in fifth century B.C. — General move- ment against Hellenism — The Fabii — Farther movements of Veientines and CONTENTS xiii Sabines — Fidenae and Veii — A. Cornelius Cossus and the spolia opima — The Etruscan League refuse help to Veii — Twenty years' truce (425) — Samnites drive the Etruscans from Campania — Last war with Veii, its siege and fall (405-396) — The effect of the long siege — The Alban lake — M. Furius Camillus — Stories connected with the fall of Veii — Fall of Melpum — Capture of Falerii, Volsinii, and Sutrium ...... Page 'jj CHAPTER VIII The early Republican government foiinded on that of the kings — Consuls, quaestors, and people — Effect of Servian reforjns — Disabilities of the plebs — Roman civitas — Laws and Fatria Potestas — Perduellio and quaestiottes — Provocatio — Other laws of Poplicola — The ownership of land — Laiv of debt — The nexi — Appius Claudius refuses relief to the nexi — Secession to the Sacred Mount — Tribunes of the plebs appointed: their powers, duties, number, and manner of election — Aediles and their duties — Agrarian law of Spurius Cassius : His impeach- ment and death {48s) — Lex Publilia Voleronis (^7/) — Proposal by Terentilius to limit and define the power of the consuls — The embassy to Greece (^^j) — The first decemvirate {451^ — 7)4j/ law against ambitus {35^) — Laws against usury — Sumptuary laws . . . Page 163 CHAPTER XIV From the end of the third Samnite war to the invasion of Pyrrhus (B.C. 290-280) —Wars with Senones and Boii with Etruscan contingents— Defeat of the Lucani and Bruttii in the territory of Thurii— Quarrel with Tarentum, and the invitation to Pyrrhus ...... Page 176 CHAPTER XV Early life of PYRRHUS— He comes to Tarentum— Message to the Roman consul —Battles of Pandosia (Heraclea), AscuLUM (280-279)— State of Sicily— CONTENTS Pyrrhus goes to Syracuse — Attacks the Mamertines and Carthaginians : takes Agrigentum, Panormus, Hercte, and other towns — Besieges Lilybaeum un- successfully — Recalled to Italy^ (278-275) — Battle of Beneventum (275) — Pyrrhus retires to Tarentum and returns to Epirus (274) — The Romans take Tarentum and Rhegium : subdue Lucania, Bruttium, and Calabria, and the Picentines, and become supreme in Italy (274-265) . . Page 183 Contest with Carthage for supremacy in the Mediter- ranean, B.C. 264-201 CHAPTER XVI The limitations of consular powers, and their devolution on other curule magis- trates, censors, and praetors — The aediles, quaestors, praefectus urbis, and sacred colleges — The legion, its enrolment, numbers, officers, discipline, encarnp- ment, and disposition in the field ..... Page 202 CHAPTER XVII Seeds of hostility between Rome and Carthage — Object of the first Punic war was Sicily — The Phoenicians and Greeks in Sicily — The Sicani, Elymi, and Siceli confused by the Romans with Greek Siceliots — Character of Sicilian Greeks — Power of Syracuse — Carthage, its foundation, constitution, and the charac- ter of its people — Their possessions in Sicily — The boundary of the Halycus — Cause of the Romans coming to Sicily, and the results of the war to the two peoples contrasted — Romans and Carthaginians compared — Judgment of Polybius— The city and harbours of Carthage . . . Page 219 CHAPTER XVIII First Punic war — First Period (264-262) — Help sent to Messana at the request of the Mamertini — Claudius enters Messana — Battle with Hiero, and with the Carthaginians — The siege of Syracuse (263) — The consuls lay siege to Agri- gentum — Hiero makes alliance with Rome — Many cities in Italy join the Romans— Fall of Agrigentum (262). SECOND Period (261-255)— The Romans build a fleet — Loss of the consul Scipio — Victory of Duiiius at Mylae (260) — Relief of Segesta, siege of Hippana, Mytistratum, Camarina (259-258)— Naval battle off Tyndaris (257)— Battle of ECNOMUS, the Romans land in Africa : after successful campaign Regulus is left for the winter at Clupea with half the army (256) — Defeat and capture of REGULUS (255) Page 233 CHAPTER XIX Third Period (255-251) — The Romans increase their fleet, but abandon Clupea — The fleet is lost in a storm (259) — A fleet is again built and Panormus is taken (254) — The Roman fleet is again wrecked (253) — The Romans abandon the sea, but Himera, Thermae, and Lipara are taken, the last by help of ships from Hiero (252) — Victory of Metellus at Panormus — Alleged mission of M. Regulus — The Carthaginians remove the people of Selinus to Lilybaeum (251). Fourth Period (250-241)- The Romans again build a fleet and xvi HISTORY OF ROME invest LiLYBAEUM (250)— Great defeat of Claudius at Drepana— Wreck of a large fleet of transports carrying provisions to the camp at Lilybaeum — C. Junius Pullus seizes Eryx (249)— Siege of Lilybaeum continued (248) — Hamilcar Barcas comes to Sicily, and occupies Hercte (247)— Hasdru- bal seizes Eryx and besieges the Romans on the summit of the mountain, and is himself besieged in Eryx— Frequent but indecisive engagements at Lilybaeum, Eryx, and Hercte (246-243)— The Romans once more build a fleet (243) — Great victory of LUTATIUS at the Aegates islands (loth March)— The Cartha- ginians evacuate SICILY, which became a PROVINCE (241) . Page 253 CHAPTER XX Progress in Italy during the first Punic war— Six days' campaign against Falerii (241) — Mutiny of mercenaries in Carthage — The " truceless war " (241-238) —Sardinia surrendered to Rome (238)— Wars with Ligurians and Boii (239- 237) — Temple of Janus closed (235) — Illyrian war (229-228) — Embassies to Aetolian and Achaean Leagues (228)— Agrarian law of Gaius Flaminius (232) — Gallic war (225-221) — The Via Flaminia (220) . . Page 269 CHAPTER XXI Social distinctions — Apparent change in character and influence of Senate and the aristocracy — Increase in number of slaves, and consequences of it — The Libertini and Peregrini — The games — Gladiators — Funerals — Women a?td divorce — A'^iJW) nobles — Greek irifluence on personal habits, arid on literature — Livius Androni- cus — Cn. Naevius — Absence of prose writings . . . Page 283 CHAPTER XXII Second Punic war— FIRST Period, from 219 to spring of 217 — Origin of the war, Carthaginian expansion in Spain, Hamilcar, 238-229; Hasdrubal, 229-221; Hannibal, 221-218 — Roman treaty with Hasdrubal confining the Carthaginian supremacy in Spain to the country south of the Ebro (228) — Founding of New Carthage about the same time — The Romans make treaty of friendship with the semi-Greek communities of Emporiae and Saguntum — Hannibal becomes general of the Carthaginian forces in Africa and Spain (221) — He subdues the Olcades (221), the Vaccaei (220) — The Saguntines in alarm appeal to Rome — Roman commissioners visit Hannibal in the winter 220, ordering him to abstain from attacking Saguntum, or from crossing the Ebro — They then go to Carthage — The second Illyrian war (219) — Hannibal takes Saguntum after a siege of seven months (219) — The Romans send an embassy to Carthage demanding the surrender of Hannibal, and on the refusal of the Carthaginian Senate Fabius declares war (219-218) — Hannibal starts from New Carthage in the early summer of 218— Subdues Spain north of the Ebro, and puts it under the care of Hanno ; crosses the Pyrenees and arrives at the Rhone while Scipio is still only at Marseilles (September, 218)— P. Cornelius Scipio finding himself too late, sends on his brother Gnaeus to Spain, returns himself to Italy with a few men, and takes over the legions of the praetors and awaits Hannibal on the Po — Hannibal crosses the Alps and descends into the basin of the Po, takes Turin and defeats Scipio's cavalry on the TICINUS— Scipio (wounded) retires to the Trebia near Placentia, south of the Po — He is joined by the other consul Sempronius Longus from Ariminum^ CONTENTS xvii Defeat of Sempronius on the Trebia — The Romans go into winter quarters at Placentia and Cremona — Meanwhile Gnaeus Scipio defeats and captures Hanno in Spain, and secures the country north of the Ebro (summer of 2i8) . . . . ' . . . . . Page 289 CHAPTER XXIII Flaminius enters upon his consulship at Ariminum (217)— Hannibal marches into Etruria — His sufferings in the marshes of the Arno — Battle of the Thrasy- MENE Lake — Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (Cunctator) baffles Hannibal, who enters Campania, but finds it unsuitable for winter quarters — He makes his way back to Apulia by a stratagem, and encamps near Gerunium — Minucius made equal to Fabius, but defeated by Hannibal — Preparations in the winter of 217-216 — P. Terentius Varro — The BATTLE OF Cannae — Courage and activity of Varro after the battle — His return to Rome Page 313 CHAPTER XXIV Hannibal, after Cannae, is joined by Italian towns — Enters Campania, recoils from Naples, but is joined by Capua — Movements of Marcellus — The Castra Claudiana. SPAIN — Defeat of Hasdrubal and diversion of Carthaginian reinforcements from Italy (216) — Hannibal winters in Capua (216-215) — Takes Casilinum (215) — Fall of Postumius. SICILY — Death of Hiero — Hieronymus joins Carthage — Revolution at Syracuse and death of Hierony- mus (215) — Hippocrates and Epicydes at Syracuse defy the Romans — Mar- cellus in Sicily — Siege of Syracuse (214-212) — The inventions of Archimedes —Hanno at Agrigentum (212). ITALY (214-207)— Hannibal in Campania — Goes to Tarentum (214)— Fabius takes Arpi — Hannibal takes Tarentum (212) — Livius holds the^ citadel (212-210) — Siege of Capua — Hannibal's march on Rome — Fall of Capua and settlement of Campania (211) — Fall of Cn, Fulvius at Herdonia — Three days' fighting in Lucania — Marcellus con- fined to Venusia (210) — Fabius recovers TarentuiM (209) — Fall of Marcellus (208) — Defeat of Hasdrubal on the Metaurus (207) . . Page 331 CHAPTER XXV Change in the location of the war — Events in Sicily from 210 and settlement of the island — The war in Spain from 215 — Recovery of Saguntum — Syphax — Fall of the Scipios (212) — Gallantry of L, Marcius — C. Claudius in Spain outwitted by Hasdrubal (211-210) — Character of P. Cornelius Scipio — Elected proconsul for Spain (211) — His first year in Spain spent in negotiations (210-209) — Capture of New CaRiHAGE and release of hostages (209) — Battle of Baecula and departure of Hasdrubal for Italy (208) — Battle of Ilipa — Scipio's visit to Syphax : his illness, and the mutiny on the Sucro — His interview with Masannasa — The defeat of Indibilis and Mandonius (207-206) — Scipio returns to Rome (206-205) — Scipio elected consul lias Sicily as his province, and prepares to invade Africa (205) — The distur'ia.ice at Locri ar accusations of Scipio (205-204) — He crosses to Africa, is j jined by Masani, a, and winters near Utica (204-203) — Storm and burning of the camps of Hasdrubal and Syphax (203) — Hannibal returns to Africa (203) — Negotiations for peace broken off— Hannibal's interview with Scipio — Victory at Zama and terms imposed on Carthage (202) ..... Page 360 HISTORY OF ROME Growth of the Provincial Empire, b.c. 200-133 CHAPTER XXVI Settleinent of Italy after the second Punic war — Changes in Roman life during the epoch — The Senate — The army — Tendency to leave country life — Literature: EnniUS, PlautuS — Their illustration of city life — Their identification of Greek and Roman gods— ChniO and country life . . . Page 395 CHAPTER XXVn The state of Asia and Greece from 323 to 215 — The development of the three great kingdoms of Egypt, Asia, and Macedonia — The lesser Asiatic powers, Pergamos, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Galatia — The extent of the Mace- donian influence in Asia and Greece — The Achaean and Aetolian Leagues — The accession of Philip V. — He conceives the idea of invading Italy — His treaty with Hannibal — The Romans declare war with him (215) — His defeat at Apollonia — His vigorous measures and victory over the Aetolians at Lamia (209) — The war languishes for some time (208-206), but the Romans, by the advice of Sulpicius, are unwilling to make peace — The Aetolians there- fore make a separate peace with Philip : followed by general pacification at Phoenice (205) ....... Page 408 CHAPTER XXVni The conduct of king Philip during the peace of 205-200 — His league with Antiochus against Egypt (205), and his attacks on the Cyclades and Thracian Chersonese of Asia (202-201) — The Rhodians and king Attains declare war with him (201) — Appeals from Ptolemy and the Greek states to Rome — The Roman commissioners in Egypt and .Greece (203-201) — The Romans proclaim war (200) — P. Sulpicius Galba lands in Epirus and sends aid to Athens — Ineffective campaigns of 200 and 199 — Arrival of T. Quintius Flamininus (198) — Victory of Flamininus in the Antigoneian Pass and his march through Greece — The Achaean League join Rome (198) — Peace congress of Nicaea fails (198-197) — Campaign of 197 and battle of Cynos- CEPHALAE — Freedom of some Greek states proclaimed at Isthmian games (196) — War with Nabis of Sparta, settlement of Greece and triumph of Flamininus (195-194) ...... Page 423 CHAPTER XXIX I. The Boil— The importance of the struggle with them and the Ligures— The Boii attack Cremona and Placentia (199)— The Insubres help the Boii, and are defeated by C. Cornelius Cethegus (197)— Marcellus takes Felsina (196) — L. Cornelius Merula defeats the Boii, but is refused a triumph (193)— Scipio Nasica finally conquers the Boii (191) — The province of Gaul informal from 191, formal from 181 — Road made from Bononia to Arretium, and the construction of the via Aemilia (187)— Colonies at POLLENTIA, PiSAURUM, BoNONiA, Parma, Mutina, and Aquileia (189-183)— Ligures: The Friniates and Apuani threaten Pisae and Bononia (187), defeat Q. Marcius (186), but are defeated by M. Sempronius Tuditanus (186), and finally crushed by L. Aemilius Paullus (181), and are transferred by M. Baebius to CONTENTS xix Samnium (i8o)— Colonies at PiSAE and Luna. II. Spain — Extent of Roman power in Spain — The limits of the provinces of Hispania Citerior and Ulterior — Hostility of the Celtiberi (205-198) — Appointment of two additional praetors for Spain (197)— Serious risings (197-196)— Cato comes to Spain as consul, defeats the Spaniards near Emporiae, and advances to Tarraco — Causes the towns to throw down their walls — Assists the praetor of Hispania Ulterior — Takes Vergium Castrum (195-194) — Reverses of Sex, Digitius (194-193) — P, Cornelius Scipio Cn. f. conquers the Lusitani— C. Flaminius the Oretani (193-192) — Twelve years comparative peace in Spain (191-179) Great Celtiberian rising ( 18 1-179)— Victories of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus and his settlement (179-178) ..... Page 450 CHAPTER XXX Greece after the settlement of Flamininus (194-193) — Discontent of the Aetolians — They resolve to call in Antiochus — The kingdom and early reign of Anti- ochus — His confederacy with Philip for the partition of Egypt — He occupies the Thracian Chersonese — His haughty answer to the Roman envoys — Hannibal at his court — Hannibal's plan rejected — Nabis of Sparta breaks the terms of his treaty, and the Roman fleet come to Peloponnesus — Death of Nabis (192) — Preparations in Rome — The Aetolians occupy Demetrias and invite Antiochus to liberate Greece — Antiochus arrives in Phthiotis and is proclaimed strategus of the Aetolians at the congress at Lamia — He takes Chalcis (192) — He attempts to form a Greek confederation — Decay of his forces in the winter of 192-191 — M'. Acilius Glabrio comes to Thes- saly in 190 — Defeat of Antiochus at THERMOPYLAE, who returns to Asia — L, Cornelius Scipio with his brother Africanus come to Greece in July 189, grant six months' truce to the Aetolians and march to the Hellespont — Meanwhile the Roman Beet had taken Sestos, and sailing to Samos shut up the king's fleet at Ephesus — Reduction of towns in Caria — Failure at Patara — Great defeat of the king's fleet in the bay of Teos — In October 190 the consul Scipio crosses the Hellespont, and in November conquers the king at MAGNESIA, who is forced to evacuate Asia Minor — Settlement of Asia and victories over Pisidians and Gauls by Cn. Manlius Vulso (189-188) — End of the Aetolian war and capture of Ambracia by M. Fulvius Nobilior (189-188) ........ Page 464 CHAPTER XXXI Last days of Antiochus, Hannibal, and Scipio — The anti-Roman policy of Philip V. in the last years of his life — Death of his son Demetrius — Death of Philip and succession of Perseus (179) — Character of Perseus — His activity and schemes for asserting the independence of Macedonia and regaining supremacy in Greece — The jealousy of Rome and the complaints against Perseus made by Eumenes — The Senate decide to go to war (172) — The first campaign in Thessaly and defeat of Licinius — Reduction of Boeotia (171) — The second campaign in Thessaly also abortive — Rising in Epirus (170) — Third cam- paign : Marcius Philippus enters Macedonia — Perseus intrigues with Gen- thius, Rhodes, and Eumenes, but is only helped materially by Cotys (169) — Fourth campaign — Aemilius Paulus defeats Perseus at Pydna, who is captured in Samothrace (168) — Division and settlement of Macedonia — Punishment of Epirus, Aetolia, and the Macedonia party in Greek states — Deportation of Achaean statesmen — Supremacy of Rome — Antiochus and Popilius at Pelusium ........ Page 498 XX HISTORY OF ROME CHAPTER XXXII Suspension of the tributum, growing luxury and consequent cases of peculation and embezzlement — Laws, Calpur?ua de repetundis (149) — Sumptuary: Orchia (182), Farmia (161), Didia (143) — Greek literature and teachers — Writers imitating Greek literature — Terence, Pacuvius, Statins Caecilius — Cato's opposition — Expulsion of Greek rhetors (161) — Visit of the philoso- phers (155) — Demolition of stone theatre (151) — The Bacchanalia (186) — Laws against bribery, Aemilia Baebia (182), Cornelia Fulvia (159) — Ballot laws, Gabinia (139), Cassia (137) — MACEDONIA between 167-146, the dis- contents arising from the Roman settlement : war with the pseudo-Philippus, and formation of the province (148-146) — Destruction of Corinth and settle- ment of Greece (146) — Carthage, the Roman pohcy in favouring Masannasa — Immediate causes of the THIRD FUNIC WAR — Consuls land at Utica (149) — Inefficient conduct of the war (149-148) — Rising reputation of Scipio the younger Africanus (147) — Destruction of Carthage — The province of Africa (146) Page 517 CHAPTER XXXIII Wars with Ligurians and Dalmatians (168-155) — State of Spain after the settle- ment of Gracchus (176). I. THE LUSITANI invade tribes subject to Rome (154) — Campaigns of L. Mummius and M. Atilius (154-152) — Treacherous massacre of the Lusitani by Galba (150) — Rise of Viriathus (147) and disasters of Vetilius, G. Plautius, and Claudius Unimanus (147-145) — Cam- paigns of Q. Fabius Aemilianus (145-144) — Defeat of L. Quinctius (143) — Peace made by Q. Fabius Servilianus (142-141), but rejected by Q. Servilius Caepio, who causes the murder of Viriathus (141-140) — Campaigns of Decimus Junius Brutus in north-west Spain (138-136). II. Celtiberian Wars — the Titthi, Belli, and Arevaci — Disasters of Q. Fulvius NobiUor (153-152) — M. Claudius Marcellus makes terms and founds the town of Corduba (152-151) — War with the Arevaci at Numantia and the Vaccaei continued by L. Licinius Lucullus (151-150) — Five years peace (149-144) — The Arevaci again revolt (144) — Campaigns of Q. Caecilius Metellus, Q. Pompeius Rufus, M. Popilius Rufus, C. Hostilius Mancinus, Q. Calpurnius Piso (144-134) — Scipio Aemilianus sent to Numantia, which he takes after a long siege (134-133) Page 537 Period of Revolution and Civil War, b.c. 133-31 CHAPTER XXXIV State of Sicily since 205— Speculations in land— Miseries of the slaves— Disorders in the island from about 139— Murder of Demophilus, and organisation of rebellion under Eunus and Cleon— Defeat of the praetors— M. Perpenna retakes Henna— Defeat of Hypsaeus— Campaigns of C. Fulvius Flaccus (134-132) and P. Rupilius— Capture of Tauromenium— The lex Rupilia (132)— Second war in 103— Fraudulent reduction to slavery— Legal decisions of Licinius Nerva liberating 800 slaves— Protests by the landowners— Out- CONTENTS xxi break under Tryphon and Athenion — L. Licinius Lucullus (103-102) — C. Servilius (102-101) — M'. Aquillius ends the war (101-99) Page 546 CHAPTER XXXV Depopulation of Italy — The ager publicus — Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, tribu- nus plebis in ijj, attempts to re-enforce the Licitiiati law — Difficulties of the attempt — Deposition of his colleague Octavius — The law passed and a land commission formed — He promises other refortns, but is killed while seeking- re-election as tribune for ij2 — His younger brother Gaius returtis to Italy in i;^2 — Supports Carbo's law for allowing re-election of tribunes — The Italian holders of ager publicus protest against the resumption of their allotments — Scipio supports them and tratzsfers the judicial power of the commissioners to the consuls — Death of Scipio {i2g) — Foreign affairs from i2g to 125 — Gaius Gracchus in Sardinia {i26-i2§) — Elected tribune for i2j — His legislation: (7) de provocatione, {2) lex frumentaria, ( j) lex militaris, {4) lex judiciaria, (5) f(^^ ^^^ collection of the taxes in Asia, (<5) de provinciis, (7) de sociis — His roads, bridges, and colonies at Fabrateria, Tare7itum, Capua, and Carthage — Outbidden by the tribune Livius Drusus — Not re-elected a third time as tribune for 121 — Proposal to annul his colony of jfunonia at Carthage — Death of Gracchus during the riot Ofi the day of voting —Prosecution of his followers — Results of the 7noveme7it ..... Page 551 CHAPTER XXXVI The formation of the first province in Transalpine Gaul — Wars with Gauls, the Balearic islands, and Dalmatia — The CiMBRi defeat Cn. Papirius Carbo at Noreia (113), and Manlius and Caepio in Gaul (105) — History of Jugurtha — His bribery at Rome — His murder of Massiva — The JUGURTHINE war (112-106) — Scandalous misconduct of the Roman commanders — Successful campaign of Metellus (109-108) — Marius consul (107) — Capture of Jugurtha (106) — Five consecutive consulships of Marius (104-100) — His conduct of the Cimbric war — Great defeat of the Teutones and Ambrones at Aquae Sextiae (102), and of the Cimbri at Vercellae (loi) . . . Page 568 CHAPTER XXXVn Political parties at Rome — The Senate and the equestrian order — Frequent scenes of violence — Marius and the reformed army— The second tribunate of L. Appuleius Saturninus — Murder of Nonius — Agrarian law of Saturninus and banishment of Metellus — Murder of Memmius — Death of Saturninus and Glaucia (100) — Events abroad from 102 to 92 — The lex Licinia Marcia and alienation of the Italians (95) — Compromises proposed by M. Livius Drusus (91) — Death of Drusus — Prosecutions of Varius— The Marsic or Social war (90-88) — Sulla consul with command of the Mithridatic war — Revolutionary proposals of Sulpicius and the substitution of Marius for Sulla — Sulla advances on Rome — Death of Sulpicius and flight of Marius (88) — Cinna consul in 87 — Expelled from Rome, raises army and returns with Marius — Reign of terror in Rome — Death of Marius in his seventh consulship (86) — Successive consulships of Cinna, persecution of the party of Sulla, and preparations to prevent Sulla's return (85-84) — Death of Cinna (84) Page 581 xxii HISTORY OF ROME CHAPTER XXXVHI The origin and state of the Roman province of Asia — Causes of discontent — Rise of the kingdom of Pontus (315-121)— Early Ufe and character of Mithridates Eupator (120-111) — His victories in the Crimea and extension of the Pontic kingdom north of the Black Sea (111-102)— His tour in Asia (105) — He joins Nicomedes of Bithynia in an attack upon Paphlagonia (104)— Obeys Roman commissioners and evacuates Paphlagonia, but occupies Galatia — Breach between Nicomedes and Mithridates in regard to Cappadocia— Meeting of Marius and Mithridates (98) — The Senate order Mithridates to evacuate Cap- padocia (94) — Tigranes of Armenia allied with Mithridates — Sulla restores Ariobarzanes (92) — M'. Aquillius in Asia (90-89) — Mithridates determines on war (88) — Defeat of the Roman forces and massacre of the Italians (88) — Mithridates attacks Rhodes, and his general Archelaus occupies Athens (88- 87) — Sulla arrives in Greece with five legions (87) . . Page 600 CHAPTER XXXIX Success of the quaestor Q. Bruttius Sura in the spring of 87 — Sulla lands in Epirus in the early summer, and marches to Athens — Revolution of feeling in Greece — Siege of Athens and the Peiraeus (87-86) — LucuUus sent to Egypt and the islands to collect a fleet (86-85) — Capture of Athens (86) — Destruction of the Peiraeus — Battle of Chaeroneia (86) — Unpopularity of the government of Mithridates in Asia and revolt of Ephesus (86) — Dorylaus defeated by Sulla at Orchomenus (85) — The Romans again supreme in Greece — L. Valerius Flaccus sent out to supersede Sulla is murdered by Fimbria (85) — Fimbria overruns Bithynia (85) — Mithridates takes refuge in Pitane (85-84) — Arrival of LucuUus with fleet, and negotiations with Mithridates at Pergamus — Death of Fimbria (84) — Return of Sulla to Italy (83) . . Page 623 CHAPTER XL Sulla lands in Italy — He is joined by Metellus, Pompey, Crassus, and many others — His march to Rome — Defeat of Norbanus and the younger Marius at Tifata — Surrender of Scipio and Sertorius at Teanum — Fire at the Capitol (83) — Campaigns of 82 — Defeat of Marius at Sacriportiis, and siege of Praeneste — Victory of Metellus on the Aesis— The war in Etruria and Gallia Cisalpina— Battles of Saturnia, Clusium, Faventia, Fidentia — Flight of Norbanus and Carbo— Defeat of the Samnites at the Colline Ga/. Marsi,Marrucini,Vesiini.) I ^1 Frentant, Lucant, Apuli, Bruttii. It must not be supposed, however, that these " Sabellian " races are to be clearly distinguished, cither by language or national characteristics, from the Oscans. The Bruttii, for instance, are said to have derived their name from the Oscan word for a runaway slave, Brutt or Brett (Strabo vi. i. 4; Diodor. xvi. 15). 2 An Ktruscan inscription found in the island of Lemnos (1886) has been held to confirm their Aegean, and perhaps Asian, origin (Thucyd. iv. 109). 8 The discovery of a great part of an Etruscan book on a linen mummy- wrai^KT m 1891 has still farther shown the isolated nature of the language Ill ETRUSCANS AND LIGURIANS 13 the Apennines to the Tiber. 1 They were a commercial people, and early became celebrated for their work in bronze and iron. Their em- Their corsairs infested the seas round Italy, and their merchants ployments, competed with those of the Greek communities established on the ««^ <^^«- coasts, at first in combination with the great Semitic traders of "^^/f^!^ Carthage, whose jealous rivalry at a later time curtailed their ex- f/^^e^ tension, and eventually contributed largely to the weakness which ended in their absorption by the growing power of Latium under the leadership of Rome. When at the height of their power their activity was shown, among other things, by their settlements in Their Campania,^ which were wrung from them by the Samnites about B.C. settleinents 424-420, much about the same time as their commerce was crippled "^ ^'^^' , by the rising power of the Syracusans, while they were being hard f'^^^^"" \ pressed also by Celtic attacks in the north. From the time of the fall of Melpum, which is said to have taken place in the same year ^ as the fall of Veil (391), they were almost entirely confined to the ! district known as Etruria.^ North of the Apennines, between them and the Alps, lived the so-called Celtic tribes of the Gauls, who one after the other The " Cel- sought the rich basin of the Po from the overcrowded regions tic" Gauls. I beyond the Alps, or the northern slopes of the Alps themselves. ' They expelled the Etruscans, took possession of their land, and gave their name to the district. I One part of North Italy they did not overrun. In the extreme The Ligur- j north-west, between the upper Po and the sea, from Nicaea to Luna, ians. the Ligurians had lived from time immemorial. Whether they were connected in blood with the Gauls who came into Italy, or were, as ( seems most probable, allied with the Aquitani of Caesar and their I descendants the modern Basques, is a question which we have not full means of deciding. Some of their customs and characteristics I agree with those of the Gauls, and they seem at first to have main- j tained friendly relations with the tribes that came over the Alps. j On the other hand, Polybius distinguishes between Gauls, Iberians, j and Ligurians ; and Strabo states that they were of a different I ii The cities in Gallia Cisalpina believed to be of Etruscan origin, the names of which are known, are Felsina (Bononia), il/a«/«a, Adria, Melpum (? Milan), J Ravenna, and perhaps Adria in Picenum, with Cupra. 1 2 The cities in Campania believed to be Etruscan were Capula, Nola, Pompeii, I Herculaneum, Stirrentum, Marcina, Salernum. I 3 Etruria thus constituted wacs regarded as a league of twelve cities, which perhaps varied in number from time to time. Those certain are Tarquinii, Veil, Volsinii, Clusium, Volaterrae, Vetulonia, Perusia, Cortona, Arretium. As to the other three there was apparently a variation. Among those sometimes named are Caere, Falerii, Faesulae, Rusellae, Pisae, Volci (Livy iv. 23; Strabo v. 2, 9; Dionys. vi. 75). 14 HISTORY OF ROME from the Gauls, though resembling them in their manner of hfe.i The Gallic immigra- tions — I.an'i and I.ebccii. Insubres. Cenomani. I 'eneti. Ananes, Boii, Lin- gones, Senones, Salluvii. Displace- ment of Etruscans and Um- brians. Description of the Gauls. According to Polybius,^ the first tribes that crossed the Alps and settled on the left bank of the Po nearest its source were the Laevi and Lebecii, though Livy^ counts the Laevi among Ligurian tribes, and calls the latter Libui. Next came the Insubres, M\^ largest tribe of all, whom Livy describes as a mixed host of Bituriges, and six other tribes led by Bellovisus, a nephew of the king of the Bituriges, about the time of Tarquinius Priscus. But he somewhat absurdly accounts for their adopting the name of Insubres from the fact of finding a district called by that name which they had known as belonging to a canton of the Haedui. It seems more likely that the Insubres were, as Polybius says, a Gallic tribe who brought their name with them to this district, of which Mediolanum became the capital, and that Livy's story of Bellovisus and his mixed host is only a tradition of a second immigration, perhaps invited by the original settlers. These were followed by the Cenojnani, who also settled on the right bank of the Po, but more to the east, bordering on the Vnieti, who had been long established on the shore of the Adriatic between Aquileia and the mouths of the Po, their territory being bounded on the west by the river Athesis. These last were allied in race to the Celts, but differed from them both in language and dress. South of the Po settled the Ananes ; next them the Bou ; and next, on the coast of the Adriatic, the Lingones ; and south of these the Senones. Livy mentions, besides these, the Salhivii, who settled on the left bank of the Po near the Ticinus. By these invasions the Etruscans were gradually thrust out of the district between the Po and the Alps, and both Etruscans and Umbrians from the district between the Po and the Apennines. Those communities which remained had to submit to the Gauls, and either dwindled away or became absorbed. The Gauls themselves are described to us as being in a very primitive state of civilisation. They cared for nothing but "war and agriculture," by which last is meant not the cultivation of the land, but the pasturing and breeding of cattle. They raised no fortifications, but lived in open villages or collections of huts, in which were no cumbrous articles of furniture. Their beds were mere heaps of straw or leaves ; and their only wealth was cattle and gold, which could be easily moved from place to place. They do not appear to have as yet fallen under the influence, half ecclesiastical and half legal, which Caesar found prevailing in Transalpine Gaul under the direction of n /. ^"^-fA f ■•• ^.''■^^° "• 5- ^8. Polybius uses KeW and sometimes raAarac or all Gauls md.fferently ; he never applies either term to the Ligurians. " P^'>'^^- "■ ^5-17. 3 Livy V. 35. Ill THE ITALIAN GAULS 15 the Druids. 1 A chief or king indeed commanded his tribe ; but his authority rested on his personal influence, his reputation as a warrior, or his skill in stirring his unruly subjects by his harangues. The men of chief power in the tribes were those who by fear or affection attached to their persons the largest number of followers or clients ; and though the chiefs could lead their tribes to the field or on a foray, they could not persuade them to endure the fatigue of a long siege or the dangers of a prolonged campaign. Bold, restless, and undisciplined, these tall, blue - eyed, flaxen - haired warriors '-^ scoured the countries far and wide through which they marched, or in which they set up their quarters. But they had not the qualities which enable conquerors to make durable settlements. The plunder, which they successfully drove or carried off" in their raids, was not unfrequently destroyed in the quarrels which attended its division ; and if they behaved like gallant warriors on the field, their victory was often followed by scenes of brutal drunkenness and barbaric gluttony. 2 They had, in fact, the virtues and vices of savages. Improvements and developments even in the art of war they disliked or neglected. They preferred to enter a battlefield half naked, trust- ing to their strength or their agility, and hoping to terrify their enemy by their hideous yells, the blare of their horns and trumpets, or the barbaric splendour of their ornaments.* Their swords were poor weapons, only fit for a down stroke, without point for thrusting, and of such bad material that they were often useless after the first blow. 5 Yet they were also good horsemen, and early adopted the use of the chariot in war. They were able to shift their quarters with astonishing speed ; and being used to support themselves on the produce of pillage, could live wherever they could find cattle to be killed or to supply them with milk. It is not surprising that such a people should spread terror wherever they went, through Europe and Asia, nor that they should have failed to establish stable kingdoms or states. They could win battles, but not a campaign ; they could burn and pillage, they could not build up or organise. 1 Caes. B. G. v. 11-14. 2 This description of the Gauls in North Italy does not suit those whom we call " Celts." Yet it is confirmed by every ancient writer who speaks of them, and seems to prove that they were generally of the stock of the Belgic Gauls, nearly allied to the Teutons. The most important account of them, next to that in Polybius ii. 17, is in Diodorus v. 25-32. The best modern account is Helbig's Die Italiker in der Poebene. 3 Polyb. ii, 17, 19. 4 Polyb. ii. 29. 5 Ensis is the stabbing sword in Latin ; gladius, the cutting sword, is said to be a Celtic word, found in the old Irish claideh. The light spear, lancea, is also said by Diodorus (v. 30) to be a Gallic word, but by Varro (Aul. Gell. xv, 30) is declared to be Spanish. i6 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The Greeks in Italy. Names of Greek towns: (I) In Vetus Italia. Strabo, writing shortly before the Christian era, says of Magna Graecia, that with the exception of Tarentum, Rhegium, and Naples it had all become de-Hellenised (tK^ejSap/^apwo-^ai) • Cicero in his dialogue on Friendship puts into the mouth of Laelius, supposed to be speaking in B.C. 129, the remark that "Magna Graecia once flourishing was now utterly destroyed" {deleta est). But up to the time of the Punic wars, though their decadence had been long progressing, these Hellenic towns were sufficiently important to demand a place in an account of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula. They never, indeed, fully amalgamated with their neigh- bours. They remained exotics, Italiotae and not Itali. Their settlement had been for the purposes of trade, or to relieve some over-populated town in Greece ; but though they succeeded for a time in Hellenising some districts in Italy, they had brought with them the habit, which had ever been the curse of Hellenism, of jealous separation and frequent war between town and town, as well as internal feuds in the several cities themselves.^ These towns may be conveniently placed in three groups. Those in Vetus Italia, that is, in parts of Lucania or Bruttium, those in lapygia, and those north of Vetus Italia. I. The towns in Vetus Italia were Sybaris, an Achaean colony of B.C. 720, from which were founded Metapontimi^ about 700- 680; Posidonia (Paestum), about 600; and Lans and Scidriis, in which the remnants of the Sybarites took refuge at the time of the destruction of their town (510); Crotona, also an Achaean colony of about 710, from which were founded Terina and Caiilonia^ perhaps with additional colonists from the mother country. From Locri Epizephyrii, a colony of the Ozolian Locrians (about 710), came Hipponitim and Medma. Siris, probably an Ionian colony about 690-660, was believed by some to have been originally settled by fugitives from Troy. The stream of Hellenic settlers had long ceased to flow towards Italy, at any rate with its old strength, when the last two Greek colonies were formed in this district. These were Thurii, a mixed colony, promoted by Pericles, and consisting partly of a remnant of the old Sybarites, partly of settlers from Athens and various cities in Peloponnese, sent out in the spring of 443 : and Heracleia, founded in B.C. 432 by a mixed body from Tarentum and Thurii. =^ 1 The term Magna Graecia is first found in the writings of Polybius Uara Av MevaAnv -EAXaSa n. 39) ; but he uses it as a well-known designation; and it had hal^'^S r.h''? 'T' ''";! ^^V^^y^'^ to indicate the Greek colonies in Southern a si hnftht Hn"'" '' } '™'' "^ '"^^^^" "^'^"'' '^^ ^^"^^ '^^ Greek cities in Sicily '''°i '.:l h! tlirX^Fr^:}^}^^^ ^-^ ^^^ g--al practice. Besides these Greek colonies there not colonies. were certain other towns which, though more or less Hellenised, Skylletium or Skylacium, which MAGNA GRAECIA 17 2. In lAPYGiAthe chief town was Tarentum, colonised by Spartans (2) In in 708, which rose to great wealth, and became notorious for the ^apygia. luxury of its citizens. Callipolis, also founded from Sparta, with the assistance of the Tarentines. - The Sallentifn, who inhabited several cities, one of which was Veretiun, at the extreme heel of Italy, were believed to be of Cretan origin, as were also Brundisiimi, Hyria^ and Hydruntum; but to these towns, though always mentioned as undoubtedly Greek, or with the inhabitants at least partly Greek, we cannot assign with certainty either time or place of origin. 3. Of Greek towns north of Bruttium or Vetus Italia, the (j) North most ancient of all Greek colonies was that of Ciimae^ the founda- «^ Rome, ch. ii. ) thinks also that archaeological discoveries have proved that a shepherd community came from Alba to the site of Rome (which he derives from roumon, ' ' a river " ) in search of better and safer pasture when the eruptions of the volcano, of which the Alban lake is the crater, made the neighbourhood of Alba insecure. IV ROMA QUADRATA 25 tensions of the bounds, even, it was believed, in the lifetime of the The Septi- founder. Livy tells us that the city increased by gradual inclusion montimn. of one spot after another, although there were not as yet citizens enough to fill them.^ But the new enclosures would hardly be made unless they were in some way needed. The simplest explanation is that on each of these spots there were cottages or hamlets, the inhabitants of which desired to be under the protection of the city, and that they were accordingly united to the wall on the Palatine by loop walls, which, though of lighter construction, were yet of use against marauders, or perhaps by ditches or fossae, such as the fossa Quiritium attributed to Ancus, Enclosures so made would naturally contain considerable vacant spaces, and this would account for the tradition followed by Livy that the city included a greater amount of ground than there were citizens to fill. The gradual additions appear to have been commemorated by the " festival of the seven mounts," septwiontitun^ which, Varro says, was not a festival of the whole people, but only of the Montani, which may plausibly be held to mean the inhabitants of the Mons Palatinus and its six adjuncts, and perhaps originally only those of the Palatine itself.^ These inferior fortifications would naturally disappear when the Servian wall was built, streets and buildings taking their place, and a united town, irregular in its arrangement, was the result. That a similar fort or township existed at the same time on at The least one of the other hills is not improbable in itself, and has been Quirinal. inferred from the existence of a Capitolmm veins, with a sanctuary of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Quirinal, prior to that on the Mons Capitolinus ; from the double worship of Mars on the Palatine and Quirinal ; from the existence of two primitive colleges both of the Salii and the Luperci, one connected with the Palatine, the other with the Quirinal; and lastly, from the indications that the inhabit- ants of the Mons Palatinus and Collis Quirinalis were distinguished by the names Montani and Collmi, " mount men " and " hill men " ; whence we have the Porta Collma, the Salii Collini opposed to the Salii Palatini, and the tribus Collina in the Servian division. In the absence of all means of arriving at a certainty as to the The date of the founding of the Palatine city, we must be content to Roman accept the traditional calculation. If walls were built, whether ^''^• 753- 1 i. 8, alia atque alia adpetendo loca. 2 Mommsen (i. 52) identifies the six suburbs with the Velia (connecting the Palatine and Esquiline) ; the Cermalus (the slope of the Palatine towards the Capitoline) ; the three points of the Esquiline — the Fagutal, Oppius, and Cespius ; and the Subura (between the Esquiline and Quirinal). The festival of Septi- montium was celebrated down to a late date, but its cause was indistinctly remembered, and it was vaguely supposed to refer to the seven hills of the later and larger Rome. 26 HISTORY OF ROME chap. round an uninhabited hill-top, marked out for the first time by the ploughshare of the founder, or round a village community that had gradually been growing there, and now received the defences neces- sary for its existence in such times and with such neighbours, it is clear that there must have been some year and day in which they were begun. The Greek and Roman antiquaries and annalists who ventured upon the calculation arrived at different conclusions, but not as widely different as might have been expected. The Greeks usually accommodated it to their chronology by observing the coin- cidence of events with the Eponymous archons of Athens, the Olympic victors, or the priestesses of Here at Argos ; or reckoned the years (generally 408) from the fall of Troy to the first Olympic festival (B.C. 776). By what means they made the reigns of Aeneas and the Alban kings fit into the required period we cannot tell ; but the result was that the foundation of Rome was assigned by most of them to the second year of the seventh Olympiad (b.c. 751). Timaeus, indeed, declared it to have taken place in the thirty-eighth year before the first Olympiad (B.C. 813) ; but Polybius, apparently on the authority of documents in the custody of the Pontifices, arrived at the date Olympiad 7.2 (b.c. 751). The Romans themselves do not appear to have used the founda- tion of the city as an era until late in the first century B.C. They dated the years by the names of the consuls as they appeared in the Fasti, and if they calculated from any epoch at all it was usually from the first year of the Republic. Thus, if the list of con- suls in the Fasti for the years before the capture of the city in B.C. 390 were to be trusted, it was easy enough to count the years from any given event to the year of the expulsion of the kings, and we should have no difficulty in assigning that event to the year B.C. 510. But, unfortunately, the Fasti for the period between the expulsion of Tarquin and B.C. 390 were far from being certain or regular, and therefore the exactness of the calculation must remain doubtful. We need not, however, think it to be seriously wrong, and from B.C. 390 downwards the lists are as certain as we can hope anything so far back to be. If we accept, then, as the date of the regifugium the year of the city 244 (b.c. 510), we see that for the regal period the Roman antiquaries had nothing for it but to count backward the sum of the years traditionally assigned to each reign. This gave 244. Cato, indeed, made another calculation, starting from the fall of Troy, and arrived at a result which would make the year of the foundation answer to B.C. 752 ; while the poet Ennius, writing about B.C. 172, speaks of Rome having been founded roughly 700 years before, which would agree more nearly with the era of Timaeus than with any other. The computation that eventually prevailed was that of THE ROMAN ERA 27 Varro, which was accepted by the most learned Romans of the day, such as Cicero and Atticus. - He assigned the foundation to the spring of the third year of the sixth Olympiad, which, according to the usual calculation, answers to the year B.C. 753. From thence- forward this was the official era ; and in a.d. 47 the hidi secular es were held on the ground that it was the Sooth year of the city. Even the day of the first act of foundation was believed to be fixed, and was commemorated on the first day of the pastoral festival, the Palilia^ the 21st of April (xi. Kal. Mai).i 1 Dionys. i. 74; Cic. de Rep. 2, ^ 18; Varro, R. R. iii. i; Ovid, Fast. iv. 721; Plutarch, Rom. 12; Tacitus, Ann. xi. 11. The authorities for the early legends are Livy and Dionysius, and Plutarch's Life of Romulus. The sources from which they drew, and other scattered records which we possess, are discussed at the end of chap, v. CHAPTER V THE REGAL PERIOD 753-510 The situation of Rome — Latium, its different meanings — RoMULUS, 753-716 — ^The foundation of the city and earliest institutions — The joint reign with Titus Tatius— Laws of Romulus, and his death— Numa Pompilius, his religious institutions and laws — The temple of Vesta and the Regia; the fiamens, vestals, and Salii— His calendar— TULLUS HOSTILIUS— The de- struction of Alba Longa— Wars with the Sabines— The Horatii and Curiatii — Provocatio — Ancus Marcius — Makes the sacra known to all — Wars with the Latins — The jus fetiale — The pons sublicius and fossa Quiritium — L. Tarquinius Priscus— His arrival from Tarquinii, begins temple on Capitoline, city walls, circus maximus, and cloacae — His murder — Servius TULLIUS, the agger and completion of town walls— His reforms, the four tribes, and the 193 centuries distributed in five classes — The comitia curiata and comitia centuriata — The object and results of his reform — The patricians and plebeians— His first census— His death— Tarquinius Superbus— His oppression of the Senate — His wars with the Volscians— Capture of Gabii — His works in Rome and his colonies — The Sibyl — Embassy to Delphi — Siege of Ardea — The story of Lucretia — Expulsion of the Tarquins — The credibility of the legends — The authorities on which they rest — Their value. The advan- THE advantages of the situation of Rome both for security and com- tageoiis merce, in being at some distance from the sea and yet having a ^Rome^" convenient access to it, are noticed by Cicero and attributed by him to the wisdom of its founder. About eighteen miles from the mouth of the Tiber, it was sufficiently far from the sea to be safe from sudden surprises by a piratic fleet, while the river afforded an easy highway for its merchandise. The amphitheatre of hills which encloses the meadows in the bend of the river, which afterwards became the Campus Martins, varying from 120 to 180 feet above the stream, offered heights sufficiently elevated and abrupt for forti- fication, yet without difficulties for the builder or cultivator. On the opposite or right bank of the river a chain of low hills, extending for about a mile and a half, afforded a protection from the north ; while CHAP. V VETUS LATIUM 29 on both sides of the river there was an excellent line of country for connecting the capital with its harbour. The district in which it stood was called Latium. But Latium, The in the later acceptation of the term, was not, when Rome began, peoples of inhabited entirely by Latins. The Aequi lived in the north-east Latmm. corner of it, a hilly district beyond Tibur {Tivoli). To the west the Volsci and Aurunci held nearly half of it, with a coast-line stretching from Antium to Sinuessa. Between the Aequi and Volsci dwelt the Hernici. Even in the remaining portions to the west, bounded on the north by the Tiber, there were other tribes besides the Latins. The Rutuli inhabited Ardea and its neighbourhood, about twenty miles south of Rome ; and even the people of Aricia, afterwards the first stage on the Appian Way, only fifteen miles from Rome, were said to be of a different stock. Up the river the Latins extended for about twelve miles to Crustumerium, which, according to some writers, was partly a Sabine town ; while some of the territory of "the Aequi, from Antium to Circeii, had once been occupied by them. But from this they had been driven out or had been absorbed by the Aequi; and on the whole the Latini, who were afterwards to give their name to the larger tract of country reaching as far south as Sinuessa, were in the early days of Rome being pushed from their lands by the surrounding tribes, though at times they rallied and recovered lost ground. Old Latium, therefore, was not marked off by any natural Vetus frontiers, and varied in extent at different times, but was at best but Latium. a small part of the later Latium. The Latins in it formed, it is said, a League of thirty cities, of which the common meeting-ground and place of worship was the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, on the Alban mount. Although the number of cities in the League was nominally thirty, both the particular towns and the total number varied. Dionysius^ gives the names of twenty-nine, some of which are of importance in early Roman history, and from receiving Roman colonies, or for some other reason, remained in varying degrees of prosperity or decadence till late times ; while of the others some were never important, and some perished so early and so entirely that their site was unknown. Pliny reckons as many as fifty-three separate communities in Latium which in his time had thus perished without leaving any traces. ^ The ager Romanus was at first apparently among the smallest The ager of the territories in this smaller Latium, extending in no direction Ro7nanus. beyond the city wall for more than five miles. Rome, however, very early stretched out her arms to secure the free use of the Tiber, the 1 Dionys. v. 71. 2 PHny, A^. H. iii. 5, 70. iiiiPiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiininjMir CHAP. V THE SEVEN KINGS 31 navigation of which was the origin of her commercial importance. Thus the founding of the harbour town Ostia, at the mouth of the river, sixteen miles from Rome, was, according to a consistent and undeviat- ing tradition, attributed to the fourth king, Ancus Marcius ; to whom is also assigned the first occupation and fortification of the Jani- culum, and its union with Rome by the pons sublicius. While, still earlier, the capture and colonisation of Fidenae, which com- manded the bridge across the Tiber above Rome, was attributed to Romulus. It was a city thus small in itself and in its territory, whose gradual rise to a commanding position in Latium, under the rule of seven successive kings, is described by the later Roman and Greek historians. I I. Romulus {753-7 i6y To Romulus is ascribed the foundation of the Palatine city with Foundatio. full Etruscan rites. The plough, with share of bronze, was drawn of the round to mark the line of its wall, and lifted where a gate was to be ^^"^'^ made. The space between this furrow and the actual wall, as after- ^"^ ^'^ ^' I wards a similar space within the wall, was called the PomoeriutHy Pomoe- ' and was to be kept sacred from building or cultivation, and marked rium. ' the limits to which the auspicia of the city magistrates extended. I Within this circuit were three " temples '' or sacred enclosures, dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and in the centre a vault or mitndus, into which a clod of his native earth was cast by the founder, with other emblems of the necessaries of life ; and in which, I according to some, was stored what was sufficient for the immediate I needs of the community. Romulus also was the author of the , earliest extensions of the new city by the inclusion of those six Septlmon- I minor ridges, with inferior fortifications joined on to the chief wall tium. I of the Palatine, which first gave it the name of the city of seven hills, j the Septimontium.- I Now the settlers whom Romulus brought with him from The ! Lavinium and Alba were not sufficient to people his new town, asylum. I He therefore appointed a place on the neighbouring height of the I Capitolium (then called the Mons Tarpeius), between its two ridges, , which afterwards was known as ijiter duos Incus, to which all who j had reason to be dissatisfied in their native towns, or were forced ( to flee for fear of the laws or their domestic enemies, might find a safe asylum. So men became abundant in Rome; but there were not enough women whom they might marry, and there- fore there was danger that the inhabitants might again dwindle \ 1 The traditional dates are given in the regal period, but they are of course without any good authority. 2 gee chap. iv. p. 25. 32 HISTORY OF ROME chap. The Sabine away. After consulting the hundred patres whom he had selected women, as a council or senate, Romulus sent messengers to the neighbouring Latin towns asking that Rome should be admitted to the League, at least so far as to give his citizens the power of making legal marriages with them. But his messengers were treated with con- tempt, and the request refused. Thereupon he sent a proclamation to the various towns of a great festival to be held at Rome in honour of Equestrian Neptune. ^ The festival was attended by a crowd of strangers from Antemnae, Caenine, Crustumerium, and several Sabine towns, accompanied by their wives and daughters. While the games were attracting the attention of all, suddenly the Roman youths, at a concerted signal, rushed among the spectators and began carrying off the virgins from their seats. The assembly broke up in confusion, and the fathers of the virgins fled, loudly protesting against this breach of the laws of hospitality. Their complaints were listened to in the various Sabine towns, and brought to the ears of the Sabine king, Titus Tatius. But though Tatius was prepared to avenge his subjects, the people of the Latin towns — Antemnae, Caenine, and Crustumerium — would not wait for his slow movements, and invaded the Roman territory on their own account. The first were signally defeated by Romulus, losing their king and many of their citizens. The second fared likewise, but on the petition of Hersilia, the wife of Romulus, were spared from general slaughter and received as citizens of Rome. The people of Crustumerium were still more easily beaten, and their lands divided among Roman farmers. Titus After these things Titus Tatius entered the Roman territory at Tatius and the head of a great army. He captured the fort on the Capitoline mount, thanks to the treason of Tarpeia, the daughter of its com- mander, who guided the enemy into the fortress, and was rewarded by being crushed to death under their shields ; for she had bargained for " what they carried in their left hands," meaning thereby the heavy bracelets and jewelled rings which it was the Sabine custom to wear. The next day the Sabines descended into the valley between the Capitoline and the Palatine and gave the Romans battle. At first the Romans, who had the worse position, were routed, and Tullus Hostilius, who fought in their front rank, was killed. But as the broken lines were retreating towards the gate in the Palatine wall, Romulus vowed a temple to Jupiter Stator if he would but " stay " the panic ; and then, as on the authority of the god, he called loudly to the Romans to stop. They rallied just outside the city gate and charged down upon the Sabines, who, 1 Or in honour of Consus, god of counsel, the Consualia. According to others Consus is only another name for Neptune. the Sabines attack Rome. V THE SABINES IN ROME s^ under Mettius Curtius, were close upon them. The Sabines broke and fled ; and though they once again rallied and renewed the battle, the Romans were gaining the victory. Then the Sabine women, who had been carried off by the Roman youths and were now Roman matrons and mothers, with torn garments and dishevelled hair, rushed between the ranks of the combatants and implored those who were now their husbands and the fathers of their children on the one side, and their own fathers and brothers on the other, to cease the unnatural conflict. Their prayers prevailed. Not only was the battle stopped, but the two hosts agreed to be united in one state, ruled jointly by Romulus and Tatius. Upon this junction of I the two peoples the number of the senators was raised from loo to 200; the three centuriae of cavalry were doubled in numbers, so that they now contained 600 men ; and when the people were summoned to arms they were enrolled in two legions instead of one. The citizens included in the gentes were divided, apparently The for military purposes, into thirty curiae or wardships,^ founded Ramnes, on a still more ancient threefold division into tribes — the Ramnes, ^''^"' ^"^ I Titii, and Luceres. Of these the first two were connected by ^'^'''"* I the Roman writers with the names of Romulus and Tatius, and were accordingly believed to indicate the Roman and Sabine elements among the people. Of the third they could give no account; but Plutarch connects the word with the hicus or asylum on the Capitoline, in which case it would indicate the adventitious element of the Roman people gathered from the neighbouring Latin towns. The truth is that we cannot tell what the origin of the words is, and the explanation of Mommsen, that they represent originally separate communities living about the site of Rome, is only one more among many conjectures which cannot be proved. We can only ■ recognise the fact that some threefold division of the popidus is im- plied in all the early institutions — the thirty curiae, the three centuries of equites, the 3000 men of the legion, the six Vestal virgins, the two colleges of Salii each consisting of twelve, and others. But one permanent trace remained of a mixture of Sabines with the Romans. The name Quirites survived to the latest times as an appellation of Quirites. the Roman citizens in their civil capacity, derived from the Sabine qjiiris, "a spear." The king or chief of the Sabines had been wont 1 According to Dio (fr. 5) the tribes like the curiae were divisions grafted on the armed host, and were purely military : Romulus found that his armed levy amounted to 3000, and he accordingly divided the men into three tribes, each tribe into ten curiae or "wards" {4,povrL successor, and so on, until the necessary election of king or consul has been held (see Dionys. viii. 90; Livy i. 32; iii. 40; iv. 7; v. 31 ; vi. 41 ; vii. 17, 21 ; viii. 23). 36 HISTORY OF ROME rule of the senators and clamoured for a king. The Senate yielded and promised to ratify by their authority a worthy election by the Curiae. The Curiae in return permitted the Senate to choose Election of Their choice fell upon Numa Pompilius, a man of Cures, renownec Numa. for his wisdom and his knowledge of divine and human law. He was summoned to Rome, and consecrated by the augur. He rulec well and wisely, maintaining peace with his neighbours, teaching his people by what ceremonies to appease the gods, and how to regulate His insti- their lives according to the divine will. Thus to him are attributec tutions and the custom of closing the door of Janus in peace, and opening it ir laws. time of war ; the appointment of the separate priests for the worship of Jove, Mars, and Quirinus, — \h^ flajnen Dialis, flai}ien Martis^flameti Quirini; the foundation of the college of five pontifices, and the delivery to them of a written scheme of religious services, calendars and the like ; the appointment of four Vestal virgins, and of the twelve Salii of Mars Gradivus. He taught also the ceremonies al funerals, and in expiating prodigies ; and, above all, he reformec their mode of calculating time, for he divided the solar year intc twelve lunar months, with an intercalary month in a cycle of twent) years ; and distinguished between holy and secular days {dies nefast and fasti). He is said, too, to have organised trade-guilds, and the consecration of Argei or local chapels may refer to some such division of the citizens. It was he, too, who introduced the custom ol dividing conquered lands among the citizens. So high was his repu- tation for holiness, that he was believed to hold converse with the gods. He often wandered in a glade sacred to the Camenae, where there was a holy cavern, out of which issued a stream of fresh water, There as he lingered, taking counsel with his own heart and with nature, it was rumoured that he met the nymph Egeria, who lovec him and taught him wisdom more than human. III. TULLUS HOSTILIUS {6/2-640) Numa's death was followed by a short interregnum. Then the people, with the sanction of the Senate, met in their Curiae and elected Tullus Hostilius, grandson of that Hostilius who had foughl against the Sabines at the foot of the Capitol. To him no peaceful institutions are attributed. His reign was one of war, and such religious ceremonies as he introduced were connected with the formal proclamation of war. His great achievement was the lion of Alba extension of the Roman territory by the destruction of Alba Longa, Longa. and bringing its inhabitants to Rome. This was the result of a series of border wars. First, we are told, the Albans invaded the Roman territory under their king Cluilius. When Cluilius was killed The war- like reign of Hosti- lius. Destruc- DESTRUCTION OF ALBA TONGA 37 ' the Albans were forced to retire, and they appointed Mettius Fufetius ■ to be their dictator. The Romans then invaded the Alban territory ; ■ but on the suggestion of Mettius it was agreed that the victory should ' be decided by a contest between three brothers on the Roman side ■ and three on that of Alba, the Horatii and Curiatii. This combat ' took place in the presence of the two armies. Two of the three ' champions on either side were killed ; but the survivor of the //ora^ii Curiatii was badly wounded, while Horatius was still unharmed. He and therefore easily killed and despoiled the third opponent, and the Curiatii. ' victory was declared to be on the side of Rome. Mettius, in f accordance with the agreement, put himself and his army at 'the ! disposal of Tullus Hostilius. But soon there was a new war with War with \ Fidenae. The people of Fidenae had submitted to Rome in the days Fidenae ' of Romulus ; but they now again made alliance with the Veientines and ^'"^ ^^"• \ broke with Rome. Mettius was summoned to bring an Alban army \ to aid the Romans. But though he obeyed and advanced across the i Anio, yet neither he nor his countrymen were zealous in the cause ; ( and in the battle against the combined forces of Fidenae and Veil < Mettius wasted time in manoeuvres meant to avoid active participation \ in the struggle, but when the Romans proved victorious, was loud i in his congratulations to Tullus. His double dealing was terribly i punished. Two quadrigae were placed side by side, and to each j chariot one of his legs was fastened. The chariots were then 1 driven in different directions ; and he who had halted between two D^atk of opmions was torn in two and perished miserably. Then Tullus ^^'-'fi'nis determined to destroy Alba and bring its people to Rome ; and ^"'/''^"'•y- ^ when this was done the number of people at Rome was once' more I nearly doubled. The Mons Caelius (already included by Romulus Mn the city) was assigned to the new inhabitants; the Senate,^ the gentes, the equites, and the legions were all increased. The next war was with the Sabines, between whom and the Wanvith Romans mutual causes of offence had arisen. The Romans alleged ^^^ '^^"'^'>'^-f that certain of their citizens had been carried off while engaged in peaceful trade near the temple of Feronia, at the foot of Mount Soracte; the Sabines that their exiles had taken refuge in a sacred grove at Rome and had been there retained.- Tullus invaded the : 1 To accommodate the increased number of senators Hostilius was Said to have built a new Curia, hence called to the latest times of the Republic the Curia \Hostilia (Livy i. 30). 2 Neither Livy nor Dionysius is clear as to the nature of the offence. Dionysms calls them "exiles" {<^vy6.ha^). Some editors wish to insert the word servos m Livy's text. That would give a more intelligible account of the ground of complamt, but would not agree with Dionysius. It is perhaps more in keeping Iwith the usual causes of quarrel between such States to suppose the men to be Ipolitical refugees, or at least fugitives from justice. 38 HISTORY OF ROME chap. Sabine territory, and won a battle at the silva nialitiasa. After a reign of thirty-two years, marked by other wars and by a great pestilence, he died, full of honour and fame.^ Provocatio. One other story is told of him which it is important to remember, because it illustrates a right of the citizens of Rome, which, if it did not really exist at this time, was afterwards looked upon as of the highest value. The victorious Horatius, when returning to Rome flushed with his victory over the Curiatii, and accompanied by the liveliest expressions of joy from his fellow-citizens, was met by his sister, who had been betrothed to one of the slain Curiatii. She recognised among the spoils which he carried a cloak which she had worked for her affianced husband, and amidst the general joy she alone was weeping and lamenting. In a sudden passion of resent- ment her brother slew her. Thereupon the king summoned a meeting of the Curiae, and named duoviri to condemn Horatius on a charge of perdiielliof that is, as a public enemy. They declared the sentence of the law ; and the king in accordance with it ordered the lictor to bind his hands, that he might undergo the legal penalty of scourging and hanging. Then Horatius, with the permission of the king, cried, "I appeal" {provo'co). This appeal was judged by the people, who released him from the penalty, on the performance of certain rites of purification and a formal penance. Thus, if this story is founded on fact, the right of provocatio — the most valued of civil rights — existed at Rome under the kings, though it was gener- ally considered to rest upon the lex Valeria (508) and the leges Valei io-Horatianae (447). The books of the Pontifical College, however, contained entries attesting its existence in the regal period ; ^ and this is in harmony with the fact connected with nearly all legisla- tion. Laws seldom if ever create an entirely novel right ; they usually confirm or expand one which has already existed by unwritten convention or tradition ; their immediate object is to prevent en- croachments upon a right which exists, but is liable to be invaded The early by despotic rulers. Moreover, the story as we have it shows this stage of right in an embryonic and imperfect stage. In the first place, the the right of Yixyg is represented as appointing the duoviri, not because he could ^c7. ^^^ have proceeded without them, but because he wished to avoid odium. In the next place, the duoviri do not try the accused. His guilt is assumed and they only have to declare the law. Lastly, he 1 Yet Plutarch has preserved a tradition that he was punished for his contempt of religion by the loss of his senses, in consequence of which he fell into grievous superstition, quite unlike the ordered religion of Numa (Plut. Num. 22). 2 Connected with daelluvi, the old form oi belhim (cp. Duelona= Bellofia : duonus = bonus) ; it means " levying war on the State." 3 Cic. de Rep. 2, § 54. V PROVOCATIO— THE FETIALS 39 can only appeal to the people by permission of the king. The power of the king is absolute, but- he may choose, either to avoid responsibility, or because he wishes the accused to escape from the law, to refer the case to the people. IV. Angus Marcius {640-616) On the death of Tullus Hostilius the customary interrex being Ancus nominated held a meeting of the Curiae, in which Ancus Marcius, ^^i<-^blishes son of the daughter of Numa Pompilius, was elected king. Because, ^^/f'^" ^ . IHlliltlCS of unlike the last king, he showed himself anxious that the laws ^^ pyoclalm- religion, which his grandfather had taught the people, should be htgwar. observed, and took care that the public sacra should be inscribed on an albin/i, so that all might know them, he was believed to be unwarlike. The Latins, therefore, renewed hostilities. They made a raid over the Roman frontier, and refused all restitution. But king Ancus Marcius was no coward. He was prepared to fight the , enemies of Rome, but even in war was careful that due religious j rites should be observed. A legate was sent to formally demand the I restitution of the plunder, and to proclaim war with proper cere- . monies, if the booty and captives were not restored within ten days. I When the legate returned announcing the enemy's refusal, the I king solemnly put the question to the senators, who one by one with I equal solemnity declared that war might be waged with clean hands i and a clear conscience.^ Then the fetial took a spear, with an iron j head, or with its point hardened in the fire, and hurled it over the ( frontier, and in the presence of not less than three youths solemnly I proclaimed war. The war was fortunate at all points for king Ancus. War with I Many of the Latin towns were stormed ; and some, such as Politorium, the Latins. were destroyed, and their inhabitants transferred to Rome and settled in the space between the Palatine and Aventine. Thus the power of Rome over her neighbours was increased by Ancus, who is also believed to have taken an important step for securing her command of both sides of the Tiber ; for he connected the city with the Janiculum by means of the " Bridge of the wooden piles," the pons sublicius, Pons sub- the construction and repair of which were accompanied by strict Hcius. \ religious rites. No iron was allowed to be used in it,- and its beams 1 Puro pioque duello quaerendas censco, itaque consenlio consciscoque. 2 This was probably connected with a religious tradition derived from the age in which bronze was the only metal in use, before the discovery of iron. Thus the flamen Dialis might not be shaved or have his hair cut with an iron razor or knife — aeneis cultris tondebatur. The rule as to the poiis sitblicius was long main- ] tained (see Dionys. v. 24; Varr. L. L. v. 83; Ovid, Fast. v. 622; Pliny, N. H. 36, ^^ 100). 40 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. were to be so placed as to be easily and quickly removable in the case of an enemy's approach. That from very early times Rome had the command of the right bank of the Tiber is shown by the fact that the Incus Deae Diae, the seat of the very ancient Arval Brother- hood, was five miles from Rome, on what was afterwards called the via Portuensis. The bridge was therefore not merely for defensive purposes, as connecting the city with the outlying strong post on the Janiculum, but was a necessary means of communication with a district already part of Roman territory. Its construction, again, seems to indicate that an intercourse was growing up between Rome and Etruria of a more peaceful kind than that with her southern neighbours. Finally, the name of po?itifex shows that its construction and maintenance was from early times a matter of importance and even sacred obligation. Besides this there was attributed to Ancus Marcius an extension of the city area, protected by some kind of The fossa artificial defence ; for this appears to have been the nature of Quiritium. the fossa Qiiiritmm, the exact position of which is uncertain, but which perhaps followed the line of part of the subsequent Servian wall, from the porta Capena to the Tiber, round the foot of the Aventine. V. L. Tarquinius Priscus {6i6-jy8) The Etruscan dytiasty. Lucumo corrupted to Lucius, When Ancus Marcius had reigned twenty-four years he died, leaving young sons behind him. But at some period during his reign there had come to Rome an Etruscan noble or Lucumo. He was said to be the son of Demaratus, one of the Bacchiadae of Corinth, who had migrated first to Sparta, and then to Tarquinii, after having long traded with the Etruscans. Discontented with the inferior position of Tarquinii, he came to Rome with his wife Tanaquil, in search of a more important career. When he reached Janiculum, an eagle suddenly swooped down and carried off his cap, and replaced it with loud screams. His wife, skilled in Etruscan augury, bade her husband look for the highest honours in their new country. In Rome he purchased a house and dwelt therein in wealth and splendour. His title of Lucumo was corrupted to Lucius, and the Romans called him also Tarquinius after the town from which he came. His reputation for wealth caused him to become known to king Ancus ; and his great ability and zeal soon made him his trusted friend and minister. On the death of Ancus he induced his sons to absent themselves from Rome on a hunting expedition, and in their absence persuaded the Curiae to elect himself. This may be only a perverted account of a transaction less pleasing to Roman pride ; and the fact may have been that the attainment of sovereignty V THE ETRUSCAN DYNASTY 41 at Rome by an influential Etruscan family points to an extension of Etruscan power, which at this, time was almost at its zenith. This view is to some degree supported by the fact that nearly the first public transaction after the expulsion of the Tarquins was a treaty with Carthage. While Rome w^as under Etruscan influence no such treaty would have been needed ; for the Etruscans and Carthaginians were up to this time and long after on close terms of friendship. Be this as it may, it seems certain that a Tarquin reigned at The ivars Rome; and to him were ascribed various achievements in war, certain of Tar- civil institutions, and the commencement at least of some great public 1"'^"^^^- works. Twice he fought with the Sabines ; and in the second of these wars he took Collatia, a town in Latium, but inhabited by Sabines, and added it and its territory to the dominion of Rome. By another series of wars he gradually reduced nearly all the towns of the Prisci Latini to the Roman obedience. As a sign of the growing importance of Rome he planned, and His great even began, a great temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, to be buildings. the central place of worship of all the Roman dominions. He also began the city wall, afterwards completed by Servius Tullius ; laid out the Circus Maximus for the races and games, by which a great central city not only provided amusement for its own citizens, but attracted a vast concourse of visitors. And, lastly, he improved the city itself by the construction of some of these vast cloacae or sewers, the remains of which still testify to the greatness of the resources at his disposal. ^ All these things are so many evidences of a growth of the city of Rome; and two political changes attributed to him point the same way. In the first place, he raised the number of the senators to 300; and the new fathers, being selected from the gentes that had been at one time or another added to the roll of the original gentes, were called patres minoruni gentium^ " fathers of Patres the younger houses ; " and, in the second place, he doubled the ^ninonim number of the knights. The story goes that he had intended to do ^^'^^'"'"• this by doubling the number of the centuries ; but a famous augur, named Attus Naevius, warned him that it was unlawful to change what Romulus had instituted with due religious rites. Tarquin, 1 The Cloaca Maxima, as it is called, is not the largest of which remains exist, although it is the most easily seen. Another still larger opens into the Tiber about 300 feet lower down. As the city increased these cloacae were extended in every direction, and served not only to carry off sewerage, but to drain the surface water of the valleys, and make them habitable. Besides the passage in Livy (i. 55) the Cloaca Maxima is described by Dionysius, iii. 67; Pliny, A^. H. 33, ^^''^^'y by the fact that the relators of it were born many years or even centuries after the alleged events, who may have had sources of information of which we know nothing. It is only shown to be unsupported by sufificient evidence to demand credit. It seems hard to believe, again, that the whole history was, as Was it some think, deliberately invented by late Greek sophists to flatter deliberately the vanity of the Romans. For, in the first place, when the story i-^^'^'^'^f^d? first appeared it seems doubtful whether Rome was yet important enough to invite such flattery from Greeks ; and, in the second place, though mistakes, and even deliberate falsifications, are common enough in all literature, a wholesale and impudent invention of an entire history is contrary to our experience. Nor can contradictions and repetitions be held by themselves to What are invalidate a body of iradition indiscriminately. They are tlie almost not com- inevitable result of a story being handed down through many genera- f^^{^ ^'^J"' tions. It is a diflicult task to detect the undercurrent of truth in ' the midst of these accretions, but we must not hastily conclude that no such truth exists. Lastly, supernatural elements in a story are not proofs of its essential falsity. In times of ignorance men were always ready to account for everything wonderful or strange, every- thing which they did not understand, by alleging the direct agency of something above humanity. What happened they may yet tell truly, though they may be quite mistaken as to the cause. It is not doubtful that the Athenians won a battle at Marathon, yet no one believes, as they did, that Hercules, Theseus, and other heroes rose from the ground to help the Athenian soldiers. The reason is that there are trustworthy and almost contemporary Lack of records of this event, unaffected by and independent of the belief in contempor- the miraculous particulars. And this is the difference of our position ^"^ history. in regard to early Roman history. There is no testimony near the time at all. The earliest writers who tell us the whole tale are Titus Livius (B.C. 59, A.D. 17) and a Greek writer, Dionysius of Hali- carnassus, who came to Rome about B.C. 29, and died about a.d. 19. Some thirty years earlier Cicero wrote a book about the Republic, which only survives in a mutilated form, but evidently contained 56 HISTORY OF ROME a story very like Liv3^''s ; and Cicero's contemporary, Sallust (B.C. 86-34), gives a brief sketch of the origin of Rome in his history of CatiUne, which shows that he accepted, with more or less of scepticism, the same story. But of course these authors drew their knowledge and opinions from earlier writers. Both Livy and Dionysius often refer to them, and these references enable us to Authorities trace the existence of the story at any rate for a few hundred years earlier before the end of the Republic. The most important of these writers than Livy. ^^^ ^^^^ Roman M. Porcius Cato (r>.c. 231-149), who compiled an account of Roman history from the earliest times, for which he seems to have taken great pains in studying local antiquities. The Greek Polybius of Megalopolis, who during his residence in Italy (b.c. 167- 151) studied the Archives and such ancient inscriptions as he could find, besides any ancient histories that existed, and compiled an account of the early times of Rome. But though a considerable portion of his Universal History still remains, the part treating of the early history of Rome has almost entirely perished. O. Fabius Pictor, born about B.C. 245, who was living, and a member of the Senate during part of the second Punic war (b.c. 218-202), wrote a history of Rome, probably in Greek, from which Livy took many of his statements. Still earlier a Sicilian Greek named Timaeus (about B.C. 350-256) had in his History also told, at any rate in part, the story of Early Rome.^ We cannot, therefore, trace this story in written history earlier than about B.C. 320-300, even at second hand, for we do not possess the works of the writers just mentioned in sufficient completeness to enable us to judge on what earlier authorities they depended. The evi- But besides historical books these writers had other ways of dence of satisfying themselves of the antiquity of the story they were telling, monuments such as monuments, inscriptions, and buildings. Thus Livy learnt possessed ^^^^ -^^ ^^ 2^6 a bronze figure of a wolf suckling the twins was set historians ^^P ^'^ Rome. This is a sufficient proof that sixty years before The she- ' Pictor wrote the story was current, and was believed by at least 7volfof2g6. some people. It does not, however, push the date farther back than the age of Timaeus. Dionysius makes a statement which, if The Latin true, carries us into much more remote times. He says that there treaty. existed in his time a bronze tablet in the temple of Diana, on which was inscribed in Greek letters the terms of the Latin alliance nego- tiated by king Servius Tullius. It is not, indeed, quite certain from his words that he ever saw it himself; but that the Greek alphabet should be used in such a document is far from unlikely. 1 Plutarch, who hved in the first century after Christ, says that in his Life of Rotnulus he followed Diodes of Peparethus. But we do not know the age of Diocles. AUTHORITIES FOR THE EARLY HISTORY 57 The later period of the kings witnessed in all probability a great extension of Etruscan influei\ce in Rome, and the very ancient Greek alphabets found at Caere and Formello (near Veii) testify to the use of these characters in Etruria; while a still more ancient inscription in Greek letters found in the Latin town of Praeneste only a few years ago is a witness to its use in Latium. Dionysius's statement is quite precise, and the probability is that such an inscription did exist, and did contain some ancient treaty with the Latins, but its adscription to Servius Tullius may have been only an instance of the tendency to refer all monuments, the anti- quity of which was beyond certain knowledge, to the kings, just as at Athens all or most of the ancient tablets of laws were ascribed to Solon. 1 The next most ancient monument quoted by any of these The treaty historians is the treaty between Rome and Carthage, which Polybius with Car- copied and translated, assigning it to the first year of the Republic, i'^^^ge- If it is really of that time it confirms one point in our story, namely, that at the end of the regal period Rome was the most important state in Latium, and had possessions on the coast at least as far south as Circeii. Such ancient inscriptions, however, when they existed were very difficult to decipher, and it is not likely that Livy troubled himself much with them. Another class of evidences which some of the authorities did The fasti consult was that of -the various public records. The chief of \\\^^^ and other were the Aiuiales Maxiini^ a concise statement of the chief events ^ffi'^^<^^ of each year drawn up by the Pontifex Maximus, and exposed each ''^'^^''"■^• year on an album or whited board, and preserved in his house. These were apparently entered in a book, and existed up to the earliest times in the age of Cicero and Livy. But it is extremely doubtful whether the parts relating to the first centuries of Roman history were original, and not rather restorations, formed partly, no doubt, from actual fragments remaining, but filled up on what the Pontifex Maximus of the day tliought trustworthy testimony. Similar documents were the Conunentaries of the pontiffs, relating to the fasti and to the regulations as to civil business or religious ritual. The books of the other magistrates, the censors and praetors, called libri lintei, must of course have been of later date. There were Laicda- also waxen busts of the ancestors of the great families preserved in tiones. their houses, with names and brief statements attached ; laudationes, 1 In i8i it was reported that two stone coffins were found on the Janiculum, one inscribed with the name of Numa, the other containing his writings in Circek or Latin. The writings were destroyed as harmful, and were vaguely rumoured to be books of Pythagorean philosophy. The ground of their destruction by the order of the Senate was the novelty of their religious doctrines; and Livy seems to regard the whole matter as a deliberate fraud (xl. 29). 58 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Funeral vionu- iiie/Us. Loss of dociDiients at the cap- ture of the city by the Gauls in 390. Tlie value of the stories. or funeral orations, pronounced by surviving relatives from time to time, recounting the glories of the family — which, however, were of so partial a character as often to falsify history ; funeral monuments ; and other inscriptions. Perhaps, also, there were ballads or songs of unknown antiquity retailing the heroic actions of the past. No monument now existing is older than the third century B.C. How much farther back those existing in Livy's time went we cannot tell. We know that Cato was fond of studying them to help him in his Origi7ies, as we know that Polybius investigated the records of the Pontifices and other Archives. This last Livy also professes to have done. But how far did those then existing go back? He himself tells us : — *•' The history of the doings of the Romans from the foundation of the city to its capture [b.c. 390], first under kings, then under consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and consular tribunes, their foreign wars and domestic broils, I have described in my first five books. The facts were obscure, dim as objects seem from afar. This was the result of their antiquity. But also in those times written records were extremely rare, and they alone can be trusted to preserve faith- fully the memory of events. Besides, even such records as were preserved in the commentaries of the pontiffs and other monuments, public or private, perished at the burning of the city." As is usually the case in great disasters, more destruction was perhaps attributed to the Gauls than they really accomplished, and Livy himself, in the same passages, acknowledges that the laws of the twelve tables, certain treaties, and some of the royal laws remained undestroyed, and were collected after the fire ; nor does he say that the Aiinales Maxwii were lost, and he afterwards quotes the libri lintei as existing before this date. Still, we must observe that the words quoted contain a confession on Livy's part that he had found very few records of the earlier history of Rome, which from their undoubted antiquity could be regarded as coeval with the events, or as trustworthy in themselves. What, then, should we think of these stories? What is their value? In the first place, they contain the account of the origin of the city and its institutions, with which the Romans themselves were long content. And if this account is to be regarded as founded on things existing, rather than really telling us how they came about, yet it enables us to understand these institutions more fully, and to see them with somewhat the same eyes with which the ordinary Roman citizen regarded them. In the second place, they convey a correct view in the main of the actual progress made by the city from its beginning, first to internal order and freedom, and then to independence and even supremacy among its neighbours. For HISTORICAL MONUMENTS 59 whether the history- of the kings be partly true or wholly false, yet, by the time that Roman history begins to be more really known to us, Rome had become much what the history describes her as grow- ing to, — a city with a constitution, in which there were elements of freedom and equality imperfectly developed — a city with a small territory struggling for mastery among surrounding states, possessing facilities for commerce with the world outside Italy of which she was beginning to avail herself, commanding both sides of the Tiber, and having already secured the control of the coast from Ostia to Circeii. She is beginning to feel her strength and the greatness of her destiny, -'mewing her mighty youth/' and even now dealing on equal terms with the great Semitic merchant city of Carthage, which had been long the chief power in the western Mediterranean. Lastly, the city still retained tangible traces of its previous Actual history in buildings, natural objects, and memorials, which had to be *'^"^^'^"^ "/ accounted for in some way. Thus the line of the wall of the Palatine ^ ''^'"^' city — Roma quadrata— could still be traced even in the time of Tacitus. There was also on the Palatine a cave said to be that of Cacus {Scalae Cad), and another, the Lupercal, said to have been dedicated to Pan by the Arcadian Evander. There was the Jiats Rummalis, under which the she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus, and a cottage — casa Ro7nuli — to which the twins were taken by Faustulus. The agger between the Esquiline and the Colline gales, and the walls of Sei'vius, have not even yet wholly disappeared, and throughout the Republic remained almost intact. The vault of the strong prison at the foot of the Capitol was always called the TuUia- num, from its founder Servius TuUius. The Curia Hostilia, never wholly destroyed until the Clodian riots in ]?.c. 53-52, kept alive the name of king Tullus Hostilius ; while the dwelling of the Pontifex Maximus attached to the temple of Vesta was ever called the Regia,i as having been the palace of king Numa; and not far oif was the Puteal, under which the whetstone that the razor of Tarquin cut at the word of Attus Navius was believed to be buried. The great cloaca of Tarquin still drained the Velabrum ; the great national temple of Jupiter still crowned the Capitol. There were also temples of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Palatine ; of Diana on the Aventine; of Jupiter Stator near the Palatine, and a chapel of Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitoline ; the temple of Vesta in the Forum ; of Fors Fortuna on the Janicuhmi ; of Quirinus on the Quirinal ; of Fortuna in the Forum Boarium, and of the Mater Matuta close by. These and more were indelible records of a near 1 The domus publica in which the Pontifex Miiximus lived was properly distinct from the Regia, a kind of chapter-house or oftice of the Pontifex, but was often called by that name. 6o HISTORY OF ROME past, the true story of which might be confused, misrepresented, or forgotten, but which had undoubtedly existed. Of it the Romans believed that they possessed an account, which, if not literally exact, was yet in its main outlines reasonable and worthy to be regarded as history. Authorities. — The story of the kings is told in Livy's first book, and at greater length and with even less sign of doubt or criticism by Dionysius of Hali- carnassus (i.-iv.) ; also with some differences of detail by Zonaras (vii. 3-1 1), chiefly perhaps from Dio Cassius ; Eutropius (i, 1-9); Plutarch's Z./z/^i' of Romulus and Numa ; Cicero, de Republica, and others. What remains of the Roman writers of history before the Augustan era is collected by H. Peter in his Historicoriun Romanorum Fragmenta. CHAPTER VI FROM THE EXPULSION OF THE KINGS TO THE WAR WITH VEII 509-403 COLONIES CENSUS Norba . . . B.C. 492 B.C. 465 . . 124,214 Antium . . . B.C. 467 B.C. 459 . . 132,409 i Ardea . . .B.C. 442 ] Labicum . . . B.C. 418 The effect of the Revolution on the position of Rome in Latium — Attempts of the I Tarquins to recover their property and royalty — Battle with the Veientines I and people of Tarquinii on the Naebian meadow — Etruscan invasion under Porsena — Stories of Scaevola and Cloelia — Subjection of Rome to the Etrus- I cans — Defeat of Etruscans before Aricia — Isolation of Rome in Latium — The Latins attack Rome — Battle of the lake Regillus — Gradual recovery of Roman j power, and return to the Latin League (492) — Wars with the Sabines, Volscians, Aequians, Hernici — Effect upon the Roman character — Tales of I Coriolanus and Cincinnatus. I i The supremacy among the prisci Latini, secured to Rome by the abihty I^omc ex- of her later sovereigns, was almost entirely lost within twelve years of c^"^^''^^ the fall of the kingship. What the exact nature of that supremacy -^,^^'''^ ^^^ was we do not know, but it seems probable that, while leaving each Leame community free as far as external relations were concerned, it secured • } for Romans and the citizens of the towns thus united the private rights which are the most valuable features of a common nationality 1 —the right of intermarriage, the right of free trading, and of free settlement or residence. This arrangement was renewed in 493- 492, after some years of interruption and some sharp struggles ; but it was certainly broken off soon after the expulsion of the Tarquins. The consuls first elected by the centuries were Lucius Junius 509. Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. But it was felt that the '^ l^'-'f'^'^t presence of a Tarquin, however hostile to the rest of his family, was ^^^^^^ ^- 62 HISTORY OF ROME Collatifius abdicaics. Conspiracy in favour of the Tarquins. The Campus Mariius. Invasion from Tar- quinii and Veii. inconsistent with the decree which imposed perpetual exile upon all of the name. Collatinus, therefore, was persuaded to abdicate,^ and Publius \'alerius was elected in his stead. The first difficulty which the consuls had to meet was a conspiracy for the restoration of the Tarquins. Though the twenty-four years of the tyranny had sufficed to obliterate from the minds of the people the wise rule of its former kings, even this tyranny had, as always happens, partisans of its own — some who from gratitude for favours, or from dislike of popular rights, looked back with regret to the fallen dynasty. The conspiracy came to a head when emissaries arrived from Tarquin, professedly with the sole object of asking that the property of the king and his family should be restored. The treason, however, was promptly discovered and sternly punished. Among the conspirators detected were two of the sons of the consul Brutus ; and with feelings of mingled horror and admiration the people saw the stern Hither not only pronounce the condemnation of his sons, but witness with unmoved face their punishment and execution. It was a scene never likely to be forgotten. The inflexible sternness of Brutus found more than one parallel in later Roman history ; and, whatever may be the ground on which the truth of the story rests, it is highly characteristic of Roman sentiment, which regarded duty to the State as above all others. The property of the Tarquins was then divided among the poorer citizens ; and their fields in the bend of the Tiber, on which the corn was standing, were cleared (the corn being thrown into the Tiber), consecrated to Mars, and reserved for a public drilling and recreation ground under the name of the Campus Martins, or the Campus. It was believed that this great weight of straw thrown into the river formed the nucleus of what became by dint of alluvial deposit the Insula Tiberina.- But the Tarquins did not acquiesce peaceably in their banish- nient and the confiscation of their property. It was easy to stir up Rome's ancient enemy A'eii against her ; and with Veii is said to have been associated the native town of the Tarquins, Tarquinii, ^ According to Dionysius, Collatinus quarrelled witli Brutus on the questions (i) of giving back their property to the Tarquinii, and (2) on the sparing of some of the conspirators for their restoration. Livy seems to conceive of his abdication as taking place earlier. '- Livy ii. 5 ; Dionys. v. 13 ; Plut. Poplic. 8. None of these writers seem to have any doubt of the fact. Those who believe it argue that, had the insula been fully formed before, \}i\ would have upon Porsena, tiictl to inlercein and slay them as they returned, and almost succeeded in so doing.-' Hut their bad faith, and the honourable comluct of the Romans dc( ideil Porsena to break with the rarcjuins, to raise the siege, to restore the hostages, Cloeli.i being jiresented over and above with a horse and armour, and to give back the Roman prisoners without ransom. lie led his nun away from the Janiculum, making a free present of his camp apparatus and stores to the people. These things were sold by th« quaestors ; which gave rise to a symbolic expression or formula used even in the tlays of Livy, in selling public goods by auction. Such an auction was called "Sale of Porsena's goods.' The Senate in gratitude voted him a throne and sceptre of ivory, a golden crown, and purple robe. It does not follow because we have good reason to believe that the cud of Porsena's siege was not as Livy and others represent it, that the whole of the heroic incidents in this story are incredible in themselves. They are not without a certain consistency and reason- ableness, and they did not appear absurd or mythical to the Romans of a later date. There are, however, certain facts about this Etruscan invasion which seem established. First, it is obvious that in coming against Rome Porsena either tlid not intend to restore the ' Livy [W. 13) says ihat the restoration of the Tar{|uins themselves was demanded, hut only j>ro forma. Dionysius says only the restitution of their property. - Accortling to Dionysius the hostages were only saved from the Tarquins at the very gate of the camp (v. 33) ; accordinc: to another story the Tarquins did manage to intercept them, and killed all but the daughter of Valerius Poplicola, who escaped l)y swimming (Tliny .V. //. 34, § 29). VI SUBMISSION OF THE ROMANS 67 Tarqiiins, or quickly abandoned the intention for other reasons than the want of power to enforce it. Secondly, that he never actually The city took the city. The distinction drawn by Tacitus between the cases of ""^ <''"''''- Porsena and the C'.auls, in the one case speakini^ of the city as dediia^ ' - ^'^'^'^"■ in the other as capta^ shows that his information, whatever it was worth, did not convey the idea of an actual capture. Thirdly, that Porsena did not leave Rome on the t;encrous temis described in the story. Pliny had seen the treaty, and he tells us that in it was a 77/,. clause forbiddin^^ the Romans to use iron except for agricultural h'omnns purposes.' That is, the people were disarmed, and would have to 'f^prnrJ 0/ be dependent on a sujierior lord for defence, and would be prevented '^''""• from interfering; in whatever plans of aggrandisement in central Italy the Etruscans might entertain. And this they themselves acknow- ledged by their gift of the ivory tlirone and sceptre, the cnnvn of gold and purple robe sent to Porsena. .Such terms would only have been submitted to by a people unable to resist. What the real juirpose of the Ktruscan invasion was is shown perhaps by the secjuel. And the failure of that purpose involves a natural explanation of what seems a certain fact, namely, that the Romans only abided for a very short time by the humiliating terms of the treaty, which dci)rived them not only of the means of extending their torrilor^', but also of self defen< e. When Porsena retired from the Janiculum, we arc told, he left sojjiob. his son Arruns in command of the Ktruscan forces to continue the -f"""'^ '" war in Latium. His first act was to attack Aricia. This indicates ''.""": Siff^f of the object of the invasion. Aricia, or what was afterwards the .\ppiiin jricia. road, was the first stronghold on the way to the territory of the \'oIsci, and thence to Capua, and the other towns in Campania, which were (Icpendent on the Ktruscans. Hence a conquest of Latium was important to them as securing a communication by land between themselves and their dependencies in central Italy. It was not, however, only to the Latin communities that this was a subject for alarm. The Creek states throughout Italy had been oppressed and harassed by the Ktruscan corsairs. As the Persians to the Asiatic and even the Kuropean Creeks about this time, as the Carthaginians to the Creeks of .Sicily, so to the Italian Creeks the Ktruscans were oppressors whose enmity had been often experienced and was constantly dreaded. Accordingly we find that it is not only the Latin and X'olscian jieoples of Tusculum and Antium that send Kf lief of help to Aricia ; a strong force came also from the Campanian ■f^'"" Cumae, the oldest Creek colony in Italv. It had already repelled •{?"" ^ ' . ' C urn tie. a formidable attack of a mixeil force of l-'.truscaus, Umbrians, and ' Tac. //is/, iii. 72 ; Pliny .V. //. 34, § 139. 68 HISTORY OF ROME bank of l/ic Tiber Daunii. In this war a youn;:^ kni-ht named Aristodcmus had so distinguished himself as to provoke the jealousy of the oligarchical rulers of Cumae, who were glad to send him on the hazardous expedi- tion to the relief of Aricia, and did their best to secure his fall.^ He triumphed, however, over all difficulties. The Etruscan chieftain was slain in battle, the siege of Aricia raised, and the broken remnants of the invading force compelled to take refuge in Rome. They were so kindly treated that they preferred to remain there, and built houses for themselves in a district long afterwards marked by the name of the Tuscics vicus^ one of the streets leading into the I*\)rum between the Capitol and the Palatine. - The Rom The kindness shown to these Etruscans was rewarded by Porsena ms irroiYK restoring the Roman territory on the right bank of the Tiber, of ///<■ -'v;/// which they had been deprived in the previous year. At any rate we may infer that the failure of the Etruscan arms at Aricia enabled the Romans before long not only to secure once more the all-import- ant command of the right bank of the river, but also to ignore the terms of the treaty which forbade them the use of arms. I'roiit We know hardly any particulars of the twelve years in which ///,■ i/r/cat Rome appears to have gradually recovered from her fall, and to "f /^'>' have regained her old position of superiority in the Latin League. invadn-i Pcrhaps the danger which had lately threatened them from Etruria to the re- taught some of the towns to regard the weakening of Rome as the -niranee of loss of a necessary bulwark. But this did not come at once ; it was preceded by a period of hostility on the part of the Latins, accounted for in our authorities in the first place by the ceaseless activity of Tarquinius and his family till his death in 496 ; and, in the second place, by the view which the Latins took of the position of Rome in regard to the Etruscans. They charged the Romans with having given Porsena a free passage into Latium, and with having harboured the Etruscans vanquished at Aricia, It does not indeed seem improbable that for a time, from policy or under compulsion, Rome was acting in close alliance with the still formidable Etruscan power ; and that the Latins, who had lately, by prompt combination and by summoning help from Campania, succeeded in repelling a serious Etruscan invasion, might regard Rome's position as treasonable and as dangerous to their common interests. At any rate it is not until ^ The career of Aristodcmus forms an episode in Dionysius (viii. 2-12) very interesting as a piece of the history of an Itahan Greek town, but not in place here. He dates the assault on Cumae as Olymp. 64, B.C. 524-520, Just at this time the Persians were securing Egypt and becoming known to Carthage. - It seems certain that the Vicus Tuscus obtained its name from an earlier settlement of Etruscans in Rome. Tacitus (.-/. 4, 69) refers it to the followers of Coelius Vibenna in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, but owns that authorities differ as to the particular king under whom the settlement was made. Rome into the I.atin I.eai:;iu\ 505-I93- WAR WITH THE SABINES 69 about five years after the struggle with the Latins had terminated in the admission of Rome to the Latin League, that we find her engaged in a contest with an Etruscan power — her old enemy Veii. But before the hostility of the Latins had come to the point of War actual war, Rome was already engaged in a fierce struggle with «"''''^ ^^<^ another enemy. As early as 505 the Sabines seem to have ^^^^"^^-^ taken advantage of the weakness of Rome to attack her territory. ^^■^"^^'' For the next three years there was constant war between the two peoples. The details are obscure and generally perhaps fabulous ; but it seems clear that by some means Rome did manage to strengthen herself in the direction of the Sabine hills. Fidenae, important as commanding a bridge over the Tiber, was held for a time by a Roman garrison : Crustumerium and Cameria were taken, and the powerful town of Praeneste was induced to quit the Latin League, which now excluded Rome, and join her fortunes with those of the Republic. The heroes of these wars are Publius and Publius Marcus Valerius Poplicola. The former died about 503, after aud being four times consul, having twice triumphed, yet so poor that ^^^'1^*;^"^ he was buried at the cost of the State. He is the Washington of ^"P^'"''^''' Rome ; and every virtue, civil and military, was attributed to him. But whatever may have been the details of this struggle, it is clear that Rome resisted the attacks of the Sabines, and on the whole with success. To have done so she must have had arms. The Sabine wars, therefore, mark the first step of her recovery in getting rid of the humiliating conditions of the Etruscan treaty. Another sign of reviving vigour is disj)layed in the fact, if it be hmnigra a fact, that at this period a powerful chief at the head of his clan ti<^'n of migrated from the Sabine town Regillum (of uncertain site) to ^^^'' Rome. Atta Clausus and his clan were received into the number ^j^^^hh of patrician gentes, — a precedent, perhaps the first, for the right 'family. afterwards exercised by the Senate and later on by the Emperor of raising families to the Patriciate. This was the origin of the great Claudian gens ; while the property granted to him north of the Anio gave its name to the Claudian tribe. It may be safely concluded that Atta Clausus would not have migrated to a city hopelessly weak or at the feet of a foreign prince. ^ But this revival of Roman power and influence was a work of some years, and not the result of any great and sudden blow. The Sal)ine war, however, is said to have been ended for the present by a great battle fought near Cures, in which the Roman legions Battle if were commanded by the consul Spurius Cassius Viscellinus (502). Cures, so. To the same man is attributed with more certainty the diplomacy ^ A less credited account placed the migration of Atta Clausus in the time of Romulus and Titus Tatius (Sueton. Tib. i). 70 HISTORY OF ROME and the Latifi League the lake Regillus 4<)8. Spiirius by which at the end of the struggle with the Latins Rome again Cassius became a member of the League.^ For though the Sabines and the towns in north-east Latium, which were half Sabine also, were forced for a time to suspend their hostility, Rome had still to face the attack of the Latin League fostered by the intrigues of the Tarquins, supported by the people of Aricia, and led by Mamilius of Tusculum. Battle of When, after some years of preparation, the cities of the League took up arms, the Latin host encamped near the lake Regillus. This has been plausibly identified with a small volcanic crater, arti- ficially drained in the seventeenth century, at the foot of the hill on which the modern Frascati stands. There the famous battle was fought in which the Romans won a glorious victory over their enemies. The danger had appeared so formidable that the consuls had been superseded by a dictator, Aulus Postumius Albus, who, with his master of the horse, T. Aebutius Elva, enrolled the legions and commanded them in the field. The Latins were assisted by a corps of Roman exiles led by Sextus Tarquinius, or, as some said, by the old king Tarquin himself.''^ In the battle, as usual in battles which necessarily consisted in actual hand to hand fighting, the salient incidents remembered in tradition, or imagined by the chroniclers, were the personal encounters between the leading men on each side. Thus M. Valerius, enraged at the sight of the younger Tarquin, dashes at him ; Tarquin retreats, and Valerius, becoming entangled in the enemy's line, is transfixed by a spear. Again, later on, T. Herminius recognises the Latin leader Mamilius, drives his spear through him, and is himself so grievously wounded, whilst engaged in stripping the spoils from the fallen enemy, that he is carried back to the camp only to die. The battle, according to both accounts which we have of it, was decided principally by the picked horsemen serving as the dictator's bodyguard, who, seeing the infantry waver, sprang from their horses to join in the melee, and only mounted them again to follow the flying Latins. Such incidents may be imaginary, but they are true in spirit. As in the battles of the Middle Ages, before the invention of gunpowder and arms of precision, the personal prowess of individuals must have had a decisive influence on the final result which can hardly be realised ^ Livy (ii. 33) appears to have seen a pillar engraved with a treaty, in which the name of Spurius Cassius was inscribed. 2 Livy (ii. 19), qiianqua^n jam aetate et viribus erat gravior. Dionysius says Sextus, and is accordingly accused by Ihne of inventing a new Tarquin, because he found that the old man must be past ninety by this time. The traditions followed by Dionysius's authorities may well have varied, nor does it seem certain that Sextus was yet dead. His assassination would be more probable after the hopes of the Tarquins were wrecked (Livy i. 60). VI BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS 71 by those conversant with modern warfare ; and the superiority of the mounted soldier to the foot in all circumstances, except when the phalanx was perfectly unbroken, must have been almost as great as that of the ironclad knight over the peasant with pike and target. Finally, though doubtless dust obscured much, the absence of smoke helped to make such deeds of gallantry more conspicuous. 1 In the midst of the fight, when the day seemed going against the Castor and Romans, the dictator Aulus vowed a temple to Castor, which he Pollux. afterwards began in the Forum, and which his son dedicated. Its ruins still stand on the south-western side of the Forum. In after times the tale was told that to Postumius and his staff" on the field of battle two strange horsemen had appeared, exceeding beautiful, and tall above the stature of men, who rode in front of the Roman cavalry as they charged ; and that the same day at evening two young men were seen in the Forum, alike in age and height and beauty, with all the marks upon them of having come fresh from the fight. They washed the foam from their horses in the spring hard by the temple of Vesta ; and when men crowded round them to ask for news, they told them how the day had gone and that the Romans were the victors. Then they departed from the Forum, and were seen of no man again. The ides of Ouinctilis (i 5th July) was kept as a festival in remem- The parade brance of the victory ; sacrifices v/ere offered at the temple of Castor '^/ {'^^ built by Aulus in consequence of his vow, and a solemn parade was '"'^ held of the knights, clad in purple and crowned with olive, who rode in procession from the temple of Mars outside the wall to the temple of Castor and Pollux. This celebration of the day, which doubtless gave rise to the legend, — though such appearances were easily believed in a time of excitement, and accordingly are constantly heard of in connexion with great battles in antiquity, — shows at least that the Romans had the tradition of some great and important deliverance which the battle of the lake Regillus secured to them. It is, however, an isolated fact in the struggle. The years which follow embrace no great or Death of decisive event ; for three years there was " neither war nor a certain T<^' peace," says Livy. But the death of Superbus at Cumae (496) relieved the Romans of one source of constant uneasiness, and there were signs of a steady growth. Fresh colonists were sent to Signia. 1 Mommsen (i. 349) speaks of the legend of the victory of the lake Regillus as "unusually vivid and various in its hues," and seems to accept it as a real victory of Rome over the rest of ihc Latin League. Ihne will have none of it. He imagines a division of Latium for and against the Etruscan pretensions : the anti-Tuscan party, which included Rome, were successful, and Rome, having thus obtained independence by the help of the Latins, treated with the League as an independent nation. qut7nus Superbus, 72 HISTORY OF ROME which was an important place as commanding the road to the Her- nici ; and the number of the tribes was increased, which impHes an increase of territory. Such fighting as took place was no longer with the Latini, but with the Volscians, Aequians, Aurunci, and Sabines. The extension of the power of the Romans at the end of the regal period had brought them into collision with the Volscians, and it seems certain that at this time Antium, Circeii, and Terracina, towns on the Volscian coast, were in some way under the protection of Rome.i liut this progress was not always maintained, and many vicissitudes may be traced — Antium now being free, now under the Romans. It was natural that the Volscians should take the oppor- tunity of Rome's weakness to recover their control over these places. They had threatened, we are told, an attack before the Latin war, but had been kept in check by a movement of Roman troops, and had been compelled to give hostages. After the battle of the lake Rcgillus they had endeavoured again to renew their attack upon the Roman territory. They made a league with the Hernici, and sent messengers to the Latin towns to instigate them once more to take up arms. But the Latins were unwilling to move after their late defeat, and even arrested the Volscian legates and handed them over to the consuls. In gratitude for this 6000 Latin captives, then confined at Rome, were restored without ransom, and the question of renewing the League with the Latin towns was referred to the consuls of the next year. Whatever may be the exact facts of these transactions, thus much again seems clear, that in this period Rome was once more taking her place in the Latin League, and coming to be regarded, not as an enemy, but as the champion of the Latins. In the struggles periodically recurring in the following years the Latins act as the faithful outposts of Rome, and warn the consuls of threatened invasions. There is no sign of their jealousy being roused by additions made from time to time to the Roman territory, or of their seeking to take any advantage when the Romans were engaged with the Sabines on the north-east, or with the Aurunci on the south. And when, by the diplomacy of Spurius Cassius, now consul for the second time, Rome once more became formally a member of the Latin League, the treaty seems to have been a recog- nition of a state of things already practically existing. This is the first step indeed in Rome's advancement from which there was no real recoil. The League towns, with which were joined the Hernici in 486, soon found themselves practically subjects of Rome, nor was any serious attempt made to change this until the war of 340. From the time of the renewal of the Romano -Latin League ^ See the treaty with Carthage (Polyb. iii. 22). The early c^ate of this treaty, denied by Mommsen, who places it after 348, is generally admitted. VI ROME AND THE LATIN LEAGUE 73 (493) to nearly the end of the century (403) there is a constant iVars 7vi/k recurrence of warfare with the Volscians, varied by similar struggles Vohcians, with Sabines and Aequians. They seldom rose above the dignity ■^^^^>^"^^. of border raids, though there was often much spoil, and several ^2equiatis triumphs were celebrated. At times the enemy ventured to approach ^gj.^oj. ' the city itself, and the citizens were called to arms when " the smoke from burning homesteads and the flight of the rustics " gave warning that the Volscian, Aequian, or Sabine host was on the march. On one occasion (460) the Capitol itself was seized by a Sabine named Appius Herdonius. Rowing down the Tiber under cover of dark- Appius ness, with some 4000 followers, composed of exiles and slaves, he Herdomus landed at the foot of the Capitol where there was no defending wall, ^r^'^1% / and succeeded in occupying the summit and the temple of Jupiter. It does not appear that he was acting for the Sabines. It was the adventure of a lawless chieftain and his followers, and there was no force at hand to co-operate with him. He relied on notorious dis- sensions then dividing patrician and plebeian in the agitation for a written constitution, and accordingly proclaimed equality for plebeians and liberty for slaves. It seems scarcely credible that, with an audacious enemy occupying the very Capitol, the Tribunes should have instigated the plebeians to refrain from fighting ; and it is at least as probable, as suggested by Livy, that the patricians feared to arm the urban proletariat, and wished to have the credit for them- selves and their clients. In answer to Herdonius's proclamation, however, no important defection took place, even among the slaves, and the adventurers were quickly captured and destroyed, though with some hard fighting, in which the consul Valerius fell. The struggle with the Aequians appears to have constantly The centred round Mount Algidus, one of the Alban heights frequently Aeqmans. occupied by them as a base of operations against the Roman territory ; and the battles which stand out conspicuously amidst T^vo baitle% the monotony of the constantly recurring details of the war- of Mointt fare are two fought there, the first in 458, when Cincinnatus con- fj^ "l'^ quered Cloelius Gracchus ; the second in 428, when Postumius Tibcrtus was victorious over a combined force of Aequians and Volscians. With the Volscians the fighting, though not confined to one The I'ol- place, often came to a head at Antium. That town, long an object ^'^"''"^• of contention, appears to have been under the protection ot the Romans at the end of the regal period. In the weakness which followed the fall of the Tarquins it had regained its independence, or had been forcibly annexed again by the Volscians. It is said to have been taken and colonised by the Romans in 468, but the colonists were not numerous enough to counteract the inclinations of 74 IIISTORV OF ROME the Volscian inhabitants left in it, and in 459 it revolted. From that time it is the scene of constant fighting. To these difificulties must be added that of pestilence. Eight visitations are recorded as occurring in this century (500-400), and four of them within a space of twenty years, 452, 435, 432, 431. In the first of these Dionysius asserts that nearly all the slaves and half the free population perished. Yet Rome, united with the Latin towns, was steadily growing. Velitrae had been colonised before, and was strengthened with fresh colonists in 492. In the same year Norba, commanding the Pomptine district, was colonised ; Ardea in 439, Labicum in 416 ; and Circeii must have been recovered in this period, if not for the first time colonised. The census is only given in 465 and 459, but the numbers show a satisfactory increase. To these wars belong the famous tales of Coriolanus and Cincin- natus, preserved, perhaps, and adorned with roniantic details in family traditions, but reflecting the spirit which the Roman believed to have animated the age. In the early wars with the A'olscians the Romans were besieging Corioli, a town not far from Anlium, which the Volscians had wrested from the Latins. One da)- a sudden advance from Antium was made upon the besiegers by the Volscians, and at the same time a sally by the besieged garrison in Corioli. It chanced that a young- noble named Caius Marcius was on duty in the Roman outposts near this town. He not only succeeded in repulsing the sally, but forced his way through the gates with the fi>ing garrison, set fire to the buildings near the walls, and took it. The cry of the captured city animated the Romans outside, so that they conquered the Volscians who came from Antium to relieve it. Thus Caius Marcius gained great glory, and was ever afterwards called Corio- lanus. r>ut he was a stern aristocrat, hating the privileges which the people, by the help of their tribunes, were beginning to get for themselves ; and when there Avas a dearth at Rome, and the Senate purchased corn from Sicily and would have sold it to the people at a small price, Caius Marcius opposed this relief, and declared that the plebs by their seditions had caused the dearth, and should be allowed to suffer for it. He was almost slain as he left the Senate House ; and the P^athers were so alarmed at the popular fury that they were obliged to allow Marcius to be impeached before the people. He would not appear, but went into exile among the Volscians, threatening vengeance against his country. The Volscians received him gladly, and their chief, Attius Tullius, entertained him as his guest. Presently, by the machinations of Attius Tullius, war was once more begun against Rome, and Coriolanus, with Tullius, led the Volscian armv. Everywhere he was successful ; town after flatus. VI LEGENDS OF CORIOLANUS AND CINCINNATUS 75 town fell into his hands, till at length he pitched his camp five miles from the city. The frightened Senate sent legates to treat of peace. They were sent back with a stern message, ordering the Romans to make full restitution of all that they had taken from the Volscians. When other legates were sent, they were refused admittance into the camp. The sacerdotes with the emblems of their holy ofiice were in like manner repulsed. Then the matrons begged his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia, with her two young sons, to go to the \^olscian camp and entreat the fierce Caius Marcius to spare the city. At first, seeing only a crowd of women, he remained obdurate to their tears and cries for mercy : but when he distinguished his mother, he leapt from his seat and would have embraced her ; but she repelled him so long as he was minded to enslave his country. While he stood hesitating his wife and children embraced his knees, and overcome by their importunity he led the Volscian army away and returned to Antium, where some say that he was slain by the Volscians as a traitor, and others that he lived to a great age, declaring that only an old man knew the misery of exile. Again in 458 the Acquians under Gracchus were engaged in one Legend of their periodical raids. As often before, they occupied a camp of Cincin- on Mount Algidus, and the consul Lucius Minucius was sent against them. But Minucius proved himself timid and incompetent. The enemy nearly succeeded in blockading him in his camp, and there was danger of the Roman army being starved into surrender. Hefore the investment was quite complete some horsemen broke out and made their way to Rome. A war was going on at the same time with the Sabines, but the Senate recalled the other consul from the Sabine war and forced him to name a dictator. With the approval of all he named L. Quintius Cincinnatus. The officers sent to tell him of his appointment found him working on his small farm across the Tiber, some said digging a trench, others guiding the plough. When he heard the news he called to his wife to bring his toga from the cottage, and, wiping off the sweat and soil from his face, was taken on board a vessel up the Tiber, and entered the city preceded by his lictors and escorted by a great crowd of people. Next day he ordered all business to be suspended, all shops shut, and all men of military age to assemble on the Campus Martins with provisions for five days, while those who were too old for service should busy themselves in preparing food for his camp. By midnight he had reached the Aequian lines. Each of his soldiers carried one or more stakes,^ which they drove into the ground when they arri\ed, and before daybreak the Aequians found themselves ^ This was long u custom with Roman soldiers (see Polyb. xviii. 18). 76 HISTORY OF ROME Effect of the century of wars oti the Romans. surrounded by a palisade, and shut in between two armies. Forced to surrender, their lives were spared, but they were compelled to submit to the disgrace of "passing under the yoke." Two spears were fixed upright in the ground and a third laid across them. The defeated army, stripped of all arms, marched under this as a symbol of their submission. Their camp was given up to the Romans with all it contained, and Quintius returned laden with booty to celebrate his triumph. On the sixteenth day from that on which he had been named dictator he abdicated his office, having in that time saved a Roman army, gained immense spoils, and won great glory for the Roman name. This constant warfare had a lasting effect on Roman character and the political constitution. The frequent need of levies gave the plebs opportunities of extorting one right after another from the privileged classes. Civil rights were not valued where all power was in the hands of a single king. But with the new state of things the vote became important, and as the burden of military service and tribute fell on all in various degrees, the other privileges were sure to be demanded also. When the next great struggle with Veii was ended important steps had been taken towards civil equality. Authorities. — We still depend almost entirely on Livy (ii.-iv, ); Diony- sius, v.-xi., is continuous to B.C. 459; but of the remaining books there are only fragments remaining. Plutarch, Poplicola and C. Marcius Coriolanus (the story of Coriolanus is told also by Appian, Res Ital. fr. v.) Zonaras vii. 12-19 ; Florus i. 9 ; Aurelius Victor, de Viris Ilhist. 10-19 ; Eutropius i. 9-19 ; Orosius ii. 13. CHAPTER VII ROME AND VEII I 482-395 Enmity of Veii and Rome — State of Etruria in fifth century B.C.— General move- ! ment against Hellenism — The Fabii — Farther movements of Veientines and Sabines — Fidenae and Veii — A. Cornelius Cossus and the spoiia opima — The Etruscan League refuse help to Veii — Twenty years' truce (425) — Samnites ! drive the Etruscans from Campania — Last war with Veii, its siege and fall ' (405-396) — The effect of the long siege — The Alban lake — M. Furius Camillus I — Stories connected with the fall of Veii— Fall of Melpum — Capture of Falerii, Volsinii, and Sutrium. The enmity between Rome and Veii was of long standing. Six Long- I wars are recorded in the regal period, and that which ended with standi?ig j the fall of Veii was the fourteenth. This ever-recurring hostility ^^'^"^h' ( needs probably no explanation beyond the fact that the interests of ^^'^^," , ^ j the two towns were opposed to each other and their territories con- yeii. \ tiguous. A few hours' brisk walking would bring a man from the ! gates of Rome to those of Veii ; and when Rome obtained territory i on the right bank of the Tiber, some of it at any rate must have I been at the expense of Veil. Thus when Porsena deprived the I Romans of their lands on the right bank, he is said to have given ] them to the Veientines ; when he restored them to Rome he had to take them from Veii. Putting aside all question as to the personality j of Porsena, the transaction represents what must almost necessarily have happened. It must always have been a question between the I two States as to which of them had the command of the right bank of the river in the neighbourhood of what was afterwards the Milvian bridge. The successful claim of the one must have been the loss of the other. This sufficiently explains their constant quarrels. Nor is it sur- The prising that the Veientines should so long have held their own in ^irength \ the dispute. A city, not less in magnitude or weaker in position '^ "'' f 78 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. State of Etr/tria. General movement against Hellenism, in ivhich Veil takes part, 482. than Rome itself, Veil, as an outpost of the Etruscan League In the direction of Latium, would also be able to count on the support of the rest of Etruria in maintaining the contest. It was when that support failed her, and she was left to fight Rome almost single- handed, that she at length succumbed to the growing power of her great neighbour. The history of her fall, therefore, must be looked at in some degree in connexion with the general history of Etruria. We have already seen that the Etruscans had established settle- ments in Campania, originally, doubtless, as commercial centres. Their supremacy at sea had long made them an object of fear and hatred to the Greek towns of Italy ; and they were constantly in league with the Carthaginians, those other mortal foes of the Greeks. We have seen that they had joined in an unsuccessful attack upon Cumae (524), and had made a great attempt to secure a free road through Latium to their possessions in central Italy (507-506). The resistance which they experienced in these two cases finds parallels in other parts of Italy. In 494 we hear of Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, erecting a fort on the Scyllaean rock to repel them ; and in 479 Hiero of Syracuse, in answer to an appeal for help, sent ships to Cumae and inflicted a severe defeat upon the Etruscan fleet near that town. " They humbled the Tuscans," says Diodorus ; and from that time forth they seem rather to act on the defensive than to venture upon attacking the Italian towns.^ But it is impossible to disregard the fact that these transactions synchronise closely with the struggle that was going on between the Persians and Greeks in the East and the Carthaginians and Greeks in Sicily. On the very day, it is said, on which the Persian invasion was crushed at Salamis, Hiero repelled a similar attack of Cartha- ginians upon Sicily (480) ; and there is good reason for believing that the Carthaginians were acting in concert with the Persians. The Etruscan fleet which threatened Cumae in that year, and was destroyed in the next, seems to have been also taking its part in a great movement for the destruction of Hellenism and subjugation of Greece and Italy. Rome, barring the way between Etruria and the South, was one obstacle to be removed. It may therefore fairly be regarded as an indication that Veil was taking part in the same movement when, after a quiescence of some twenty-five years, her soldiers once more entered Roman territory (482). We are told that, in the almost annual raids that followed, the Veientines were supported by auxiliaries from all Etruria, with the object of taking advantage of the internal quarrels in Rome to destroy her. In the battle of 482, as in the succeeding campaign, the names See p. 13. VII THE LEGEND OF THE FABH 79 of various members of the Fabian gens are prominent. The Fasti The Fabii. for seven years in succession (485-479) show a Fabius as one of the consuls ; and the family seems to have regarded the Veientine war as its special province. Hence the famous story of the fall of the 306 members of the gens. Kaeso Fabius Vibulanus was consul for the third time in 479. Xaeso He came, it is said, into the Senate-House and proposed that, instead Fabiits of sending the usual army against the Veientines, he, at the head of Vibulanus. his gens, should undertake the Veientine war. The offer was gladly accepted, and amidst the praises and prayers of the people Kaeso, in full military array, led his clansmen out of Rome by the For/a Carmentalis^ the right arch of which was ever afterwards regarded as ill-omened for the commencement of a journey. Livy and Ovid \ seem to confine the numbers who thus sallied forth to the 306 members of the Fabian gens, but other versions of the tale represent them as being accompanied by clients and dependents, amounting in all to about 4000. It is indeed unlikely that men of their rank and wide connexions would fail to be followed by clients and slaves. Their object was to occupy some permanent post in the Veientine lands, from which to prevent inroads upon the Roman territory, and I to watch for opportunities of inflicting injury upon Vcii. I The greatness and magnificence of the town of Veii are attested ( by ancient writers, and have been confirmed by the few scattered Expedition remains on the site, which, as far as they go, indicate a town at <■'/ fit^ • least as large as Athens. It stood about twelve miles from Rome ^''"'"' ■t79- I in the fork of two streams, which, uniting on the south-east of the I town, form the river called Cremera, the modern La Vulca. When 1 the Fabii reached the valley of the Cremera they pitched their camp ' on a steep hill, and fortified it by a double trench and many They \ towers. This post they held through the winter, repelling all attacks f^^'^^fy ' of the Veientines, and repeatedly plundering their territory. Next ^^ ^ j^^ year the Veientine army was defeated by the consul L. Aemilius at in the a place on what was afterwards the Flaminian road, called ad Veientine Rubra Saxa^ and were compelled to sue for peace. For some ^<^^^^^<>U- reason, of which we are not informed, the people of Veii did not accept the terms offered by the Romans, and resolved to try once more to dislodge the Fabii. The struggle went on through another winter, and after numerous less important engagements they at The Fabii length succeeded by stratagem. Choosing a plain so surrounded fdHintoau by covert as to admit of an ambush for a large force, they turned '^"'^"^ • cattle out to feed apparently unwatched. The Fabii descended into the plain and began driving off the cattle. Then the Veien- tines rose from their ambush and slew them to a man. 1 he one boy who survived of the whole clan was destined to be the 8o HISTORY OF ROME The ex- planation of the story. The Veientines occnpy the J an ic II linn, 476. They ally themselves 7viih the Sabines. 475-43S- A period of peace with I 'eii. ancestor of the famous Fabius Cunctator, who broke the power of Hannibal. 1 Such a tradition is not Hkely to have arisen without some founda- tion in fact. It probably represents a great disaster sustained by a Roman force about this time, in which the Fabii were largely repre- sented.- But that the whole Fabian gens should thus have all perished in a single day involves the all but impossible circumstance that every Fabius but one was of military age, only one of the 306 having a son below that age ; while in fact we find a P\'ibius in the list of consuls for 467 and 464, ten and thirteen years after the alleged occurrence. Inspirited by this success the Veientines made more determined attacks upon Roman territory, even occupying Janiculum and threatening Rome with a siege (476), until, after various minor engagements, the consul Spurius Servilius stormed their camp on Janiculum. He was reinforced by his colleague Aulus Virginius, just when he seemed about to suffer a signal defeat, and the two together cut to pieces the army of the invader. The Veientines now sought alliance with the Sabines. A Sabine army crossed the Tiber, and lay encamped under the walls of Veii. The Romans sent a force under the consul Publius Valerius, which made a vigorous assault upon the Sabines. The Veientines sallied forth to their relief, but after a stubborn fight the camp was taken and the Sabines dispersed (475)- For thirty-seven years from this time we have no Veientine inroads recorded. It was a period of constant civil strife in Rome, with frequent intervals of wars with the Volscian and Aequian ; and yet Veii, Rome's implacable foe, seems not to have troubled her. The reason is probably to be found in the difficulties of the Etruscans. They were suffering from determined attacks in more than one direction. Their fleet was annihilated at Cumae in 474; in 458 a Syracusan fleet, first under Phayllus and then under Apellas, was plundering their settlements in Aethalia {Elba) and Corsica ; ^ the Gauls were threatening on the north ; and Veii was therefore not only called upon to contribute to the national defence, but could look for little help from the rest of Etruria. The immediate occasion of the next war was a sudden revolt of F denae (438). This town had in very early times been partially ^ Another version of the story attributed the destruction of the Fabii to an ambush set along the road to Rome, whither they had gone to offer a family sacrifice. 2 This seems the view of Diodorus Siculus, xi. 53. Niebuhr and Mommsen regard it as a kind of " secession " of the Fabii for political motives. 2 Diodorus xi. 88. FIDENAE AND VEII 8i gains the spolia opima. occupied by Roman coloni,^ but from time immemorial it had 43S-4JJ. been closely connected with Veii. At this period the earlier element R^'^^lt of of the population apparently found itself strong enough to revert to ^^^f^,^^ the traditional policy of the city. A league was made with Lar league ivith Tolumnius, king of Veii : and when four Roman commissioners were Veii. sent to demand an explanation, they were put to death by the Fidenates, at the instigation of Tolumnius.'-^ Though Tolumnius tried ^Var and to disclaim this breach of international law, the Romans at once pro- "^^^^^'y claimed war both with Veii and Fidenae ; and in the next year ^^;;^^;,^ (437) a battle was fought which appears to have been unfavourable to the Roman arms. A dictator, Mamercus Aemihus, was named ; veteran centurions w-ere called out ; and the enemy were gradually mancEuvred out of the Roman territory, and forced to take up a position on the line of hills between the Anio and Fidenae, until auxiliaries arrived from Falerii. . Encouraged by this reinforcement they ventured to descend into the plain, but were driven back into their camp with great slaughter. King Tolumnius was slain and spoiled by A. Cornelius Cossus, who thus won the spolia opima — the Cornelius second instance recorded in Roman history. The sight of the head Cossus I of their king on the victor's spear began the rout of the Veientines, I which the Roman dictator turned into a disastrous flight. Many I of the Fidenates saved themselves by retreating to the hills ; but Cossus crossed the Tiber with some cavalry, and brought back large ' spoil from the Veientine territory. On his return to Rome the I dictator celebrated a triumph : but all eyes were turned, not on • him, but on Cossus carrying the spoils of Tolumnius (437). ^ \ But neither Veii nor Fidenae was long cowed by this disaster. ^ Before the system of sending colonies to towns in Italy (see p. 164) was fully established, it was the custom in case of conquered towns to confiscate part of their territory and settle thereon Roman farmers {coloni) with a certain allotment of the land. ■^ Their names were C. Fulcinius, Cloelius TuUus, Sp. Ancius, L. Roscius. Their statues were placed on the Rostra and were extant in Cicero's time (Livy iv. 17 ; Cic. Phil. iv. 9 ; Pliny A^. H. xxxv. 11). ^ Livy (iv. 20) has a curious discussion on this subject. It was the rule, he says, that the spolia opima could only be gained by a leader who slew and stripped the leader of the enemy [quae dux duci dctraxit) ; therefore there was a question whether Cossus— whom he calls a military tribune — could gain them. When , Augustus inspected the temple of Jupiter Feretrius with a view to its restoration, he found the cuirass of Tolumnius with an inscription mentioning Cossus as consul. But the Hb7-i lintci placed the consulship of C'ossus nine years later, at which date there was no mention in the Fasti of a Veientine war. Livy declines to solve the difficulty, but points out that a Cossus was consular tribune in 434 ; consul in 428 ; master of the horse, again to Mamercus, in 426 ; and seems to leave us to choose our year. In this last year (426) Diodorus (xii. 80) mentions an indecisive battle with the Fidenates, which would not answer to the battle mentioned in the text. 82 HISTORY OF ROME 435. Two years later (435) we find their combined army again invading FidcTiae taken. Etrtiscan cities 7-e.fuse to aid Veii, ■^34-429. Roman territory nearly up to the Colline gate. Again a dictator was nominated (Q. Servilius), who raised an army and forced the enemy to retreat. Fidenae itself was besieged ; and at length, like Veii afterwards, taken by means of a mine or tunnel, by which the Roman soldiers got upon the rock of the citadel. Yet Fidenae does not appear to have been treated with harshness. New coloni indeed were settled there, but enough of the original inhabitants remained to give trouble again before long. The The success of Rome caused alarm throughout Etruria. The Faliscans had refused to take part in the last invasion ; but they still feared the vengeance of the Republic for their share in the previous war, and now joined the Veientines in a mission to the other towns of Etruria, to organise national succour for Veii. The Romans, alarmed at the prospect of an attack from united Etruria, again named a dictator. But they were soon reassured by news brought by merchants that the Etruscan congress at the temple of Voltumna ^ had refused to assist Veii. P^'^^fi For a few years, therefore, the Veientines were quiescent. But luoi'cmen s j^^ g ^|^^ again made raids on the Roman territory, in which in ./2S-423. . ' °. . . . ■^' certam of the Fidenates were accused of participating. No battle of any consequence, however, took place ; and, after some minor encounters near Momentum and Fidenae, a truce was arranged. But the Veientines broke it, and war, proclaimed in 426, was begun in the following year. A defeat sustained by the Romans at the beginning of the campaign of 425 caused once more the nomination of a dictator. The Veientine army was surrounded and destroyed. Fidenae was again captured, the city plundered, and many of the inhabitants, instead of being left as before to foment new rebellions, sold into slavery: and, though the town does not seem to have been 4^5- destroyed, it was never of any influence again. The Veientines had lost more than an army : they had lost their base of operations against Latium, and had to accept a truce of twenty years. 425-405- These years were eventful ones in the constitutional history of the Romans, and were not marked by any external wars of importance. But while they brought new strength and better social and political conditions to Rome, they witnessed internal strife at Veii, and deca- dence throughout Etruria. Not only were her maritime settlements harried by Syracusans, and her northern communities threatened ^ The position of the Fanum Voltumnae is not known ; but it seems to have certainly been in northern Etruria, perhaps near Tarquinii (Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, ii. 33). The merchants would have been at the fair which seems to have accompanied the meeting of the congress, hke that at the lucus Feroniae and other places. 7\ventv years truce Decadence of Eti VII THE LAST WAR WITH VEH 83 by Gauls, but a new enemy had appeared. We do not know at The what age the Samnites arrived in Italy. But this powerful branch ^'"w'/^-f of the Sabellian stock 1 had long occupied the central district touch- i/ "^^ ing on the shore of the Adriatic between the rivers Atarnus and inEtruria. Frento, and was now pushing" down from the niountainous district of the centre into the fruitful plains to the west, supplanting the Etruscans in their ancient settlements in Campania. In 423 they took Capua, then called Volternum ; and before long became the dominant race in that district. Thus the Etruscans were being assailed on all sides. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the last contest with Rome, the Veientines found themselves left for the most part to fight alone. The immediate cause of this final war is not very plain. The The causes twenty years' truce was expiring, and the Romans accused the ^ ^^^ ^^^^ Veientines of predatory acts in their territory ; and, finally, of a con- '^^f^' /^^'^^^ tumacious answer to ambassadors sent to demand restitution. We 40^-396. may assume that the pretext for war was of this nature. But doubt- less the growing strength of the Roman arms, trained in the frequent struggles with the Volscian and the Aecjuian, from which the Republic had on the whole emerged with extended territory and widening reputation, inspired the people with the courage and determination for a more continuous efibrt. And when to this were added distraction and decadence in Etruria, the Romans may naturally have thought that the time was come to strike a decisive blow at the existence of their inveterate enemy. War was declared in 405, and in the next year the siege was The siege of begun. The fact of Veil thus acting entirely on the defensive Veilhegim, instead of making, as of old, incursions into the Roman territory, is a '^^^' proof of the change in the relative power of the two which the last twenty years had brought about. At first the siege was carried on The siege languidly : there was a war at the same time with the Volscians, and ^'"* earned the attention of the Romans was divided. But, the Volscians '^''f ^^^ .' vigour at defeated, they were able from the second year of the siege (403) to con- fifst. centrate their whole force upon the doomed city. Still the siege dragged on without much hope ; and though the The people Etruscan League had refused assistance, partly because a revolution of Falcrii, in Veil itself had established a king unacceptable to the other cities, ^'^Pf'^' . Ml /- r T-. Ill ei.na Jar- yet, the apparent ill success of the Roman arms, and perhaps the g^if^n ^^^^ fear of being themselves the next object of attack, induced the soine help people of Falerii, Capena, and Tarquinii to make some not very to Veii, effective efforts to relieve the beleaguered town (402-401); and -^^'^^ later still the League in its annual meeting, though still declining ^ See p. 12, note. 84 HISTORY OF ROME chat. formal help, authorised the raising of volunteers from the cities in Etruria. I'hc The Romans were now obliged to extend their operations to the Romans territories of ?\alerii and Capena, in order to prevent farther relief retaliate on , . i' •• j • j • i • «- i i Fakrit and '^^'"o ^^"^ ^^ \ ^w ; and m domg this sufrered some severe losses. Capena, At the same tmie renewed trouble with the \'olscians compelled them J97-J9^- to retake Anxur, which had fallen shortly before the siege of Veii, but had since revolted or been recaptured by the Volscians. These various distractions may well account both for the long resistance of Veii, and the general slackness in maintaining the blockade and m the discipline of the Roman camp. Ejects of Xor was its continuance without more enduring effects on the t/ie /onx Roman state. The first step towards creating a military class, and '/7'f\>," changing the citizen, who armed for the summer excursion to protect ar/nv. ^'^ homestead, into the professional soldier, had been taken when Soldiers <^uring the siege of Anxur, in 406, pay for the men serving in the j,,]y. ranks had been decreed. I^ut it was yet a farther step when, during the siege of Veii, the Roman soldier for the first time spent the winter in camp instead of returning to his farm or business. Men who had been for several years absent from their ordinary homes and occupations would never return to them quite the same in spirit or in habits, and there must soon have been some who began to look to the army, not as the occasional sphere of a citizen's duty, but as the calling of the greater part of their life. Tril'utuni. Again, the long continuance in camp of a large army drawing pay must have increased the burden of the tributum ; for during the siege of Veii the cavalry also began to receive pay beyond the ordinary allowance for the public horse. Heavy taxation is a sure prelude to civil discontent ; and it was natural therefore that the plebeians, who felt its weight, should press for a larger share in the government. Rise of Accordingly we find that now they at length succeed in securing one plebeians. or more places among the consular tribunes for men of their order to which they had all along been eligible. It was inevitable indeed that a long war, with frequent variations of success and failure, should test the hold of the patriciate upon the chief administration of affairs. Three hundred years later the nobles failed under such a test in the Jugurthine war. But as yet corruption had not seriously weakened them. They were roused to fresh exertions : they selected their best and most distinguished men for the service of the State : and at length the undertaking was accomplished by one of their most haughty and unpopular champions, Marcus Furius Camillus. Lastly, the long continuance of the siege gave rise, as is the case almost throughout Roman history, to frequent reports of prodigies. THE ALBAN LAKE 85 The most remarkable was the sudden rise in the level of the Alban The rise in lake, threatening- a dangerous inundation in the Campagna, where ^^<^ A /ban many Romans had farms (398). Flood and pestilence, with both of ^'^^^' -^^'^* which the Romans were only too familiar, were regarded as direct signs of divine displeasure. In this case the rise of water seemed more alarming because there had been no unusual rainfall to account for it. Yet Livy reports the previous year to have been marked by a great frost and heavy snow : there was, therefore, a simple explanation of the phenomenon, which would have satisfied a less superstitious age. But a report reached Rome that an old Etruscan augur had been heard to say that " The Romans would never take Veii till an outlet had been made for the waters of the Alban lake." The old man was captured and brought to Rome, where he declared that it was written in the Etruscan books that " the gods would not depart from Veii until, the .A.lban lake being swollen, its waters were drained off by the Romans.'' It was thereupon resolved in the Senate to consult the oracle at Delphi. The answer of the Pythia confirmed the Etruscan, and with rather more directness than usual ordered the Romans to drain the Alban lake, and promised success against their enemy when they had done it. It is useless, in view of the habits of antiquity in regard to such Theansurr things, to object to the story that the Alban lake had nothing to do ^:f ^^"^ with \'eii. The Pythia was asked for advice as to a threatened ^y""'^- flood, and very sensibly answered ''drain the lake." The contingent promise of success in war was as usual founded on information which the priests at Delphi always took care to possess, and was sufficiently vague to save the credit of the oracle, whatever might happen at Veii. But in fact it is not improbable that the work done at the Alban '^f^c outlet lake had an effect on the Roman success, \\hether in obedience to ^f^^^'^ the oracle or no, the great work was accomplished, which seems cer- }^^^J tainly to belong to this age. The cniissarium of the lake is a subter- ranean channel, bored through the tufa rock, i 509 yards long, varying in height from five to ten feet, in breadth averaging- from three to four feet, and giving a fall for the water of about si.xtecn feet. It conducts the water of the lake into a small stream about a mile from Albano, which flows into the Tiber. It is a work of astonishing engineering skill for this age, though the great cloacae show that there were already among- the Romans men capable of dealing with subterranean struc- tures on a large scale ; and ahead)' Fidenae was said to have been taken by means of a tunnel or mine. But this work at the Alban lake is far above anything yet done. It involved not only the long boring through the rock, but the cutting of great perpendicular shafts for the admission of air {sp/mcu/a), traces of which can still be seen. No doubt much experience of tunnelling had been gained in mining 86 HISTORY OF ROME Capture of ]'e.ii, B.C. ?9S- M. Furius Camillus takes com- mand at Veil. for metals ; and this method of capturing towns was well known in Greece, and was afterwards frequently employed by the Romans, i Still, if the Alban einissariinn is of this age, as there seems every reason to believe, we may say either that the experience gained in making it may have helped the sappers at Veii, or that its construc- tion at least shows that there were men at Rome capable of making the tunnel described. Veii at any rate was certainly taken ; and the story of its capture, handed down and believed by the Romans, was this.- In the tenth year of the siege, — the work at the Alban lake having been completed, — the Romans resolved on a supreme effort to end it. There was grave reason to believe that affairs in the camp were going on ill : discipline was relaxed ; men skir- mished at will, or held converse with the enemy ; and it was clear that some man of authority and firmness must be sent to take command. Therefore M. Furius Camillus was made dictator, and he took P. Cornelius as his master of the horse and went to the camp before Veii. He had already ravaged the territory of Falerii (400), and as consular tribune taken and sacked Capena : and, though he seems to have been unpopular with the plebs, he had great qualities as a leader. No sooner did he take the command than a change came over the Roman army. There was a new spirit in the men. Discipline was enforced with rigour ; those who had fled in the presence of the enemy were visited with military punishment ; new soldiers were enrolled, and auxiliaries obtained from the Latins and Hernicans. Having defeated the forces of Capena and Falerii, who were still watching for an opportunity of relieving Veii, he strengthened the lines by the erection of new towers at less distance from each other, and strictly prohibited unauthorised skirmishing between them and the city walls. But above all he pressed on the working of a great mine or tunnel which was to open a way on to the ^ Aeneas Tacticus, xxxvii. ; Poh'b. xxi. 28. - To regard Livy's story as historical up to 397, and then to attribute the rest to a " poem," is at any rate an arbitrary assumption. Nothing can be more rationalistic than Livy's account ; he disavows belief in the dramatic story of the sudden interruption of the Alban sacrifice, and of the voice from Juno's statue. Nothing else is impossible or unlikely in the narrative. The influence of a good disciplinarian and active man in the disordered camp, the added energy which just sufficed to accomplish a work which had been long preparing, are natural circumstances. The emissarium in the Alban lake is a stubborn fact which cannot be attributed to a " Furian poem" or be assigned with better reason to another age than to this. Appeals to oracles, irrational to us, were not so to a Roman ; and the Pythia frequently mentions subjects in her answer which were either not asked, or seemed totally disconnected. Finally, there is precisely the same reason, neither more nor less, to believe Livy in this story as in all the early history. THE FALL OF VEII Zy citadel. Six relays of sappers digging for six hours each carried on the work day and night, until the surface was reached near the temple of Juno. Then Camillus, having first vowed a tenth of the spoil to Apollo of Delphi, ordered an assault to be made on several parts of the wall at once, that the besieged garrison might all be drawn away from the citadel ; while he led a picked company of men through the tunnel, who, springing through the orifice, charged down upon the defenders, set fire to some of the houses, and burst open the city gates, through which the Roman army entered. Veii was at last taken, and a scene of wild disorder and carnage followed, until Camillus proclaimed that the unarmed should be spared. The inhabitants surrendered, and the soldiers were allowed to help them- selves to the spoil. Next day the captive Veientines were sold by auction and their price paid into the treasury. Thus the long struggle with Veii, almost coeval with the rise of the city of Rome, was once and for all laid to rest. The city itself does not appear to have been destroyed ; and its T/ie Fate of Veii. before and after the capture of Rome by the Gauls serious pro- positions were mooted for transferring the chief seat of the Roman people to it. These propositions, however, having been defeated, it gradually dwindled away : and its materials were so constantly carted off for other buildings, that in the time of Augustus it was utterly desolate, and within a century after the Christian era, its very site was a matter of dispute. Two tales connected with the fall of Veii were told by some, both of them regarded by Livy as fabulous. When the Roman soldiers, it was said, came to the mouth of T/w iufer- their tunnel, they could hear just above them an haruspex, attending ^'^'P^'^'^ a sacrifice which was being offered by the Veientine king, declare ^'^^'J"'^ that the victory would be his who should complete the sacrifice by duly cutting the entrails. At the word the Roman soldiers started out of the earth, seized the entrails, and carried them to the dictator, who at once performed the ceremonial act, and was thus pointed out by Heaven as the victor. Again, it was said, when it had been determined to remove the The stahte statue of Juno to Rome, certain young men clothed in white, and (f J'^^o. with bodies duly purified, entered her temple at Veii. For a while they hesitated in awe of the divine figure ; until one of them in jest or earnest ventured to say, " Wilt thou go to Rome, Juno ?" Then a voice was heard to say distinctly " I will." And when they came to move the statue, behold it seemed light and easy to bear, as though the goddess herself were marching along with them. So they bore her to Rome, and a temple was built for her by Camillus on the HISTORY OF ROME c^ap. vii / The Gauls take Mel- putn. Falerii. Aventine. Thus did legend set forth the ancient faith that the gods themselves deserted a captured city and clave to the victorious cause. i Triumph of Camillas was allowed a triumph, and celebrated his victory by Camillus. dedicating a temple of Juno and the Mater Matuta. The tenth of the spoil vowed to Apollo was obtained by allowing those who had it, and who wished to relieve themselves from the religious obligation, to estimate their own share and contribute a tenth. A gold bowl was then made and sent off to Delphi, was captured by pirates of the Lipari Islands, but piously restored by them to the god. Results of The immediate result to Rome of the fall of Veii was a rapid the fall of extension of her influence in Etruria. On the same day, according to a good tradition, the Gauls took the great Etruscan town of Melpum : - and this perhaps gave Rome still greater opportunities of gaining a hold in Etruria, either as conqueror or protector. In 393 Falerii, the next most powerful town of southern Etruria, yielded to the arms of Camillus. It was said that its surrender was made in admiration of his good faith. For when a certain schoolmaster, in charge of the sons of Faliscan nobles, brought his pupils to Camillus as hostages, he ordered the traitor's hands to be tied behind him, and giving the boys rods, bade them drive him back to the town. Yet we may be sure that the Faliscans would not have submitted to a large war-indemnity had they thought themselves able to resist. Volsinii Early in 390 Volsinii was also subdued, whose people had the and year before invaded Roman territory ; and finally the capture of Sutrium. gutj-iuj-pj j-i-iade the Romans masters of all Etruria south of the Ciminian forest, and her influence in the country was shown, fatally to herself, in the appeal for help from Clusium against the Gauls. 1 When Lucan wrote victrix causa diisplacuit, he was enunciating a very old belief, more perhaps Greek than Roman. Thus the goddess Athene was believed to have deserted the Acropolis when the Persian was coming (Herod, viii. 41); Aeschylus told the same tale of Thebes (5. c. Th. 207) ; Vergil imitated him in regard to Troy [Aen. ii. 351) ; and later on Tacitus tells us how. on the firing of the Temple of Jerusajem, audita major Humana vox EXCEDERE Deos ; simul ingens motus excedentium [H. v. 13). The reason, says Euripides, is, that in a desolate citv the gods do not get their due of sacrifice ( Troad. 23). " Its situation is unknown, the neighbourhood of Milan is the most general conjecture. Authorities.— The fall of the B^abii is described by Livy (ii. 48-50); Dionysius (ix. 19-22) ; Diodorus (xi. 53). The subsequent dealings with Veii are also found in Livy (iii.-iv. ) and in Dionysius (ix. 36). The siege and fall in Livy iv. 6i-v. 1-23 ; Dionysius xii^ fr. 8-21 ; Plutarch, Life of Camillus ; Florus i. 12; Eutropius i. 19 ; Zonaras vii. 20-21. A few details of little importance in Appian, Res Ital fr. vL-viii. CHAPTER VIII CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY FROM 509 TO 390 The early Republican government founded on that of the kings — Consuls, quaestors, and people — Effect of Servian reforms — Disabilities of the plebs — Roman civitas — Laws and Patria Potestas — Perduellio and quaestiones — Provocatio — Other laws of Poplicola — The ownership of land — Law of debt — The nexi — Appius Claudius refuses relief to the ncxi — Secession to the Sacred Mount — Tribunes of the plebs appointed : their powers, duties, number, and manner of election— Aediles and their duties — Agrarian law of Spurius Cassius : his impeachment and death (485) — Lex Publilia Voleronis {471)— Proposal by Terentilius to limit and define the power of the consuls— The embassy to Greece (453)— The first decemvirate (451)— The ten tables— The second decemvirate (450) — Change in policy of Appius Claudius — The two new tables — Murder of Sicinius and story of Virginia — Decemvirs deposed and consuls and tribunes elected — Valerio-Horatian laws — Their effects — The laws of the twelve tables — The lex CaTiiileia (445) — Tribuni militarcs consiilari fotestate — Appointment of censors— Increase of poverty — Murder of Spurius Maelius (439) — The four quaestorships open to plebeians (421) — P2xile of Camillus — The tribunes in the Senate — The Gallic invasion — Summary of laws. The abolition of royalty did not at first change the principles on ^^he con- which the government was administered. But what had been done !f A^^^' by one man elected for life was now to be done by two elected for a tors") year. The two yearly magistrates, at first apparently called praetors, 1 take the but afterwards consuls, occupied the place and performed the place of functions, civil and religious, of the king, except special sacred rites ^ ''''•^" for which a " king " was held to be imperatively required, and which were therefore delegated to a 7-ex- sacrorum. As the king had been irremovable for life, so were they for a year. Like him they were supreme judges, commanders-in-chief of the army, representatives of 1 The name given to the headquarters in a Roman camp, praetoriian, among other things, confirms this. Zonaras (vii. 19) says that the name consul was not used until after the decemvirate (449), and Livy (iii. 55) seems to agree with him. Still all Greek and Roman writers, from the habit of their own time, agree in speaking of them as On-arot and "consuls," and it will be most convenient to follow their exami)le. 90 HISTORY OF ROME The the State before foreign governments. Like him they were assisted by a council of " fathers," whom they alone summoned, and whose advice they were not bound to take. As a symbol of this supreme but divided power each was preceded in turn by twelve lictors with fasces and axes, and each sat in the curule chair. The only other regular officials were the quaestors or quaesitores. qicaistors. Originally charged with the duty of tracking crime (or perhaps only murder) and bringing the offenders to justice, they were soon after the expulsion of the kings, if not before, farther charged with the care of the State finances and treasury, and gradually lost their judicial functions. The people. The people, thus governed, were divided broadly into two bodies. First, those who belonged to the gentes, of which there were about fifty, and their clients,^ who, without being actually members of the gentes, were closely connected with them {ge?itilicii though not geiitiles)., and seem to have voted in the thirty curiae into which the gentes were divided. Secondly, those who had settled in Rome for any reason without being members of the gentes, who were reckoned as denizens {i?ico/ae) and not full citizens. These men formed the plebs or multitude, were not counted in the curiae, and originally were not liable to the tribiitiim or military service. Effect of The Servian reforms had included both these classes in a two- Servian ^^j^ division: one local into tribes,^ the other military into 193 7-eforms. . ^ . . ,,1 1 , , •' centuries. From that time all, except the one century^ below the fifth class possessing property of less value than 12,500 asses, were obliged to pay the tributum., and to serve in the army, and to supply themselves with arms according to the class to which their century belonged. All alike, even the one century of capite censi.^ were in- ^ Whatever may be the origin of the clients — a subject of great difficulty — we may note certain facts : (i) The clients were not the same as the plebeians, and are constantly represented as acting with their patrons against them. (2) A client {KKveiv "to hear") owed certain duties of respect and practical service, both in war and money, to his patronus, and xSxe. patro7ius in his turn owed his client pro- tection, especially as his representative in a court of justice, and this obligation was a most solemn and religious one. (3) That though the institution was com- mon in Greek states, the Roman clientela differed from others in being hereditary. (4) Though the clients were not " plebeii " yet there must have been a tendency to recruit their numbers from the plebeians, and for them to become merged again in plebeians on the extinction of gentes. - The four city tribes are universally attributed to the "Servian" reform. Whether the "rustic tribes" were also formed at the same time, and after- wards fell into abeyance owing to a loss of territory, is a vexed question. At any rate at the beginning of the Republic the seventeen rustic tribes existed, called by the names of certain of the patrician gentes. These twenty-one tribes (the four city tribes always remaining unchanged) were raised to twenty-five in 387 ; to twenty-seven in 358 ; to twenty-nine in 332 ; to thirty-five in 241. After this their number was never increased, and they later on ceased to be local. DISABILITIES OF THE PLEBEIANS duded in the tribes, that a census might be taken of their numbers and property. By these means the whole of the inhabitants had been welded together, and may all be called citizens {cives)^ though Gives. not with equal rights. The military division into centuries presently became a civil one The civil also, by means of which all voted in elections and on laws ; and the disalnhtics tribal division still later resulted in making the influence of the m.ass ^, /' . of citizens a reality. But for a long while anything like equality was prevented in several ways : First, the number of centuries assigned to the highest class, The which consisted of the few wealthy, practically left the decision on '^'^<-^tihy all questions to them ; and therefore not only did the plebeians, who ffi^^o^f^jii^^ were generally the less wealthy, not really attain substantial power in the comitia centuriata., but the geiitilicii probably had less than they had formerly exercised in the comitia ciiriata. Secondly, the comitia curiata^ in which plebeians had no share. The still claimed and exercised the right of conferring impcriiim. tnipenum. Thirdly, though all the people voted for magistrates, plebeians The con- were excluded from the consulship, on the religious ground that ^'^'^'"P- patricians alone could take the auspices. Fourthly, the patricians claimed that they alone could contract No religious marriage {co?7ubium)^ and therefore alone could have children cojiubium. jjossessed of full civil rights {fives Optimo jure). The marriage of plebeians, a union with women that they might be mothers {mat?'i- )ii07niim\ did not produce such children. Therefore there could be no legal marriage between patrician and plebeian, the one party to it being incapable of fulfilling the conditions. Thus we have a body of citizens with certain common rights and common burdens, but marked off as to other rights by two distinctions, one between rich and poor in practice, and another in theory and practice alike between patrician and plebeian. That is, the Roman The full civitas, to use a later definition, was composed of two classes of fiK^ii^ "/ rights {Jura): (i) public — the right of voting (Jus suffragii)., the ^^^^^^[ right of holding office {jus honorum\ the right of appeal against a magistrate {jus provocationis) ; (2) private — the right of trading {jus commercii)., the right of contracting a full and religious marriage {jus conubii). Of these the plebeians possessed \)i\Q. jus suffragH.^ though, if poor, their vote went for very little, the jus provocationis^ and the jtis cojumercii., but not the jus ho?ioruin or jus co?iubii. The early constitutional history of Rome is the history of the amal- Patrician gamation of these two orders till the distinction became unimportant, <^nd ple- and, in so far as it still existed, was practically in favour of the lower ,.^ ' ^^^^ order. But the struggles which led to this were continually involved poo,-. with the inevitable and more lasting struggle between rich and poor. 92 HISTORY OF ROME The two react upon each other, are sometimes mistaken for each other, and each lends to the other its peculiar bitterness. Up to 4^1 Among an industrial people the struggle for a share in the privi- is^ii^^aimt^ leges of office, and especially unpaid office, as the Roman honor was, thc)'^''"^>'^' free markets by the abolition of market dues (yportoria) for citizens. But this would not be sufficient without equitable arrangements as to the ownership of the land itself Whether it is true or not that at first all land was held in common by a gens, it seems certain that at the beginning of the Republic private ownership existed. The State, however, retained certain lands in its own power, which were increased from time to time by territories of conquered cities. This land was treated in one of three ways. It was either granted in allotments to needy citizens, or was let on lease to possessores^ or was retained as common pasture. In the last two cases it was called agcr piiblicus. Various grievances arose regarding both classes of land. Allotments averaged seven ji/<^mr (about 4^ acres), and were barely sufticient to maintain a family. Consequently loss or misfortune frequently compelled the sale of sucli farms, which had a tendency to accumulate in fewer hands, while the numbers of ' the landless and discontented increased. Again, the rich man ' frequently treated the portion of the a<^rr piiblicus leased from the State as his freehold, inalienable and incapable of redivision ; or, I in the parts kept as public pasture, fed more sheep and oxen than ' he was entitled to do. The poorer plebeian, therefore, always strove I to have conquered lands divided, and not kept as oorr piiblicus ; I while the landless men, who got allotments at a distance, were j inclined to regard their migration as an almost equal grievance. If the rich men, they argued, had not monopolised the public pastures ^ The Valerio-Horatian laws (449) ordained that any one who procured the election of a magistrate sitie provocatione should be outlawed. There were on this subject also a lex Valeria B.C. 300 (Livy x. 9) ; two leges Porcine before i?.r. 184. None of them, according to Cicero {de Rep. ii. § 54), added anything to * tlie substance of the law, only to the penalties attaching to a violation of it. 94 HISTORY OF ROME Debt. 4gS- Coss. Appius Claudius, P. Servi- liiis. Tht " iirxi." Great ex- citemetit in the city. with their herds, and treated the lands which they leased at a nominal rental as their own, there would have been enough land at home to divide among those who had been ruined while serving their country in arms. But though it was bad enough to be landless, it was far worse to be a prisoner and a slave, and the Roman law of debt made many men both. The principle on which this law or custom proceeded was that a thing pledged as security passed completely into the power of the mortgagee. Thus, when the debtor's property was exhausted, his person was absolutely in the hands of his creditor. He was not yet a slave, but he was nexiis^ and custom — afterwards, no doubt, embodied in the laws of the twelve tables — authorised his creditor to load him with chains, and, after a certain period, to sell him as a slave. It does not appear that the sale of a defaulting debtor was more shocking to the sentiment of the day than was im- prisonment (often lifelong) for debt in recent times among ourselves ; and the ancient writers aver that the more brutal practice, recognised by the law of the twelve tables, of several creditors dividing a debtor's body, was never actually carried out. But the position of a nexus, neither free nor slave, seems to have been regarded as one of peculiar hardship ; and at any rate when the number of citizens in that position was large, and the circumstances reducing them to it such as to appeal to sympathy, the discontent became formidable. In the year 495 one of the usual levies was required against the Volscians. The Forum was filled with a crowd of the discontented plebeians, when suddenly one of these unhappy Jiexi appeared, clothed in rags, emaciated and deadly pale, with long shaggy hair and untrimmed beard. He was recognised as one who had served as a centurion with conspicuous bravery, and he now pointed to the scars of the wounds received in the wars, and the marks of scourging inflicted on him by his cruel creditors. He had a pitiful tale to tell. His farm had been ravaged in a Sabine raid ; all his cattle had been driven off and his homestead burnt ; he had to borrow money to pay the war-tax {tribiitiiDi) ; the debt had accumulated with usury ; and his creditors had then seized his person, tortured and imprisoned him in an ergasiuliim, as though he were already a slave. Horror and pity seized the people, and the long- smouldering discontent broke into a blaze. The Forum was filled with angry shouts ; many of the unfortunate nexi^ forcibly delivered, threw themselves upon the protection of the citizens, and some of the senators who were in the Forum found themselves in the midst of an excited crowd, and were roughly handled. The people demanded that a meeting of the Senate should be summoned, and measures devised for relief Some senators answered the summons of the THE HARSH LAWS OF DEBT 95 consuls, but the majority were afraid, and the anger of the people seemed likely to end in open violence. But in the midst of the tumult news came that the Yolscians were on the march. The people at first refused to enlist. But the more moderate of the two consuls, Servilius, induced them to do their duty to the country by an edict, which was regarded as a security for the present, and as holding out hope for the future. " No nexus was to be hindered by Edict in his creditor from giving in his name to the levy; no one was relief of the to seize or sell the goods of a debtor while he was serving in the ^'^'^^' army, or to confine his sons or grandsons in security for him." Then the people gave in their names for the levy ; the Volscians were repulsed, as well as the Sabines and Aurunci. But border frays are soon over, and the soldiers on their return Repealed were enraged by a decision of the consul Appius, which placed the ^y Apptus. nexi in the same position as before. The power of the creditor over his debtor was to be exactly as it stood prior to the war. Riots Consequent attended the rescue of one iiexus after another as he was being led riots. off by his creditor ; the city was full of rumours and clamour, and when Appius tried to arrest a ringleader of the crowd, he was forced to release him on his appeal to the people. The resistance of the plebeians became still more formidable 494. Cass. next year, because better organised. Some of them met regularly ^; ^ ^^S''- on the Aventine, others on the Esquiline ; and the patricians saw '"Z'"^' . ' that these informal concilia piebis might soon arrogate an authority Meetings of superior to their own. But when the consuls tried to suppress them the plebs. by holding a levy against the Volscians, the plebeian youth firmly refused to give in their names. An attempt to arrest one of them was met by a noisy scene of violence, and finally it was determined that a dictator should be named to put down the disturbance and carry on the war. Happily not Appius Claudius, who was hateful to the plebeians, M\ Val- but Manius Valerius Volusus (brother of Poplicola) was named, '^^'^^^ ^^^' whose more popular sentiments were known and whose character '^^^_^'^^^'-^"^^ made him trusted. He induced the young men to enlist by an edict The Senate of protection to debtors similar to that of the previous year; and, refuse relief when the army returned victorious from the Volscian war, he brought ^'^ *^^^ "^^^■ a motion before the Senate to secure milder treatment for the jicxi. The motion was rejected, and Valerius abdicated his dictatorship rather than be the instrument of a breach of faith. "You will some day wish," he said to the Senate, " that the plebeians had patrons like me." But this made him more beloved, and enabled him to exercise a salutary influence in the quarrel. The Senate dared not disband the army lest the demands against which they were resolved should again cause popular tumults. So 96 HISTORY OF ROME The armed citizens retire to the ' 'Sacred Mount," 493- Alarm of the st/Ki- tors. Alencfiius Agrippa. Tribuni plebis ap- pointed, 493- Nature and limits of the power of tribunes. long as the legions were subject to the imperiuin of the consul, they believed that they had a firm hold upon the most formidable part of the population. Under the pretext therefore of a fresh danger from the Aequians the legions were again ordered out under the consul. But the soldiers were also citizens. They resolved that they would no longer submit to injustice. " Let us kill the consul," was the first suggestion, " and so be free of our military oath." But a crime could not annul a religious obligation : and they finally conceived and executed a measure, which has ever since been justly celebrated as the most glorious of revolutions, because unstained by bloodshed and violence, while effectually proving to the oppressive minority what they would lose by persisting in an unrighteous policy. On the advice of one Sicinius the armed citizen -soldiers marched in good order beyond the Anio, and occupied a hill, which came in after times, in memory of this event, to be called the Sacred Mount. They took nothing with them but what was necessary to support life ; but they fortified the usual camp, and remained quietly there for many days, neither attacked nor attacking. This famous " secession," therefore, was not the withdrawal of an unarmed populace, but the deliberate abandonment of the cit)- by the flower of the fighting force, which Rome, surrounded by enemies, could not afford to lose. The patres were naturally alarmed, and soon determined to negotiate. Menenius Agrippa was sent, and is said to have won over the host to moderate counsels by the fable of the rebellion of the members against the belly, which, being starved, was avenged by the decay of the seditious parts. But we may safely conclude that no story, however ingenious, would have persuaded the seceders to return without solid concessions. The negotiations ended in a compromise. The plebeians were to have officers appointed from their own ranks, whose special duty should be to protect citizens against the harsh sentences of the consuls. As the officers commanding the people under arms were called tribunes, so these were to be called by the same name.i Henceforth there would be two kinds of tribunes, the tribuni 7nilifu?n, elected to command the legions on service, and Tribuni Plebis, elected for a year to protect the people not under arms. Accordingly, their authority was confined to a mile radius round the pomoeriiim. That is, it could be exercised against the consul when acting in the city or holding a levy in the Campus, but not against his iinperium when in command of an army outside. How far it availed against the imperium of a dictator was a moot point. But this was of comparatively little importance ; for the dictator was only occasion- ^ This point is dwelt on by Zonaras, vii. 15. VIII THE TRIBUNES OF THE PLEBS 97 ally appointed, usually for some special civil function, which being performed he abdicated immediately, or for some military expedition which took him at once out of Rome. At most his office lasted for only six months. The consuls, on the other hand, were judges as well as military commanders, and it was generally against hardships inflicted by them in that capacity that the tribunes were to act. They were not magistrates in the ordinary sense, and had no fixed sphere of duty {proviJicia). Their power was negative ; they could stay proceedings. Their veto or intercession stopped the action of a magistrate, and gradually various other public business ; while their right of summoning and addressing the plebs {jiis agcndi cum picbe) in time gave them an important legislative position. The lex Icilia (492) j^^x made their persons sacred, and exposed to a curse any one obstructing sacrata, them or offering them or their officers violence. In case of dis- 49^- obedience they could arrest and imprison even the consul himself,^ and by the lex Ate7'nia Tarpeia (454) could inflict a fine. They were assisted by two other plebeian magistrates, appointed at the same time, called Aediles, who transacted legal business confined to the plebs, and had charge of all documents connected with the plebeian concilia. As their primary duty was to give aid {auxilitwi) I to all citizens at all times, whether against a magisterial decision, or I the payment of tribute, or a military levy, the tribunes were bound ' to keep the doors of their houses always open, and not to be more than one day absent from Rome except during \}i\^ fe7-iae Latinae. There is some variation in our authorities as to the original Number ' number of the tribunes. Livy says two were first elected, C. of tribunes. Licinius and L. Albinus, who then held an election of three colleagues. Cicero also speaks of two being first created, but Dionysius says I that five were elected at once. Diodorus, again, that two were elected ; in the first instance, and raised to four in 471.- Whatever was the j original number it seems certain that there were soon five, and after I 457 ten. If the full number was not created by the comitia., those I elected had to fill up the vacancies by co-optation ; and in 438 a law I was passed compelling the president at the election to go on with I the comitia until ten were elected.^ As difficult is the question of the manner of their election. Here 1 They had, that is, the jus prehensionis , but not the right of summoning j {jus vocationis), which, however, was sometimes ignorantly e.xercised {^Aul. Cell. xiii. 12). 2 Cicero, de Rep. ii. 34 ; Livy ii. 58 ; Dionys. vi. 89 ; Diodorus xi. 68. ^ Lex Trebonia, Livy iii. 65 nt qui plebe?n Romanam tribunos plebi rogafet, is usque eo rogaret, dtim decefn tribu7ios plebei faceret. They entered on their functions on the 12th of December, and a severe punishment — even, it is said, burning alive — could be imposed on tribunes abdicating before the election of their successors. H 98 HISTORY OF ROME How elected. Consequent groivtli of the power of ple- beians. 486. Cass. Spurius Cassius, Proculus Vir^inius. Agrarian law of Spurius Cassius. apparently was the part of the compromise in favour of the patricians. They agreed to recognise the plebeians as a constituent body, so far as to allow them to have officers of their own ; in return the plebeians were content that their tribunes should be elected by the cufiae, in which, though the clients of the patrician gentes appear to have voted, the patricians themselves had the determining voice. Others have thought that tribunes were from the first elected by the plebeians, though voting by curiae and not by tribes. But these plebeian comitia or concilia curiata are wholly unknown in connexion with anything else, and their existence is denied by most scholars. ^ The most striking effect of the appointment of tribunes — setting aside personal hardships which they may have prevented — was the rapid growth of plebeian organisation. The informal concilia of the plebs became more and more important, as the tribunes exercised their privilege of summoning and consulting them, and eventually obtained recognition first as an elective and then as a legislative coinilia. But the twenty-three years which elapsed before the next advance of the plebeian assembly witnessed also a recrudescence of the old difficulty as to poverty and the possession of land. In the year 486 the consul Spurius Cassius, wise negotiator of the renewed Latin League, appears to have seen that this poverty demanded measures of rehef. In the previous year (487) the Hernici had been conquered and some of their lands had become the property of the Roman people. Instead of treating this as ager ptiblicus to be let out at fixed rentals, which would put it into the hands of capitalists, Spurius Cassius proposed to divide it in absolute ownership among landless men, Roman and Latin. Livy calls this the first agrarian law ever promulgated. But captured lands had been dealt with before ; what was peculiar about this law was that for the first time it proposed to recognise the right of Latins to share with Romans ; and, secondly, that it was to have a retrospective effect, for it contained a clause dealing with land already made ager piiblicus., but occupied by private owners. This land it proposed to let out at fair rents, or to add it to what was now to be divided among poor plebeians. It was ^ The various theories on this subject that have found adv^ocates are collected by Willems, Droit public Romain, p, 280, note 4. Cicero, pro Cornelio, fr. 23, says distinctly mispicato postero a?ino tribu?ii plebis comitiis curiatis creati sunt ; and the concilia of the plebs were not "auspicato." Mommsen's theory of the concilia plebis cztriata is chiefly supported by Dionysius vi. 89, vefxiqdeU 6 brjixos els TCLs t6t€ ovaas (pparpias. cLs eKeXvoL KaXoucn Kovpias. On the other hand Livy says that the bill of Publilius Volero in 471 " took away from the patricians the power of electing by means of their clients whom they chose as tribune" — quae patriciis omnem potestatem per clienfitim stiffragia creandi quos vellent tribunos auferrefit (ii. 56), a description which could only apply to the comitia curiata. 4Ss-47^- VIII DEATH OF SPURIUS CASSIUS 99 this which made the patricians hostile to the measure ; while the consul Virginius skilfully used the clause admitting Latins to a share to excite popular prejudice against the bill and its author. Cassius doubtless inserted this clause in pursuance of that con- Spurius ciliatory policy towards the states of Latium, which had contributed so ""^^J^\)f^ much to the reconstitution of the League, But it was enough to take a?id put 'to the bloom off the gift in the jealous eyes of the citizens ; and Cassius, death, ^Sj therefore, lost much of the support for which he might have looked, when as a priv^ate person, in the year after his consulship, he was charged with attempting kingly power, condemned, and put to death.i Besides his agrarian law another measure proposed by him was held to support the charge. Gelo of Syracuse, it is said, had T/ie \ sent a present of corn to the Roman people— perhaps as a recogni- ^_^"^l"m tion of their hostility to the common Etruscan enemy, which should fj^^ji have been distributed free ; and Cassius now proposed that the low price paid for it should be refunded.- The fate of Cassius foreshadowed that of Maelius and the Patricitui ! Gracchi, and of others who ventured to make a stand in behalf of ^^'^J[^"P ' ! the poor and helpless against class privilege and selfishness. But i if it be true that the people were beguiled into a base desertion of I their wise champion, they were rightly punished by a long subjection ( to the patricians. The consulship not only became more and more ' an exclusively patrician office, but seemed gradually becoming i hereditary in the Fabian family. The tribunes themselves were for ' the most part tools in the hands of the patricians. If one bolder j than the rest, as Spurius Licinius in 481, ventured to speak of the necessity of reviving the agrarian proposals of Cassius, he was I promptly silenced by his more accommodating colleagues. In 475 j two tribunes had indeed successfully prosecuted T. Menenius, for I he was already discredited by having sustained a defeat on the I Cremera ; but another tribune, A. Genucius, who in 473 ventured j to bring a consular to trial, was murdered in his bed. j It was apparently this last event which led to the next advance Lcx^ i of the plebeians. This was the formal recognition by the lex Pub- I lilia Voleronis of the right of the people to elect tribunes and aediles ] by voting in tribes (471). This was only obtained after a violent struggle, in which Appius Claudius again came forward as the most 1 The formal name of the crime charged \V5S> perdue II io (see p. 92 ; Livy ii. 41). A tradition followed by Cicero {de legg. ii. 23) represented the quaestors as acting the part of accusers. Others represent him as condemned by his own father in virtue of the patria potestas. - The present of corn had been made in the famine year 192. Dionysius (viii. 70), Plutarch {Co?-ioI. xvi. ) and Livy (ii. 4) speak of the Siculum fyume?itum ( without naming the king ; but others had made the mistake of attributing the gift to Dionysius (Dionys. vii. i). Publilia l^olcronis, 471. HISTORY OF ROME Tj-ibunes elected by the comitia tributa. Results of lex Publi- lia, 4JI- 454- uncompromising opponent of the plebeian demand. The senators, however, wisely gave way, and the law was sanctioned by their aicctoritas and passed. Thus the informal co7icilia plebis became recognised as an elective body — comitia tributa. In this the patricians had a right indeed to vote, but their comparatively small numbers would have given them little weight if they had, and for a time at any rate they abstained.^ The plebs also thus obtained the power of electing tribunes who would not be completely under patrician influence ; and the tribunes could legally invite the comitia to pass resolutions {plebiscita), which, though not binding on the whole popithes, had yet a great moral weight from the first, and gradually obtained the force of laws binding on all. Another advantage of thus voting in tribes was that it did not require the auspices to be first taken, and was therefore free from many hin- drances, which the patricians — in sole possession as yet of the sacer- dotal and augural colleges — could offer to the proceedings of the comitia curiata or centujiata.'^ The lex Piiblilia Volero?iis ^ in ordaining that the tribunes should henceforth be elected by the comitia tributa., at present practically an exclusively plebeian assembly, may have only given legal sanction to an existing custom, the curiate assembly seldom venturing to disallow the informal nomination of the co7icilium plebis. But the formal acknowledgment of the right was -nevertheless a great step. We may see perhaps the fruit of it in the greater exertions made by the tribunes to secure an equitable arrangement of the public land in 461, when the plebeians demanded allotments at home rather than in the territory of the newly-conquered Antium ; in the attempt of the tribune C. Terentilius in 462 to limit the power of the consuls by definite enactments as to their functions ; in the impeachment of Caeso Ouintius who opposed Terentilius in 461 ; in the carrying of the lex Icilia in 456 for redividing the land on the Aventine for building, involving the disturbance of many who had encroached on it ; in frequent interferences in the yearly levies ; and finally in the raising the numbers of the tribunes themselves from five to ten, which, though it did not turn out in practice to enhance their ^ The comitia tributa as an elective assembly must always have included patricians who were like the rest assessed in the tribes. But when this assembly met for deliberative purposes it was at first only the old concilium plebis, and from it the patricians were excluded (Livy ii. 60). ^ Dionysius iv. 49. But in later times the auspices seem to have been taken at the cojJiitia tributa (see Cicero, ad Fain. ix. 30). ^ The "law" of Volero is perhaps properly to be called zl plebiscitum. But a. plebiscituinha-d not yet the force of a law, and it must in some way have been passed by the whole people. Livy (xxxix. 26) says of Volero that he tulit ad POPULUM, and calls it a lex (ch. 57). VIII PROPOSAL FOR A WRITTEN CODE loi power,! is an indication of increased business and importance. The condition which the Senate attempted to impose, that the same men should not be re-elected tribunes, was neglected in practice. But the proposal of Terentilius to limit the power of the consuls Evc7its by definite written enactments, after his rogatio had been fiercely leading to debated for ten years, was now to be carried out in a more complete ^^'^fi^^^ manner. The impeachment of the consuls for 455 by a tribune ^iratl and an aedile, and their condemnation and fining by the people nominally on the question of division of booty, but really, it seems, because they had not carried out the law for dividing the land on the Aventine — led to the acceptance of a compromise proposed by the tribunes, that a commission for drafting a written code of laws should be appointed. For the plebeians this would secure that the power of the magistrates should not be used against them illegally, and for the patricians it held out the hope that the tribuneship would be unnecessary. Hence the patricians did not persist in their resistance to the Terentilian proposal any longer ; and the plebeians were content for a time to abstain from electing tribunes, expecting that , their protection would, for the short time of the siispension of the j office, be supplied by the action of some of the new board, who were I meanwhile to supersede all the regular magistrates ; while the written I laws would strengthen the hands of the tribunes, when again appointed, against consular tyranny. I The principle of confining the power of punishment possessed Laws of j by the consul within definite limits had indeed been conceded by the Sp. Tar- I lex Tarpeia-Aternia, which limited the fine which he could impose ^^^^^ 1 to two cows and thirty sheep ; 2 but it was also necessary that their ^2tei^'ius \ power should be farther limited by the laws in virtue of which the ^j-^. I whole administration was carried on. It was now resolved that such a code should be drawn up and exposed in public for all to see and read. But first certain commissioners were to be nominated to examine 453-452. land copy the best codes in existence among the Greeks, and especi- ^°!"'. •ally the laws of Soloh at Athens. Accordingly Sp. Postumius Albus, ZlTtT^"^' ,A. Manlius, and Ser. Sulpicius set out for Greece. Athens was then Greefe. jat the height of her prosperity, and Pericles was her leading states- Iman. It is not therefore in itself improbable that her fame jShould have attracted those in search of model legislation. Still it would have been a more obvious thing for Romans to visit the Greek ^ Because in a larger number opposite interests and opinions were more likely to arise ; and in fact we find the college of tribunes frequently divided and one party preventing the action of the other. It was this that made such a power workable at all (Zon. vii. 15). ^ - Or, as some have it, thirty cows and two sheep. I02 HISTORY OF ROME The iiatm'e of the pro- posed legis- lation. The decem- virate wholly patrician. First dc- cemviratc, 451- The ten tables. cities of Italy, in some of which constitutions had been drawn up by those who made such work their special profession. Probably they did visit some of these towns ; and there was a tradition that a certain Hermodorus of Ephesus, who was then living at Rome, contributed to the formation of the code.i Of the visit to Athens there is no trace in Greek writers of the classical time ; and the laws of the twelve tables are not known to us with sufficient complete- ness to enable us to feel sure how much, if anything, was taken from those of Solon.- The demand was not for a change in the laws, much less for anything like a revolution, but that the secret, jealously guarded for so long, of what the laws were, and what was the right method of putting them in motion, should be the common property of all. The secret had been well kept, partly, perhaps, because there was little to keep. As in the case of our own early history, the number cf written laws was probably small. The government was carried on in accordance with ancient traditions and customs, of which the knowledge was confined to a few. But the authority of the magis- trate was a living and patent fact, from which all might suffer at any hour ; and now that the people had become conscious of their cor- . porate existence, it was natural that they should claim to know how far this authority extended, what it was they had to obey, what regulated the transactions and obligations of the market-place, the relation of patron and client, of master and slave, of father and son. The three commissioners returned in the autumn of 452, and thereupon the decemvirs were appointed. The claim of plebeians to places on the board appears to have been waived on the condition that the Icilian law for the division of the Aventine, and the leges sacratae., on which rested the inviolability of the tribunes, should be left untouched. Among the ten were the two consuls-elect, Appius Claudius and T. Genucius, who, in virtue of the office thus suspended, were looked upon as holding the first rank ; the three commissioners who had been sent to Greece ; and five other patricians. All took turns in administering justice, and each had the twelve lictors and fasces only on his day, the rest being each attended by a single usher {acceiisus). The rule of these decemvirs for their year is admitted to have been excellent. Justice was fairly administered, and the rights of the citizens duly respected. Within a few months ten tables of laws, which they had drafted, were exposed for public criticism and ^ Pomponius, ap. Dig. i, 2, 2, § 4; Strabo xiv. i, 25 ; Pliny N. H. xxxiv. ■-' A regulation as to lawful sodalitates is said by Gains [D. 47, 22, 4) to have been taken from a law of Solon. It is generally placed in the eighth table. vni THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE 103 emendation, and after being thus improved were passed by the centuriate assembly. What followed is not very easy to understand. The code was The second believed to be as yet incomplete, and decemvirs were thought neces- decemvir- sary again for the following year. Perhaps the Senate was induced ^^^' 45o. to consent to this as a farther postponement of the evil day of the re-establishment of the tribunate ; while the plebeians, conciliated by the moderation of the first decemvirs, were willing to consent to a farther suspension of the constitution for the completion of a busi- ness, advantageous to themselves, asserted to be still in some respects defective. Livy, who represents Appius Claudius all through as exercising the chief influence among his colleagues, now depicts him as exerting himself to secure his own re-election, with I elaborate display of popular sentiments, and at the same time as taking care to replace the aristocratic members of the old board, whom he regarded as likely to stand in the way of the tyrannical policy which : he was secretly intending to pursue. According to Livy's view of Appius , the policy of Appius this is not unintelligible. He regards him as Claudius. ' having been playing a part all along. He was an aristocrat, who ; feigned popular views to secure power for himself. When this was I once obtained, his most formidable opponents would be precisely I the strongest aristocrats, who, opposed to popular equality, were still ( more jealous of the personal supremacy of one man, though of their I own order. His aim, therefore, was to have colleagues whose posi- I tion was not high enough to give them the means of effectively opposing him. Three of them were plebeians, and none men of the first consideration. ^ He now threw off the mask. The people were astonished to see Their I that, instead of each member of the board in his turn being accom- ^arsA rule. : panied by the twelve lictors, all appeared in the Forum with these attendants, whose fasces also contained the axe, symbol of power sine provocatio7ie, which the consuls themselves only presumed to adopt when outside the city. It soon became apparent that this was no idle change. Acts of severity followed in quick succession ; no man's life, no woman's honour, was safe. Instead of an authority rendered less oppressive by subdivision, and the tribuneship being replaced by the mutual check of the colleagues on each other, the 1 plebeians found themselves under ten tyrants instead of two. The Two new decemvirs, it is true, justified their appointment by producing two ''^'^^^•^• I additional tables of laws, afterwards ratified on the proposal of the consuls of 449.1 But when the time came for the elections they ^ It has been assumed that the last two tables contained oppressive or unjust laws, but there is no sign of this. They are ratified immediately after the abdica- Ition of the decemvirs, apparently without opposition. Cicero's remark about 104 HISTORY OF ROME Alienation of the patricians. Unsuccess- ful wars with Sabines a fid Acquians, 449- Murder of Sicinius. Viriiinia. showed no intention of abdicating or holding the coiuitia for the usual magistrates of the next year. This was tyranny, and the feehngs of both orders were equally outraged. The decemvirs had already offended the patricians by neglecting to consult the Senate. But the senators were apparently afraid to protest. Most of them, indeed, left the city and employed themselves on their country properties ; and when, in the early part of 449, a threatened raid of the Sabines and Aequians induced the decemvirs to summon a meeting, scarcely enough members were to be found to make up a quorum. The plebeians murmured loudly that the senators deserted the cause of freedom from cowardice. But at last, when a fairly full meeting was secured, two senators, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus, giving voice to the popular discontent, ventured to attack the conduct of the decemvirs in strong terms, and were supported by C. Claudius, uncle of Appius. The Senate seemed on the point of voting that their office was vacant, and that intcrrcges should be named to hold the consular elections. For the present, however, the necessity of a levy stayed farther proceedings. Two armies were raised, commanded by eight of the decemvirs, while Appius and Sp. Oppius remained at Rome, The Roman arms were not successful, and this in itself brought fresh discredit on the government. But two instances of oppression are said to have brought matters to a climax. The first was the murder of the centurion Sicinius, who was serving in the Sabine war. He was reported to have used seditious words as to the necessity of restoring tribunes ; and though he had been long famous for gallantry in the wars, he was murdered by his comrades when employed in choosing a camp, and every one believed that it was done at the instigation of the decemvirs. The second was the famous case of Virginia. Her father, Virginius, was serving in the camp at Algidus, and Virginia was in the care of friends in Rome. While walking through the streets she had attracted the licentious eyes of Appius, so the story goes, and by an unjust judicial decision he adjudged her to be the slave of one of his own clients, whom he instigated to claim her on the plea that she was really the daughter of one of his slaves, and had been secretly adopted by the wife of Virginius. It is not altogether unaccountable, as has been alleged, that Appius, who was acting so tyrannically in many other ways, should prefer to act in this case with a show of legality rather than by open violence. He must them seems to refer solely to the matter of conubium. In regard to that he speaks the sentiment of a later age {dc Rep. 2, § 63). Though the plebeians soon tried to get rid of this particular enactment, it does not seem to have been new in principle, only it was now for the first time definitely expressed. kills his daui^hte ieclares against the decemvirs. VIII RESTORATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 105 have known of trhe growing feeling against him, and would not rouse more widespread opposition, or give his enemies more hold upon him than he could help. It is a favourite device of tyrants, and not the least galling, to cover their, oppressions under a form of law.^ Virginius was hastily summoned from the camp at Algidus, and Mrginius when he found that, in spite of his protests, Appius had formally assigned Virginia as a slave to his client, he seized a knife from a neighbouring stall and stabbed her to the heart to save her from dishonour. Then the popular indignation broke into fury. Appius was driven from the Forum, when trying to effect the arrest of Virginius and of Lucius Icilius, the betrothed lover of Virginia, after vainly attempting to make himself heard. The agitation spread from the city to the two camps. The armies deposed their The army decemviral commanders, elected ten military tribunes, and marching to Rome, occupied the Aventine. Hence, after some fruitless negotiations with the Senate, which Appius was still able to summon, the armed plebs repeated their former manoeuvre of marching out of Rome and occupying the " Sacred Mount." This brought an Secession. immediate concession. L. Valerius and M. Horatius, being employed to negotiate, agreed that the decemvirs should abdicate and tribunes be appointed. The Pontifex Maximus, the only existing magistrate, held the co7>iifia, and the election of ten popular tribunes seems at I once to have given an importance to the resolutions of the concilium plebis which it never lost. We have seen that by the lex Publilia , (471) the concilium had become a comitia for electing tribunes, but I it has not hitherto had a defined position as a legislative assembly. I Now we hear of its passing a resolution of amnesty for all those --^ p^^^bi- who had taken part in the secession (for a breach of the military ^'^^^"^ ^f . sacramentum had no doubt been involved), and on the motion of a I tribune, M. Duillius, resolving that consuls should be elected I cum p7'ovocatione. These resolutions {piebiscita)., though no constitu- I tional rule gave them the force of a law, were apparently accepted as I binding. j The Senate thereupon, in obedience to them, named i?iterreges V^^h'rio- I who held the election of consuls. L. Valerius and M. Horatius were J returned, and immediately brought in a series of laws which bear Horatian hnvs, ././g. \ ^ Dr. Ihne holds that Appius's real object, as shown by the plebeian element 1 in the second decemvirate, was to heal the breach between the orders, and thus I make tribunes unnecessary. That this turned the strict party of patricians against him, who prevented the two tables being passed, as containing regulations they disliked. That the patricians were aljle to overthrow him, because in the second year he was in an unconstitutional position. That the secession took place after the abdication of Appius, because of a patrician attempt to prevent tribunes being restored. That the stories of Sicinius and Virginia were patrician inventions. io6 HISTORY OF ROME their name. The first was a recognition of the binding nature of the resolution of the plebs {ut quod tributim plcbcs jussisset populu)}i teneret). The second condemned to instant death any magistrate returning as elected a magistrate si?ie proi'ocatione. The third devoted to a curse all who violated the plebeian magistrates, — tribunes, aediles, or judges, — and dedicated their property to Ceres. Another plebiscitum, proposed by M. Duillius, ordered that any one depriving the plebs of tribunes, or " creating " a magistrate without provocation should be put to death. Appius Claudius was impeached, and committed suicide in prison. The result The result, then, of the movements of the years 471 to 449 were, of events in j^at the plebeians had secured the election of their tribunes by them- 47'- 1 19- selves ; had obtained a written code of laws, engraved on bronze, so that all might know them ; had secured that the resolutions of the plebeian assembly should be binding on the whole populus. • It is not certain whether some confirmation of the plchiscita by the auctoritas patrum was required to make them valid after this ; but we know that two subsequent laws were passed on the subject, which would seem to imply that the effect of the first needed some- [Legcs Ptib- thing to complete its object. The three leij^cs rubliliae (339)^ liitae,j^j^).) supplied what was wanting up to a certain point : the first re-enacted the provision /// piebiscita omnes (Jin'rifes hticrejit ; the second ordered the auctoritas of the fathers (that is, a resolution of the Senate) to be given beforehand in favour of laws passed in the centuriate assembly ; the third pro\ided for the delegation of certain powers of the consuls to censors at such time as the plebeians should be admitted to both consulships. The ivork' This does not seem to do anything directly for the authority of ing and \\^^ comitia tribufa. Like the renewal of charters by successive kings '^"f^tj'. "T^ ^^"^ o*^^ o^^^ history, it only confirms a right already existing, but ;.,,,/^. " which had been, or was in danger of being, infringed. But indirectly it does much. It took from the senators the power of stopping the passing of a law in the centuriate assembly, and if it left them still the formal power of doing so to piebiscita^ it made that power ^ Livy \-iii. 12. For the difficult subject of the exact effect of this series of laws, the reader must consult larger treatises — Mommsen's H'dmische Forschungen, i. 165; Soltau's Die Giiltigkcit der Plebiscite ; B. Borgeaud, Histoire dii PUbiscite. Two articles maintaining another theory are contributed by Mr. Strachan-Davidson to the English Historical Review, April 1886, July 1890. Mr. Strachan-Davidson's theory, as 1 understand it, is this. A plebiscitum by the Valerio-Horatian laws went through three processes : having been passed by the plebs, the consul was bound to bring it before the centuriata, before which he must have an auctoritas patrum. The Publilian law abolished the necessity for the auctoritas patrujn, and forced tlie consul to bring it before the centuriata at once. The Hortensian law made this unnecessary ; directly it passed the plebs it became law. This may be so, but there is no good proof oi piebiscita ever going before the centuriata. VIII THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES 107 comparatively valueless. For the auckn'itas of the Senate was now a mere formality : it did not regard the substance of a law, it gave approval in advance — in practice something like the royal assent to Bills that have passed both Houses in the English Parliament. Such being the case, the Fathers would scarcely venture to exercise an antiquated right (one too which probably rested on no law) as against an assembly whose decrees had been more than once declared to be of equal validity. Long afterwards the lex Horteiisia (286) swept away all impediments to the authority of phiu'sa'ta, whatever they were, and from that period the legislative powers of the two coiiiitia were concurrent. The laws of the twelve tables, however, did nothing towards It did ?iot equalising the orders. They were merely a codification of existing touch the laws and customs, with modifications suggested by inspection of l^/^./'.^^,^ (Jreek laws, or by proposals of the decemvirs and others while they and pkbei- were being drafted. Their existence had a conservative efiect on ans. Roman jurisprudence, and helped to preserve throughout Roman history a oneness of spirit in the laws affecting civil rights, which survived much political change. But though it was a benefit to every one to have definite and known enactments in place of inde- finite customs or unwritten laws, there was nothing in them specially favourable to popular rights, or tending to the relief of the poor. On the contrary, like our own Magna Charta, they bear the stamp of the property-holding legislator, whose chief object is to enable every man to hold his own ; and who looks upon the validity of contract as more important than saving individual suffering. Thus tiie first three tables dealt with forms of civil process and Tables recovery of debt, sanctioning and confirming the most extreme claim '• "• '"• of creditor over debtor, even to the dividing of his body among several creditors. The fourth and fifth confirmed the most absolute iv. v. patria potestas — apparently with no qualification except the freedom of the son after the third sale by his father — and regulated the tutela of women. The sixth and seventh dealt with property rights, sale, vi. 7>ii. encroachments, easements, rights of way, and the like. The eighth viii. dealt with what lawyers call " torts " — acts of an individual inflicting any harm on another. The principle is that of compensation, A broken limb may be avenged by retaliation or fixed money payment, according as the sufferer is free or bond, A night thief, or one who defends himself with a weapon, may be killed. If caught in the act he may be beaten or sold as a slave : if already a slave may be hurled from the rock. Convicted thieves pay double or treble the amount stolen, according to circumstances.^ Penalties, varying * The distinction between the punishment of a thief caught in the act and one afterwards convicted rests, according to Sir H. Nhiine, on tlie principle of assinii- lo8 HISTORY OF ROME tx. X. from infamy to death, are imposed on the patron injuring his cHents, the employer of incantations, the voluntary homicide, or the fre- quenter of unlawful assemblies, though clubs which have no illegal object may be formed. Tables The ninth forbade privilegm~—\2L\\s passed to apply to a single case or person ; ordained that no citizen be tried on a capital charge except before the co/ni/ia; punished capitally a Judex accepting a bribe, or a citizen inciting a public enemy or handing over a fellow- citizen to him. The tenth contained sumptuary laws regulating funerals, forbidding burial within the city, or burning gold (except in stopping of teeth) and other precious things on funeral pyres, or lighting such pyres near houses. xi. xii. The eleventh and twelfth, as far as we know them, dealt with the Calendar, public sacrifices, rights of masters over slaves and their responsibility for their acts. But a clause in the eleventh led to the next agitation. It declared that a patrician and plebeian could not contract lawful marriage {cojiubium) : that is, the offspring of such union would have no legal father in whose power he would be, and therefore could not be a full citizen. It is not certain, though probable, that custom had already impeded these marriages.^ But the definite enactment would be sure to embitter the grievance, which was now to be removed. Lex C anil- Early in 445 C. Canuleius, a tribune, promulgated a bill to leta, 44£. remove this disability. It was violently opposed, specially on the ground that patricians alone could take auspices, and that if such marriages were legalised, it would be impossible to tell who was of pure patrician blood, and that the auspices would be " contami- nated." The struggle was felt on both sides to involve Hirther issues. Already the claim of the plebeians to admission to the consulship was mooted, and the more violent of the patricians maintained that if the tribunician office was to remain, civil life would be impossible for them. The majority of the Senate, how- ever, were wiser. The rogatio was allowed to be put to the people and carried ; while the decision as to the admission of the plebeians to the consulship was postponed for the present by a compromise. It was agreed that for the next year instead of consuls there should lating legal punishment to what a man would natural!}^ inflict. He would per- haps kill a thief if he caught him, when anger cooled he would let him off more easily. ^ Cicero says that the decemviri iTihutnatiissima lege sanxerimt the prohibition {Rep. ii. 27). The words are compatible with the existence of a similar custom, which is assumed in the dramatic speeches given by Livy (iv. 2-6), It is even likely that conubium was not at first allowed between the gentes themselves with- out special process, the point being that to share in the gentile sacra a man must be of pure blood. VIII THE LEX CANULEIA 109 be Military Tribunes with Consular Power. In accordance Tribuni with military precedent these would be elected by the centuriate militares assembly without distinction of orders. Three accordingly were '-'^"^^^^"^"^ created for 444, and they continued to be appointed, with occasional ^fj " ^' intervals of consuls, up to the year 366. Their number varied in different years from three to four and six : four being the usual number until 405, after which six was the regular number, — the number of tribuni in a legion. The first three elected, Livy says, were all patricians ; yet this is disputed, one of the names (L. Atilius) probably indicating a plebeian gens. If it is so, this success of the plebeians was not repeated until the year 400. The patricians had thus managed to retain the doctrine of the The qnes- necessity of patrician birth for the consulship. It is even alleged, Hon post- though on hardly sufficient grounds, that, when plebeians did ^'^"'^'■^^ succeed in being elected to the consular tribuneship, they were practically excluded from judicial functions, that department being left to their patrician colleagues. Such an arrangement, if made, must have been a source of jealousy and discord, and would not have been needed until 400, before which date patricians were exclusively elected. At best it could only have postponed the question ; and before long the efforts of the plebeians were centred, I not on altering their position as consular tribunes, but on opening the Consulship itself At the same time the patricians secured another advantage. Censors Certain duties attaching to the consuls were not performed by the ''/M^'^''A I consular tribunes, especially the giving out of contracts for public '^'^•^' I works and the taking of the census, which included the adjustment I of the tributu))i, and soon also involved the filling up the roll of the j senate, the knights, and the other ordi;h\\\ This was now intrusted , to two new patrician officers called cc?iso?rs or " assessors." They ; appear at first to have been appointed for the whole lustrum (an I arrangement which Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 still declared to I be legal), but were restricted to eighteen months b)' the /e.v Aemilia I In the midst of these political changes the question of poverty Poverty. I did not cease to cause trouble. We hear little of the old complaint of the debtors. The twelve tables had not relieved them, and it does I not appear, as before remarked, that popular sentiment was against I the surrender of the person of a defaulting debtor. The former com- 1 Livy iv. 24 ; Monimsen (i. 300) appears lo hold that the censors were first appointed in 435. Livy names two in 444, Init no others till 435. Hut this irregularity is only a repetition of consular irregularity in this business, or at any rate of Livy's record of it, who only twice before since the expulsion of the kings records a census (iii. 3, 23). no HISTORY OF ROME Spitrius Mai'lius, 440-439- Cincin- natus natned dictator. Death of Maelius, 439- A lull in the contest, 439-421. plaints rested on the fact that the rich had taken advantage of their position to wrest the law in particular cases to the disadvantage and personal hardship of the iiexi. These cases were prevented now by the aiixiliiim of the tribunes. But tribunes could not prevent poverty ; and when this poverty provoked the charity of a rich man, he usually risked the charge at the hands of the jealous patricians of attempting to set himself above the law. Thus in 440 a rich eques, named Spurius Maelius, in a year of famine purchased corn from Etruria, which he distributed at a low rate among the poorer citizens. Immediately the cry was raised that he was usurping the functions of the praefectiis a?i7ioftae^ who had been appointed to superintend the supply of corn, and was aiming at royal power. Next year the excitement increased ; rumours were afloat that nightly gatherings were held at his house, and arms collected there ; that the tribunes were being bribed, and a revolution prepared. The alarm, which the patrician leaders cunningly kept alive, had enabled them to secure the election of consuls instead of consular tribunes for that year, and now also enabled them to insist on the nomination of a dictator, from whose authority there was no appeal to the people. The old hero of the Aequian wars, L, Quintius Cincinnatus, was named ; and he appointed C. Servilius Ahala his master of the horse. Ahala was sent to summon Sp. Maelius to the judgment-seat of the dictator. Maelius refused to follow him, and took refuge in the crowd of his supporters ; upon which Ahala struck him dead. This act was applauded and defended by the dictator, on the ground that Maelius had been legally summoned, and in refusing to submit to a legal tribunal was attempting kingly power, which by the law of Poplicola was punishable by instant death. It is constantly referred to by Cicero with approval, and does not seem to have excited any violent sensation at the time. The ungrateful people were pacified by the distribution of Maelius's store of corn at a low price ; and though the tribunes from time to time attacked the injustice of the murder, he not only had to die for an act of mercy, as others have had to do, but had to leave a name behind him stained by a groundless charge, invented by his enemies, who could not have believed it themselves. Perhaps the patricians fancied that he was aiming, not at kingly power, but at admission to the consular tribuneship. At any rate when he had been got rid of, no attempt was made to prevent consular tribunes being elected for the next year : and no farther plebeian claim was made with any effect for some time. In 428, indeed, the tribunes exerted their power against the consuls, even threatening to imprison them, but it was in support of the authority of the Senate; in 424 we find them declaiming against the practical VIII THE SENATE AND THE TRIBUNES in exclusion of plebeians from the consular tribuneship ; and, generally, they seem to watch with care the conduct of the patrician magis- trates in the wars. But nothing was done for the advancement 4~^- of the plebeian order until 421, when on the number of quaestors Qj^f^^^^^^'- 1 • 1111 • 1 ■ • 1 -11 1 ^'^ip opened bemg doubled, two to serve \j\ the city, and two with the consuls to plebeians abroad, the plebeians claimed, and after considerable struggle sue- by lex ceeded in securing, that the office should be open to them. The law Papiria. appears to have been proposed by L. Papirius Mugillanus as interrex. Other contests which marked the next thirty years were not ./21-jgi. directly political. The poorer citizens tried on more than one occasion to secure that conquered land should be divided instead of becoming ager pttbltcus, which they found by experience was mostly monopolised in the interests of the rich ; but they were not generally successful, nor always satisfied with the distribution when made. On the other hand, the Senate had learnt to use the tribunician The Senate intercession in its own interests. It took pains to secure on its side "^''j ^^'^ a majority of the tribunician college, which would prevent legislation proposed by the other members. ^ This was rendered a more effectual weapon still when, about 395, a rule was introduced whereby the action of the college was no longer determined by a majority. From Sinr close below the i-oad " (v. 37). Two streams answer more or less to this de- scription, one nameless brook crossing the ro;\d a mile beyond /. iM C:-f.:.' mentioncv.1 bv Livv. The three n-.iles farther on. Neither is exactly the distance road " is the z's\i S^:uiria, IX DEFEAT OF THE ROMANS ON THE ALLIA 117 The left of the Roman army rested on the Tiber ; their centre Battle of was weak, because the inferiority of their numbers made an unduly '^^^ A Ilia, extended line necessary to prevent being outflanked. They en- ^^^'^J^^y' deavoured to make their right strong by occupying some rising ^^^' ground with reserves, which height compensate for their defect in numbers. But the Gallic king directed his main force against this hill, carried it by an impetuous assault, and then took the Roman line on the flank and drove their left into the river. The rout was The as complete as it seems to have been all but instantaneous. So little Romans resistance was made that the slaughter does not appear to have been ^^^^^«- great. The men stationed on the left escaped across the river, and such loss as they sustained was occasioned by the crush of fugi- tives or by the stream more than by the swords of the enemy. , Large numbers made their way to Veil, where the empty town was able to afford them a refuge. The Roman right retreated pre- cipitately to Rome, and rushing through the city, without stopping even to close the gates, made its way to the Capitol. The Gauls were amazed at their own success. It seemed so The Gauls sudden as to be unaccountable. A Roman army had scattered to '^i'ait/or the winds almost at the sound of their shouting. They hesitated to ^^ ^'^y^- go on, thinking that there must be some ambush preparing for them. I It is thus that Livy accounts for their waiting to the third day after J the battle before approaching Rome. But it is also probable that the division of the spoil of the Roman camp, and the riotous feasting I in which they were accustomed to indulge after a victory, may partly j be responsible for the delay.i I Meanwhile the two days gave the population of Rome the oppor- Flight of I tunity of escape. The citizens who had arms, and were neither too the popula- \ young nor too old to use them, entrenched themselves on the Capitol ; ^^"^^ '^f I the unarmed, with the women and children, poured over the Sub- ^"^^' i lician bridge, carrying as much of their household goods as they j could, and made their way to neighbouring towns — Caere, Veil, and I others. The Vestal Virgins and the Flamen Ouirinalis, after a hasty The (conference, selected the most sacred objects of their worship which Vestals. \ they could carry with them and started for Caere, after burying the jrest in jars {dolioli) within a chapel attached to the flamen's resi- dence. The story is told that as these holy virgins were mounting Ijaniculum on foot, a certain plebeian, named L. Albinius, who was ; conveying his wife and children on a waggon, came up with them. I Even in that hour of panic he reverenced their office and character, ^nd, causing his wife and children to dismount, he carried them and the sacred objects which they bore to Caere. ^ Flut. Catn. 20 ; cp. Polyb. ii. 19. ii8 HISTORY OF ROME The Gauls arrive at Rome, 390- The Capitol. Plunder of the city. The old consulars. When the Gauls on the third day after the battle of the Allia arrived at Rome, they were astonished to find the gates open and the streets empty. As they made their way through the Forum, and cast their eyes from side to side upon the public buildings and temples which surrounded it, no sign of resistance or even of habita- tion met their view. Only the Capitol towered above them, strongly fortified and crowded with defenders. Successive accumulations from surrounding buildings, as well as deliberate embankments made in imperial times, have rendered it difficuU for a modern visitor to the Capitol to understand its strength, when its sides were abrupt and steep, and no easy ascent had been constructed for the accommoda- tion of peaceful citizens. At this period it presented a formidable obstacle to the Gauls, whose strength lay in sudden and rapid charges, which swept all before them in the open, rather than in besieging or storming fortifications. Leaving a detachment to guard against sallies from the Capitol, the Gauls dispersed to plunder the deserted town. It was not, how- ever, entirely empty. Certain old men, many of whom had held high office and celebrated triumphs, were sitting in their houses, clothed in the robes and ensigns of their rank, waiting for the end. They were too old to be useful on the Capitol, and yet had disdained to fly. Some even said that by a solemn formula, dictated by M. Fabius, the Pontifex Maximus, they had devoted themselves to death as a sacrifice for their country. At first the Gauls looked at them with a kind of reverential curiosity without doing them any violence. But when one, hardier or more curious than the rest, ventured to stroke the beard of M. Papirius, the old man in wrath smote him on the head with his ivory staff. The barbarian, in a flash of anger, slew him ; and this was a signal for the death of all the rest. When their first lust of plunder had been satiated, the object of the Gauls was to provoke the garrison of the Capitol to descend. They tried to do this by firing different parts of the town, or slaughter- ing such remnants of the population as had not been able to escape. But though it was a heartrending spectacle for the garrison, they remained firm to their purpose of holding the hill. Whether fear or prudence constrained them, it was doubtless the wisest policy. The Gauls would soon weary of waiting, and even of their work of destruc- tion, which would in itself naturally entail a failure of provisions. Accordingly, after several ineffectual attempts to storm the Capitol, they had to divide their forces : part staying to keep up the blockade, Gauls roam part scattering through the Campagna in search of food. The result through the Qf ^-j^-g ^^,^5 ^^^^^ ^j-^^y \q^^ j-i^^ny men, cut off in detail by the Latins, Campagna. ^^^^^ ^^.^^^ obliged to arm themselves to protect their lives and pro- perty. The exiled Camillus, for instance, who was living at Ardea, The Capitol holds out IX THE SIEGE OF THE CAPITOL 119 The steiTc is said to have led the people of that town in a successful night attack upon one of these plundering parties, and to have cut it to pieces. Meanwhile the Gauls left behind in Rome showed signs of weariness. The blockade was^ so ill kept that C. Fabius Dorso was able to make his way to the Quirinal, perform a sacrifice incumbent '/ ^/^t- on the P^abian gens, and return without being molested by the ^''^/^'^"^ ''^^ enemy. ^''P^ ^'P- Moreover, the Roman fugitives had gradually collected in formid- Romans able numbers at Veii ; had sternly suppressed a movement among '^^ ^^^^' a remnant of the conquered Etruscan inhabitants of the district, who ^^^" were taking advantage of the disaster of Rome to plunder her terri- tory ; and were looking out for some chance of striking a blow at the invaders. Their thoughts naturally turned to Camillus, the con- queror of the very town in which they were living. It was deter- mined that he should be summoned from Ardea as dictator. An active youth, named Pontius Comlnius, managed to make his way to the Capitol by the river, and obtain a decree of the Senate for the recall of Camillus and his nomination as dictator. Messengers were Camillus sent to summon him ; and he consented to come when the citizens sent for. at Veii had passed a law for his recall. Meanwhile the Gauls were getting daily in a worse plight. They The geese had made one more attempt on the Capitol, scaling it by the same ^'^ ^^f path as the Veientine, or some other messenger, had been observed ^'^P^^'^^- to do, and were on the point of making their way in, finding the guards asleep, when the' frightened cackling of the sacred geese of the temple of Juno roused M. Manlius, who hurled the leading Gaul down the precipitous path by a blow from his shield. His fall threw the advancing file into some confusion, which was completed by showers of javelins poured down by the now thoroughly -aroused garrison. One of the sentries, whose untimely sleep had thus all but lost Rome, was hurled down the Tarpeian rock ; the Roman dis- cipline being thus sternly exercised even in that hour of danger. The discouragement caused by these repeated failures, and by the losses sustained in the raids in Latium, was now brought to a Pestilence chmax by famine and pestilence. The famine was the natural result and famine of a marauding army's operations in a foreign country. In such "l'^'-'".^ Hie expeditions as much is spoiled and destroyed as is taken for use ; ^'^''^'' while cattle are driven off to places of security by the countrymen, and corn and other food are concealed. These causes in later times more than once reduced Hannibal almost to despair, though he had won greater victories, and had a far wider district to draw from. More- over, as the battle of the Allia was fought on the 1 6th of July, the Gauls must have been in Rome at its most unhealthy season, during: which all those of its natives who could afford to do so sought purer I20 HISTORY OF ROME chap. air, Retirement We have seen how frequent were the pestilences at Rome.i It was likely, therefore, to fare much worse with men accustomed to another climate, and unused to long residence in a town ; exposed also to the alternations of wild debauchery, when the plunder of cattle, corn, and wine was plentiful, and of sharp privation when that failed. The retirement, therefore, of the invaders requires little farther jfthe explanation. It was their way. Sudden and violent onslaughts, Gaiih, which swept all before them, gave place to sullen discouragement at •^^°' anything like prolonged opposition and difficulty. News was brought them also that the Veneti were invading their territories. This perhaps applies not to the Senones but to the Lingones, who hved in the country separated by the Po from that of the Veneti. But if they found the Lingones determined on a return, the Senones would not probably be willing to stay behind. " Accordingly," says Polybius, "they made terms with the Romans, handed back the city, and returned to their own land." Storv of This, perhaps, is all of which we can be sure. Livy says that Camillus. Q, Sulpicius, One of the consular tribunes, negotiated with Bren- nus a payment of a thousand pounds of gold ; and that Brennus answered his objections to the balance brought by the Gauls by putting his sword into the scale, and exclaiming insolently, " Woe to the conquered ! " Before the base bargain was completed the dictator Camillus appeared. He ordered the gold to be taken away, answering the remonstrances of the Gauls by declaring that all public bargains were annulled by the appointment of a dictator. He proudly declared that Rome must be saved by arms and not by gold ; and drawing out his men in battle array, fought with and conquered the Gauls. They fled, but were overtaken by him eight miles from Rome, again defeated, and cut to pieces to a man. Though this picturesque story of the sudden intervention of Camillus is repeated in several of our authorities, it must be regarded as almost certainly mythical. It would be impossible without a pre- vious battle and victory ; and it seems certain that whatever sum the Gauls bargained for, they obtained and carried off with them. Some attack, led by Camillus, upon the rear of the retreating army may be the foundation on which this story, so honourable to the family of Camillus, was founded. The effects The Gauls were gone. They had swept over Rome and the ''fj''^. Campagna like a torrent, leaving behind them ruin and desolation. Gallic g^^^ ^^ burning of a city cannot destroy a people. The loss of life among the Romans does not appear to have been great, and public 1 Of the frequent pestilences in Rome, see p. 74. occupation. IX RETIREMENT OF GAULS — RESTORATION OF CITY i2i business and private industry could at once be resumed. No doubt the farniers had suffered severely, and the poverty of the weaker of them would amount in many cases to absolute ruin. Still such catastrophes are seldom complete. Means 'would soon be found to rebuild the homesteads, to sow the crops, and to renew the herds and flocks ; and next year the fields would hide with waving corn all traces of the enemy's presence. Nor can we suppose the city to have been utterly destroyed. No doubt the houses, small and often of wood and thatch, would to a great extent be burnt ; but it is certain that many of the temples and public buildings still remained, either whole or only partly consumed by fire ; the Gauls also would, no doubt, have pre- served some houses for their own accommodation ; and the utter demolition of a great city is a task which they would not have had the patience thoroughly to perform. Just ninety years before Athens had suffered a similar disaster at the hands of the Persians, yet she had now long been famous throughout the world for the splendour and beauty of her temples and works of art. Rome, too, would soon rise from her ashes, revived in greater magnificence by the energy and liberality of her sons Even the State documents and other perishable objects, which Loss of Livy thinks were destroyed by the Gallic conflagration, must in many P't^l'(^ cases have escaped. Some of them were on the Capitol, which was ^^'''^'''"• not burnt at all ; some had been removed or buried by the Flamen and the Vestals ; others were in temples which did not at any rate wholly perish. It was an obvious thing in after years to describe to the Gallic fire the loss of everything which the carelessness or violences of succeeding generations had perhaps caused to disappear. The work of restoration began with the temples, and an altar Restora was dedicated to Aius Locutius at the bottom of the Sacred Way, to expiate the neglect of a divine voice which was believed to have announced the coming of the Gauls. ^ But the ruinous state of the Veii city caused a renewal of the proposal to transfer the seat of govern- defeated. ment to Veii. It is difficult to see why the tribunes should have promoted this as a popular measure, unless the plebeians hoped that I ^ Livy also says that tlie money taken from the Gauls, which had originally I been contributed by the women, was declared sacred and placed in the temple o( [ Jupiter, and we hear afterwards of this money as lacing believed to have been embezzled by the patricians. But it seems almost certain that the Gauls never lost the ransom which they received ; and as, by Livy's own account, the women were not on the Capitol but at Veii and other towns, it is inconsistent with the rest of the account that Camillus should have allowed their contributions to be sent. Again, Livy states that in consequence of this public service the Senate decreed that henceforth a laudatio should be delivered over women at their funeral as over men, but Cicero {de Orat. ii. § 44) says that the first woman so • honoured was the mother of Catulus, about B.C. 100. tion. The proposal to mi£[rate to 122 HISTORY OF ROME chap, ix a removal from Rome might be an opportunity of breaking free from patrician privileges, inextricably interwoven with local traditions and rites, and starting fresh with institutions more consonant with ideas which had been growing up during the last century. At any rate the patricians, headed by Camillus, successfully resisted the pro- posal, and the work of restoring houses at Rome was begun. Unfortunately, no general plan was followed. The citizens seem to have carried on the rebuilding according to individual caprice ; and therefore the new streets were irregular and ill-planned, while the old sewers, originally constructed down the line of the streets, were now often built over by private houses, which must have proved unhealthy for the inhabitants, and have increased the difficulty of cleansing and repairing the sewers themselves. No im- Otherwise, this year of disaster made no positive change m the mediate State. The old constitution simply resumed operation ; consular political tribunes were duly elected for 389, and the contests of patrician and change, plebeian were taken up again, intensified perhaps by the greater *^^' poverty to which many must have been reduced by their losses dur- ing the Gallic occupation. Her old enemies in Etruria and Latmm, indeed, took advantage of her weakness to renew their attacks upon Rome and her territory ; but, though she suffered, she survived these assaults as she had survived the victory of the Gauls ; and, before the Gauls were able to renew their invasion, had won for herself a broader territory and an almost undisputed supremacy in Latium. Authorities.— Livyv. 34-55 ; Dionysius xiii. 7-13 ; Diodorus xiv. 113-115 ; Dio Cassius, fr. 25 ; Appian, Res Gall. 3 ; Eutropius i. 19 ; Plutarch, Camillus; Polybius ii, 18 ; Orosius ii. 19 ; Zonaras vii. 23. CHAPTER X TO THE DISSOLUTION OF THE LATIN LEAGUE COLONIES Satricum . . B.C. 385 B. c. . B.C. NEW TRIBES Sutrium Nepete Setia . Antium Cales . Fregellae 383 383 B.C. 382 B.C. 338 B.C. 334 B.C. 328 Stellatina Tromentina Sabatina Arniensis Pomptina Publilia Maecia Scaptia B.C. 387 B.C. 358 B.C. 332 Hostilities break out against Rome after the departure of the Gauls — Camillus conquers the Etruscans, Volscians, and Aequians (389) — Fresh war with Volscians and Etruscans ; capture of Sutrium and Nepete (386) — The Volscians joined by sonie^of the Latini and Hernici ; colony sent to Satricum (385)— Pestilence — Rebellions at Lanuvium, Circeii, Velitrae, Praeneste (383- 382) — War with Volscians and rebellion at Tusculum (381) — Cincinnatus conquers the rebellious Praenestines (380) — A Roman disaster in Volscian territory (379) — Conquest of Volscians and Latins (378-377) — The Gauls (367-282) — The first Samnite war (343-342) — The Latin rebellion — T. Man- lius Torquatus (340-339) — Dissolution of the Latin League, and last struggles of the Latin towns (338-336). The humiliation which Rome had suffered at the hands of the Wars with Gauls was quickly followed by attacks from her enemies. The Eh'uscans, Etruscans at the Fa?mm Voltiinuiae^ the regular place of meeting of Volscians, Aequians, the League, determined to drive the Romans from southern Etruria, jSg-jjj. and at once seized upon Sutrium, the first strong town south of the Ciminian forest, which the Romans had secured shortly before the coming of the Gauls. The Volscians advanced as far as Lanuvium, less than twenty miles from Rome. The Aequians were encamped at Bola, not far from Praeneste. By a series of rapid movements Camillus, who had been named dictator, gained a victory over all three enemies in succession. But they were far from being finally crushed. For the next thirteen years there was almost continuous war, and the Volscians 124 HISTORY OF ROME A new colony at Satricuni attacked by the Vol- scians, j8f. Rebellion at Prae- neste. The RoTuatis take the offensive against the Volscians, 379-377- again and again advanced into old Latium, often joined by forces of the Latins and Hernici.i In 386 they invaded the Pomptine district, but on the appearance of Camilkis retired towards Satricum and Antium, and were decisively defeated and obliged to surrender Satricum. Yet they repeated the attempt in the following year (385), again with assistance from the Latins, among whom were some of the Roman colonists in Circeii and Velitrae, and were again defeated by the dictator, A. Cornelius Cossus. To secure the frontier a colony of 2000 Roman citizens was now sent out to Satricum, each with an allotment of two and a half jugera of land. But during 383 and 382 a series of rebellions in Latium — at Lanuvium, Circeii, VeHtrae, and Praeneste — kept the Romans engaged, and induced the Volscians to renew hostili- ties by attacking this new colony. Once more they were defeated by Camillus, now for the seventh time a consular tribune. But so widely had disloyalty spread in Latium, that even some of the citizens of Tusculum, long closely connected with Rome, were found among the captives from the Volscian host, and brought the fidelity of the town into such suspicion that Camillus marched an army against it. A speedy submission, however, and a humble embassy to the Senate averted any actual severity. The next year (380) the Praenestines were also defeated by T. Ouintius Cincin- natus on the banks of the Allia, and their town was surrendered,^ From this time the character of the war changes. The Romans assumed the offensive, and instead of being content with repelling Volscian raids upon old Latium, marched themselves into Volscian territory. Their first experience was unfortunate. Under two of the consular tribunes, Publius and Caius Manlius, the Roman army was caught in a disadvantageous situation, and nearly lost its camp (379). In the following year, however, a systematic devastation was carried out in the Volscian lands, and in 377 a combined force of Volscians and Latins, which had advanced as far as Satri- cum, was defeated and driven back upon Antium. The people of Antium, tired of the war, now surrendered to Rome. But their Latin allies were not disposed to submit so easily : they burned Satricum, * The alliance with the Latins (493) and with the Hernici (486) was still in force. But the bands of the Latin League seem to have been loose, and the various towns took their own line as to hostihty or friendship with Rome. The meeting-place of the League w^as the hicus Ferentinae (Livy vii. 25) ; but a smaller league of eight towns joined in the worship of Diana at the Nemus Aricinum (Cato Orig. ii. 21 ; Jord. ) ^ Cincinnatus is said to have removed the statue of Jupiter Imperator from Praeneste to Rome, and to have caused to be inscribed on the pedestal, ' ' Jupiter and all the gods have permitted T. Quintius Cincinnatus, dictator, to capture nine towns" (Livy vi. 29). X RENEWED GALLIC INVASIONS 125 and attacked Tusculum, as having deserted the Latin alliance. The Last Latin Tusculans fortified themselves in their citadel, and were speedily struggle, relieved by a Roman army. The Latins suffered such a defeat ^^''^^ and slaughter that they submitted to enter into alliance with Rome, to furnish a contingent to the Roman army, and seem to have made no serious resistance again until the great war of 340. The extension of the Roman territory in the course of these wars Extension is marked by the formation of two new tribes, the Pomptina, which of Roman would include the Volscian territory round Antium, and the Publilia, l^^^Zacg also on Volscian lands. The ten years of comparative peace, which y-^^. /^;, followed this thirteen years' Avar, were occupied at Rome by the years [376- struggles about the Licinian rogations ; and during half that time, 3^7)- owing to the interruption in the election of the usual curule magis- trates, the State was scarcely in a position to act with vigour. The peace was broken by a renewed invasion of the Gauls, who Gallic for twenty-three years had been prevented by internal dissensions ^'''"' 3^7- from returning to the attack, thus leaving the Romans time to establish their supremacy in Latium. In 367 the city was alarmed by hearing that they were on the march again towards Rome, and were encamped upon the Anio. For the fifth time M. Furius Camillus was named dictator, and once more returned victorious. There does not appear to have been a pitched battle, for the Romans had no time to summon allies or collect a sufficient force. But by seizing the strong positions near the camp of the Gauls, who had crossed the Anio and were near Alba, and cutting off their stragglers and foraging parties, he forced them once more to retire.^ It was the veteran's last great public service. He died two years Death of later, after having been seven times consul or consular tribune, (^^"^^^1"^' and five times dictator. He had fought with and conquered nearly ^ -^' all the enemies of Rome — Veientines, Volscians, Aequians, and Gauls. Great in peace as in war, he had not allowed the condemna- tion of the people, however unrighteous it might appear to him, to destroy his loyalty or embitter his feelings. And when the neces- sities of his countrymen recalled him from a dignified retreat, during which he had already done them good service, he had not abused the commanding influence thus gained by persisting in an obstinate opposition to the reforms which the people demanded. He had ^ Livy, indeed, speaks of a battle, and of a great slaughter of the Gauls, who dispersed in every direction, some even finding their way to the extreme south of Italy (vi. 42). Plutarch's account seems more reconcilable with a series of skir- mishes {Cam. 41). Both writers seem to have had to pick their way among dis- cordant authorities. Polybius (ii. 18) says that there was no battle, because the Romans had not time to collect their allies. But he places the first renewed invasion, after 390, six years earlier than Livy does, and tells us nothing of the retreat. 126 HISTORY OF ROME New Gallic invasion, 361. 7 it us Alanlitcs Torquatus. Victory of C. Sul- picius, JSS. 349- A n other Gallic invasion ; victory of L. Furius Cajnillus. M. Val- erius Corvus. Sixty years' cessation from Gallic rvars to 281. Wars in F.truria , 35S-35r- known when to yield as he had known how to resist, and his last civil action had been to heal a quarrel between the Senate and the people, and to vow a temple to Concord. The next invasion of the Gauls was in 361, when, in a fierce battle at the bridge over the Anio, Tiius Manlius conquered a huge Gaul in single combat, and stripping from him the gold bracelet {torques) with which he was adorned gained for himself and his descendants the cognomen of Torquatus. The Gauls retreated into Campania, having been helped by the Tiburtines, whom the next year, therefore, the Romans prepared to punish. But the Gauls returning from Campania, and being overthrown in a great battle near the Colline Gate, retired to Tibur ; from which for a year and a half they maintained a war of skirmishes and surprises with- out any great battle, though both they and the Tiburtines suffered more than one disaster. At length in 358 C. Sulpicius was named dictator. His policy, like that of the famous Cunctator of after days, was one of delay. Time, he thought, must bring greater and greater difficulties to an ill-disciplined host in a foreign country, and to an alliance sure to prove irksome to the city entertaining these uncivilised guests. His soldiers, however, headed by a centurion of the first rank, clamoured to be led against the enemy ; and the battle was finally brought about by an accidental encounter between a small number of Roman soldiers and some plundering Gauls. Sulpicius thus gained a great victory and a splendid triumph almost in spite of himself. After ten years the Gauls came again (349), and descending from the Alban hills, harried the plains and coasts of Latium. L. Furius Camillus, a son of the famous conqueror of Veil, was sole consul that summer, his colleague, Appius Claudius, having died. He maintained the honour of his name by a victory over the in- vaders which scattered them into all parts of Italy. It was in this battle that the story is told of M. \'alerius and his single contest with a Gaul, in which he was assisted by a crow that perched on his helmet and assailed with beak and claw the face of the barbarian. Then followed a long interval of freedom from Gallic inroads, and shortly after the end of the first Samnite and Latin wars (about 336) the power of Rome seemed so formidable that the Gauls sought and obtained a treaty ; and, with the exception of one brief raid, remained quiet till the time of the third Samnite war. Besides suppressing minor outbreaks among the Hernici (362 and 358), at Tibur (361 and 355), and at Privernum and Vehtrae (358), the Romans were meanwhile struggling to secure their supre- X ETRUSCAN AND SAMNITE WARS 127 macy in Etruria with varied fortunes. Thus in 358 the consul Mutual Fabius was defeated at Tarquinii, and the people ,of the town were cruelties. so furious that they butchered over 300 Roman prisoners on pre- tence of a sacrifice to their gods, — a murder avenged by equal cruelty four years afterwards, when, in addition to vast numbers killed in battle, 580 Tarquinian prisoners were executed in the Forum at Rome. This occurred in the course of a more than usually serious rising of the Etruscan League, beginning in 356. C. Marcius Rutilus was named dictator, the first plebeian who had ever held that office, and found the Etruscan forces close to the saltworks {Sali7iae) on the right bank of the mouth of the Tiber. Marcius harassed the enemy by sending troops across in boats to cut off foraging parties and stragglers, and at length surprised their camp, secured 8000 prisoners, and was allowed a triumph. But in 353 there was again a rising in southern Etruria, and Titus Manlius Torquatus was nominated dictator to suppress it. The chief object of his attack was Caere, which, though recognised as a " friend of the Roman people," was now suspected of giving secret aid to the invaders from Tarquinii, and harbouring their plunder. The Caerites, however, submitted, and were compelled to make a The hundred years' truce, and submit to a curtailed citizenship sine Cacnte suffrao^io^ with the loss of half their territory, which became the pro- /''^'" "*''' perty of the Roman people.^ An expedition against Falerii in the same year returned without striking a blow, and was followed in 351 by a forty years' truce with Tarquinii and Falerii. For a time Rome had peace in the North, except for the peri- The Sam- odical recurrence of Gallic raids. But she was now to be pitted ^^^^ '^^ against a more formidable enemy. The three Samnite wars, between lailfnuars. 343 and 290, taxed the strength of the city to the utmost. Like the Gallic wars they served as an admirable training for the coming struggle with Pyrrhus, and in a greater degree than the Gallic wars led to an unforeseen, unsought, yet inevitable extension of Roman power both in central Italy and Etruria. Between the first and second of these wars came the last great rising of the Latins, which ended in the dissolution of the Latin League and the practical absorp- tion of Latium. The Samniteswere a hardy mountain race inhabiting the centre The of Italy, Branches of them had spread to Lucania and even farther ■Sammies. south, and those who remained in Samnium proper continually aimed at exchanging their bleak highlands for the more fertile plains ^ This is a detail omitted by Livy, but recorded by Dion Cass. fr. 33. It is the first instance of a town being thus endowed with imperfect citizenship, whence the Caerite franchise became a common term for disfranchisement (Hor. Ep. i, 6, 62, Caerite cera digni). :28 HISTORY OF ROME on either coast. Thus the Hirpini, and even the Frentani, were perhaps offshoots of this race ; and about 423 some of them forced their way into Campania, and supplanted the Etruscans, who for some time had been hving among the native Oscans, and had built cities and established trading centres there. The new Samnite con- querors seized Capua, stormed the Greek colony of Cumae, and reduced a number of other Campanian tribes and towns to submis- sion. They did not, however, uproot or destroy the Oscan people, but amalgamated with them, and the two together became Campani^ Prucliijta I. J Cunnirni CAMPANIA ENGLISH MILES C— — ;> ^un nrinuw East of 14 Greenwich // 'al/iey G- Boittall sc. The Cav panians. much as Norman and Saxon became English, and with this farther similarity, that while the common people in the towns were mostly of Oscan origin, the nobility were of Samnite stock. They formed a loose confederacy of states, the chief of which was Capua and the small towns round it, but a confederacy which appears to have had no provision for combined action or counsel. The climate was soft and enervating ; the plains rich ; the shore, deeply in- dented with bays and facing south-west, lovely and tempting. No wonder that the mountaineers strove for it, and that under these influences they became as unwarlike and luxurious as the people THE FIRST WAR WITH THE SAMNITES 129 iiitcs attack the Sidiciti i. Capua appeals to among whom they lived. It was a contest between these Osco- Samnites, now called Campani, and the Samnites of Samnium proper, which first brought the Romans (who by the capture of Sora on the Liris, in 344, were in possession of the last stronghold towards the Samnite frontier) into collision vVith the Samnites, and eventually into possession of Campania. In 343 the Samnites, we know not why, were attacking Teanum, The Sa a towai of the Sidicini, who were an independent tribe that had not fallen before the Samnite invaders, and had never shared (as the Ausones and some others had not done either) in the ties which connected, however slightly, the rest of Campania. But being now attacked by the Samnite mountaineers, they appealed to the Cam- panian League for help. The Campanians made a feeble attempt to assist them, and only succeeded in drawing upon themselves the arms of their kinsfolk. The Samnites seized the heights of Tifata which overlook Capua, and drove the defeated Campanians to take refuge within the walls. In their despair they sent an embassy to Rome. Rome to beg for help. The Romans were formally on terms of friendship with the First Samnites, who in 354 had voluntarily asked for an alliance. The Satnnite Senate therefore hesitated on the ground that their honour was '^"'^^' ■^^^^' engaged. Whether such scruples were feigned or not, they secured more advantageous terms. The Campanian envoys offered to give up their country to the Romans per deditionem^ which implied a complete surrender of their city and its territory to be dealt with as they chose. 1 It did not follow that the Romans would exercise the right : but it did follow that any one else who attacked the country would have to reckon with them. Free intercourse with Campania- was most important to Rome, for from its rich plains much of the corn supply was obtained. The Senate therefore adopted the plea of keeping faith w^ith a people who had surrendered to them to counterbalance the obligation of maintaining their treaty with the Samnites. Legates were sent with a conciliatory request to the Samnites to spare men who had surrendered to Rome. A haughty answer was returned, and in the hearing of the legates the military commanders w^ere ordered to continue the invasion of Campania. The Senate at once decided on war. The consul, M. Valerius Corvus, was. sent to Campania ; the other consul, Aulus Cornelius, to Samnium. Valerius advanced along the coast road to Mount ^ ' ' Those who thus surrender themselves to the Roman authority surrender all territory and the cities in it, together with all men and women in all such territory or cities, likewise rivers, harbours, temples, and tombs, so that the Romans should become actual lords of all these, and those who surrender should remain lords of nothing whatever " (Polyb. xxxvi. 4). K [30 HISTORY OF ROME Victories of Mount Gaurus, Suessula, atid Sati- ciila, 343. Advan- tages gained by the successes. 342. Coss. C. Marcius Rutilus, Q. Scrvilius. Mutiny of Roman soldiers. Measures -num seems to have settled the question in favour of a town (Imhoof- Blumer, Numismat. Zeitsch. 1886). X DISSOLUTION OF THE LATIN LEAGUE 133 relieve Pedum. The storming of Pedum was followed by the reduc- tion of the rebellious cities of Latium. Garrisons were put in them and the consuls earned a triumph as having finished the war. The Latin League ceased to exist as a political body, though still Efidoflhe joining in the worship of Jupiter Latiaris. Rome was sovereign, ^'^^^^ and made what terms she chose with each separate town. A f"^^^' senatus consu/ium defined the status of each. As a rule they 'Setiatus retained local government, but, as regards Rome, had only the consultmn " Caerite " citizenship, that is, they had commercium and co7ii(biiini ^^. ^'^^^" with Rome, but could not vote or hold ofiice.i Moreover thev were '^"•^ ^T isolated : no marriage or commerce with each other, no common meeting was allowed ; their only market would be Rome or more distant places. The result was a swift decay of the towns ; while Roman citizens, settled in the country with full citizen rights, found their advantage in the restricted markets which ruined the towns, and thus Romanised the country. This was the general rule : but certain towns received special favour or punishment. Thus full citizenship was given to Lanuviilm, Aricia, Nomentum, and Pedum, and their citizens coming to Rome could exercise all the rights of Roman citizens. Tusculum had long had this position, which was now confirmed, the punishment for the ' part taken in the wars being confined to individuals. On the other ' hand the walls of Velitrae were demolished, her senators removed in a body beyond the Tiber, and forced under a heavy fine to remain I there, while their lands were divided among Roman farmers. Tibur • and Praeneste, for having favoured the Gauls, were mulcted of terri- tory, but were allowed to remain free, with the single obligation of ; furnishing their quota of troops to the Roman army.- \ The Campanians were dealt with in the same spirit. Some of Settlement the towns, such as Fundi and Formiae, were allowed the "Latin" of Cam- , right ; while at Capua, Cumae, and Suessula this was confined to the ^'^"^'^' I " Knights," — the upper or noble class descended from the Samnite I conquerors, — a measure which served to accentuate the distinction I between them and the Campanian Oscans forming the lower class. I Thus the wider Latium became Roman : and just as the distinction Larger 'between patrician and plebeian was being finally abolished by the leges ^«^««w. \PubIiliae (340), a new distinction was coming into existence between (full and imperfect citizens, which was to lead also to political agita- I ^ Hence Latinitas was used to express imperfect citizenship long after it had I ceased to apply to Latium. - This obligation would apply to all the towns, and from another point of view the measure may be regarded as the inclusion of all these towns in a military eague. But as it was scarcely voluntary on their part, it may also be regarded as an obligation imposed by a sovereign state. 134 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. X New Tribes. Samnites. First acfiftg ill Rome, 363-362. tion in the future. For the present the increase of purely Roman territory was shown by the addition of two new tribes (Maecia and Scaptia) ; and the final destruction of Antium as an independent naval power by the adornment of the pillars of the speaker's platform in the comitium with the beaks of its captured ships. Some few towns indeed still offered spasmodic resistance. Cales was captured in 334, Fundi submitted in 330, Privernum was taken in 329 ; and when fresh colonies were settled at Cales, Anxur, and Fregellae (339-336) Roman supremacy was complete throughout Latium— which now included the Hernici, Volsci, Ausones, and Sidicini, — and in Campania as far as Suessula and Atella. The Samnites, openly at peace with Rome, were directing- their attention southwards : and the movements of these mountaineers, leading to fresh appeals for Roman help, brought Rome step by step to supremacy throughout Italy. This period had been marked by several pestilences. And two years of more than usually severe visitations suggested various modes of appeasing the gods. Among others, the games were celebrated with more than usual elaborateness ; and for the first time include plays or interludes, acted by artists brought from Etruria, it being a novel experiment in Rome, and one never sincerely liked. It gave birth, however, to a considerable Roman literature, which has all perished, and to an imitation of Greek dramas, some of which has survived. Authorities. — Livy vi. -viii. ; Dionysius xiv. 12-xvi. 1-14 (fragments). Zonaras vii. 24-26; l-'utropius ii. 1-4; Plutarch Camillns ; Polybius ii. 18-21 for the Gallic invasions. CHAPTER XI THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR 326-304 COLONIES iNEVV TRIBES Luceria in Apulia . B.C. 314 Utentina " . B.C Suessa of the Aurunci B.C. 313 Falerina Pontiae . . .B.C. 313 ) Tnteramna Lirinas . B.C. 312 ( Volscian. Casinum . .B.C. 312 ( 303) Sora . . .B.C. Alba Fucentia (Aequians and Marsians) . B.C. 303 318 Magna Graecia — Invitation from Tarentum to Archidanms (338) and Alexander (333) — Alexander's treaty with Rome — Palaepolis garrisoned by Samnites — War declared with Samnites (326) — Treaty with Neapolis — Confederacy in south Italy — The Caudine Forks — The Senate refuse the terms of Pontius (321) — Revolt of Volscian towns — Capture of Luceria, victories in Apulia and Lucania, revolt and recovery of Sora (320-314) — Destruction of Ausones and colonising of Luceria (314-313) — Victory over Samnites at Cinna (313) — Development of Roman power in Italy, and growth of navy (313-312) — Etruscan war and battle at the Vadimonian lake (311-309) — Wars with Samnites and Hernici (308-306) — Peace with Samnites (304). While they were enjoying a peace of eleven years (338-327), Magna only broken by one outbreak among the Sidicini, events were occurring in southern Italy destined there too to bring the Romans on the scene. The Cireek towns which fringed its shores, though ^^'^^^^ often quarrelling with each other, had yet been formed into a loose confederacy for mutual protection under the presidency of Tarentum, and their delegates met at Heraclea, a Tarentine colony. Such combination as existed had been made necessary by the attacks of the common enemies of them all, the Lucani, Bruttii, and Messapii,i while the Samnite highlanders were ever on the watch to take ^ Diodorus xiv. loi ; xvi. 15. Grai'Lia attacked by Italian 136 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xi advantage of these hostilities to enrich themselves from the lands of Greek and Italian alike. Help asked Tarentum, as head of the Greek League, looked out for help by the ^j.g^ f^oj^ ti^e mother state of Sparta: and in 338 Archidamus, a JX7rom' king of Sparta, had come in answer to such a call and had fallen in Archi"' battle.i And now in ZZ'}) Alexander, king of the Molossi, uncle and damns of brother-in-law of Alexander the Great,^ willingly responded to a similar Sparta, invitation. He landed near Posidonium, which had been the object of h)'fro'm special attack to the Lucanians, and at first was everywhere successful. Alexander. He won battles over the Bruttii, Messapii, and Lucani, and took king of the several towns. But the Tarentines, at whose request he had come, Molossi, ^yg^g presently alarmed at his designs. He had a dream of establish- 333- jng a great Western Empire to include Italy, Sicily, and Africa, like that which his mighty nephew and namesake was forming in the East ; whereas the Tarentines wished for supremacy, not to be humble clients in a great empire. Accordingly they soon drew back, and Alexander retaliated by making terms with Metapontum and the Peucetii, and erecting a new Hellenic confederacy, the delegates of which should meet, not at the Tarentine Heraclea, but at Thurii. The death, therefore, of the champion whom they had themselves invited must have been welcome to the Tarentines. It was not, however, brought about by them, but by their enemies the Lucani. Alexander had tried to break the resistance of this nation by transporting 300 of their leading families to Epirus ; and by bestowing special honour on those of them who had been banished by their countrymen for espousing his cause. Two hundred Lucan- ians formed his body-guard. But though thus near the person of the king, they did not forget their country, and were ready to purchase restoration to it by betraying their new lord. The Death of opportunity soon came. Alexa'nder was occupying some hills at Alexander, Pandosia, near Consentia on the river Crathis, from which he 332 or 331. ^^^^ ^^^ foragers. Here he found himself surrounded by the enemy, who cut off his plundering parties ; and on one occasion, when two of these parties had been surprised, he sallied out to their relief, and attacked the Lucanian force with great gallantry, killing their 1 Archidamus III., after taking a somewhat doubtful part in the " Sacred war,' seems to have been glad to find work in Italy to escape a contest with Philip of Macedon. The battle in which he fell was near Manduria, twenty-four miles east of Tarentum, and is said to have been fought on the same day and hour as the battle of Chaeroneia (August 338) (Plutarch, Agis 3 ; Pausanias iii. 10, 5 ; Diodor. xvi. 63 ; Theopompus ap. Athenaeum xii. 536 ; Strabo vi. 3, 3). 2 Alexander was brother of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. He married his own niece Cleopatra, daughter of Philip 11. and Olympias (Livy viii. 17, 24 ; Justin xii. e ; Strabo vi. 3, 4). 138 HISTORY OF ROME Alexan- der's treaty with Rome. War with Palaepolis, 327-326. War with the SaiJj- nites de- cided, 327, War pro- claimed, 3^6. commander with his own hand. But as he was emerging from a swollen stream, across which he had forced his horse, one of his Lucanian body-guards ran him through with his spear. Though the Romans were not directly concerned with Alex- ander's career in south Italy, yet it seems that he had found it necessary for the success of his plans to be on good terms with them, and had formed, or at least proposed, a treaty with the Republic ; whose growing importance in the affairs of south Italy was 'shown again soon afterwards by an appeal to the Senate from the Lucanians for help against the Samnites, who a year and a half before had been assisting them against Alexander, but had since been plundering the territories of their former allies. But the immediate cause of the inevitable rupture between the Romans and Samnites was the Greek town of Palaepolis, the name by which the Cumaean colony, called it seems originally Parthenope, had come to be known, since a more recent settlement, called Neapolis, had been made on the site now occupied by the eastern part of Naples. The Palaepolitans had plundered lands of Roman settlers in Campania and the Falernian district. A demand from Rome for compensation was haughtily refused, and war was declared against them (327). The two consuls, L. Cornelius Lentulus and Q. Publilius Philo, were both sent out with their respective legions. Publilius was to go direct to Palaepolis, Cornehus to the Sammte frontier. Both consuls sent home disquieting reports. Publilius informed the Senate that 2000 Campanians and 4000 Samnites had been sent to garrison Palaepolis, almost in spite of the Greek citizens. Cornelius reported that Samnium was preparing for war : armies were being enrolled, and the fidelity of Privernum, Fundi, and Formiae was being solicited. Legates were sent to remonstrate with the Samnites. They answered by alleging injuries received by themselves : " The Roman colony of Fregellae," they said, "had been founded in Samnite territory ; while the help given to Palaepolis came only from private enterprise, not from the Samnite government." They ended by a direct challenge to war, which the Romans were not slow to take up. Publilius was already encamped between Palaepolis and Neapolis, and now commenced a regular siege of the former. The end of the year approaching, Publilius, to the end of the war, and Cornelius for the following year, were continued in their commands as pro- consuls ; and Cornelius was ordered to name a dictator to hold the elections. War with the Samnites was formally declared by the consuls of the next year. Palaepolis, reduced to dreadful straits by famine, was still holding out. The starving townsfolk were told, indeed, that rein- BEGINNING OF THE SECOND SAIMNITE WAR 139 forcements were coming from Tarentum and Samnium ; but this threatened an aggravation of their misery by adding fresh mouths to be fed. Two citizens therefore resolved to save the Hves of their countrymen by surrendering the town to the Romans. Their names were Charilaus and Nymphius. . While Charilaus made his way to Surrender the camp of Publilius, Nymphius contrived to induce the Samnite rf Palae- garrison to quit the town and descend to the shore, to assist him to ^^ "' ^" ' embark upon an expedition against the coasts of Latium. While thus engaged they heard an uproar in the city, and discovered that they were shut out, and that the Romans had been admitted. They had no resource but to make their way to their homes without arms or baggage. Palaepolis being thus surrendered, the people of Neapolis appear to have acquiesced and obtained good terms. The Foedus treaty by which they became a civitas foederata was so favourable in ^<^^'po^^- regard to the burdens it imposed, and the local liberty which it ^^'^^''''• secured, that when in 89 all Italian states were offered the full civitas^ the Neapolitans long preferred their old status. Palaepolis either disappeared altogether, or was merged in Neapolis, and ceased to be of importance. Meanwhile the Roman arms, under P. Cornelius, had had some Cor7ieHns successes in Samnium. Three border towns ^ and considerable in Sam- plunder were taken. Above all, the Samnites had been prevented from ^tmm, j2j- making a diversion in favour of Palaepolis. The Romans had been ^^ " fully alive to the difficult and dangerous nature of the war. In 326 a Second solemn lectisternipni was held. The images of the gods were exposed Samnite on couches, with a banquet placed before them, and throughout the city ^^'"''' J"-*^" prayers were offered to secure their favour. Moreover an alliance was ^^'^' made both with the Apulians and Lucanians, who had so often suffered from the Samnite raids. But the jealousy of the Tarentines overthrew this arrangement. They had been alarmed and irritated by the fall TheTaren- of Palaepolis ; and when they found the Apulians and Lucanians in tines side alliance with Rome they feared for the safety of the Greek confederacy, "''^^'^ ^^''' of which they regarded themselves as the head. They determined to '^"^"^^'■'^■ espouse the side of the Samnites against the power they now thought the more dangerous of the two. In pursuance of this policy they began intriguing to detach the Lucanians from Rome. Two Lucanian youths were bribed to disfigure themselves with blows, and The Lu- in this state to present themselves before a popular assembly, de- canians daring that they had been cruelly flogged for the presumption of ^^'-^ them- entering the Roman camp. The populace clamoured for war with ^^ ^'^ ^^ _ Rome ; and, though an open declaration was avoided, the Lucanians nites. made a formal alliance with the Samnites. The first year of the war therefore saw a formidable confederacy ^ Allifae, Callifae, Rufrium —the last of uncerlain site. 140 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The Vestini subdued, 325- The Sam- nite war from J2^- Story of L. Papirius and his master of the horse. Truce for a year at the end of 325- formed in south Italy, rendered still more alarming by the adher- ence of the Vestini, a Sabellian tribe on the left bank of the river Aternus, along a narrow strip of the Adriatic shore. They were not important in themselves, but if the kindred tribes of Marsi, Peligni, and Marrucini adopted their policy, Rome might find herself attacked on both sides, and at any rate debarred from the coast road into Apulia. One campaign, however (325), under the consul D. Junius Brutus, reduced the Vestini to submission, and they took no farther part in the war. From this period to that of the disaster at Caudium (321) it is not easy, or perhaps possible, to discover the true course of events. Livy observes at the end of his eighth book that the questionable statements contained in funeral orations, and the false inscriptions upon family busts {imagi?tes), made it difficult to be certain in assign- ing particular achievements to particular individuals. Thus the family archives of the Papirii and of the Fabii seem to be respon- sible for the stories of the dictator L. Papirius Cursor, and of his master of the horse, Q. Fabius Maximus. The dictator, it is said, was obliged to leave his army in Samnium and return to Rome, owing to some irregularity in the auspices, and on his departure left strict orders to his master of the horse not to engage the enemy. Fabius, either looking upon this order as the result ot jealousy, or unable to withstand a tempting opportunity, attacked the Samnites, and inflicted a severe defeat upon them. On his return to camp the dictator called a meeting of the soldiers and summoned Fabius before him. He was about to order his instant execution, when the soldiers clamoured so loudly for his pardon, and came so near to a mutiny, that Papirius was forced to postpone the carrying out of his sentence to the next day. Meanwhile Fabius escaped from the camp and fled to Rome. The angry dictator followed. Fabius threw himself on the protection of the tribunes, and appealed to the people. Though the authority of a dictator was above all such safeguards, Papirius was assailed by the intercession of senators, tribunes, and men of rank, for a Fabius was sure to have powerful friends. He at length consented to spare his life, but only on a com- plete submission and renunciation of all legal remedies, and the abdication of his mastership of the horse. Military discipline thus vindicated, Papirius returned to the army. The men, however, were sulky and would not fight with vigour, until the dictator, by assiduous attention, mollified their anger. Then they fought bravely and won him a triumph. The Samnites proposed peace ; but the Romans declined the terms they offered, and only consented to a truce for a year. But though the authorities which Livy followed thus gave the XI ROMAN DISASTERS 141 pre-eminence to the Roman arms, it is evident that they had not sue- The ceeded in impressing others with the behef in their superiority or ApuUans ultimate victory. In 324 the Apulians, whether of their own accord ^^^^^^^ or under pressure from the Samnites, left the Roman alliance— in JliaZe. either case showing that the Romans had lost hold. In the same year a rebellion at Tusculum, joined by Vehtrae and Privernum, proved that those once powerful states thought it a good opportunity to regain their freedom, or at any rate to get better terms. The State civitas was wise enough to yield to the demand, if such was made. The granted to tribunician bill for the punishment of Tusculum was rejected ; and Tusculum, not only was full citizenship conceded, but L. Fulvius, who had been ^^^' consul at Tusculum, was elected consul at Rome for the next year (322). Even if this was a reward for having been of the Roman party, it was still a measure of wise conciliation. The war was resumed after the truce. It was never continuous, 322. The and what Livy calls a truce may have been an interruption of active '^^^ '='^"- operations from various causes. There was fighting, however, in ^^'"^^^^• 322, and we are told of a battle so fiercely contested that the two armies remained locked for five hours in a deadly grapple, neither giving way a foot's breadth, or finding breath to shout. At last the Roman cavalry defeated the Samnite horse as they were plundering the Roman baggage, and thus at liberty to support their infantry they secured a complete victory. It is said that after this battle the Samnites again proposed peace, offering to give up Roman prisoners and the heads of their own war party. The chief among these was Brutulus Papius, who, rather than be surrendered to the Romans, put an end to his life. The treaty, however, if one was proposed in this year, was not made. The only result of the campaign was the award of a triumph to the dictator, A. Cornelius Arvina. The next year (321) was to witness a disaster to the Roman Surrender arms which was never forgotten. In the summer the consul of a Roman Postumius was encamped near Calatia in Samnium.i The Samnite ^''^'^'^^^^^ imperator for the year was Caius Pontius, who was encamped near Candinle, Caudium, on the road afterwards called the Appian Way, twenty- j2i. Coss. one miles from Capua, eleven from Beneventum. By means of TitusVetu- countrymen, purposely instructed, Pontius conveyed to the consuls the false information that the Samnites had quitted their camp at Caudium and were beleaguering Luceria. It was of great import- ance to the Romans that Luceria, the chief town of Apulia, should 1 It seems certain that Livy conceives Postumius to be at Calatia (or Caiatia) in Samnium, not at Calatia in Campania. Between the former and Caudium there is a pass vt'hich answers fairly well to his description, but not between Calatia n Campania and Caudium ; yet a very ancient tradition places the spot between hese last two, as in the map on p. 128. rius II. Sp. Postu- mius II. 142 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The Roman army in flic Can- dine gorge, J2I. Was there fighting in the valley ? Pontius accepts the surrender. The terms. not be in the hands of the Samnites. The consuls therefore determined to march thither as quickly as possible. The shortest route was to strike the road at Caudium, and make for Beneventum, where the direct road to Luceria branched off. Between their position and Caudium they would have to pass through a valley closed at either end by a difficult gorge : but believing the Samnite army to be far away, they determined to risk it. When the Romans had passed the first gorge and marched through the valley, they found the exit blocked by a rampart of felled trees and other obstacles. Alarmed at this, Postumius ordered a retreat. When the legions, however, regained the gorge by which they had entered, they found that too blocked by similar obstacles and guarded by a force of the enemy. They knew now that they were entrapped : and though they entrenched a camp as usual, they saw only too clearly that they must submit to any terms which Pontius might impose. Thus Livy represents the affair, attributing to the Romans a mistake in strategy but no reverse in the field. Yet it seems from stray notices in other writers that there was some kind of battle.^ It took place, no doubt, on ground unfavourable to the Romans ; and was probably neither severe nor decisive. The fighting accordingly was forgotten, which the surrender of an army was not likely to be. All our authorities represent this surrender as the result of a failure of provisions. Pontius doubted for some time what course he should adopt towards the enemy now in his hands. He sent for his aged father Herennius, who advised him either to exterminate them or to let them all depart in peace and honour. By the one measure he would effectually cripple the Republic for many years to come : l)y the latter he would secure its friendship by an act of undeniable generosity. Pontius, however, decided to make a treaty at once with the consul. He must have known that to be binding such an agreement required to be confirmed by the people ; but he appears to have thought that this might safely be reckoned upon, if the consuls and military tribunes swore to the terms, and if he retained the 600 Equites of the legions as hostages. The terms agreed to were : That the Romans should withdraw from Samnite territory ; remove the colonies of Fregellae and Cales ; and make a peace with the Samnites on the basis of mutual independence. ^ Cicero, de Sen. § 41 Caudino praelio ; de Off. 3, § 109 cujn male pugnatum ad Caudium esset. Eutrop. ii. 4 Samnites Romanos .... apud Furculas Caudinas angustiis locorum. inclusos ingenti dedecore vicerunt. There were no contemporary records (Livy viii. 40) ; and though some writers may have thought it worth while to pass it over, Livy himself does not usually conceal Roman defeats. XI SURRENDER OF THE ROMAN ARMY 143 This involved the abandonment of everything for which Rome j2i. had been fighting ; and would leave the road into Latium open to the Samnites. Such terms would not be accepted by the people except after overwhelming disaster ; and the loss of even four legions could not be so regarded. Nor did Pontius, by allowing the soldiers to depart with their lives, do anything to conciliate Roman feeling. The restoration of soldiers who had laid down their arms was never valued at Rome. If they were ransomed it was by their own friends, not by the State. Nor could Pontius reckon on the men themselves, who would be among the voters, showing any enthusiasm for him. He had given them their lives, The but in circumstances which made them of little value. For he Romans insisted that officers and men alike should pass " under the yoke," ■^^•^^ under without arms, and to take nothing home with them but the clothes which they were wearing. When the disgraced army and its officers, assisted by the The Senate citizens of Capua, got back to Rome, they entered the city by f'^f^se the night, avoiding the sight of all men. Postumius, who did not '■^'"^• venture to act as consul, was forced to name a dictator to hold the consular elections ; and the new consuls appear to have entered upon their ofticcs earlier than usual. Postumius himself advised against accepting the terms to which he had sworn. Rather than this he urged that he and his officers should be sent back to Pontius. The return Two of the plebeian tribunes had, it seems, been sent to the camp to of Post um- join in making the agreement, and now attempted by their tribunician ^"^ ^*^ {^'^ ^ ^ , . *' 1 T, 1 11 Satnnite power to stop this measure.^ Ijut they too were persuaded to ^^^^^p abdicate, and shared with the consuls the formal surrender to the Samnite, Accompanied by a Roman fetial they were solemnly handed over to Pontius in chains. It was even reported that Postumius, declaring that he was now a Samnite, struck the fetial with his knee, crying that he had thus given the Romans a sufficient pretext for making war. If by such poor subterfuges the Roman officers did really think Pontius to put themselves in the right, Pontius refused to allow them to <^ain J<^clines to this technical advantage. He declined to accept the surrender of ''"''"''' the officers or to acknowledge it as a satisfaction of their obligations ; demanding that, as the Romans had not accepted the treaty, the whole army should be replaced in the same position. The Roman conduct was not generous, but it was inevitable. ^ This seems implied by Cicero [tk Off. 3, 30) ; and though the law forbade the absence of a tribune for more than twenty-four hours from the city, the rule seems to have been relaxed in special circumstances. Niebuhr suspected that they had been sent with a legal confirmation of the /oed us by the ])eople, which wab now to be disowned. 144 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Conduct of the Romans. The wat from J20 to 314. Revolt of Satriciini. Loss of Fregellae otid Luceria. Energy oj the Rom- Siege of Luceria, 320. Pontius, who was fully aware of the distinction between a military convention {spo7isid) and a treaty (Jbedus\ ought in common pru- dence to have retained the legions until the ratification of the treaty. In case of its rejection he could at any rate have deprived the Republic of a large fighting force. The army having been once dispersed it was difficult, perhaps impossible, to restore it to the position from which Pontius had allowed it to depart. Nor was it altogether reasonable to expect it. By assuming that the treaty would be ratified, and allowing the men to go on that understanding, Pontius was forcing the hand of the Romans. They might fairly decline to be caught in the trap : and if they gave up the officers who made the treaty, without demanding the hostages already in his hands, they had some reason for thinking that they had done all that honour required. He had had his triumph, and had inflicted on the beaten army what was well understood throughout Italy to be the last degradation : the Romans did not feel bound to allow him to carry off also all the advantages of the war in return for sparing the lives of men, on whom he had inflicted the greatest severity in his power short of slavery or death. But though the Samnites had thus failed to get the advantages from the victory at the Caudine F^orks which they anticipated, they were evidently regarded as having the best of the struggle. Satricum, on the borders of old Latium, which forty years ago the Romans had taken from its Volscian colonists, now declared its adhesion to the Samnites, who were expected to advance into Latium (320). Fregellae, the Roman colony which had been the principal pretext for war, was surprised and captured by a Samnite army ; and Luceria, the capital of Apulia, fell into their hands. Yet before long the energy of the Romans restored the balance. The consul Publilius (320) confronted a Samnite force at Caudium ; the other consul L. Papirius Cursor made his w-ay by the upper coast road to Luceria, where the Samnites kept the 600 Roman hostages. He was supplied with necessaries on his road by the country people, who, though they had no great love for the Romans, dreaded the Samnite raids. Both armies are credited with victories. At any rate the Samnite force at Caudium left its position, followed by Publilius, and went to the relief of Luceria. The two consuls effected a junction near that town ; but the siege was left to Papirius, while Publilius occupied himself in securing smaller towns in Apulia. Details are quite wanting ; but the upshot was that Luceria was recoverea and Papirius allow^ed a triumph. ^ ^ But so defective were Livy's authorities that he could not decide whether it was not rnther Lucius Cornelius who triumphed as dictator, with Papirius as master of the horse. SIX YEARS OF INDECISIVE WAR 145 The war for the next three years was desultory and indecisive, jig-jid. But whether successful or the reverse in Samnium, Rome was con- T^vo new solidating her Latin territory. Much country once Volscian was in '^^^^^^• 319 made Roman, its inhabitants being enrolled in two new tribes, XhQ Ufeniifia and Falerma; while provision was made for peace and Patroni i?i justice between the Roman settlers and the old inhabitants of Antium Antium. by yearly officers sent from Rome. Meanwhile the chief military s-uccess in operations were in Apulia and Lucania. A great part of the former Apulia ''^ was secured to the Roman allegiance, and a footing at least gained ^nd in the latter. Lucania. But the Samnites were more successful on their northern frontier. Revolt of In 316 the old inhabitants of Sora, on the upper Liris, overpowered Sora, the Roman colonists, and declared for the Samnites, who were now ^'^^^^^ ^f advancing dangerously far into Latium. In 3 1 5 the dictator Q. Fabius ^^''*''^''^' was recalled from Samnium to Sora. On his way he was met by '^^^' the Samnite army in the pass of Lautulae, between Terracina and Fundi; was defeated with considerable loss, including Q. Aulius, his master of the horse ; and for some time was shut up in his camp.i He managed eventually to break out and reach Sora ; but not in Sora re- sufficient force to storm or besiege it. That was reserved for the covered, consuls of the next year (314), who arrived with fresh troops to take ^^J- command. Sora was captured, and 250 inhabitants who had been ^p'^l]^-^' conspicuous in the rebellion were sent to Rome in chains and executed c'fsuT' in the Forum. The rest were spared, and a garrison was placed p'icius. in the town. The Ausones had now to be punished for their defection after the Destruc- defeat of Lautulae. The Samnites were not there to support them ; ^ion of the for they had been subsequently defeated by Fabius, or for some other ^''"'''^'^ reason had as usual not followed up their success. Some Ausonians also themselves favoured the Roman supremacy, and were ready to betray their countrymen. Their subjection, therefore, proved an easy task. Ausona, Minturnae, and Vescia were taken, and the people treated with such severity that the race seemed all but extinct. Meanwhile Luceria had again been occupied by a Samnite ^^^^ceria garrison. Its recovery, vital to Roman influence in Apulia, was ^"^'^'^'^^'^^ however effected by the consuls ; the Samnite garrison and the ^^•*''^^^' treasonable party among the Lucerini were put to the sword ; and 2500 Roman colonists sent out to occupy it. This was ^ Livy (ix. 23) represents this as a drawn battle. Not so Diodorus (xix. 72), who describes a general rout of the Roman line. The commotion which followed in Campania, and especially among the Ausones, shows that the truth is rather with Diodorus. Still as Q. Fabius arrived after all at Sora, he could not have been fatally damaged by the battle, and the Samnites failed as usual to use their victory with effect. [46 HISTORY OF ROME Victory at Cinna, Loss and recovery of Fregellae. Change ift the state of the war, 3^3' Roman power in Colonies at Suessa, In- teratnna, and Casinum. The via Appia. GroTvth of naval power. Colony at Ponza, 3^4- Duoviri fiavales. followed by a judicial investigation at Capua into the disaffection there during the last year. Some of the leaders anticipated their fate by suicide ; the rest were allowed to escape. But that the movement should have been serious is a measure of the Roman difficulties and disasters. The Samnites were still threatening Campania, and though the consuls now gained a decisive victory over them at Cinna, i and were able to advance into the heart of Samnium and attack Bovianum (314), they were still able to surprise the citadel of Fregellae, com- manding the upper road into Campania. It was recovered however shortly afterwards by the dictator C. Paetilius, Up to this time the war had nearly always gone on close to the frontiers of Samnium and Campania ; and the chief object of both sides was to secure the command of Campania. The victory at Cinna (314) proved a turning-point. It was followed by no negotiations for peace. The Samnites remained unconquered, and often inflicted isolated defeats on the Roman armies in after years. But though Rome had soon another war on her hands in Etruria, from this time the policy of steadily securing by permanent settlements all that she won was pursued with increased regularity ; and she began also to develope a new element of strength by the use of ships in military expeditions. A hold upon Campania was secured by the occupation of Nola, Atina, and Calatia : and the road to it made safer by a colony at Suessa in the Falernian district. In 313 colonics were sent to Interamna Lirinas, which commanded the valley of the Liris, and to Casinum, which commanded the valley of the Volturnus. Soon afterwards (312-310) Appius Claudius began the great work on the road between Rome and Capua, which ever after went by his name. Thus Rome had secured one part at least of what she had been fighting for, the free entrance and control of Campania. But in 314 also a colony was sent to Pontiae {Po?isa\ an island off the Latin and Campanian coasts. In connexion with this we find a sudden interest at Rome in naval matters. In 338 all war vessels {?iaves longae) had been removed from Antium to Ostia, but for some years appear to have been neglected. It was not until 3 1 2 that duoviri jiavales, two commissioners for the outfit and repair of ships, were appointed for the first time. And in the next year (311) we also for the first time hear of a naval expedition from Rome. The ships, under Publius Cornelius as " praefect of the sea-coast," sailed along the Campanian shore, and a descent was made, not very successfully, near Pompeii. There is no idea of fighting at ^ Livy (ix. 27) as usual mentions no name. Diodorus (xix. 76) gives the name Cinna, but its situation is unknown. THE ETRUSCAN WAR 147 sea ; but it adds a new means of attack when troops can be conveyed safely from point to point of an enemy's coast in ships. For this it was in the highest degree necessary that the Romans should command the Italian waters ; and it was to secure such command that the colony of Pontiae seems to have been formed. It is such measures which explain the ultimate success of the Causes oj Romans. The Samnites might gain single battles or surprise import- ^^""^f' ant strongholds ; but they did not follow up victories or retain captures. The Romans, on the other hand, by these settlements of citizens in places of strategical importance, kept a resolute hold upon what they had once won, and at the same time spread Roman ideas, customs, and even laws through wide districts, which quickly became Roman in feeling ; while the plundering raids of the Samnites produced only hatred and hostility among the farmers whose pro- perty they destroyed. But now Rome was to find herself engaged in a double war, in Etruscan the north as well as in the south. While the legions were employed ^;«^ S[^- in some of the usual desultory operations in Samnium during the y^^^"^^^^^ ' summer of 31 1, a combined army of the chief towns in Etruria, north Bulmkus of the Ciminian forest, suddenly attacked Sutrium, which was the ///., Q. frontier town of Roman Etruria, and in close alliance with Rome. Acvnlms The consul Aemilius was promptly sent to its relief. But he found ^^ himself outnumbered, and, though by the gallantry of his men he appears to have avoided positive defeat, his army suffered too severely to allow of anything being done that year, or of Sutrium being re- lieved. When 0. Fabius, the consul for the next year (310), arrived 310. with fresh troops, he found it still surrounded by Etruscans. A ^'f^-^- Q- desperately-fought skirmish, rather than regular battle, confined the c Marcius besiegers of Sutrium to their entrenchments ; and Fabius conceived ruHIus. the bold design of effecting a diversion by crossing the Ciminian hills, Sutrium which formed the frontier of Roman Etruria. They were covered relieved. with a forest, which at this time was looked upon as dangerous \ <-^'<:'"'^ ' , ^ . r -L • pi^^-^scs ilie even for peaceful merchants. Fabms however, sendmg one of his Saltus officers forward to reconnoitre, led his army through this wild Cimitiius. district For some weeks nothing was heard of him, and great alarm was felt at Rome, presently intensified by news of the defeat of the other consul Marcius in Samnium. The Senate Defeat of determined that Papirius Cursor must be named dictator. Whether ^-'areius \ Marcius had fallen in the Samnite battle was unknown ; but news ^^"^ -^ I had come of Fabius. He had safely passed the Ciminian forest, and was enriching his army with the spoil of the fertile plains of central Etruria. A message therefore could be sent to him announ- I cing the will of the Senate. But he was the Fabius whom, as his I master of the horse, Papirius had once wished to put to death. Would CHAP. XI ETRURIANS AND UMBRIANS UNITE 149 he be induced now to name him dictator ? Fabius hesitated, but patriotism overcame personal feeling ; he rose in the night (as was usual) and named Papirius. He himself was not superseded in his command. The dictator remained in office without consuls through 309, and went to Campania to take over the army from Marcius and drive back the Samnites, while Fabius continued the war in Etruria next year (309) as proconsul. The Etrurians had collected fresh forces at the Vadimonian lake, Battle at and there Fabius defeated them with dreadful slaughter, and took ^^^ ^'"^^'- their camp. The flower of their youth is said to have perished ; but ^"^^^'^^ though the slaughter was great, some of the survivors rallied at Perusia, where Fabius again defeated them, and put a Roman garrison in the town. His brilliant success caused him to be re-elected consul for the joS. next year (308) ; but he did not return to Etruria. The lot assigned Fabius the wSamnite war to him ; and pushing on into southern Campania ^'^"^^^i^ he added to his other triumphs the capture of the important town of Alfaterna. Nuceria Alfaterna. His colleague P. Decius, whom the lot sent to Etruria, gained some Victory slight advantages over the Etruscans, who still offered a fitful resist- ^'^^^^ . ° ^ , „ - . . „ . J Umbrians ance. But when all seemed quiet m Etruria, a new danger arose ^^d Etru- in Umbria. An army consisting of both Etruscans and Umbrians had rians, collected at Mevania in Umbria, and were reported to be intending to march upon Rome itself Decius marched swiftly southward to intercept them ; and the Senate hastily summoned Fabius from Campania. Fabius arrived at Mevania before his colleague, and once more engaged and routed the enemy. All danger from Etruria and Umbria was for the present at an end. His command Battle of was again continued to him as proconsul in 307 ; and he won ^^^^^^^ fresh honours in the Samnite war, especially in a battle near ^^'^' I Allifae. I But the retirement of Fabius next year (306) was the signal for Samnites I renewed exertions on the part of the Samnites. They crossed the ^"^f ^^j- I Volturnus, stormed Calatia and Sora, and put the Roman garrisons ^^^^^"d. I to the sword. The consul P. Cornelius Arvina was sent against I them ; and while he attempted the difficult task of getting at an I enemy who had already occupied all the roads and passes, his , colleague O. Marcius was engaged in the easier labour of subduing Rebellion jthe Hernici, long favoured allies of Rome, who had been irritated by 0/ tlie (what they thought unjust severity towards some of their people ^^f"''^- found in the Samnite ranks at Allifae. They soon submitted to Marcius, and were dealt with leniently. The three towns which had not joined in the rebellion, Alatrium, Ferentinum, and Verula, retained by their own wish their old status of focderatae civitates with the ISO HISTORY OF ROME Great victory of the consuls P. Cornel- ius Arvifia and Q. Marcius Trent ulus over the Samnites, 306. Bovianum take?i. Sora, Arpinum, and Cen- sennia recovered. End of the second Samnite war, JO 4. Fruits of the war to the Romans. special privilege of mutual conunercium and conubiufn; the others were forced to accept the Caerite citizenship, Marcius was now at leisure to go to the support of his colleague P. Cornelius. If we are to believe Livy, the Samnites who had been baffling Cornelius by cutting off his supplies and clinging to their fastnesses, without accepting his repeated offers of battle, determined that they must abandon all hope if they did not prevent the junction of the two armies. They therefore advanced to attack Marcius on his march. Cornelius, seeing what was happening, swiftly sallied from his camp, charged the Samnite column on the flank, broke right through it, and took the camp which they had just left. When Marcius therefore came upon the ground he found the enemy already in confusion. The sight of their burning camp, now in the hands of Cornelius, alarmed them still more. They were soon in full retreat, pursued by the soldiers of C. Marcius, who are asserted to have slain more than 30,000 of the enemy, besides taking a large number of prisoners. But the exaggeration of this account is proved by the fact that in spite of such a decisive victory so much was left for the consuls of the next year to do. It was not until 305 that Bovianum was taken, that Sora, Arpinum, and Censennia were re- covered from the Samnites. These achievements followed a more determined raid on Samnium itself than had been made before, ^ and another victory, in which twenty-one standards of the enemy fell into the hands of the Romans, along with the Samnite imperator Statins Gellius. Whatever the real facts of the campaigns of the years 306 and 305 may be, it seems certain that the Samnites now thought it time to ask for peace, and yet were able to demand and obtain honourable terms. The old treaty, securing mutual independ- ence, was renewed ; and thus after twenty-four years a varied and indecisive war was ended for a while. Though the Romans cannot be said to have conquered the Samnites, yet the substantial advantages of the war were with them. Their enemy, though independent, was confined to his natural limits. They had secured by permanent settlements, and by the great Appian road, the way into Campania, and its protection along the Samnite frontier. They had consolidated their own immediate territory, and held the towns on the debatable mountain land between Latium and Samnium, such as Sora and Fregellae, thus commanding also another road into Campania. By the possession of Luceria they dominated Apulia ; and by that of Nuceria Alfaterna they commanded the road into Lucania. Above all they had become the natural arbitrators in all disputes in southern Italy, to whom the Apuli and Lucani would ^ Diodor. Sic. xx. 80. XI END OF THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR 151 look for protection against the incursion of the Samnite mountaineers. In the course of the same period the arms of Rome had estabhshed her supremacy in Etruria and had spread the terror of her name in Umbria. She had taken a long step towards a supremacy in all Italy. It mattered comparatively little whether the Samnites had or had not from time to time defeated her legions in the field ; with admirable patience and persistency the Romans sent army after army each year, securing now one point and now another, ready to take every advantage by arms or diplomacy, however apparently trivial, and steadily advancing towards the attainment of their end : as a rising tide which, seeming alternately to recede and advance, con- tinues nevertheless steadily to roll its waters to the appointed limit. The Roman consul P. Sempronius had made the peace with the Samnites, not by the authority of the Senate and people, but at the head of his army. When he had satisfied himself that all was quiet in Samnium, he marched along with his colleague P. Sulpicius against the Aequi, who had in the latter years of the war sent assistance to The Aegui, the Samnites. They were offered but refused the Caerite citizenship, 304. which had been imposed upon the Hernici and others, amounting in fact to the position of subjects of the Republic. Their refusal brought upon them the whole weight of the Roman armies. They were beaten in the field and their whole fighting force practically exter- minated, and next year a colony 6000 strong was settled at Colony at Alba Fucentia to keep them in check for the future. Overawed by Alba this severity the neighbouring tribes — the Marrucini, Marsi, Peligni, ^''^'^'^''^^'^ and Frentani — accepted the position of federate states, by which ^^^" each retained its local government, but had no right to any connexion, warlike or peaceful, with any other states without the authority of Rome, to whom also each owed a fixed contribution of men and I money. Thus Samnium had on its north also a ring of states subject to Rome ; and Rome had full command of the road along the Adriatic coast into Apulia. Authorities. — Livy viii. 22-ix. 47; Dionysius, fragments of books xv. and xvi. ; Diodorus Siculus xiv. 101-102 ; xvi. 15 ; xix. 72, 76 ; xx. 35, 80 ; Appian, \Satnnit. fr. 2-5 ; Dio, fr. 36 ; Florus i. 11 ; Frontinus i. 2 ; Zonaras vii. 26; jEutropius ii. 4 ; Orosius iii. 15. CHAPTER XII ETRUSCAN AND THIRD SAMNITE WARS 303-298 COLONIES NEW TRIBES Carseoli Minturnae B.C. B.C. 302 296 Aniensis Terentina B.C. 299 B.C. 299 Sinuessa Venusia B.C. B.C. 296 291 B.C. 293 B.C. 289 CENSUS 262,322 273,000 Events between the second and third Sam?tite wars, joj- 2g8. Settlement after the war. Between the second and third Samnitc wars (303-298)— Complaint of the Lucan- ians and the beginning of the third Saninite war (298)— The Samnites league with Etruscans and Gauls (296)— Failures of Appius Claudius Caecus (296)— Battle of Sentinum (295)-Last five years of the war (294-29o)-The l^^iones linteatae—B^n\Q of Aquilonia (293)-Capture and execution of C. Pontius (292)— Peace with the Samnites (290), and their subsequent attitude towards Rome. The peace of 304 did not last long. But for about six years there was a cessation in that border warfare with the fierce highlanders, which had grown to be the habitual employment of large numbers of citizens. Like the old border warfare of English and Scot, it had little immediate influence on the course of hfe in the city. Its effects were felt afterwards in the training which the Roman soldiers had gained, and in the new responsibilities which the State had been led step by step to assume. The first measures of which we hear after the last war are towards extending and confirming the Roman dominion. The colony at Alba Fucentia to check the Aequi has been already mentioned. To Volscian Sora also, on the Liris, 4000 new colonists were sent to replace those fallen in the late revolt. To the Volscian Arpinum and to Trebula in Campania was given the Roman citizenship— the former sine Slip-agio; while Frusino, as a punishment for help to the Hernici, was deprived of a third of its lands. CHAP. XII OUTBREAKS IN ETRURIA AND UMBRIA 153 These measures were quietly submitted to by all those concerned A "tmnul- except by some of the Aequi and Marsi. The former resisted the ^^^^" colony at Alba, — a resistance often imitated in after times by those ^''J^^f ^^^ who suffered loss of lands for the benefit of coloni. The Roman Marsi ^.- government never treated such conduct lightly ; Gaius Junius ^^^d«?r^ Bubulcus was named dictator and sent against the rebellious pa. Carvilius. The Sam nite legio7ies linteatae. Samnite reverses. Battle at Aquilonia, 293- the tribunes, and by using his own authority as consul, he contrived to get one in spite of them.^ Thus a year of something very Hke disaster followed the glorious year 295. The balance \vas somewhat restored in the next year (293) by the consul L. Papirius, son of that Papirius Cursor who gained glory in the second Samnite war, and Spurius Carvilius, who proved himself a worthy colleague. The Samnites made a special effort this year. Their levy was proclaimed to meet at Aquilonia, about twenty miles south of Bovianum.^ Here a kind of order of chivalry was instituted, with solemn religious rites, after an ancient form, so the priest Ovius Paccius declared, which had been practised by those Samnites who long ago wrested Capua from the Etruscans. The leading men of military age, to the number of 16,000, were forced to take a solemn oath of secrecy as to the rite itself, and then to invoke the most dreadful curses upon themselves, their family, and race, if they either failed to obey their commander's summons to battle, or tied from the field, or failed to kill any one else whom they saw attempting to fly. They wore special arms and a lofty crest, and were called Ici^ioncs Unieaiae^ it is said, from the awning covering the place where the oath was taken. ^ If these solemn preparations were really made they were not efficacious. The year 293 was one of disaster to the Samnites. The consuls again entered Samnium, devastating the territory of Atina on the frontier, and storming two places of now unknown position — Amiternum and Ausonia. Carvilius then laid siege to Cominium, Papirius to Aquilonia, of which places also we can only say that they appear to have been about twenty miles from each other, and about the same distance from Bovianum. Papirius agreed to attack Aquilonia, if the omens allowed it, on the same day as Carvilius assaulted Cominium. When the day came the sacred chickens would not feed ; but the piillarius ventured to report falsely that they would. He was, however, him- self the first to fall in the battle, and therefore Papirius conceived the gods to be satisfied. A severe defeat, at any rate, is said to have been inflicted on the Samnites : the legio?ies liitteatae no less than the others fled before the charge of the cavalry ; the Samnite camp was stormed, and the outskirts of Aquilonia itself were entered. Nightfall prevented the Romans from venturing to go farther. But ^ This is the account whicli Livy prefers, but as usual in matters in them- selves obscure, the authorities differed. Some say that Postumius was also at Luceria, and was even wounded there, ^ The site of Aquilonia is uncertain. It was, it seems, in the territory of the Pentri, almost the centre of Samnium. ^ More likely from their white linen tunics, cp. Livy ix. 40. XII LAST SCENES IN THE SAMNITE WAR i6i when the day broke they found that the enemy had evacuated the place and gone away, leaving large numbers of dead behind them. On the same day Carvilius also took Cominium, killing 4000 men Fall of and receiving 15,000 who surrendered at discretion: though a Coymnmm. number of others retreated in such order that they were able to inflict some loss upon the cavalry which assailed their rear. After this the consuls proceeded in their task of taking cities in Samnium, one after the other : sometimes by assault, sometimes only after a long siege ; at times with hardly any resistance, at others with con- siderable difficulty and loss. In the midst of the rejoicing at Rome caused by these successful Ne-v operations, complaints reached the Senate from loyal cities in ^^^^^^^_ ^^ Etruria that they were suffering from the attacks of those states which were hostile to Rome. The Senate promised assistance, which they were presently induced to send with the greater despatch because they learnt that even Falerii, which had for so many years been faithful, had joined the mutineers. The two consuls in Samnium were ordered to draw lots which of them should go to Etruria. The lot fell on Carvilius ; and, to the great joy of his soldiers, who found the mountains of Samnium very trying in the winter, he marched thither at once, leaving his colleague to reduce Sepinum, one of the few strong towns still in the hands of the Sam- nites. In Etruria he attacked a town named Troilius, allowed some of the aristocrats to depart on the payment of a heavy ransom, and reduced the rest to surrender. The capture of some other forts, and the slaughter of some thousands of the rebel forces, induced the Faliscans to accept a year's truce and pay a heavy fine. The year 293 had been one of great glory to the Roman arms, Coss. Q. though the joy at these successes had been dashed by a severe ^'l^"[^ .,,,.. , ^, , Maxtmus pestilence both m city and country. The next year seems to have c,jir- ' and six times between that date and 342) the law remained in force, I and in 341 was extended to allow both consuls to be plebeians.- But while yielding this, the patricians secured the delegation of the judicial functions of the consul to a new magistrate to be called the praetor, who until 336 was always a patrician. He was considered a : colleague of the consuls, and the title was perhaps the earliest used , to designate the chief of the State. The derivation of the word and 1 the term used by Greek writers to translate it (o-rpaT^^yos) point to I the original meaning as "head of the army." But though, when the ^ number of praetors was increased, they at times performed military duties, yet a later regulation confined them during their year of I office to the administration of justice ; and the single praetor now j appointed had primarily none but judicial functions. ( Shorn of this important sphere of action the consulship could be The [restored without offence. The consuls still enjoyed the highest rank, jif they were active and able men, they did much by initiating ''"''"'^''''P- I laws, publishing edicts, and restraining other magistrates. In 'times of civil disturbance they had the chief means of restoring order. But in quiet times, and within the walls, they were almost confined to routine duties : they presided in the Senate, held the comitia, performed certain public acts of worship. Outside the walls however, and in times of war, they were still supreme : held levies, commanded armies, punished rebellion. If they failed, or were obviously incompetent, the Senate intervened, and by forcing one of them to name a dictator, secured a suitable commander for the legions. Besides the praetorship, the patricians in return for their con- Curuk cession obtained also a share in the aedileship. Two curule aediles ''"■'^^^leship. ^ Appian, B.C. i. 8. - The same law prevented accumulation of curule offices by directing that a jyear at least was to intervene between the holding of two curule offices, and ten ears between two consulships (Livy vii. 42). This was suspended or neglected m several occasions, generally for special reasons ; but with the exxeption of he revolutionary times of Marius was usually respected up to B.C. 53. restored 170 HISTORY OF ROME Decejnviri sac ro rum. Cotnitia tributa, 3^7- Tj-ihini m Hi turn. Riifiili. Plebeian censor^ 351- I.eges Pub- liliae, jjg. A ucioritas patriim. were elected from the patricians to superintend the public games, and continued to be elected from patricians and plebeians alternately, all distinction between the two sorts of aediles, in regard to their functions, gradually dying out. On the other hand, the plebeians obtained five places among the decemviri sacroriim^ who took the place of the di(oviri sacris faciinidis^ and thus got a share in the custody of the Sibylline oracles, to which appeal was often made in political business. The laws embodying these mutual concessions were passed under the presidency of the veteran M. Furius Camillus, named this year dictator for the fifth time, to repel a Gallic raid. Henceforward the plebeians gained admission one after the other to all remaining positions in the State, and the comitia tributa became more and more clearly recognised as a sovereign assembly, to which legislation was nearly always assigned ; while the centuriate assembly continued to elect the higher magistrates, consuls, praetors, censors. In other words, when a change in the laws was to be made, the people voted in such a way as gave the chief voice to numbers ; when the higher magistrates were to be elected, the people voted in such a way as to give the preponderance to men of property. The aediles and quaestors and tribunes continued to be elected by the comitia tributa; and in 361 the rule was enforced that the military tribunes, of whom there were six for each legion, instead of being nominated by the dictator or consul, should be elected by the same assembly, thereby bringing the army also more under the immediate control of the people, and decreasing the influence of the consul. The practice before and after this date appears to have been irregular, some military tribunes having been elected, others named. The rule was repeated in 311, and as late as 105 a law of Rutilius Rufus distinguished the two kinds of tribunes, those elected and those nominated, whence the latter got the name of Rufuli?- In 35 I for the first time a plebeian was elected censor : and in 339 the laws named from the dictator Publilius marked another step in plebeian advance. They (i) confirmed the rule that the plebiscita should apply to all citizens alike ; (2) ordered that when a law was brought before the co??iitia cciituriata the Senate should give its formal confirmation of it before the voting began, not after; (3) ordered that one censor should always be a plebeian. The second of these laws did not apparently deprive the Senate of all power of stopping- legislation in the comitia\enturiata. The aiictoritas of the Senate was still necessary, but must be given to the magistrate proposing ^ Livy vii. 5 ; ix. 30 ; cf. Festus, s.v. That there was now a great rush of "new men" to obtain office is shown by the lex Poetilia dc avdutii (358), forbidding canvassing on market days. APPIUS CLAUDIUS CAECUS 171 the law before it was put to the people. The Senate could not, if the people gave a vote they disliked, step in afterwards and deprive the law of validity. It could prevent a proposal being brought before the centuriate assembly, it could not suspend its enforce- ment when once passed. Finally in 336 for the first time a PIebeia?i plebeian was elected praetor in spite of the protest of the consul praetor, Sulpicius. ^^ ■ Thus all the magistracies were thrown open to the plebeians. The The sacer- patricians still retained an important hold on administration from ^°^^^ ^^^ being alone eligible to the sacred colleges, in whose custody were the ^^f^^ -patri- ( laws regulating the details of civil procedure, the arrangement of the cian. I calendar, and the proper distinction between days on which business might and might not be transacted. The abolition of this one remaining privilege was preceded by the bold innovations introduced \ by Appius Claudius Caecus in his censorship. ; As in the case of other aristocrats who promoted popular measures, The cen- ' it is difficult to assign a motive to the policy of Appius with any sorship ■ confidence. He was no enthusiast for the rights of the plebeians, of^PP^t^^ I for he afterwards opposed the Ogulnian law which admitted them to ^^"^JJ'^ j the sacred colleges : yet he systematically disregarded the authority J12-J08. of the Senate, and endeavoured to lower its prestige by enrolling men I of inferior rank, in some cases even the sons of freedmen, and by j neglecting to take the usual senatorial decree for the issue of the money ; required for his two great works,i the road to Capua {via Appid)^ and I the water which he brought into the city {aqua Appza). Moreover, ( he obstinately persisted in retaining his office for four years in I order to complete these works, maintaining that the lex Aemilia i (430), which confined the censorship to eighteen months, only applied to the censors of that year. But the most important of his His inno- innovations was in regard to the urban voters. They had hitherto vation as to been included in four urban tribes, and therefore only counted four ^ ^,^'' ^'^ ^ ' , -1 A • 1 tribes. votes as agamst twenty-seven of the rural tribes. Appius made up { the list of the tribes in such a way that the people of the city were distributed (perhaps according to individual choice) among all the I tribes. The city vote, therefore, influenced that of a large number ; of the tribes, and as the city voters were on the spot, while the farmers would not be willing to come in large numbers to the comitia, except on special occasions, it is evident that this measure tended to throw power into the hands of the urban population. But why did Appius wish to do this ? The answer seems to be ^ "The Senate controls also what is by far the largest and most important expenditure, that, namely, which is made by the censors every lustrum for the repair or construction of public buildings ; this money cannot be obtained by the censors except by the grant of the Senate " (Polyb. vi. 13). HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. His aim in making the change. The. policy revoked. The gens Potitia. On. Fla- vi us pub- lishes the legal formulae attd the calendar, jo-f- Lex Ogul- 71 ia, 2g6. that his aim was to strengthen the power of the magistrates as against the Senate, The magistrates were to be supreme : and the only way to make them so was to found their power as directly as possible on the popular will, and the popular will represented by the urban inhabitants could be acted on most powerfully by the magistrate. It was, in fact, incipient Caesarism of the sort denounced in after times by Cicero, which " did nothing through the Senate, everything direct with the people." It was not, rightly viewed, a democratic policy ; but the object of its enmity was the constitutional oligarchy of which the Senate was the embodiment. The time, however, was not ripe for such a change. The consuls refused to summon the Senate as enrolled by Appius, and employed the roll of his predecessors ; and the censors for 304 upset his arrangement of the tribes by once more embodying all the city populace in the four urban tribes. He showed his free spirit in regard to religious matters by pro- moting the transfer of the worship of Hercules at the ara Maxima from the gens Potitia to a number of public slaves ; to which measure popular superstition attributed both the speedy extinction of the gens, and the loss of sight which befel Appius himself at a later period of his life. He also deprived the guild of tibicines., whose services were required at sacrifices, of their maintenance in the temple of Jupiter, who accordingly struck work, and migrated to Tibur, whence they were brought back under the effects of wine drunk at a banquet given them by the Tiburtines. More important w^as the action of Gnaeus Flavius, the son of a freedman, and a public clerk or scriba, who had been secretary to Appius, and under his influence still farther weakened the oligarchical party by making public, when curule aedile, the \Qg?C\. formulae or rules of pleading, and the methods of legal practice {actus legitimi and actioncs /egt's), as \\'ell as posting up the calendar or Fasti in the Forum, that all might know what legal proceedings were valid or invalid on particular days. These things had been kept as secrets in the sacred colleges, or were known to only a fe\v jurisconsults besides, and their revelation was another step tow^ards broadening the basis of liberty. Flavius, as Cicero says, had blinded the crows, — had taken from these sharp-eyed lawyers their monopoly of wisdom, and had plundered their science. No more \vould the pontifices be able to protect the aristocratic wrong-doer or baffle the lowly appellant by collusive pleas of technical irregularity, or to postpone justice on the ground of some mysterious incompetency attaching to the day selected. In 296 this security was confirmed by the admission of plebeians to the sacred colleges. The /t\v Ogiihua increased the number both of the augures and pontifices from four to eight, and ordained that four of the jDontifices and five of the augures should be il Lex Hor- fensia, 2S6. The orders equalised. XIII FINAL EQUALISATION OF THE ORDERS 173 plebeians. The importance of this lay in the fact that cases of disputed elections, — of whethei' there was a vitiuni in an election, — came before the augures, and the plebeians believed that a vitium was declared when a plebeian was elected. ^ In 286, when the people had for the last time "seceded" to the Janiculum, a law of the dictator Hortensius finally put an end to all important distinctions between the orders by making the couiitia t7'ibuta an absolutely sovereign assembly for legislatixe purposes. Re-enacting that the plebiscita should be binding on the whole people, it added that for the binding force of these resolutions the aucioritas of the Senate should not be required. Henceforth, although a magistrate often brought measures before the coviitia tributa in obedience to the resolution of the Senate, such a senatorial resolu- tion was not essential, and laws could be proposed and passed without it. 2 But the opening of all the higher magistracies to the plebeians The neiv made the growth of a new nobility of wealth inevitable. The offices -notihty. were unpaid and could only be held by men in at least easy circum- stances. As the standard of wealth rose with the extension of the city, fewer and fewer men were found to combine great public services with the frugality and simplicity of a Cincinnalus. The change was reflected in the Senate, which, without legally defined powers, j had the chief administration in its hands. The ;f)lebiscitinn Ovinium ^ I (about 318-312) had transferred the duty of making up the roll of j the Senate from the consuls, or consular tribunes, to the censors, I and had directed that they should do it b)' selecting the best men of I j ^ See the case of the dictator M. Claudius Marcellus in 327 (Livy viii. 23). - How the lex Hortensia differed from the lex Pubhha is a difficult question. Laelius Felix (Aulus Gellius xv. 37) says that the proposals brought before the co7nitia tributa by the tribunes were not binding on the patricians until the law of Hortensius, which enacted ut eo jure quod plebs statuisset omnes Qui rites \tenerent2ir. Yet the lex Publilia (Livy viii. 12) also contained a similar clause. I It is not surprising that successive laws should repeat the same enactment, just as our own early charters do ; and the most natural explanation of the remark of Laelius is, that, by the lex Publilia the plebiscita were declared binding on the I whole people, but that it was still considered necessary that these resolutions of the plebs should be made leges by going through the ordinary formalities, i.e. by being authorised by the Senate and passed by the comitia ce/ituriata. If that were not done, some people were found to deny their validity as binding patricians, the very protest being an illustration of the general sentiment the other way ; the lex Hortensia therefore finally and distinctly abolished the necessity for this process. 2 The date of the Ovinian plebiscitum is nowhere stated. Willems seems to '|have given good reason for placing it as in the text {Le Senat i. 153 sq.). Though the censors ordinarily made up the roll of the Senate, on certain special occasions a dictator was named for the purpose, as in 216 (Livy xxiii. 3). 174 HISTORY OF ROME the several orders. It soon came to be a niatter of course, not to be departed from without grave reason justifying the ignominia^ that the ex-magistrates of curule rank — consularcs^ practorii^ and aedUidi^ — should be put upon the roll. These offices therefore gave a life- membership of the Senate ; and when they were filled indifferently from both orders of the State and by popular election, it followed that the Senate consisted chiefly of men who had stood the test of the choice of the people. The censors indeed filled up such vacancies as were left by enrolling men who had obtained distinction in war ; and Appius Claudius Caecus, as we have seen, went down very low in the social scale to find members. But, put- ting aside this innovation, which was soon annulled, such men would not be influential members. As opposed to curule senators they would be called /tv/*^?;-//, who voted but did not speak. ^ The bulk of the Senate, and certainly the active and leading men in it, would be those who once at least had stood the test of popular election to curule office ; and the condition of success in such an election was often high birth, but nearly always wealth also. These men remained members for life, and their families soon came to be spoken of as " senatorial," though their sons had no hereditary claim to membership. The Senate therefore was an assembly of ex-officials and rich men, who formed a nobility partly of birth, but in an increasing proportion of wealth also, most of whom had had experience of public business in peace or war. The result was a body whose administration for more than two centuries deservedly earned and retained the respect of foreign nations, and generally speaking the loyalty of its fellow-citizens. The soctar The distinction between the orders legally annihilated in 286 distinction survived for a time in social life. Two stories have been preserved '^ ,"' which illustrate the form which this may have taken. Thus the o}'ders stir- .... ^ , , . , ,,•'., ^ ... ^ 7'i7'ed the mitiative of the movement which resulted m the Licmian laws is at- legal. tributed to the emulation of the two daughters of M. Fabius Ambustus. One of them was married to the patrician Servius Sulpicius, the other ^ According- to Willems they were called /fc/r/r//, not, as Aulus Gellius says, because they voted by walking across the Senate-house, but as opposed to curulcs, who occupied special seats. A series of laws secured to the aedilicii, tribunicii, qiiaesto7-ii (who had not held curule offices) the jus dicendae sevtentiae, but there appears to have been nothing formally to prevent them doing so before ; only, as the presiding magistrate called on all the curule members before them {censorii, cons// tares, and praetorii), they had not in practice been accustomed to speak. The existing aediles, tribunes, and quaestors, — as being members of the govern- ment, — spoke on matters pertaining to their respective functions, but did not vote. All these ex-magistrates, curule or non-curule, remained members of the Senate until the next lectio, but were not "senators" until placed on the roll by the censors. Such as were placed on the roll without having held office, if there were such , seem to have been classed with tXm pectarii. XIII SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS SURVIVING 175 to the plebeian C. Licinius Stolo. The wife of the plebeian was in the The wife house of the patrician, who at the time was a consular tribune, and ^^ Licinius was startled into showing signs of alarm when the lictor knocked ^^'^^'^' loudly at the door to summon the magistrate. Laughed at by her sister for her want of acquaintance with official ways, in her chagrin she appealed to her father, who promised that he would redress the inequality which had so mortified her. But nearly seventy years after the passing of the Licinian laws, chapd of when one distinction after another had been abolished, and when Castitas two generations had been familiarised with the idea of political Patricia. equality, the patrician ladies showed that they had not allowed their social ideas to keep pace with the times. There was a chapel dedicated to " Patrician Chastity," near the Forum Boarium, in which the matrons were accustomed to offer a yearly sacrifice, admission being confined to those whose character was unimpeached and who had been married to only one husband. In the year 296 the wife of the plebeian consul Volumnius, though of patrician birth, was excluded on the ground of her marriage with a plebeian. Indignant at the slight, she consecrated a chapel adjoining her own house in the Vicus Longus, admission to which was made to depend on the same con- ditions as that to the older shrine. Such acts of social pride how- ever, though galling, can scarcely be regarded as of importance : they were but the froth on the surface recalling the storm which had raged and was stilled. Authorities.— Up to 293 Livy's continuous narrative (v.-x.) ; from that date we have only the epitomes of lost books xi. and xii. Of Dionysius also (xiv. ) there are only some unimportant fragments. Plutarch [Camillus 36, 39) has some account of Manlius and Licinius. Of the latter there is a short and rather hostile account in Zonaras vii. 24 and Aurelius Victor xx. Appian {B. civ. iv. 7-10) gives an instructive account of the ager publicus ,- Paterculus (i. 14, 15) a list of colonies. For the censorship of Appius Claudius Caecus, see Livy ix. 29, 30, 33, 34, 40; Diodorus Sic. xx. 36. For Gnaeus Flavius see Livy ix, 47; Cicero /r^ Mur. §25 ; ad Att. vii. i §8 ; de Orat. i. 186 ; Pliny N.H. xxxiii. '17 ; Piso in Aul. Gell. vii. 9. ' CHAPTER XIV ROME AND TARENTUM COLONIES Hatria . . .B.C. 289 Castrum Novum, between B.C. 289-283 Sena . . about B.C. 283 B.C. 289 273,000 From the end of the third Samnite war to the invasion of Pyrrhus (B.C. 290-280) — Wars with Senones and Boii with Etruscan contingents — Defeat of the Lucani and Bruttii in the territory of Thurii — Quarrel with Tarentum, and the invitation to Pyrrhus. Colonies to secure the east coast of Italy, 28^-283. War zvith the Sen- ones, 28J. Coss. P. Cornel- ius Dola- bella Max- imus, Cn. Do7nitius Calvinus Maxiimis. Victory of Cornelius Dolabella. The years immediately following" the third Samnite war were not marked by any memorable achievement. Yet Rome went on steadily securing her position. The danger which had menaced her from the union of the Samnites and Gauls, along with the disaffected people in E'Lruria and Umbria, had made evident the importance of having the control of the east coast. Accordingly a colony with Latin rights was settled at Hatria or Hadria on the southern part of the coast of Picenum, about five miles inland, and a short time afterwards a colony of Roman citizens higher up the coast at Castrum Novum. With the exception of an unimportant revolt at Volsinii, our scanty remains of history tell of no farther trouble in Etruria until the Senonian Gauls once more renewed their raids. In 283 they even besieged Arretium, and succeeded in cutting to pieces the Roman legions, with the praetor L, Caecilius, sent to the relief of the town. M'. Curius Dentatus, who had successfully finished the Samnite war, took his place, and sent ambassadors to treat with the Gauls for the restoration of prisoners. But the Gallic chief Britomaris caused the ambassadors to be barbarously murdered, in revenge, he said, for the death of his father in the last war. This violation of the law of nations was promptly avenged. The consul Cornelius Dolabella, who was to have supported Dentatus in Etrui-ia, on hearing the news, turned off at once from his road, and marched CHAP. XIV THE SENONIAN GAULS 77 straight through the Sabine lands and Picenum into the territory of the Senones, who as usual had gone home with their spoils. He defeated them with slaughter which almost amounted to annihilation. The survivors were expelled from the district, and the women and children sold as slaves. The country was then Sena secured by sending a colony of Roman citizens to the coast Gallica. of the Adriatic, just where the plains of tlie Po terminate, which under the name of Sena Gallica became afterwards the capital of the district. But the expulsion of the Senones made their neighbours the The BoH Boii alarmed for themselves. They quickly summoned their ctder Eini- warriors, swept down upon Etruria, and calling upon those ''^f; ^!"l ^ ^ Etruscans who still disliked the Roman supremacy to join them, pieces at marched through the country as far as the Vadimonian lake. There the Lac us they were met by the consul Gn. Domitius, and overthrown with ^^adi- such slaughter that only a few stragglers escaped to carry home the ^'I'i'"^' news ; their Etruscan allies also losing half their men in the battle. ^'^ The Boii, however, were not dismayed. The next year they The Boil entered Etruria again, and again called upon the Etruscans for aid ; ^'^g'-'^in. con- and were once more so signally defeated that they humbled themselves '/'^^''^'"/" to send ambassadors to Rome to make a peace, by which they 0S2. abided for nearly fifty yea^s. But while thus fighting for her life in the North, Rome once Trouble in more found herself in the presence of serious difficulties in the -^^^ig't^i South, The Samnites were said to be again preparing for war ; ^'^"'^^^"' the Lucani and Bruttii were actually attacking the town of Thurii, which among the Greek towns of south Italy was the most closely united in friendship with Rome. P^or these movements, as well as in part for the recent outbreaks in Gaul, the intrigues of the Tarentines were believed to be responsible. Thurii had been put into opposition and rivalry with Tarentum by the Molossian Alexander, and the Tarentines had now their opportunity of revenge. The position of Tarentum in Italy presents some striking Tarentum analogies to that of Athens during the Macedonian period. In cind Athens Athens, one party, while aiming at a supremacy among other Greek ^'^>"'P<^^'^d- states, had the farther object of forming a confederacy to resist the great and united Macedonian power ; and, to do this, was ready to make friends with her ancient and bitter enemy Thebes, and even with her hereditary foe the king of Persia. The other party wished to secure Athenian prosperity and peace by co-operating with Macedonia. So Tarentum, regarding herself as the head of an Hellenic con- Parties in federacy, of which the natural enemies were the Lucanians and Tarentum. Apulians, had to choose between making friends with them, and so forming a united front against the encroaching power of Rome, or N 178 HISTORY OF ROiME submitting to the protectorate of Rome, and thus securing her- self against the enemies nearer her gates : and, as in Athens, there were two parties supporting the first and the second pohcy re- spectively. The Romanising party consisted for the most part of the older and richer citizens ; the opposition of the younger and more democratic, p^^^,^ This popular party was now in the ascendant, and its policy policy of was marked by singular alternations of rashness and irresolution. the popular The Tarentines had been the ultimate cause of the second Samnite P^^^y^ vvar. They had invited the Molossian Alexander to their aid, had ^^'^' then quarrelled with him, and stirred up against him all the Greek cities which they could influence ; and when among other acts of retaliation, he had made terms with Rome, they had instigated those unlucky raids of the people of Palaepolis upon Roman territory, which brought on the collision between the Romans and the Samnites who aided Palaepolis. Yet, with the exception of one protest, as pretentious as it was ineffectual, which the Romans treated with deserved contempt,^ they had done nothing to help the Samnites in their long struggle. They had preserved the sort of neutrality which is really offensive to both sides, striving to seize the oppor- tunity, when the two powers were engaged in a death struggle with each other, to secure their own ends in other ways. They invite Nor was their resort to foreign powers successful. To crush the 'aid of jhe Lucanians and Messapians, while Roman and Samnite were foreigners, fighting, they continued to invite foreign princes to their aid. Thus after Alexander's death they called in (we do not know with what result) Agathocles of Syracuse, who had been supported by mercenaries from both Samnium and Etruria. Later on, in 302, the Spartan Cleonymus came on their invitation to oppose the Lucanians and Romans. 2 But he at any rate did no good. Luxurious and dissolute, after treacherously seizing Metapontum, and indulging in vain schemes of Sicilian conquest, he departed to Corcyra, contenting himself with plundering expeditions on the Italian coasts, among others at the mouth of the Meduacus, where the inhabitants of Patavium drove him off with considerable loss. In each case these foreign princes, invited by Tarentum for her defence, had become a danger or a difficulty to her. Tzvo The wise policy for Tarentum, as it turned out, would have been possible to have secured her safety among her hostile neighbours l3y frankly policies for ^^yhig herself with Rome. Failing that, her only resource was to Tarentum. ^^^^^^ i^^ited all the peoples of southern Italy, Greek and native ^ Livy ix. 14. ^ , 2 Jb. X. 2 ; Diodor. xx. 104, 105 iroXe/xov txoyres irpbs AevKavovs k"' "PuJ/maiovs. XIV STATE OF PARTIES IN TARENTUM 179 alike, and even the Samnites themselves, into a league strong enough to hold its own against Rome. But there was httle chance at Tarentum of a Demosthenes, or even an Aeschines, capable of conceiving or carrying out either the one policy or the other. All accounts which we have of the state of Tarentum at this time Sfa/e of present some of the worst features of a Greek democracy in its Tarentum, decline, when simplicity of life and intelligent interest in affairs have been replaced by idle luxury and the conceited meddlesomeness of the incompetent. There were energetic and active citizens, but they did not find a scope for their energies amidst the decaying Hellenism in Italy. They went abroad to serve in foreign armies, so that " Tarentines " became the well-known designation of an effective species of cavalry ; or they were away with the still numerous ships of war or commerce. These were not the men who directed the policy of the State. The idle citizens spent their life in the baths and gymnasia ; or in sauntering about the shady walks of the city, where they wrangled over politics, or discussed those precepts of the Pythagorean philosophy which they had no intention of carrying into effect ; or in attending the almost daily festivals and banquets which filled the Tarentine calendar. The great fleets had brought immense wealth and every luxury to the city ; there were plenty of slaves to do the hard work of life ; and that free citizens should be compelled to do anything contrary to their inclinations was to make them no better than slaves themselves. Yet these were the men whose voices settled everything in the sovereign assembly. And the assembly faithfully reflected their character. A jest, a vain boast, or burst of empty rhetoric, sufficed to determine the most serious business. At once prone to panic, and reckless in rushing upon danger, they provoked a powerful people, formed or broke an alliance, with equal rashness and frivolity. Eager to catch at any means which would secure them power without labour or danger, they invited one ambitious prince after another to their aid, blindly believing that he would consent to serve their aims rather than use them as stepping-stones for his own. Such were the people who were now to come into collision with the steady policy and persistent purpose of Rome. The result was not doubtful. But the Romans had too much on their hands from 285 to 280 to wish to provoke a contest, although they knew well enough that Tarentum was stirring up rebellion against them in southern Italy. We shall find them therefore unusually slow to strike, and trying by diplomatic means to postpone the appeal to arms. It was perhaps from this motive that, in the latter part of the Rotnan second Samnite war, they had conceded to the naval jealousy of ^^^^aty with Tarentum a treaty whereby they bound themselves not to sail with Tarentum. i8o HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 282. Coss. C. Fabricius Luscinus, Q. Aemi- lius Papus. The Romans send help to Thia'ii. Attach on the Roman ships in the harbour of Tarentiim. Thi Romans demand compensa- tion. warships round the Lacinian promontory into the gulf of Tarentum.^ And this concession, whenever made, was destined to bring about the very breach which it was intended to prevent. Tlie rising of the Lucani in 284 had taken the form of an attack upon Thurii. The town was closely besieged, but the people managed to send an embassy to Rome to beg for help. The Romans were ready enough to exercise a protectorate in Magna Graecia; and in 282 the consul C. Fabricius Luscinus was despatched to the relief of Thurii. He conquered the Lucani in a great battle, took their camp, and placed a Roman garrison in the town. This was offence enough in the eyes of the Tarentines, who regarded themselves as the natural protectors of Greek towns, and the appeal to Rome as treason to the Hellenic cause. But this was not all. Besides the army under Fabricius, a fleet of ten ships under the duovir L. Valerius had been despatched also, which visited the Greek towns on the coast, and eventually appeared in the harbour of Tarentum itself. It seems scarcely possible to believe that the visit of these ships was purely one of curiosity, as the Romans afterwards, contended. We know that there was a Romanising party within the city ; and it seems natural that the intention was to lend support to it against the more democratic and patriotic portion of the population. At any rate that seems to have been the interpretation immediately adopted. On the motion of one Philochares, who is represented as a man of vile character, a fleet at once put to sea. Four of the Roman ships were sunk, and one was taken with all hands, L. Valerius himself being killed. Moreover a force was sent by land to Thurii, to punish that town for its appeal to Rome. Some of the leading citizens responsible for it were banished and their property confiscated, and the Roman garrison was expelled. The action of the popular party of Tarentum may perhaps be justified by the law of nations, if the Roman ships were in the harbour for a pohtical purpose, and if the treaty was still in force ; but it inevitably involved a war with Rome, and unless the Tarentines were prepared for that, it was in the highest degree unwise. The Romans, however, were still too deeply involved in other struggles to be willing to engage in a new one at once. The consul Q. Aemilius Papus was despatched with an army into Samnium, but an embassy only was sent to Tarentum, headed by Lucius Postumius, 1 Our only authority for the treaty is Appian {Samn. 7). He calls it an "ancient treaty" {-KoXaiaX avvQr^Kai). This hardly accords with the theory generally held, which places it in 304 or 303. It may possibly, as indicated in the text, have been made when the revival of interest in naval affairs occurred in Rome, and diwviri na-rales were appointed, i.e. about 310; but it may also possibly have been very much earlier. XIV ROMAN ENVOYS AT TARENTUM i8i demanding " the return of the prisoners taken on the ship ; the restoration and indemnification of the men banished from Thurii ; and, finally, the surrender of the Tarentine statesmen responsible for the outrage on the Roman ships." The demands, though not un- reasonable, were such as Tarentum could not grant if she meant to maintain her position among the other Greek states ; and yet they were such that their rejection must necessarily mean war with Rome. The rejection was determined upon, and made more offensive by Scene in the scene in the assembly when it was confirmed. The Roman ih^heatrc ambassadors appeared in the theatre, clothed in their senatorial ^^^^^ robes, and delivered their message. But the volatile Hellenes laughed at their bad Greek and their purple -fringed togas, and burst nito furious exclamations at their threatening tone. Finally when a certain Philonides, by a disgusting act of contempt, befouled the toga of Postumius, the insult was greeted by clapping of hands, loud laughter, and applauding cries. Postumius, holding up the be- spattered garment, cried sternly, " Laugh on ! You will weep when this toga is cleansed with blood." The news of this insult was reported at Rome by the returning 281. ambassadors shortly after the entrance upon office of the consuls of Coss. L. the next year. War wa,s at once decided upon ; but the time for ^^^^^^^J beginning it was still a matter of discussion. At length L. Aemilius q Marcius Barbula, who had been destined for Samnium, was ordered to go Philippus. to Tarentum instead. He was not, however, to commence warlike operations at once ; but was to offer an ultimatum. Let the Taren- Roman tines accede to the demands of the ambassadors and peace might ulti- be made. The sight of the Roman legions in their territory had a ''^«^"^'- sobering effect on the Tarentines. They hesitated and seemed inclined to give in. But the popular party had one last card to play. Whilst Aemilius Barbula was still waiting for a reply to his ulti- matum, they succeeded in carrying a resolution to invite the help of invitation Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whom they had themselves once aided by to Pyrrhus. a fleet. When Aemilius learnt that messengers had been sent to Pyrrhus, he at once began plundering the country round the Roman camp. The Tarentines sent out some troops and made a faint attempt to stop his ravages, but appear not to have been able to face the Roman legions. The Romanising party in the town for the moment got the upper Pyrrhus hand in the assembly ; and Agis, the leading member of it, was will come. elected dictator. He would probably soon have made terms with \ Aemilius : but he had not been many days in office when news arrived that Pyrrhus had accepted the invitation of the Tarentines, and promised to come shortly to their aid. The promise was con- i82 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xiv veyed by his favourite friend and minister Cineas, and produced an immediate revulsion of feeling. Negotiations with Aemilius were broken off, Agis deposed, and one of the members of the deputation to Pyrrhus elected in his stead. Arrival of Before long, as an earnest of the good faith of the king, some Mtlofrom troops arrived under Milo, who occupied the citadel, and undertook pirus. ^^ guard the town walls. The Tarentines, delighted to be saved all trouble, willingly supplied these men with provisions and pay. Aemilius, who was not in sufficient force to attack the town, and did not wish to winter in the country, retired northwards through Apulia, the Tarentines making an unsuccessful attempt to intercept his march. He was considered worthy of a triumph over the Tarentines and Salentini, as well as for his successes in Samnium. Arrival of Before the next spring (280) Pyrrhus arrived in person, and the Tarentines soon found that all was not to be so easy and delightful as they expected, and that King Stork had come indeed. They had an opportunity of appreciating the pantomime of Meton, who, after vainly speaking against the invitation to Pyrrhus, when the vote was passed, appeared in the assembly crowned with flowers and accom- panied by music and all the signs of revelry, and explained that it was well to enjoy themselves at once, for when Pyrrhus came they would all be slaves. Hopes in Y^vW at first all was confidence and jubilation. The invincible yrrtus. Pyn'hus would hurl back the legions of the haughty Republic of the Tiber, that ventured to dictate to free Greeks, and maybe would himself dictate his terms on the Capitol. The x\UTHORiTiES are mostly fragmentary. For the Gallic wars the best is Polybius ii. 19; cf Eutropius ii. 6; Livy, Ep. xi. -xii. For the south Italian affairs Dio, fr. 37-39 ; Appian, Sanni. 7 ; Dionysius Hal. xvii. 7 ; Valerius Max. i. 8, 6 ; Pausanias i. xi.-xii. ; Diodorus Siculus xx. 104, 105 ; Zonaras viii. 2. Pvrrhiis 280. CHAPTER XV PYRRHUS COLONIES CENSUS Posidonia (Paestum) in Lucania B.C. 273 B.C. 280 . 278,222 Cosa in Etruria B.C. 273 B.C. 275 . 271,224 Ariminum in the agcr Gal lie us . B.C. 268 B.C. 265 292,224 Beneventum in Samniuni . B.C. 268 Firmum in Picenum B.C. 264 Aesernia in Samniuni B.C. 263 Early life of Pyrrhus — He comes to Tarentum — Message to the Roman consul — Battles of Pandosia (Heraclea), Asculum (280-279)— State of Sicily — Pyrrhus goes to Syracuse — Attacks the Mamertines and Carthaginians : takes Agrigentum, Panormus, Hercte, and other towns — Besieges Lilybaeum un- successfully—Recalled to Italy (278-275) — Battle of Beneventum (275)— Pyrrhus retires to Tarentum and returns to Epirus (274) — The Romans take Tarentum and Rhegium : subdue Lucania, Bruttium, and Calabria, and the I Picentines, and become supreme in Italy (274-265). I A MORE than usual interest attaches to the prince who now came Early I to Italy in answer to the appeal of the Tarentines. He was not only a career of [gallant soldier distinguished for personal prowess in the field. He Py^^'h^^^- I was also a skilled tactician, had written a treatise on the military art, '^ ^ { and had introduced great improvements in the method of encamp- ment. He had enlarged his own kingdom of Epirus, and for a time (had shared that of Macedonia with a rival. A certain generosity land humanity distinguished him fevourably among the princes and j generals of his time, and left feelings of liking and respect even among !his enemies. He was long remembered in Rome as a noble foe I against whom no rancour could be felt, and of whom no memory of bitterness remained. From his earliest years a certain halo of romance surrounded him. His father Aeacides lost his life in battle ,with the Macedonian Cassander in 313; and the little Pyrrhus, about five years old, was saved from his father's enemies, and the partisans of his uncle Alcetas, by faithful slaves and nurses, who [84 HISTORY OF ROME chap. conveyed him to the house of Glaucias, king of the -Illyrians. When Glaucias hesitated to entertain the child, for whose life Cassander would gladly have paid a large sum, the little fellow crept along the ground to the king, and pulling himself up by his robe stood at his knees looking up into his face. Glaucias could not resist the appeal : gave the child to his wife to bring up ; refused to surrender him ; and, when he was still a boy of about twelve, restored him to his kingdom (306). From that time to his death in 272 he was nominally king of Epirus, a title which his father's cousin Alexander had first adopted from the humbler one of king of the Molossi. But he did not reign all that time. When he was about seventeen he was driven out by his enemies, and fled first to Demetrius Poliorcetes, in whose company he fought at the battle of Ipsus (301), and afterwards to Egypt, where Ptolemy entertained him nobly, and gave him his stepdaughter as a wife. Returning to Epirus about 296 he reigned for a short time in conjunction with his second cousin Neoptolemus. His life having been attempted by Neoptolemus, he caused him to be put to death, and thenceforth reigned alone.i He added Corcyra and the territory on the Ambracian gulf to his dominions, and trans- ferred the seat of government from the old capital Passaron to Ambracia. From 287 for about two years he shared the kingdom of Macedonia with Lysimachus, but had been then compelled to relinquish his hold upon it and confine himself to his ancestral kingdom of Epirus. Pvrrhus is When the invitation from Tarentum came to him, he was there- iiivitcd to fQj-g for the time not engaged in any great undertakings outside his Italy, 2S1. ^^^^ kingdom. He was about thirty-eight years old, still vigorous and eager for distinction, still ambitious of conquest. Like his predecessor Alexander he readily caught at the chance of gaining 1 The following table will show Pyrrhus's connexion with the persons here mentioned : — Alcetas I., king of the Molossi ob. after B.C. 373 I Neoptolemus I. Thrasybas (or Arrhybas or Arymbas). ob. 360. Alexander Olympias . Alcetas II. Aeacides = Phtheia ob. in Italy abt. 331 mother of Alexander disinherited by his o h. 313 first called himself king the Great. father, but succeeded I j | of Epirus. his brother in B.C. 313 | | | _ I ob. 307. Pyrrhus Troias Deidameia Neoptolemus II. b. 318, ob. 272. (reigned jointly with Pyrrhus for a short time, 296). XV ARRIVAL OF PYRRHUS 185 distinction in the West ; of conquering Italy, Sicily, and Africa, and so realising Alexander's dream of a great Western Empire ; and returning perhaps with all its vast resources at his back to once more establish his power in Macedonia. The Tarentines had formerly helped him when he was struggling with Agathocles in Corcyra ; and their invitation was now backed by other Greek states in Italy also. He was so eager that he had not the patience to await the pyrrhus usual season for sailing, but started before the winter was over, dn-ivcs at Consequently he was caught in a great storm, which scattered his ^■t^^^rcntum ships and drove him ashore on the coasts of the Messapii. He '''^.''''^^' ^" made his way however on foot to Tarentum with such of his forces, 'J'^^^ p including two elephants, as had reached land with him, and there Valerius the greater part of the expedition eventually rejoined him. He Laevinus, immediately began training the inhabitants for the serious business Tit.Cor- which they had taken in hand. He closed the gymnasia, the theatre, '"'''''''''''■ and the covered walks, diminished the number of festivals and banquets, and compelled the citizens of military age to give in their names for service and submit to drill and discipline. But though there was already a military class in Tarentum, which did some service in the ensuing years, Pyrrhus did not find the inhabitants answer cheerfully to his call. There were loud complaints of the conduct of the garrison which he had sent in advance ; and now that the king called upon the citizens to serve, as many as could slipped away from the town, and those who could not do so, or were forced by him to remain, grumbled at the contributions demanded of them, and at the billeting of soldiers in their houses. The promised contingents from the other towns had not come in, and the Tarentines had not yet made up their minds that they must themselves fight, as well as the prince who had come to save them the trouble, when news arrived that the Roman consul Valerius Laevinus was on his march towards The Tarentum, wasting the country of the Lucani as he came. Pyrrhus Romans got rid of some of the leaders of the discontented party by sending ^^nder them under various pretexts to Epirus, or by discrediting them in the ^jf^^^""^^ eyes of the people ; but he never entirely silenced the opposition, towards nor prevented some from putting themselves under the protection Tarentum. of the Romans. The news of the king's arrival had meanwhile been the signal for active preparations at Rome. Legions were enrolled, money collected, and guards placed in all towns where disloyalty was suspected. Some leading citizens at Praeneste were even compelled to come to Rome, and were there kept in ward. As soon as his Laevinus army was ready Laevinus started on his march. He was anxious "^ ^«- to fight as far as possible from Rome ; and at the same time to .am a. [86 HISTORY OF ROME prevent the Lucanians from furnishing contingents to the army of Pyrrhus. He therefore marched far to the south of the direct road to Tarentum, and entered Lucania, wasting the country as he advanced, preventing aid being sent to Tarentum, and securmg his retreat by a strongly-fortified position on his rear. When he had reached the bank of the Siris he was met by a despatch from Pyrrhus, in which he declared that he meditated no attack upon Rome, but was acting solely as protector of Tarentum : " Hearing that Laevinus was marching against Tarentum with an army, he bade him dismiss his troops, and come to Tarentum with a small company. He would arbitrate between the two states." Laevinus answered that, before acting as arbitrator between the Romans and Tarentines, he must account to the Romans for having himself crossed to Italy : and having caught some spies of the king near his camp, he ordered them to be shown the army in all its strength and to take back a report to their master. Battle of Pyrrhus still hesitated. The allies had not come in, for Laevmus Pandosia j^ Lucania was generally able to prevent them ; while his colleague {or Hera- Co^uncanius was quelling all disaffection in Etruria and conquering 'sTrisVso the Volsinienses. The king hoped that delay would be more fatal to Laevinus than to himself ; for while the Romans were m a country in great part hostile, where supplies must in time fall short, he had a large town on the sea to depend on and plenty of ships to bring provisions. Laevinus was of the same opinion, and was therefore eager to engage. Pyrrhus, in spite of his desire to postpone the encounter, could not do so. If he shrank from meeting the Romans in the field, his prestige among the Italiots would quickly disappear ; they would in all directions make their peace with Rome, and be less ready than ever to join him. He therefore led out his army to the Siris, making his headquarters between Pandosia and Heraclea. Across the stream he could see the Roman camp : their guards carefully posted, or the men drawn up in battle array. " This order of the Barbarians," he said, " is far from barbarous : what they can do we shall soon know." He wished to wait for the allies. But the Roman commander forced on a battle. Sendmg his cavalry higher up the stream that they might cross it and get on the rear of the enemy, he tried to force a passage with his infantry in the neighbourhood of his camp, in face of the pickets of the enemy. This movement failed at first : but when the Roman cavalry had succeeded in coming in contact with the Greeks, Laevinus took advantage of the confusion, and successfully accomplished the passage of the stream. The two armies being thus at close quarters a furious struggle ensued, which lasted many hours and was long undecided, each host in turn giving way and then recovering XV BATTLE OF HERACLEA 187 its ground. Pyrrhus himself had a horse killed under him. One of his officers named Megacles, who was disguised in the royal armour, was killed, and his helmet and cloak borne off in triumph to the Roman general to prove the death of the king, — a triumph soon dashed when Pyrrhus himself with bared head rode to the front. The day was finally won for the Greeks by a charge of elephants, The of which Pyrrhus had brought twenty with him.^ The novel appear- elephants ance of these huge beasts, the towers on their backs filled with armed ^:^fjj. men, and their loud trumpeting, frightened the men, and still more 280. the horses, who threw their riders and galloped madly away. The elephants trampled to death some of the fallen, and the Thessalian cavalry dashed in pursuit of the flying legionaries. Elephants how- ever seldom did harm to the enemy only. One of them being wounded grew wild and made the others unmanageable ; and in the confusion thus caused the main body of the Romans escaped across the Siris. The losses on both sides were heavy. As usual different totals were named : but the story was told that Pyrrhus replied to those who congratulated him, " One more victory like this, and I shall be ruined." And again, that the valour of the Roman soldiers and the sight of their dead bodies, fallen on their own ground, and with their wounds all in front, so impressed him that he exclaimed, " Had I been king of -the Romans I should have conquered the world ! " The immediate effect of the victory was to establish the prestige Effects of of Pyrrhus in Italy, and to attract numerous adhesions from the t^^^ battle. Lucanians and Samnites. He treated these tardy recruits gener- ously, lightly rebuking their delay, but giving them a share in the spoils ; being in fact pleased to have beaten a Roman army without them. Laevinus retreated upon Capua, where he was reinforced by fresh troops from Rome, while his colleague Coruncanius was sum- moned from Etruria, and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus was named dictator to command the troops levied to protect the city, now in a state of considerable alarm. For not only had the victory of Mntivy at Pyrrhus encouraged the Lucanians and Samnites to rebel, but a ^"■^^"'^"• garrison of their own, consisting of 4000 Campanian aUies under Decius Jubellius, placed in Rhegium the year before by Fabricius at the request of the people of Rhegium themselves, had mutinied. Under the pretext of discovering treasonable correspondence with Pyrrhus, they expelled or put to death some of the leading citizens, and seized on the city and its territory for their own. They made ^ Hence the name of bos lucana " Lucanian cow" for an elephant. The Romans having first seen them in this battle in Lucania (Lucr. v. 1302 ; Varro L. L. 7139 ; Phny N. H. viii. 16). i88 HISTORY OF ROME chap. terms with the Mamertines of Messene ; and for the rest of the war Rhegium was lost to the Romans : for these men, though not joining Pyrrhus, could look for nothing but condign punishment if the Romans were successful. Pyrrhus Pyrrhus tried in vain to seize Capua before Valerius reached it. fails to take Baffled there he moved upon Neapolis. Failing to take that town Capua and j^^ j^^ meditated making his way through the territories of the Neapohs. , , , ' . . t • • j a • t- • j i • Mission of Volscians, Hernici, and Aequi to Ltruria and attackmg Rome Cineas to from the north. But before trying this he sent Cineas to Rome to Rome, 280. offer terms. They were those of a conqueror. The Greek cities were to be free, and all that had been taken from the Lucanians, Samnitcs, Daunians, and Bruttians was to be restored, in return for which Pyrrhus would give back Roman prisoners without ransom. Cineas took with him to Rome rich presents for the leading men and their wives. According to one account they were unanimously declined : according to another he was warmly received in Roman society, and secured many adherents before he ventured to solicit an audience of the Senate. So great was the difficulty of the situation felt to be, that a large number of the fathers seemed inclined to yield to his demands, or at any rate to allow Pyrrhus to come to Rome in person to urge them. But Appius Claudius, now old and blind, hearing of this wavering in the Senate, caused himself to be carried into the Speech of Senate-house, surrounded by his sons and sons-in-law, and delivered Appius^ an impassioned speech, — the earliest Roman oration preserved in Claudius writing that existed in Cicero's time. " He had never before," he said, " been glad of his blindness : but now he could wish that he had been deaf also, that he might not hear their decrees which would destroy the glory of Rome. They had been used to boast that, if Alexander had come to Italy, his fame for invincibility would have been at an end : yet they were going to yield to a mean Epirot, the hanger-on of one of Alexander's field officers, who was in Italy because he could not maintain himself in Greece, and whose power had not sufficed to retain even a portion of Macedonia. If Pyrrhus, so far from being punished, were actually rewarded for his pre- sumption, they would not have freed themselves of him, they would only have brought upon themselves the Tarentines and Samnites, who would justly despise them." The old man's indignant eloquence had its due effect : Cineas was dismissed with the answer that, if Pyrrhus desired peace, he must quit Italy ; if he stayed, the Romans would continue the war, though he should defeat a thousand such as Laevinus.^ 1 Cineas's mission is thus placed by Plutarch and Appian. Zonaras places it after the return of Pyrrhus to Tarentum and the visit of Fabricius and his XV PYRRHUS IN LATIUM AND CAMPANIA us Diplomacy having failed, Pyrrhus determined to advance upon Pyrrh Rome. As he marched through the country however he found him- a^i'^'^nces self continually among enemies. No one joined him : and though he y'^J"^-^ took Fregellae and Anagnia, and even, as it is stated, advanced as 280. far as Praeneste, only twenty-three miles from Rome, he found no signs of yielding. Laevinus was dogging his footsteps behind : the dictator Domitius was prepared for him in Rome : and he now learnt that the consul Coruncanius had by his conquest of the Volsinienses, and other measures, secured the loyalty of the Etruscans. He turned back to Campania, still followed by Laevinus, who would not give him battle, but harassed his rear. " The Roman legions grow like slain hydras," he exclaimed ; and after vainly trying to strike terror in the enemy by various military demonstrations, he put his troops into winter quarters and retired to Tarentum. He w^as visited there by ambassadors headed by C. Fabricius Mission of Luscinus. The king received them wqth great ceremony, and enter- ^''^bruius tained them royally, paying special honour to Fabricius. He expected ^^^^ that they had come to signify the acceptance of the terms which he 280-2^^. had offered by Cineas. When he found, to his disappointment, that they had only come to negotiate a return of Roman prisoners, he doubted what course to take. Some of his officers advised him to offer no more terms and give back no prisoners. Cineas like a true Greek of the Macedonian period (he had been a hearer of Demosthenes) advised conciliation and, alcove all, bribery. This plan Pyrrhus now- adopted : he offered splendid presents to the ambassadors, if they would undertake to advise acceptance of his terms at Rome. But whether he met with any success or no in the case of the other two, Q. Aemilius Papus and P. Cornelius Dolabella, he found Fabricius I deaf to all his offers. " If I ami base," said Fabricius, according to Stories of I the famous story, "how can I be worth a bribe? if honest, how Fabricius. I can you expect me to take one ? " Baffled by his integrity Pyrrhus 'tried to work on his fears. Next day while they were conversing, (he ordered an elephant to be placed behind a curtain. At a signal jfrom the king the curtain was let down, and the animal raised his trunk over the head of Fabricius and trumpeted. The Roman, with- jout flinching, said quietly, "The beast cannot move me to-day more (than your gold yesterday." But though Pyrrhus could not get his !way, he still from policy, or from goodwill to Fabricius, tried to conciliate the Romans by his kind treatment of his prisoners. Accord- ing to some he allowed them to return to Rome on their parole to 'colleagues to him there. Plutarch, however, differs from Appian in his account I of the terms offered by Cineas. According to Plutarch he demanded freedom for the Greek towns, and offered in that case to assist Rome against the other ItaHans. 190 HISTORY OF ROME 279- Coss. P. Sulpicins Saven-io, P. Decius Mils. The consuls advance to Asculum. Victory of Pyrrhus at Asculum, 279- attend the Saturnalia, according to o'thers he released them altogether without ransom. Whatever may be the details of these transactions, it became clear before the spring that the war was to go on. The Romans had shown no signs of panic. They had not relaxed the severity of their customs towards returned prisoners, however released, who were reduced in rank, told off to distant garrison duty, and treated as men under a cloud. The Republic had no lack of soldiers. With the spring the consuls started for Apulia. They marched to Malventum (Beneventum), and there left the main road leading to Tarentum, and took that which branched off to Canusium. About thirty miles short of that town, they came upon the army of Pyrrhus, encamped near Asculum. He had been engaged in securing the submission of Apulian towns, and was now in position on the south bank of a considerable stream. For many days the armies faced each other on either side of it ; and, while they were thus stationed, the story was afterwards told that a rumour reached Pyrrhus that Decius, in imitation of his father and grand- father, meant to "devote" himself and the enemy's legions to the infernal gods ; and that Pyrrhus sent him word that he had given orders that he should not be killed, but that, if he took him prisoner, he would put him to death with torture : and again, that the Romans offered to leave it to Pyrrhus to decide which army should cross the stream to meet the other, saying that, if he would come to them, they would retire to allow his army to cross unopposed. Such tales, what- ever may be their origin, do not help us to understand the battle which followed. It seems that in it the Romans occupied a position at the foot of the hills, in which was a high valley watered by a stream, now called the Carapella, and that this high ground saved them from destruction. To resist the elephants, they had prepared waggons with spikes fixed on them, and filled with javelin throwers. But Pyrrhus baffled this precaution by directing his elephants to another part of the field, and so turned to flight what seemed at first the victorious Roman line. The loss on both sides, stated at 6ooo Romans and 3505 Greeks, ^ shows that the fighting was long and obstinate ; but the Romans were saved by a diversion effected by some Apulians, who took the opportunity of looting the camp of Pyrrhus. In the confusion thus caused the Romans seem to have rallied sufficiently to fight their way back to safe quarters. Pyrrhus himself and many of his staff were wounded ; and shortly afterwards he retired to Tarentum for medical treatment and proper food. 1 These numbers are given by Plutarch on the authority of Hieronymus of Cardia, a contemporary writer, and of some registers of king Pyrrhus himself: they may be therefore regarded as approximately correct. XV PYRRHUS INVITED TO SICILY 191 Though the Romans, therefore, had undoubtedly sustained a Effects defeat in the field, it was one qf those defeats which left the victors of the almost as badly off as if they had been the losers. The Roman ''l' j"-^ army was safely entrenched, and could not be attacked ; the king had lost heavily, was encumbered with wounded men, and was wounded himself And though the Romans had suffered too severely to attempt any forward movement, the victory to Pyrrhus was sterile, and nothing more was done by him during that season. The Roman army wintered in Apulia, and the new consuls, C. 2^8. Fabricius and Q. Aemilius, came early the next year to take over the Coss. C. command. Pyrrhus had sent home for fresh supplies of men and l'^'^^\"^^^ . J^2lSCt?t24S money, expecting to have to renew the war in the spring. But when jj^ q^ he heard that Fabricius, for whom he entertained a high respect, was Aemilius one of the consuls for the year, he seems to have hoped for some less Pap-us II. warlike settlement. This hope Avas raised still higher by an act of Fabricius himself One of the most trusted servants of the king, taking advantage of negotiations between Tarentum and the Roman camp, visited Fabricius, and offered to assassinate Pyrrhus. Dis- daining to conquer by such means, Fabricius communicated the fact to Pyrrhus, whose generous nature was so moved that he is said to have at once released his Roman prisoners without ransom, and to have tried once more, by sending Cineas to Rome, to come to terms with the Republic. The Senate however proved inexorable. Their I answer was still that Pyrrhus must leave Italy ; and meanwhile the I Roman armies did not cease to attack all such towns as were in alliance with him. , Embarrassed by the increasing discontent of the very people to Invitation I whose help he had come, and by the growing conviction that he could ^^ Pyrrhus not permanently secure a hold on Italy, in face of the opposition of -^^^"^^^ Rome, Pyrrhus was ready to catch at any opportunity of retiring from su?nmer an impossible position. That opportunity was offered him by an syS. invitation from Syracuse and other Sicilian towns to cross to Sicily and deliver them from the incompetent rule of their tyrants, from the attacks of the Mamertines of Messene, and from the encroachments I of the Carthaginians. Sicily, like southern Italy, was fringed by Greek colonies, which state of j had been founded at various periods from about B.C. 735. When Sicily to the Greeks came to the island they found there already certain native ^^p'^'/Jy^^'^f Sicani and Siculi, the former said to have been immigrants from Iberia, the latter from Italy. These tribes mostly held the central parts, while at various spots on the coast, chiefly on the west, Phoenicians from Tyre had fixed trading centres, which were being gradually ] taken up and occupied by the great Phoenician city of Carthage. As the Greek cities slowly increased in number and power, the Cartha- 192 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The Cartha- ginians. Defeat of . Hamilcar by Gelo, 480. Hannibal destroys Greek cities in Sicily, 410-40'j. Rule of Dionysius the elder, 405-3^7- Himilco s victories, 397- Treaty of 383. The Carthagin- ian pale bounded on the east by the river Halycus. ginians retired more and more to the west of the island, but were always aiming at the recovery of their lost ground. The same habit of constant quarrelling, which proved so ruinous to the cities of Greece, followed the Greeks to their Sicilian homes. Yet they were compelled to combine to some extent, in order to resist these constant encroachments of Carthage ; and this resistance was organised by the rulers of Syracuse, the greatest and most powerful of the Greek towns, and depended upon her for its effectiveness. In 480 a great Carthaginian fleet, under Hamilcar, was conquered by Gelo of Syracuse, and the Carthaginian possessions in Sicily were confined to the towns of Motye, Panormus, and Soloeis, the original Phoenician settlements. In 410 the Carthaginians came again, this time on the invitation of the Greek city Egesta, which complained of the oppression of Selinus. In answer to this invitation, a fleet and army were sent under Hannibal, grandson of Hamilcar, which in that year, and in the third year after (407), inflicted ruinous damage upon nearly all the Greek towns on the south coast — Selinus, Agrigentum, Gela, and Camerina. The Syracusans had reason to fear that they would be the next victims. Dionysius who, in the midst of the alarm and commotion had made himself tyrant (405), was the one man who seemed capable of saving his country. But after all it was not he, but a pestilence, which compelled the Carthaginian armies to leave Syracuse untaken, and return to Africa. Between 405 and 397 Dionysius carried the war into the enemy's own dominions, attacking and taking many of the Carthaginian settlements in the west ; until, in 397, another great Carthaginian army, under Himilco, descended upon the island, recovered Motye and Eryx, took Messene, and threatened Syracuse itself Once more Syracuse was saved by a pestilence. The enemy were so reduced that they were obliged to purchase even leave to retire by the sacrifice of their mercenary troops. But during the next fourteen years they often returned, and Dionysius during that time was occupied with little else than the repeated struggle to drive them from the island. Finally, in 383, an end was put to the struggle by a treaty, whereby the Carthaginians were left in possession of all west of the river Halycus. Dionysius during the rest of his reign extended the power of Syracuse, and interfered in many directions with the Greeks in Sicily and Italy. But in the reign of his son (367-344), which was interrupted by two periods of deposition (by Dion 356-353, and by Callippus 353-352), the Carthaginians again began to appear east of the Halycus, and even succeeded in taking the whole of Syracuse, except the island of Ortygia (345). From this they were driven by the Theban hero, Timoleon, who came to Sicily with the real purpose, which w^as only CARTHAGINIANS IN SICILY 193 the pretext of Pyrrhus, of putting down the tyranny and checking the Timoleon Carthaginians (345-343). Timoleon followed up his success at i^ Sicily, Syracuse by deposing the tyrants of Leontini and other towns ; and ■345-33°- then, invading the Carthaginian district, he crushed a huge Cartha- Defeat of ginian army on the banks of the Crimisus, probably near Segesta, in Cariha- 340. This victory secured the Greek towns liberty and peace for g^^^'^'^^^ many years. Syracuse was now once more a Republic, and Timoleon, Crimisus honoured and beloved, lived there as a private citizen till his death j^o. in 336. The reign of Agathocles, who, some years afterwards (317), rose Agathochs, from the humble trade of a potter to be tyrant of Syracuse, was one 3^7--9^- long struggle with the Carthaginians, who blockaded him by sea and land. By a bold stroke he broke through the blockade, and invaded Agathocles the Carthaginian territory in Africa, where he had such success ^jjo-^oj ' that hardly any city, except Utica, remained faithful to Carthage (310-307). But in the period which followed his death (289) not only did At the the Carthaginians begin once more steadily to encroach on the Greek death of side of the island, but the greatest disorder prevailed among the fu^\f"^ ^^ Greek states themselves. Most of them fell again under the power ^l^g^ ^^^^^ \ of incompetent tyrants ; and some of Agathocles' own mercenaries Alessenc, j from Campania, who called themselves Mamertines (sons of Mamers ^Sg. or Mars), instead of returning to their native land, seized on the city ^^^^^^^ of Messene, expelled or killed the chief inhabitants, and possessed sicily themselves of their lands and houses, their women and children. An \ important city was thus de-hellenised, while many of the other Greek tyrants admitted Carthaginian garrisons into their cities, and the free Greeks were confined almost to the south-east corner of the island. Syracuse itself, nominally free, had been held by one military adven- turer after another, was torn by internal factions, and was powerless j to resist the invading arms of Carthage, whose fleet before long was I riding in her harbour. i It was in these circumstances that a party in Syracuse sought the Pyrrhus assistance of the first soldier of the age, who had married Lanassa, ^^'^{^^^ ^^ 11 ri-i -A^, T^i Sicily, 27S. \ a daughter of their late sovereign Agathocles. Pyrrhus was to come I for the threefold purpose of restoring order throughout Sicily by I putting down the tyrants, of punishing the Mamertines, and of driv- I ing back the Carthaginians. His affairs in Italy were in such a position that he gladly accepted the task. The Carthaginians had expected or feared that this would be the The Car- case, and had early in this year sent ships to the Tiber conveying thagtnians ] ambassadors, with a proposition for a defensive alliance with Rome, /^ offering " to give aid to the Romans by sea, if need arose, though Rome for the crews of the ships should not be obliged to serve on land." In mutual aid ^ at sea. 194 HISTORY OF ROME Pyrrhus starts for Sicily, late sum7ner of 278. Pyrrhus at Syracuse, 27S-277. Pyrrhics (/) coti- qjiers the Ma?ner- tines, {2) attacks tin- Carthagi)! ian toiuns, 277. case of war, " the Carthaginians should supply ships, and each nation its own men and their pay." The offer was accepted, and accordingly the Carthaginian fleet was ordered to intercept Pyrrhus on his voyage from Tarentum to Syracuse. It did not however succeed. Leaving Milo in command at Tarentum in the late summer of 278, Pyrrhus coasted down the Italian shore, touched at Locri, which was in the hands of a garrison of his own, and thence sailed straight to Sicily. At first all went well. When he arrived at Tauromenium (Naxos), the ruler of that town, Tyndarion, made an alliance with him, and supplied him with soldiers. At Catana, where he disembarked his land forces, he was received with an ovation, and presented with crowns of gold ; and when his fleet approached the harbour of Syracuse the Cartha- ginians did not venture to oppose him. Perhaps they had not expected him so soon ; for their squadron was not in its full force, thirty of their ships having been despatched for supplies. He therefore entered the harbour and landed at Syracuse in perfect security. He found a miserable state of division prevailing there. The part of the town which stood on the island Ortygia was held by one officer, named Thoenon ; while Sosistrates of Agrigentum, with more than 10,000 soldiers, occupied the rest; and Carthaginian ships were in the harbour. The coming of Pyrrhus restored some unity. Thoenon first quietly surrendered Ortygia to him : and Sosistrates voluntarily, or under pressure from the citizens, made terms with him also. The king succeeded in reconciling for a time these two men and their followings, and the whole of their resources were placed at his disposal. He had now a large army, vast supplies of war material, and a fleet of more than 200 vessels. Leontini and many other Greek cities signified their adhesion. The goal of his ambition seemed within his reach : lord of Epirus and Sicily, he might next attempt Africa, and return with irresistible force to drive the Romans from southern Italy. But first the Mamertines had to be suppressed, and the Carthaginians driven off Before the end of the next year (277) he had a series of successes : he cut off the plundering parties of the Mamertines, conquered their main army in the field, and captured several of their outlying forts. He then turned his arms against the Carthaginians. The great city of Agrigentum, with its thirty dependent townships, was handed over to him by Sosistrates, and its Carthaginian garrison was expelled. But he determined to be satis- fied with nothing less than the entire evacuation of the island by the Carthaginians. With an army swollen by a contingent of 8000 from Agrigentum, and accompanied by a great siege-train from Syracuse, PYRRHUS TAKES TOWNS IN SICILY 195 he took Eryx by assault, displaying the most conspicuous gallantry in the action, inflicted a crushing loss upon the Carthaginian garri- son, and placed one of his own in it. Thence he went to Hercte, which he seized ; stormed Panormus ; and overran and conquered nearly the whole of the Carthaginian territory. One place alone held out. When the Carthaginians had been driven from Motye by Dionysius, they had fortified themselves at Lilybaeum, which had Lilvbaeum grown to be an important town, protected by a high wall and a deep 277. ditch on the land side, and by lagoons towards the sea through which it was difficult to steer. Some thirty-five years later it proved strong enough to resist the utmost exertions of several Roman armies, and now it defied all the engines of Pyrrhus, and all the gallantry of his soldiers. His failure, and the time wasted upon it, proved the ruin of his position in Sicily. On his return to Syracuse he found Pyrrhus everything going wrong, and Thoenon and Sosistrates both plotting ^"''' against him. Sosistrates, finding himself suspected, escaped ; but ^'Pf'^-'^y , Thoenon he put to death. Yet it was not only in Syracuse that '277-276I \ there was a feeling of discontent. In the Greek cities throughout j Sicily murmurs were heard that he had become a mere tyrant ; that 1 he granted property to his friends ; put his inferior officers in every , post of profit ; and that his courtiers, appointed to act as judges, I looked to nothing but gain. He could not therefore safelv carry out I his design of imitating Agathocles in crossing to Africa and attacking j Carthage at home, with the certainty that, as soon as he was out of I Sicily, the divisions between the Greek towns would break out again, land give an opening for Carthaginian aggression. Already the i Carthaginians, taking advantage of his growing unpopularity, were I renewing their attacks from Lilybaeum. He might, in case of failure 'in Africa, find himself cut off from return to Europe. The result of the difficulties thickening round him, in the latter Pyrrhus Ipart of 276, was that he resolved to listen to a request, which reached ^"^^''^'"^ *o jhim from Samnium and Tarentum, to come back to their aid in view ^^''^^'' ^'^^' of the alarming successes of the Romans. "What a fighting ground jfor Roman and Carthaginian am I leaving," he exclaimed, as his jship left the shore of Sicily. I While Pyrrhus was thus spending between two and three years The in his fruitless Sicilian expedition, the Romans had not been idle, ^^fnans Pyrrhus had left orders with his lieutenant Milo to act on the ''' f"^"^ defensive, and not risk a battle. Fabricius and Aemilius however /^/' ^' did not think of attacking Tarentum. That might be safely left to the future. As soon as they were informed of the king's departure, jthey descended upon the cities of Lucania and Bruttium, which had allied themselves with him, and by their successes earned the right to enter Rome in triumph in December. 196 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 277. Coss. P. Cornelius RufinusII.^ C. Jiinius Brutus Bubulcus II. 276. Q. Fabius Alaxitnus II., C. Gen uchis Clepsina. Pyrrhus returns to Italy. 27S- Coss. M . Curitis Dentatus, L. Cor- nelius Lentulus. Un- willingness of the Romans to enlist. The consuls of the next year were sent to punish the Samnites for their warhke preparations, and for the assistance given to Pyrrhus. But the Roman arms met with some disaster. The Samnites retreated into the mountains, and CorneHus and Junius in following them got entangled in the difficulties of the ground, and lost heavily by the attacks of the enemy, who were better acquainted with the country. They were obliged to retire as best they could to the south, and separated with mutual recriminations. Cornelius then employed himself in laying waste the plains of Samnium ; while Junius entered Lucania and gained sufficient successes over the Lucanians and Bruttians to earn his triumph.-^ These expeditions were continued in the next year by the consuls O. Fabius and Gains Genucius. The details are lost ; but triumphs over Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians are again recorded, and the general success of the Roman arms is attested by the urgent messages that were sent over to Pyrrhus. His return checked the tide of success. The Romans could no longer expect to go from point to point almost without resistance, winning one town after another by force or fear. They must now look to being met by the Epirote troops from Tarentum, led by the famous soldier-king who had twice worsted them in the field. Pyrrhus indeed had not returned without suffering loss and damage. The Carthaginian fleet had pursued him and destroyed some of his ships : the Mamertines had sent a contingent across to Rhegium, which repulsed his attack on that town : and though he succeeded in again occupying Locri, which the Romans had retaken in his absence, and expelling the Roman garrison, yet more of his ships were wrecked when they left Locri for Tarentum — a misfortune which the pious attributed to his having plundered the temple of Demeter there, and carried off its wealth. Still he himself and most of his army arrived safely by land : and these forces, joined to those waiting for him at Tarentum, enabled him to start almost at once to the relief of the Samnites, whom repeated reverses had so dismayed that he found them, after all, far from eager to join his standard. Meanwhile at Rome the hardships of the war in the mountainous district of Samnium, or the terror of the name of Pyrrhus, made the service so much an object of dislike that the new consuls found a difficulty in raising their legions. Instead of a rush of volunteers making the exercise of the consul's authority unnecessary, all hung back, and tried to avoid giving in their names. It was not until the 1 Zonaras (viii. 6) says that Junius remained in Samnium, and Cornelius went against the Lucani ; but the Fasti record the triumph of Junius de Lucaneis et Brutteis. The success of neither appears to have been very marked. PYRRHUS DEFEATED IN ITALY 197 consul Dentatus, having directed the names of a tribe to be called over, ordered the property of one of its members who did not answer, and eventually the man himself, to be sold, that the reluctance was over- come. When at last the legions were ready, Dentatus marched along the Appian Way to Malventum, while his colleague L. Cornelius went southward into Lucania. Dentatus entrenched himself strongly near Malventum ; and before long Pyrrhus marching from Tarentum, along what was afterwards an extension of the Appian Way, found his enemy there, and himself fortified a camp not far off. The accounts Battle of which we possess of the battle which ensued are very meagre. At Malventum Heraclea Pyrrhus had owed his victory greatly to his elephants ; at {^^^even- • Malventum the elephants seem to have contributed to his defeat. ' A ^''"'''' ^'^^• young animal, being wounded, rushed among the rest seeking its mother, and threw them all into confusion, so that they became more dangerous to their own side than to the enemy. Dentatus too had learnt that the terrible phalanx, that is, men massed sixteen deep, i was useless on bad or uneven ground, and so took care to occupy , a position of that sort.i The victory at Heraclea, again, had been I gained by the king's own troops, with small admixture of Italians. I At Malventum, as at Asculum, his army was more mixed, being i arranged in alternate companies of Epirots and Italians, and may ithus have proved less effective for united movements.^ One (account seems to infer that Pyrrhus attempted a night surprise, I but missing his way was overtaken by daylight, and was therefore (Observed by the Romans at a distance in time for them to make Itheir preparations. Whatever the details of the battle, the result Defeat of *was not doubtful. The king was utterly defeated, his camp taken, Pyrrhus. -from which the Romans are said to have taken hints in the ^formation of their own,— and most of his elephants captured and i brought to Rome to adorn the consul's triumph. Pyrrhus himself jfled with a few horsemen to Tarentum : whence, after a short stay, he crossed back to Epirus, to fall two years later by a tile thrown %y a woman's hand in Argos, whither he had again gone to fight athe battles of others. I To the Romans the results of the victory at Malventum were The ;|liighly important. The prestige of Pyrrhus was destroyed ; when he Romans 3returned to Tarentum he was only able to retain what remained of '''^'^'^^ Royalty there by falsely reporting that Antigonus Gonatas, king of 'jtat ; Macedonia, had made an alliance with him and had promised to send him reinforcements. Without fear of interruption from Tarentum, therefore, the Romans were able to go on with their task of steadily Reducing the Greek towns, as well as the Italian nations, to obedience, 1 Frontinus ii. 2, i. 3 Poiyb. xviii. 28. HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Colonies at Posidonia [Paestum], inLucania, and Cosa in Etruria, 273- Embassy of Ptolemy P hi la- de Iph us to Rome, 2T4- 273- Capture of Tarentum, 272. Coss. L. Papirins Cursor II. , Sp. Car- vilius Alaximus II. Milo sur- refiders to Papirius. In the next two years (274-273) the Samnites, the Lucanians, and the Bruttians were subdued in a series of expeditions, which perhaps witnessed some disasters as well as successes. But the general result was a more and more complete hold of the Republic upon southern Italy. The Greek towns were made subject on terms as to contributions of men and money differing according to circumstances ;^ while a Latin colony was established at Paestum to secure ahold upon Lucania, and another sent northwards to Cosa in Etruria,- which commanded an important harbour (273). Moreover, the victory over Pyrrhus attracted the attention of an important sovereign. King Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had succeeded to the throne of Egypt the year before, sent an embassy at the end of 274 to Rome, desiring friendship, and loaded with gifts the Roman envoys who early next year repaired to Egypt bearing the consent of the Senate. It was the first acknowledgment of Rome as an im- portant power in the Mediterranean, if we except the treaties with Carthage ; and Egypt was destined to be of great service to the State in the future, both as the richest corn district in the world, and as having, like Marseilles, which also had been long inclined to friendship with Rome, a quarrel with Carthage in the disputed possession of Cyrene. The superiority of Rome in the South was now farther secured by the capture of Tarentum and Rhegium. Pyrrhus left Tarentum early in 274 under the care of Milo, with a garrison of Epirots. But Milo soon became exceedingly unpopular, and the Romanising faction led by Nicon rose against him, besieged him in the citadel, and sought help both from Rome and Carthage. The Carthaginians sent a fleet into the harbour, and the Roman consul L. Papirius advanced by land. Livy appears to hold that the action of the Carthaginians was a breach of their treaty with Rome. But they might fairly assert that, on the contrary, they were aiding the Romans by sea in accordance with the treaty ; nor do they seem to have made any claim to a footing on land when the town was in the hands of the Romans. Livy's view is that of a later date, when it became necessary to rake up every cause of quarrel with Carthage. 2 Milo held out for a time in the citadel, but finding himself blockaded both by sea and land, he determined to surrender, and preferring to do so to the Roman Papirius, was allowed to depart with ^ Thus we find Locri, for instance, which was specially favoured, claiming exemption from military service (Polyb. xii. 5). ^ This seems the more likely ; some however take this to be Cosa near Thurii in Lucania. ^ Livy Ep. xiv. ; cf. Dio Cass. fr. 43. XV CArTURE OF MUTINEERS AT RHEGIUM 199 men and baggage. The Carthaginians sailed away, leaving the town in the hands of the Romans, which was compelled to give up arms and ships, pull down its walls, and submit to tribute. Rhegium still remained to be dealt with. Not only was it Capture intolerable that a town commanding the shortest passage to Sicily of the should be in the hands of a hostile population ; but the Roman ^^^^^J^*^^'-' government was bound to justify itself before its allies, and to show Cam- that, if they accepted a Roman garrison, they would be secured against fanians at similar acts of treachery. Decius Jubellius and his men had been Rhegium, holding the town and its territory as conquerors since 280. They ^2^' ^ had even expelled a Roman garrison from Croton, and had made Quintius an alliance with the Mamertines, 1000 of whom had come over to Claudius, their assistance when Pyrrhus returned to Italy. But on the consul's L.Ge?iucius approach these Mamertines, whose object in coming to Italy was to ^/■^""'• I harass Pyrrhus, and who had no wish to incur the enmity of Rome, made ! terms with him and sailed back to Messene. Still, Genucius found that he had a long and difficult task before him : the Campanian , soldiers resisted desperately, knowing that they had nothing but I punishment to expect ; and Genucius would have been in great I straits for provisions, had not Hiero, who since Pyrrhus left Sicily ! had made himself ruler of Syracuse, sent supplies of corn to the I besieging army, thereby initiating a policy which, with one brief I interval, he maintained throughout his life, — of looking to friendship I with Rome as his best protection against Carthaginian and Mamertine . alike. Both in the siege and the storm of the town large numbers I of the garrison fell fighting desperately; but at length the 300 who \ survived surrendered, and were taken by the consul to Rome, where !they were flogged and beheaded in the Forum. The old inhabitants of the town were restored, which with its territory remained free, retaining longer than almost any other Greek town in Italy its original Hellenism. Thus Rome had become supreme from the north of Etruria to ConsoHda- Rhegium. A local outbreak in Samnium, under an escaped Samnite tiou of the hostage named Lollius, in 269, was the only movement made by the f^Z^" Samnites after their final suppression by Carvifius in 272. The pacification of the Bruttii by Papirius (272) had been finally secured Iby the fall of Rhegium (271), while the fall of Tarentum had been preceded by the submission of the Apulians. In Bruttium the Romans acquired a vast tract of forest called Sila, containmg an in- exhaustible supply of timber for building ships or houses, which in after years would supplement the still finer timber of Latium, and which supplied the markets with abundant and valuable resin from nts pines. Samnium was now farther secured by a colony at Malventum, HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Colonies. Beneven- tiim [268), Aesernia Arimitium {268), Firmutn {264). Treaty with Apol- lonia. Occupatio7i ofBrundis- ium, 26']. Increase of wealth in Rome. henceforth called Beneventum (268), and later on by another at Aesernia (263). In 268 also the Picentes were finally subdued and their allegiance secured by a colony at Ariminum (268), while some of them were now, or four years later, when a colony was sent to Firmum (264), removed to the south-east corner of Campania. These settlements on the east coast caused perhaps the Illyrians of Apollonia to propose a treaty with Rome, as they did about this time. And this, in its turn, seems to have suggested to the Romans the necessity of securing Calabria, and especially the town of Brundisium, with its excellent harbour, the best starting - place for the Greek coast. In 267 therefore they turned their arms against the Sallentini, to whom the town belonged. They were con- quered by the consul M. Atilius ; and though Brundisium appears not to have been made a colony till 244, yet a certain number of Roman settlers were sent at once, to secure the freedom of the port. The conquests of the last ten years had also brought great wealth to Rome, and now for the first time a silver coinage was used there. The silver sestertius (2|- asses) and the denarius (10 asses) were called niimmi.^ from the word vofxos., used to indicate coins of about the same value in Sicily and the Greek cities in Italy. This influx of wealth was not long in taking effect on the public virtue of certain Roman magistrates. Curius Dentatus had rejected Samnite gold, and Fabricius had turned with scorn from the rich presents of Pyrrhus, though a poor man. But when in 275 P. Cornelius Rufinus, who had been dictator and twice consul, was struck off the roll by the censor Fabricius for breaking the law by owning ten pounds of silver plate, his real offence was believed to have been the appropriation of some of the spoil of the conquered cities. Such derelictions of duty had been rare. The aristocracy had as yet shown a truly patriotic spirit and a singleness of aim in the presence of the foreigner. The Senate had seemed to Cineas " an assembly of kings." But a sterner test was about to be applied to the virtue and high spirit of the Roman nobles. We are now approaching the time when the struggle for supremacy outside Italy with the great commercial people of Carthage is to strain to the uttermost the strength and courage of all classes at Rome, but above all of the wealthy and the highborn. From that struggle, which led her on step by step to a world-wide dominion, she emerged victorious, as she had done from former struggles nearer home ; but she emerged with such changes in the character of her ruling classes, and of the masses of her people, that to the clear-sighted the elements of decay were visible in the very hour of her greatness. We will pause for ' XV CONQUEST OF SOUTH ITALY AND ITS RESULTS a time to study the constitution of the state on the eve of this great contest, and learn something of. the magistrates who were to direct its fortunes, and of the army which was to secure its victory. The chief Authorities are Livy, Ep. xii.-xv. ; Plutarch's Life of Pvrrhus ; Zonaras viii. 2-6; Justinus xvi. 2-3, xviii. 2-23; Pausanias i. chs. 11, 12; Eutropius ii. 6-8; the fragments of Dionysius Halicarn. xvii. 15-18, xviii. xix. ; Appian, Samn. 9-12 ; Dio Cassius, fr. 40-48. Some details are gathered from Polyaenus vi. 6 ; Frontinus ii. 2, i, iv. i, 14, and the affair of Rhegium is narrated by Polybius i. 7. But in hardly any period of Roman history are the authorities so incomplete and fragmentary as from B.C. 275 to 265. CHAPTER XVI THE ROMAN MAGISTRATES AND ARMY The limitations of consular powers, and their devolution on other curule magis- trates, censors, and praetors — The aediles, quaestors, praefectus urbis, and sacred colleges — The legion, its enrolment, numbers, officers, discipline, en- campment, and disposition in the field. rj-j^^ The popidiis Roniamis consisted of those who possessed the full Roman civil rights included in the word civitas.^ At the end of the third people. century B.C. this comprised all men born of free parents, who were themselves citizens, whether living in the city or in the enlarged ager Romanus, or in those colonies by joining which a citizen suffered no loss of civil rights or dinmitttio capitis ; and again, of those who by emancipation had ceased to be slaves, or who for some special reason had been invested with citizenship. The name had once been much less comprehensive, and many of those who now came under it at one time had not done so. To this popuhis Roma?ius, whatever that name included, be- longed in theory, and partly in practice, all powers of government. It made, unmade, or altered laws ; regulated the conduct of its members ; judged in cases of dispute or in accusations of crime ; punished or rewarded those who wronged or served the State ; declared war, made peace, negotiated treaties ; joined in the worship of the gods. But a people cannot act without some one to summon it to meet ; or, when it has met and declared its will, without some one to see that this will is carried out ; or, when it wishes to make war or peace, without some one to enrol and lead its armies, and to make terms with its enemies ; or, when it wishes to worship the gods as a nation, without some one to direct and perform the proper ceremonies. The king. The citizens therefore elected a man whom they called rex, ^ See pp. 90, 91. CHAP. XVI MAGISTRATES THE CONSULS 203 ' ruler " or " king," to do these things for them. They elected him for life, and he soon assumed all these functions as his right, and was able to treat the people not as his employers but as his subjects. He was assisted indeed by a council of elders or " Senate" ; but he himself nominated the Senate, summoned it at his own will, consulted it on what he chose, and was not bound to take its advice. If we can at all trust the early story of Rome, some of the kings were more liberal than others, and not only took pains to consult the people and the Senate, but made elaborate arrangements for giving the people the opportunity of expressing their views, and for strengthen- , ing the Senate. But about 509, when a king was reigning who I carried the more tyrannical theory higher than any, the people put an end to the institution of a life-king altogether. They expelled the Abolition existing king, and determined henceforth, instead of electing a king of kingship. for life, to elect two magistrates for a year. The kingship was put in commission, as we might express it, with the farther limitation that the joint kings ruled only for a year. It is not certain what they called these magistrates at first, but before very long they were I called consuls or colleagues, and in after times the Romans spoke of ' them as consuls from the first. ^ The Consuls then held for a year all the authority which the The con- I king had held for life. They alone summoned the people to meet stils. Their j in their cojfiitia, whether to elect new magistrates, or to pass laws, or /^'<^'t'^-^ ^n ! to determine peace and war, or to try judicial cases. They alone ^'^^■^' j nominated, summoned, and consulted the Senate, and were free, as j the king had been, to take its advice or not as they chose. They I controlled the exchequer. They were the supreme judges in all disputes or in cases of criminal offences, unless they chose to refer [ the matter, as the kings had sometimes done, to the comitia. They [ could exact obedience from all citizens to their edicts ; could j summon any one of them to appear {I'ocatio), could arrest him ' {J)rehe?isio) and throw him into prison, banish him, impose a fine upon him, order him to be flogged, or even put to death. They had also the power to order the citizens to enrol themselves in the army, and to submit to discipline and march out to war. They selected the tribiini of the legions ; they punished or rewarded the soldiers. All these powers made up what was called their impcrhivi or right of commanding ; and if any one resisted them, they could punish him as they chose, even by death. They were preceded by twelve lictors or " binders," who as a symbol of these powers carried bundles of rods {fasces)^ with which were bound axes, the instru- ments of punishment. ^ See p. 89. 204 HISTORY OF ROME Limita- tions in practice. Limita- tions on the powers of magis- trates : (/) the col- ic ague ship. {2) The antiual ten ure (j) The laws. Now such a despotic power was never really exercised by the consuls over Roman citizens, except when they were at the head of the army on a campaign, and even in this case it was in some respects gradually modified. In the city itself it was almost from the first restrained in various ways ; and, as time went on, was so much reduced, that though the consulship remained the highest and most dignified office in the State, and though the consuls had still great influence both in legislation and in the executive, they actually performed few but formal functions in Rome itself, except in times of popular tumult or civil war. The causes which tended to reduce the power of the consuls were of two kinds — those which acted in restriction of all magisterial power as such, and those which actually relieved the consulship of some of its functions by delegating them to other officers. Of the former kind, the first was the fact that there were two consuls and not one. The principle of colleagueship eventually prevailed in all Roman magistracies. It acted as a restraining force on the consulship from the first. Each of the colleagues was equally supreme and could prohibit the acts of the other, though not render them invalid when done. In the city each discharged for a month at a time the actual administrative functions ; the consul of the month being preceded by the twelve lictors with fasces, the other either going without his lictors or being followed by them without fasces. This mutual power of obstruction forced them often to compromises, and made it possible for the people generally to bring influence to bear upon them. The next modifying influence was the limitation of the office to a year. While in office the consuls could not be impeached or deposed, — though at times such pressure was put upon them that they were obliged to abdicate, — but at the end of their year of office they became private citizens, and could be brought to such an account for their illegal or oppressive acts as could only be exacted from a life-king by a revolution. Nor could they secure themselves against this by immediate re-election. From the first such re-election was rare, and after 341 was illegal until the tenth year, although extraordinary circumstances were still held to justify it. The third limitation was the growth of a body of laws defining rights, and therefore restricting arbitrary acts of magistrates. The most decisive of all these were the laws concerning the right of appeal {provocalio), beginning with the lex Valeria at the very commence- ment of the Republic. By these laws ^ no magistrate could inflict on a citizen loss of life or citizenship, corporal punishment, or even See p. 93. XVI CHECKS ON THE CONSULAR POWER 205 a fine beyond the value of thirty oxen and two sheep (3020 asses) without allowing him an appeal to the people. This at once cut off from the consuls one great branch of their functions and of their influence; for when such sentences could not be enforced they ceased to be passed, and cases which involved such punishments were referred to the Comitia at once. The consuls ceased therefore to be judges in criminal cases. As a sign of this curtailed power it early became the custom The hn- within the city for the axes to be omitted from the fasces of the A^'^-'^w /// consul's lictors, and, when he came into the Forum, for the lictors to '^^'^y^^'^^- lower the fasces themselves as an acknowledgment of the superiority of the people. Also, though the consul was elected by the comitia cc?itii7-iata^ it was always held that iviperiwn could only be conferred by the co7mtia ciiriata. This became a mere form, and was never withheld, but the form was always maintained ; and in later times it became the custom not to confer the ivipejimu until two months after the consul had entered on office. But even when it was con- ferred it was, though existing, in abeyance while the consul was in the city. There grew up a distinction between h\s poteshis as a civil magistrate elected by the people, and his iviperiiiin^ which he obtained by a different process, and which by custom he did not exercise to its full extent in the city. Still it is not accurate to say that the impe7'iiim did not exist ; there was an iviperiinn domi as well as iinperiiDfi 7nilitiac ] and though the former was restrained in various ways and to a great extent was rendered nugatory by the law of provocatio, it was not abolished by any definite enactment. Nor was the exercise of full iiupei'iinn at home, as it existed in the army, ever abolished by law. Like so many things in Rome, it became virtually abolished by custom, and only revived in extreme cases. Still there was a large class of cases in which the magisterial power might be oppressively used, and salutary laws evaded. Against such oppressions the citizens were protected by the {4) The Tribunes. These magistrates were a peculiar feature in the Roman ifibunes. commonwealth, not exactly analogous to any institutions elsewhere of which we have knowledge. They differed from the other magis- trates in this, that they had powers but no functions ; there w^as no department of state which was their special " province." They had, however, the general duty of protecting plebeians, and afterwards all citizens, from injustice, and, in order to enable them to do this, they had the power of stopping all proceedings on the part of magistrates ; this was called i7ite7'cessio^ which differed from the prohibitio exercised by one consul against his colleague in this, that it made all those proceedings, against which they thus interposed their veto, absolutely 206 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Checks on the power of the tribunes. (5) The Senate. Life member- ship. invalid. Their power was farther strengthened by the fact that their persons were sacred and inviolable, protected by a law called lex sacrata, because a breach of it made the offender cursed or excom- municated {sacer). Any one who injured their persons or interfered with the exercise of their office would fall under this law, and they had the power of arresting and imprisoning any one, even the consul himself, who disobeyed. But such an arrest had to be made in their presence ; they had no right to summon an absent citizen ; and they were therefore escorted not by lictors but by viatores., who seem to have shared in their inviolability. It is evident that men possessing such powers must have done a great deal to circumscribe those of the consul ; that their power must, if freely exercised, eventually become almost supreme in the State. They did become very powerful, but there were in their case also some circumstances which prevented them from becoming quite as powerful as they might have been. The tribunes were first elected in 494. Their original number is doubtful ; but after 457 there were always ten, and after 471 they were elected by the comitia tributa., and only those who belonged to a plebeian gens, either by birth or adoption, were eligible. Their number was the first check upon them. The arrangement as to the veto was, it seems, at first that the whole coUegiiDn had to concur ; afterwards, that a majority must do so ; finally, any one of them could veto any proceeding. But any one of them could veto the proceedings of the others, as well as of other magistrates. So that compromises had frequently to be made between the demands of one party in the State backed up by some of the tribunes, and those of the other party backed up by the other tribunes. They were not at first members of the Senate, but before long they were admitted to sit at the door to watch the proceedings, and finally they became members, and an interccssio of a tribune prevented a valid senatus consultum being passed. Their powers did not extend beyond a mile outside the pomoerium, and during their year of office they were not allowed to be absent a night from Rome, and were obliged to keep their houses open, that they might at any time be appealed to for help.i Another institution which limited the power of the consuls was the Senatp:. We have said that the Senate was a council of elders nominated by the king to advise him, but whose advice he was not bound to take. So it was with the consuls. But the Senate had this great advantage, that its members were members for life. It did not, therefore, vary quickly, and was capable of a continuous policy ; and all experience teaches us that a permanent body inevit- ^ For the manner of the appointment of the tribunes, see ch. viii. pp. 97, 98. THE POWERS OF THE SENATE 207 ably gets the better of transient officials. Thus it came although there was no law definitely stating in what the Senate was to be supreme, or making its decrees {senatus consiilta) binding, yet it had by custom gradually absorbed certain functions and certain de- partments of government which for a long time no one thought of questioning. One of these was the control of the treasury ; it came Control to be acknowledged that the quaestors should not issue money from of the the treasury without a decree of the Senate, — though the consuls '^'''''"' "'O'- still retained the power of giving such an order, and sometimes exercised it. But as soon as the consul was out of Rome the Senate could hamper or assist him by refusing or voting him supplies ; could supersede him at the end of his year of office, or continue him in command as proconsul. It also assumed the power of allowing or disallowing triumphs, — a power which again followed from the control of the purse, for these shows required grants of money. The power of the purse gave it also a control over public works, for the money required for them could only be got by its order. Again, as Rome extended her dominion over Trials iti Italy, the Senate assumed the right of issuing commissions to try ^^^^h'- all cases of treason and felony in the Italian towns, which practically gave it the administrative portion of the government in Italy. Quarrels also between allied towns were settled or investigated by commissioners sent by the Senate ; and this branch of government we shall see still in its hands when Rome began to have foreign provinces. Ambassadors from other states came to the Senate, and from it received their answer ; and though the right of the people to vote on peace and war was not disputed, the matter was first dis- cussed and voted on in the Senate, and its decree was generally accepted. The particular sphere of action, again, which each Allotincnt of the consuls was to take was decided generally by lot, but at '/"Z''''^^- times the Senate assumed the right of deciding this on its own authority. It is to be kept in mind that these powers depended on no law, and could at any time be overborne by a law ; and towards the end of the Republic those magistrates w^ho wished to establish their power on a popular footing, and accordingly to lower that of the Senate, were in the habit of bringing much of the business that was usually done in the Senate directly before the Comitia. So that in this case again, though the " auctoritas " of the Senate curtailed very materially the power of the consul, yet it could not push this control too far, for the consul had always at hand the weapon of an appeal to the Comitia : there was again^ therefore, constant need of mutual compromise. But there was one way in which the Senate could effectually overrule the consuls. By the exercise of an authority which again U/ICCS. 208 HISTORY OF ROME (6) Dic- tator. Magister Ecjiiitum. The Dictator and the tribunes. Lij?tit of time. rested on no law, but on immemorial custom, they could compel one of the consuls to nominate a DICTATOR {dicere didatoreni). In its origin the DICTATORSHIP was a temporary revival of the single and irresponsible kingship, when circumstances seemed to require the rule of one man — -generally on account of some imminent danger in war, foreign or domestic, but not unfrequently for the more peaceful purposes of holding the elections when the consul could not be present, or even as head of the State for driving in a nail in the temple of Jupiter on the Ides of September, when pesti- lence or other misfortune demanded that it should be done with unusual solemnity. The consul, who was obliged to be in the ager Romanus — afterwards held to include all Italy — having risen in the dead of night and named the dictator, he was invested with imperhim by the comitia curiata, and immediately became supreme over all other magistrates, and had absolute power over the persons and lives of all citizens. As a symbol of this he was preceded by twenty-four lictors ^ with fasces and axes, as combining the powers of both consuls. The dictator named another magis- trate called the master of the horse (as he himself was sometimes called the "master of the people"), who represented him in his absence, but was as completely as others under his authority. The other magistrates did not cease to perform their ordinary functions, but they did so in subordination to the dictator and subject to his orders. It was an unsettled question whether the auxilium of the tribunes, their power, that is, of aiding a citizen against the order of a magistrate, was valid against a dictator. There seems to have been a notion that the Tribune still in some degree retained this power : but on the only occasions recorded by Livy, on which an attempt to exercise it was made, the Tribune did not venture to per- sist. ^ The fact seems to be that the case was never really brought to an issue. The dictator's tenure of office was limited to six months, but as a matter of fact he seldom held it so long. In the case of the formal dictatorships for holding elections, and the like, he held it only for a few days, did not generally think it necessary even to name a master of the horse, and abdicated directly the purpose for which he had been named was fulfilled. In the case of war he would only be in Rome long enough to perform certain religious functions : and in the army, to which the power of the Tribune did not extend, he would not have an ijjiperiiwi essentially more exten- sive than that of the consuls whom he superseded. When he was ^ Or perhaps only twelve. See Mommsen, H. R. iii. 349 note. - Livy (vi. 16, 38) seems to indicate that in such struggles as occurred the dictators got the better of the tribunes, wav is shown bv Polvbius iii. 8 ; Plutarcli, But tliat the legal theory was the other Fab. 9 ; Antoji. 9. XVI DEVOLUTION OF CONSULAR POWERS 209 named for the suppression of a sedition at home, or for safeguarding the city from an expected in^vasion, there would have been more Hkehhood of a conflict between him and the tribunes. But even then a time of popular excitement or terror was not favourable for the settlement of a constitutional question. In the early period of the Republic the appointment of a dictator was frequent. ^ From Dictator about 300 one is rarely named except for formal business, electoral rare after or religious ; and after the second Punic war the office seems to J^^- have remained in abeyance until the unconstitutional dictatorship of Sulla. Instead of it a custom grew up of investing the consuls and praetors with dictatorial powers, in case of dangerous disturbances, by a senatorial decree that the "consuls, praetors, etc., should see that the Republic took no harm." But besides these checks on the consular power, regular or Devolation occasional, it was also diminished by devolution. Many of its of powers. original functions, that is, devolved on other magistrates, the censors, praetors, and aediles. The Censorship arose from a compromise (y) Oti in 443, when the consulship was put in commission by the appoint- censors. ment of consular tribunes {tribuni militares coiisulari potestate). The censors were then, or soon afterwards, appointed to perform that part of the consular office which was concerned with the lists of the Senate, tribes, and other orders, and to perform the quin- quennial purification at the end of each lustrum. ^ At first the length of their tenure appears not to have been fixed ; but the powers which these functions gave them proved to be so formidable, or the public works which they had charge of so costly, that a limit was found necessary. By the lex Aeniilia (434) this was defined as eighteen months. Appius Claudius Caecus indeed (312-308) violated this rule on the ground that the law referred only to the existing censors, but he was unable to persist in his tenure for the whole five years, and his example was not imitated. It followed from the reason of the institution of the office that it should be held by patricians, but this restriction was removed in 350. From the Functions first, or soon after the first establishment of the office, the censors of the exercised other functions besides the making up the lists. They <^<^"^^''^- inspected public buildings, roads, supplies of water, and the like, and gave out contracts for their construction or repair, for which, on an order from the Senate, they drew upon the exchequer. The censors became thus very influential, being concerned with nearly every department of life and every class of persons. They should ^ In 309, according to the Fasti, a dictator held office throughout the year and without election of consuls, and in 301 two successive dictators did the same, but this was exceptional and irregular. Livy confirms the Fasti by not naming consuls for those years. - In doing this they were said condere lustrum. P HISTORY OF ROME have been above and apart from political faction, yet they could and did influence politics by their manner of filling up the lists of the ordines as well as of the Senate, while we have seen that Appius Claudius used his powers for a political and almost revolutionary purpose. The office was of great dignity : it was therefore customary to elect only those who had been consuls (although this convention was more than once neglected), and by the lex Rutilia (265) it was ordered that no one should be twice censor. The principle of colleagueship was also so jealously guarded that it was held, that, in case of the death of one censor, the other was bound to resign, while, on account of the omen, no new ones were created in that lustrum. (:-) On the Another part of the consular functions devolved upon the praetor. Praetor. The title ( = " leader ") was an old one, and by some has been supposed to have been that originally borne by the consuls. But the praetorship with which we are now concerned was first established in 367, again as a compromise, at the restoration of the consular office after the admission of plebeians. The praetor was to be a colleague of the consuls, to transact the judicial business, which up to that time had been performed by them. He was next in dignity to them, and presided in the Senate in their absence, but he could not legally hold the consular elections or name a dictator. His business lay in Rome, but in emergencies we find him com- manding abroad, as in the Gallic war of 283. Originally confined to patricians, the office was after 336 filled indifferently from either order. After the first Punic war the number of aliens residing in Rome for various purposes became so great, that a second praetor was ap- pointed, to try cases between citizens and /^rif^r/;^/ (242). He was C2i\\edi praetor percgriJius^ and from that time the first praetor was called praetor urbanus. The whole civil business was in their hands, and when qicaestiotics were established to try certain charges of public crimes, one of the praetors acted in person or by deputy as president {judex giiaestioms).^ On entering their offices they laid down the legal principles by which they meant to be guided in a formtda^ generally adopted with certain variations from that of their predecessors, whence a body of common law {Jus praetorium) ^ arose, recognised in all courts, whether in Rome or in those pro- vincial towns to which d. praefectus or other officer was sent annually from Rome to administer law as the praetor's representative. Till ^ When the guaestiones ferpetuae — i.e. standing courts for trying particular crimes — increased in number so much as to exceed the powers of even the increased staff of praetors, seTpdira.iQ Jiidices guaestionum were appointed, whether by the praetor or by the comitia centuriata does not seem clear. - Or jus honorariNm — including decisions of all magistrates. The formula edicta perpetua. That part of the edictum which remained unchanged was called vetus or tralaticium. PRAETORS AND QUAESTORS 227 there were only two praetors, but in that year two more were elected. The four drew lots for their sphere of duty {provincia) ; two stayed in Rome, the other two went to Sicily (a province in 241) or to Sardinia (a province in 238). Gradually more were required as home business and the number of provinces increased. From 1 99 there were six, or sometimes six and four alternately. After 144 all six stayed in Rome for their year of office, going to various provinces afterwards as propraetors. From about the year 80 there were eight; Julius Caesar (59-44) raised the number to twelve and then to sixteen, of whom the praetor U7'ba7iiis and praetor peregrinus^ and a certain number of the others, had to stay in Rome, unless by special exemption of the Senate. Besides these magistrates who thus exercised between them the Lmvei- functions of the one king, there were other departments of adminis- magis- tration managed by yearly magistrates also, who had no part of the ^^^^'^^• iiiipcrium shared by these curule magistrates, and were regarded as occupying a lower rank in the official scale. The oldest of these was the Quaestorship. ^^\\^?iX oiqiiaesiores The Parricidii under the kings, and qiiaestores aerarii very soon after the q'<^^(-'^ior'i. establishment of the Republic. Whether the two functions were ever united in one person seems uncertain. They were certainly separated in very early times. The duties of the guaes/ores parricidii^ "trackers of murder," were merged in other judicial offices; but the quaestors of the treasury {aerarii) always remained, and were increased in number with the extension of the business and dominions of the Republic. At first there appear to have been two in charge of the treasury, from which they made payments on the order of the Senate or the consuls, and into which they received the taxes, the fines inflicted by magistrates or people, or the wealth brought in by successful generals. After 447 they were elected at the coinitia tribiita^ and in 421 their number was doubled, two remaining in the city and one accompanying each of the consular armies. At the same time plebeians were declared eligible, though none was elected till 409. In 267 the number was again doubled, four new ones being apparently appointed for the surveillance of the port of Ostia and naval purposes : and as public business increased with the growth of the Empire we shall find their numbers increased also. The quaestorship was not a curule office. The quaestors did not wear the toga prae- texta, or sit on a sella curulis^ and having no jurisdiction over the persons of the citizens, they were not attended by lictors or viatores. Later in the date of its institution, though superior in dignity, Acdiles. was the Aedilrship. There were four aediles, who all seem to have shared in the same duties, as magistrates in petty cases and com- HISTORY OF ROME Praefcctus urbi. Colleges of pontijices and missioners of police {curatores urbis\ as superintendents of the supply of provisions {curatores annonae)^ as managers of the public games {curatores ludorum solenniujn). But the history of the office is complicated by the fact that in name, and in the outward marks of dignity, two of them were superior to the other two. The earliest were the plebeian aediles, first appointed in 494, at the same time as the tribunes, to assist them in judicial business, and to keep the decrees of the comitia tribida and later of the Senate also, that no patrician might tamper with them.^ From 472 up to the end of the Republic they were elected by the comitia tributa, and members of the patrician gentes were ineligible. But at the next compromise between the two orders (367), when the praetorship was established, it was also arranged that two new aediles should be created, who should be patricians and curulc magistrates. Their immediate purpose was the presidency of the ludi I\07na?ii, to which were after- wards added the Megalesia. But about 366 the plebeians were admitted to the curule aedileship in alternate years, and shortly afterwards indifferently in every year. So that eventually there were four aediles, two of whom must be plebeians, and two might be either plebeians or patricians. But apparently, except as to the games which were assigned to the two sets respectively, their duties gradually became assimilated. The advantage which the curule aedileship retained was that up to the time of Sulla it gave an entree to the Senate, and was regarded as the first step in the ctirsics honoriun^ the scale of offices, leading to the praetorship and consulship. The office of praefectiis urbi was also very ancient, and was believed to have been used by the kings for the safety of the city during their absence in war. But as the custom of the consuls and praetor remaining in the city during their year of office became more constant, it fell into desuetude, except as an honorary appointment of some youth of high birth during the absence of the other magistrates at the Latin games. Under the Empire the title was restored, but the officer so called had more distinct and important duties. No account of the checks upon the magistrates at Rome, however, can be complete without a reference to the functions of the sacred colleges. The pontifices and augures indeed did not generally exercise magisterial powers, and the control of the Pontifex Maximus over the Vestal Virgins rested rather on the patria potestas J but nevertheless their influence on the course of affairs was of suflicient importance to make it a matter of urgency ^ Both aediles and tribuni were probably names belonging to officers in earlier times, the former connected with the temples [aedes), the latter with the three tribes. But their offices as known in later history begin now. THE SACRED COLLEGES 213 for the plebeians to secure entrance into them, and to render membership an object of amlDition among statesmen of the highest rank. This influence was none the weaker that it was indirect. The pontifices had a general superintendence of all PotUijices. matters concerning the State religion. But they also had charge of the Calendar : they determined which days were/aj-// and Jiefasti, days on which legal business might or might not be transacted, or when it was necessary to intercalate days or months. They could therefore indirectly affect legal business and constitutional arrange- ments, often to the help or annoyance of a magistrate. Their president, X\\^ pontifex maximus, was to the people in their religious capacity what the king had been in the civil. He could take the auspices, summon a meeting, publish edicts. And though the actual exercise of his power was in practice confined to the priests and vestals (over the latter of whom he had the power of life and death), yet in the case of the failure of all curule magistrates he held comitia for elections. So again the augures. No assembly, Aumres. election, meeting of Senate, despatch of magistrate to a province |or an expedition, in fact no public business, was transacted without ifirst testing the will of the gods. The proper method of doing this kvas a science supposed to be in the hands of the college of augures, jWhich consequently had from time to time to decide on the validity of elections and laws. It is true that they had no initiative : they jcould only pronounce decisions when appealed to by the magistrates. put cases of doubt were frequently referred to them : and their (awards seem to have been final. 1 Lastly, up to the end of the pecond Punic war, the college of twenty fetials exercised considerable Fetials. influence from the fact that they were judges not only of the cere- pionies in proclaiming war, but of the validity of treaty obligations, (ind of the amount of provocation on the part of an enemy justify- ing war.2 Even the Decemviri sacris faciimdis, from having the Decemviri. tustody of the sibylline oracles, could at times influence the course of public policy, and their office was accordingly one of those which ( 1 The College of Pontifices originally consisted of four pontifices and a t^ontifex Maxinius. From 300 to 80 tliere were eight (four of whom had !o be plebeians) and a Pontifex Maximus. Up to 104 vacancies were filled up by w-optatio, i.e. by election by existing members. After 104 (by lex Domitia) Seventeen of the thirty-five tribes selected from three persons already nominated W the college, which then co-opted and ordained him {inauguratio). The College of Augures up to 300 consisted of four augures ; after that (by lex Ugulnia) it was raised to nine, by the addition of five plebeian augures, and so [emained till 80, when Sulla raised them to fifteen. The modes of election were fegulated by the same laws as that to the Pontifical College. [ 2 After the time of Pyrrhus the old ceremony of throwing a spear into the jnemy's lands was symbolically represented by throwing a spear against the yiiimna bellica before the temple of Bellona. 214 HISTORY OF ROME Causes of weakness in the constitii- iion. the patricians tried to retain, and which the plebeians successfully invaded J Thus by a system of checks and devolution was established the constitution which Polybius regarded as the most successful attempt to combine the three principles of Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Democracy. The weak point in it, which eventually did most to break it up, was the absence of any central power of compulsion. It depended too much on custom, and on the loyalty of individuals to it. Thus the authority of the Senate rested on no law, and even the limit to the tenure of office by the magistrates depended on the voluntary obedience of the magistrate himself. If he did not "abdicate," the office was not vacant, and there was no known power to make him. If he disobeyed the Senate he would be crushed so long as public opinion supported the Senate ; but when, as in later times, he found that he could defy it by resting on a direct appeal to the people, or by supporting himself by a sufficiently large and powerful party of adherents, the weakness of the foundations on which the power of the Senate rested became manifest. The army. From the earliest times we find the principle accepted that all citizens were liable to serve in the army, levied from season to season as required. But as each man furnished his own arms, and served without pay, it was inevitable that such service should as a rule be confined to men with a certain amount of property, the richest of all serving in the cavalry, though from very early times with an allowance for the purchase and keep of a horse {eqiius pubUcus). Hence in a certain sense to serve in the army was a privilege as well as a burden ; and the " reform " of Servius Tullius was the extension to a larger number of citizens of a privilege as well as of a duty : and when shortly before the siege of A^eii Changed b\> (about 406) the system of giving pay {stipendiuni) to the soldiers was the system started, it was possible to employ in the service even those citizens of pay- ^ho were rated below the fifth class, the capite censz, down to those rated at only 400 asses, and even these were enrolled on emergencies. Thus the army was at first a citizen militia called out for the season when required, and dispersed when the necessity was over. But in the Samnite wars and the war with Pyrrhus we find the legions at times going into winter quarters, and serving continuously, and this custom, begun ::t the siege of Veii, gradually became the common one. Moreover when Rome had reduced many states, first of Latium and then of Italy, to the position of The Socii. subject allies, these towns had to supply a certain number of men ^ Originally two, raised to ten in 369, of whom half after 367 were to be plebeians. The number was probably raised to lifteen in 98 by Sulla. XVI ENROLMENT AND ARMS OF THE LEGIONS 215 according to the terms of their alHance, and we accordingly find socii regularly serving with the Roman armies. The men, when levied, were from the earliest times enrolled in The brigades called legions. The number in the legions probably differed legions. at various times, and was seldom exactly what it professed to be. But the average normal strength of a legion may be taken in the third century to have been 3000 heavy-armed infantry, 300 cavalry of citizens, and 1 200 light-armed infantry. The number of the socii must Numbers. have differed at different stages of Roman supremacy ; Polybius, at the time of the Punic wars, reckons the infantry of allies as ec[ual to the citizens in number, and the cavalry as treble, A legion, there- fore, at that period may be reckoned roughly as a body of 10,000 men. The number of such legions enrolled each year differed according Enrolment to the necessity of the circumstances. But from an early period in of legions. the Republic two legions for each of the consuls was looked upon as normal. The Senate, at the beginning of the year, settled what the levy was to consist of, though, of course, it was liable to be supple- mented in case of additional dangers, or of loss in the field. The consuls then proceeded to enrol the men. Having given notice of a day on which they proposed to do this, all citizens of the five classes between the ages of seventeen and forty-six, who had not already served twenty years in the infantry or ten in the cavalry, were bound to appear and answer to their names when the lists of the tribes were read over. As a rule, the number of young men volunteermg for service made the exercise of the consular powers unnecessary ; but at times, either from political discontent or the nature of the particular service, this wa^ not the case ; and then the consul could, and sometimes did, confiscate the property of those who failed to answer, or even sell them into slavery, unless the tribunes interfered. [The first thing to do was to appoint military tribunes, six to each Tnbuni 'legion. From 361 this was done partly by election of the tribes, milituyn. 'though the consuls appear at times to have named some of them. j These military tribunes took turns in selecting suitable names until I their lists were full. Then the military oath of obedience {sacra- mejituui) was administered to the men, one repeating the formula, and the others signifying their assent to it. The men were then Hastati, divided, according to wealth and age, into hastati, principes, triarii, prindpes, and rorarii : and a day and place were named at which they were ^^^'^*'^^- bound to appear armed according to their respective ranks. The i poorest were assigned to the rorarii or accensi, later called velifcs, Rorarii. ]who had to equip themselves with the light target {parma\ sword, light spear, and helmet without plume {galea). The hastati, principes and triarii were divided according to age and service, the experienced 2l6 HISTORY OF ROME Rorarii, afterwards velites. veterans being in the last, and the youngest soldiers in the first. The defensive arms of all three were alike : the large oblong shield {scutum)^ coats of mail or breastplates {loricae or pectoralia)^ brass helmet and greaves {ocreae). All also had the short straight sword, made both for cut and thrust {gladms) : but the hastati and principes had besides two stout javelins or pila (some finer and slighter than others), which were thrown in volleys before coming to close quarters with the enemy. Instead of these the triarii had the long lance or pike {hasta), though later on all alike had the pilum. Maiiipuli. Each of the three orders was divided into ten companies {niani- puli)y One maniple of hastati, one of principes, and one of triarii made up a cohort : there were, therefore, ten cohorts in a legion. To command these men, there were, first, the six military tribunes ; and, secondly, sixty centurions, two to each maniple ; for the maniple was subdivided into ceiitu)iac^ or, as they were sometimes called, ordijieSy each of which was commanded by one of the centurions, who were thus also called ordi?iiini ductores. Each centurion also named a subaltern or opiio. The rorarii were distributed in equal numbers among the maniples of the heavy-armed, but afterwards were formed into a separate and distinct corps under the name of velites. The cavalry of a legion were divided into ten squadrons {turmae) of thirty men, each commanded by a deciirio and optio. Three deciiriones and optiones were selected in each squadron, but the first selected commanded if he were present, the second taking his place in his absence, and the third in the absence of the two first. The men wore helmet, greaves, and lorica or corslet, and carried a shield and lance and sword. The cavalry of the allies (900 for each legion) was divided into three alae instead of fiirniae., and are often spoken of as alarii equitcs. At the head of all was the consul, praetor, or some magistrate with consular or praetorial powers, assisted by a staff consisting of a c{uaestor and legaii, whose numbers differed according to circum- stances. These with the tribunes formed his coitciiiuni. Socii. The men being thus organised and officered, and joined by the Socii — whose levy was left to the several towns, and who were com- manded by their own twelve praefecii^ nominated by the consul — The camp, they at once formed a camp. This was always done on the same principles wherever they halted even for a night : though, of course, a camp that was intended only for temporary stoppage was nmch less elaborately fortified. One for two legions was in the form of a square, intersected, according to a regular scheme, with " roads " ' But the maniples of the triarii contained on]\' half the number of men con- tained by those of the hastati and principes. XVI OFFICERS AND DISCIPLINE 217 {viae) between the tents, and between the officers' quarters {^prae- torimii) and those of the men, ayid defended by an earthwork {agger) surmounted by a stockade of stakes {vaili), and a trench (fossa), the whole structure being spoken of as the vallum. The principles of its arrangement were so exact and so well known, that when the advanced guard had selected and marked it out, the rest of the army could march straight into it, each man knowing where his quarters were to be, and what portion of the fortification he had to construct. The form and construction were probably in their main features of high antiquity, yet the Romans are said to have taken some hints in improving their castrametation from Pyrrhus after the battle of I Beneventum, as also they introduced improvements in the arms of the cavalry possibly from the same source. The consul, proconsul, or dictator, when in the command of The com- the army, had absolute power over the officers and soldiers ; there mander-in- was no appeal, and no tribune to save a soldier, however high his '^^^'^^f- ' rank, from the sentence of the commander-in-chief, whether the ' sentence inflicted flogging or even death. ^ These punishments were Military I rigorously inflicted for certain military offences, such as cowardice or punish- ( desertion of a post, or theft in the camp, or neglect of duty when on ^^^'^^i^- \ guard ; and if a whole corps was involved in the same offence, the offenders were punished by decimatio, every tenth man being selected i by lot to receive the punishment. Some crimes not punished by I sentence of death from the commander-in-chief were visited, under I the direction of a military tribune, with what amounted practically to the same. This was called \.\\q fiisti/ariinn, which may be described I as " running the gauntlet." K man convicted of certain offences, ' especially neglect on guard, was touched by a tribune with a cudgel I (fiistis) : whereupon all the soldiers fell upon him with cudgels and j stones. If by vigorous exertions he escaped from the camp with his j life, he was nevertheless a ruined man. He could not return home, J and no one would venture to receive him. " The result," says Poly- I bins, "of the severity and inevitableness of this punishment is that I the Roman watches are faultlessly kept." The tribune could also inflict flogging, or money fines, on the soldiers for minor offences. This severity of discipline was tempered by the rewards offered for Military j valour. After a battle, those who had showed conspicuous bravery rewards. were publicly praised by the consul, and presented with prizes, con- sisting of arms or cups or horse-trappmgs, accordmg to his position or the nature of his feat. The first to mount a wall which was being stormed was presented with a mural crown ; those who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen with a civic crown : and both were 11 Soon after the time of the Gracchi, the right oi provocatio for a citizen even in the army was secured. 2i8 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xvi farther honoured with the privilege of wearing special ornaments at public festivals, and of decorating their houses with trophies. The Acies. The method of marshalling the Roman army in the field must, in many respects, have depended on circumstances and the nature of the ground. But certain principles pervaded the arrangement with whatever modifications. The earlier method had probably been that of the phalanx — that is, the massing together of the men to form a compact body many deep. But this practice had been aban- doned probably about the time of the siege ot Veil, and the plan had been adopted of stationing the maniples at such intervals as to give each maniple room for separate and independent manoiuvring. The whole force was thus arrayed in three open lines, probably in the form called the quincunx — so that each line supported the other, and yet left intervals for the one to retire through the other. The maniples forming the first line consisted of the youngest soldiers {hastati) ; the second line of the next oldest soldiers {principcs). These two lines were, in the period begin- ning about 300, armed with the pihun or heavy javelin, yet they were called antepilani, because at some previous time the men of the third line, called the triarii, appear alone to have carried \.\i&pihe7n, and the name remained when the reason for it had disappeared. The third line, the triarii^ was composed of the veteran soldiers, who were most to be depended upon if the two former were routed. Each line, if one legion was in question, consisted of ten maniples, the light- armed troops being distributed among the heavy-armed maniples. The socii were usually stationed by themselves at one or the other wing, and were drawn up probably on the same principles as the legionaries, but on this point we have no definite information. The cavalry stationed on either wing were principally employed to cover retreat- ing infantry, or to harass a retreating enemy ; though in some battles they played a more important part in the actual combat. In camp the men of the cavalry were specially employed in going the rounds at night, and the expeditions in search of supplies fell mostly to their share. Such was, in general terms, the organisation of the army with which the Romans were now to confront Carthage, and begin their career of conquest outside of Italy. CHAPTER XVII SICILY AND CARTHAGE Seeds of hostility between Rome and Cartilage — Object of the first Punic war was Sicily — The Phoenicians and Greeks in Sicily — The Sicani, Elymi, and Siceli confused by the Romans with Greek Siceliots — Character of Sicilian Greeks — Power of Syracuse — Carthage, its foundation, constitution, and the character of its people — Their possessions in Sicily — The boundary of the Halycus — Cause of the Romans coming to Sicily, and the results of the war to the two peoples contrasted — Romans and Carthaginians compared — Judgment of Polybius — The city and harbours of Carthage. Pyrrhus quilted Italy for ever in 274. In the course of the next Be^nnin y J HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The distinction betiveen the various inhabitants ignored by the Romans. Greek /•o/o?i ies. chance of their becoming a nation ; but with his death (440) the chance passed away. The Sicel towns, mostly in the centre of the island gradually became Hellenised ; and by the Roman the old distinction between Sicel and Siceliot was almost forgotten, or only remembered as a matter of antiquarian interest. In recountmg the dealings of Rome with Sicily, Polybius, living between the second and third Punic wars, always calls the people Siceliots (liKeXii^yra^) ; though, when mentioning the immigration from Italy, he speaks of Siceli 1 To the Roman poets Shidi and Sica?ii afforded a convenient variety in naming the island or its inhabitants ; but to Roman historians all alike were Siculi, except the encroaching Carthagmians, and all alike were regarded as Greek, however much Sicel, Sicanian, or Klymian blood might be in their veins. The proportion, indeed, of cities whose inhabitants were almost exclusively Greek was very great. In the century and a half which followed the foundation of the first Greek colony at Naxos (735) and at Syracuse (734), new colonies sent from them or from other towns in Greece had fringed three sides of it as far south-west as Selinus and as far north-west as Himera.- Each town occupied •-^ Thc'principal Greek towns in .Sicily may be arranged as follows, in reference to their origin and approximate dates. I. Chalcis in Eubof.a (/tf«/«//) I Zankle 725 [Messenel I Naxos 735 [after 463 called Tmiroinenijivi\ i Himera 6(3 Thermae 408 My Lie (716 V) Catana 730 Leontini 730 Acrae 664 I Casmenae 644 II. Corinth {Dorian) Syracuse 734 __J I . Camarina 599 I Aetna 466 III. Megara(/^«/«« and Dorian jnixed) Thapsus, removed to Megara Hyblaea 726 Selinus 628 I Heraclea Minoa 510 IV. Rhodes {Dorian) . I (Lindus) Gela 692 Agrigentum 582 (Cnidus) I Lipara 580 Tyndans 395 XVII THE PHOENICIANS IN EUROPE 223 as much territory surrounding it, and attained supremacy over as Its earlier many hamlets, as it could. Thus Sicily became for the most part inhabitants Hellenic : the earlier inhabitants, hemmed in from the sea between ^^1^^^'^^^^. Phoenician and Greek, submitted or were gradually Hellenised. The one non-Hellenic power of importance still remaining in the Sicilian island was that of Carthage. A brief sketch of the vicissitudes of <''>''^'^'-y the struggle between the Sicilian Greeks and the Carthaginians up '''''^ ^^'' to the time of the departure of Pyrrhus (275) has already been ^"inlans given. 1 When he left the island the Carthaginians seem quickly to MftTr" have repossessed themselves of all the country lying west of the river Pyrrhus. Halycus, which since 384 had been generally acknowledged as the I limit of the Carthaginian pale. Even east of this, however, their influence was now extending. Agrigentum was cleaving to them, and they were threatening the independence of the eastern half of the island. The one strong state which stood in their way was , Syracuse, with a territory including the towns Acrae, Helorus, I Netum, Megara, Leontini, and Tauromenium. On the death of ' Agathocles (289) Syracuse obtained some form of democratic 5v;w?/j^ I government, but about 270 or 268 Hiero had used his success «W ( in war to secure his election as king ; and it was he who pitted ^'^'''' ^^■ 1 Roman against Carthaginian : for it was his vigorous attempt to crush the marauding mercenaries who had seized Messene which , caused an appeal from one party within that town to the Car- 'thaginians and from the other to Rome. Hiero, indeed, soon \ retired from the contest, and, making a firm friendship with Rome, 1' watched the tw^o great powers fight out the question which of them I was to be supreme in Sicily. ; The Phoenicians are said to have come originally from the The ' j shores of the Persian Gulf. From time immemorial however they Phoc- I had dwelt in the north of Palestine, and Tyre had been their chief j town. They were active mariners and traders, and before the dawn I of certain history had sent out their adventurers to all parts of the t Mediterranean. The coasts of Asia Minor, Greece, Africa, and j Spain all bore traces of their presence. So also did the islands as I far north as Thasos, as far south as Crete and Rhodes, and as far , west as Sicily and Sardinia. They had even passed the Pillars of j Hercules, and perhaps had visited the Scilly Isles or even the (greater Island of Britain. Wherever there were metals to be dug, or goods to be exchanged, the Phoenician found his way, and left traces of his presence in the debris of excavated mines, or in the factories which had in many cases grown to be towns. Among these none was richer or more powerful than the famous city on the Gulf of Tunis. It was situated on the point of the African shore ^ See pp. 192-194. mcians. 224 HISTORY OF ROME Founda- iion of Carthage {fli.c.814). Supremacy of Carthage (7) over other Phoenician cities. {2) Over the Libyans. where there is an ahnost soHtary break in the hne of inaccessible chfif, and where it stretches farthest towards Sicily, Being con- trasted with an older settlement called Utica, it received the name of the New Town — Karth-hadha, Hellenised into Karchedon and Latinised into Carthago. Both the time and the manner of its foundation are as usual uncertain. The tradition as to the time varied between the date of the foundation of Rome and a century or more earlier. Nearly all our authorities, however, agree in assigning its foundation to a band of fugitives from Tyre led by Dido, or Elissa, when she escaped for her life from her jealous brother Pygmalion, lid^nding on the coast of Africa she is said to have purchased froiii^e natives for the site of her city as much ground as could be- covered by an ox hide {pvpaa). By cutting the hide into thin shreds a sufticient area was enclosed, and hence the new cttadel was called Byrsa. It is true that Elissa is a Semitic word for a goddess, and that Byrsa is the corruption of another word, Bosrah, which means a "fortress." But tradition knows nothing of such rationalising ; and the legend, true or false, has at any rate been made immortal by Vergil. Per- haps the real truth is that the city was never " founded " at all ; but that a factory or emporium, like others built by the Phoenicians, was set up on the site of the future city, and from the advantages of its position gradually attracted trade and inhabitants. Its Phoenician origin admits of no doubt ; and the Romans showed their recognition of the fact by calling its inhabitants Poeni^ which, with its adjective Punicus., is used by their writers along with Cart/uiginietises to indicate the inhabitants of Phoenician Carthage. We do not know the steps by which Carthage attained the supremacy in Africa which we find her possessing at the lime of her earliest connexion with Rome. About the period of the beginning of the Roman Republic she ceased to pay rent to the native tribes for the site of the city : and in the course of the next hundred years had forced all the Libyans who were living a settled life in the country to become her subjects ; while the nomad tribes, though remaining independent, constantly supplied mercenaries to her armies. She had moreover established her supremacy over other and older Phoenician settlements in Africa, such as Tunes, Utica, Hippo, Leptis, and Hadrumetum. The nature of her rule over these dependencies seems to have been in ordinary times neither better nor worse than that of other great mercantile oligarchies. It does not appear that an invader found it easy to raise the country against the Carthaginian government ; and even after the first war with Rome, during which their subjects had been exasperated by increased taxation and burdensome requisitions, it was not until the -h 226 HISTORY OF ROME Foreign dominions of Car- thage. (/) Sicily, {2) Corsica and Sa7-dinia, [j) Spain. Cartha- giniajis in Sicily. Phoc?iician settlements at Motye, P anormus , and Soloeis. Lilybaeum. Advan- tages of the Cartha- ginians over the Greeks. mercenary war had lasted some months that certain of the towns w^ere induced to join the general revolt. But it was not only in Libya that the Carthaginians exercised influence or rule. Their merchants sought outlets for their traffic in other countries ; and when they found Phoenician factories already existing, or erected new ones themselves, settlers from Carthage were attracted and towns gradually grew into permanent import- ance. The earliest of such settlements were probably those in Sicily, followed about 500 to 480 by others in Sardinia. There w^ere also numerous trading centres established in Spain. But whereas at the opening of the Roman war Sardinia was entirely under the rule of Carthage, it was not until Sardinia was wrested from her by the Romans that systematic efforts were made to establish Carthaginian rule in Spain: In Sicily, as we have seen, the Carthaginians had firmly established themselves. Alotyc, Panormus, and Soloeis had been dfccupied by Phoenicians before them. These then were the original centres of Carthaginian settlement in Sicily ; and the splenaid harbour of Panormus afforded shelter to their largest fleets. / It was not until Motye was destroyed by Dionysius, in 397, teat the remnants of its Phoenician inhabitants took possession of tiie site of Lilybaeum and there erected fortifications and defences. Between that date and the beginning of the war with Rome/it had grown to be the strongest and most important city possessed by them. It was the most convenient point for ships coihing from Africa : it stood on a peninsula protected on the lancl side by a huge ditch and wall ; it resisted all t^e efforts of Pyi/rhus to take it ; and for ten years held out against, the utmost exe/tions of the Roman legions. Thus holding the best poinl/s on the west coast, the Carthaginians had for more tli^n two centuries striven for mastery over the whole island with the Greek settlers who had established themselves in other parts of it. In this struggle they had an advantage over the Greeks in the fact that they w^ere not merely the inhabitants of one Sicilian town or district contending with those of another : they w^ere backed by a great and powerful mother city who despatched and paid armies and fleets, and to whom the loss of armies as a rule meant the loss, not of great bodies of citizens, but of so much money. The Greeks had always more at stake than the Car- thaginians, and less power of immediate recuperation after defeat. A loss of a battle to the Greek cities frequently meant the loss, at any rate for a time, of Hberty : it often meant the destruction and desolation of more than one city. It was only one Greek sovereign, Agathocles of Syracuse, who had conceived the bold idea of carrying the war up to the gates of Carthage herself. To the Cart ha- XVII COMPARISON OF ROMANS AND CARTHAGINIANS 227 Carthaginian merchants Sicily was a possession which their interests and their pride aHke urged them to do their utmost to retain : but to them the loss of one army brought no widespread mourning or despair ; the bulk of it consisted of foreign mercenaries who could be replaced by others, and whose survival at the end of a campaign was a matter of indifference, if not of positive disadvantage, to the home government. As long as their wealth held out and their fleets dominated the sea, there would be no hope of finally driving the men of Carthage from Sicily. Thus though the treaty of 384 fixed the Halycus as the The boundary of the Carthaginians, and though the victory of Timoleon on the Crimisus in 340 had for some years suppressed all ^^ the east attempts on their 'part to encroach beyond it; yet before another of the generation had paissed away such attempts recur again and 2ig^m. Halycus. Repelled by Agathocles (317-298) and by Pyrrhus (278-275), m^ ultimate failure or the latter once more opened a way to them. iKnd when the questiqn of Messene brought the Roman into SicUy, he found them not only safely possessed of the recognised Carthaginian I territory, but pus^iing their arms and influence into the e^ern half I of the island. ! ( The struggle, ihowever, was not merely between the/Romans and Romans the Carthaginian settlers in Sicily, but between Rom&^nd Carthage, "^'^ 'each city using ite utmost efforts and straining its/resources to the JIIjI^j] I full. The reasons! therefore of the final result of /{hat struggle must compared. (be sought in the position and character of thq'^wo peoples. Of the energy and public '^virtues of the Romans w€ have perhaps already got a sufficiently cle;ir view in following them through their struggles with their near nei'^hbours the La^tifis, Aequians, and Volscians, with the ancient civilisation of.Etruria, the intruding barbarism of I the Gaul, the dogged resistance of the mountaineers of Samnium, and the better instructed though less warlike Greek of south Italy. Of the Carthaginians it is less easy to gain a clear or well- jfounded notion. We know them almost entirely from their enemies. 'Their literature perished with them. The conquering Roman in contempt bestowed the contents of the libraries of Carthage on the Numidian princes, and nothing survives but one short journal, jin a Greek version, of a naval explorer. One other book was (preserved and translated into Latin, Mago's treatise on agriculture, (and was long used as an authoritative handbook. That too has ! perished. Even the ruins of the town are gone, as well as those of the Roman colony and of the mediaeval city which at long intervals of time occupied its site. Nature herself has aided the work of oblivion in altering the line of coast and changing what were once open bays and harbours into shallow lagoons. It is indeed a case 228 HISTORY OF ROME of vae victis ! The Carthaginians grew to be a great people, spread their power abroad, conquered other nations and gathered wealth, until, coming in contact with a people stronger than themselves, they fell irretrievably, and with their existence as a people lost the right and power of making themselves heard before the world. Polybius, though favourable to Rome, had an admirable idea of historical impartiality, but though we have his narrative of the first war with Rome, and many valuable fragments in regard to the other two, yet his complete account of the constitution of Carthage has almost all been lost. Constiiu. \ He tells us that when Rome and Carthage came into collision tion df \ the constitution of Rome was at its zenith, that of Carthage in its Carthage, (decline. Constitutions, according to him, go through a regular cycle, beginning with kingship, which, degenerating to tyranny, is replaced by aristocracy — the rule of the best men. This is corrupted into oligarchy, and is therefore displaced by democracy. This in time, corrupted into mob-rule, leads once more to tyranny. In his view Rome was at the stage nearest to the ideally best mixture of absolutism, oligarchy, and democracy in which the best men bear sway. Carthage was at the stage when mob-rule begins. The degeneracy is marked by the decline in the power of the Suffetes ^ {Shop/ietini., "judges") and of the Gerusia or Senate, and by the increased interference of the people in State affairs. He cannot mean, however, that a formal change had taken place. There had always been an assembly or ecclesia, composed of all full citizens, in which ultimately resided the supreme power. It was a change of custom rather than of law. In earlier times the assembly seems not to have been consulted except in the case of a difference of opinion between the Suffetes and the Senate. It is in this respect that a change may perhaps be traced. It was still the Suffetes and Senate who received the Roman' envoys in 219, and accepted their declara- tion of war ; but it was apparently the general assembly which Hannibal persuaded to accept the terms offered by Scipio after the battle of Zama in 202.^ The change was a natural result of a long period of varying but on the whole unsuccessful war, when it would be impossible to suppress popular excitement, which found a vent at Carthage in formidable riots, and would have to be appeased by a reference of the measures to be taken to the popular will.^ Another change which had come upon the government of Carthage was in The the direction of oligarchy rather than democracy. The earliest Suffetes arrangement known to us was that by which the chief power resided with the Suffetes, the two "kings" elected by the people. They ^ Always called kings {^acnXels) by Greek writers. " Polyb. iii. 20, 33 ; xv. 19. ^ /d. vi. 31. XVII CONSTITUTION OF CARTHAGE 229 were not indeed confined to the members of a particular family, nor elected for life. But they might, it appears, be indefinitely re-elected, and while in office dealt with foreign states as kings ; and though controlled at home in some degree by the Senate,^ were supreme when acting as generals at the head of the army.2 But some time before Aristotle wrote (about B.C. 330) a change had taken place. Another body of 104 members, often spoken of as "the Hundred," had come into existence, elected originally by boards of five or Pentarchies. These Pentarchies had, it seems, been originally The elected by the people; but whether "the Hundred" filled up vacancies Hu?idrcd. themselves, or whether popular elections were corrupted by a vast system of bribery, it seems certain that by some means membership of " the Hundred " became like other offices the exclusive possession of the wealthy, and that it acquired an overwhelming power over every other office in the State. Like the Ephors of Sparta, the original function of the Hundred was to watch and control the magistrates rather than to administer the government itself Especially over the generals in command of armies, even when these generals were the Suffistes, their hand was heavy. It is probably a later develop- ment of this body that is meant by Livy in his description of the ordo judicum: "They held office," he says, "for hfe ; everyone's pro- perty, reputation, and life were in their hands. Offend one of them, the whole order were your enemies ; and with judges thus hostile no accuser was needed." It was apparently the rise of the power of this body that changed the position of the Suffetes. They ceased to command armies, and gradually became the ornamental rather than the real head of the State. The real power was in the hands of the Hundred, the body once chosen on consideration of merit, but now closed to all but the wealthy. The close oligarchy thus formed was tempered by the occasional interference of the people. But such The interference was not that of a body trained by the regular perform- ecdesia. ance of civic duties, and accustomed, like the ecclesia of a free Greek state, to have ordinary business brought before it. It was rather the occasional outburst of discontent at an incompetent or unsuccessful government. On the side of the governing families, again, there was constant jealousy of successful generals, especially when, as in the case of the great family of Barca, these generals belonged to the democratical party in the State. This jealousy perhaps had the useful effect of preventing the rise of a tyranny ; but it acted fatally in hampering and discouraging able generals, and preventing the growth of a feeling of civic duty, prepared to 1 The number of the Senate is not known, but there appears to have been a smaller council of thirty, which practically did the business brought nominally before the larger body. 2 isocrates, Nico. 24. 230 HISTORY OF ROME The em- ployment of mer- cenaries. Mercen- aries compared with citizen soldiers. Character- istics affecting the result of the struggle. sacrifice wealth or comfort for the service or the protection of the State. This tendency was increased by the habit of employing mer- cenary soldiers. Some of the citizens devoted themselves to military affairs, and the generals were nearly always Carthaginians, while a larger number probably served on board ship ; but the bulk of the armies sent abroad were hired from other lands, from the nomad Africans, from Campania, Etruria, or Gaul. The advantages of a mercenary army are obvious. It enables a state to carry on a foreign war without serious interruption to business or comfort ; so long as victory is secured, the loss of life involved is advantageous rather than the reverse to the government ; the cessation of hostili- ties does not flood the country with a number of citizens who have lost taste or capacity for ordinary business or employments ; the men return to their own lands or to another employer, and* all obli- gations towards the soldiers end with discharge of the wages agreed upon. Such soldiers, moreover, were not liable to political influences ; their one object was to earn their pay, and that was best secured by the success of the master whom they served. On the other hand, they had no feeling of loyalty or patriotism, and were apt to be dangerous to their employers when the campaign was over, if any dispute arose as to the amount of pay or bounty to which they felt themselves entitled. Moreover, the result of the struggle with Rome would seem to show that after all the purchased fidelity of foreign mercen- aries was in the long run no sufficient match for the nobler passion of patriotism. "The Romans," says Polybius, "are never so dan- gerous as when they seem reduced to desperation." The citizen levies of Rome were again and again beaten by the professional fighters purchased by the wealth of Carthage ; the fleets of Rome were again and again destroyed from the incompetency of her navigators or the superiority of the skilled Phoenician seamen : but when one army perished fresh levies of citizens were ready to take its place ; and the waves had scarcely closed over one hastily-built fleet when the indefatigable Romans were felling timber and training rowers to form and man another. It is not indeed sufficient in estimating the causes of the Roman success to look merely to the quality of the forces that had to be encountered in the field. Behind these mercenary armies was a nation whose activity and enterprise accumulated the wealth which supported the fleets and armies, and the amount of whose courage and persistency must determine both the length and effectiveness of the war. When driven to bay indeed, as in the siege of their city, the Carthaginians showed in actual conflict a desperate courage and dogged resolution equalled by scarcely any people, except their XVII THE CITY OF CARTHAGE 231 kinsfolk at Tyre. These qualities were not without their influence in protracting the long struggle with Rome. Plutarch, who is prob- ably copying hostile authorities, describes them as "resentful and gloomy, submissive to rulers, harsh to subjects, most ignoble in panics, most savage in wrath, p>ersistent in purpose, without taste or feeling for the lighter arts and graces." ^ But though their treatment of their Libyan subjects seems to lend a colour to one part of this indictment, yet neither in Sicily nor in Spain does their rule appear to have been uniformly disliked, and the wonderful family of Barca — the sons of thunder or Barak — is a sufficient proof that they could produce men endowed with the highest faculties both for adminis- tration and command. That in spite of great wealth and luxury, and of the possession Defects of of a literature, and of high skill in building and engineering, the Pi^nu. Carthaginians had little or no genius for art and philosophy, as S^"-'^''^^- understood by the Greek, seems only too likely. The Roman con- quered the Greek as well as the Carthaginian, but what there was in the Greek better than in the Roman survived and concjuered the conqueror. When Ambracia, Tarentum, or Corinth was sacked, Rome was made splendid by the works of art which the victor, if he did not understand, at least saw to be worth preserving. But no model of beauty or grace, no work of sculptor or painter, was brought from Carthage. No student ransacked the libraries of Carthage, and gave their contents in whatever new dress to Greek or Roman. No great teacher or reformer in thought or morals claimed Carthage as his i home. After all such characteristics have been taken into considera- I tion, whether of polity or circumstance, the ultimate reason of the I Roman success is best expressed by Polybius, in the memorable I chapter in which he discusses the causes which eventually gave the I Romans the victory : " The fact is that Italians as a nation are by I nature superior to Phoenicians and Libyans both in strength of body j and courage of soul." 2 That is the root of the matter, from which j all else is a natural growth. j The city of Carthage itself must at the period of the beginning The city of \ of the Roman war have been far superior to its rival. It was said Carthage I to contain 700,000 inhabitants and to embrace in its territory 300 cities in Libya : while its foreign dominions included, besides j nearly two-thirds of Sicily, the Balearic Isles, Corsica and Sardinia, with many trading settlements in Spain south of a line joining the Tagus and Ebro. The hill on which was built its citadel or Byrsa was near the extremity of a peninsula connected with the mainland by an isthmus about three miles broad. To the south was the lake i Plut. reip. ger. praecepta, 3. ^ Polyb. vi. 52. dominions. 2P HISTORY OF ROME chap, xvii bours. of Tunis, cut off from the open gulf by a narrow strip of land called the Taenia, at that time apparently with an entrance to the sea wider than the present Goletta, and forming an open harbour or roadstead. Besides this there were two artificial harbours or docks. The first was an oblong, nearly 1400 feet in length, surrounded by a double wall, with a narrow entrance from the gulf: this was called the " Merchants' Harbour " ; and from it again a narrow channel led The har- into a round harbour called the Cofhon, or " drinking cup " (also surrounded with strong walls), in the middle of which was an islet used as the headquarters of the chief admiral, and joined by a bridge to the road leading straight to the Forum. To the north of the town was a deep gulf, now also by the formation of fresh land become a salt lake {Salinac). Between the Byrsa and the open sea on the east ran a single wall, following in part a line of hills, which in many places required little strengthening. Towards the mainland the isthmus was defended, but apparently not at its narrowest point, by a triple line of fortifications, the outer wall being forty-five feet high, with towers at intervals of 200 feet. The spaces between the walls were occupied by barracks, magazines, stables for elephants, and all the munitions of war. The whole peninsula thus enclosed was about thirty miles in circuit, includ- ing the city itself and its great suburb called Megara or Magalia. Thus the home of the great commercial people, who were now to enter upon a century of struggle with Rome, at first for supremacy in the western Mediterranean and then for bare life, was not only a great city but a vast fortified and entrenched camp, stored with all the necessaries for sustaining a siege or carrying on war, and pro- tected by almost impregnable defences. Authorities. — The history of the Carthaginians in Sicily mostly rests on Diodorus Siculus xx. and onward, with notices in Strabo ii. and Plutarch's Thiiolcon and Pyrrhics. Our knowledge of the origin and constitution of Carthage, as far as they are imperfectly known, depends mainly on Polybius i. 3, 73. 75 ; vi. 43, 45, 51, 56 ; xxvi. 4, and other passages : on scattered passages in Livy, such as xxviii. 37 ; xxx. 7 ; xxxiii. 46 ; his formal account of them having been in the lost sixteenth book, of which the epitome preserves nothing on this head. The most continuous narrative is that of Justin, xviii. 3-7 ; xix. 1-3, and books xxii. and xxiii. An important notice appears in Aristotle, Pol. ii. 11, and some particulars are given in Appian, Pun. 1,2; and more details as to situation and general history by Strabo xvii. 3 14, 15, and other passages. CHAPTER XVIII THE FIRST PUNIC WAR 264-242 COLONIES TRIBES Aesernia in Samnium Aesium in Unibria B.C. B.C. 263 247 Velina \ guirina / B.C. 241 Alsium in Etruria B.C. 247 PROVINCES Fregenae in Etruria . B.C. 24s . Sicily . Corsica and Sardinia B.C. 241 Brundisium in Calabria B.C. 244 B.C. 23S Spoletium in Umbria B.C. 241 CKNSUS B.C. 265 B.C. 252 B.C. 245 292,224 297,797 251,222 I 'First Punic war— First Period (264-262) — Help sent to Messana at the request of ' the Mamertini — Claudius enters Messana — Battle with Hiero, and with the ( Carthaginians — The siege of Syracuse (263) — The consuls lay siege to Agri- 1 gentum — Hiero makes alliance with Rome — Many cities in Italy join the \ Romans — Fall of Agrigentum (262). Second Period (261-255) — The Romans build a fleet — Loss of the consul Scipio — Victory of Duilius at i Mylae (260) — Relief of Segesta, siege of Hippana, Mytistratuni, Camarina (259-258) — Naval battle off Tyndaris (257) — Battle of Ecnomus, the Romans land in Africa : after successful campaign Regulus is left for the winter at Clupea with half the army (256) — Defeat and capture of Regulus (255). From the long struggle with the Samnite and the war with Pyrrhus Causes of I the Romans emerged masters of Italy from Cis-Alpine Gaul to i/w jealousy Rhegium. They had suffered much, but were the more vigorous: f,^^^'' and elate with their triumph they were eagerly looking out for oppor- "^ jtunities of recruiting their forces and enlarging their field of com- jmercial enterprise. But in whichever direction th^y turned their eyes for such purposes they were confronted by the power of Car- ithage. Her supremacy at sea was as yet beyond the thought of jrivalry. She had lodgment in Corsica, was supreme in Sardinia, and «held Lipara and other islands in the Sardinian and Tyrrhenian seas, 234 HISTORY OF ROME thus threatening the whole western coast of Italy. Though as yet Rome had no political or military dealings with Spain, yet her merchants, if they entered it, would find Phoenician settlements and Carthaginian rivalry. But it was on the south that the danger seemed most imminent. Half Sicily was already Carthaginian, and it seemed likely that the eastern portion of the island, whenever opportunity served, would be absorbed by the same encroaching power. If that were to take place, if Messana was held by a Carthaginian garrison, or if the ships of Carthage were to ride at will in the harbour of Syracuse, there would be little doubt that the cities of southern and south-eastern Italy would soon have to fight for their freedom ; and at any rate Roman commerce would be hemmed in and curtailed on every side. Jealousy between the two peoples was inevitable. It was well, after the quarrel had begun, to appeal to the conduct of the Carthaginians at Tarentum in 272,1 or to the intrigues of Rome with Hiero : the immediate excuse mattered little ; the two nations were bound sooner or later to decide which should be supreme in the western Mediterranean, and that decision could only be by war. The The actual excuse for hostilities was furnished by the Mamertines. At the death of Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, in 289, some of his Mavier tines. Marmor, the Oscan form of Mars, — seized on the town of Messana. Having been hospitably entertained by the Messanians they got possession of the citadel, massacred or expelled the fullgrown citizens, and retained the women and children for their own use, dividing the territory among themselves. This lawless occupation of a Greek town, and the cruel murder or exile of Greek citizens, was bad enough ; but they also used the town thus taken as a starting- place from which to plunder the country and attack cities as far as Gela and Camarina. The only State which was capable of resisting them was Syracuse. Year by year her mercenary troops were employed during the summer in waylaying plundering parties from Messana or threatening the town itself But the intestine disorders which generally broke out as soon as the troops were on the march paralysed the effectiveness of the Syracusan operations. It was not until a quarrel between the citizens and the army had resulted in the rise to power of the bold and active Hiero, that attacks were made upon the Mamertines sufficiently concentrated and formidable to make it necessary for them to look elsewhere for help. As soon as he had obtained supreme power in the State, and had got rid of the mercenary army, to which to some extent he ^ See p. 199. XVIII KING HIERO AND THE MAMERTINES 235 owed his own advancement, Hiero drilled levies of citizens, that Hicro he might no longer be at the mercy of the new mercenaries which becomes he had hired, and in two or three years felt strong enough to strike '''^^'^^ ^^^ an effective blow at the Mamertines^ who had been encouraged by alon^Tjj. long suspension of Syracusan attacks to carry on their plundering excursions with greater confidence than usual. On the plain of Victory Mylae he inflicted a severe defeat upon them, taking many important of Mylae, prisoners and shutting the rest up in their town, which was only f^*^- ^^^''^ saved from capture by the help of a Carthaginian force under ^-^^^^ ^jr Hannibal, of whom, however, the Mamertines appear to have got Syracuse. rid again shortly afterwards. This victory secured Hiero the title of king ; and it was gained about the same time that the Romans had captured the mutinous garrison at Rhegium. Whilst Rhegium was in the hands of men guilty of the same crime as the Mamertines the two towns had been in league, and had mutually supported each other in their depredations. This was now at an end ; and the Mamertines, so far from being able to plunder the country at will, were in constant fear for the safety of their town and their own lives before the ever-increasing power of Hiero. But there was a A Cartha- conflict of opinion among them as to the source from which help g^^"'^^^ should be sought. Some were for inviting a Carthaginian garrison, ^llessana others for applying to Rome. The Carthaginians, however, were the nearest ; and, whilst the application to Rome was still pending, Hanno arrived at Messana, and having effected a compromise between Hiero and the Mamertines, occupied the acropolis with his garrison. When news of this reached Rome (towards the end of 265) it The brought the negotiation with the Mamertine embassy to a crisis. ^?'7""^ There had been some hesitation. The Senate, it is said, had been ^^^^ ^^^. eml^arrassed by a conflict of feeling : on the one hand it was clearly to the necessary to check the spread of Carthaginian influence in a part Mamer- of Sicily so closely connected with Italy ; on the other it seemed '^"^•^' ^^^• inconsistent to help the Mamertines after having recently punished with inflexible sternness the crime committed by their own men at Rhegium. The Senate finally resolved to leave the people to take the responsibility of the decision upon themselves. It may well be doubted, however, whether it was the moral side of the question which caused this hesitation. The two cases were not strictly parallel. The treacherous garrison at Rhegium consisted of their own soldiers, the deed was a breach of the military oath and an act of mutiny, which deserved military punishment. But with the right or the wrong of the action of the Mamertines the Romans had nothing to do. It was at that time no business of the Roman government how a Greek town in Sicily was inhabited or deprived of its inhabitants. It was not the first time in the history of 236 HISTORY OF ROME Reasons/or Messaiia itself that such an event had taken place ; and many other hesitatio7u towns in Sicily had been at various times deprived of their population and repeopled by a conqueror. What was it to the Roman whether Greek or Campanian dwelt at Messana ? Moreover, right or wrong, the Mamertines had now been there twenty-four years. The genera- tion of the original robbers was doubtless passing away, and a new generation growing up, some of whom were children at the time of the capture, and others born since of the Greek women whom the Mamertines retained as captives and wives. A mixed race of inhabitants, only partly responsible for the crime, now held the town, with whom a foreign nation might have dealings without grave discredit in an age in which such violent changes were not un- common. It seems more reasonable to suppose that the hesitation of the Senate was caused by the importance of the step they were asked to take. The Romans had indeed been constantly engaged in struggles leading to aggrandisement; but these acquisitions of territory had as yet, with the exception of one insignificant island, been all within the shores of Italy. They were now for the first time to transport an army across the sea and to interfere in another land. Moreover, it could not fail to be clear to the Senate that, on whatever pretext they might go to Sicily, their act would be regarded as an hostile one by Carthage and would certainly involve war. It is true that in the commercial treaty of 306 the Carthaginian domain in Sicily was clearly distinguished. But Carthaginian influence had not been confined to definite limits, and Carthaginian armies had often appeared east of the Halycus ; interference by Rome in any part of Sicily would undoubtedly be resented by Carthage, and especially at Messana, for just before the occupation of the town by the Mamertines the Messanians had joined the Carthaginian alliance. Such considerations might well cause the Senate to hesitate. But when the question came before the people they were troubled by no scruples and few fears. Though the wars with the Samnites and in Magna Graecia had poured great wealth into Rome and enriched the exchequer as well as individual citizens, the farmers had suffered much both from actual damage and from having been obliged to neglect their farms to serve in the army. The recent introduction of silver coinage had turned their attention to commerce, for which Sicily was the natural sphere ; and they looked upon a distant war as likely to bnng wealth into the country without causing them damage, while the military class were eager for fresh opportunities of gaining reputation and ]:)lunder. The help asked for by the Mamertines, therefore, was promptly voted ; and one of the consuls for 264, Appius Claudius Caudex — the last name, it is said, being gained by the attention he had paid to shipbuilding — was appointed to lead the expedition. The people decide to help the Mamer- tines. XVIII THE ROMANS BORROW SHIPS 237 For many years past the Romans had had some sort of a navy, 264. and as far back as 311 two commissioners had been appointed for Coss. building and refitting ships. But the business had been negligently ^PP^^^_ performed, and at this time they not only did not possess any warships ^Caudex^ of the first class, but had not even a sufficient supply of transports. M. Fidvius It was not yet in contemplation to fight the Carthaginians at sea. Flaccus. The expedition to Sicily would, doubtless, lead to a struggle with ^A^^^ them, but it would be settled by the legions on land. Still the ^^//^J^T^ troops must be conveyed thither, and when coasting down the shore of Italy, or crossing the straits, narrow as they were, the vessels were liable to be attacked and destroyed by the warships of Carthage. They therefore hired or borrowed quinqueremes and triremes from Tarentum, Locri, Elea, and Naples to supplement and convoy such transports as they possessed. But these preparations consumed some time ; and meanwhile Hanno and his Carthaginian garrison were in occupation of Messana, and a Carthaginian fleet was protect- ing its harbour. To counteract this Appius Claudius despatched a small squadron of ships in advance, under the command of a military tribune Gains Claudius, to Rhegium. Gains visited the town more than once in a small vessel to negotiate with the Romanising party, but failed to obtain the expulsion of the Carthaginian garrison ; and when he attempted to force his way into the harbour with his squadron, he was caught in a storm in which several of his ships were driven on shore. Not discouraged he retired to Rhegium and set i about refitting and repairing his ships. Hanno, whose cue it was to I assume the attitude of a disinterested third party, and to leave to the I Romans the onus of beginning a war, sent back the stranded ships, I offered to restore the prisoners, and invited Gains Claudius to main- I tain peace. Claudius would accept nothing ; and Hanno in anger boasted I that he would not allow the Romans so much as to wash their hands I in the sea. But having repaired his fleet, and studied the nature of Gai the currents in the straits, Claudius at length brought his ships into the harbour and entered the town. He was received with enthusiasm by the Mamertines, already tired of their Carthaginian protectors. Hanno, having imprudently consented to join in the conference between Claudius and the Mamertine leaders, was seized, and after a short confinement was allowed to leave the town with his men. The Carthaginians put Hanno to death for thus losing Messana, and immediately formed an alliance with Hiero to attack the town. It was not necessarily a declaration of war Avith Rome, and, indeed, such formal declaration does not seem ever to have been made ; it was the Mamertines whom both they and Hiero were to attack ; it ,was their joint interest to destroy a den of freebooters and robbers. I us Claudius enters Messana. 238 HISTORY OF ROME The consul Appius Claudius Caudex enters Alessana, 264. Appius defeats Hiero, and the Cartha- ginians. Nevertheless from this time forward it was a struggle between Rome and Carthage for supremacy, and all other questions became of minor importance. The Carthaginian fleet was ordered to anchor at Pelorus, while a land force was to co-operate with Hiero, who had taken up a position on the " Chalcidic Mount," part of the range of hills extending to Tauromenium. This was the position of affairs when the consul Appius arrived at Rhegium with his main army in the summer of 264. Though the town was invested on one side by the Carthaginians and on the other by Hiero, he boldly crossed the strait by night to avoid an encounter with the Carthaginian fleet, and threw himself and his army into the town. The protection of the Roman army would not have availed the Mamertines long if the investment had continued, because the Carthaginian command of the sea made the bringing in of provisions hazardous, if not impossible. Appius, therefore, resolved to get rid of the besieging armies, if possible by negotiation, and, if that failed, by force. Hiero had on former occasions shown an inclination to be friends with Rome, and the treaty with Carthage was still nominally in force. It might be possible to induce both to retire and leave the town under the care of the Romans, who should be answerable for the future peaceful conduct of the inhabitants. Both, however, rejected the advances. The Carthaginians were resolved to prevent the Romans from getting a footing in Sicily. Hiero's chief aim was to maintain Syracusan independence ; it was necessary for that purpose not to break with the power likely in the end to prevail, and at present that power seemed to be Carthage. Appius therefore resolved on fighting. On the morning after the failure of the negotiation he led out his troops against Hiero. The engagement was long and obstinate, and some historians represent Hiero as victorious. But if so, Polybius pertinently asks, why did Hiero abandon his camp in the night and retire to Syracuse ? The fact, indeed, that he still occupied his camp in the evening after the battle shows that his defeat was not ruinous ; but it was sufficient to convince him that he could not overcome the Romans in the field. Elated with his success Appius resolved on attacking the Cartha- ginians also. Having given his men a day's rest he sallied out at sunrise. He was again successful ; he drove the Carthaginians from their position, and the survivors sought the protection of the nearest towns. The siege of Messana being thus raised, Appius scoured the country between it and Syracuse, and finally sat down before Syra- cuse itself. But the army was not provisioned for a long siege, and once more Syracuse was saved by the unhealthiness of the district round it. In the sallies made from the town Hiero appears to have been as often successful as the Romans, the consul himself on one XVIII THE FRIENDSHIP OF HIERO 239 occasion all but falling into the hands of the enemy. Before break- ing up his camp, however, Appius ascertained that Hiero was inclined to make terms. Satisfied with that he led off his army, and, leaving Triumphs a garrison in Messana, returned to Rome, which he was allowed to of Appuis enter in triumph, as was also his colleague Fulvius Flaccus, who had y"^^^,^-^^^. been engaged in suppressing a rising of the Volsinians. Flaccus. Such were the results of the first year of a war destined to last for twenty-four. They were considered satisfactory at Rome, and it was resolved that the establishment of Roman influence in Sicily should be pushed with even greater energy in the next campaign. Both consuls in 263 were sent to Sicily, each with the regular con- 263. Coss. sular army of two legions. The arrival of this formidable force at M' . once gave rise to a wide-spread movement among the Sicilian cities. ^ alcnus Even at Segesta, long a faithful ally of Carthage, the citizens mas- ^y/-*"^"'-^- sacred the Carthaginian garrison and handed over the town to the otacilius consuls. This movement, and a defeat at the hands of the consul Crassus. Valerius,! convinced Hiero that the Romans were destined eventually ^^lovcmcnt to be the victors. He therefore determined to quit his alliance \^^^ ^^^'JJ^,. with the Carthaginians, which must have always been distasteful of Roman to him, and made offers of peace and friendship to the Romans, alliance. The co-operation of Syracuse was of great importance to them, Hiero especially as a source of supplies ; the offers were gladly accepted, makes and Hiero remained the active and faithful friend of Rome to the end /■''^ff^ .... , J with Rome. of his life. With great skill he maintained the independence and neutrality of his kingdom through all the chances and changes of the war, devoting himself to internal reforms, and to attracting the admiration of his subjects by success in the great games in Greece. Alarmed at the defection of Hiero, and feeling certain that Great prc- the Romans would not long be content with merely protecting such parations Greek towns as joined their alliance, the Carthaginians made great ^^^^^^^' efforts to increase their forces in Sicily. Fresh recruits were enlisted from the Ligurians, Celts, and Iberians ; and Agrigentum, as the strongest and most important town on the south coast, was selected as their headquarters. It had no harbour and stood some three miles back from the coast, but it was convenient for operations in the central districts, and into it they collected the bulk of their war material. Thus the second year of the war (263) passed without any striking event. The Carthaginians were collecting their forces : the Romans were securing such of the cities as voluntarily joined them. The next consuls took a more decided line. When Lucius Postumius and Ouintus Mamilius came to Sicily, the threatening nature of the preparations at Agrigentum could no longer be over- looked. They resolved that their whole energies must be directed ^ Mentioned only by Pliny, A"^. //. 35, § 22. 240 HISTORY OF ROME 262. Coss. Lucius Postumius Megellus, Q- Mamilius Vitulus. Siege of Agri- gent urn. Fall of Agri- gentum. to its capture. Both consular armies were accordingly concentrated within a mile from its walls. The citadel stood on a steep hill about three miles from the shore, while the town and its temples lay to the south-east, lower down the slope, the whole being enclosed in the fork formed by the union of the rivers Hypeas and Akragas. At the mouth of these combined streams there was merely a piece of open beach, with no good haven for ships. Help therefore could not be expected from the sea. But the commander in the town, Hannibal son of Gisco, showed great spirit ; inflicted more than one severe defeat on the Roman foraging parties ; and even made an assault on the camp, which was only repulsed with considerable loss. The consuls had hitherto been in one camp ; they now separated and fortified two, one on the south between the city and the sea near the temple of Asklepios, the other to the west of the town in the direction of Heraclea, from which succour would be likely to come to the garrison. Communication between the camps was maintained by a line of pickets, and the Romans drew their supplies from Herbessus, a small town in the neighbourhood, to which corn and cattle were sent by cities allied to them. For five months the siege went on without important incident ; but as there were 50,000 persons in the town the food began to run short. Hannibal had been able however to keep up communication with Carthage, and a fresh army, with more elephants, was sent to join Hanno at Heraclea to enable him to relieve Agrigentum. Thus reinforced Hanno seized Herbessus, the source of their supplies, reducing the Romans almost to the position of a besieged garrison. They were besides suffering from an epidemic, and must inevitably have raised the siege had not Hiero contrived to throw sufficient supplies into their camp to enable them to hold out. For two months they sustained nearly daily attacks from Hanno, in one of which their cavalry was tempted out b/ Numidian skirmishers and suffered heavily. But though the Romans were in great difiiculties, the Agrigentines were in still worse, and Hannibal kept warning Hanno by signals and messages that his men were deserting, and that he could not hold out against the famine much longer. Hanno there- fore determined to risk a general engagement. The Romans were eager to accept it ; and, after a severe struggle, broke the Cartha- ginian lines, inflicted a terrible slaughter on the flying enemy, and captured their baggage and most of their elephants. But the fatigue of the battle, or the carouse after the victory, caused the watches of the night to be somewhat negligently kept ; and Hannibal took advantage of this to lead out his garrison across the Roman trenches. At daybreak the Romans discovered what had happened, They XVI II FALL OF AGRIGENTUM 241 did not however attempt a pursuit, but proceeded to occupy and plunder the town, from which 25,000 prisoners were sold into slavery. Thus after a siege of seven months, during which the Romans are said to have lost 30,000 men, — many of them perhaps Sicilian allies, — this stronghold of the Carthaginians passed into Roman hands in the winter of 262-261. Its fall marks a period in the war ; Effect of it settled the question of superiority on land in favour of Rome, the fall of The Carthaginians, in spite of some successes in detail, never had -^V 1 1 r • • c- -1 • Ti gentum, a real chance of recovermg supremacy m Sicily again. Hence- 262. forward their hold upon the island is rather a desperate clinging to certain strong points on the western coast : while the Romans from this time steadily aimed not only at confining the influence and arms of the Carthaginians to their own territory, but at driving them out of the island. But the events of the next year (261), though not on the whole 261 tiot unfavourable to the Roman arms, showed that this aim was in- ^"^^^^^'^ by any great event. capable of realisation as long as the Carthaginians were masters of the sea. It was comparatively easy to win or force to their allegiance the inland towns ; but those on the western and northern coasts were held in terror by the Carthaginian fleets, and could not become Roman even if they wished it. An able commander named Hamilcar ^ was sent to supersede Hanno, and was active in sailing along the coasts of Sicily and even making descents upon Italy : and in spite of their defeat at Agrigentum the Carthaginians were now besieging the Roman garrison at Segesta ; while a detachment of their forces was sent to strengthen Sardinia. The Romans 261-260. therefore determined to build a fleet. ^^^ It was a resolution of singular daring in the circumstances. The , ^^'^^^^ vast superiority of the modern ironclad makes it difficult to conceive fi^^f a parallel at the present time ; a nearer analogy would be the English or Dutch of the sixteenth century venturing to attack the galleons of a Spanish Armada with vessels collected from the merchants of their own land. Though the Romans possessed some Their dis- merchant marine, and had even employed ships of war at times, advaritages they do not seem to have had any of the larger kind, the quiit- 'Compared quere7ncs, which the Phoenician builders constructed for the Cartha- (j^^.^lJ ginian navy. The ships in the port of Tarentum had been easily ginians. destroyed by the Tarentine triremes, and naval affairs seem to have been neglected since that time (281). Thus, when they first crossed to Sicily they had, as we saw, to send elsewhere for ships ; and now that it became necessary to build a fleet, they had neither 1 Not Hamilcar Barcas, the father of Hannibal. R 242 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 260. Coss. Cn. Cornelius Scipio Asina, Gains Duilius. The Roman fleet is launched. shipbuilders capable of constructing gjimqiicremes nor sailors cap- able of rowing and managing them. The case of the Carthaginians was very different. Like their ancestors at Tyre, they had long been renowned for the number and size of their ships, the skill of their rowers and pilots, and their dexterity in practising the manoeuvres which gave the trained crew the superiority over the untrained. Their navy was the source of their power, and was held in proportionably high esteem. It was not, like their army, served by foreign mercenaries. They might at times hire rowers or com- pel their slaves to labour at the oar, but the bulk of the crews were composed of citizens to whom seamanship was a life-long profession. Their captains and pilots were no amateurs ; long practice and experience had given them minute knowledge of the coast-line, the harbours of refuge, the bays and headlands, and the points of danger. They had studied the stars and the signs of the sky, and knew when to expect foul weather and when it was prudent to trust to the open sea. Thus, though they had often suffered defeat on land, no one for a long time past had seriously disputed their supremacy at sea. That the Romans, entirely without these advantages, — without pro- fessional seamen, and without even the practical knowledge of the conditions in which it was possible to sail, — should hope with a fleet of hastily-built ships and with half-trained crews to meet and check this great maritime power, must have seemed almost incredible presumption. All through the winter and early spring the preparations went on. The ships were built on the model of a Punic quinquereme which had been stranded on the Italian shore of the Straits during the first year of the war ; and such of the citizens as were to be employed in the service were trained on wooden platforms in the proper move- ments of rowing. The bulk of the crews however were obtained from maritime allies, as the name long retained by their sailors {socii navalcs) shows. By the spring of 260 the great undertaking was accomplished ; the ships were launched and put under the command of one of the consuls, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, while the other consul Gains Duilius went to Sicily to relieve the besieged garrison of Segesta. After a brief preliminary practice in real sea- rowing they started for Messana, the consul himself preceding the main body by a few days with a squadron of seventeen ships. The first encounter with the enemy was disastrous. When Scipio arrived at Messana he was met by an offer to put the island of Lipara into his hands. Conceiving that it would be a valuable place for stores for the fleet, he sailed thither with his seventeen vessels. But he had not taken into account the rapidity of the hostile fleet. Hannibal was at Panormus, and, the movement of XVIII THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT SEA 243 Cornelius becoming promptly known to him, he despatched Boodes with twenty ships by night ; and when day broke Scipio found him- self blockaded in the harbour of Lipara. The crews of the Roman Scipio is ships ran their vessels ashore and fled, and Scipio was .obliged to taken surrender himself and his ships. Hannibal then put out to P'''-'^^'^"^^'' sea with fifty ships to watch for the approach of the main Roman 'l^^^''^"'^^' fleet ; but falling in with it unexpectedly as it rounded a promon- tory of the Italian coast,i he lost the greater part of his ships and barely escaped with his life. The Roman fleet therefore arrived in good spirits at Messana ; but were there greeted with the news of the capture of their commander, and the loss of his seventeen ships. The officers at once sent for the other consul Gaius Duilius from Segesta, and meanwhile made active prepara- tions for fighting the Punic fleet. They were conscious of their inferiority in naval tactics. They did not understand, as the Cartha- ginians did, how to manoeuvre a vessel so as to bring her beak crash- ing into an enemy's broadside ; how to dash through the enemy's line, and turning rapidly to charge stern or side ; how to sweep away his oars by a swift rush past, or practise other feats which required great command over the vessel and long and laborious train- ing. They therefore determined on another method of fighting, which, however rough and unscientific, would make the victory depend on the fighting men on deck, of whose superiority to the enemy they felt confident. The object of the contrivance was to enable these men to board an enemy's vessel and fight as though on land. To effect this they constructed a wooden gangway or boarding The corvi. bridge on each vessel, swinging round a pole fixed in the prow. Its extremity was elevated by a rope which ran through a pulley at the top of the pole, and had on its lower side a sharp iron spike. The machine was so arranged that it could be swung backwards and forwards according to the direction of the enemy's ship. The plan was to run as close to an enemy as possible, and to swing round the boarding-bridge till its end could drop upon his deck. The two ships would thus be grappled together. If they were close alongside, the Roman soldiers would leap on board ; or if the spike dropped on the enemy's prow or stern, they would board by means of the gangway two abreast, resting their shields on the railing which ran along each side of the gangway. The machines were called corvi or "crows." By the time that these preparations were completed Duilius arrived. Hearing that the Carthaginian fleet was plundering the ^ Polybius (i. 21) calls it " The promontory of Italy," to ttjs 'iToXirjs aKpwTTjpLOv. He perhaps means the promontory below Hippo, C. Vaiicano, which might to Sicihans be the promontory of Italy. 244 HISTORY OF ROME BaUle of Mylae. Effects of the victory of Mylae. coast near Mylae, he determined to sail at once to the attack. Hannibal was ready to meet him, feeling a natural confidence in the superior skill of his seamen and the better construction of his ships. But this very confidence turned out to the advantage of the Romans. On board a huge galley with seven banks of oars, which had once belonged to king Pyrrhus, and followed by 130 ships, he did not condescend to have recourse to any manoeuvres. His ships charged prow to prow just as they came up in loose order, without attempt- ing any of the usual oblique movements. The Punic captains indeed were puzzled at the novel appearance of the " crows," but felt so sure of an easy victory that they took no precautions against a danger which they did not fully understand. But as they steered confi- dently upon the Roman ships, they suddenly found their vessels grappled to those of the enemy, and the Roman soldiers pouring over the ships' sides. Thirty of the leading vessels were thus captured with their crews, and among these the admiral's seven- banked galley, though he himself escaped in a boat. Thereupon the other Carthaginians abandoned the direct charge, and, trusting to their speed, attempted to row round the Roman ships and charge them on stern or broadside. But the " crows," swinging easily round, proved again effective, and by one means or another twenty more Carthaginian ships were taken or sunk,i and the rest fled back to Panormus, from which place Hannibal took the remnants of his fleet back to Carthage. The immediate effect of this victory was to enable Duilius to relieve Segesta. He could now coast along the island and land his men near enough to reach the town easily. In nine days he forced the Carthaginians to raise the siege ; and on his way back to the fleet carried Macella by assault.^ The Carthaginians indeed had one stroke of good fortune. The Sicilian allies of the Roman army were encamped between Thermae and Paropus, — having it seems had some quarrel about precedence on the field, — and the vigilant Hamilcar from Panormus surprised and killed some 4000. Still the Carthaginians in Sicily were confined more closely than ever to their strong places on the west and north-west coast from Panormus ^ These are the numbers of Polybius (i. 23). Those given in the transcripts of the surviving cobinuia rostrata are a restoration from Orosius and Eutropius, — thirty-one taken and thirteen sunk. Polybius says nothing of sinking vessels as opposed to taking them. ^ The site of Macella is uncertain, but its capture was looked upon as of sufficient importance to be put upon the colunina rostrata : ". , . Aiacelamque opidum pucnando cepit." The fragment of Parian marble still existing at Rome is generally admitted to be a restoration of the Imperial time. Still, as Quintilian and Pliny both regarded it as antique, the inscription itself can hardly be a fanciful composition of an antiquary. It is very likely an exact copy of the original. XVIII REDUCTION OF CORSICA 245 to Lilybaeum ; while the result to the Romans was more far-reaching. By the victory of Mylae Rome had become a naval power, aiid not only could threaten the Carthaginian position in Corsica and Sardinia and other islands, but might even invade their African home. As soon as they heard of the Roman ship-building, the Carthaginians had strengthened their force in Sardinia, rightly thinking that the Romans would begin with the islands. Thus we find that next year only one consul went to Sicily, while 2sg. Coss. the other consul Lucius Scipio was sent to Corsica. He took L. Cor- the chief town Aleria, expelled the Carthaginians, and forced the '''^^"' Corsicans to give hostages. 1 He then went to Sardinia and ^'/^j','" blockaded the mouth of a harbour in which Hannibal, who had been Aquilllus sent there from Carthage after his defeat at Mylae, was lying at Floras. anchor. He inflicted so much loss on the Carthaginians that they mutinied and crucified Hannibal. Scipio had not sufficient force to attempt the conquest of Sardinia; but his expedition showed the change in the maritine position of Rome caused by the victory of Mylae. It is no wonder therefore that Duilius received all the honours his fellow-citizens could give. His was the first naval triumph ever celebrated. Appius Claudius had perhaps led Carthaginians in his procession to the Capitol ; but the triumph of Duilius was The rendered conspicuous by the spoils of ships, and — what was almost triumph of a novelty in Rome— by great heaps of gold and silver coins (probably ^'''^''''^ Sicilian nuinmi\ valued at not less than 3,000,000 asses. Two columns, adorned with beaks of ships, were erected in his honour, one near the Circus and another near the speaker's platform between the Comitium and Forum ; and he was allowed throughout his life to return from public banquets preceded by a torchbearcr and a piper. While Scipio was attacking Corsica and Sardinia, his colleague 2^9. Florus was in Sicily. But it seems that the Roman interests in that ^^(^Hy- island did not make rapid progress. Hamilcar was an active and formidable enemy, and while Florus found the strong town of Mytistratus (of uncertain site) so difficult to take that he remained all the winter before it, Hamilcar was strengthening Drepana, to which he transferred the inhabitants of Eryx. At home the vast Troubles increase of the slaves, owing to the Sicilian victories, joined to a in Rome. great influx of south Italian shipbuilders, had caused an outbreak, or the fear of an outbreak, of a servile insurrection. The year 259, therefore, was not altogether a prosperous one for Rome. The next consulship, however, was more active. Mytistratus was taken l^y ^ His tomb is still extant ; in the inscription we read kcc cepit Corsica 'Aleria- (jue urbe. 246 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 2^8. Coss A. AHlius Calatinus, Gaius Snlpiciiis Paterculus. Heroism of a military tribune at Camarina. Beginning of opera- tions in Africa 258. 2S7- Indecisive battle off Tyndaris. 2j6. Coss. L. Manlius Vulso, M. Atilius RegulusII. Imtnense fleets pre- pared on cither side. Atilius, and its inhabitants enslaved, while the Carthaginian garri- son escaped by night. Hippana (of uncertain site), Camarina, and Enna also fell ; but an attack on the island of Lipara was repulsed. These and similar achievements in 258 and 257 were not accomplished without difficulty and loss. At Camarina especially, the Roman army nearly met with a great disaster. On their march they fell into an ambush, and must have been cut to pieces but for the heroism of a military tribune, whose name is variously given as O. Caedicius, M. Calpurnius, or Laberius. With 300 men he marched on to a conspicuous piece of rising ground, and diverted the attention of the enemy. Nearly all of the 300 were cut to pieces, as they knew they must be, but the consul Calatinus was able to lead off his army. The heroic tribune, though covered with wounds, appears to have survived. A new departure was now contemplated at Rome, One of the consuls for 258, Gaius Sulpicius, had been engaged in some success- ful operations in Sardinia, and encouraged by them had sailed for the African coast, destroyed part of a fleet sent to oppose him, and made several descents upon the land, but had finally been forced by Hanno to retire. Next year (257) the consul Gaius Atilius Regulus took special pains with the navy, and in an engagement off Tyndaris, on the Sicilian coast, opposite Lipara, though some of his advanced ships were taken or sunk, captured ten of the enemy's ships and sunk eight. Both sides had suffered, and the battle may be considered drawn. But in the following year unusual efforts were made on both sides. The Romans were resolved to transfer the war to Africa, the Carthaginians to destroy the Roman fleet before it could reach their shores. If the Roman army once landed in Africa, they knew that not only would it be difficult to beat in itself, but that it would probably be joined by numbers of discontented Libyans and Numidians, and that their city must prepare to stand a siege. They therefore made immense preparations for a battle at sea. The Roman fleet was greater than ever. It consisted of 330 large vessels, with crews of 300 men each, carrying two consular armies amounting to 39,600 men. It was a mixed military and naval expedition, for as yet no distinction between the two services existed. This was specially marked on the present occasion by the military names given to the four divisions of the fleet. They were called legions^ the last being also spoken of as iriarii., and they were accompanied by numerous horse transports, that the Roman army might land in Africa with all its usual complement. The Carthaginian fleet was still larger, for it carried 150,000 men. It was also better fitted for fighting at sea, for it did not convey an army with all its heavy accompaniments. The ships had only their BATTLE OF ECNOMUS 247 regular equipment of fighting men, and were prepared for the pur- pose of a naval battle alone. The consuls with their great fleet touched at various points in the Sicilian coasts, made necessary arrangements for the safety of the several places occupied by the Roman forces, and finally came to anchor at Ecnomus, on the southern shore. From that point Battle of they intended, after coasting somewhat farther to the west, to P-cfomus, strike across the open sea to the Libyan shore. But the Cartha- '•^ ginian fleet had mustered at Heracleia, and meant to bar the way. The battle which followed, generally named from Ecnomus, seems to have taken place somewhat nearer Heracleia. Two of the four divisions of the Roman fleet were arranged in divergent columns of single ships, each ship taking up its position in the rear of one of the two six-banked vessels of the consuls, a little to the right or left of the ship in front of it. They formed, therefore, a wedge, at the apex of which were the two consular ships. The base of the wedge was formed by the third division (towing the horse transports) in line. Behind this, and parallel to it, was the fourth division, also in line, forming a reserve. HamUcar \_H Hanno ©••* •. ^%^ -»••*' w t Consul •. *- / Consul 5 6S C ° O r, • •O/r,.' . . eracleia Mi ^° o ooo o o o o ° .-- -"-"r'd.DWvsvon ' °Horse transports o o o4 oAgrigentum Walker &• Boutalisc. The Carthaginians, on the other hand, had drawn up their vessels j in a long line, so extended as to enable them to take advantage of I their superior swiftness to outflank the enemy and charge as suited (them. This was Hanno's task, who accordingly had on the right wing the swiftest vessels armed with beaks for charging. The centre was commanded by Hamilcar, while the left wing at right angles to the line kept close under the shore. The Roman plan was to charge with their two columns through the centre of the enemy's line, which was weak, and to trust to the confusion thus caused for the third and fourth divisions to make their way through also. The 248 HISTORY OF ROME movetnenls. Three ^ght, however, resolved itself into three separate battles. A separate manoeuvre of Hamilcar's succeeded in separating the divisions of the Roman fleet. As soon as the Romans charged he ordered his ships to row off as if in flight. The Roman columns followed with exultation : and when they seemed sufliciently separated from the third and fourth divisions he signalled to his ships to turn and charge. But though the Carthaginians were the better sailors, and could manoeuvre their ships much more skilfully than their oppo- nents, yet when they came to close quarters the Roman strength prevailed ; the grappling irons were again used, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which the Romans soon gained the victory. This was one battle. A second was brought about by Hanno from the Carthaginian right, who took advantage of the struggle in the centre to row round and attack the fourth or reserve division. A third was caused by the left wing of the Carthaginians, which had been posted along the shore, manoeuvring itself into line opposite the Roman third division, which was encumbered by towing the horse-transports. The men let go or cut the towing-cables, and the transports seem to have drifted back upon the fourth division and added to its embarrassment. Defeat of The first begun of these three battles, that in the centre, was the Havnlcar. first over. Hamilcar was overpowered and fled, and the consuls had leisure to come to the rescue of the ships in the rear, which were suffering in the other two battles somewhat severely. Regulus was the first to get free, and he hastened to the help of the fourth division which, between the charges of Hanno's ships and the necessity of assisting the abandoned horse-transports, were in considerable difficulty. Finding themselves now between two enemies, Hanno's ships gave way and retreated, and Regulus, being joined by Manlius, then went to the relief of the third division, which had been driven towards the coast by the Carthaginian left, though they had not received much damage, — the fear of the " crows " keeping the Punic The ships from charging freely. It was here that the Romans had Romans their greatest success, for they captured fifty of the enemy's ships. The three battles had not been quite simultaneous, and had been decided in different ways, but the general result was clearly in favour of the Romans. They had lost twenty-four ships sunk, the Cartha- ginians more than thirty. Not a single Roman ship had been taken with its crew, while they had taken sixty-four of the Carthaginians. But the best proof of their victory was that they now did that for which they had fought. After putting in on the Sicilian coast for repairs and fresh provisions, in a few days they put to sea again, and steered straight to the promontory of Hermaeum, which terminates the eastern shore of the gulf of Carthage. 7inn the battle. XVIII REGULUS IN AFRICA 249 The full effects of their defeat were now coming upon the The Carthaginians. The enemy was in their country and must be Komans opposed no longer with ships, in which they might still feel that """"'^y they were superior, but on land where they had already found that ^J'f'''' their troops were generally overmatched. They began preparations ^^ at once for the defence of the capital, employing the remains of the armament which had found its way home in detachments after the battle of Ecnomus. But an immediate advance upon Carthage itself was not the design of the Roman commanders. They had first to secure a base of operations. Coasting along the peninsula from Hermaeum to the south-east, they laid siege to Clupea, which speedily surrendered and was occupied by a Roman garrison. Startmg from Clupea the consuls ravaged the country towards I Carthage, carrying off an immense booty of cattle and slaves. The I Carthaginians seemed to have hoped that the Roman invasion was a mere raid, and that, if they kept their capital secure, the enemy would depart at the approach of autumn. But when they learnt that Regulus was to remain with a considerable part of the Reguhis , army throughout the winter, the other consul taking back the rest "nd part of , with the booty,— they understood that a real occupation of the ^^^ ""'''"y 7'emain efforts to save themselves. Hasdrubal, son of Hanno, and '^Bostlrus winter hi country was contemplated, and that they must make strenuous dnHn'^ the — ^^^..^xv..^c4,i, own vji xidiinu, diiti r)Osiarus winter I were appointed generals, and Hamilcar, with 5000 infantry and 500 Africa, ; horse, was sent for from Heracleia, and associated with them in the ^^^'^^S \ command. Through the autumn and winter they were to do their j best to prevent the plundering of the country and the advance of , Regulus towards the capital. But in this task they met with very Ihttle success. They were frequently defeated in skirmishes, and in ^ endeavouring to force him to raise the siege of a town called Adys Ithey suffered a severe reverse, losing their camp and retreating in j great confusion. Polybius attributes their general ill success to bad tactics. Their strength lay in cavalry and elephants; they should (therefore have been careful to choose plains and open ground for jattackmg the enemy, but they timidly clung to the hills, where these (parts of their army were of little or no avail. The Romans, there- jfore, for a time carried all before them, and before long occupied Regulus (Tunes, which was within ten miles of Carthage itself, making it occupies i their headquarters for plundering the country up to the very walls of ^^"'"''■ jthe capital. The city was now in the utmost distress and terror. The Roman enemy was within sight ; on the other side the Carthaginians had to defend themselves against an attack of rebellious Numidians ; their generals were being beaten in the field ; many of the towns in jtheir territory were openly joining the Romans ; the city was becom- 250 HISTORY OF ROME chap. ing crowded with terrified countryfolk, and a famine seemed Fr7dtless imminent. In these circumstances they were glad to listen to pro- negotia- posals from Regulus in the spring of 255. His object in making lonsjor them was to prevent the credit of the surrender of Carthage, which 2rr, ' he now considered certain, from falling to his successor in the con- sulship. But his terms were of the utmost severity. The Cartha- ginians were to evacuate Sicily and Sardinia, to restore Roman prisoners without ransom, and to pay a ransom for their own ; to pay the expenses of the war and an annual tribute ; to make no alliance without the consent of Rome ; to keep only one ship of war for themselves, but to maintain fifty triremes at the service of Rome. The Carthaginians naturally thought that nothing worse could be imposed if their city was taken, and determined to resist. The event justified them, and gave a stern rebuke to the over-confidence of Regulus, who presumed so far on his good fortune as to believe that a great city like Carthage could fall after a few months' cam- paign to what was after all but a weak army. Xanthippw; About the time of these fruitless negotiations there arrived at of Sparta Carthage, among other Greek mercenaries hired by a recruiting agent, a certain Spartan named Xanthippus. The prestige of the Spartan training and discipline had not yet died out, and Xanthippus was said to have been thoroughly imbued with it, and to have had large experience in actual war. His criticisms were therefore regarded with respect ; and when it became known that he disapproved of the tactics of the Punic generals, and believed that the enemy might still be defeated if those tactics were changed, popular feeling was violently excited in favour of entrusting him with the supreme command. Summoned before the magistrates he explained that the mistake had been in not selecting ground proper for the use of cavalry and elephants. It is not likely that the elementary fact of open and flat country being required for cavalry evolutions was a novelty. But either from terror of the Roman legions or from not \ keeping the fact firmly before their minds, the generals had more than once made a mistake in selecting the ground on which to ofler battle, or had allowed themselves to be outmanoeuvred by Regulus and forced to take up a position unfavourable to themselves. This would be enough to give point to the criticism of Xanthippus. His influence was enhanced by the skill with which he marshalled the troops and directed their movements as soon as they had quitted the town ; and the feelings which contribute above all to the success of an army, enthusiasm and confidence, were created. The Romans immediately noticed the change in their enemy's tactics and the greater skill v/ith which their ground was selected. Yet, though puzzled and somewhat alarmed, they had gained so many victories Regulus, xviii CAPTURE OF REGULUS 251 over the Carthaginian army during the past months that they did not hesitate to attack it even now. They therefore pitched their camp about a mile from the enemy. In the battle which followed the total numbers engaged on each Defeat and side were not widely different. But in cavalry the Carthaginians ^aphire of were vastly superior ; they had 4000 horsemen, the Romans only 500. Thus outnumbered, the Roman cavalry failed to be of any use to the infantry, who were still farther weakened by not being supported as usual by the vclites. These last Regulus posted in front, instead of on the wings, in order if possible by their missiles to frighten the elephants which Xanthippus stationed in a line in front of his phalanx. Elephants, as we have seen and shall have frequent occasion to notice, were of uncertain advantage to an army, and apt to become as dangerous to their friends as to their foes. On this occasion, however, they appear to have been employed with great effect. The battle began with a charge of the Numidian horse on both wings, before which the scanty Roman cavalry at once broke and fled. The result of the infantry battle was less uniform. The left wing drove the Carthaginian right from its ground and hurled it back upon its entrenchment. This part of the line was outside the line of elephants, and the troops opposed to them were the mercenaries. The Roman right and centre were not so fortunate. The vclites in their front were thrown into confusion by a furious charge of the elephants. The heavy-armed maniples behind them got separated. Some coming to the support of the vclites charged through the line of elephants only to find themselves confronted by the unbroken phalanx of the Carthaginian centre and left. The rest were obliged to face right and left to resist the victorious Numidian cavalry, which was now on their flanks. Both were utterly shattered. The advanced maniples dashed themselves to pieces on the Carthaginian phalanx ; those behind were broken up and cut down by the cavalry. The country was so flat that there was no rising ground near on which they could rally and defend themselves from the horsemen and elephants. The right and centre were thus practically destroyed. Regulus indeed, with the bulk of the cavalry managed to escape from the field ; but they were pursued and made prisoners. Some 2000 of the left wing, who had advanced so far in the pursuit of the Carthaginian right as to be clear of this disastrous overthrow, made good their retreat to Clupca. The army of invasion was thus rendered incapable of any longer The threatening Carthage : and though the Romans still held Clupea tx'omans they had to stand a siege even there. It proved indeed to be the '"'^"«^^« ^''^^ end of the invasion, for the Roman government presently resolved to invasion. 252 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. XVIIl After career of Xanthip- pus. Punish- ment of the Libyans. abandon Clupea also : and this failure marks an era in the war. The activity of the Carthaginians in Sicily was soon afterwards renewed ; the struggle had to be fought out there and on the sea, and was never again during this war to be transferred with any effect to Africa. The conqueror of Regulus did not long remain in the service of Carthage. Successful mercenaries were often objects of suspicion to their employers, who were usually anxious to be rid of them as soon as possible. Generals were apt to inake large promises on the field which the home government were unable or unwilhng to fulfil ; and an armed body with a grievance was a formidable danger to a peaceful population. On this occasion many of these men are said to have been enticed on board ships, the captains of which had secret orders to abandon them if possible on some island ; while Xanthippus himself was to be put on a leaky vessel that he might be drowned. These stories, however, look like the invention or exaggeration of the enemy ; our best authority represents Xanthippus as retiring voluntarily from Carthage, knowing well the prejudices likely to rise against a foreigner whose great services had made him too con- spicuous. Yet Polybius admits that even in his time other stories were current as to the cause and manner of his departure. We know nothing more of him, except that he disappears henceforth from the Carthaginian service, to the relief apparently of the Carthaginians themselves. The punishment inflicted on those Libyans who had joined Regulus was severe. The tribute of the towns was doubled ; the farmers were taxed to the amount of half the annual produce of their lands ; and these burdens were exacted with redoubled harshness. But this policy only served to accentuate the fact that the Punic people were living among a subject race, with which they had never amalgamated, and produced a feeling of exasperation among the subjects themselves which helped to produce the outbreak at the end of the war that nearly proved fatal to Carthage. CHAPTER XIX THE FIRST PUNIC WAR Co?lti?tUed 255-242 Third Period (255-251) — The Romans increase their fleet, but abandon Clupea — The fleet is lost in a storm (259)— A fleet is again built and Panormus is taken (254) — The Roman fleet is again wrecked (253) — The Romans abandon the sea, but Himera, Thermae, and Lipara are taken, the last by help of ships from Hiero (252)— Victory of Metellus at Panormus — Alleged mission of M. Regulus — The Carthaginians remove the people of Selinus to Lilybaeum (251). Fourth Period (250-241)— The Romans again build a fleet and invest Lilybaeum (250) — Great defeat of Claudius at Drepana — Wreck of a large fleet of transports carrying provisions to the camp at Lilybaeum — C. Junius PuUus seizes Eryx (249) — Siege of Lilybaeum continued (248) — Hamilcar Barcas comes to Sicily, and occupies Hercte (247) — Hasdrubal seizes Eryx and besieges the Romans on the summit of the mountain, and is himself besieged in Eryx — Frequent but indecisive engagements at Lilybaeum, Eryx, and Hercte (246-243) — The Romans once more build a fleet (243) — Great victory of LuTATius at the Aegates islands (loth March) — Peace is concluded, and the Carthaginians evacuate Sicily (241). The Carthaginians followed up their success over M. Regulus by 2ss- Coss. investing the remains of the Roman army in Clupea, but met with -^jrmus such determined resistance, that they were still before the town when a report came that the Romans intended to take to the sea again with i a formidable fleet, and to renew the invasion of Africa. All their forces therefore were required at home to fit out and man a fleet. Paullus. I New ships were rapidly built, old ones repaired, and before the arrival of the Romans they had launched 200 vessels. i The Romans, however, far from entertaining such a spirited The \ policy, had determined to bring off their men and abandon the Romans invasion of Africa altogether. They had indeed been making ^J'"^S off _ ^, ^,,1 i.T- the rc7nains I vigorous exertions. The fleet that had conquered at Ecnomus was ^y^^^^y I got ready again for service and raised by the addition of new vessels army from ito the number of 250. But they expected that the defeat of Clupea. Regulus would bring the enemy upon Sicily or even Italy itself. Fulvius Nobilior, M. Aemil- ius 254 HISTORY OF ROME Victory off He r- maeitvi, 235- Wreck of the Roman fleet off Camari?ta, July 2S5- The Cartha- ginians are encouraged to new exertiojis in Sicily. The new consuls were therefore despatched to strengthen the places most open to attack on the Italian and Sicilian coasts, and with orders to sail afterwards to Clupea and bring off the survivors of the army of Regulus and their ships. On its way the fleet was driven by stress of weather upon the island of Cossyra in the gulf of Carthage. Leaving a garrison there they sailed towards the promontory of Hermaeum, where they found the Carthaginian fleet. Once more the courage and number of the Roman soldiers 'on board prevailed over superior skill. After a severe struggle the battle was decided by the Romans in Clupea putting out to sea and falling upon the Carthaginians in the rear, who thus attacked in two directions lost more than half their ships. The main purpose of the expedition was now easily effected. The soldiers at Clupea were taken off and their fourteen vessels safely convoyed to Camarina. There was now no Punic fleet to intercept them, and indeed it seems hard to understand why the Romans should have abandoned a foot- ing in Africa which they might easily have maintained. Probably, if the victory ofl" Hermaeum had been known at Rome in time, this seemingly impolitic movement might have been countermanded. But presently a power greater than that of Carthage interposed. The Romans could drive their ships against the enemy and win by sheer force ; but they could not conquer wind and wave ; nor had they the knowledge and experience of the Carthaginian pilots to serve them on a dangerous coast and in a dangerous season. They were duly warned : but the warning fell on deaf ears. The southern coast of Sicily is remarkable for the absence of good harbours, and Camarina, at which the Roman fleet had touched, was no exception. It was also the season (about the end of July) particularly liable to storms. In spite of every warning the Roman consuls, elate with their success on the African shore, determined to coast along southern Sicily and crown their achievements by taking certain towns which still held by Carthage. They were caught in a terrible storm, in which 284 out of the 364 vessels were lost. The coast was strewn for miles with corpses and wreckage ; and the great Roman fleet, which had survived two hard-fought battles, was practically annihilated in a day. The news of this disaster to the Roman ships naturally raised the spirits of the Carthaginians. The year before they had defeated a Roman army; the storm had now left them again masters of the sea. Their fleet was rapidly got afloat, the Roman garrison was expelled from Cossyra, and Hasdrubal again landed at Lilybaeum with an augmented army and 140 elephants. He set to work to train his men, and had high hopes of striking a decisive blow at Roman supremacy in Sicily. But the Romans XIX THE ROMANS TAKE PANORMUS 255 were by no means beaten or fatally discouraged. As soon as they heard of the loss of their ships they began building enough new ones to raise the number of their fleet, with the eighty which had survived the storm, to 300. The ships were got ready with marvellous rapidity, and 2^4. despatched to Sicily under the command of the consuls of the next ^^^^- ^"• year (254), one of whom was the Scipio Asina who had been taken ^^jpj^ prisoner at Lipara in 260, but had in the meantime been released Asina II., or ransomed.! He now redeemed his previous mismanagement or Aldus misfortune. The fleet sailed straight to Panormus, which with its ^tihus magnificent harbour was still in the hands of the Carthaginians. The jj ^^,_ lower or new town soon yielded to the battering-rams which were ture of brought to bear upon it from two directions ; and though the old Panormus. town, which stood farther from the sea, made a longer resistance, it eventually yielded. Thus the Carthaginians were excluded from one of the finest harbours in Sicily, which had long been their starting-point against Italy and the north of Sicily, and from which they could wait in security to intercept the Roman ships coasting- down the Italian shore. This confined them still more closely to their positions on the west coast ; but for the present the loss was lightened by the rise of Lilybaeum, a more convenient place of arrival from Africa and more capable of defence. Henceforth therefore we shall find it to be the policy of the Carthaginians to strengthen Drepana and Lilybaeum ; and, when other towns became indefensible, to remove their inhabitants to one or the other of these. The capture of Panormus marks the highest point in the good 2^3. Coss. fortune of Rome in the third period of the war. It hampered ^'^• Hasdrubal in his contemplated raids from Lilybaeum ; and though CaeliT^C his fleet inflicted some damage on that of Rome, it could not pre- Sempron- vent the consuls of the next year from sailing to Africa and making iusBlaesus. descents upon the coast. No great success, however, was gained Another by them. Their ships got aground in the Lesser Syrtis, and though •^"/'^''^'^ '• they were floated again, they were caught in a great storm on their way home and more than half were lost. Discouraged from farther attempts at sea the Romans resolved 2^2. Coss. to concentrate their efforts upon Sicily, Accordingly the consuls of ^/ A''"'^^- the next year (252) were both sent thither with their armies, p <^^^.^]'i ius Caepio. ^ The Roman government again and again refused to ransom prisoners. But they were sometimes exchanged and sometimes ransomed by their friends. That Scipio should not have incurred disgrace at Rome, and should even have been elected consul for the second time, lends some colour to the assertion of some of the later authorities that his capture had been the consequence of some breach of faith on the part of the Carthaginian admiral, or at least that such was believed at Rome to be the case. 256 HISTORY OF ROME Capture of Thermae, H inter a, and Lipara , 2J2. 251-^ L. Caecil- ius Metellus, C. Fur ill s Pacilus. Victory of the Romans at Patior- Triuviphof Metellus. The Cartha- g'inians propose terms of peace. accompanied by sixty ships to secure supplies. But during two years (25 2-2 5 i ) little of importance was done. Himera and Thermae indeed, in the immediate vicinity of Panormus, fell into the hands of the Romans, and the island of Lipara was taken by aid of ships borrowed from Hiero — achievements considered sufficient to gain the consul Aurelius Cotta a triumph. But the Carthaginians, still confident in their superiority at sea, and still strongly posted at Drepana and Lilybaeum, could not be ejected, while the terror of their elephants kept the Roman army from the open country. The legions clung to the hills, and though often tempted by the enemy to give battle, always refused. At length, towards the end of the summer of 251, when one of the consuls had as usual gone to Rome to hold the elections, Hasdrubal determined to make a great effort to draw the Romans from Panormus. He marched as if to attack that town, plundering the country as he went. But the consul Caecilius Metellus suffered him to destroy and burn almost up to the walls unopposed. Panormus stands between two streams little more than half a mile apart. When Hasdrubal with his elephants had crossed one of these streams, and was in this narrow strip of country, Metellus determined that his time was come. He posted archers on the walls, and javelin-throwers along the outer edge of the moat, ordering all the armourers in the town to pile up supplies of missiles ready for use outside the walls. Men on the walls were of course out of reach of the elephants, while those on the edge of the moat had only to step down its bank to be also secure from them. The arrows from the walls and the javelins from the light troops outside so galled and irritated the beasts, that they turned upon their own troops with irresistible fury, broke their ranks, and threw the whole army into confusion. As soon as Metellus saw this, he led out his infantry by a gate opposite to the left wing of the enemy. His troops were fresh and charged an enemy already disordered ; and the Carthaginians were soon in headlong flight, leaving a large number of their men on the field. Ten of the elephants were captured on the spot, and the rest shortly afterwards. Metellus's triumph was one of the most splendid ever yet witnessed at Rome, and was adorned by thirteen high Carthaginian officers and 120 elephants. The repulse of the attack upon Panormus left the Romans undisputed masters of Sicily, except on the narrow strip of shore between Drepana and Lilybaeum. So serious did their position seem to the Carthaginians, that they made proposals for peace. It was on this occasion that the celebrated mission of M. Regulus was believed to have taken place. No story is more often told by later writers, and yet Polybius mentions neither the proposal for peace RETURN OF REGULUS TO CARTHAGE 257 nor the mission of Regulus. Modern historians seem to admit the Alleged former and reject the latter, though "both rest on the same authority, tnissiun of The story, not mentioned by any writer before Cicero, is this, When ." '^'" the ambassadors came from Carthage Regulus was sent with ^-i] them under an oath that, if he did not obtain the peace and inter- change of prisoners from the Senate, he would return to Carthage. When he arrived at Rome he refused, as being no longer a citizen, to enter the city or to visit his wife and children. The Senate met outside the walls ; but instead of pleading the cause for which he was sent, he urged them by no means to make terms or to exchange the prisoners, for though his body belonged to the Carthaginians by right of war, his spirit was still Roman. And this advice he gave although he knew that death awaited him at Carthage, When some wished to save him by making peace, he declared that he had taken a slow poison and must perish in any case. Then thrusting aside clients, wife, and child, he set out upon his return to Carthage. There it was said that he was subjected to exquisite tortures. His eyelids were cut off, and after confinement in a dark dungeon he was suddenly exposed to the blinding sun, fastened in a pillory studded with sharp nails, that he might perish slowly from agony and sleep- lessness. Therefore at Rome two noble Carthaginian captives were given into the hands of his wife, who revenged her husband on them by cruel imprisonment and starvation ; till one died, and the other, after being shut up for several days with the corpse, was released by the order of the magistrates. Such was the story which, with some variation of detail, has been Doubt as to recounted by numerous writers. If we are to reject it entirely, we ^'^'^ Story. may at least on the same grounds be glad to be rid also of the horrid revenge wreaked on the innocent captives by the wife of Regulus. True or false, it touched the imagination of the Romans, and they loved to tell of the country gentleman, unwillingly detained from his farm for the winter campaign in Africa, who while covered with a noble shame for the loss of freedom, did not forget the love of country or the dignity of a Roman ; and the ringing verses of Horace will keep the tale alive as long as the Latin language is understood.^ ^ fertur pudicae conjugis osculum parvosque natos ut capitis minor a se removisse et virilem torvus humi posuisse voltum, donee labantes consilio patres firmaret auctor nunquam alias dato, interque moerentes amicos egregius properaret exul. atqui sciebat quae sibi barbarus tortor pararet ; non aliter tamen S 258 HISTORY OF ROME 230-242. If the embassy, however, was ever sent its prayer was rejected. The war went on, but from this period the interest centres round Lilybaeum. For eight years (250-242) the Romans persisted in the siege, and though the chief struggles were at times at Eryx and Hercte, the main object throughout was the capture of Lilybaeum. But after all it was never taken : the war was decided at sea, and Lilybaeum passed to the victors there. This FOURTH PERIOD of the war begins with defeat and ends Last period with victory at sea. The slow progress made in 252 and 251 of the war. convinced the Romans that the only chance of ending the war was to become masters of the sea. Accordingly the consuls for 250, one of whom was the brother of M. Regulus, were placed in command of 200 ships. Taking the consular armies on board they at once made for Lilybaeum, which they invested by sea and land. The town was exceedingly strong both from the lagoons, which made navigation difficult at the entrance of its harbour, and from the vastness of its artificial defences on the land side. It had in 276 successfully resisted the attack of Pyrrhus ; it had lately been enlarged by the removal to it of the citizens of Selinus ; and it now had within its walls a garrison of 10,000 Carthaginian soldiers commanded by Himilco. The consuls pitched separate camps under its walls united 25-0. Coss. by a stockade, ditch, and wall, and immediately began operations. Every contrivance known to ancient warfare — trenches, mines, mantle, penthouse and battering-ram — was put in practice. The assault was chiefly directed against the fortifications at the south-western corner L. Manlius of the city, where as many as six of the towers were before long Vuho II. battered down. But though the work was carried on with extraordinary energy by the Romans, it was met with equal energy and courage by Himilco. As soon as the enemy demolished one line of fortifications, he found himself confronted by another erected nearer to the city. The Carthaginians met the Roman mines by countermines; interrupted the construction of batteries by frequent sorties, in which the loss inflicted was often as great as in a pitched battle ; and again and again nearly succeeded in burning the Roman engines. When imperilled by the treason of some of the officers of his mercenaries, Hnnilco suppressed the threatened mutiny and desertion by the aid of a Greek officer named Alexion ; and, in spite of the straits to which both garrison and people were reduced, continued to hold out until diniovit obstantes propinquos et populum reditus morantem, quam si clientum longa negotia dijudicata lite relinqueret, tendens Venafranos in agros aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum. — Od. iii. 5. 41 sqq. Gains Ati litis Regu - lus II., Siege of Lilybaeum be^im. XIX RUNNING THE BLOCKADE AT LILYBAEUM 259 the arrival of provisions and reinforcements under Hannibal, son Lilybacum of Hamilcar, who eluded the blockade, and entered the harbour before revictu- so strong a wind that the Romans did not venture to put to sea to "!j^ ^^ j resist him. Availing himself of this encouragement, Himilco made ineffectual I a sortie in force. It failed in its object of firing the Roman engines sortie by and destroying the siege works ; for the Romans defended them with Himilco, desperate courage, and on the whole maintained their position and ^^'^' inflicted greater loss than they sustained. But though he thus missed his stroke, he kept up the defence of the town, while Hannibal again I eluded the Roman ships and sailed away to Drepana, which now became the headquarters of the Carthaginian navy in Sicilian waters. In the course of the same year Lilybaeum was frequently vie- The tualled by privateers who ran the blockade. The example was set Khodian. by a Rhodian named Hannibal, who offered to relieve the anxiety of the government of Carthage by entering the harbour and bringing back news. The success with which he did this again and again on board his own private trireme not only induced others to do the same, who learnt from him the secret of the way to enter the harbour, but, what was of still greater importance, kept up communication with the home government. All danger of assault for this year, however, was 'removed by the destruction of the Roman works and artillery. A Destruction jstorm of wind of extraordinary violence hurled down wooden towers, '^fj^^ , penthouses, and screens: and the besieged took advantage of the ^\y7//^r (confusion to make an attack. They succeeded in throwing lighted torches upon the woodwork, and the fire was soon blown into fury by •the wind, setting full in the faces of the Romans and blinding them I with heat and smoke, while it blew away all obstacles from the (sallying party, and enabled them to take easy and deliberate aim with javelins and arrows. The destruction was so complete that the towers and carriages of the battering-rams were burnt to the ground, .and the Romans were obliged to give up all idea of assaulting the J town. They still persisted, however, in the siege and blockade, strengthened their camps, and determined if possible to starve out the garrison. The next year (249) was more disastrous to the Romans than 24^. (the last. Publius Claudius, one of the new consuls, arrived early in ^.^""' Z'' I the summer with 10,000 men to make good the losses in camp and Puj^hcr L 'fleet. He determined, however, to strike a blow elsewhere than at Junius Lilybaeum, where nothing was ready for an assault, and where there Pullus. 'seemed no prospect of anything but a long and wearisome siege from which little credit was to be got. The Carthaginian fleet under Adhcrbal was in the harbour of Drepana, — a long inlet of the sea enclosed by the sickle-shaped peninsula which gave it its name. Claudius was rash and impetuous, and, like his father, the famous :6o HISTORY OF ROME at Drc panel, 2jf.g censor, apparently unsuccessful in war. He determined to attack the Carthaginian fleet, and explained to his council that the recent losses of the Romans would be likely to have put Adherbal off his guard, and that therefore a sudden attack would have every chance of success, if made before Adherbal learnt that the Roman army and fleet had been reinforced. The officers cordially approved. The ships were quickly manned, and the flower of the new troops selected to serve as marines, the men eagerly volunteering for a service which promised a short voyage and a speedy battle. Defeat of Appius reckoned on surprising Adherbal in the harbour where Appius there would be no room for manoeuvring : ship would crash upon Claudius ^ ^^^ ^^ legionaries would settle the result. He did not wait therefore to train the new crews, or to fit the ships with " crows " ; but starting at midnight to avoid detection by the enemy's outlook vessels, hoped to be at Drepana before Adherbal knew that he was coming. He had, however, miscalculated the time required. Day broke while he was still some distance from the mouth of the harbour. Adherbal became aware of his approach, got his men on board, and his ships out of the harbour under the rocky shore of the peninsula. The Romans on the leading ships failed to observe this, and rowed steadily into the harbour. But when Claudius found it empty, he understood what had happened, and that he was on the brink of being caught in a trap. The enemy were only waiting until the whole Roman fleet were inside to swoop down upon the entrance of the harbour and block it up. He at once gave the signal for his ships to return. This sudden reversal, however, caused great confusion. The ships in front, in trying to leave the harbour, fouled those that were still entering, often breaking their oars, and throwing their rowers into disorder. Yet by strenuous efforts the captains at length got their ships out, and formed them in line along the coast south of the harbour, with their prows toward the open sea. Claudius himself, who had been the last to leave the harbour, passed down the line and took up his position on the extreme left. But while these difficult movements were in progress, Adherbal had got his ships clear of the opposite shore, facing the Roman ships in a Hne sufficiently long to outflank the Roman left and prevent it from escaping to Lilybaeum without breaking through his cordon. The chief disadvantage of the Roman position was that, being close on land, they could not retire if attacked ; while the Carthaginian ships, having the open sea on their sterns, and being superior in speed and the excellence of their crews, could retire, swing round, and charge as they chose. In a short time the Romans were in distress all along the line. Many of their ships got fast in the shallows or were completely stranded ; others were sunk by the rapid charges of the Carthaginian XIX DEFEAT AND RECALL OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS 261 ships, which, splendidly handled and vigorously rowed, dashed in and out, stavnig in the sides of the lumbering and helpless Roman vessels, and easily avoiding their ill-directed attacks. Seeing all was over, Appius with thirty ships took to flight. By keeping close in shore, he managed to reach Lilybaeiim in safety ; but the remaining ninety-three were captured, most of them with their crews, though in some cases the men ran their ships ashore and escaped. Claudius was immediately recalled, and was ordered to name a Claudins dictator, a measure which had not been resorted to for nearly thirty ^'ccalkd years. Unabashed by his disgrace and the popular feeling against him, ^"^ fi^''^'-''-^ he showed his contempt by naming a freedman called M. Claudius dictator, Glicia. Such an outrage on Roman feeling could not be endured. 24^. Glicia was compelled to abdicate, and A. Atilius Calatinus was named. No punishment could be inflicted on Claudius during his year of office, but soon after it came to an end he appears to have been brought to trial. Polybius says that he was heavily fined ; later writers assert that he anticipated condemnation by suicide. He was certainly dead before 245, for in that year his sister Claudia was fined for exclaiming, when annoyed by the crowd leaving the games, " Oh that my brother . were alive and in command of ships ! " His defeat was attributed , by some to his neglect of religion. For when the keeper of the I sacred chickens reported that they would not eat, which was an evil omen for his expedition, he ordered them to be thrown overboard, I exclaiming that if they would not eat they should drink. Such \ stories commonly follow an unsuccessful general. Claudius's real I crime was failure ; but to that failure his own haste and neglect of j due precautions, and the presumption of pitting raw levies against 1 trained seamen, mainly contributed. ] On Claudius's recall the other consul L. Junius Pullus was sent The fleet J with fresh warships, which, when joined by the survivors of the ^'^^^^fo^^^^d. I battle and others already in Sicilian waters, amounted to 120, for the purpose of convoying a fleet of 800 transports carrying ) provisions for the camp at Lilybaeum : so far were the Romans from giving signs of discouragement or of an intention to relin- quish the war. But the disasters of this year were not yet complete. ^ After the victory at Drepana Adherbal despatched Carthalo with thirty ships to Lilybaeum. Carthalo succeeded in destroying or towing off the remains of the Roman fleet still stationed there, 'while from within the town Himilco issued forth to attack the troops as they were trying to rescue their ships. No great harm was done to the Roman army, but Carthalo coasted round to Heracleia, ready to intercept the transports which were bringing it provisions. Lucius Junius was not with the ships which first came into view. He was still at Syracuse awaiting the arrival of the whole flotilla, 262 HISTORY OF ROME IVrec/i of the Roman fieet and transports, 249- The Romans abandon the sea. L. Junius occupies Eryx. and had sent forward a detachment under the command of the quaestors. Learning from his outlook ships that they were approach- ing, Carthalo joyfully put out to sea from Heracleia, expecting an easy prey. But the quaestors had also been warned of the enemy's approach by light vessels sailing in advance ; and, knowing that they were not fit for a sea fight, made for a roadstead belonging to a small town subject to Rome, and beaching their ships, fortified a naval camp, defended by balistae and catapults obtained from the town. Carthalo did not venture to anchor his ships, or land at a place where there was no harbour, for he knew the danger of storms on the south coast of Sicily. He therefore moved his fleet into the mouth of a river and waited. In a short time the consul himself approached with the rest of the fleet, in complete ignorance of what had happened. He had only just rounded Pachynus when Carthalo got information of his whereabouts and put to sea, hoping to engage him before he reached the place where the first ships had taken refuge. Junius did not venture to await the attack, but steered strafght upon the coast, though it was rocky and dangerous, pre- ferring the risk of shipwreck to the certainty of falling with all his men and stores into the hands of Carthalo. The Carthaginian was better advised than to attack him there. It was getting late in the year, and the practised Punic pilots saw signs which they knew to portend stormy weather. They urged Carthalo, at all hazards, to round Pachynus, and take harbourage at the first secure place. On the east coast he must have been in the midst of enemies, but the storm which now arose made such considerations of minor import- ance. The chief thing was to be clear of the south coast. With the utmost exertion and difficulty, the Punic fleet was got safely round Pachynus : but the storm caught the two Roman fleets in full force. They were simply annihilated. The advanced squadron in its open roadstead, or drawn a little way upon the beach, and the rear squadron under Junius, were alike dashed into fragments. So com- plete was the destruction that not one of the wrecks was sufficiently whole to admit of repair. The loss of life does not seem to have been great, for a large number of the men, with the consul him- self, were on shore ; but the ships were all lost, and with them the supplies meant for the camp at Lilybaeum. The discouragement at Rome was so great, that, for the next four years, the government contented itself with sending supplies across the Straits, and thence by land to Lilybaeum, and once more abandoned the idea of fighting at sea altogether. Junius did not, however, give up all hope of achieving somethmg which might atone for this misfortune. He proceeded to the camp at Lilybaeum, and did his best to cheer the spirits of the besiegers, XIX FIGHTING AT LILYBAEUM AND ERYX 263 thus forced again to wait for the promised supphes from Rome. The suppHes came at length ; but Junius was eager to do something more. Watching his opportunity, he led part of his army to the foot of Mount Eryx, some miles to the north of Drepana, It is an Mt. Eiyx, isolated peak, rising 2184 feet, in. the midst of a low undulating ^^9- plain, which gives it the appearance of a still greater elevation, and caused it to be wrongly regarded as, next to Aetna, the highest moun- tain in Sicily, On its summit was a famous temple of Venus (per- haps originally the Phoenician Melcarth), and just below the summit was a town also called Eryx, which had been captured by Pyrrhus, but had again fallen into the hands of the Carthaginians. In 260 Hamilcar had removed the greater part of the inhabitants to Drepana ; but it was still partially inhabited, and its occupation would give the Romans a good base of operations against the Carthaginian troops in Drepana. He seems to have met with no opposition. Both temple and town were occupied and strongly garrisoned, and a numerous guard was also posted at the foot of the steep ascent on the road from Drepana. Thus the two antagonists were apparently at a deadlock. The 248-242.. Carthaginians were holding Lilybaeum and Drepana, and presently Constant the impregnable Hercte, and commanded the sea : the Romans were f^l^^^^'S <^-^ investing Lilybaeum and were securely seated on Mount Eryx ; and, ^/^ ^^^^^ with the whole island east of these places under their power or allied He?-cte. with them, were in no want of supplies. But they could not take Exhaustion Lilybaeum or Hercte, or move from Eryx upon Drepana. For six ^f ^^^'^ ^^^ weary years a kind of fencing match went on between the two powers at these three points — Lilybaeum, Eryx, Hercte : every day had its ambuscade, skirmish, sortie, or assault : now the one scored a suc- cess, now the other. Polybius compares them to two boxers, equal in courage and condition : " as the match goes on, blow after blow is interchanged without intermission. But to anticipate or keep account of every feint or stroke is impossible alike for combatants and spectators." The Romans showed an extraordinary dogged persistence ; but the Carthaginians maintained the combat with no less courage and perseverance. The Carthaginians were the richer people, but they had a twofold expenditure to meet in a fleet and Exhaus- a mercenary army. The Romans for four years did not support ^^'"' ^J a fleet ; and their citizen army, though expensive, must have been ^'^"'^'^'^^• less so than that of Carthage. Yet their financial difficulties also were growing formidable ; and the war, which had been voted six- teen years ago with a light heart, must have now become a weary burden, requiring all their pride and courage to endure. The year 247 witnessed the arrival from Carthage of a really great man. Hamilcar Barcas, father of the still greater Hannibal, — 264 HISTORY OF ROME 24J. who was born in this year, — was now put in command of the fleet. Hamilcar After making some descents upon the coasts of southern Italy he sailed to Panormus, and boldly seized the great limestone rock known Da re as coffies ii> Sicily. ^^ Hercte {Monte Peiegnno\ which forms the northern boundary of Hamikar ^^^ '&^^^ '■> ^^*^ though too far from the town, which lies about three encamps on miles to the east, to be its acropolis, forms a most important outpost Hercte. to it. Alike towards sea and land it rises sheer, and can only be ascended by two paths from the interior and one from the sea. The easiest is that on the south towards Panormus, which the Romans seem to have left unguarded. But Hamilcar possibly used the steep and difficult path from the bay which it encloses, now called the bay of Sfa Maria. Its top is flat, and of considerable extent, not too high to afford valuable pasture, and high enough (1950 feet above the sea) to make it exceedingly healthy. The bay of Sfa Maria sup- plied a small but secure harbour, not approached from the land except over the mountain which dominated the surrounding country, and was eminently suited for an encampment in the middle of enemies. Here Hamilcar entrenched himself. For provisions he would have to depend wholly on what could be brought by sea, except for the cattle which he found grazing on the mountain ; for the Romans pitched a camp near the entrance to the southern path, and the other was Ill-suited for bringing up heavy stores even if they could be obtained ; and, if he forced his way down the southern path, he had not sufficient force to maintain himself permanently in what would be a completely hostile district. Still for five years he held the mountain, sending out plundering expeditions to the shores of Italy as far up as Cumae, and harassing the Roman camp by frequent sorties and surprises. It was a bold move, conducted with consummate ability, and served to divide the Roman forces and compel them to keep a large garrison at Panormus. But though he could annoy, he could not hope to crush them ; and he might, per- haps, have done more real service to the cause by helping to relieve Lilybaeum. The war, in fact, now depended on the command of the sea. If that were lost, Hercte would be a trap or a prison. The war at Meanwhile a furious struggle was going on elsewhere. When Eryx, ti-^e consul Julius in 248 seized Eryx, he occupied both the summit 247-^43- \^\\\\ its temple, the town immediately below it, and the foot of the path leading to Drepana. But Hasdrubal, who commanded at Drepana, evaded the lower guard, and, mounting by another path, contrived to seize the town. The Romans retired to the summit, to which supplies could be brought from the other side ; while the Carthaginians found themselves between two bodies of enemies, those on the summit and those on the lower path. The track by which they had ascended communicated with the sea, and was still under XIX ANOTHER ROMAN FLEET 265 their control, but it was unfit for the carriage of provisions, and they soon found themseh^es reduced to great straits. But the same obstinacy which prolonged the struggle at Lilybaeum and Hercte was displayed by both sides at Eryx. Ruse, ambuscade, and pitched battle were tried again and again on both sides, but without giving a decisive superiority to either. No loss and no privation, both of which fell heavily on Roman and Carthaginian in turn, proved sufficient to dislodge either. At length it became evident to the Roman government that, if 243. The they were to finish the war, they must again strike for the mastership ^"^^mnns r ■, ^ ^ 1 1 1 ? T 1 • resolve of the sea. But the w^ar as a whole had been enormously expensive. ^„-^„„ f^, Fleet after fleet had been built and lost ; armies had been for years ludid a permanently maintained in Sicily. The treasury was empty, and there fleet. was no means of building more ships. In this crisis private muni- ficence loyally supported the State. Some of the richest citizens undertook to supply a quinquereme each, while others of less wealth clubbed together in groups of two or three to furnish one between them, the money thus expended to be regarded as a loan to the State, repayable when success made it possible. The commercial spirit was strong at Rome even now, but in this crisis of its fate patriotism and a noble confidence in the destiny of the city were stronger still. A fleet of 250 quinqueremes was ready early in the year 242. 242. They were built on an improved model furnished by the vessel of the ^'"*'- ^"^^^^ Rhodian, which had at length been captured at Lilybaeum, and <^--J^^^/// were put under the command of the consul Gains Lutatius Catulus. a. Posfian- It can hardly have escaped the knowledge of the Carthaginians that ins a fleet was again being built at Rome ; but, by extraordinary exer- ^I^'t-h"^- tions, the vessels were ready for the sea much earlier in the year than could be anticipated, and when Lutatius arrived off the coast of Sicily, the yearly contingent of ships had not yet come from Carthage to Lilybaeum and Drepana. The harbours of both were empty, or only contained a few guardships. He was, therefore, able to occupy both unopposed. Keeping a good lookout for the fleet which must be shortly expected from Carthage, he employed the interval in practising his crews, and~in throwing up earthworks against the town of Drepana. The Carthaginians in Eryx therefore found their one source of supply insecure, and could only be released by the destruc- tion or evasion of the Roman fleet. The garrison of Lilybaeum was in the like case. Victory at sea alone could save the one or the other. Lutatius himself was fully alive to this, and took as much pains to keep his fleet in a high state of training as to maintain the siege of Drepana. The news of the early arrival of Lutatius naturally caused alarm 266 HISTORY OF ROME moves to Ac^usa. loihMarch Alarm at at Carthage. The usual preparation of the fleet was hastened, the Carthage ships were laden with provisions for the besieged garrisons, and and the speedily despatched under the command of Hanno. His plan, since despatch of ^^'^^ harbour of Lilybaeum was in Roman hands, was to make straight their Jlcct. for Eryx, and not to engage Lutatius until he had lightened his ships l3y unloading the supplies. To do this he must evade the Roman fleet at Drepana, which Lutatius was resolved to prevent. The Carthaginian fleet touched at Holy Isle, the most western of the Aegates. Thence Hanno designed to make straight for the Sicilian Lutatius coast at the foot of Eryx. Lutatius divined his intention, and took prompt measures to frustrate it, and force him to fight while his ships were still heavily loaded. He brought his fleet to Aegusa, the south- eastern island of the Aegates, from which he would be able to throw himself in the way, whether Hanno made for Lilybaeum or Eryx. After some skirmishing Lutatius, who had been wounded at Drepana, but lay on a couch on board, determined to fight the next morning. Battle of When day broke on the loth of March there was a strong breeze ^^S'f^^; , blowing on the stern of the Carthaginian vessels, and the sea was rough and boisterous. It would be difficult for the Romans in the teeth of such a wind to charge with any effect. Yet it was of the first importance to them to bring on the engagement at once, while the enemy's ships were still too heavily burdened to admit of the manoeuvres practised with such effect at Drepana, and while they were far from the support of their land forces at Eryx. The relative conditions of the two fleets were unlike those that had existed at the battle of Drepana, The early start of the Roman fleet had caused that of Carthage to be despatched with hurried preparations. The four years' abstention from naval warfare by the Romans had induced a corresponding slackness in naval affairs at Carthage, and the crews now put on board were raw and inexperienced ; the ships were heavy and lumbering from the freight which they carried, and Hanno was by no means the equal of Adherbal. The Romans, on the other hand, had the advantage of ships of improved construction ; their crews had been some weeks at sea, and were in a good state of training ; the marines on board were picked men from the legions ; and Lutatius was a man of courage and prudence. The result, there- fore, was that of the battle of Ecnomus rather than of Drepana. When the ships came to close quarters, the superiority of the Romans was soon apparent ; and, though the Carthaginians fought desper- ately, they were beaten all along the line. Seventy of their ships were taken with their crews, fifty sunk ; the rest, favoured by a sudden change of wind, escaped to Holy Isle, and thence home. EJict of The eflect was immediately recognised at Carthage. The garri- sons at Lilybaeum and Eryx must be left without supplies, for the battle. XIX THE CARTHAGINIANS LOSE SICILY 267 Lutatius would be able to intercept them. Drepana apparently had already passed into Roman hands, and the only hope was to make peace. Hamilcar, though safe in Hercte, could do nothing for the generals at Eryx and Lilybaeum. Still he was as yet secure, and the Carthaginian government sent a hasty message, leaving the decision in his hands. He saw that the only thing to be done was Hamilcar to make terms, and accordingly opened negotiations with Lutatius at wr/Zv.? Lilybaeum. Lutatius knew better than Hamilcar that peace was "'''"'*' ^''^' necessary for the Romans also. This did not, however, prevent him from exacting such terms as he thought would satisfy the people of Rome. In addition to the usual demand for the restitution of prisoners without ransom, and for a war indemnity of 2200 Euboic talents in twenty years, the Carthaginians were to wholly evacuate Sicily, and undertake not to make war upon the king of Syracuse and his allies. The terms were generally approved by the commissioners sent The Car- from Rome, though they raised the amount of indemnity to 3200 ihagmtans talents to be paid in ten years, and added to the evacuation of Sicily ^^f^J^ ^ that of all other islands between it and Italy — meaning the Liparae. Corsica had been already lost. Thus the result of the twenty-four years' war to Carthage was the diminution of her outlying possessions ; and, what was far more serious, the loss of her supremacy at sea. Spain might make up to them for Sicily ; but, if the Roman fleets held the sea, they could have no security of traffic even there. The Romans had gained in Sicily an invaluable source of corn supply ; and the weakening of the naval power of their rivals not only opened the sea to their commerce, but rendered the southern and western shores of Italy more secure. For Sicily itself the gain was very doubtful. It was but a change Effect on of masters ; and the extensive movement in the island in favour of ^^'^^fy- the Carthaginians at the beginning of the second Punic war seems to show that the Sicilians had not found the change wholly for the better. The island, with the exception of the kingdom of Hiero, was henceforth under the rule of a praetor sent annually from Rome. It was the first country outside of Italy to become a "province," and A province. there were no precedentsr on which to go. Commissioners were sent from Rome, and the principle of the settlement made by them Avas that of taking over Sicily as nearly as possible in the state in which they found it, substituting Roman for Carthaginian supremacy. The states in it were to retain their own laws and local institutions, but were to pay to Rome what they had paid to Carthage or Syracuse, namely, a tenth of the yearly produce, and 5 per cent on exports and imports. An appeal would lie from their courts to that of the praetor, and they were forbidden to go to war with each other, or 268 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xix maintain an armed force. But though this was the general arrange- ment, certain towns which had been distinguished for early or con- stant adhesion to the Roman cause were admitted to the rank of civitates foedei^atae^ and were free from the payment of the tenths or the customs. Their one obligation was the supply of ships and socii navales^ as at Messana or Mamertina, or of troops to serve as allies in the Roman army, as at Segesta, Halicyae, Centuripa, Alaesa, and Panormus. Thus the first " province " was formed outside Italy ; and thus Rome established herself as a naval power in the Mediterranean. Authorities. — The earliest and best is Polybius i. 7-63. Born about forty years after the end of the war, he used earlier authorities, such as Timaeus, Philinus, and Fabius Pictor. All other accounts are secondary, derived either from Polybius or from writers later than Polybius, They are : the Epitomes of the lost books of Livy xvi.-xix. ; Appian (ist cent. A. D. ) Res Pun. 3-5 ; Res Sic. 1-2; Florus (2nd cent. A.D. ) i. 2 ; Diodorus Siculus (end of ist cent. a.d. ) fragments of books xxiii. and xxiv. ; Dio Cassius (2nd cent. A.n. ) fragments 43- 46 ; Eutropius (3rd cent. A.D.) ii. 18. A more valuable compilation is that of Zonaras (about the 12th cent. A.D. ) because he used the part of the complete work of Dio Cassius which is lost. Something is also to be gleaned from Orosius, Hisioria adversus Paganos, iv. 7- 11 (5th cent. A.D.) CHAPTER XX BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND PUNIC WARS 241-218 COLONIES CENSUS Spoletium in Urabria B.C. 241 B.C. 220 . 270,213 Cremona 1 Placentia / B.C. 218 PROVINCES Sicily . B.C. 241 Sardinia and Corsica B.C. 231-225 Progress in Italy during the first Punic war — Six days' campaign against Falerii (241) — Mutiny of mercenaries in Carthage — The " truceless war " (241-238) ■ — Sardinia surrendered to Rome (238) — Wars with Ligurians and Boii (239- 237) — Temple of Janus closed (235) — Illyrian war (229-228) — Embassies to Aetolian and Achaean Leagues (228)— Agrarian law of Gaius Flaminius (232) — Gallic war (225-221) — The Via Flaminia (220). Though the chief energies of Rome had been devoted to the Conjirtn- struggle for Sicily, the consohdation of her Itahan supremacy had <^fion of the not been wholly neglected. In the first year of the war (264) a '^'"'^^^ . colony had been sent to Aesernia, eighteen miles from Bovianum, on jf^iy the Volturnus, which did good service in the most trying period of during the the second Punic war. Aesis in Umbria, Alsium and Fregenae in f^'^^ . Etruria, received Roman colonies a few years later (247-245), the first commanding an important road and bridge over the Aesis into the territory once held by the Senonian Gauls, and the last two securing the coast immediately north of the Tiber's mouth. More important still was the colony sent to Brundisium in 244, after the place had been in the possession of Rome for more than twenty years. By it the Romans secured a basis from which to command the Adriatic, to protect their merchants from piracy, and to cross to the opposite peninsula. Lastly, in 241, southern Umbria was still farther strengthened by the Latin colony of Spoletium, which com- manded the road to Ariminum, and proved strong enough in 217 to resist the attack of Hannibal. 270 HISTORY OF ROME The war The hold of Rome upon Italy had not been interrupted by any with Falerii 241. Coss. Lutatms Catulus. surrender of Sardinia to the outbreak during the first Punic war. The last spark of resistance in Etruria had been stamped out at Volsinii in 265, It is therefore A.Manlius surprising that at the very moment of victory one town in Etruria Torquatus ventured to revolt. Falerii had been reduced in 293, and for now //., Q- more than fifty years had remained in quiet submission. What real or fancied wrongs induced the Faliscans to renew at this time their old hostility we do not know, but whatever it was their resistance was short-lived. In six days the consuls earned their triumph, and the Fahscans were compelled to abandon their town and build one on lower ground, though the ancient temple of Juno was allowed to remain. The Meanwhile Carthage became involved in a struggle with her mercenary niutinous mercenaries, which led to a widespread revolt of her Libyan Carthao-e subjects. It lasted for over three years, and was distinguished by [241-238), every circumstance of horror, threatening the city itself with famine and and the destruction. As soon as Hamilcar Barcas had arranged the peace with Rome, and had caused the Carthaginian troops at Eryx to remove to Lilybaeum for transport to Africa, he withdrew his own army and Romans. A^et from Hercte, abdicated his command in Sicily, and left the task of transporting the troops to Gesco. To avoid danger Gesco shipped them in detachments, that they might receive their pay and be got rid of in detail. But the exchequer at Carthage was low, and the government deferred a settlement, hoping to make a favourable bargain with the whole army. An idle soldiery, however, fresh from the privations of a campaign, soon became intolerable in the city. Outrages were of daily and nightly occurrence, and the government at length removed them to Sicca, a Numidian town on the Bagradas, with a temple of Astarte or Venus, renowned for its licentiousness. Here the soldiery lived without restraint, and among other things employed their leisure in calculating, always to their own advantage, the amount of pay due to them, and the claims founded on the promises made from time to time by the generals. Though a mixed multitude of Iberians, Celts, Ligurians, Balearici, half-bred Greeks, deserters, and slaves, without feelings in common or knowledge of each other's language, they were all united in the one aim of getting as much as they could from the government. Their attitude soon became so menacing that the Carthaginians were obliged to negotiate. Hanno was first sent to them. But the soldiers felt no confidence in him ; he had not served with them in Sicily, and did not therefore, they thought, understand their claims. They determined to overawe the government. They seized Tunes, and from that vantage-ground daily raised their demands. At length Gesco was sent to Tunes' with money to settle with them. But it was too late. The mutineers had found leaders as able as they were desperate and unscrupulous. XX THE MERCENARY WAR AT CARTHAGE 271 The first was a fugitive slave named Spendius, for whom surrender Spendius ' to his Roman master would mean crucifixion ; the second a Libyan ^"^ ' named Mathos. Under the influence of these men the wildest state ^^ '^^' ' of disorder began to prevail. Any one who ventured to act or speak " contrary to their sentiments was forthwith killed. Though the ' different nations did not understand each other's language they all became acquainted with one word, " throw " (/3dX.Xe), and as soon as ' that cry arose the obnoxious officer or soldier was overwhelmed by a ' shower of stones. Before long Gesco offended some applicants for ' pay by telling them roughly that they had better apply to Spendius and Mathos for it. He and his staff were seized, their baggage and ' money plundered, and themselves put under close guard. • Spendius and Mathos, thus committed to open mutiny, now set MuHijeers themselves to rouse the country people. Glad of an opportunity of joined by ^ shaking off the yoke of Carthage, doubly severe since their league L'bya?is, ^ with Regulus, the Libyans joined the mutineers in every direction. ^^^' " Two towns, Utica and Hippo Zarytus, remained loyal, and were accord- '* ingly at once besieged. Cut off thus from the country supplies which ^ fed the city, from the tribute that paid soldiers, and with their hired \ army in arms against them, the Carthaginians were in dreadful \ peril. But though the citizens prepared to defend their homes and 1 their lives with desperate courage, their first attempts proved entirely j unsuccessful. Hanno, the first general appointed, did not succeed I in driving the mutineers from Tunes, or in relieving Utica, or in •1 defeating them in the field. He was therefore deposed, and Hamilcar \ Barcas placed in command. Hamilcar again showed great qualities ; 'I he not only twice routed Spendius in the field, but by wise acts of I conciliation attracted many of the defeated troops to his standards. ^ Early in 239 Spendius and Mathos retaliated by the torture and ^ murder of Gesco and his staff, determined to involve their men in ^Isuch unpardonable guilt as to deprive them of all hope except in " victory. From this time no quarter was given or received, no proposal for terms or for the release of prisoners entertained ; it ' became a " truceless war " (TroAejUo? ao-TrovSo?), and was marked by atrocities on both sides. The mutineers tortured and killed; Hamilcar exposed his prisoners to'^be trampled to death by elephants. It was farther protracted by disputes between Hamilcar and the incompetent Hanno, who was again in part command, and at last even loyal Hippo and Utica joined the revolt. Spendius and Mathos, thus masters of the whole country, threat- End of the ened Carthage itself It was saved by the masterly tactics of nmtiuy. Hamilcar, who had now a competent colleague named Llannibal, and by supplies and other assistance sent by Hiero of Syracuse. The Romans too, after the settlement of a diplomatic quarrel in the 272 HISTORY OF ROME Fall of Spe7idius and Mathos, 238. The revolt spreads to Sardinia, 240. The Romans i)iiervcni 23S. previous year, had shown some disposition to act in a friendly spirit. They allowed their merchants to carry goods to Carthage, but forbade the exportation of provisions to the mutineers. Still the war dragged on. It was not until the early part of 238 that Spendius and a Gallic chief named Antaritus found themselves obliged to sue for peace to Hamilcar. He offered to grant terms on condition that he might have the choice of ten men to keep as hostages. Spendius assented, whereupon Hamilcar quickly replied: "Then I choose the emissaries here present.'' They were at once arrested, and Hamilcar, considering himself free from honourable obligations to men of such desperate character, immediately proceeded to attack the rest, dismayed at the loss of their leader, and cut them to pieces. Whatever may be thought of the morality of such a proceeding it was eminently successful. The back of the revolt was broken, and it only remained to force Mathos, closely besieged in Tunes, to a similar surrender. He offered a desperate resistance, defeated and killed Hannibal, but was himself finally defeated and captured by Hamilcar. Hippo and Utica were next reduced with comparative ease :.the rest of Libya submitted, and was heavily punished by an increase of tribute and other severities. When the mutiny had been going on for about a year in Africa, the mercenaries serving in Sardinia followed the example, and put their general Bostarus, with all other Carthaginians they could lay hands upon, to death. An army, under another general named Hanno, was sent from Carthage to quell the mutiny. But no sooner had he arrived in Sardinia than his men crucified him, and joined the revolted garrison. They then proceeded to seize the other towns in the island, killing or expelling all Carthaginians they could find. Thus the Carthaginians had lost Sardinia, and were too much pressed at home for the next two years to make any effort for its recovery. But though the mercenaries had taken possession of the island they could not hold it. The native Sardinians rose against their tyranny and forced them to depart. They came to Italy, and had the assurance to apply for help to Rome. The Romans readily availed themselves of an excuse for taking in hand the pacification of Sardinia at a time when it might plausibly be asserted that the Carthaginians had ceased to be in possession. The mercenaries were not dealt with, but an expedition to Sardinia was at once undertaken. The Carthaginians, hoAvever, had now (238) triumphed over the revolt at home, and clainiing a prior right to settle the island began preparations for sending troops. The Romans replied by a declaration of war on the ground that, as they had undertaken the pacification of Sardinia, these preparations were directed against themselves. The Carthaginians were in no position to dispute the XX TROUBLES WITH THE GAULS 273 claim, and were glad to compromise by a formal renunciation of Sardinia, and by an additional payment of 1200 talents. Sardinia thus became a Roman possession, but did not by any Rcduc- means submit at once to its new masters. A consular army was Hon of employed there nearly every year, and campaigns are mentioned, ^''''^^'"^'^' ' followed by the usual triumphs in 235 and onwards, the rebellion being set down to Carthaginian agents. The final reduction of the island was ascribed to Manlius Torquatus in 235 : but both consuls were engaged there in 232 ; and though in 227 two additional praetors were appointed, with the idea that one should govern Sicily and the other Sardinia, still the consul Gaius Atilius was sent there with his army in 225 ; and it was not until about that time that Sardinia, with Corsica annexed, can be looked upon as regularly j reduced to the form of a province, while even then trouble was from I time to time experienced from the wilder tribes in the centre. But though the Roman territory was now in peace, there was Wars in trouble in the north of Italy. The Boii, either because they antici- ^^^': "^'''^^^ pated that the Romans would eventually attack and displace them, ^{ ^'^' j as they had done to the Senones, or from natural restlessness, began Lic-urians \ to show signs of a movement southward. They were joined by afid BoH, j certain tribes of the Ligurians, who perhaps saw danger to themselves ^3^-233. j in the occupation of Sardinia and Corsica, and the growing use made (by the Romans of the port of Pisae. One of the consuls for 238, 1 Sempronius Gracchus, appears to have gained an easy victory over I the Ligurians, while the other consul, Publius Valerius Falto, also I defeated the Boii, but after sustaining some reverse himself In the (next year (237) L. Cornelius Lentulus earned a triumph over the I Ligurians, but his colleague, O. Fulvius Flaccus, appears to have ' had ill success against the Boii, who went so far as to send an ! embassy to Rome demanding the cession of Ariminum. The alarm The Boii was increased by the news that some Gauls from beyond the Alps ^"'"''^^^ had been induced to cross into the territory of the Boii to aid them ^/^.-L^^ 2-^6 against Rome, but was quickly dissipated by an act of self-destruction on the part of the Gauls themselves. The Boii suspected the motives of their own chiefs in sending for the Transalpini, put two of them to death, and attacked the newcomers. The loss mutually sustained in the fight was sufficient to render them innoxious for several years : Victory but another campaign was needed in 233 against the Ligurians, ^^^'^^^^^ who were conquered by O. Fabius Maximus, afterwards the cele- ^^^'"'^^"''^' brated Cunctator, who won his first triumph in this war. For a short time in 235 there was an appearance of such profound The peace, that for the second time in the history of Rome the temple of ^^6'^'^^« Janus was closed. But the lull in the troubles from Gaul gave the ^^^g ^^^' Romans the opportunity of bringing to a successful close another T 274 HISTORY OF ROME Illyrians plunder Greek coasts, 231-230. The Rom- ans send commis- sioners to Teuta, 230. task which their leading position in Italy entailed upon them. From time immemorial the Illyrian pirates had infested the Adriatic, and plundered ships sailing between Italy and the opposite coast. The coast of Dalmatia has innumerable indentations, and is flanked by a vast number of small islands, offering every facility for the protection of the light craft used in these lawless expeditions. Though com- plaints had reached the Romans from time to time, they had no warships to use against pirates, and had not yet conceived the idea of extending their jurisdiction so far east. But in 230 the depreda- tions of these scourges of the sea had been brought very prominently under their notice. Taking advantage of a quarrel between the Aetolians and the people of Medion, near Montenegro^ the Illyrian king Agron had possessed himself of that town ; and, though he died soon afterwards, his widow and successor Teuta, delighted with the plunder obtained, had allowed her subjects to ravage the coasts of Elis and Messenia and to seize Phoenice, a town standing some few miles up a river flowing into the Adriatic on the coast of Chaonia. An attempt on the part of the Epirotes to rescue Phoenice failed, and an appeal was then made to the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues. Thus the two chief powers of Greece were brought into the conflict. Phoenice, however, was not saved by them, but by an insurrection in the dominions of Teuta herself, especially in the island of Issa, which forced her to recall her troops. The Romans now found themselves appealed to in two direc- tions. The Illyrians, while blockading the mouth of the river on which Phoenice stood, had frec^uently plundered Italian merchants in the Adriatic, from whom many complaints reached Rome ; while from Issa came an offer of submission to the Romans if they would save the island from Teuta. Commissioners, Gains and Lucius Coruncanius, were sent to remonstrate with the queen. They found her engaged in the blockade of Issa, and in a high state of exulta- tion at the amount of booty brought home by her ships from the Greek coast. She was not inclined, therefore, to conciliation. She promised to restrain her own ships and of^cers from piracy, but dis- claimed all power of preventing private subjects. The younger Coruncanius exclaimed with some warmth that "in that case the Romans would undertake to improve the relations between the sovereign and the people of Illyria." Exasperated by this reply, Teuta is said to have secured the assassination of the speaker on his way home, and early in the next year (229) she sent another fleet along the Greek coast. Though it failed in an attack upon Epidamnus, it laid formal siege to Corcyra, which, after a vain attempt at relief by the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues, had to receive an Illyrian garrison under Demetrius of Pharos. XX THE ILLYRIAN WAR 275 But the Romans were not likely to allow this defiance and the 229. murder of their ambassador to pass unnoticed. Teuta, indeed, when Coss. L. she heard of preparations being made at Rome, had attempted to Postmums avert the danger. She had sent Demetrius with promises of sub- ^ ^^^^ *' mission, and an assurance that the murder of Coruncanius had been Fulvius the deed of a pirate, for which she was not responsible, while other Ccntum- charges referred to circumstances which had happened in her ^^"^- ^^ army and husband's lifetime. But in spite of this pacific message the expedi- Jleet setit tion was pushed on, and the Romans, having arrived at a private aa-aimt understanding with Demetrius, appeared at Corcyra with a fleet of Teuta. 200 ships of war under the consul Gnaeus Fulvius, whilst the other consul Postumius marched to Brundisium ready to cross. Corcyra was already in the hands of the Illyrians, but the traitor Demetrius, who had fallen out of favour with Teuta and feared her vengeance, connived at the surrender of the garrison. The Corcyreans hailed the Romans as deliverers, and were admitted to their " friendship and alliance." The fleet, with Demetrius on board, then sailed to Apollonia, where they found Aulus Postumius just arrived from Brundisium. The Illyrians besieging Epidamnus fled, and Epidam- nus also became an " ally and friend " of Rome. The fleet coasted along parallel with the army until it arrived at Issa, which was still blockaded. At its approach the queen fled to a fortress called Rhizon, and Issa was delivered. Meanwhile the army was march- ing up the country, subduing some tribes and receiving the voluntary surrender of others, without meeting with any check except a slight repulse at Nutria. The consul Postumius wintered in Illyria, and Siibmission early in the spring of 228 queen Teuta signified her submission, of Teuta, She was allowed to retain a small portion of her dominions, but the ^^ ' rest was handed over to the nominal authority of her young stepson Pinnes, really to the care of Demetrius of Pharos as his guardian. A fixed tribute was imposed, and it was agreed that no Illyrian ship of war should sail south of the promontory of Lissus. The subsequent expeditions to Illyria were brought about by Demetrius Demetrius, who proved as unfaithful to Rome as he had been to the of Pharos, queen. He endeavoured to establish his position by making ^^ '^^■^' alliances with the king of Macedonia, and served in the army of ' Antigonus Doson in the expedition against Cleomenes of Sparta (224-222). In the year 222 he intrigued with the Aetolian League, and went on a piratical expedition, not only south of Lissus, but round the coasts of Greece and the islands of the Aegean. In these movements he had been aided by the Istri, who inhabited the tongue The Istri, of land at the head of the Adriatic still called I stria, and accordingly 221. in 221 the consuls, P. Cornelius Scipio and M. Minucius Rufus, were sent. to subdue them. In 219 the consul Lucius Aemilius was 276 HISTORY OF ROME Demetrii escapes. Embassy to the Actolian and .Ichaean Leagues, 228. The Gallic loar, 22^- sent to Illyria to crush Demetrius. He took Pharos, and won a triumph : but Demetrius escaped to the court of PhiHp V. of Macedonia, with whom he remained for some years, in spite of demands made by Rome for his surrender. It was he that instigated some of Phihp's worst deeds in his deahngs with Greece, and it was on his advice that PhiHp also resolved to take up a position of hostility to Rome : and accordingly his restoration was guaranteed in the treaty between Hannibal and Philip in 21 5. He is said by some to have subsequently ventured to return to Illyria, and there to have been captured and put to death by the Romans ; but Polybius says that he perished in an attack upon Messene, which must have been shortly after this treaty. The submission of Teuta in 228 led to the first diplomatic rela- tions between Rome and Greece. The best organised governments at that time in Greece were the Aetolian League in north-west Greece and the Achaean League in Peloponnese. Both had been asked for and had given aid against the Illyrians, and the Roman consuls recognised their position by sending legates to acquaint them formally with what had been done and to read their treaty with Teuta. The legates were received with great respect, and carried back a vote of thanks from both bodies. At Corinth, indeed, where they met the magistrates of the Achaean League, they were treated with special honour, being even admitted, as though of Hellenic descent, to share in the Isthmian games ; while the Athenians pre- sented them with the freedom of their city, and allowed them to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. It was the first circumstance that made the Roman power practically known in Greece, and it was not long before a party existed there which looked upon Rome as a possible champion of Greek interests against Macedonia. Among the Romans, on whom Greek thought and Greek fashions had long been making themselves felt, it brought into fashion a kind of chivalrous Philhellenism which they never quite forgot, even when they becanie the stern masters of the land which they professed to liberate. Since the suicidal quarrel between the Boii and their transalpine kinsfolk in 236 there had been no actual outbreak on the part of the Gauls. Still, danger was always expected from them, and various precautions were taken. Thus, after the expulsion of the Senones from their territory (283) the coast-hne had been secured by the colonies of Sena (283) and Ariminum (268). The colonists of these two towns had of course had grants of the abandoned land, but there was still much unassigned and belonging to the State. One of the tribunes for 232, Gains Flaminius, destined to perish at Thrasymene, brought in a law for dividing this land among the citizens. We know nothing of the conditions on which the division was to be XX AGRARIAN LAW OF FLAMINIUS 277 made, but the proposal was strenuously resisted by the nobility, The headed by Q. Fabius Maximus, and was passed in spite of the Agrarian Senate refusing to sanction 'it. Such propositions were always ^^".°J resisted by the conservative nobles. There is no evidence to show Flaminins that the opposition arose from their having already illegally occupied 2j2. this land themselves. Rather it seems that it was founded on the dislike to the settlement of citizens at a distance from Latium, where they would be comparatively free from the influence of the nobility, as tending to shift the centre of power from the city to the country, and to destroy the idea of a strictly urban government. When Polybius judged it to be " the first step in the demoralisation of the people," he appears to regard it as an encouragement to an idle part of the citizens to look for wealth from sudden windfalls rather than ordinary labour. His judgment may have been coloured by associa- tion with the upper classes at Rome, but there probably was reason to fear any measure which tended to draw the country people to the city for the sake of possible bounties whether of corn or land : and there was no security, if the land fell to the idle, that they would not cjuickly sell it and return to the city in hopes of something more.i The immediate effect of the measure is more certain. The Effect of the Gauls of the Po valley were alarmed, and expected that similar treat- ^^"'^ ^f ment would be applied to them if the Roman power increased. A (^"y-nms league, therefore, was formed between the Boii and Insubres ; and a Cajils tribe of free-lances called Gaesatae were invited from the Rhone 2ji-22^. valley to join in attacking Rome. The rumour of a Gallic invasion I spread, and the Romans made haste to prepare. Their attention 1 had been lately turned elsewhere, Hasdrubal, the successor of I Hamilcar in Spain (229), had made a progress which roused their I alarm and jealousy. The founding of New Carthage (228) was apparently answered on the part of Rome by an alliance with the rich city of Saguntum, and it seemed likely that before long the two peoples would contend for Spain as they had for Sicily. But when, Treaty after the close of the Illyrian war, the danger from the Gauls became '^"'^^'■ Imore threatening, the Romans put away for a time all thought of i^^'^^p"- ^ armed interference in Spain, contented themselves with making a treaty (with Hasdrubal binding the Carthaginians not to come north of the :Ebro in arms, and devoted themselves to prepare for the Gallic war. It is even recorded that, in consequence of a prophecy that Gauls and ^ For the agrarian law of Flaminius, see Cic. Acad. ii. 5 invito scnatu ; de Invent, ii. 17 invito senatu contra voluntatem omnium optimatinm per sedi- tionem ad populuin legetn agrariam tulit. De Sen. § 11 "resisted by Q, Fabius," though in this place Cicero assigns it to the second consulship of Fabius, i.e. 228. .Valerius Max. (v. 4, 3) has a story of the father of Flaminius having induced his son to leave the rostra while speaking for the law. Anyhow it was passed. 278 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 22S. Coss. L. Aemilius Papus, C. Atilius Regulus. The Gatils begin the invasion. Greeks were to possess the city, two Greeks and two Gauls were buried alive within the walls in order to fulfil the terms of the prediction. The Boii and Insubres had taken some years to make their pre- parations. It was not till 225 that the Gaesatae had been brought into the valley of the Po, and meanwhile the Romans had secured the friendship of the Veneti and Cenomani, which would compel the Boii to leave a considerable force to protect them from attacks on their rear and to defend their territory. The consul L. Aemilius Papus was sent to Ariminum to block the coast road ; one of the praetors went into Etruria with an army of Sabines and Etruscans to guard the inland road which led through Faesulae and Clusium ; and the other consul Atilius was summoned from Sardinia. That he should have been sent there at such a time seems to show that after all the actual movement of the Gauls was a surprise. Yet preparations had been made of unusual magnitude. Stores of provisions, weapons, and other war material had been collected in Rome, and the Italian allies were volunteering m every direction to avert the common danger. There were soon over 170 000 men actually serving in the field, while a reserve of 50,000 foot and 5000 horse was kept at Rome. At the same time re- turning officers, or conqidsitores, were sent round to the Italian communities to revise the lists of men of military age, who re- ported an available force of 220,000 foot and 32,000 cavalry. The roll of citizens in Rome and Campania fit for service showed a total of I 50,000 foot and 6000 cavalry, besides two legions actually serving at the time in Sicily and Tarentum. Supposing these all to be available, as they would be against a Gallic invasion, Rome found herself able to draw upon a force of over 600,000 infantry and 70,000 cavalry, a force far surpassed in modern times, but which had then been equalled by no great empire since that of the Persian kings. 1 1 Polybius (ii. 24) makes up the list thus : — Two consular armies of two legions each (allies) . Sabine and Etruscan volunteers Umbrians and others Veneti and Cenomani Reserves at Rome (citizens) (allies). Two legions at Tarentum and vSicily . Total actually serving Military rolls of Italian States . , , of Rome and Campania Grand Total INFANTRY, 20,800 60,000 50,000 20,000 20,000 20,000 30,000 8,400 CAVALRY. 1,200 4,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 400 229,200 250,000 150,000 14,600 35,000 23,000 629,200 72,600 THE GAULS INVADE ETRURIA 279 The Gauls took the central road through Etruria, and marched, Fighting in as their fathers had done, upon Clusium. Thither the praetor with Etmria in his Sabine and Etruscan militia followed. The Gauls won the first ^^•^• battle by a ruse. During the night they left their camp in charge of the cavalry and retired some distance along the road towards Faesulae. Finding next morning that the cavalry were alone the praetor attacked. The enemy retreated, and the praetor's army pursued, but suddenly found itself in the presence of the main body of the Gauls. After a fierce battle, in which they lost 6000 men, the survivors of the praetor's army entrenched themselves on some' rising ground, and were there besieged. Never good at such opera- tions, the Gauls left the task of watching the refugees to a squadron or two of cavalry, while the rest feasted and slept. But the tidings of the route taken by the enemy had reached the consul Aemilius at Ariminum. He had started in pursuit, and now appeared upon the scene soon after the defeat of the praetor. The beleaguered troops on the hill saw his watch-fires, and contrived to let him know what had happened. He resolved to attack next morning. But the Gauls had no mind to fight a regular Roman army. They had taken a great booty, and on the advice of the king of the Gaesatae, determined first to convey this safely into their own territories, and to return and fight, if they must fight, disencumbered of the burden. They could not retreat along the same road by which they came Retreat of without fighting Aemilius ; they therefore made for the west coast, tfie Gauh intending to march along the Ligurian Bay, which would at any rate bring the Gaesatae to the entrance into Transalpine Gaul. Aemilius, having reinforced his army by the men whom he had rescued, started in pursuit, not intending to fight a pitched battle, but to dog the footsteps of the Gauls, harassing them at every opportunity, and wresting from them such booty as he could lay hands upon. The retreating Gauls reached the Etruscan coast near Telamon ; but, as they marched northward, suddenly found themselves face to face with another Roman army. Summoned from Sardinia Gains Atilius had landed at Pisae with his troops, and was marching down the very road on which the Gauls met'^by tlu were. Falling in with their advanced guard he took the men ^''f''^ prisoners, and learnt the state of the case. He put himself at the Atilius. head of his cavalry, and hastened down the road to seize some rising ground by which he knew the enemy must pass, leaving orders with Polybius adds up his figures wrongly, and must of course be speaking in round numbers, as the later authorities do, Livy, for instance, speaking of the army in foot as 300,000. Fabius Pictor reckons 800,000, of whom 448,200 foot and 26, 600 horse were Romans and Campanians. to the west coast. They are 28o HISTORY OF ROME the infantry to advance in fighting order. When the Gauls saw the Roman cavahy making for the hill they at first imagined that the horse of Aemilius had outstripped them in the night, for they knew Great nothing of the army in front. They sent their cavalry and some defeat of light infantry forward to dispute the possession of the hill, and pre- tlie Gauls, ^^^^^^ learnt the truth. Aemilius also first knew of the approach of ^^^' the army of Atilius by seeing the cavalry fight in front. For some time the infantry looked on while the cavalry of Atilius and the Gauls contended for the hill. After an obstinate fight, in which Atilius fell, the Romans prevailed, and nothing now prevented the infantry from coming into collision. The Gauls were numerous enough to show two strong fronts in opposite directions, and presented a strange and terrifying spectacle. The Gaesatae came stripped into battle, though ornamented with every kind of barbaric device. Their horns and clarions made a hideous din : their flanks were protected by a barricade of waggons and chariots. Their naked bodies, however, suffered severely from the volleys of pila, and their retreat caused some confusion ; but when the Romans charged the Boii, Insubres, and Taurisci, sword in hand, these tribes— better protected by their leather jerkins — offered a stout resistance. Here, however, the superiority of the Roman weapons helped to decide the result. The pointless Gallic swords were no match for the cut-and-thrust blades of the Romans, and were also of such inferior metal that they easily bent and were often useless after the first stroke. Forty thousand Gauls are said to have fallen on the field; 10,000 were taken prisoners with Concolitanus, one of their kings. The king of the Gaesatae, Aneroestes, escaped with a few followers, but only to end his life by his own hand. The cavalry for the most part got away. Invasion of This success determined the Romans to attempt offensive opera- Gaul, 224. tions. The Boii submitted to the consuls of the next year (224) without a struggle, but an unusually wet season prevented farther 00. coss operations. The consuls of the next year, C. Flaminius and P. 'Gaius ' Furius, for the first time crossed the Po, near its confluence with the Flaminius, Addua. They were opposed by the Insubres, and lost so heavily, P. Furius ^^^^1^ ^j^jjg crossing the river and while pitching their camp, that they Philus. ^^^^^ obliged to make terms with the enemy and quit their territory. They marched eastward down the left bank of the Ollius until they had crossed its tributary, the Clusius, into the territory of the friendly Cenomani. The Insubres found that the enemy, whom they had thus allowed to escape them, were securing reinforcements of Ceno- mani to attack them again. They therefore made a grand effort. The golden standards, called the " immovables," were taken down from the temple of their goddess, which were only to be used in the last resort, and a great host was collected to resist the returning CAPTURE OF MEDIOLANUM 28] army. Even now, by unskilfulness or ill-fortune, the consuls gave Defeat of the enemy battle in a dangerous position. Distrusting the fidelity of ihe In- their Gallic allies, they placed them on the opposite bank of the ^'''^^^^' river on which they were posted, and broke down the bridge between ^"^' them. The Romans thus fought with a river on their rear which they could not pass, and were forced to conquer or perish. Flaminius declined to listen to an announcement of unfavourable auspices, or even, it is said, to open a despatch from the Senate forbidding him to fight, and gave the signal for battle. Success alone saved him from impeachment by his aristocratic enemies. Victory was attributed in part to an innovation in the usual Roman tactics. The hastati were armed with the pike instead of the pilum, and charged with the rest of the line. The Gauls exhausted themselves in striking with their swords at an enemy a spear's length distant, and when the Romans threw down their pikes and began to use their swords resistance was almost at an end. The Insubres now again got help from the Gaesatae, and next 222. Coss. year the consuls once more invaded them. They first besieged ^^"- ^or- Acerrae on the Addua, while the Gauls retaliated by investing Clas- ""'''."f tidium, seven miles south of the Po. Claudius went with the cavalry c'fi^l, ^/ to relieve Clastidium, defeated the Gauls, and won the spolia ophua Claudius ' by killing their king Viridomarus. Acerrae having fallen, the Gauls Marcellus. made their last stand at Mediolanum. Scipio followed them there. Fall of but, not thinking himself strong enough to take the town, was retiring ^^^'i'^'- tovvards Acerrae. The Gauls sallied out to harass his rear guard, ^'""""' which turned upon them with such fury that they retreated, and Scipio, following up the success, carried Mediolanum itself This ended the war for the present. The Insubrian chiefs hastened to submit, and the consuls traversed the country to the foot of the Alps. The Gauls were not now expelled from their territories, but the Military Romans at once began to secure the country by taking hostages and colonies establishing colonies in places of strategic importance. Thus Cremona ''"'^ '''^^^^^ and Placentia were at once resolved upon, and the colonists were being settled in them in 218, when the news of Hannibal's march encouraged the Boii to attack them. Bononia, Parma, Mutina, and other strong towns, afterwards also colonised, were secured by Roman garrisons. Moreover, one of the three great roads con- necting Rome with the north, the via Flami?iia, was now (220) made fit for the passage of an army as far as Ariminum, under the auspices of Gains Flaminius as censor. It did for Rome in the north-east what the via Appia did in the south-east. It was meant especially to keep communication open between Rome and the Gallic territory ; and, by its conception and construction, formed a 282 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xx noble memorial of Flaminius, whose opposition to the optimates as tribune in 232, and failure at Thrasymene in 217, have helped to leave an undeserved impression of a demagogue without greatness as a statesman or ability as a commander. Authorities. — For the mercenary war at Carthage, Polybius i. 66-88 ; for the lUyrian war, ii. 2-12 ; for the Gallic wars, ii. 14-35 '< Livy, Ep. xx. ; Plutarch, Marcelhis iii.-iv. Some farther notices are to be found in Appian, Gall. xi. ; Diodorus fr. of book xxv. ; Dio Cassius fr. 50 ; Eutropius iii. 2 ; Florus ii. 3-5 ; Zonaras viii. 18 ; Orosius iv. 13. The best of all is Polybius, who, especially in his account of the mercenary war, is graphic beyond his usual style. CHAPTER XXI CHANGES IN ROME BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND PUNIC WARS 241-218 Social distinctions — Apparent change in character and influence of Senate and the aristocracy — Increase in number of slaves, and consequences of it — The Libertini and Peregrini — The games — Gladiators — Funerals — Women and divorce — New nobles— Greek influence on personal habits, and on literature — Livius Andronicus — Cn. Naevius — Absence of prose writing. When the complete equality of the orders, gradually established by Survival a series of laws, had been consummated by the election in 253 of a "f ^"'^_^<^i plebeian as Pontifex Maximus, there were yet signs that socially .'.^ ^"^' the distinction had not disappeared. We have already noticed the exclusion of a plebeian lady from the chapel of Patrician Chastity ; and the fact that the plebeian aediles thought it worth while to punish the petulance of Claudia, is a proof that social pride on the one hand, and jealousy on the other, was not extinct. Similar sentiments Opposition survived in the Senate. Though it could not eventually stop popular <^fihe legislation, it clung obstinately to its old position of obstructing '^''''^'^• political change and the claims of the lower orders. This is illus- trated by the opposition to the proposal of Gains Flaminius in 232 to divide the Gallic land instead of making it ager publicus ; and by the Senate's unfriendly attitude to him in the Gallic campaign of 222, when a party in the house tried to secure his recall on the grounds of a vitium in his election, while its loss of influence is shown by his successful defiance. The Senate, indeed, which had The impressed the envoy of Pyrrhus as an " assembly of kings," and Senate's whose influence increased during the second Punic war, seems, ^^"^«^^- nevertheless, during this period, to show signs of decadence. Hence, perhaps, the unusual severity of the censors of 252, who struck thirteen names off the roll ; ^ while, three years afterwards (249), ^ The personal character of the nobles generally was still high. The im- peachment of M, Livius Salinator and L. Aemilius Paulus, consuls for 219, and the condemnation of the former on a charge oi peculatus, grounded on alleged 2S4 HISTORY OF ROME 2./1-21S. Increased number of slaves. Effect on country life. Lihertini. Tax on the sale of slaves. Claudius ventured to beard it by nominating a freedman dictator, when ordered by the Senate to supersede himself. A striking feature in the social condition of the people at this time was the increase in the number of slaves. This was chiefly brought about by the enormous number of unfortunate persons reduced to servitude in the course of the wars in Cisalpine Gaul, Magna Graecia, and Sicily, 25,000, for instance, having been sold at one blow after the fall of Agrigentum in 262. The slave market, therefore, must have been overstocked, and the price of slaves low. This accelerated the tendency, always perhaps existing, to leave the country and crowd into the city, where there was a greater opportunity of using capital, of obtaining profitable employment, or of sharing in public benefac- tions : for the land could be worked to greater advantage by cheaply purchased slaves, who were not taken away by the levies. When Regulus was in Africa (255) one story represents him as wishing to be recalled, because the hired servants {inercciiarii) on his farm were cheating him ; but when Cato wrote on farming (about 1 80), he assumes that all the work is done by slaves. Free or cheap distribu- tions of corn, indeed, were not yet so frequent as to tempt the poor or the thriftless to the city in such large masses as in after times : yet they did occur. Hiero, on his visit to Rome in 237, brought with him a large cargo of corn for free distribution ; and the assign- ment of land by the lex Flaminia (232) must have substantially bene- fited the landless urban populace. The increase in the number of slaves is also illustrated by the fact that it was thought worth while, in 238, to forbid the purchase of them from the Gauls, lest the revenue thus obtained should assist preparations against Rome ; and, again, by the growing importance of the liberti7ii.^ the necessary accompaniment of slavery. For some time emancipated slaves became citizens on the same terms as others as far as the law was concerned, though custom excluded them from office and other advantages. The State took no cognisance of the matter beyond formally attest- ing, in certain cases, the act of emancipation. But in 257, either with a view to check emancipation, or because the numbers of such transactions made it worth while, a lex Claudia imposed a tax of 5 per cent on the selling value of the emancipated slave, which, under the name of aiiruni vicessiniarium., was kept as a reserve in an inner chamber of the treasury. And, whereas on emancipation the freed- men had been accustomed to enrol themselves in any of the tribes, either according to their places of residence or that of their emanci- pators, their numbers became so important an element in influencing the votes that, in 222, a law ordained that they should be enrolled unfairness in dealing with the Illyrian booty, is almost the first instance recorded of real or suspected dishonesty on the part of a member of the aristocratic families. XXI GROWTH OF THE POPULATION OF ROME 285 in one of the four city tribes, thus confining their influence on an 241-218. election to narrower limits. But the libertini were not the only additions to the inhabitants /ncy-ease in of Rome. The appointment gf a second praetor {pn^cgrifms) in pcregnni 244, to adjudicate in cases arising between a citizen and an alien, ^^"^^: is a farther proof of the growth of the population and the attractive- '^^ ^~^^-^- ness of Rome as a place of business or residence. The number of full citizens was also growing. The census of men of military age shows a steady increase up to 252 ; between that and 245 there is a sudden drop of over 46,000. This may be accounted for partly by great losses in Sicily, and by the greater number of men actually serving in the army, who were not counted in the census ; and partly by the settlement of citizens in colonies with Latin rights, in joining which they suffered a dijnimctio capitis and ceased to be entered on the Roman lists. 1 However that may be, the next census of Roman citizens recorded (220) shows a recovery of 20,000. And as Rome was thus gradually assuming the dimensions worthy Gladiators. of the capital of the world, so those tastes and pastimes were coming into use which, for good or ill, marked the Roman character in after times. The games in the circus had from the first been the favourite amusement of the people, and what the citizens were proud to display to foreigners. King Hiero's visit in 237 had been professedly for the purpose of being present at them, and there was no surer title to higher office than the splendour with which the aediles pro- vided them. Accordingly, the popular Gains Flaminius, when censor in 220, besides his great work the 7>id FIa?ni?iia, also con- structed a new circus in that part of the Campus Martius which was nearest the Capitol, and was already called pi'ata Flamiiiia. But besides these games, a new amusement began about this time, which exercised a hardening and demoralising effect upon the people. In 263 for the first time an exhibition of gladiators was given by Decimus Junius Brutus in honour of his departed father. This seems to have set the fashion, not only of training and using slaves from the North for this purpose, but also of the extravagant Funa-ats. outlay upon funeral ceremonies generally, in spite of the Twelve Tables, against which occasional protests in after times were made, as by M. Aemilius Lepidus, six times named princeps senatus, who, in 154, ordered his sons on his death-bed to carry his body out to the pyre on a simple bier without fine linen or purple, and not to spend on the rest of his funeral more than ten asses. In some other ways this age witnessed a departure from the ^ The counting of the coloni in Campania, in 225, seems to have been a special and exceptional measure (Polyb. ii. 24). But later on steps were taken to include those on service in the census. 286 HISTORY OF ROME 241-218. Wotnen and divorce. Neiv nobles. Greek injluejice. Literature. simpler manner of an earlier time. Women were profuse in ornaments of gold and gay -coloured dresses, and rode in covered carriages, which it was thought necessary to forbid in a plebiscitiitn proposed by the tribune Q. Claudius in 228, and by the lex Oppia in 215 ; and it is specially noted by subsequent writers that in 231 for the first time a wife was divorced. Regulations for divorce were con- tained in the laws of the Twelve Tables, which implies its existence even earlier ; but Sp. Carvilius put away his wife on the ground of barrenness, not of immorality ; and he thereby set a precedent which was before long eagerly followed with results disastrous to family life. Another innovation of less importance was the permanent wearing of decorations won in military service, — thus marking men off as a kind of life-nobles. We have seen that Duilius, the victor of Mylae (260), retained for life the honour of the torch -bearer and the piper; but in 231 we hear for the first time of wearing the triumphal ornaments at the public games, after the day of triumph, by Papirius Maso, who had conquered the Corsicans ; while M. Valerius Corvus, consul in 263, set the fashion of adopting a title or second cognomen from the name of a conquered town or country, calling himself Messala for his victory over Messana. In such things generally we see natural development of Roman habits without appreciable influence from without. Of the time when Hellenic habits and thoughts began first to influence the Romans it would be impossible to speak with precision. It probably may be traced to the earliest days, and to the A/^fy rudiments of their civilisation and their religious habits. Greek had apparently before this time superseded Etruscan ais the staple subject of the education of the young. But a great impulse was given to this influence by the closer contact of the Romans with the cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily in this period. This influence showed itself in various ways, some of them trivial, — the custom of shaving the beard, for instance, being, it is said, introduced by barbers from Sicily in 300 ; while the first physician from Greece, Archagathus, was imported from Peloponnesus in 219, and was eagerly welcomed, a place of business being purchased for him at the public cost, — perhaps as superseding those charms, incantations, and concoction of simples which seem to have characterised the medical art in Latium, and still to have been practised in the country when Cato wrote. ^ But a more important and more permanent influence was that exercised by the Greeks on literature, and first of all upon that part of it which could reach even uneducated people through the theatre. Acting, we have seen, had been intro- duced in Rome nearly a hundred years before the first Punic war ^ Thus medical terms were generally derived from Greek, e.g. hepatarius morbus (Plaut. Cure. 2, i, 24). XXI INFLUENCE OF GREEK LITERATURE 287 (361). For some time it Seems to have consisted principally of the 241-218. recitation of rude songs afid dances, or at the most of coarse comic dialogue between the daiices, with some allusions to topics of the day, but without connefcted plot {fabula). But the career of a Greek captive from Tai-entum in this century not only shows that Livms the value set upon education was rising, but led the way for an amuse- ^ndro- ment more refined and artistic. Andronicus was brought as a slave "^"^^' to Rome about 275, ^nd being afterwards manumitted by his owner, M. Livius Salinator,/whose sons he taught, was thenceforth called Livius Andronicus, He was able to make a livelihojad by teaching, both in Latin and Greek, and for the use of his pu^^s translated the Odyssey into Latin/ Saturnians.^ He wrote aj,80 hymns to be sung at festivals or at times of public rejoiciiw^j^r one of which in 207 he was rewarded by a grant of residei^ee for himself and other poets. He was not indeefd the first to com^se in Latin on Greek models, for Appius Claudkis Caecus had'''^done so before ; ^ but he seems to have first made a professiojr of writing, which partly at any rate maintained him ; and if the translation of the Odyssey was made for Trans- pupils, it indicates a consitlerable advance in education. But besides ^^^t^o''^ ^f this, Andronicus was an actor, and as an actor he composed his own y^^^y- parts. He is said to have taught a slave to recite his poem, which then for the first time contained a continuous story, while he accom- panied the recitation with appropriate gestures. He also made the next step. He was the first to exhibit translations of Greek plays, Greek principally tragedies, which required other actors than himself, whom plays. he had to train and teach. The first was exhibited in 240 ; and his example was soon followed by others. Thus the scanty old literature of Fescennine verses, religious songs, oracles, magic formulae, and rude miscellanies called Saturae, if it was not superseded in popular favour, had at any rate a rival literature formed on a better model, which attracted the most refined tastes in Rome, and gave a direction to Latin poetry never destined to be materially changed. But we must Difficulties not think of it as immediately successful. Many of the upper classes in the zvay objected to acting as undignified and frivolous, and to Greek literature ^ '^^^ •^ . . ° ^ . ,^.,', ,., Graeco- as an mnovation^, preferrmg real Latm plays, however poor ; while j^^^i^ the common people cared much more for rope dancers, pugilists, and drama. gladiators.3 Still an audience was found, and Livius was soon ^ A few lines have been preserved, e.g. — Viriim mihi, Casmena | insect versutum and ibi man^ns sedcto | ddnicum videbis me carpentd veh^ntem | eu domum venisse. 2 One line of Appius Claudius is preserved — Est unus quisque faber | ipse sua6 fortunae. ^ Plautus, Pocii. pr. 15 ; Terence, Hecyra, pr. 2, 25 sq. prose ivritifnis 288 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xxi Cn. followed by another poet. Cn. Naevius was a Latin, though living Naevius. \^^ Campania. He fought in the first Punic war, and lived till near the end of the second. Five years later than Andronicus (235), he too began to exhibit Latin plays, modelled on, or translated from, the Greek. As Andronicus was a Greek by birth, Naevius may be regarded (excepting Appius Claudius) as the first native writer of Latin whose works can claim to be literature. He did not write plays only. He composed a Saturnian poem in seven books on the first Punic war ; and also Saturae, in which he commented so freely upon the public characters of the day that he incurred bitter personal enmities, and ended his life in exile at Utica (204).! Ahse?icc of We may therefore note the period between the beginning of the ^^" ;^ ^^''^^ fi^^^ Punic war and the second as that of a new departure in Roman literature : in which new influences were acting, new fashions begin- ning to prevail, and much that was afterwards specially characteristic took its rise. We have not yet to discuss prose writings. A speech of Appius Claudius Caecus delivered in the Senate on the question of making terms with Pyrrhus was extant in Cicero's time, and perhaps others, and was regarded as the earliest piece of Latin prose in existence. Some laiidatioiics or other family records may have existed even earlier : but they did not survive to the literary age ; and when Fabius Pictor, who lived in the time of the second Punic war, wished to write a history of Rome, he seems naturally to have used the Greek language, much as an English writer of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, or even later, would almost certainly have used Latin. The same seems also true of another writer of history, nearly contemporary with Pictor, L. Cincius Alimentus, and of P. Cornelius Scipio, son of the elder Africanus. A laudatio of Marcellus by his son (about 206) survived for a time ; but the earliest writer of history in Latin, beyond the bare entries in the A?t?tales Maximi^ seems to have been Cato the censor. ■^ His banishment was chiefly, it appears, contrived by Metellus and his friends ; probably the Q. CaeciUus Metellus who was consul in 206. The line particularly offensive to liim has been preserved — fato Met^lli Romae | consules fiunt, which Metellus or some partisan answered by another Saturnian — dabunt malum Metelli | Naevio poctae. . ^ CHAPTER XXII ! THE SECOND PUNIC WAR Second Punic war — First Period, from 219 to spring of 217 — Origin of the war, ; Carthaginian expansion in Spain, Hamilcar, 238-229; Hasdrubal, 229-221; i Hannibal, 221-218 — Roman treaty with Hasdrubal confining the Carthaginian I supremacy in Spain to the country south of the Ebro (228) — Founding of New I Carthage about the same time — -The Romans make treaty of friendship with the semi-Greek communities of Emporiae and Saguntum- — Hannibal becomes general of the Carthaginian forces in Africa and Spain (221) — He subdues the Olcades (221), the Vaccaei (220) — The Saguntines in alarm appeal to Rome — Roman commissioners visit Flannibal in the winter 220, ordering him to abstain from attacking Saguntum, or from crossmg the Ebro — They then go to Carthage — The second Illyrian war (219) — Hannibal takes Saguntum after a siege of seven months (219) — The Romans send an embassy to Carthage demanding the surrender of Hannibal, and on the refusal of the Carthaginian Senate Fabius declares war (219-218) — Hannibal starts from New Carthage in the early summer of 218 — Subdues Spain north of the Ebro, and puts it under the care of Hanno ; crosses the Pyrenees and arrives at the Rhone while Scipio is still only at Marseilles (September, 218) — P. Cornelius Scipio I finding himself too late, sends on his brother Gnaeus to Spain, returns him- self to Italy with a few men, and takes over the legions of the praetors and awaits Hannibal on the Po — Hannibal crosses the Alps and descends into the basin of the Po, takes Turin and defeats Scipio's cavalry on the Ticinus — Scipio (wounded) retires to the Trebia near Placentia, south of the Po— He is joined by the other consul Sempronius Longus from Ariminum — Defeat of Sempronius on the Trebia — the Romans go into winter quarters at Placentia and Cremona — Meanwhile Gnaeus Scipio defeats and captures Hanno in Spain, and secures the country north of the Ebro (summer of 218). The first Punic war arose from a dispute in Sicily, its result Tke origin had been the acquisition of the greater part of Sicily, the adjacent ^^'^ result islands, and all Sardinia and Corsica. The second Punic war ^ ^^'^^ arose from a dispute in Spain, and its result was to hand over Punic to Rome the rest of Sicily and a great part of Spain. The immediate pretext for it was the capture of a town in alliance with Rome, but it jhad been rendered inevitable by a chain of events which more and more brought the interests of the two peoples into collision. And as the causes of the war are to be sought in events prior to U war. 290 HISTORY OF ROME The remoter con- sequences of the war. Their importance. The extension of the Cartha- ginian pinver in Spain. Ham Hear Barcas in Spain, 2j8-22g. His hostility to Rome. the actual pretext for it, so its effects were extended beyond the immediate results. Hannibal's plan for the humiliation of Rome was to use against her the hostility of the Gauls in Italy, and the discontent which he believed to exist among the Italian allies. But he also schemed to bring an enemy upon her from the East, and was soon in communication with the court of Macedonia. The conquest of Illyricum had made the Roman arms a source of alarm to Macedonia ; and the expulsion of Demetrius of Pharos (218) had placed in the court of the young king Philip V a crafty and unscrupulous adviser, inspired with deadly hatred to Rome. Thus Rome was brought into conflict with Macedonia, and thence obliged to interfere in Hellenic politics. This again involved her in a quarrel with Antiochus, which took her armies and her ambassadors into Asia. The war therefore is the best known and most famous of all the Roman wars, and deserves to be so. For it is the central fact of the history of the Roman Republic, from which radiate those gradual extensions of its power which were not deliberately sought, but were to all appearance forced upon it one by one, — each step forward being the inevitable consequence of that which preceded it. When the Carthaginians had at length quelled the terrible mutiny of their mercenaries, and the revolt among their Libyan subjects, they looked about for means to recoup themselves for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia. There was one country, in which they already had commercial settlements, that might be made more profitable than either. Spain could be reached by the Straits of Gibraltar without the assistance of a large fleet of warships, and its mineral wealth offered a grand field of enterprise. However much or little truth there may be in accounts by Roman writers of the contests between the parties of Hanno the Great and the family of Barcas, it is clear that the services of Hamilcar Barcas in Sicily and the mercenary war had been too great to allow of his enemies ruining or thwarting him. He was elected general of the armies at home and abroad, and was commissioned or allowed to secure the north coast of Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and to cross to Spain with the object of extending and consolidating the Carthaginian power in that country. But whatever may have been the view of the people of Carthage, Hamilcar himself had a purpose in his own mind beyond the mere acquisition of wealth and the extension of empire. He had regarded himself as unconquered in Sicily, and it was with extreme bitterness of feeling that he had come to the conclusion that the victory of Lutatius at sea had made a peace with Rome necessary even at the price of the evacuation of Sicily. He had triumphantly maintained himself on Hercte, had boldly harassed the Italian coasts, and had XXII HAMILCAR AND HASDRUBAL IN SPAIN 291 handed over his troops at Lilybaeum unstained by defeat or disaster. His spirit was unbroken, and he burned to be revenged. This bitter- ness was increased to intense hatred when Rome took advantage of the weakness of Carthage to demand the cession of Sardinia. It was therefore with the set purpose of creating a power in Spain strong enough to defy, or eventually conquer Rome, that he set sail for Cadiz, Long afterwards Hannibal told the famous story of the Hat/nibars oath exacted from him by his father on this occasion. Hamilcar was '^'^^^'' ^3^- engaged in offering sacrifice to the supreme god of Carthage before ; embarking. His son Hannibal, then nine years old, was standing by : and his father suddenly drew the lad aside and asked him whether he would like to accompany him to Spain. The glad assent was given with boyish enthusiasm ; whereupon Hamilcar . caused him to lay his hand upon the altar and swear never to be \ friends with Rome. With this purpose ever before him he spent ] nine years (238-229) of ceaseless exertion and almost constant com- ; bat in Spain. It is only a later Roman tradition which represents j him or his successors as aiming at the establishment of a Spanish ' kingdom independent of Carthage, or of acting contrary to the ' feelings of the majority of his countrymen. I We know hardly any details of his achievements in Spain. He Hamilcar s I extended the Carthaginian power as far north as the Saltiis catnpaigns Castiilo7iensis {Sierra iMorc?ia), and appears to have founded Acte ^"^"^^^^"^ j Leuke, near the modern Alicante, to be the capital of Carthaginian "'^ , Spain, which however was superseded by the later foundation of New I Carthage {Carthagc?ia). But he was not only a conqueror. His army, unlike previous Carthaginian armies, was not a miscellaneous collection of soldiers hired from Italy, Gaul, and Greece ; but con- sisted of Libyans, Numidians, and Spaniards : and he seems to have encouraged the two former to amalgamate with the natives, to marry their daughters, and acquire property in Spain. He himself took pains to develop the natural wealth of the country, and to intro- duce better methods of mining ; while by attacking the strongholds in the interior held by plundering tribes he secured the safety of the more peaceful and industrious tribes under Carthaginian protection. He lost his life in one of these expeditions, and by an act of generous self-sacrifice. Poinding himself outnumbered and over- powered he secured the safe escape of his son and his friends by taking the enemy's pursuit upon himself, and was drowned in trying to cross a river. His son-in-law and successor Hasdrubal continued his work. Hasdrubal He seems indeed to have been more inclined than Hamilcar to <-'ommander depend upon the arts of diplomacy and conciliation, even in the 2^0-221 ' case of the hated Romans. Yet force was used when necessary, °- §1 iz; ffi-G ■ ^u. m 12 l-H rt O -J - 13 o 5 ^a«^'<^tircs to colleague from Ariminum. He recrossed the Ticinus and the Po, ^^^'^ ''^^^'^ breaking down the bridge over the latter behind him, and encamped fj^^ }d/ on the left bank of the Trebia near its junction with the Po, satisfied 218. that with the protection of Placentia, which was a few miles on the other side of the Trebia, he could choose his own time for fighting again. Hannibal followed as far as the Po, but finding the bridge already broken he gave up any idea of crossing there, though he took prisoners a detachment of 600 men who had been left behind by Scipio to destroy the bridge. He then ascended the north bank Hannibal of the river in search of a crossing. His success in the cavalry crosses the /engagement on the Ticinus had brought in numerous adhesions from ^'^• 'Gallic tribes; and when after two days' march he came to a point on the river at which it could conveniently be bridged, he left the task of getting the army across to his subordinates, and employed ^himself in receiving the ambassadors of these tribes, and accepting jthe provisions and troops which they brought. • Continuing his advance down the southern bank he drew out his fi,cipio ivill Wmy in sight of Scipio's fortified camp and offered battle. Scipio, notjight. [however, did not stir, and, after waiting for a time, Hannibal drew 'bff and fortified a camp about six miles to the west of the Roman position. But a new move soon became necessary. The Gauls in Treachery khe Roman army were in their hearts favourable to Hannibal, and a ofjh^ iconsiderable body of them, amounting to 2000 infantry and 200 ^"/ SCTUttl^ I ft ^cavalry, suddenly rose in the dead of night, killed the Romans ^/^^ Roman 'quartered next them, and marched off to Hannibal's camp. About army. -|the same time the Boii, who had attacked the colonists of Placentia land Cremona, bringing the three Roman commissioners whom they Ihad taken, came to Hannibal. He received them warmly, but would 'not keep their prisoners, pointing out that they would need them 'jto exchange against their hostages. The treason of the Gallic troops seemed to Scipio to forebode a Scipio Igeneral rising of the Gauls in the neighbourhood, and he concluded moves that it was not safe to remain on the flat ground opposite Placentia. ^S!'^^- ^^'^ I He therefore broke up his camp and marched up the Trebia until e came to the high ground forming the commencement of the (Apennines, from which that stream flows northward into the Po. jHannibal, on hearing of this movement, sent his Numidian horse to [harass their line of march. But finding the Roman camp deserted, |the Numidians stopped to plunder and burn it, and this gave the jRomans time to get over the Trebia, though even so their extreme jrear suffered considerably as it was crossing. The main Cartha- jginian army followed and Hannibal pitched his camp about five 3o8 HISTORY OF ROME On the Trebia, 218. Sempron- ius joins Scipio. Clastidium. Hannibal' s position demands promptness. Sempronius skirmishes with Hannibal. miles from the new quarters occupied by Scipio, though not, it appears, on the same side of the stream, Scipio was now defending the Hne of the Trebia. On his left were the high slopes of the Apennines, on his right the fortress of Placentia. He was in a good position, and though, when news reached Rome of the defeat of the cavalry on the Ticinus, there was a strong feeling of uneasiness, yet the people were comforted by the belief that the infantry was still intact and safely posted, and that the junction of Sempronius with his colleague would quickly decide the war. The junction was effected early in December, apparently without any attempt on Hannibal's part to prevent it. That this should have been so seems to prove conclusively that he was not on the right bank of the Trebia or to the east of Scipio, as some have sup- posed. Perhaps he was engaged at Clastidium, for just about this time this town (the modern Castcggio) fell into his hands by the treason of its commander Dasius, a native of Brundisium. It was a serious loss to the Romans, for it contained a large store of provi- sions, and reduced them to the necessity of depending for supplies on what could be brought up the Po : it was a great gain to Hanni- bal, not only as providing him with stores, but as impressing the Gauls with his superiority, and as commanding the westward road. He was anxious to follow up his success by inducing Scipio to give him battle. But delay was to the interests of Scipio. His wound was not yet healed, and he could not therefore hope to take part in a battle. Moreover, though the Gauls readily supplied Hannibal with all that he wanted at present, it was quite certain that they would soon grow tired of doing so. They had joined him from hatred of Rome and the hope of plunder ; they would soon abandon him if, in the place of plunder, they found themselves sub- ject to continual requisitions. There were not wanting signs of Gallic treachery already. A tribe living in the angle of the Trebia and the Po, while professing goodwill to the Carthaginians, was discovered to be corresponding with Scipio. Hannibal inflicted condign punishment on them by ravaging their lands, but there was little doubt that failure or even delay would be the signal for similar treason elsewhere. Meanwhile the terrified natives came to the Roman camp for help, and their request gave Sempronius the opportunity he was desiring. He sent out his cavalry with 1000 light-armed infantry, who crossed the Trebia and drove off the Numidians and Gauls ; but when the Romans pursued they were driven back by the outposts of the Carthaginians, and in their turn chased up to their camp. Sempronius sallied out with the rest of his cavalry and light-armed XXII BATTLE OF THE TREBIA 309 infantry, brought in his men - in safety, and scattered the enemy. Sempronius Hannibal then came out in person and restored the order of his w/-f-^^j to cavahy, but would not continue the fight on that day. The skir- -''^<^^^' mishing had on the whole been favourable to the Romans, and Sempronius was so much elated that he resolved to hazard a general engagement. Scipio was still opposed to it. Recent events had confirmed his opinion that they had everything to gain, Hannibal everything to lose, by delay. He probably also felt no great con- fidence in his colleague, who, on the other hand, was eager to fight. Sempronius would soon have to go to Rome to hold the election of the new consuls. If the battle were postponed to the spring he would most likely be superseded before it took place, but by fighting now, while Scipio was still disabled, he would have all the credit of the victory. Besides, he believed that he would succeed, and knew that his countrymen at home expected him to do something. He had not come all the way from Sicily to sit idle whilst Hannibal was plundering the allies or consolidating his power among the Gauls. Hannibal had therefore little difficulty in provoking a battle. Hannibal For this he prepared by forming an ambuscade in the bed of a Pj^'o'^okes a stream, between the two camps, thickly covered with brambles, in which he concealed 1000 infantry and a like number of cavalry during the night. At daybreak he despatched his Numidian horse to ride up to the Roman lines and provoke the consul to attack them, while the rest of his army were early afoot with orders to get breakfast and prepare themselves for action. Sempronius fell into the trap. He sent out his cavalry to drive The battle I off the Numidian horse; and despatching 6000 light-armed infantry °fj^^_ I in advance, he got his whole army in motion at once, without waiting j for his men to get their breakfast. It was a bleak miserable day ; ^'^' I there had been many hours of cold rain mixed with sleet, and the ! Trebia was so swollen that the men had to wade through it with the J water breast-high. They arrived, therefore, on the ground hungry, I wet, and cold, to meet men who not only had had a good meal, but had oiled their bodies and put on their armour over their camp fires, i Moreover, they had to fight on ground chosen by Hannibal, and, I though they did not know it, with a strong body of the enemy lying j concealed in their rear. In these circumstances the result could not I be doubtful. That the disaster was not greater was due to the courage and discipline of the Roman soldiers themselves. Finding that his cavalry could not deal effectively with the The Roman Numidian horsemen, trained to scatter and rapidly reform, and that cavalry^ it was disorganised by the Balearic slingers and the terror of the horses at the sight of the elephants, Sempronius recalled it to its Trebia, December recalled. 3IO HISTORY OF ROME The velites retire. Advn7ice of the Punic horse. The Roman centi-e holds its own. Feelings at Rome. Winter of 2r8-2iy. regular place on the wings of the infantry, which consisted of four legions — 16,000 citizens and 20,000 allies. The battle was begun by the 6000 light-armed, who had been sent out early at the first appearance of the Numidian horse. They were, however, tired, and had expended most of their missiles already. Their attack, therefore, was not effective, and they soon retired behind the heavy-armed infantry. The next move was made by the Carthaginian cavalry, which easily drove back that of the Roinans, thus leaving the flanks of their infantry exposed, which were immediately attacked by the Numidian horsemen and light- armed troops, who passed by their own lines to do it. In spite of these disadvantages the main body of the Roman heavy-armed made an obstinate resistance. Even when they found themselves attacked in the rear by the, 2000 men from the ambus- cade, when their wings were driven in by the elephants, the cavalry, and the light-armed of the enemy, the Roman centre, still keeping close order, cut its way through the Gauls and Libyans opposed to it, and seeing that it was hopeless to return to the camp, marched straight to their old quarters on the Trebia opposite Placentia, and, being now no longer harassed by the enemy, cjuietly passed the stream and entered that fortified town. Many of the infantry on the wings were cut to pieces whilst trying to recross the Trebia, but a considerable number, with the greater part of the cavalry, succeeded in crossing, and entered Placentia with the 10,000 of the centre. They owed their safety in a great degree to the violence of the rain, which prevented an effective pursuit, and gave the wounded Scipio also time to lead out the men left in the camp and rejoin his colleague at Placentia. Sempronius, indeed, sent home a report that " the storm had prevented a victory." But facts were too strong for him. It soon became known at Rome that the camp had fallen into the enemy's hands, that the army was shut up in Placentia and Cremona, that all their provisions had to be brought up the Po, and that finally all the Gallic tribes had joined Hannibal. It had been a real disaster, and the way into Etruria was open to Hannibal. The winter, which was a severe one, prevented any more opera- tions of importance. Sempronius, indeed, with a small escort of cavalry, made his way with considerable difficulty and danger to Rome to hold the consular elections, and returned to his army's winter quarters at Placentia ; but he was only able to barely protect himself from various harassing attacks of Hannibal, who, finding it impossible, owing to the weather, to pass over the Apennines, devoted himself to annoying the Roman quarters and securing his hold over the Gauls. That their fidelity was little to be XXII GNAEUS SCIPIO IN SPAIN 311 trusted, and would soon yield to the burden of supporting an army, was quickly made manifest. So much did he fear treachery, that during the months which followed the battle of Trebia he is said to have constantly disguised himself by the use of false hair, that he might not be recognised by would-be assassins. Thus ended the first year's campaign. It had been on the whole Result of unfavourable to the Romans, but not disastrous. They had lost two fi'-^t year battles, but not of the first importance or very decidedly. They still *?/ J"''* held Placentia, Cremona, and Mutina in the Po valley, from which Hannibal's attacks, in one of which he was wounded, had not succeeded in expelling them. For Hannibal the greatest advantage gained was the adhesion of the Gauls and the opportunity offered him of conciliating the Italians by discriminating between Italian and Roman prisoners. The latter were subjected to rigorous imprisonment and scant fare, the former were indulgently treated I from the first, and finally dismissed without ransom, and bidden to I tell their friends at home that Hannibal had come to restore freedom to the Italians and recover the lands which Rome had taken from j them. 1 The Romans might still hope to prevent Hannibal's march south. Moderate I but the idea of fighting in the Po valley was abandoned. The pre- p^^epar- I parations at Rome, when the true state of the case became known, "J-^^^ '^^ ( though not on a scale denoting panic, were yet m.ade somewhat earlier 21S-217, land more carefully than usual, and were directed to the object of ^blocking Hannibal's road. Garrisons were strengthened at various 'points in Etruria, magazines collected at Ariminum and Arretium, and a request was sent to king Hiero for assistance, who immediately I despatched 500 Cretan archers and 1000 light-armed mercenaries. I For the rest the usual arrangements were made for defending Sicily, {Sardinia, and Tarentum ; and the consuls only levied sufficient men 'to fill up the legions of the previous year, which were to be kept on jfoot. A fleet of sixty triremes, however, was ordered to be made 'ready for service. ' Meanwhile Hamiibal's success in North Italy was somewhat Gnaei/s counterbalanced by events in Spain. Gnaeus Scipio, as we have Comehus een, had been sent there with the fleet of his brother from the mouth J!- ^^ . . . Spain, f the Rhone. He sailed direct to Emporiae, and thence coasted 21S. southward as far as the mouth of the Ebro, making descents upon lithe shore, besieging towns which declined, and providing for the ipafety of those which offered, submission. He then landed his army, land being reinforced by a considerable number of native troops, inarched inland, taking several towns on the way, until he found jiHanno encamped near Cirsa, a town apparently to the west of the picoris {Seg7'e). There he not only defeated the Carthaginian army, 312 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xxii Victory but took Hanno himself prisoner, as well as an important Spanish overHan7io. chieftain named Indibilis. The camp also fell into his hands, and with it the heavy baggage of Hannibal's army, which he had left in Hanno's charge. Hearing of what had happened, Hasdrubal sailed northwards. He found the Roman fleet at the mouth of the Ebro carelessly guarded, while the crews wandered inland in search of- plunder. He cut off a considerable number of these foraging parties, and then retired to the south of the Ebro, and marched back to winter quarters in New Carthage, strengthening various fortresses on his way. Scipio, after vindicating Roman discipline by the punish- ment of those whose carelessness had caused the loss, took his fleet and men into winter quarters at Tarraco, where the division of the vast booty he had taken rendered his army eager for the campaign of the next year. Result of Thus, though no victory of first-rate magnitude had been won, operations Hannibal's work of the early summer, by which he trusted to have tn pain, j^^^ ^^ entirely friendly Spain on his rear, was undone ; and he was more than ever left dependent on success in Italy. The wisdom of Publius Scipio's plan of defence, when he found himself outstripped on the Rhone, was amply vindicated. Authorities. — Polybius, books iii.-xv. Livy xxi.-xxx. Of the books of Polybius iii. to v. are complete. They are of the first value. He took pains to study original sources of information in Rome and Italy, to examine the sites of battles, and even to cross the Alpine pass used by Hannibal. He knew also the sons of many of those actually engaged ; and had before him the writings of men contemporary with the events, such as Fabius Pictor and Philinus of Agrigentum — writing from opposite points of view, Silenus (the Greek secretary of Hanni- bal), Sosilus and Chaereas, Caelius Antipater who had been a prisoner in Hannibal's camp, and others. Livy often uses Polybius, sometimes translating his very words, but he also made independent use of these same authorities, and therefore frequently gives a different account of details. When the two are irreconcilable, it is generally safest to stand by Polybius, who must have had better means of ascertaining the truth. Livy's narrative becomes of the highest importance to us at the point at which the continuous narrative of Polybius is lost, i.e. after the fall of Syracuse in B.C. 212. Our possession of two such authorities makes that of other and generally later writers comparatively unimportant, except so far as they may contain extracts from earlier writers, such are Cornelius Nepos, Life of Hannibal ; Plutarch's Lives of Fabius Maximus and Marcellus ; Appian, Bellum Hannibalicum, Res Punicae (5-67), Res Ibericae (4-38); Dio Cassius, fr. 57; Zonaras viii. 21-ix. 14 ; Diodorus Siculus, fr. of xxvi.-xxvii. ; Eutropius iii. 3-13- CHAPTER XXIII THE SECOND PUNIC WAR — Continued From 217 to the Battle of Cannae (216) Flaminius enters upon his consulship at Ariminum (217) — Hannibal marches into Elruria — His sufferings in the marshes of the Arno — Battle of the Thk asymene LAKE — Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (Cunctator) baffles Hannibal, who enters Campania, but finds it unsuitable for winter quarters — He makes his way back to Apulia by a stratagem, and encamps near Gerunium — Minucius made equal to Fabius, but defeated by Hannibal — Preparations in the winter of 217-216 — P. Terentius Varro — The Battle of C'ANNAE-^Courage and activity of Varro after the battle — His return to Rome. When the day for the new consuls to enter upon their office 21'j. Coss. arrived (15th March), Servilius was at Rome and performed the G»eius usual formal duties ; but his colleagfue Flaminius had already left the ^/^^'f ^'^^ TT 1 1 1 • • • 1 1 deminus, city. He had bitter enemies in the Senate, and he seems to have Qaius feared that some pretext of evil omens or informality in his election Flaminius. might be found to prevent his taking over the command which had fallen to his lot. It had been arranged that Servilius was to command at Ariminum, and Flaminius at Arretium. But the legions had been j brought from Placentia and Cremona (perhaps by water) to I Ariminum ; and thither Flaminius went a few days before the ides I of March, determined, in spite of custom, to enter on his consulship \ there. The Senate sent commissioners to order his return ; but there was no law compelling him to do so, and he refused to obey. He took over his own part of the troops, and led them to Arretium, whilst his colleague Servilius took his place at Ariminum. It was not known by which road Hannibal would enter Etruria ; but the two 1 chief routes were thus defended. As soon as the weather became open Hannibal started. He was Hannibal \ in haste to begin his march, partly because his Gallic allies could not be trusted unless they had a speedy prospect of action and plunder, t and partly because he wished to find Flaminius unsupported by his ! colleague. He was informed of his arrival at Arretium, and he had eniers Etruria. 314 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The marshes of Faesn/ae, 217. Flaminius determines to follow Hannibal. Thrasy- fnene. also satisfied himself that he was a general who might be outwitted and crushed. He abandoned the usual road over the Apennines, which descends the valley of the Macra to Luca, partly perhaps to avoid delay from attacks of the garrison there, and took a shorter though more difficult route. Descending the valley of the Auser {Serchio) he reached the plain of the Arno with comparative ease. But from that point the road led through marshes extending between the Apennines and Faesulae, which were in a state of unusual flood. Four days and three nights 'his army struggled through sloughs and quagmires. There was no ground dry enough to lie down upon for rest ; nothmg showed above the water but the bodies of beasts of burden that had slipped in the slime and perished. All the elephants but one died ; and Hannibal himself lost an eye from violent ophthalmia. The Spanish and Libyan troops fared best, for being in the van they did not find the ground trampled into deep mud ; but the Gauls behmd them suffered greatly, and would perhaps have turned back if the cavalry on their rear' had not prevented them. Still Hannibal, who was forced by his sufferings to ride on the one surviving elephant, had gained his object. He had come upon Flaminius before he was expected ; and now marched past the Roman camp, wasting the country for and wide, feeling sure that he would irritate Flaminius into following him. He had not misjudged the man. The sight of the smoke rismg from farm and villa was more than Flaminius could bear. His officers advised against fighting an enemy strong in cavalry on such ground, and argued that he should at least wait for Servilius, who had started from Ariminum on the news of Hannibal being in Etruria. "What would the people at home think," he indignantly asked, " if I remamed encamped in the rear while the enemy wasted the country up to the walls of Rome .? " He promptly gave the signal for starting, with the same blind confidence as had crowded his camp with traders,— almost more numerous than the soldiers, who had provided themselves with chains and fetters for the prisoners who were to enrich them by sale or ransom. Hannibal meanwhile was marching southwards. Leaving the direct road which led by Clusium (afterwards called the via Cassia), he turned to the left towards Perusia, with Cortona on his left and the Thrasymene lake on his right, a route which would eventually have brought him on to the via Flaminia. A spur of the mountains of Cortona {Monte Gualandro) descends to a point on the north-west bank of the lake, leaving only a marsh and a narrow path between, and separating the plain of Cortona from the lake. At this pomt is the modern village of Borghetto, and from it the mountains form an arch coming down to the lake again, eight miles off, at the village of THE THRASYMENE LAKE 315 Passignano. This arch is intersected about half-way to Passignano by an eminence covered with wood, on which is the village Tuoro sloping down towards the lake. , Hannibal at once saw the advantages offered by this site for an ambuscade. He concealed his Balearic slingers on the eastern slopes of Gualandro, and sent his cavalry and other Gauls to hide themselves on the western slopes, so that their extreme right was almost at the entrance of the pass. He with his main army took post on the hill of Tuoro, which roughly divided the plain. The same evening Flaminius arrived at the shore of the lake, and encamped there for the night. Nothing was seen of the enemy ; and next morning, without making reconnaissances, he proceeded on his march towards Perusia by the shortest road along the shore of the lake. When his line debouched into the plain, Hannibal was discovered on the hill of Tuoro on their left front. But a heavy mist was rising from the lake, which interrupted their view, and prevented them from seeing- distinctly even those of the enemy who were immediately in front of them. Hannibal now gave the signal for attack all along his line, which could be seen by the troops on the higher ground above the mist, though not by the Romans ; who thus found themselves attacked on all sides at once. Six thousand of the vanguard cut their way through towards Passignano, and finding themselves on higher ground, halted to learn the fate of the others. Suddenly the mist lifted, and they saw a terrible sight. The main 217. Hannibal concealed in the valley and hills north of the lake. Fla7ninius follows him. The Roman army destroyed. 3i6 HISTORY OF ROME 217, Death of Flaminius. The six thousand surrender. The ■Roman loss. body of the army on sighting Hannibal had turned to the left to receive his attack ; but found themselves assaulted not only in front by Hannibal, but on the flank by the light-armed troops from the eastern slopes of Gualandro, and with hardly time to draw their swords or get ready their spears, were being killed or driven into the lake ; while the rear columns were caught by the cavalry actually in the defile leading from Borghetto, and were being helplessly cut to pieces. Some of these last tried to escape by swimming in the lake, but finding the distance too great, returned to the shallows, and there, after vainly begging quarter with uplifted hands, were despatched by the horsemen riding in after them, or in some cases killed them- selves or begged the favour of the fatal stroke from their friends. ^ Flaminius himself, however much he may have been to blame for the disaster, exhibited high courage and heroism in this hour of despair. He exerted himself with hand and voice to rally his men, and encourage them to extricate themselves, until he fell fighting at the hands of a company of Gauls. The day was irretrievably lost. And the six thousand, closing their ranks, pushed on with the utmost speed they knew not whither. At last they found themselves in a village, which they might hope to hold for a time. But they had no means of getting supplies, and no hope of outstripping the enemy ; and soon after the battle, being besieged by Hannibal's Spanish light-armed troops under Maharbal, they were compelled to surrender on a promise of their lives, a promise which Hannibal fulfilled, though protesting that he had given no authority for it. Fifteen thousand in all fell Into his hands ; among whom he discriminated, as before, between Romans and Italians, keeping the former in close custody, but liberating the latter without ransom. His own loss had been comparatively small, although the fall of I 500 Gauls testified to a desperate resistance at one part of the field. The Roman army was annihilated. The consul with 15,000 men lay dead on the field, and many died afterwards of their wounds. Fifteen thousand were prisoners. Ten thousand more had in various directions effected an escape, and found their way back to Rome ; where the news of the disaster was soon too well authenticated to be concealed by the government. It was better to face the truth. Summoning; the citizens the ^ The site of the battle of Thrasymene is much disputed, and the descriptions in Livy (xxii. 4-6) and Polybius (iii. 82-84) appear to point to different places. The site as described in the text, on the north of the lake between Borghetto and Passignano, seems to suit Livy best ; while from Polybius it has been inferred, . though not without considerable difficulties, that the narrow pass was that between Passignano and Torricella, and the chief fighting in a combe between Torricella and Magione. Some even place the battle still farther to the east of Magione. XXIII HANNIBAL MARCHES SOUTH 317 praetor briefly announced, " We have been beaten in a great battle." The Senate rose to the occasion. In prolonged sessions they dis- cussed the measures to be taken and the means of defence. But three days later the alarm was intensified by the news of a fresh Fresh disaster. Servilius, hearing at Ariminum that Hannibal had entered disaster. Etruria, started to join his colleague. But the case was pressing, and, in order that Flaminius might know that help was on the way, he sent 4000 cavalry under Gains Centenius in advance. Informed of this Hannibal despatched Maharbal with cavalry and light-armed troops to intercept Centenius, and the whole force was killed or taken prisoners. Now indeed it seemed as though Hannibal might be at their Q. Fabius gates before many days. It was no longer safe to trust to the ^^a^imus ordinary magistrates. But there was a constitutional difficulty in ""''"^^ appointing a dictator, who could properly only be named by a consul. '^Jfj'^''''^ Now one consul was dead, and with the other it seemed impossible to communicate. But the extremity was held to justify an irregu- larity, and Fabius was elected dictator by the centuries.^ The battle of Thrasymene would seem to have opened the way Hannibal's ' to Rome for Hannibal ; yet he did not take it. Quitting the f"arc/i I Flaminian road he turned to the left through Umbria To Picenum, ^^''""''^f" [wasting the country, killing the inhabitants, and driving off their ^helasV'' (cattle, until by the time he arrived on the coast of the Adriatic his coast! 217. army was hampered with more booty than it could drive or carry. 'He marched down the coast to Arpi, on the borders of Apulia, and I there refreshed his men and horses, worn out by the winter cold and (the toils of the campaign. The wealth of the country enabled him jto get them into condition and to cure an attack of scurvy which was emaciating both. It was perhaps this which had decided him not to advance on Rome. But a prolonged siege would in any case have been dangerous with an army largely consisting of Gauls, always impatient of such operations, and when he had not yet induced a single Italian State to join. Notwithstanding his victories and the terror which his march must have inspired, his great design of .raising Italy against Rome seemed as far from accomplishment as lever, and without it he could not venture to attack the city. ] But there was one possible ally of Hannibal whose secret hos- tility to Rome was confirmed by the battle. As Philip of Macedonia ^ That Fabius was dictator and not pro-dictator seems certain from Polybius. The reading pro-dictatoretn in Livy xxii. 8 is probably wrong. Still Livy (xxii. 31) thought the annals wrong in calling Fabius "dictator," and there may have been legal purists at the time and afterwards who spoke of him as a pro-dictator. [The question was raised again in 49, when Caesar wished to be able to hold the [consular elections, and a lex was needed to enable the praetor to name him ''ictator for that purpose (Cic. Alt. ix. 15 ; Caes. B.C. ii. 20, 21). CHAP. XXIII Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS CUNCTATOR 319 was watching the Nemaean games at Argos a courier put a letter Philip V into his hands. The king showed it to no one except Demetrius of hears of Pharos, the bitter enemy of Rome, bidding him say nothing to any ^^^'^j^^^^^ one. It contained the news of Thrasymene and of Hannibal's prepares to possession of Italy. Demetrius urged Philip to give up his war invade with the Aetolians and hasten to attack Illyricum, and so gain a basis i^^^ly- from which to invade Italy. The advice chimed in with the king's secret wishes. A council was summoned, peace with Aetolia proposed, and shortly afterwards ratified at Naupactus, and Philip started for Illyricum. There he was brilliantly successful, and Italy, always in his thoughts and even in his dreams, seemed at length within reach. Meanwhile at Rome Fabius was preparing to start in pursuit of Fabius Hannibal. The alarm in the city had as usual turned men's thought ^^^kes to the gods. The Sibylline books were consulted, a " sacred spring" '^'^J'""^^^ vowed, a lectisternium held for three days, sacrifices performed on a ^ij vast scale, and all the resources of superstition brought into play. Fabius then enrolled two legions, and summoned the consul to meet him by the Flaminian road. At Ocriculum he took over the army, I sending Servilius to command a fleet at Ostia and attack a Punic ' squadron, which was cruising on the coast of Etruria and had captured some Roman transports on the way to Spain. He himself advanced to I Praeneste, and thence by cross roads came upon the via Latina^ by i which he reached Daunia and encamped within sight of Hannibal's quarters at Arpi. Hannibal at once offered battle. But Fabius had Follows resolved on a policy to which he obstinately clung in spite of much Cannibal, (Obloquy for many years. It gained him the name of Cimctator^ but "i^'.,f • was rewarded eventually by the acknowledgment of his having been the one man who restored the fortunes of the State. This was to hang I about Hannibal's army, in camp or on the march, watching every I opportunity of harassing or annoying him, but rigorously to decline I battle. He rightly felt that Hannibal had all to lose by delay. The i Romans had immense resources from which to draw: Hannibal [depended entirely upon plunder, which must become less and less pro- jductive every month he stayed in Italy. Like all narrow and rigorous ( plans, it might be pushed too far, and Fabius could never reconcile himself later on to the forward policy of Scipio : but for the present lit baffled Hannibal. Fabius kept his men in camp, and con- (tented himself with dogging his steps, cutting off stragglers and Imarauders, and habituating his troops to the fatigues and discipline lof war. I Daunia being exhausted, Hannibal crossed the Apennines into Samnlum. JSamnium, overran the territory of Beneventum, and took the rich town of Telesia. Wherever he went Fabius followed, one or two days' 320 HISTORY OF ROME Hannibal goes into Campania. Harinibal out-man- auvres Fabius. march behind, making careful reconnaissances and keeping on safe ground. Finding that Fabius was not to be induced to fight, Hannibal determined to advance boldly into Campania. Passing over the hills by Cales he encamped on the right bank of the Volturnus, and sent out foraging parties in all directions. Fabius followed, still resolved to avoid battle. But such a resolution was necessarily a most irksome one to his army. The soldiers skirted the mountains with the Carthaginians in view, but were not allowed to descend and drive the plunderers from the rich Falernian plains. It was the more exasperating because the Roman officers themselves believed Hannibal to be in a trap, and were as eager as the men for battle. The discontent found a mouthpiece in the master of the horse, Minucius, who had all along wished to fight, and had now the feelings of the army with him. Fabius, however, believed that he was in a position to starve Hannibal out. His troops at Tarracina barred the Appian Way to Rome ; Casilinum and the road over Mount Tlfata by which Hannibal had descended were guarded; and while the Romans could draw supplies from home, from Capua, and from Samnium, Hannibal would be forced to winter, inadequately provisioned, in the marshy ground between the mouths of the Liris and Volturnus.^ The difficulty was to get back as he came, and this he accomplished by a bold manoeuvre. A detachment of 4000 men held the gorge between Tifata and the Volturnus, and in anticipation of Hannibal's retrograde movement Fabius moved his main army to within a short distance of this position. But Hannibal, taking advantage of a dark night, ordered a herd of cattle with burning torches attached to their horns to be driven up the mountain. Behind them were some light-armed troops instructed to assist in driving them part of the way, and then to pass them at the double and make for the ridge, with all possible noise and commotion. The ruse succeeded in drawing the 4000 men from the gorge, who fell in with some of the enemy and skirmished for a time, and finally ensconced themselves on the mountain and waited for light. Meanwhile Hannibal, who had his army ready for the start, marched through the abandoned gorge. The nocturnal alarm- had not induced Fabius to leave his camp, and in the morning he found that the enemy had escaped him. After making a feint of advancing towards Rome through Samnium, Hannibal turned south-east from the territory of the ^ According to Livy, Hannibal had got into a situation he had not intended. He had aimed at reaching Casinum on the Latin road to cut oft" troops coming from Rome ; but his guide, misled by his foreign accent, had taken him past Casilinum and down into the Falernian territory. He knew at once that it was too much enclosed, and was not fit for winter quarters. XXIII HANNIBAL AND MINUCIUS 321 Peligni, re-entered Apulia, and seized Geronium, near Larinum. The Hannibal inhabitants resisted but were taken prisoners or put to the sword, returns to and the buildings reserved for the army and stores. It was in the ^/""^' course of this march that he is said to have tried to discredit Fabius by ordering one of his farms to be spared by his foragers. Fabius, however, frustrated the device by sending his son home to sell the farm and devote the price to the ransom of prisoners. Hannibal seems to have meant his return to Apulia to be the end of the campaign ; but Fabius still hung on the skirts of the neighbouring hills, and being obliged to go home to conduct certain sacrifices left strict orders with M. Minucius, encamped near Larinum, to follow the same tactics and not give Hannibal battle. Minucius had other thoughts. The strategy of Fabius, always M. unpopular, had been farther discredited by the failure to intercept Mimicius Hannibal's return from Campania ; and Minucius now began to look ^-J}^)^,' out for the opportunity of striking a blow. For a few days he still command, kept on high ground ; but when he found that Hannibal had taken provokes Geronium and was collecting corn from the country, he descended to Hanmbal. the foot of a hill (called Galena) three or four miles west of Geronium. Hannibal gladly went to meet him, and pitched a camp on some rising ground Vv'ithin sight, sending out as usual about a third of his army to forage. To provoke him still farther he caused about 2000 light-armed troops to occupy a hill between the two camps. At daybreak Minucius assaulted and carried this hill and transferred his camp to it. The two armies remained thus close for some days with- out stirring. But the collection of stores for the winter was necessary for Hannibal ; and he was compelled to divide his forces, sending out two-thirds for corn and fodder. The remainder were insufficient to enable him to accept battle, which Minucius took care to offer at the hour at which he knew the foraging parties to be out. Hannibal's apparent timidity filled the Roman soldiers with such confidence that they even attempted to storm the camp, and only desisted on the arrival of Hasdrubal with a strong detachment recalled from the fields. Meanwhile a portion of the Roman army had cut off some isolated foraging parties ; and altogether Hannibal found the position untenable and withdrew to Geronium lest it too should be attacked in his absence. Exaggerated accounts of these movements reached Rome and Minucius caused great exultation. Fabius's policy was more unpopular than ^"^^e ever ; Minucius became the idol of the hour. A vote of the people ^^ ^ ^^' was even obtained, giving him equal powers with Fabius, ^ who on ^ It was altogether an unprecedented measure. To have two dictators was an absurdity. But Polybius (iii. 103, 104) speaks of Minucius as a "dictator," and this is confirmed by an inscription, C.I.L. i, 1503 Heixolei sacrom M. Minuci\us'\ C. F. dictator vovit. 322 HISTORY OF ROME Fab ins saves rejoining the army, therefore, found himself unable to carry out his plans, and offered Minucius either to take supreme command on alternate days, or to divide the legions and occupy separate camps. Minucius chose the latter alternative. Hannibal took advantage of this by again seizing a hill between their camps and tempting Minucius out. But this time he prepared an ambuscade ; and while Minucius was intent on the struggle for the hill, in which Hannibal himself took part in strong force, the men in ambush suddenly charged the flank and rear of the Romans. Their ranks were broken, a considerable number fell, and a retreat began which threatened to become a flight, accompanied by a heavy loss if not annihilation. But Fabius had been watching the combat and came up at the right moment with his fresh forces, and, covering Minucius. ti-,e retreat of the beaten army, forced Hannibal to retire. This . caused a reaction of feeling, and with universal approval Minucius resigned his powers into the hands of Fabius, reunited the camps, and henceforth followed his orders. Nothing farther was done on either side that season. Cn. Scipio Meanwhile events in Spain and at sea had been more favourable tn Spam, j^q Rome. Early in 2 1 7 Cn. Scipio had taken twenty-five of the forty ^^^' vessels with which Hasdrubal had come to the mouth of the Ebro, A fresh Carthaginian fleet of seventy vessels had touched at Sardinia and Pisae (near which they seem to have expected to find Hannibal), but had been chased back to Africa by Servilius with a fleet of 1 2 5 war vessels. Servilius went as far as the African coast, and though he seems to have suffered some loss while attempting a descent upon it, he exacted a contribution from the island Cercina, off the Lesser Syrtis, and plundered Cossyra on his way back to Lilybaeum. These were no great achievements, but the presence of a powerful fleet prevented any despatch of reinforcements from Carthage either to Spain or Hannibal. Twenty ships were then sent to Spain under the command of Publius Scipio, whose imperiuvi had been extended. He joined his brother, and for the first time a Roman army advanced to the south of the Ebro. The native tribes were overawed, and when Scipio arrived at Saguntum the treachery of Abilyx gave him an opportunity of which he made prompt use. The governor of Saguntum had in charge some young Spanish hostages entrusted to him by Hannibal. Abilyx, though he had the reputation of being warmly Carthaginian, had secretly concluded that the Romans were the more likely to win, and now offered to put these hostages into Scipio's hands. He deluded the governor Bostar by pretending that he should have the credit of restoring them, and led them straight to the Roman camp, whence they were despatched to their homes. Thus before going into winter quarters the Scipios could XXIII PRErARATIONS FOR ANOTHER BATTLE 323 feel that they had impressed the natives in favour of Rome, both by the destruction of a Punic fleet and by displaying a generous confidence in the Spanish chiefs. The spirit of renewed hope at Rome was shown by the election 216. Coss. of Gains Terentius Varro to the consulship, who had been the chief ^■''"'" supporter of the measure for making Minucius equal to Fabius. In f'^" "^-^ spite of the resistance of the nobles, he alone obtained a majority of Ae^niUus the centuries, and had to hold the election of his colleague Paullus, Paullus II. the conqueror in the Illyric war of 219. Varro is said to have been the son of a butcher, and to have assisted his father in a menial capacity. Whatever may be the truth, he had gained the ear of the I people, who believed in his will and ability to meet Hannibal. To select a military commander by popular vote, and on the ground of civil ability, is indeed hopelessly absurd. The wonder is that such , men so often succeeded, not that they often failed. In regard to Varro the popular feeling seems to have had some solid ground. He lost Cannae, indeed, but he showed courage and ability in repairing the disaster, and was almost constantly employed with respectable : success afterwards. Fabius and his colleague Minucius laid down I their office. The consuls of the previous year, ServiHus Geminus j and Atihus Regulus (successor to the slain Flaminius), had their i imperiiim extended, and were sent to the army in Apulia ; while the I new consuls, in consultation with the Senate, were employed in ! enrolling men to fill up the gaps in the old legions and to form new I ones. For it was determined that a battle must be fought. The j praetor, Postumius, was sent into Gaul to effect a diversion, with the Postumius \ hope that the Gauls serving with Hannibal might be thereby induced '^^ Gaul. I to return home. The fleet was recalled from Lilybaeum, and sup- plies sent to Spain. Offers of aid from various quarters served to Offers of I farther encourage the Romans. From Naples and Paestum came ^^'^• I large presents of gold plate ; from Hiero a golden figure of victory, j large quantities of corn and barley, with promises of more, and I 1000 archers and slingers. The gold of Naples and Paestum, with j the exception of the smallest cup, was declined with warm thanks ; but Hiero's contributions were gratefully accepted, and twenty-five ( quinqueremes were sent to reinforce Titus Otacilius in Sicily, who ; was authorised to cross to Africa if he thought it expedient. j The proconsuls, according to their instructions, had maintained Hannibal \ the Fabian policy during the summer months. But when harvest -^^^-^^-^ I time approached, Hannibal was obliged to move in order to collect ''■""^^• \ supplies. Breaking up his camp at Geronium he seized Cannae, a j small town on the right bank of the Aufidus, about eight miles from I its mouth. It had been damaged, if not destroyed, the year before ; j but its citadel remained, and had been used by the Romans as a 324 HISTORY OF ROME // is decided to give Hannibal battle. The consuls go to the seat of war, 2Z6. Different views of Aemiliiis and Varro. A skirmish encourages Varro. Two Rotnan camps. magazine. Hannibal, by its capture, not only got a rich supply, but, as he intended, made the proconsuls eager to fight before he got complete command of the district. They sent frequent messages to Rome for instructions ; and, after anxious deliberation, the Senate decided that they should give Hannibal battle, but should wait the arrival of the consuls. Aemilius and Varro were ordered to make all despatch, and to join the proconsuls with their armies, thus raising the force to eight legions, amounting, with allies, to about 80,000 men. The hopes of the Senate were centred in Aemilius, whose military career had been brilliant. They neither liked nor trusted Varro, and their sentiments are dramatically represented by Livy in the form of a solemn warning delivered by Fabius to Aemilius, on the eve of his departure, to beware of his colleague's rashness not less than of the enemy's forces, and to keep resolutely to the policy which he himself had followed. There seems no doubt, however, that the consuls went to the seat of war with instructions to fight ; and Aemilius's address to the soldiers, on his joining the army, assumed that a battle was to be sought with all speed. Still they would have to exercise discretion as to the ground on which to fight ; and on this point Aemilius soon found himself at variance with Varro. When after two days' march they came in sight of Hannibal's position at Cannae, Aemilius at once observed that the country was too flat and open to engage an enemy superior in cavalry. They must first try to draw him to ground more favourable to themselves. Varro thought differently. He knew that to fight was what was expected of him at Rome. He had had no experience of actual warfare, and perhaps thought that eight Roman legions formed so overpowering a force that victory was secure. When both consuls were at the seat of war it was customary for them to take the chief command on alternate days. The day after they arrived within about six miles of Hannibal's camp, it was Varro's turn to command, and he immediately ordered an advance. Hannibal hurled his light-armed troops and cavalry at his line, and a somewhat severe struggle ensued, only ended by nightfall, and, on the whole, not unfavourable to the Romans. Next day Aemilius could no longer draw off his army as he would have wished. He set himself, however, to secure his position as far as he could. He fortified one camp on the left bank of the Aufidus, in which he placed two-thirds of the army, while the remain- ing third was entrenched in a smaller camp on the right bank, near the ford, less than two miles from the enemy. His object was to have protection for his own foraging parties, and a means of attack- ing those of the enemy, while this smaller camp was sufficiently within reach of the larger to secure mutual support. XXIII BATTLE OF CANNAE 325 Hannibal formed a camp on the left bank of the river also, and Hannibal gave every sign of wishing for a battle. In fact, a battle was neces- provokes sary to him. As long as the present position continued, he could ^ ^<^til^- neither collect supplies nor march elsewhere without being attacked. Aemilius, however, still thought the place unsafe. He felt sure that Hannibal would soon be obliged to shift his quarters, and could be better attacked in the process, or on other ground. But next day Varro was in command, and resolved to fight. On the previous evening their watering parties had been harassed by the Numidian cavalry, and the soldiers were as eager for battle as the consul, and when they rose in the morning rejoiced to see the red flag flying over his tent. The men from the greater camp crossed the Aufidus, and were Roman drawn up facing south, with 2000 Roman cavalry on their right, f^^^^^- resting on the river, and 4000 allied cavalry on the left. There . were 70,000 infantry on the ground, 10,000 being left to guard the camp. The heavy -armed were in column, with less space d than usual between the maniples ; the light-armed were slightly in advance. On Hannibal's right was a body of Balearic slingers and light- HannibaVs \ armed javelin-throwers ; on his left, close to the river, and facing the order. Roman cavalry, were 4000 Spanish and Gallic horse ; on his right, I facing the allied cavalry, 6000 Numidian light horse. His line was (I formed of his heavy-armed Africans in two bodies on the right and left, with Spanish and Gallic infantry in the centre. His line was about the same length as that of the Romans ; but after a while he \ moved the Spaniards and Gauls forward, and so graduated the posi- \ tion of the companies to the right and left of them that the whole presented somewhat the appearance of a crescent, with the convex towards the enemy. The object of this arrangement was that the African troops, who were well armed with Roman weapons taken in previous battles, should form a reserve, while the worse armed and less trustworthy Gauls and Spaniards should receive the first attack of the enemy. The battle was begun by an engagement between the light-armed The battle \ troops in front of the respective lines, and was for some time unde- ^f Cannae, cisive. But presently the 4000 Spanish and GalHc cavalry on the ^^^ , ^^^^ left joined in the attack upon the Roman light-armed, dismounting and grappling with their enemies, who were utterly routed. The greater part fell on the ground, and when the survivors fled towards the river the cavalry pursued, cutting them down, and giving no quarter. The Roman heavy -armed then advanced to the ground j abandoned by the light-armed, and, closing their ranks and reducing the space between the maniples, charged the Carthaginian centre in CHAP, xxiii ANNIHILATION OF ROMAN ARMY 327 a solid wedge. Their immense weight told at once, and they cut their way through the thin line of Spanish and African infantry. But this success proved fatal to them. They pursued too far, and the two Carthaginian wings faced to left and right, and charged their flanks. Thus surrounded they fought gallantly ; but their line was disordered, and each maniple, or even each soldier, fought as, and where, he best could. Aemilius had already been engaged in the disastrous fight with the cavalry. He now rode up to the centre and led the charge in person, Hannibal also being in the centre of his own line. For some time the struggle went on, until Hasdrubal, who commanded the left cavalry, returned from chasing the light- j armed, and after assisting the Numidian cavalry to drive off the cavalry on the left of the Roman line, returned to the centre and charged the legions on the rear. Then all was lost. Aemilius fell in the thick of the fight, and the The consuls of the previous year, Atilius and Servifius, soon shared his Romans fate. The bulk of the soldiers fighting doggedly to the last were «''^'^^«^^«. , gradually reduced by continual charges on every side to a disordered Aernilius I mass of fugitives, most of whom were cut off in detail, though some killed. escaped along the road or across country towards Venusia. The ( cavalry had dismounted and fought on foot ; but some of them managed to regain their horses and escape. As Cn. Lentulus was I galloping off the field he saw Aemilius, we are told, sitting on a rock, I bleeding from numberless wounds. He would have given him his ( horse to secure his escape. The consul refused, preferring to die 1 with his men ; but he bade Lentulus hasten to Rome to warn the * Senate to strengthen the defences of the city, and to tell Fabius that ' he had not forgotten to follow his advice. 1 ' Terentius Varro, with about seventy horsemen, escaped to Venusia. Varro But the Roman army was annihilated. Out of the 70,000 infantry escapes to ! actually engagjed on the field little more than 3000 escaped to the neighbouring towns, though almost as many more appear to have wandered about in the country, and eventually rejoined ; while on ithe field lay piles of dead, among whom was one of the consuls for the year, the two consuls of the previous year, beside other con- sulars, the quaestors of both consuls, twenty-nine out of forty-eight i' military tribunes, numerous ex-praetors and ex-aediles, and eighty senators. Some 600 from the lesser camp, under a military tribune, P. Sempronius Tuditanus, closed their ranks and made their way to the larger camp, and, being joined by a detachment from it, fought their way to Canusium. The 10,000 guarding the greater camp had made early in the day an ineffectual attempt to storm the Car- ' This is not mentioned by Polybius, and is hardly consistent with his narra- I tive. Venusia. 328 HISTORY OF ROME Spirited conduct of Varro, and of Scipio and others, 216. Hannibal after the battle. thaginian camp ; they were now surrounded by Hannibal's victorious army, and, after losing 2000 men, were compelled to surrender. The number of the prisoners was swollen by those taken on the field, and by about 2000 stragglers brought in by the Numidian cavalry, which scoured the country round. That all was not lost was greatly due to the fortitude of Varro, and to the patriotism of four military tribunes — Fabius Maximus, son of Cunctator, Publicius Bibulus, P. Cornelius Scipio [Africanus], Appius Claudius Pulcher. These four young nobles had made their way to Canusium, some five miles from the field, with others, among whom counsels of despair prevailed. Rome was lost, they thought ; it was better to escape over sea where their swords might find them a new career, L. Caecilius Metellus actually proposed to do so. But Scipio and the other three came to the place in which they were deliberating, and with drawn swords forced them to swear that they would not desert their country. Meanwhile Varro, at Venusia, twenty-eight miles from Cannae, had been exerting himself to collect the scattered remains of his army. Before long he mustered between 4000 and 5000 infantry and cavalry, which were almost daily in- creased by fresh arrivals, until he had again something like a con- sular army. The refugees at -Canusium had been furnished with necessaries by a lady named Busa ; those at Venusia were supplied by the municipality with money, clothes, and arms, besides receiving many private benefactions. After hearing from Scipio, Varro led his men to Canusium to await orders froni home. The Carthaginian army was no longer threatening them. After making arrangements as to booty and captives Hannibal marched westward into Samnium towards Compsa, in the territory of the Hirpini, on the upper course of the Aufidus, to which he had been invited by a man of influence named Statins Trebius. There seems to have been a feeling among his army that he might advance at once against Rome, instead of attending to this and similar invitations. Cato recorded that Maharbal, his captain of the horse, assured him that if he would only send him on at once with the cavalry he should " on the fifth day feast as conqueror on the Capitol." The question why Hannibal refrained was long a theme for declamation, and may perhaps be still regarded as a problem. We must remember that his object was to rouse the Italian states, and attack Rome with all Italy at his back. Would it be wise, before securing that object, with an army wearied and diminished (for he had lost 6000 men in the battle), to attack a strong city, still rich in resources and filled with a warlike and desperate people? "You know how to win a victory, Hannibal " — Maharbal is represented as saying — " but not how to use it." Perhaps he might more truly have said that xxin DISMAY AT ROME 329 Hannibal knew the limitations of his powers, and what he could and could not do J The rumour of disaster reached Rome before any official report, Measures and as usual even exaggerated the blow, heavy as it was. Both of defence consuls, it was reported, had fallen ; their armies had been utterly at Rome, destroyed. Hannibal was master of Apulia, of Samnium, of nearly all Italy. The city was without an army or a general. Hannibal himself would before long be at their gates. The praetors summoned the Senate to discuss the defence of Rome. It met in such excitement, and amid such sounds of ' mourning, that for a time it seemed impossible even to discuss or suggest a plan. At length Q. Fabius Maximus proposed that some horsemen should be sent along the Appian and Latin Roads to question stragglers and to discover where Hannibal was ; that sentinels be posted at the gates to bring all fugitives to the praetors, and to prevent a flight of men from the city, — to convince all that their one hope of safety was to defend their homes. The voice of decision is always acceptable to men dismayed and puzzled. Fabius's proposal I hushed the tumult. The magistrates recovered their presence of !mind, and with the help of the senators forced the excited crowds J from the Forum. Presently a horseman entered the gates with a Despatch I despatch from Varro, announcing the death of Aemilius and the fro7n jdestruction of his army. But it added that "he himself was at /'"^■'■^. jCanusium gathering the wrecks of the disaster, and had already Jnearly 10,000 men, though grievously disorganised. Hannibal was jat Cannae still, trafficking for prisoners and booty, unlike a great Iconqueror or general." Another outburst of grief followed the announcement of the list lof dead. Not a single matron but was placed in mourning, and Ithereby prevented from joining in the rites of Ceres which were ^celebrated about this time by the Roman ladies. ^ The feeling of Iterror was heightened by the receipt about the same time of a message from Titus Otacilius, asking for more ships to protect the Fresh [kingdom of Hiero, which he was unable to do because a second disasters. (Carthaginian fleet was threatening Sicily, Reports of portents ^ The famous story of Maharbal's proposal and comment is not noticed I by Polybius, though he records the feehng in the Carthaginian army in favour of. attacking Rome. Livy (xxii. 51) is said to have taken it from Caelius, who copied it from Cato (Gell. x. 24, 6). The later authorities tell it with variations. Florus (i. 22, 19), Valerius Max. (ix. 5), Zonaras (ix. i) agree with Livy. Plutarch {^Fab. 17) gives the advice to " his friends " and the comment to " Barcas." Silius «Italicus (x. 375) makes Mago the spokesman. ^ The Ludi Cereales were on the ides of April. The battle of Cannae seems certainly to have been fought in August. These later cerealia seem to have been mysteries celebrated, like those of the Bona Dea, by women alone. 330 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. XXIII High spirit of the Senate, 2i6. Varro returns to Rotne and is well received. spread from mouth to mouth, and, to crown all, two Vestal Virgms were convicted of unchastity. One of them forestalled her fate by suicide; the other underwent the cruel punishment of living burial, while her lover was beaten to death in the Forum. The Sibylline books were consulted, Fabius Pictor sent to Delphi, and, without waiting for the answer of the oracle, two men and women, Gaul and Greek, are said, as before, to have been buried alive in the Forum Boarium. But the Senate took other and more reasonable steps. Marcellus, commanding the fleet at Ostia, was ordered to relieve Varro. Sending 1500 marines for the defence of Rome, and despatching the legion belonging to the fleet to Sidicinum on the Latin Road, he handed over the command of the ships to M. Furius, and hastened to lead his men in the direction of Canusium. On the order of the Senate M. Junius Pera was named dictator, who, with Ti. Sempromus as master of the horse, proclaimed a general levy. Youths below the military age were enrolled, and 8000 slaves freed at the pubhc expense on condition of serving in the army. By these means four legions, with 1000 cavalry, were made up, and the usual complement demanded from the Italian towns. The unbroken spirit of the Senate was farther shown by the stern answer to the prayer of the prisoners taken at Cannae that they might be ransomed. Though besieged by the mournful relatives and friends of the prisoners, the Fathers refused to depart from the ancient rule which left the Roman soldier no hope but to conquer or die. One of the envoys, who had given their oath to return, had made some excuse for going back to Hannibal's camp, and, pretending to have thus fulfilled his promise, endeavoured to remain behind at Rome, but was detected and sent back in chains to Hannibal. Nor was this the only sign that the people and Senate were not utterly carried away by panic. A despatch was sent to Varro, ordering his return to Rome as soon as was consistent with the good of the State. When he did return the people gave a generous proof that neither anger nor terror had blinded them to the value of his services since the battle. He was met by a procession of all classes, as he, might have been if his fasces had been wreathed with the laurel of victory, and he was publicly thanked because he had not •despaired of the Republic. A people calm enough to be just in the midst of such disasters is not conquered. A general whose popularity survived Cannae cannot have been a mere empty demagogue. CHAPTER XXIV THE SECOND PUNIC WAR — Continued Hannibal, after Cannae, is joined by Italian towns — Enters Campania, recoils from Naples, but is joined by Capua — Movements of Marcellus — The Castra Claudiana. Spain — Defeat of Hasdrubal and diversion of Carthaginian reinforcements from Italy (216) — Hannibal winters in Capua (216-215) — ' Takes Casilinum (215) — Fall of Postumius. Sicily — Death of Hiero — j Hieronymus joins Carthage— -Revolution at Syracuse and death of Hieronymus 1 (215) — Hippocrates and Epicydes at Syracuse defy the Romans — Marcellus ' in Sicily — Siege of Syracuse (214-212) — The inventions of Archimedes — * Hanno at Agrigentum (212). Italy (214-207) — Hannibal in Campania — I Goes to Tarentum (214) — Fabius takes Arpi — Hannibal takes Tarentum I (212) — Livius holds the citadel (212-210) — Siege of Capua — Hannibal's march on Rome — Fall of Capua and settlement of Campania (211) — Fall j of Cn. Fulvius at Herdonia — Three days' fighting in Lucania — Marcellus I confined to Venusia (210) — Fabius recovers Tarentum (209) — Fall of Mar- I cellus (208)— Defeat of Hasdrubal on the Metaurus (207). ^ Unsurpassed as a commander and strategist in camp or field Effects of I Hannibal never, except at Saguntum, won a great success against ^^^^ hattle \ walled towns. It is likely, therefore, that he was right in rejecting J A^^"f^' : the suggestion of an advance upon Rome. His troops would follow ! him anywhere and fight any one, but his veterans from Africa were j reduced in number, and neither Spaniards nor Gauls would have \ endured the fatigues of a great siege. Meanwhile the results of Cannae answered his expectations. Revolt from Rome spread through I the Italian towns, and he soon might hope that the Republic would be reduced to the old limit of Latium, shut off from the south by a chain of free states, and from the north by the Gauls, without the intervening posts which had been gradually formed in Etruria to resist them. The states of Bruttium, with the one exception of j Petelia, joined Hannibal. All Lucania, all the Samnites except the * Pucetii, the Campanian Calatia and Atella, some of the towns of ; Apulia, were ready to shake off the Roman yoke even at the cost of accepting a Punic garrison. Always fated to take the losing side 332 HISTORY OF ROME Hannibal i7iclined to viake peace, 216. Hannibal in Cam- pania. Capua. Nola. the Greek Tarentum, Metapontum, Croton, and Locri hastened to renounce allegiance to Rome. The movement was so general that Hannibal seems to have thought that the Romans might be already willing to yield, and he is said to have sent an emissary to Rome with the deputation of prisoners, with authority to treat. But to complete the isolation of Rome it was necessary to occupy Campania, Leaving his heavy baggage at Compsa, in the territory of the Hirpini, to which he had been invited immediately after Cannae, and detaching a force under Himilco to secure Lucania and Bruttium, he entered Campania and approached Naples. A seaport was necessary to him for the recep- tion of the reinforcement and supplies which he hoped the victory would bring from home. But the sight of its lofty walls deterred him from attempting a storm, and the citizens showed no disposition to open their gates. He turned aside to Capua, where he knew the majority were prepared to welcome him. In most Campanian towns the aristocracy wished to stand by Rome ; the populace, in hopes of more complete autonomy, were inclined to Hannibal. This was specially the case at Capua, where the " knights " enjoyed conubium with Rome and were connected with Roman families, while 300 of them were actually serving in the army in Sicily. But a revolution of the previous year had given the popular party the upper hand, and though a regard for the safety of the 300 in Sicily induced them to send offers of assistance to Varro at Canusium, the emissaries were so convinced of Rome's weakness by Varro's eager acceptance, that on their return they persuaded the people to open communications with Hannibal. He consented that they should retain their autonomy ; that no Campanian should be under the jurisdiction of a Carthaginian magistrate or serve against his will in the Carthaginian army ; and, to relieve the anxiety of the " knights " for the safety of the 300 in Sicily, he handed over 300 Roman prisoners as hostages. But there was to be a Punic garrison in Capua, and the futility of all stipulations for independence was at once shown by Hannibal's arresting and shipping to Carthage the leader of the Romanising party, Decius Magius. Fixing his headquarters at Capua, Hannibal endeavoured to secure other strong places in Campania. The first object of attack was Nola, about twenty-one miles south of Capua. Here the same division of feeling existed, but the aristocrats were still in the ascendant and contrived to communicate with Marcellus, who had now left the command in Apulia to the dictator, and established himself at Casilinum, which controlled the bridge over the Volturnus. He marched up that river, crossed it near Saticula, and skirting Mount Taburnus came in sight of Nola. Hannibal retired along the XXIV HANNIBAL IN CAPUA 333 road towards Naples, and turning- to the left appeared before Nuceria, Nuceria. sixteen miles from Nola. Here he must have spent some time, for the inhabitants only yielded to famine, and were allowed to depart with their lives, dispersing into other Campanian towns, while their own was plundered and burnt. He then again approached Nola, now occupied by Marcellus, and trusting to an arrangement with the democratic party made preparations for an assault. But Marcellus Repulse at had discovered the intrigue, and so disposed his forces as to bring ^'^^''• them out from three separate gates, and attack the Carthaginians — who expected to find the town divided by a contest between the two parties — on three points at once. There was nothing left but to retire. Some loss was inflicted on the enemy, but the chief satisfaction was that for the first time Hannibal had sustained some- I thing like a check. 1 The siege of Nola was abandoned, and the traitors within the walls punished. Hannibal next attacked Acerrae, but the people escaped, and Hannibal 1 instead of securing another state friendly to himself he could only '^^^t^f^ at ■plunder and burn a deserted town. He then retired into winter ^^^t'- I quarters at Capua, after first vainly attempting to secure Casilinum, j then occupied by a garrison of men from Praeneste, Perusia, and I other towns, who had been too late to join the army at Cannae. 1 These men maintained an heroic defence through the winter months, j and only surrendered eventually when reduced to the last extremity j of starvation ; and it was not until the beginning of 2 1 5 that the j town was handed over to the people of Capua and occupied by a I Punic garrison. Thus though Hannibal was in the heart of Cam- I pania he had secured no harbour town, and was watched and ! threatened from the Castra Claudicnia^ which Marcellus had fortified above Suessula, and was debarred from Latium. Besides a somewhat favourable answer brought from Delphi by Good news Fabius Pictor, the Romans were encouraged by good news from from Spain Spain before the beginning of the next consular year. Hasdrubal ^y^,^-^ j had been hampered in the early part of 2 1 6 by a revolt in southern ^^^ Spain, over which he triumphed with difficulty ; and when he ad- vanced later in the year to the Ebro he was under orders to make his way to Italy, which impaired his prestige in Spain and made it [ probable that the country behind him would rise. He found the ^ This and other achievements of Marcellus are doubted, chiefly on the authority of a fragmentary sentence of Polybius (Plutarch, Cofnpar. Marc, et Pelop.), "Marcellus never conquered Hannibal." But Polybius seems to mean " in a pitched battle." Livy's narrative does not here or elsewhere attribute such j a victory to Marcellus. In this instance it does not seem certain that Hannibal was personally engaged, and a check, however slight, to any part of his forces would in the then state of alarm seem almost a victory. 334 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Fall of Postumius in Gaul. Death oj Hiero, winter of 216-21S. 21^. Coss. C. Postujn- iusAlbinus occ, Tib. Sempron- ius Grac- chus, M. Claudius Mairellus abd., Q. Fabius Maxim us -III. Scipios on the Ebro, and after a few days' skirmishing was com- pletely defeated, escaping from the field with only a handful of men. This not only prevented his reinforcement of Hannibal, but was followed by a general defection of the Spanish tribes. It also diverted the expedition to south Italy from Carthage, which had been sent in consequence of Mago's report of the victory of Cannae, when he had poured out upon the Senate- House floor a large measure of gold rings taken from the hands of Roman knights and senators, and had bidden them judge from that the number of the common soldiers slain. When the news of the Spanish disaster came, he was bidden to take to Spain the money, elephants, and Numidian cavalry which had been voted for Italy, while another expedition was fitted out for Sardinia, said at that time to be ready to revolt from Rome. The elections were therefore held with more cheerful feelings ; but they were scarcely over when fresh dismay was caused by the news that one of those elected, C. Postumius, had fallen in the valley of the Po. He had been sent in 216 as praetor to effect a diversion among the C^auls, but had fallen into an ambush in the Silva Litana^ near Bononia, and had perished with nearly his whole army. Thus the hold of Rome upon northern Italy was seriously weakened. From Sicily and Sardinia also came appeals for provisions and reinforcements, which the Senate had not the means to supply, while they were even obliged to say in answer to similar appeals from Italian towns, such as Petelia in Bruttium, that they must consult for their own safety. To crown all, Hiero of Syracuse died during the winter. He had been the consistent and liberal friend of Rome since 263, and he was succeeded by his youthful grandson Hieronymus, whose policy was unknown, but whose father Gelon had belonged to an anti-Roman faction. Roman life, however, went on as usual. We hear of the dedica- tion of a temple of Venus, an exhibition of gladiators, and the annual games. Even the jealousy of the orders survived. Marcellus was elected in place of Postumius, but was forced to abdicate on the report of bad omens, really because of the still existing prejudice against two plebeian consuls, and was succeeded by Fabius Cunctator. The plan of the campaign, under the influence of Fabius, was again to be one of caution. Marcellus, as proconsul, commanded in the Cast7-a Manliaiiaj Fabius and Gracchus, the former with the veterans who had wintered at Teanum, the latter with an army composed of slaves who volunteered in Apulia, and of allies, — en- camped the first near Casilinum, the second at Liternum, near Cumae. Pitched battles were avoided, but every chance was seized of cutting off stragglers, foraging parties, or messengers. Apulia and Tarentum HANNIBAL ABANDONS CAMPANIA 335 were guarded by legions brought from Sicily, where they were re- placed by those disgraced at Cannae, and by twenty-five ships under the praetor Valerius ; Q. Fabius guarded the coast of Latium with 'twenty-five ships ; Varro went to Picenum to levy troops. Against this strategy of Fabius and Gracchus Hannibal effected Reported nothing of importance. The Roman writers dwell on the demoralisa- de7noral- tion of his army by the luxuries of a Capuan winter. The men '-^^'"'^^ ^f ^ could not bear the hardships of the camp any longer, and stole back to the town at ever}^ opportunity. Hannibal's losses in battle had not been supplied by reinforcements from home ; the Italian allies could scarcely have been enthusiastic ; and the attack on walled towns which was necessary in Campania was that in which he was least successful. Thus he was baffled in an attempt upon Cumae ; his lieutenant Hanno sustained a defeat near Grumentum at the hands of Sempronius Longus, which appears to have confined him to Bruttium ; and the praetor Valerius recovered the revolted towns of the Hirpini. Meanwhile Fabius had been taking various strongholds in northern Campania, and had even marched past Hanni- Ibal and effected a junction with Marcellus near Nola. It was not jtill towards the end of the summer that Hannibal learnt that Hanno had been reinforced and could join him. He determined upon Reinforce- |striking one blow for the possession of Campania by attacking Nola, wt-^/j Jexplaining to the Hirpini, who begged for his aid, that he would be ^''''^'^ jthus rendering them the most effectual assistance. But Marcellus 'had already occupied Nola in force, and defended himself with Repulsed (spirit. After one unsuccessful sortie he seized an opportunity for before ^attacking Hannibal's army when weakened by the detachment of ^''"''• ■foragers, and drove it back on its camp with heavy loss. This was Ifollowed by almost the only instance of any important desertion from 1 Hannibal's army, and before long he raised the siege, removed to lApulia, and went into winter quarters near Arpi. 1 Thus the tide seemed on the turn. During the same season a Sardinia iCarthaginian fleet and army had been beaten in Sardinia; and and Spain. (though Scipio had written towards the end of the season asking for llarge supplies of men and money, and describing the pressing wants of his army, yet his despatch also contained accounts of fresh suc- Icesses ; and the poverty of the exchequer had been relieved by the 'voluntary contribution of syndicates of wealthy men, who advanced the money for the service in Spain on the faith of the public credit. Hannibal had, on the other hand, been encouraged by the ofTer Treaty of alliance from Philip of Macedon. Twice the ambassadors who between I came from the king fell into the hands of the Romans : for having ^^^ ^• I eluded their captors on their way to Hannibal by the cunning of Hannibal kheir leader Xenophanes, they were again taken on their return 336 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Sicily, 2iy2I2. Hierony mus repudiates the Roman alliance. Assassin- ation of Hierony- mus, 214. journey. But a second body of envoys was more successful, and returned to Macedonia with a treaty sworn to by Hannibal, in which Philip promised all assistance to the Carthaginians in Italy, which was to be left to them after the war ; while Hannibal in return agreed to prevent the Romans invading Macedonia, or exercising power in Corcyra, Apollonia, Epidamnus, and Pharos, and guaranteed the interests of Demetrius of Pharos. But the capture of the first envoys had enlightened the Romans, and had prevented Philip from attempt- ing the invasion of Italy for that year (215) with his fleet of 200 vessels which he had in readiness. Nor indeed, though remaining nominally at war with Rome till 205, did he ever intervene with effect. His hostility, however, compelled the Romans to keep a fleet in the Adriatic. A new phase in the war now begins, and the interest is in great degree transferred to Sicily. The will of Hiero of Syracuse had committed his young grandson Hieronymus and the state to a council of thirteen. Two of them, Andranodorus and Zoippus, sons- in-law of Hiero, were opposed to the Roman alliance, and persuaded the king that he had sovereign rights over all Sicily, as grandson of Pyrrhus, which he might secure by negotiation with Carthage. Hannibal promptly sent legates to Syracuse, among whom were Hippocrates and Epicydes, sons of a Syracusan exile in Carthage, who at once gained great influence in the court and army. The praetor Appius Claudius sent a warning to the young king, who, however, treated the Roman legates with contumely; taunted them with the defeats in Italy ; and reproached the Romans for having dared to send a fleet into Syracusan waters during his grandfather's lifetime. Nor did he stop here. He at once sent envoys to Carthage to sign a treaty in which the Himera was acknowledged as the boundary of the Carthaginian territory in Sicily. As it was about to be signed, however, another envoy arrived claiming the whole of Sicily. But the Carthaginian government, though thus enlightened as to the nature of their new ally, thought it too import- ant to secure the hostility of Syracuse to Rome to allow them to stand on trifles. If they won, Hieronymus could be dealt with after- wards. The concession was therefore made. riieronymus farther committed himself by telling the Roman envoys sent to remonstrate that he would abide by his grandfather's treaty, if the Romans repaid the gold and corn supplied by Hiero, and acknowledged all Sicily east of the Himera to be Syracusan. This meant war, and preparations were immediately made for it. Epicydes and Hippocrates were sent to attempt towns held by Roman garrisons, and the king at the head of an army started for Leontini. As he was entering the town, however, he was assassinated XXIV MOVEMENTS IN SICILY AGAINST ROME 337 [by conspirators, who, whether acting from private motives of ven- ,geance or on a hint from their Cai-thaginian friends, pacified the ,army and the citizens of Syracuse by dilating on the " liberty " thus jsecured. Andranodorus, who had been left in charge of Syracuse, ,ensconced himself in Ortygia, shut off from the rest of the city by strong fortifications, but next day submitted to the orders of the Senate and people, and was elected one of the " generals " to whom the government of the city was now to be assigned. But Hippo- Hippocrates ,crates and Epicydes presently returned to Syracuse, and by spread- '^^^_ ing a report that Andranodorus was aiming at tyranny, secured his ^''^^ ^^' assassination in a riot, along with the survivors of the royal family jand their partisans, and were themselves elected generals. The election of these agents of Hannibal showed that Republican ^no less than Royal Syracuse meant to renounce the Roman alliance. jThey did not, however, openly avow this purpose, though deprecat- ■ing a mission which had already been sent to the Roman camp. A ^oman fleet off Murgantia was watching events, and for a time they (remained quiet and allowed the negotiation with Marcellus, the new |consul who had now come to Sicily, to go on. But when a Cartha- Outbreak at j^inian fleet appeared rounding Pachynus, they threw off their disguise Syracuse. |and denounced their colleagues as ready to sacrifice their new free- dom to Rome. The appearance of the Roman fleet at the mouth bf the harbour seemed to confirm their words. The excited mob (rushed down to the beach as though to oppose a descent of the (enemy, and were with difficulty persuaded of their impotence and of ithe necessity of continuing negotiation. I But Hippocrates and Epicydes were resolved to commit Syracuse The jto open hostility with Rome. The Leontines had made some raids Leoitines bn Roman territory, and had refused restitution, affirming that they P^^''^ jwere not bound by Syracusan treaties. The Syracusans sent an army jostensibly to enforce their remonstrance ; but meanwhile Marcellus had jtaken Leontini, where he found and executed 2000 Roman deserters. Hippocrates had been on a mission to Leontini, and escaping, joined jEpicydes and the Syracusan army at Herbessus, which they horrified jby an account of the severities of Marcellus at Leontini. They then worked on the jealousy of the mercenaries against the natives, and on the gratitude to Hannibal Xii some Cretans who had been released after Thrasymene. The Syracusan generals had to fly for their lives, and the feelings of the mercenaries were still farther inflamed by the production of forged letters from them to Marcellus, congratu- lating him on the capture of Leontini, and begging him to expel all Hippocrates mercenaries from Sicily. The army followed Hippocrates and ^^ picydes to Syracuse, forced the gates, were joined by the mob, and Ji^ laving massacred the generals and their adherents, re-elected Hippo- generals. 338 HISTORY OF ROME Siege of Svracuse, 214. TopO' graphy of Syracuse. crates and Epicycles joint generals amidst a scene of universal licence, in which slaves were freed and the prisons thrown open. The Romans could not see Syracuse in the hands of their bitterest opponents with indifference. Marcellus at once occupied the Olympieum, a mile and a half from the city ; and his demand that the authors of the massacre should be given up, exiles restored, and a free government established, having been rejected, began the siege by land and sea. Syracuse was fortified in three compartments. The citadel was the island Ortygia, stretching south towards Plemmyrium, and enclosing a deep bay, five miles in circumference, which formed the Great Harbour. A chain of forts protected its coasts, and strong r ---" / / ' '■h Archi- medes. ENGLISH MILES IValker &• BoutaUs^c walls the entrance to the bridge, from which a road led across level ground to a lofty plateau called Achradina, separated from another plateau called Epipolae by a slight depression. A wall running north and south from sea to sea defended the west of Achradina, which was farther secured by a wall on the north and east nearly touching the sea. The whole of Epipolae was enclosed by a wall varying in height according to the nature of the cliff. It included three quarters, Epipolae proper on the west, Tycha on the north, and Neapolis on the south, Tycha was entered by a road from Leontini through a gate called Hexapylon. The place was too strong to be taken by assault, and the defence was conducted with extraordinary vigour. The famous Archimedes employed all his engineering and mechanical skill in constructing XXIV BLOCKADE OF SYRACUSE 339 machines to harass the besiegers and destroy their artillery. Huge balistae threw immense stones upon the ships, while smaller ones cannonaded all within reach, and through innumerable apertures in the walls sharp missiles called " scorpions " were continually dis- charged. When the Roman vessels, lashed in pairs, approached the sea walls, that their archers, slingers, and javelin-throwers might pick off those who manned them, lofty cranes swung round and dropped iron grappling-hooks weighted with lead, which, catching the prows, raised the vessel ouli of the water, and letting it suddenly fall, caused it to ship a quantity of water or threw the sailors over- board. These and many sin ilar contrivances baffled Marcellus, Marcellus who resolved to turn the siege nto a blockade, disposing his ships blockades to prevent provisions being bro ight in by s^ea. Meanwhile he took y^^^^^^- other smaller places, such as t elorus, Hferbessus, and Megara, and surprised and defeated Epicydel at Aci^fllae. But he failed to anti- cipate Himilco at Agrigentum, i^ho a^ived with a strong reinforce- ment, and marched to the reliefipf Syracuse, encamping eight miles off on the Anapus, from which hV captured the Roman magazines at Murgantia. Though a Carthagi^aA fleet under Bomilcar about the same time failed to break the Wockade, the success of Himilco caused revolts from Rome in many parts of the island, in which Roman garrisons were expelled or massacred. The movement was exasperated by the conduct of L. Pinarius at Enna, a town to which peculiar sanctity attached as the home of Ceres and Proserpine. Finding the people ready to revolt, and demanding the keys of the citadel, he summoned them to an assembly and caused his soldiers to attack them. In the confusion which followed as many are said to have perished in trying to escape as by the sword. But though the horror excited by this severity caused many adhesions to Carthage in other parts of the island, it prevented farther defections in the neighbourhood. Himilco fell back upon Agrigentum, Epicydes on Murgantia, and the blockade was not interrupted. It dragged 21 j. The on during the next year, in which Marcellus continued the command blockade as proconsul, without visible result. The genius of Archimedes pervaded the defence, and every point had its engine or elaborate continued, but not effective. contrivance for baffling the besiegers ; while the blockade at sea seems not to have been sufficiently complete to prevent provisions being thrown from time to time into the town. It was the capture of a blockade-runner named Damippus which 212. led to the discovery of a weak point in the fortifications, of which Escalade of Marcellus was quick to take advantage. In negotiating the release ^P^P'^^'^^^ of Damippus the Roman envoys met those of Syracuse near the north wall of Epipolae, now called Scala Gracca^ where there is a break in the cliff, and where the wall seemed to them capable of 340 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Reinforce- ments from Carthage y Pestilence. A 7iew fleet from Car- thage fails to arrive. being scaled. One of them roughly calculated its height by count- ing the layers of bricks, and reported that ladders of moderate length would suffice. Waiting until he learnt from a deserter that the Syracusans were celebrating a three days' festival of Artemis, in which from the scarcity of other luxuries wine would be freely taken, Marcellus prepared a night attack. The walls were scaled, the guards surprised at their cups or in the heavy sleep of intoxica- tion, and put to the sword. At daybreak Hexapylon was forced, and the Roman army entered. Epipolae, with the exception of the western fortress Eur^'alus, \\ as thus taken. It was a great advantage, but, owing to the separation of Achradina and Ortygia, did not involve possession of all Syracuse. The garrison in Ortygia did not even know distinctly what had happened. Epicydes thought that some few Romans had climbed into Epipolae under cover of night, and came expecting to drive them out easily ; but finding the enemy in force retired to Achradina. From the heights of Epipolae Marcellus gazed on one of the fairest cities of the world. He had some knowledge of Greek letters ; and the memory of the Athenian fleet which had perished in the harbour, and of the Athenian armies ruined beneath its walls, as well as the glories of its kings and its heroic struggles with the Punic foe, brought tears to his eyes. But the city was not yet won. His rear could be harassed from Euryalus, the walls of Achradina still defied him, and Ortygia was still intact. Euryalus surrendered after a few days in despair of relief But while Marcellus was besieging Epicydes in Achradina, Bomilcar arrived with the rein- forcement from Carthage. Thereupon Hippocrates and Himilco encamped on the low ground between the city and Olympieum, and attacked Crispinus, who commanded the Roman camp, while Epicydes prevented Marcellus coming to his relief by sallies from Achradina. But before long the pestilence, so often fatal to Carthaginian armies on the same spot, broke out in their camp, situated on low marshy ground, through the deadly autumn season. Both Hippocrates and Himilco fell victims to it, together with all the Carthaginians in the army, while the Sicilians for the most part escaped by rapidly dis- persing. The Romans suffered, but less severely, for they were on higher ground, and had become inured to the climate. Epicydes was still holding Achradina in hopes of a fresh squadron of relief which Bomilcar had returned to Carthage to fetch, and encouraged by finding that the Sicilians, who had retired from the plague-stricken camp, were collecting stores and soldiers in neighbouring strongholds. But though the new Punic fleet reached Pachynus, it was prevented from rounding the promontory by con- trary winds ; and Epicydes, unable to bear the suspense, set sail in XXIV SACK OF SYRACUSE 341 search of it, and was followed by Marcellus in spite of the inferiority in the number of his ships. At last the east wind dropped, and Bomilcar stood out to sea to round Pachynus : but when he sighted the Roman fleet he sent back his transports to Africa, and coasting along Sicily made the harbour of Tarentum, while Epicydes fled to Agrigentum. The Syracusans thus abandoned were ready to submit in hopes The of saving their lives ; some of Epicydes' officers were assassinated, Romans new generals elected, and envoys from the city and the Sicilian camp ^'^^ outside were sent to Marcellus. Certain Roman deserters, who ex- ^i„a pected no mercy from him, combined with the mercenaries in trying 212. to suppress the movement, and murdered some of the citizens. But the Spanish Moericus, commanding in Achradina, was soon con- vinced that his safest course was to make terms. The Romans were admitted into Achradina, and found little to resist them ; while another division found Ortygia so weakly guarded, that they landed without difficulty and took the citadel. A guard was sent by Marcellus to protect the treasury, and sentries were posted at the doors of those citizens who had been in the Roman camp. The rest of the city was given up to the soldiers to plunder, though with orders to take no life. But such orders could not prevent all violence, and among the victims of it was the famous Archimedes himself. Intent, it is said, on some diagrams of a problem in geometry or mechanics, he failed to answer the rough address of a soldier, perhaps asking who he was, or, more likely, demanding money or treasure, and was cut down by the angry ruffian, — to the chagrin of Marcellus, who had specially wished that he should be spared. The wealth of the city was great, and its works of art numerous Works of and splendid. These were for the most part removed to Rome, to (if't '« adorn the triumph of Marcellus, and to be finally deposited in the ^y^^"*^^- temples of Honor and Virtus, which he had vowed during the Gallic war. I Marcellus was not personally avaricious, and is said to have refused any portion of the spoils with the exception of the sphaera of Archimedes. But the exhibition of these spoils was an offence to Greek visitors to Rome, and gave an impulse to the passion for adorning private houses, as well as temples, with Greek works of art, which had already begun with the spoils of Magna Graecia and Capua. The capture of Syracuse was followed by the submission of nearly all Sicily ; and Marcellus was engaged for some months in settling ^ Apparently Marcellus did not live to " dedicate " these temples (Livy xxvii. 25). Livy observes that his act of plunder was punished by the after destruction of the very temples in which it was stored. They seem to have been repaired and rededicated by Marius. 342 HISTORY OF ROME Settlement of Sicily by Marcellus, Agrigen- turn. Marcellus ifi diffic7ilties on the Hitnera. Winter, 212-21 1. Italy. 214. Cass. Q. Fabius Maxim us IV., M. Clatidius Marcelhis III. the terms on which the various cities were to belong to the Roman alhance — terms varying in hberality or severity according to their fidehty to Rome in the late war. Both Livy and Plutarch praise the equity of his arrangements ; but they did not, and perhaps could not, give universal satisfaction, and the Syracusans especially sent deputa- tions to Rome to complain. But Epicydes and Hanno still held Agrigentum, and from it forays were made by the Numidian cavalry under Hippocrates or Mutines, who had been sent by Hannibal. They even ventured to march out and pitch a camp on the Himera, and the still existing loyalty to Carthage seemed once more about to declare itself Marcellus therefore decided that he must strike a final blow. Pie marched to the Himera, but was assailed so fiercely by Mutines, who hastened across the river to meet him, that he almost sus- tained a defeat ; and when the engagement was renewed on the next day his advanced guard was again driven within the lines. From this dangerous position he partly owed his deliverance to divisions among the enemy. While Mutines was absent at Heracleia trying to recall the mutinous Numidians who had retired thither, Hanno and Epicydes, against his advice, crossed the river to attack Marcellus. But the Numidians refused to fight in the absence of Mutines, and Marcellus won an easy victory, the enemy fearing to stand a siege, and dispersing in wild confusion into ever)' part of the country. He did not, however, venture to besiege Agrigentum. The year was drawing to a close ; he had fought his last battle in Sicily, and his eyes were fixed on home and his expected triumph. On his departure the scattered Carthaginians rallied and collected again in Agrigentum, which held out for two more years. This was looked upon as a fatal objection to Marcellus enjoying a regular triumph. He had not finished the war ; he handed over his army to his successor, and that successor found an enemy still within his province. Meanwhile the war in Italy had been carried on with varied fortune. At the end of 2 i 5 Hannibal had retired into winter quarters at Arpi. Here slight skirmishes took place between him and the consul Sempronius (iracchus, who had followed him, but no decisive battle. In the spring of 214 he returned to the camp at Tifata on the urgent entreaty of the people of Capua, who trembled at the vast preparations made at Rome for the next yearns campaign. Though the Roman exchequer was exhausted, wealthy men had liberally con- tributed to a loan on the credit of the State, and an extraordinary property-tax for the fleet had been cheerfully borne. There were to be eighteen legions, or about 1 80,000 men, on foot ; and Fabius Maximus, whose hand had been heavy on Campania in 215, was again to command there as consul. XXIV HANNIBAL HOPES FOR TARENTUM 343 As soon as he heard, of Hannibal having quitted Arpi, Fabiiis Ha7inibal hastened to join his legions near Casilinum, ordering Gracchus, now ag<:iin in proconsul, to advance to Beneventum, Hannibal, however, did not ^^^^P^"-*^^ stay the whole summer in Campania. He attempted to surprise Puteoli by a feint of going to offer sacrifice at the lake Avernus : once more approached Nola, and was once more baffled under its walls by Marcellus with some loss. But while near the lake Avernus he had been visited by certain young men from Tarentum, who assured him of a party there ready to admit him. The bait offered Invited to by the acquisition of such a harbour as that of Tarentum was too Tarentum. strong to be resisted. Casilinum and Capua were left to their fate, and he marched away to Apulia. Both consuls (for Marcellus was not yet ordered to Sicily) united in the assault upon Casilinum, which soon fell, and with it the principal bridge over the Volturnus again passed into Roman hands — an advantage not afterwards lost. In many ways the Carthaginian cause was at a low ebb. In Spain the Roman arms were prospering. Philip of Macedon had taken Oricum, but lost it again to Valerius ; and had been surprised while besieging ' ApoUonia, and forced to fly for his life. Fabius was reconquering I Samnium. Bruttium was entrusted to Hanno, who had secured , Locri and Croton, but had failed to take Rhegium ; and when in 214 ( he tried to intercept (iracchus at Beneventum, he had been decisively beaten, and an advantage which he afterwards gained over a detach- ' nient of (iracchus's army in Lucania led to nothing. I All the more was it necessary for Hannibal to strike some brilliant Disap- ( blow at Tarentum. But on his arri\al he was disappointed in the Pointed at hope of finding treason within the walls ready to co-operate with him. '^"^" ""'^ On the contrary, the Roman garrison had been reinforced under M. Livius Macatus from Brundisium, and he was obliged to fall back ' on Salapia, where he prepared for the winter by collecting corn from Metapontum and Heracleia, scouring the district of the Sallentini with his Numidian cavalr>'. But neither during the winter nor the next summer (213) was any material progress made in the great , object of taking Tarentum. The consul Fabius (son of Cunctator) 21J. Q. ' possessed himself of Arpi, once the winter quarters of the Cartha- ^'^^^'"^ ' ginians, and Hannibal spent the whole summer in capturing petty *. '^^i,""' places in the territory of Tarentum or in fruitless demonstration against sempron- I the town itself A year of precious time was lost ; some of the Cireek j towns in Lucania were returning to their allegiance to Rome, and in , Campania the leading citizens of Capua were making secret overtures I to secure their pardon. But early in 212 the long-delayed blow fell. The Tarcntines and Thurians had been forced to give hostages for their fidelity to ' Rome, who had been kept in somewhat careless custody in the tus (.'iracchus II. 344 HISTORY OF ROME 212. COSS. Q. Fulvius Flaccus III., A p. Claudius Pule her. Plot to hand over Tar en turn to Hajtnibal. Atrium Libertatis. Induced to attempt an escape, they had been caught at Tarracina, brought back, and scourged and hurled from the Tarpeian rock. This severity roused indignation at Tarentum and Thurii, and two young men, named Nico and Phikimenus, undertook to deHver Tarentum to Hannibal. They obtained an intei-view by allowing themselves to be caught by his sentries while hunting, and agreed on a plan. Philumenus, pretending that the presence of the Punic army made it dangerous to return from his expeditions before nightfall, made a practice of bringing his dogs and game to one of the smaller town gates after dark, so that the sentry might be accus- HARBOUR OF TARENTUM ENGLISH MILES Walker Sr Boutall sc. tomed to admit him when he whistled. Nico stayed in the town to answer Hannibal's fire signal. Feigning sickness to account for remaining so long in one camp, at the time agreed Hannibal sent forward some light infantry and cavalry along the road to Tarentum, who were to force back all whom they found going towards the town, and kill those coming from it. When this was reported at Tarentum, Livius, thinking it one of the ordinary raids, sent some cavalry at daybreak to stop it. But by a forced march Hannibal had already caught up his skirmishers with his main army about fifteen miles from the town, and, being joined by Philumenus, started at midnight XXIV HANNIBAL ENTERS TARENTUM 345 under his guidance. Arrived at the walls, Philumenus with one division went to his usual gate, Hannibal with the other to the eastern or Temenid gate leading to the street of tombs or Batheia. A small peninsula almost closes the mouth of an inlet of the sea, Tarentum. the Mare piccolo^ six miles in length, and between two and three in breadth, which constituted the harbour of Tarentum. It is rocky and somewhat elevated, and on it was the citadel. The town, enclosed by walls, had spread to the lower ground south of the harbour, but the peninsula was so fortified as to be a stronghold independent of the town, while its northern extremity commanded the entrance to the harbour. There had been a festival and banquet, and Livius and his retinue Hannibal returned home late at night. The licence of the feast enabled the ^titers the conspirators to remain in the streets in apparent mirth, so that, when '^""'' '^'' Hannibal's fire signal was given and answered, some of them went at once to the Temenid gate, overpowered and killed the guard, and forced it open to receive Hannibal, who marched down the Batheia i to the Forum. At the same time Philumenus with 1 000 men appeared I at his usual gate. He was admitted even more quickly than usual, as he explained that he had brought so huge a boar that the bearers j were impatient. As the sentry turned to look at it, he transfixed him with his hunting spear. Some of his men then rushed through I the wicket and forced open the gate to admit the rest, who at once I joined Hannibal in the Forum, The principal streets were occupied ( at either end, and orders were given to kill all Romans, but to promise citizens that if they would keep indoors they should not be * hurt. The silence of the night was broken by these mo\ements, and ' Livius, roused from sleep, escaped in a boat across the harbour to Livius the citadel, and was there joined by such Romans as also managed to escapes. escape, and by those Tarentines who were faithful to Rome. The people, who only learnt what had happened by seeing in the morning the corpses of the Romans about the streets, were summoned to a meeting in the theatre, and assured by Hannibal that they had nothing \ to fear ; he had come to deliver them from their Roman tyrants. \ Every citizen was to mark his door with chalk, and it would be un- ' injured ; but he would punish with death, as an enemy, any who so ! marked a door where a Roman dwelt. Livius atoned for his supineness or credulity by the gallantry with M. Livius which he maintained himself on the citadel. Hannibal soon gave up '^^"''!^['^^ the idea of a storm, and attempted a blockade. He erected earth- ^^y^^^./_ works across the neck of the peninsula to prevent sallies of the 212-20^. I Roman garrison, and, inducing the citizens to drag their ships from 'the harbour over the flat space between it and the open sea, en- 346 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 212. Siege of Capua. A convoy of corn i?i- tercepted. Victory of Hannibal at Herdonea, late in 212. deavoured to stop provisions being throwTi into the citadel. This blockade never seems to have been effective, and Livius held the citadel until Fabius recovered the town in 209, the use of which to Hannibal was greatly diminished, if not destroyed, by his exclusion from the harbour. Meanwhile the people of Capua felt their fate approaching. One Roman army was entrenched at Suessula, another held the bridge- town of Casilinum. The country had been thoroughly pillaged by Fabius and the autumn sowing prevented ; and though partly pro- tected by the Punic camp on Tifata, they were in danger of starvation. In answer to urgent appeals Hannibal ordered Hanno to collect corn for the town. But the consuls were in Samnium, and, hearing that Hanno was encamped near Beneventum for this purpose, Fulvius entered that town at night, learned that Hanno was absent on a foray, and that the camp, under the command of a subordinate, was crowded with peasants sent with 2000 carts from Campania to fetch the corn. He started soon after midnight to attack it, and, in spite of the strength of the position, and the determined resistance of the Carthaginians, succeeded in storming it. Six thousand of the enemy are said to have been killed, and the carriers with their waggons and beasts of burden fell to the victors, along with much other booty collected by Hanno. The consuls then united their forces and marched from Beneventum along the Appian road into Campania, ordering Tib. Gracchus the proconsul to leave Lucania and reinforce the Roman garrison at Beneventum in their rear. Gracchus, with one cohort, fell iiTto an ambush and perished ; but the bulk of his army under the quaestor Cornelius eventually arrived in Campania. Hannibal himself now found it necessary to return to the camp on Mount Tifata ; but he did not succeed in bringing the consuls to a battle, and presently darted upon a Roman force in Lucania commanded by M. Centenius, who had persuaded the Senate to entrust him with it. This was easily crushed, and Hannibal hurried into Apulia, where he annihilated the army of the praetor Cn. Fulvius at Herdonea, which had been plundering Apulian towns. Content with these successes, he took up winter quarters in Apulia, once more leaving Capua to its own resources. The consuls had now begun the siege in earnest. Magazines were established at Casilinum and a fortress at the mouth of the Volturnus ; Puteoli was garrisoned to secure supplies of corn and war material by sea ; and the praetor Claudius Nero ordered up from the Castra Chiudiana : so that three Roman armies were besieging Capua at three points at once. The citizens, however, still relied on help from Hannibal, with whom they had again com- municated before the lines of investment were complete; and they contemptuously rejected the offer from Rome, allowing any one who XXIV HANNIBAL FAILS TO RELIEVE CAPUA 347 chose to quit the city taking his property with him before the next ides of March. Through the winter and spring, therefore, Fulvius and Claudius, Hannibal whose imperhan was extended until they should have taken Capua, attempts to continually drew their lines closer and closer round the doomed city ; ^^'^'^'*^ . and though the superiority of the Campanian horse enabled the be- ^/f "^' sieged to make up somewhat for the defeat of their infantry in their sorties, 1 the investment was so strictly kept that it was with great difficulty that, at length, a Numidian soldier, who volunteered the service, was able to carry a message to Hannibal imploring help. He had to choose between two needs almost equally pressing. To take the citadel of Tarentum was necessary in order to acquire a Fain i large and safe harbour ; while the loss of Capua involved that of all £ Campania. He decided, however, to relieve Capua first, because he found that the eyes of all Italian peoples were fixed on it, and that on its fate depended the side which they would take. He hastened to Tifata with a picked body of men, in advance of his heavy-armed and baggage, and concealed himself in one of the valleys until he had communicated with the besieged garrison, in order that a sortie from the town might be made simultaneously with his own attack. The accounts which Livy followed differed as to the nature and importance of the struggle ; but it seems clear that, though Hannibal i»]i I eventually withdrew his men, the Romans could not pursue. Ap. Claudius, the proconsul, was severely wounded, and one of the Roman rr^i \ camps nearly taken. mi 1 Still, both Hannibal and the Campanians had lost heavily, and 211. Coss. 2^1 the Roman lines of investment were not broken. It was reported, ^^'• also, that the new consuls were, before going to their provinces, to '" ^"'-^ undertake operations near Capua, which might cut Hannibal off from ,fiaius, P. retreat. He accordingly determined on a bold stroke, — no less than Sulpicius an advance upon Rome itself. Even if he effected nothing against the Cialba city, he expected to cause so much alarm that at least one of the ^<^ximus. proconsuls would be recalled, and the strain on Capua be lessened. A hardy Numidian made his way into the town with a letter, bidding the garrison not to be alarmed at his departure, for he was gone to Rome to divert the Roman legions from Capua. Seizing a number of boats on the Volturnus, he got his army across the river on the ' It is said that the disasters of the Roman cavalry led to a change in the army. The rorarii (light-armed) had to accompany the cavalry, each horseman carrying one of them behind him on to the field ; and henceforth it was found convenient to mix them with the several maniples, instead of forming them in a separate corps with separate officers. They were only after that officially called velites (Livy xxvi. 4). though Livy loosely uses the term before for what were properly called rorarii (see p. 216). ^ 348 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. march on Rome, 211. Hannibal s fifth day after his arrival before Capua, and was soon in full march along the line of the via Latifia, though often diverging from it, and being careful to avoid towns and strong places. His only stoppages were caused by the need of rest or supplies. Thus, after leaving Cales, his first point north of the Volturnus, we hear of a two days' halt at the foot of Mount Casinum, and another of perhaps somewhat longer duration in the territory of Fregellae, where the road twice crosses the winding Liris by bridges which the inhabitants had broken down, thereby causing the enemy some delay, but bringing upon themselves a more severe devastation. Having effected the two crossings, he kept along the same line of road till he came under the walls of Tusculum. The Tusculans closed their gates, and Hannibal, having no means or time for assault or siege, pressed onwards. He now, however, quitted the line of the Latin road, and, turning to the right, descended upon Gabii. He was thus about thirteen miles from Rome by the via Prae?iestina. From this point Livy's account is very difficult to follow. Hannibal is said to have entered the territory of the Pupinian tribe, and to have pitched a camp on the Anio, only three miles from the city, from which position he rode up to the walls with a few horsemen, and surveyed them from the Colline gate to the temple of Hercules. If so, he must afterwards have crossed to the right bank of the Anio, and recrossed it from his camp to offer battle. 1 Meanwhile at Rome the utmost alarm prevailed. News of Hannibal's advance had been hastily sent by Fulvius Flaccus, and the Senate had bidden him use his discretion whether he could come to the city without risking the siege of Capua, which was not to be abandoned.2 But before it was known at Rome what he meant to do, a messenger arrived from Fregellae, who had travelled night and day with tidings of Hannibal being already on the Liris. Though Prepaj-a- tions at Rome. ^ The position on the right bank of the Anio is more easy to understand if we accept Polybius's account, who sends Hannibal to Rome " through Samnium, " which would bring him to the right bank of the Anio by the via Salaria or via Nojnentana. But the fragment of Polybius (ix. s) is a very brief summary ; and he seems to have adopted the error, shared by Coelius, of confounding Hannibal's line of march to Rome with that of his return. It seems difficult to believe that in an expedition, in which so much depended on speed, he should have gone so far round, or that the first news received at Rome of his march should have been his appearance on the Anio. To make Livy's account possible, we have to assume that, after leaving Gabii, and surveying the walls, Hannibal crossed the Anio, so as to have that river between his camp and the enemy. 2 Some difficulty has been also made about this, as though there was not time for the communication. But the via Appia was open, and the distance to Rome (124 Roman, about 112 English miles) could be done by a horseman probably in two days, while Hannibal was marching with several divergences and halts along the via Latina (145 Roman, about 130 English miles). XXIV HANNIBAL AT THE WALLS OF ROME 349 this intensified the alarm, neither people, Senate, nor magistrates were wanting to their duties, and active preparations were made for defence. The new levies, some of them destined for Spain, and others for Macedonia, were in the city, and were now at the disposal of the consuls. They were farther encouraged by the arrival of 2000 troops from Alba Fucentia, who had hurried to Rome when they heard of Hannibal's march, and by the news that Q. Fulvius was on q, Fulvius the way from Capua, along the Appian road, with a considerable arrives at detachment. He would be certain to outstrip Hannibal ; for not only ^^^^. was the distance shorter than that by the Latin road ; but, as he was ^^^' marching through friendly towns and country, the people of which were eager to assist him, he was not obliged to stop to collect pro- visions or levy contributions. By the time that he arrived at the Porta Capena it was known that Hannibal had left the Latin road, and was approaching Rome along the line of the Anio. He therefore marched through the city, and with the consuls encamped between the Colline and Esquiline gates. The battle which Hannibal offered, crossing the Anio from his Hannibal camp, is said to have been twice prevented by violent storms, although dis- I on each day the weather cleared immediately on his return to camp, ^ouraged. ! This seemed to be ominous of failure, as though his attempt were ' displeasing to the gods ; and he was still more irritated and depressed to find that he was making no serious impression on the confidence of the people. In spite of his presence the contingent of troops was \ despatched to Spain, and he was told that the very meadow on which ' he was encamped had been put up to auction, and purchased at its full I value. He retaliated, indeed, by offering for sale the silversmiths' or I bankers' stalls round the Forum ; but in fact he made up his mind ; that an assault upon Rome was hopeless ; and that all he could do I was to return to Capua with his immense booty, in hopes of being in I time to take advantage of the absence of Fulvius and his army. He I retired, therefore, towards the river Tutia, a tributary of the Anio. I But a return by the direct route by which he had come was not Hantiibal's j easy. The consul Publius Sulpicius had caused the bridges to be return. j broken down along the Anio, and Hannibal had to march higher j up the river in search of a ford, the consul marching parallel I to him up the left bank. Fording a stream in the presence of an j enemy, though protected by his Numidian cavalry, his army suffered (considerably, and a great part of the booty was recovered by the 1 Romans, who hung upon the rear of the retreating army, — keeping on higher ground indeed, and only cutting off stragglers, but yet annoying Hannibal so much that, at the end of five days, he suddenly (turned upon his pursuers, inflicted a severe loss upon them, and drove the rest back to their camp. But he could take no immediate 350 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Hannibal does not return to Capua. Fall of Capua, 211. Punish inent of Capua advantage of this success, beyond continuing his retreat through Samnium unmolested. He had now learnt that his movement had failed to raise the siege of Capua. Appius had never quitted his position, and Fulvius had returned thither with all speed. He there- fore made for the west coast by Reate, Amiternum, and over the Apennines into the territory of the Marrucini. From this point down into Apulia he was marching through territory for the most part in his interests or subject to his power ; and he consoled himself for the loss of Campania, which he was thus abandoning, by a dash into Bruttium, to secure Rhegium as compensation for the harbours of Campania. His march was so rapid, and his presence thus far south so unexpected, that he all but took the town, and, at any rate, thoroughly wasted the territory, and captured many of the inhabitants. But Rhegium stood firm ; and Hannibal was again compelled to look for the harbour, which it was imperatively necessary that he should have on the Italian coast, to the chance of taking the citadel at Tarentum. Meanwhile Capua, deprived of its last hope, had nothing but surrender and punishment to expect. So deeply did the people feel that they had sinned beyond forgiveness, that a message from Flaccus again offering amnesty to any citizen who, before a fixed day, trans- ferred himself to the Roman camp met with no response. They pre- ferred the desperate chance of the ofificers of the Punic garrison being yet able to communicate with Hannibal, and induce him to come once more to their rescue. But the Carthaginian emissaries were inter- cepted, and sent back into the town, scarred with Roman rods and with their hands cut off. The desperate people turned to the nobles, whom their internal disputes had reduced to impotence, but could get no help from them. Vibius Virius, who had been the author of the revolt, had nothing better to offer than to invite all members of the Senate to a final banquet, to be followed by a common draught of poison. Even for that the dispirited senators had not the courage. Seven -and -twenty only appeared to share the poisoned cup : the rest sent messengers to the Roman camp, offering uncon- ditional surrender. Next day the gates were thrown open ; the Car- thaginian garrison were made prisoners ; and the members of the Senate were ordered to proceed to the camp, where they were at once cast into chains. All arms were given up, and all gold and silver handed over to the quaestors. The punishment to be inflicted on the town was referred by Fulvius Flaccus to the Senate. But he at once proceeded to wreak vengeance on the Capuan senators. Twenty-five of them were at Cales, twenty-eight in Teanum. He proceeded to both these places, con- demned the men, and witnessed their execution, without waiting, accord- XXIV THE SETTLEMENT OF CAMPANIA 351 ing to one story, for the answer of the Senate, or even refusing to open it at the moment of the execution ; and according to another, avaiHng himself of a clause in the answer which seemed to leave the matter to 211. his discretion. For the rest a senatiis consultiwi^ passed after con- ^^"^^"^ siderable discussion, ordained that the town of Capua was to be ^^ Cam- left standing, but its people wholly removed. Some of the nobles pafiis, were reserved in custody of Latin towns, the rest of the citizens Livy xxvi. were sold as slaves. The territory was made public land, in which -34- Roman tenants {aratores) were to be settled. Public buildings were to be the property of the Roman people. The town was for the present to be occupied by freedmen, artisans, and such others as, not being citizens, had not shared in the guilt. They were to have no local magistrates, no assemljly, no corporate existence ; but a -praefectus was to be sent annually from Rome to administer justice {juri dicu7ido). As to the cities lately under the jurisdiction of The other Capua — in them distinctions were made between whole towns, Campan- families, and even individuals, according to the ascertained extent ^"^^ towns. of their loyalty or treason. Those who had not themselves, or whose parents had not been in the enemy's camp, were to be free, but to be for ever debarred from either the full Roman citizenship or Latinitas. All who had been in Capua when its gates were closed to the Romans were, within a fixed date, to remove north of the Tiber. Those who, without being in Capua or other revolted towns, had yet not openly joined the Romans, were to live north of the Liris. Those who had come over to the Roman camp before Hannibal's arrival might hve between the Volturnus and the Liris. No one, to which- ever of these categories he belonged, was to have house or land within fifteen miles of the sea. Those removed beyond the Tiber were not to acquire property or build houses except at Veii, Sutrium, or Nepete, or hold more than sixty jugera of land. The property of all who had held office at Capua, Atella, or Calatia was to be sold. The material prosperity of Capua soon revived, but it remained a mere market town without local government {pngt(s or co?id/iabuIinii) until the Social war (90), or perhaps till made a colony by Julius Caesar in 59. The Campanian plains, in spite of agrarian laws, remained agcr pub lieu s^ paying a rent to the State, till Caesar settled citizens and veterans on them with freehold allotments. For the next two years the war in Italy centred round the citadel 2io-2og. of Tarentum, The obstinate defence of it by M. Livius, whose Tarentum. negligence had lost the town, was of grave detriment to Hannibal. City after city returned to its allegiance, and Hannibal was unable to detach sufficient troops to restrain or punish them. And though a fleet of Roman ships, which endeavoured to victual the citadel, was scattered by some Tarentine vessels under Democrates ; and though 352 HISTORY OF ROME 2IO. Coss. M. Clauduis Marcellus IV. , M. Valerius Laevinus. Three days fighting near Canusium, 20(p. Q. Fabiris Max. v., Q. Fulvius Flacciis IV. 2og. Fabius retakes Tarentum. Hannibal too late to save Tarentum. Cn. Fulvius the proconsul was defeated and killed by Hannibal at Herdonea, Marcellus, who had taken Salapia, was still confident. He followed Hannibal over the borders of Lucania, and at Numistro, near Volcentum, fought him without failure, if without marked success, following him to Apulia as he retired on the night after the battle. So also when next year the veteran Fabius resolved to attempt the recovery of Tarentum and the relief of the citadel, Marcellus was able to keep Hannibal in play and cover the attack. Of the three days' fighting at Canusium, the result of the first was doubtful ; and though Hannibal gained a partial victory on the second day, both suffered so severely on the third, that Hannibal broke up his camp in the night and again retired to Bruttium ; while Marcellus retreated to Venusia, from which he did not venture out again for the rest of the summer. Meanwhile the consul Q. Fulvius was recovering the Hirpini, the people of Volceium, and other Lucanians, who dismissed their Punic garrisons and accepted his clemency : and Fabius was steadily advanc- ing on Tarentum. He had already taken a town of the Sallentini when the commander of the Bruttian garrison placed in Tarentum by Hannibal offered to betray the town to him. The intrigue was con- ducted by a Bruttian serving in the Roman army, whose sister was beloved by the commander ; and its result was to allow the Romans to scale the wall unresisted where the Bruttian guards were stationed. Some stand was made by the Tarentines in the Forum ; but when their leaders fell, an indiscriminate slaughter of Tarentine and Carthaginian began, and those citizens who survived, to the number it is said of 30,000, were sold into slavery. Besides the price of these captives vast stores of silver and gold and works of art fell into the hands of the victors. The deportation of these last to Rome does not appear to have been so complete as at Syracuse, for Fabius exclaimed contemptuously, " Let us leave them their angry gods " ; but a colossal Hercules was transferred to the Capitol, and probably a large proportion of other statues and pictures.^ While this severe blow to his hopes was being struck, Hannibal himself was far off at Caulonia, which he had relieved from a siege undertaken at the suggestion of Fulvius, by a mixed force of free- booters and Bruttians collected in the previous year by Laevinus at' Rhegium. Hearing of the danger of Tarentum, he hastened thither, but found that all was over ; and, retiring slowly to Metapontum, tried to tempt Fabius into an ambush by means of a feigned offer from the Metapontines to surrender. But when the day came for ^ Plutarch {Marc. xxi. ) expressly contrasts his conduct with that of Marcellus, and the same is implied in Fab. xxii. and Livy xxvii. 16. Yet it may be that he only spared what it was inconvenient to take (Pliny A^. H. xxxiv. § 40, Strabo 6, 3, i). XXIV HANNIBAL CONFINED TO LUCANIA 353 Fabius to go the omens were unfavourable, the haruspex warned him against " the fraud of the enemy," and Fabius did not start ; and catching some of the Metapontine agents sent to inquire the reason, forced them by threats of torture to confess. For the rest of the season Fabius pursued his old waiting game, and Marcellus had not suffi- ciently recovered from his three days' battle with Hannibal to venture from Venusia. Fabius's success at Tarentum shielded him from the discontent at Rome at the slow progress of the war, but Marcellus was vehemently assailed as prolonging it for his private advantage. He defended himself triumphantly and was re-elected consul 208. Coss. for the fifth time ; though the difficulties thrown in his way by the ^'^^• pontifices show the animus of his enemies. However, great ^J^'^^'^'^f ^ . J ^ , . ^ . ^ Marcellus exertions were made. 1 wenty-one legions were on foot ; in every y j^ direction the war was to be maintained. Marcellus returned to Venusia Qidnctius with a reinforcement ; and the consuls were eager to distinguish Crispinus. their year of office by the final expulsion of Hannibal from Italy. And this seemed now far from unlikely. The fall of Capua had cut him off from Campania, the recapture of Tarentum from Apulia. He seems to have been almost confined to south Lucania, and to have depended chiefly on Croton and other Greek cities of the coast. The consul Crispinus, who had succeeded to the command of Fabius's army, wished to emulate his achievement at Tarentum by the capture of Locri, one of the chief of these Greek cities. But Hannibal Hannibal moved down to relieve it and was already encamped on the ^'^ ^^^ Lacinian promontory. Crispinus abandoned the siege to effect a ^-^'^^"^^" junction with Marcellus starting from Venusia. This was effected ^^^^^"^ between Venusia and Bantia ; but the combined army could not move southwards upon Locri, because Hannibal, who had followed, was encamped a few miles off. They endeavoured, however, to promote the siege by ordering L. Cincius to come from Sicily, and by obtaining a detachment from Tarentum. The latter was intercepted by some of Hannibal's troops who lay in wait for it on the road from Tarentum ; and the consuls themselves soon fell into a similar snare. There was a wooded knoll between the Roman and Carthaginian camps which seemed to the Romans a good basis of attack if properly occupied. Before doing this, however, the consuls started to recon- Deaih of noitre it personally, accompanied by a small body of cavalry and by two Marcellus. or three officers, among whom was the consul's son M. Marcellus. But Hannibal had also observed the advantages of the post, and had taken care to station near it some of his Numidian cavalry : or, as Polybius says, the Numidian cavalry, whose constant duty it was to be lying in wait to cut off skirmishers, happened on that day to be concealed at its foot. As soon as their scouts told them that a body 2 A 354 HISTORY OF ROME of the enemy were coming over the brow of the hill, they ascended by a more circuitous route and got between the consuls and their camp. Finding that they were after all but a small party, they charged them down hill. The consul Claudius with many more was killed, his son and the other consul Crispinus were wounded, and the sur- vivors with difficulty regained the camp. Character Thus fell Marcellus, a great soldier if not a great man. His of Marcel- character was a subject of dispute among his contemporaries, and his achievements were very early depreciated. He represents a class of Roman officers which was about to be superseded by another more cultivated if not more able. The friends and admirers of the Scipios could see little that was admirable in a man whose soldier- like roughness and perhaps cruelty were not relieved by the dis- criminating taste for art and literature which was becoming the fashion. Polybius indeed, the friend and panegyrist of the Scipios, had learnt from them to disbelieve entirely in his victories over Hannibal ; yet though they were doubtless made the most of in his son's His con- laudatio^ on which the accounts in Livy and Plutarch may have been tests tvith founded, it seems certain that, if he did not beat Hannibal, he anni a . ^-^^-^^^^^ q^ every occasion to avoid disastrous defeat himself If he did not win a Zama, neither did he lose a Cannae. A Roman generg.1 who in a contest with Hannibal left the result only doubtful did in effect win a victory. For to Hannibal time and impres- sion were everything. If he was to have any hope of keeping his position in Italy his career of victory must be unbroken. Every month which saw him only at a standstill encouraged cities to fall off, diminished an army which was hardly ever recruited from home, and brought him nearer to the end of his resources. Certainly the so- called victory on the third day's fighting at Canusium was such that the victor had to let the conquered general move off unopposed, and was obliged to shut himself up within walls for the remainder of the season. Still Hannibal did withdraw for the time, and made no farther attack. He had destroyed no Roman army, and had His con- gained no fresh adherent. Nor were the severities in Sicily shocking duct hi to the feelings of the time : the execution at Leontini of 2000 Roman btcily. deserters was not much worse than that of the garrison of Rhegium in the previous war ; and the massacre at Enna — of which he was not the author, although he expressed approval of it — might have been defended on the grounds of necessity, in the case of a populace determined on defection. His reputation indeed at Rome suffered less from any of these things than from the imprudence which cost him his life ; and those who could not deny him the merit of a brave and successful soldier, could plausibly refuse him the reputation of a careful general. Hannibal himself did not undervalue him : XXIV HASDRUBAL COMING FROM SPAIN 355 and gave evidence of his respect by being careful that his body should receive decent burial. Hannibal now made one last attempt in Apulia. He used the 20S. signet ring of the dead consul tb induce the people of Salapia to open Hannibal's their gates as though to Marcellus. Previous information, however, '/^f ^• had reached the Salapians and the ruse failed. He approached the town : his first line of Roman deserters called out in Latin to the sentries to " open to the consul," The portcullis was slowly hauled up, the Roman deserters rushed in, — suddenly it fell with a crash. The faithless Romans were trapped and easily killed ; while the rest of Hannibal's army was overwhelmed by every kind of missile and weight from the walls, and had to retire. He returned, however, unmolested and raised the siege of Locri. Still he was in a situation which admitted but one solution. He 2ot. Coss. must be reinforced with men and money, or he must abandon all ^-^i'^i^*^ but the southern extremity of Italy and perhaps Italy itself. It jj ^ was therefore with keen anxiety that he looked forward to being ciajidius joined by his brother Hasdrubal, who was said at length to be on his Nero. way from Spain with an army and a great sum of gold to hire mercenaries. The rumour of his coming caused corresponding Hasdrubal. anxiety at Rome. The two consuls for 207 were M. Livius Salinator, who had in 219 distinguished himself in the war in Illyricum, but had been (it seems unjustly) condemned for malversation in dealing with the spoil, and had retired to the country in dudgeon, and C. Claudius Nero, who had served as legatus under Marcellus at Canusium. The two men were at enmity ; but yielded to the advice of Fabius Maximus and the remonstrances of the Senate to lay aside their private quarrel in the interests of the State. They were assigned separate provinces. To Livius was allotted the north of Italy, to oppose Hasdrubal ; to Claudius the command in south Italy, against Hannibal. They were allowed to select for their service any of the legions then on foot, and to " supplement " them by fresh levies at their discretion. Every effort was made that the consuls should be early in the field ; but even so, before they had started, letters were received at Rome from the praetor L. Porcius, who was in Cis-Alpine Gaul, announcing that Hasdrubal was on his way. He quitted Spain late in 209, leaving his brother Mago and Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, in charge. He had been unable to cross the eastern Pyrenees, as Hannibal had done, because the Romans held \og and the north-eastern corner of Spain. He therefore crossed into south- remains in western Gaul, and spent the year 208 there, going apparently as South far north as the Arverni (Auvergne), collecting allies and hiring mercenaries. He probably crossed the Alps by a comparatively easy pass, either that of Mont Gen^vre or Col de I'Argentiere. At any rate, Hasdrubal crosses the Pyrenees, Gaul, 208. 356 HISTORY OP^ ROME Crosses the Alps early in 207. Early summer of 207. Fighting at Grumen- tum. The messengers of Hasdru- bal inter- cepted. Nero s plan. he did not suffer as Hannibal had done. He must have crossed somewhat early in the season ; but he had friendly natives all the way, and probably better information and guidance ; and accordingly he arrived in Italy sooner than either the Romans or Hannibal expected him. Moving down the valley of the Po, unfortunately for his own success, he was induced to spend a considerable time in attempting to reduce Placentia, instead of pushing on to Ariminum. Meanwhile Hannibal had drawn his troops from their winter quarters, and had advanced to Grumentum, in the centre of Lucania, and pitched his camp close to its walls. The consul Claudius Nero was at Venusia, connected with Grumentum by a good road, a distance of about fifty miles. Carefully reconnoitring in advance, the Roman came down this road, and pitched his camp about a mile from that of Hannibal, with a stretch of plain between. No regular battle took place, but after several skirmishes, one of which nearly amounted to a battle, he arranged an ambuscade whereby he inflicted something like a defeat upon Hannibal. He, however, lost i 500 men in the fight, and Hannibal was able to elude him and march off in the night towards Venusia, in the very direction from which the consul had come. Thither Nero followed, and another skirmish took place, in which the Carthaginians lost heavily, and retired on Metapontum. Still Hannibal was able with reinforcements obtained there once more to advance on Venusia and Canusium, Nero following on his heels, but not venturing to attack him. But greater events were at hand. Four (iallic horsemen were galloping down south, and hearing that Hannibal was retiring towards Metapontum, endeavoured to follow him there. But they lost their way, and found themselves at Tarentum instead. They were caught by a Roman foraging party and taken to the propraetor Q. Claudius, Threatened with torture, they confessed that they were carrying a letter from Hasdrubal to Hannibal, and were immediately sent to the consul Nero. The despatch announced that Hasdrubal was on his march from Ariminum, and expected Hannibal to meet him in Umbria. After sending a message home urging that a force be posted at Narnia, which commanded the road through Umbria to Rome, Nero resolved upon a step, which though it involved the irregularity of leaving his province, would, if successful, bafifle Hasdrubal and destroy Hannibal's hopes. This was to march away without Hannibal's knowledge, and join Livius in resisting Hasdrubal, whom he had already met in Spain and had reason to respect. He left men to defend his camp and keep up appearances, and starting by night, sent forward a message to Livius announcing his approach. His soldiers had been eager to volunteer, and the Italian allies on the route aided him with enthusiasm. Livius was near Sena, XXIV NERO JOINS HIS COLLEAGUE NEAR SENA 357 with Hasdrubal within a mile of him ; and, that his enemy might not know that he had been reinforced, he sent a message to Nero begging him to march into camp by night. On his arrival he would have had him wait some days to ' refresh his men ; but Nero's plan demanded haste. He wished to defeat Hasdrubal, and march back 207. to his camp at Venusia before Hannibal was aware of his absence. Ro^^n The praetor L. Porcius Licinus who had been hanging on -^""''^^^ Hasdrubal's rear, keeping on high ground, and annoying the enemy, Metaurus. had joined a few days before ; so that the Romans probably had at least six legions, or about 60,000 men. The council of war after a long debate decided on immediate action ; the signal was given on the day after Nero's arrival, and the troops drawn out for battle. Hasdrubal's experienced eye at once detected what had happened. Hasdrubal He noticed the signs of a long march in the worn arms and the thin ^^'^^\ ^° horses of troops which he had not seen before, and noted the ^^l^^^^ increased numbers. Yet he could not discover that the camps were enlarged, or increased in number. As before, there was the consul's camp and the praetor's. But he had had experience of Roman discipline in Spain, and he noticed that in the consul's camp two trumpets sounded to arms instead of one ; and he knew that this indicated the presence of the other consul. What if it also indicated that Hannibal had been conquered and perhaps slain ? Or that his letter had been intercepted by the Romans 1 Overcome with anxiety, he ordered instant preparations for breaking up the camp and marching away by night. In the confusion of the darkness his guides deserted, and He fails to when day broke he found himself still on the south bank of the cross the Metaurus marching up stream in search of a ford which he seemed ^^t<^^^^' to have no chance of finding. The banks of the river seemed to get higher and higher the farther he got from the sea, and the windings of the stream kept him so long on the march without accomplishing any sensible distance that the enemy had time to catch him up. Wearied and harassed by their attacks, he tried to fortify a camp Hasdrubal on some rising ground near the river. But both consuls were now stands at upon him, and he was forced to fight. Thus caught at a disadvantage, ^"-y- he showed high qualities both as a tactician and a soldier. He availed himself of some rough hilly ground to place the Gauls on his left out of danger of attack by the Roman right commanded by Nero ; while his right and centre (in which he took post himself), having a somewhat narrow ground to cover, were more than usually deep, and were protected by a line of elephants, immediately behind whom were his brave Ligurian allies ; while his extreme right, engaged with the Roman left, consisted of his veterans from Spain, who had often fought with Romans before. The battle began by a charge of elephants. For a time they threw 358 HISTORY OF ROME Battle of the Metaurus, 207. Nero's return south. Joy at Rome. the Roman antisignani into confusion and made them give ground ; but presently in the heat of the combat these animals became unmanageable, and as usual did as much harm to their masters as to the enemy. Nevertheless the struggle was violent and protracted, and the loss on both sides severe. It was finally decided by a move- ment of Nero. He had in vain tried to get at the Gauls on the enemy's left. They were too securely protected by the rough ground to be reached in front ; and after some fruitless efforts he suddenly wheeled his men to the left and executed a flank movement on the rear of the whole line, marching steadily to the left, past the Roman left flank, till he found himself in a position to charge the veterans and Ligurians on the rear and flank ; and even reached the Gauls on the enemy's left. Hasdrubal's army had made a gallant fight, but many were worn out by night-marching and sleeplessness, and were now cut down almost without resistance. He himself fought with the utmost courage to the last, cheering on his men, encouraging the weary, and recalling those who attempted flight ; till, seeing that all was lost, he put spurs to his horse, and rushing upon a Roman cohort died sword in hand. Ten thousand of Hasdrubal's army fell, and a large number were taken prisoner. The spoil also was rich, for Hasdrubal had plundered the country, and was conveying large sums of gold and silver for his brother's use. As many as 4000 Roman captives were said to have been released. The Gauls and Ligurians in large numbers found means to cross the river and escape, Livius refusing to pursue them, that they might carry to their countrymen the news of their defeat and of Roman valour. On the same night Nero started on his return march, carrying with him the head of the brave Hasdrubal, which on his arrival he caused to be thrown in front of the Carthaginian lines, while some African prisoners were also displayed, and two of them allowed to go to Hannibal with the news. The brutality of the treatment of Hasdrubal is a contrast, not creditable to Roman feeling, with Han- nibal's respectful treatment of the corpse of his great opponent Marcellus. The Romans were fighting for life and freedom with an invader, and an invader is apt to be regarded as a wild beast rather than an honourable enemy. Naturally the news was received at Rome with a transport of joy. At first people could not believe it, from the intensity of their wish that it might be true. It had been felt that a crisis of the utmost importance was at hand : if Hannibal were reinforced and enriched the war would have to be fought again, and bitter experience had proved his superiority in the field to any living Roman. The anxiety therefore had been extreme, and the relief was in proportion. In the midst of preparation for the supreme effort to save their homes tnjiuence of the battle on XXIV EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 359 and lives they suddenly found themselves safe from all chance of attack, and with hopes— rendered exaggerated by the reaction— of driving the dreaded enemy from the land. Nor were they wrong. The Hannibal himself at once recognised the gravity of the disaster, and dechive withdrawing to Lacinium, concentrated there all his available forces, taking with him the Metapontines whom he could no longer protect! ^^^^'^ And whether or no he really said, as Livy represents, that he " recog- Hannibal's nised the fortune of Carthage," words which Horace has embalmed position. in his spirited lines — Occidit occidit spes omnis et fortuna nostri nominis Hasdrubale interempto — , the words express a fact. His chance in Italy was over. The war Hannibal \ was from that time to be decided in Spain and Africa. Hannibal -^^^^^ ^P indeed stayed three more years in Italy ; but he seems to have ''/' ^^.^ almost confined himself to his quarters near the temple of Juno on the Lacinian promontory, where he left that engraved record of his achievements and the numbers of his troops, in Greek and Punic 207-203. characters, which Polybius saw^ and copied. Even at this low ebb of his fortunes he showed his extraordinary I qualities as a commander of men. Without adequate money or • means of supply he kept his heterogeneous army together, untroubled , by mutiny or serious desertion ; and though he struck no farther , blow of any consequence, he remained almost unmolested— a lion at j bay whom the hunters dared not stir. It w^as the course of events I elsewhere, and the imminent peril of his own country, which did I what the Roman armies could not do, and forced him to leave (Italy. Laciman prom 071- tory, CHAPTER XXV SECOND PUNIC WAR Co7lcluded ■ From the Battle of the Metaurus (207) to the Battle of Zama (202) Change in the location of the war— Events in Sicily from 210 and settlement of the island— The war in Spain from 215 — Recovery of Saguntum— Syphax — Fall of the Scipios (212)— Gallantry of L. Marcius— C. Claudius in Spain out- witted by Hasdrubal (21 1-2 10)— Character of P. Cornelius Scipio— Elected proconsul for Spain (211)- His first year in Spain spent in negotiations (210- 209)— Capture of New Carthage and release of hostages (209) — Battle of Baecula and departure of Hasdrubal for Italy (208)— Battle of Ilipa— Scipio's visit to Syphax : his illness, and the mutiny on the Sucro— His interview with Masannasa— The defeat of Indibilis and Mandonius (207-206)— Scipio returns to Rome (206-205)— Scipio elected consul has Sicily as his province, and prepares to invade Africa (205) — The disturbance at Locri and accusations of Scipio (205-204) — He crosses to Africa, is joined by Masannasa, and winters near Utica (204-203) — Storm and burning of the camps of Hasdrubal and Syphax (203)— Hannibal returns to Africa (203)— Negotiations for peace broken off— Hannibal's interview with Scipio — Victory at Zama and terms imposed on Carthage (202). Sicily, When Marcellus quitted Sicily he did not leave it clear of Car- 2TI-2IO. thaginians. Agrigentum still held out, and was presently reinforced from Carthage, which caused the defection of certain Sicel (not Greek) towns, such as Morgantia, Hybla, and Macella. They were easily reduced by the praetor, and their territory divided among Roman adherents. Still the war was not finished, and Marcellus was refused a triumph. ^ He was, however, elected consul for the fourth time for 210 with Laevinus, lately engaged with Philip of ^ He was allowed a triumphal procession up the Alban mount, but only an ovatio in the city (Livy, xxvi. 21). In the oz'atio there was no chariot or laurel crown ; the general entered on foot crowned with myrtle. The locus classicus on this subject is Gellius v. 6. Plutarch {Marc. xxii. ) attributes the refusal of a triumph to jealousy. But the technical objection was valid (though not always maintained) that a general to triumph must bring home his army on the com- pletion of a war, and not hand it over to a successor in his " province," CHAP. XXV FALL OF AGRIGENTUM 361 Macedon. The lateness of the return of Laevinus from Greece 210. caused a delay in the allotment of provinces, but finally Sicily and Coss. M. the fleet fell to Marcellus, Italy to Laevinus. But envoys from Claudius Syracuse were in Rome, and they expressed the utmost consternation jy ^^ at Sicily being again governed by Marcellus. " He had been Valerius ruthless before, what would he be with the knowledge that they Laevinus. come to Rome to complain of him ? Better for the island to be destroyed by the fires of Etna or sunk in the sea ! " To many at Rome indeed, remembering the life-long fidelity of Hiero, the fate of Syracuse had seemed cruel in spite of subsequent defections. But the envoys could not fairly plead that these defections had been wholly the work of their rulers ; and the Senate, after listening to them and to Marcellus, confirmed his " acts," while promising in general terms to take the fortunes of Syracuse into kindly considera- tion. But, however stern in Sicily, Marcellus now proved willing to make a graceful concession. He affirmed indeed that the deputation had been got up by his personal enemy the praetor M. Cornelius ; but before the passing of the decree he had exchanged provinces with Laevinus, and undertaken the campaign against Hannibal, which was to be his last. No warlike movement was made in Sicily until the autumn. Fall of When Laevinus at last arrived his first care was to relieve the Agrigen- distractions and miseries of Syracuse. He then marched against ^'^"'' "^^• Agrigentum, from which Hanno's Numidian cavalry was scouring the country. At his approach Hanno was promptly betrayed by Mutines, whom Hannibal had sent to take the place of Hippocrates at the head of the cavalry. Hanno deprived him of this command, and Mutines revenged himself by opening communications with Laevinus, and throwing open the gate nearest the sea to the Roman troops. Hanno and Epicydes escaped to the beach, and crossed in a small vessel to ICarthage ; but the Punic garrison, and such Sicilians as were in I arms, were cut to pieces as they endeavoured to fly through the [gates ; the leading men in the city were executed, and the other "inhabitants sold as slaves : a terrible example which caused the Submission ispeedy surrender of twenty other towns, six more being reduced by of Sicilian (force. These were treated with greater or less severity according ^^"^' 'to their conduct, but in all of them Laevinus induced or forced the inhabitants to abandon arms and devote themselves to agriculture. jSicily was to be the granary of Rome. There was to be no more 'local independence of small sovereign states, warring with each i other or joining external powers. Though certain local laws and franchises were retained all were to be under the praetor. One element of mischief the consul removed altogether. He took to (Italy a mixed crowd of different nationalities, bankrupts, exiles, and 362 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Sicily wholly Rom a 71, 2IO. Destruc- tion of Funic ships off Lilybaeum , 207. The Will- in Spain, 2iy2o6. Division of Spain. criminals, who to the number of 4000 had been long living on plunder at Agathyrna. These we have seen settled near Rhegium, and employed in harrying its territory and besieging Caulonia. The close of 210 therefore witnessed the final expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily, and its entire submission to Rome. Henceforth its regular military establishment consisted of two legions made up of the disgraced survivors of Cannae and Herdonea, kept there in perpetuity till the end of the war, without being able to count their years of service or enjoying the usual privileges of furlough.! Even the naval force was temporarily diminished by thirty triremes being sent to Tarentum, while the remainder were to make descents upon the African coast. But a permanent reduction of the naval force at Lilybaeum was not thought possible until in 207 Laevinus — who had returned to Sicily in the previous year after the recovery of Tarentum, and now had a fleet of 100 vessels — had made the seas safe for the corn ships by a decisive victory over the Carthaginian ships. He had been ravaging the coast near Utica, and on his way back to Lilybaeum fell in with the Punic fleet of seventy sail, of which he took seventeen and sunk four. After this the winter of 206-205 was uneventful ; the greater part of the fleet was taken home, and it was not till P. Scipio's arrival in 205 that Sicily again became the scene of military preparations as a stepping- stone to Africa. This last was the natural sequel of his achievements in Spain, and we must therefore go back to trace the events in that count'"y. We have already seen that the operations of Gnaeus in 217, and of the two brothers Gnaeus and Publius in 216-215, had secured the Roman position north of the Ebro. Tarraco was their regular winter quarters, and the Roman position there was never seriously in danger. The course of the campaigns of the next ten years (2 i 5-206) is not clear either as to its chronology or geography, but some general facts may be grasped. Spain (excluding Lusitania) may for our purpose be roughly divided into three parts : the district north of the Ebro ; that between the Ebro and the Saltus Castulonensis {Sierra Moreno) ; and that between these mountains and the sea. The first, as yet without distinctive name, was inhabited by several powerful tribes, of which the chief were the Ilergetes. The second — afterwards called Tarraconensis — contained the Celtiberi, Car- petani, Oretani, Bastetani, and others. The third — Baetica — we may regard as bounded on the west by the Anas {Guadiaiia\ and watered by the Baetis {Giiadalquiver\ which divides it almost in half The 1 Their igno7ninia was farther marked by the censors of 209, who deprived the equites among them of the eg ui pub ltd, ordering them to supply their own. XXV THE SCIPIOS IN SPAIN 363 Romans, as has been said, held the first of these districts or part of it, but the Carthaginians were supreme in Baetica, The tribes of the intervening district joined fimt one side and then the other, as their fears or their interest dictated. Some were never subdued by either ; some had given hostages to Hannibal or Hasdrubal, and were only restrained by fears for them from joining the Romans ; many cared for neither, and only wished to be left to their strongholds and predatory habits. On the coast of this middle district were the cities of Saguntum and New Carthage, and the possession of these (especially of New Carthage) was of the first importance as impressing the native tribes, and as offering facilities for the advance of the Romans from the north or of the Carthaginians from the south. Baetica contained rich silver mines (as weW perhaps as New Carthage itself), from which the Carthaginians drew the means of supporting the war. It was therefore a great object to drive them out of it, and in the varied fortunes of the next ten years' war we shall see that, when the Romans are most successful, the fighting is on or south of the Baetis, and the intervening tribes favour the Roman cause ; when the Romans are unsuccessful, the Punic arms force the adhesion of the central tribes, and push the war up to the Ebro. When the Roman cause is lowest of all, the Ilergetes on the north of the Ebro break off. The next year and a half was marked l^y an addition to 2/J-2/1. the native allies, and by abortive negotiations with Syphax, king i-^^^ 1 1 of the of western Numidia, with a view to an invasion of Africa. But ' ''^"^■^• it was barren of military achievement. The Carthaginians in- creased their forces in Spain ; prevented Syphax from joining the Romans by instigating Gala, the father of IVlasannasa, to attack him ; and engaged Masannasa himself to take over a body of Numidian cavalry. The Romans, on their side, had secured a force of 20,000 Celtiberians, and had prevented Hasdrubal's march on Italy ; but they found themselves now confronted b\' three powerful armies, and it was not until late in 212 that they deter- The three mined to attack them. Mago and Hasdrubal, son of C^isco, were Punk close together ; Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, was separated by a «'''""• considerable distance from the other two. (Geographical details are quite uncertain, but it seems that all three were at no great distance from the Ebro, which in itself shows that the previous inactivity of the Scipios had been compulsory. The\- now decided to make a simultaneous attack on the two Carthaginian positions. Publius, with two-thirds of the army, was to attack Mago and Hasdrubal Gisconis ; (inaeus, with the rest of the veterans and the Celtiberian allies, Hasdrubal son of Hamilcar. But as Gnaeus approached the enemy the Celtiberians were tampered with by Hasdrubal, and 364 HISTORY OF ROME Publius falls, 212. Gnaeus falls. Heroism ofL. Marcius. suddenly abandoned the Roman camp ; and nothing remained for the weakened army but retreat, which Gnaeus at once attempted, followed closely by the enemy. Publius was still more unfortunate, or imprudent in his choice of ground. He found himself harassed by Masannasa's cavalry, of whose arrival in Africa he seems not to have known ; his fatigue parties were cut off, and he was kept in constant alarm and want of necessaries. To make matters worse, he heard that Indibilis was on his way with 7500 Suessetani to join Mago. He resolved to quit his camp and intercept this rein- forcement. It was a desperate move, for unless he eluded Mago's observation he would be between two hostile forces, away from the protection of his camp. And, in fact, when he had all but defeated Indibilis, he suddenly found his rear attacked by the Numidian cavalry. Thus caught he exerted himself gallantly, but before long fell mortally wounded. For the heavy -armed soldiers to escape cavalry was impossible, and nightfall alone prevented the slaughter from being complete. Happily for the survivors the Carthaginians, instead of pursuing, hurried away next morning to join Hasdrubal son of Hamilcar against Gnaeus. This junction was not effected for about three weeks, but yet before Gnaeus had heard of his brother's fall. He divined it, however, from observing the increase in the enemy's numbers, and endeavoured to retreat under cover of night. But the cavalry caught him up, and a slight eminence in a generally flat country offered the only hope of defence. There was no time for entrenchment ; the packs of the sumpter beasts and other baggage were piled up to form a rampart, but soon fell before an enemy flushed with victory and confident in superior numbers. Gnaeus seems to have fallen almost at the first charge with many of his men. The greater part found protection in a neighbouring forest, and eventually reached the camp fortified by Publius. The Scipios had exercised great influence in Spain, and their loss seemed a deathblow to the Roman cause. That the disaster did not in fact prove utterly ruinous was due to the energy of L. Marcius, a young eques in the army of Gnaeus. He collected the fugitives, drew reinforcements from places in which there were Roman garrisons, and having effected a junction with Fonteius, whom Publius had left in charge of his camp, led the combined army across the Ebro and encamped in safety. Hasdrubal Gisconis followed, hoping to sweep the Romans out of Spain ; but L. Marcius inspired his men with such enthusiasm, exhorting them not to lament but to avenge their beloved commanders, that when the enemy's bugles were heard, the excited soldiers, almost in spite of their leader, burst from the camp upon the foe advancing in loose order and expecting an easy prey. The attack was so unexpected XXV L. MARCIUS SAVES THE ROMAN ARMY 365 and desperate that the Carthaginians halted, wavered, and finally broke into full retreat. Marcius, with the prudence of a practised Marcms commander, exerted himself with voice and hand to prevent pursuit, -^"^^^ ^^^^ which might easily have proved fatal to such inferior numbers, and '^'^^^y- brought back the excited soldiers into the camp. The Carthaginians, who had yielded to a sudden panic, soon recovered themselves when they found the pursuit stopped, and returned leisurely to their own camp. Livy found various accounts of the subsequent achievements of L. Marcius, and prefers that which represents him as capturing two Punic camps and killing many thousands of the enemy. But if the Carthaginian camps had thus been stormed, we should hardly expect the Romans to have been confined, as they were, to a narrow district north of the Ebro ; or that there should have been a general defection, as there seems to have been, throughout Spain. On the other hand, it is clear that Marcius must in some way have checked the Carthaginian advance. For when in the late summer of 2 1 1 the praetor C. Claudius Nero arrived, he found the army encamped on the Ebro, and the headquarters at Tarraco undisturbed, and , no forward movement on foot on the part of the Punic generals. I Nero, destined to be famous afterwards on the Metaurus, effected c. Cland- nothing in Spain. He had been sent with a considerable force after ius Nero I the fall of Capua, and taking over the army of Marcius advanced into Baetica, and succeeded in catching Hasdrubal son of Hamilcar I in a wooded valley near Ilitergis, but was outwitted by a pretended I negotiation for the evacuation of Spain, while Hasdrubal withdrew ( his men from their dangerous position. The Senate determined to i supersede Nero by some officer of experience. But it was difficult * to find any one willing to undertake the task. Spain was now, as ' later, apt to become the grave of military reputations, and the recent fall of the Scipios enhanced the feeling against the undertaking. I The ordinary magistrates were perhaps fully employed elsewhere, ' and at any rate some special appointment was thought necessary and I was referred to the comitia. But when the comitia met, no one had ' given in his name. It was at this crisis that P. Cornelius Scipio, />. Cornel- I son of the Publius who had recently fallen in Spain, proclaimed his his Scipio \ willingness to undertake the command. He was only twenty-four (^Z' ' years old, and custom — though no law as yet — confined the consular rank to men nearly twenty years older. But Scipio had before bid take the I defiance to such restrictions, and had already given proof of courage command. and energy. In 218 he had saved his father's life on the Ticinus ; in 216 had prevented the contemplated desertion of young nobles after Cannae ; and when elected aedile for 2 1 2 had replied to objectors, that if all the centuriae named him, that would make him old enough. « His good looks and a certain dignified reserve impressed people with tn i>patn, 211. lrt- canus) offers to 366 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. confidence, enhanced by the popular behef, which he at least did not discourage, that he enjoyed in some special way the favour and intimacy of the gods. At times his face was said to glow and his whole form to expand, as from divine afflatus, and the soldiers who saw him caught some of his enthusiasm and felt assured of victory. With all this he was wary and calculating, leaving nothing to chance, and taking all precautions of a prudent general. He had also the faculty of gaining the respect of equals and enemies. It was chiefly owing to him that Masannasa became a firm ally of Rome, that Syphax wavered in allegiance to Carthage. From Hannibal himself he extorted warm admiration, and upon Prusias and Antiochus exer- cised commanding influence. His greatness showed itself in his appreciation of good qualities in others. L. Marcius, neglected by Nero, was honoured and employed by him, and the disgraced soldiers of Cannae were freely admitted to his army of Africa. Though not specially connected, like the younger Africanus, with literary men, he was highly educated, and represented the more refined and liberal class of nobles, as opposed to the party whose typical hero was Fabius, and who were displeased even at success if it involved breaches of custom or tended to trench on senatorial dignity. Such was the man who now came forward with the confidence of youth, yet with the gravity becoming his rank. His election was carried with enthusiasm. And when doubts arose on account of his age and the unfortunate associations attaching to his name in Spain, he calmed the feelings of the people by a speech which soothed alarm and inspired hope. P. Cornel- Late in 2 11, or early in 210, he reached Spain with a reinforce- ius Scipio nient of men and ships. But the year 210 witnessed, it seems, no in Spam, ^yarlike operations : it was taken up with negotiations and visits to allies, whose deputies had waited upon him almost immediately on his arrival at Tarraco. However, he did not neglect the army already in the country, or show jealousy of L. Marcius. He treated him with all honour ; and visiting the men in their quarters, praised them for the courage with which they had defended the province and allies; and by word and deed inspired that feeling of confidence which in war largely contributes to its own fulfilment. He found that he had three Carthaginian armies with which to reckon. Mago was in the vicinity of Carteia (Gibraltar), Hasdrubal Gisconis at the mouth of the Tagus, Hasdrubal son of Hamilcar in Central Spain among the Carpetani, — a position of things which shows that Marcius had been on the whole successful, which is farther confirmed by the fact that Saguntum was still occupied by a Roman garrison and its restored inhabitants. Scipio had made careful inquiries as to the state of things in Spain before leaving Rome. Still it was not easy 2ri-2IO. XXV SCIPIO RESOLVES TO TAKE NEW CARTHAGE 367 to decide to what point to direct his attack. If he marched against His plan of the nearest of the three, Hasdrubal son of Hamilcar, he might be attacking met by a combination of all. Hasdrubal son of Gisco might march ff^\, up the Tagus, and Mago through the now friendly tribes of the south, winter of If he avoided this and marched south to attack Mago, a junction of 2io-2og the two Hasdrubals might shut him off from return. But there was one town, the chief seat of Carthaginian power, from which all three camps were at a considerable distance, the nearest not less than ten days' march. If New Carthage became Roman instead of Car- thaginian it would serve as a headquarters as safe as Tarraco, commanding the south and the nearest crossing to Carthage. He had therefore privately resolved to leave all three generals alone and make straight for it. Extreme secrecy was needed lest the Punic commanders should anticipate him. During the winter, therefore, he quietly informed himself of everything concerning it, the use and conveniency of its harbour, the nature of its defences, and the number of its garrison. So secure had it seemed to the Carthaginian leaders, that though their magazines, their money, and all their Spanish > hostages were there, though it was the place of landing for all stores I and reinforcements from home, it was only protected by a garrison I of 1000 men, while its numerous inhabitants consisted for the most j part of mechanics and fishenrien, wholly unaccustomed to arms. 1 The bay on which New Carthage stood was an indentation of AVtc- I about a mile in length, forming a good harbour, and partially closed Carthage. I by the island Skombraria. At the bottom of this bay was a Cher- isonese, on which were two elevations of 201 and 123 feet respect- ively, one called the mount of Asclepius, on the east, and the other the mount of Hasdrubal (who had built a palace on it) on the west I side. The depression between these two towards the sea was pro- tected by a wall. On the north of the town were three hills, which — taking them from west to east — were called Mons Saturni (151 feet), Mons Aletis (144 feet), and Mons Vulcani (168 feet). The city wall, forming a circuit of between two and three miles, followed the line of these hills. But besides this, two-thirds of the wall was protected by a great inland sea or lagoon (now dry), which, communicating The lagoon. with the harbour to the west of the town, swept round the north and \ part of the eastern walls, leaving a neck of land of about a third of a \ mile in extent. Here was the natural approach to the city, and along I this space therefore the walls were lofty and strong. That part of them which was washed by the lagoon was comparatively low and less carefully guarded, as not being open to escalade. Scipio, how- ever, had learnt from native fishermen that at certain states of the tide the lagoon was shallow enough to allow an approach to the walls, and had a plan ready which he carried out successfully. 368 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Arrival of army and fleet at New Carthage, 2og. Siege of New Carthage. Sally from New Carthage. Crossing the lagoon. Laelius, his life-long friend, who alone was in the secret of the expedition, was directed to be at New Carthage with the fleet on a fixed day, to assist in the assault, and to take off the troops in case of failure. The men generally were easily kept in the dark, for the veterans were accustomed to march south into Baetica, and when Scipio led them across the Ebro there was nothing to show to what point their march was directed. The distance between the Ebro and New Carthage, about 300 miles, was rapidly accomplished.^ And it was not until they were encamped in sight of the city walls that Scipio explained to his men the object of their march. The fleet under Laelius arrived in the harbour simultaneously with the army, and Scipio lost no time in commencing operations. His camp was pitched opposite the city gate, in the lofty walls which faced to the north-east upon the neck of land between the lagoon and the sea. He drew lines of defence on his rear, but left the front of his camp open. He was not afraid of the weak garrison of the town, but an attack of any of the three Punic generals who might arrive to raise the siege must be provided against. Mago, the commandant of the Punic garrison, was taken by surprise, but organised a resistance with courage and skill. He divided his 1000 men between the part of the walls attacked by Scipio and the citadel. He armed 2000 of the most available of the citizens, and placed them at the gates fronting the Romans, ready to sally against the enemy, Scipio drew these men out by sending a detachment to threaten an escalade, covered by 2000 of his best troops, whom he would be able to support all the more promptly that his men would not have to file out of a narrow gate, but could start from all parts of the camp at once. Their approach to the wall was met by a sally, which they repulsed with great loss to the enemy. The garrison had advanced a quarter of a mile to attack the besiegers, their supports could only come up slowly through the gate, and when beaten back they had all to crowd through the same narrow entrance, losing almost as many in the crush as on the field. The Romans all but forced their way in with the fugitives, and at least were able to fix their ladders on the walls, which however proved to be too high and well defended to be thus taken. But to the mortification of the defenders the attempt, from which towards the afternoon the Romans had desisted with some loss, was renewed later in the day. This, ^ Polybius (x. 11) says that he arrived on the seventh day, without clearly stating the point of departure from which he is reckoning. Livy (xxvi, 42) says outright "on the seventh day from the Ebro." It is clear that for an army to march 300 miles in seven days is practically impossible. Livy is simply copying Polybius, and the only solution seems to be to suppose an early corruption in the text of the latter. XXV FALL OF NEW CARTHAGE 369 however, was only to cover another movement. IVTen had been standing by the side of the lagoon furnished with ladders, and the time was now come at which Scipio had learnt that its waters would ebb. They were in fact visibly sinking, and he bade the men step The lagoofi in without fear and make for the low part of the wall. It was passed. successfully scaled and found to be almost deserted, the garrison being attracted to the other Roman assault. The few guards met by the Roman soldiers, as they made their way along the walls, were easily overpowered ; and presently the gates facing the Roman camp, already assaulted from without, were reached and forced open. Thus the city was in the hands of the Romans, by the aid it seemed of that Neptune who, as Scipio had told them, had appeared to him in his sleep and suggested the plan. Hanno, who had retired to the citadel, presently surrendered on Surrender promise of his life, and the indiscriminate slaughter, which had been ofHamw. permitted as long as any part of the city held out, was stopped, and ./^ j f the soldiers were confined to taking booty. They were ordered to i^g town, collect it in the market-place, and to bivouac by it for the night. It 2og. was extraordinarily rich. The gold and silver, coined and uncoined, with cups and plate, amounted to more than 600 talents (;{![ 144,000), and was handed over to the quaestor. But besides this, and a vast miscellaneous booty, which was divided among the army, Scipio obtained a great store of war material — arms, missiles, and catapults ; immense granaries of spelt and barley, 18 vessels of war and 113 merchant vessels, many of them laden with corn or naval stores, and 10,000 captives of full age. These last were not sold. Those who seemed suitable were drafted into the navy, now increased by the addition of the captured vessels ; while those skilled in handicrafts, especially armourers and the like, were encouraged to carry on their industries under the superintendence of a Roman overseer to each thirty of them, with the promise of liberty at the end of the war if they deserxed it. At present they were to be slaves, not of any individual, but of the Roman people. Laelius was sent home with the news, carrying with him Mago and fifteen Carthaginian senators. Scipio remained at New Carthage, seeing to the restoration of the fortifications, drilling his men, and practising his ships till it was time to return to Tarraco. The wealth thus olDtained was of great imj^ortance in sparing the Importance exhausted treasury at home, but he had also secured a base of opera- of the tions in the heart of the enemy's country, which he was converting ^^^"^^ V into a " workshop of war " to supply his own needs, while he deprived Cartha^e them of their best port and source of supplies. What this did for the Roman cause in Spain was shown by the deputations which met Scipio on his return march proffering submission and alliance. These 2 B 370 HISTORY OF ROME The hostages. Impression through Spain. Scipio in Baetica, 208. envoys of native tribes were told to meet him at Tarraco, where he meant to hold a congress of representatives of Spain north and south of the Ebro alike. Scipio had also found at New Carthage a means of winning the regard and gratitude of the chiefs. There were there 300 hostages, some children, both boys and girls, some young men, some grown women. These he treated with fatherly kindness, presenting them with suitable presents, and promising them an early restoration to their homes, A special appeal for protection against the licentiousness of their Carthaginian guards from the wife and daughters of Mandonius was courteously answered by Scipio, who caused them to be carefully guarded to Tarraco ; and the self-control which he exercised in the case of a beautiful girl taken prisoner by Roman soldiers, whom he restored to her father without ransom, still farther enhanced his reputation among the Spaniards. His winter quarters at Tarraco were thronged by chiefs who came to receive their relatives and declare their adhesion to the Roman cause. The move- ment was begun by Edeco, chief of the Edeloni. But presently it was joined also by the leaders of the Ilergetes, Indibilis and Mandonius, who were serving in Hasdmbal's camp, but were discontented at the overbearing conduct of the Carthaginians. The news of Scipio's kindness to Mandonius's wife and daughters confirmed a resolution to which they had been coming. They quitted Hasdrubal, and, en- trenching themselves separately, waited an opportunity of joining Scipio, with whom they were already in communication. They accordingly did so when in the following year Scipio marched into Baetica to attack Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, who seems to have moved there after the fall of New Carthage, to supply himself with money from the mines as a preparation for his march into Italy, for which the low state of the Carthaginian fortunes in Spain made him think the time had come. Hasdrubal neither expected nor wished to get away without fighting Scipio, and seems to have been desirous of putting this last chance to the test. His camp was at Baecula, but on Scipio's approach he shifted his quarters to a more favourable position, where his rear was protected by a river and his front by a steep ascent. Strong, however, as the position was, Scipio attempted to storm it ; and though he did not entirely succeed, the result of the fighting seems to have decided Hasdrubal against farthet risk. He had sent on his elephants and money towards the Tagus to meet Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, and during the night following the assault marched after them. But Scipio, though he was able to occupy the abandoned camp, had won no such victory as enabled him to follow, in the face of two other unconquered armies, which he knew to be within a moderate distance. Hasdrubal therefore marched off undisturbed towards the lower Tagus, where he effected a junction XXV . LAST EFFORTS OF CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN 371 with Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, and Mago. After some rearrange- Hasdrubal ment of forces he continued on his way to the western Pyrenees, and goes to thence into Gaul, to prepare for his march into Italy which was to Gaul, late find its catastrophe on the Metkurus. Scipio had thus let his enemy slip, and could only make up for this by warning the government at home, as soon as he had ascer- tained, by sending horsemen to watch the retiring army, the direction of their march. After remaining some time in the camp of Hasdrubal, and farther conciliating the Spaniards by dismissing Spanish prisoners winter at to their homes, he led his army back to winter quarters at Tarraco. 208-207. The remaining Carthaginian generals made no attempt to molest him. Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, went to Lusitania to raise fresh recruits, and Mago to Cades, a Punic settlement which had now become their headquarters and port of landing from Africa, and as yet had had no experience of Roman arms. The arrangement of events during the next two years (207-206) 207-206. is not clear, but as the war was practically brought to a conclusion Gradual by the end of 206 it must be that on the whole the Roman arms ««'"^«^^^'/ were steadily progressing throughout. P. Scipio first opposed Has- artff;. drubal, son of Cisco, in Baetica ; Silanus confronted Mago in Celtiberia; and the proconsul's brother, L. Scipio, was among the Bastitani, a powerful tribe on the south-east coast. The Carthaginians at home now resolved upon a greater effort, A new army was sent to Spain under Hanno, which, joining Mago and his Celtiberian allies, was checked if not beaten by Silanus ; while L. Scipio took Aurinx near Munda, and sufficient success was obtained to warrant his being sent home with captives and a triumphant despatch. The Carthaginian cause was everywhere failing. Hasdrubal had fallen on the Metaurus : the armies in Spain had been steadily pushed southwards, until a small district from Cades to Carteia was all they could count their own. But another effort was to be made. In the latter part of 207 Battle of Masannasa appears to have crossed to Spain again with Numidian ^'''A^. 206. cavalry. Mago had been able to raise 50,000 infantry and 4500 cavalry, for the Spaniards have always shown a curious faculty for ! renewing a lost war by endless local efforts ; and just when their fortunes seemed lowest Mago and Hasdrubal found themselves at I the head of a large army. Scipio, who had also obtained reinforce- 1 ments from a chief named Colichas, marched southward on hearing that Hasdrubal had ventured again into Baetica and was encamped near IHpa on the Baetis. He pitched his camp near Baecula, and after suffering some annoyance from Masannasa's cavalry and spending some days in skirmishing, led out his army and offered battle. He I distrusted his Spanish troops, however, and took care that the results i of the battle should depend upon the Romans. These were placed 372 HISTORY OF ROME CPAP. Effects of the battle of Ilipa. 20J-2.06. Scipio visits Syphax. on his two wings and advanced at a brisk pace, while the Spaniards in the centre were ordered to advance slowly. His two wings therefore engaged and defeated the two wings of the enemy, whose men, having been forced out of camp very early by the Roman cavalry skirmishing up to their lines, were hungr>' and weary. The Car- thaginian centre could not aid the wings, because they could see Scipio's Spaniards advancing, and yet could not get into contact with the enemy. By thus " refusing his centre " Scipio secured that the best soldiers of the enemy should never be engaged at all. The rout of Hasdrubal's wings infected the centre, and he was soon in full retreat. The Romans were said to have been only prevented from storming the camp by a violent storm of rain. The loss of the battle was followed by the desertion of many of their allies, and the wearied Carthaginian soldiers, who had had to spend much of the time imperatively needed for rest in strengthening their defences, before daylight next morning had abandoned the camp and were in full retreat. The Romans followed, hoping to cut them off at the passage of the Baetis, to which natives had guided them by a shorter route. But Hasdrubal, finding the river closed to him, abandoned any attempt to force a passage, and turning south- ward made for the coast of the ocean, which was reached, though with much loss at the hands of the pursuing cavalr>'. Finding some ships ready he made his way to Gades, from which he sent back the ships to bring off Mago and some of his men. The great army, collected with such pains, was utterly dispersed and broken up. Many had perished in the battle and the retreat, many more deserted to the Romans, and some of the remainder found refuge in the neighbouring towns. But to all effective purposes the Carthaginians were now driven from Spain, and Lucius Scipio was again sent home, with many captives of rank, to carry the joyful news. Between this time and the end of 206 there was indeed some fighting with natives, and some difficulties to overcome with the Roman army itself. Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, and Mago were still in Spain, but they were confined to the island and district of Gades, while Adherbal still commanded some ships in its harbour. But Scipio felt satisfied that he could leave the rest of the campaign to Silanus, while he concerted measures for his great plan of transferring the war to Africa'. Returning to Tarraco he sent Laelius with presents to Syphax, king of the Massaesylians, to detach him from Carthage, and when Laelius reported that he was well inclined but desired to negotiate with the general personally, Scipio resolved to go. He arrived on the coast of Africa in the dominions of Syphax almost simultaneously with Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, who was sailing home from Gades. Syphax entertained both with equal courtesy. Scipio MUTINY IN THE ROMAN ARMY 373 lay on the same couch with Hasdrubal at supper, who was much impressed by his digniified courtesy. " Scipio seemed to him," he said, " even more admirable in conversation than in war." Syphax himself also was won over, or pretended to be so, and made some terms with Scipio which were satisfactoiy at the time, though he proved in the future a fickle and worthless ally. On his return to Spain Scipio found that L. Marcius had reduced Illness of Castulo, Illiturgis, Astapa, and other places which had declared for Scipio. the Carthaginians, and he 'now celebrated his triumph at New Carthage by feasts and gladiatorial shows. But the fatigues of the war had been too much for him ; he became seriously ill, and a report was circulated of his death. The effect was remarkable. Indibilis and Mandonius, whose hopes in joining the Roman alliance indibilis had not been fully gratified, led their peoples, the Ilergetes and a?id Man- Lacetani, across the Ebro and descended upon central Spain. Even ^'^'^^J^^ some Roman troops, stationed on the Sucro to overawe the central tribes, growing licentious from long inactivity, broke out into mutiny, Mutiny of drove their tribunes out of the camp, and elected two private soldiers Roman to command them, who assumed the ensigns of the highest military ^^oops, rank. They alleged arrears of pay, and hoped to recoup themselves by unrestrained plunder. When the new commanders had for a short time enjoyed their power and the men their license, it became known that the rumours of Scipio's death were false, and even the severity of his illness exaggerated. The feeling of uneasiness and^ alarm began to take the place of over-confidence, and presently the camp was visited by seven military tribunes, who invited the soldiers to come on a fixed day separately or in a body to New Carthage to receive their pay, with which Scipio had taken care to provide himself. They resolved to go in a body, and were confirmed in their belief that the proconsul meant to treat them gently by meeting the advanced guard of an army leaving New Carthage for a campaign against Indibilis as they arrived at the gates of New Carthage. But, though they did not know it, these troops returned to the town in the evening ; and their own leaders, to the number of thirty-five, after being entertained by officers in the town, had been arrested. At daybreak next morning, being summoned to a meeting, they went in high spirits, expecting the satisfaction of their demands. Assembled I before the tribunal, they found themselves surrounded by the men I whom they believed to have left the town : but, though rendered uneasy at the sight, they did not know what was really going to I happen. Presently Scipio himself appeared in the tribunal and j addressed them, and his words must at once have warned them that I their high hopes were vain. He pointed out that their alleged grievances were groundless ; that the arrears of pay should have 374 HISTORY OF ROME The ring leaders punished. Mago leaves Spain for Italy. been asked for from himself with proper respect and submission ; that in any case it did not justify rebelHon against their country and joining with her enemies ; that their idea of becoming masters of Spain under such leadership as they had adopted was ludicrous ; and that their only excuse lay in the fickleness and gullibility of a crowd, which, " like the sea which is in itself safe and quiet, but when winds fall violently upon it, takes the character of the blasts which lash it into fury." Therefore, he concluded, he should pardon them, but should show no mercy to the leaders* who had seduced them to mutiny. Thunderstruck by the severity of the general, and by the sudden clashing of swords and shields from the troops surrounding them, the men looked on with silent terror while the thirty-five ring- leaders were brought out, stripped, and bound, and submitted to the usual military punishment of scourging and beheading. Without a word or movement of resistance, the cowed mutineers took the military oath of obedience and received the promised pardon. Meanwhile L. Marcius had been suppressing some fresh attempts of Hanno, an officer of Mago's, in the valley of the Baetis ; and Laelius had in vain tried to take advantage of treason from within to seize Gades. This failure, with the news of the movement of Indibilis, and of the mutiny, had encouraged Mago to send home asking for reinforcements. But the Carthaginian government had abandoned hope in Spain, and ordered Mago to go by sea to Liguria, and create a diversion for Hannibal by rousing the Ligurians and ^Italian Gauls. He accordingly set sail, furnished with money from home and by exactions in Spain, and after touching on the coast near New Carthage, from which he was driven by the Roman garri- son, and vainly attempting to return to Gades, finally arrived at Minorca, and wintered there in preparation for the crossing to Italy in the spring. Scipio was to go home at the end of 206 ; but had still to repress Indibilis and Mandonius. A fourteen days' march brought him from New Carthage into the valley of the Ebro, where the Ilergetes appear to have been easily defeated, though Mandonius and Indibilis escaped. They shortly afterwards submitted, and Avere allowed to compound for their treason by a fine ; but under Scipio's successors started another movement which cost them their lives. This defeat of the Ilergetes had not only convinced Mago that he had no more to Adhesion of hope for in Spain, but had also decided Masannasa on the plan of joining Rome, to which his interests in Africa, opposed by Syphax and Carthage, had also been bringing him. He had for some time been in communication with the propraetor, M. Silanus, but wished to have an interview with Scipio himself; and accordingly when, under pretence of acquiring more room for his cavalry he had crossed Scipio prepares to return home, 206. Defeat of the Ilergetes. Masan nasa. XXV SCIPIO'S RETURN TO ROME 375 from the islands of Gades to the mainland, Scipio thought it worth while to journey across Spain to meet him. For being now wholly bent on his expedition against Carthage, every alliance in Africa was of value in his eyes. Masannasa was completely won by Scipio, and promised the utmost help in his power. Solemn pledges of friend- ship were interchanged, and Scipio returned to Tarraco with the assurance that the famous Numidian cavalry would be at his service whenever he landed in Africa. He might, perhaps, have wished to go there without returning to Scipio Rome. But the Senate was jealous of farther military command rettims to being in the hands of one who had not held the highest office at J^^^ ^J . ..- , , -111 11 the end of home. His successor was already appointed, and as he could not 206. look for a farther extension of imperiwn in Spain, with leave to go to Africa, he wished to hand over his province at once, and arrive in Rome in time for the consular elections. He was received by the Senate sitting in the temple of Bellona, that he might claim his triumph before losing his i7npe7'iuin by entering the pomoerium. He reported that he " had fought with four generals and four victorious armies, and had not left a single Carthaginian {i.e. Carthaginian sol- dier) in Spain." The triumph was refused on the technical ground that he had held no regular magistracy ; he had had proconsular power, but had been neither consul nor praetor. Scipio cared little for the triumph. He felt certain of getting 203. Coss. from the people what he wanted, in spite of senatorial jealousy, -f- ^^^"^!' Accordingly at the next Comitia all the centuries named him consul, ^p\i^inius the crowd of voters being unusually great. His colleague was P. Crassus. Licinius Crassus, who, as pontifex maximus, would be unable to leave Italy.^ It was clear, therefore, that whatever foreign " province " was assigned to the consuls would have to be his. That the people supported his wishes was made clear by the crowds which frequented his house, or followed him when he appeared in public, and the con- fident predictions heard on all sides that he would finish the second Punic war, as Lutatius finished the first. Sicily and Bruttium were the provinces assigned to the consuls ; but there was no need for them to draw lots ; as Crassus could not leave Italy, it followed that Contro- Scipio must have Sicily. But as he also desired authority to extend his ^^^'^ operations to Africa, if it seemed good, he brought this question before "^ ^ the Senate at its first meeting under his presidency ; and let it be known ^^ Scipids that, if the Senate refused its sanction, he would appeal to the people proposal, for a law giving him the required permission. Thus he had two parties March in the Senate opposed to him. One, to whom the extension of the war ^^•^^ into Africa seemed a dangerous deviation from the Fabian policy of ^ A rule first violated by L. Crassus in 131, and often afterwards. 376 HISTORY OF ROME Scipio authorised to iiivade Africa, 20S- Vol It 71 tee rs from Etruria. caution ; the other, who were jealous of transferring to the people the arrangement of the provinces, which, by a well-established convention, had been left to the Senate. The view of the former was stated by the aged Fabius himself, who, in an elaborate speech, pointed out the risks and dangers of an expedition into Africa while Hannibal was still in Italy ; and declared that a consular army was not enrolled to serve the private ambition of the consul, but to guard Italy and the city. Scipio answered that the expedition to Africa would force Hannibal to leave Italy more effectually than an attack on him there, and that it was due to the dignity of the Roman people that the enemy should at length suffer what they had so long been inflicting. The other olDJection was stated by Q. Fulvius Flaccus, the victor of Capua, who had been dictator and four times consul. He asked the consul directly whether it was his intention to lea\e the arrange- ment of the provinces to the Senate and abide by its decision, or to bring a rogation before the people ? And on Scipio's replying evasively that "he would act for the best interests of the Republic," Fulvius appealed to the tribunes to protect him if he refused to vote, when he knew that the consul would not abide by the vote of the majority if against his wishes. The tribunes decided that, if Scipio determined to refer the matter to the people, they would protect any senator refusing to vote. Next day Scipio, after a conference with his colleague, gave the required assurance, and the Senate on their part compromised the matter by allowing him the province of Sicily, with permission to cross to Africa " if he should consider it to be for the interests of the Republic." He was, in fact, in the same position as the commanders on the Greek coast had been during the last few years. Their province is sometimes described as " Greece," as " Greece and Macedonia," sometimes simply as the " fleet " ; the truth being that a discretion had to be allowed, and the exact bounds of such a " province " could not be defined. Moreover he was not sent to Sicily as a provincial governor ; the annual praetor would go there as usual. It was a military com- mand, — which was now only needed in Sicily as a base for farther operations. Though the Senate had thus given in, it did not refrain from showing its jealousy. Scipio was refused authority to levy troops beyond those already serving in Sicily, which, together with the ships, were put under his command. This, however, did not trouble him. He could not well be forbidden to employ volunteers, and of these he soon had 7000 from various cities in Etruria, some of which offered new ships and every kind of material for their outfit, and large sup- plies of corn. Thus furnished with a considerable force, without expense to the treasury, he sailed to Sicily, leaving the Senate to concert resistance to Mago, who had seized Genua and Savona, and SCIPIO IN SICILY 377 was collecting a large army of Ligurians, with the hope of marching south to join Hannibal. Scipio spent the remainder^ of this autumn and the winter following Scipio in m Sicily, collecting provisions and stores, repairing and refitting Sicily, ships, and organising his army for his meditated expedition into ^os-204. Africa. He had been accompanied to the island by 300 equites, for whom the Senate refused equipment. But he used his power of enforcing the service of inhabitants of Sicilian towns to equip them. Summoning out 300 Sicilians, he offered to allow them to abstain from the service on condition that they gave their horses and arms to his Italians as their substitutes. The offer was gladly accepted, and Scipio had thus a body of cavalry in which he felt confidence. ' His popularity in Sicily was f[irther increased by the equity with which he decided disputes between the Sicilians and Italian settlers ; and, though he did not go to Africa himself this year, he sent Laelius Prepar- with a fleet, who was immediately joined by Masannasa, and returned ations in laden with spoils from the African coast. This expedition had caused ^^^^thage, the greatest alarm in Carthage, where a fleet was hurriedly sent out ^°^- to attack Laelius at Hippo ; preparations for raising an army and victualling the city were hastily made ; and messages sent round to the neighbouring Libyan tribes to ask for help ; while money was despatched to king Philip of Macedonia to induce him to effect a diversion by invading Italy. The success of Laelius and the ascertained fidelity of Masannasa Troubles made the Roman army eager to cross at once. But Scipio had at Locri, apparently determined not to make his expedition till the following -^J- sprmg, and was at any rate detained for a time by the prospect of wresting an important Greek town in Italy from the Carthaginians. Locri had early revolted to the Punic side, driving out its aristocrats, who were generally favourable to Rome. These men had found a refuge at Rhegium ; and they now, at the head of a force of mis- cellaneous refugees, made their way thither and effected an escalade in the night. The Punic garrison still held one of the two citadels, while the other was occupied by Q. Pleminius, the propraetor, who had been ordered by Scipio to support the invaders from Rhegium. The two citadels were thus the bases from which sallies were made for some days by the opposing forces. Hannibal was said to be approaching to relieve the Carthaginian garrison ; and Scipio, being told that Pleminius was in danger, crossed at once to Locri. Hanni- bal had ad\anced from his position on the Lacinian promontory to the bank of the river Butrotus, and had even approached the walls of the city so close, it is said, that a missile killed a man at his side. But, as usual, he could not or would not attempt an attack upon walls, and hearing that Scipio was in the town he retired, sending 378 HISTORY OF ROME Miscon- duct of Pleyninius at Locri. 204. Coss. M. Cornelius, P. Sem- pronius. The complaint of the Locrians. Charges against Scipio. word to Hamilcar to provide for his own safety. Hamilcar accord- ingly abandoned the citadel during the night, and hastened to unite himself with Hannibal's relieving army. Scipio then put Pleminius in charge of the citadel and town, and returned to Messana. But quarrels arose between the garrison under Pleminius, which he had brought from Rhegium, and the soldiers whom Scipio had placed in Locri, under the command of some tribunes. Pleminius took the side of his own men, arrested and flogged the tribunes, and was almost killed himself in the military riot which followed. Scipio hurried across again, and summoned both Pleminius and the tribunes before him. He acquitted Pleminius, and ordered the tribunes to be sent in chains to Rome to be judged by the Senate. But directly he had returned to Syracuse Pleminius vented his anger by putting them to death in circumstances of atrocious cruelty, and cast out their bodies unburied. Nor was this all. He treated the natives with abominable violence, especially those whom he discovered to have complained of his conduct to Scipio, while he made the Roman government scandalous by licentiousness and extortion. The Locrians sent legates to lay their case before the Senate, especially complaining of Pleminius's sacrilegious avarice in plundering the temple of Proserpine. The Senate asked them whether they had reported their grievance to Scipio. They replied that they had, but that he was wholly occupied in his preparations for his voyage to Africa ; and that, moreover, when he had heard the case before, he had condemned the tribunes to imprisonment, and had left the guilty Pleminius in power. This was too good an opportunity to be passed over by Scipio's enemies. Fabius demanded that Pleminius should be brought in chains to Rome, and that Scipio should be recalled for having left his province. Other rumours asserted that he was leading an idle if not luxurious life in Syracuse, amusing himself with sports or literature, while his army was ener- vated by the delights of the town, and Carthage and Hannibal were forgotten. There was for the moment a strong feeling against him. Yet wiser counsels prevailed. On the motion of the consular Q. Caecilius Metellus it was resolved to recall Pleminius, and to send ten commissioners with an aedile and two tribunes of the plebs to investigate the case, and if it should appear that what had gone on at Locri was by the wish or order of Scipio, to bring him back to Rome, even if he had already crossed to Africa. Meanwhile Pleminius appears to have been already arrested by Scipio's order, and the Locrian envoys disclaimed any intention of accusing Scipio of anything beyond not having been sufficiently moved by their miseries. The Fabian party in the Senate, however, seems to have thought XXV SCIPIO CROSSES TO AFRICA 379 that, though thus reheved from compHcity with Pleminius, Scipio Scipio would be found to have neglected the preparations for the invasion of acquitted. Africa. But the commissioners found everything in Syracuse in the highest state of efficiency. The fleet and army were splendidly trained and disciplined, the arsenals were full of stores, and Scipio was content, without condescending to defend himself, that they should judge with their own eyes. Their report left the Senate no excuse. A decree was passed sanctioning his immediate invasion of Africa, and authorising him to select for the purpose whatever troops in Sicily he thought fit. An emissaiy from Syphax had informed Scipio that no help must Scipio be expected from him. The king had in fact made terms with crosses to Carthage, and had married Sophanisba, daughter of Hasdrubal, son ^ P'^'-^' of Cisco, whose influence secured him to the side of Carthage. The army, however, was not admitted to the knowledge of this dis- couraging circumstance, and the arrangements with the praetor in Sicily as to what troops were to be taken were made without difficulty. Scipio warmly welcomed volunteers from the armies of Cannae and Hcrdonea, and mustered a force variously estimated at 10,000 foot His forces. with 2200 cavalry and 16,000 infantry with 1600 cavalry. The transports, the provisioning of which had been entrusted to the praetor, were convoyed by sixty war-vessels in two divisions — one under Scipio and his brother Lucius, the other under Laelius and his quaestor M. Porcius Cato — distinguished from the transports by carrying only one lantern instead of two on their prows. The start from Lilybaeum was solemn and impressive. The inhabitants crowded down to the harbour ; legates from Sicilian cities were there to offer good wishes ; and the soldiers who were to be left behind came to bid their comrades good -bye. At daybreak a herald The proclaimed silence, and Scipio, standing on the prow of his ship, departure. offered a solemn prayer to the gods of sea and land, performed the usual sacrifice, and cast the entrails of the victims into the sea. Then he gave the word, a trumpet sounded, and the start was made. The point aimed at was the coast of the Lesser Syrtis, in the neigh- Ijourhood of which Masannasa was ready to welcome them with a force of cavalry. But the plan seems to have been changed during the voyage. They had started in fine weather and with a fair wind, but towards noon a fog had come on, lasting through the next night. At daybreak it was dispersed by a brisk breeze, and the shore of Africa was seen for the first time in the distance. But again at noon the fog thickened and lasted through the night, so that the ships had to lay-to until daybreak, when Scipio ordered the pilots to make for the nearest point. This proved to be the " Fair Promontory," — name of good omen, — and there the troops were landed and pitched 38o HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Prepar- ations in Carthage, 204. Scipio plunders the country Masan- nasa. Hasdrubal with JO, 000 infantry a/id jooo cavahy, and Syphax with SO, 000 infantry and s 000 cavalry oppose Scipio. their camp on some high ground, while the fleet was sent on to Utica. The alarm at Carthage was naturally great. Many temporary descents had been made on the African coasts by Roman forces, but Scipio's landing was a real invasion, such as had not been known smce the days of Regulus, and the city itself was in danger. The gates were closed, the walls manned, pickets set ; while 500 cavalry, sent out to reconnoitre Scipio's position, fell in with his skirmishing parties and suffered some loss. His first movements, however, were practically unopposed. He harried the country^ took fortified places, and sent off booty and captives by the thousand to the transports. Best of all he was joined by Masannasa and his cavalry, influenced perhaps by admiration for Scipio, but still more by his personal interests. His father Gala, king of the Massylians, had died whilst he was engaged in Spain, and in his absence the kingdom had been secured for his boy- cousin Lacumaces, whose tutor Mazetulus practically ruled it. Mazetulus was in the Carthaginian interest, and Masannasa had therefore to look elsewhere for help to recover his rights. By the aid of Bocchus, king of Mauretania, he drove Mazetulus and his ward to take refuge in Carthaginian territory. They were afterwards induced to return and acknowledge Masannasa's rights. But at the instigation of Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, their cause was taken up by Syphax ; and Masannasa, beaten in the field, fled to the mountains, where for 'some time he led an adventurous life, plundering Carthaginian lands, and hunted by the troops of Carthage and Syphax. He was looking forward to Scipio's arrival as a means of recovering his dominions, and seems to have been waiting for him in the neighbourhood of the Lesser Syrtis {inter Pimica Emporia): but when Hasdrubal and Syphax were recalled from their operations against him to prevent Scipio's advance on Carthage, he was able to make his way to the Roman camp near Utica. He had already assisted in repulsing the skirmishing attack of Hanno's cavalry, which had been sent in advance in the vain hope of saving the country from plunder, when Hasdrubal and Syphax arrived in view of Scipio's quarters, and encamped within sight of each other, and at no great distance from the Roman camp. Scipio had now selected his winter quarters, after convincing himself that Utica could not be carried by assault. The ships continued the blockade, and those that were drawn up on shore were protected by the army, which was encamped on a promontory to cover them. But Scipio's position during the winter months of 204-203 was not satisfactory. He was shut up in a somewhat confined space by two armies greatly superior in numbers to his own. At Carthage XXV BURNING OF CARTHAGINIAN & NUMIDIAN CAMPS 381 advantage was being taken of the respite to prepare a powerful fleet Wi?iter of to intercept his supplies, provision the city, and threaten the blockade 204-203. of Utica. Not thinking himself therefore strong enough to offer battle to Syphax and Hasdrubal combined, he resolved to detach Syphax by negotiation. All through the winter legates went back- wards and forwards between the Roman and Numidian camp. Syphax wished to play the part of mediator, and perhaps was not strongly on either side. But he was still under the influence of Sophanisba, and would not abandon Carthage altogether. He went back again and again to the proposal that the Romans and Car- thaginians should agree, the one to evacuate Africa and the other Italy, leaving all places between the two as they were. These negotiations, however, were without result ; and when spring came. Spring of Scipio, knowing that the Carthaginians had employed the winter 20J. months in fitting out a great fleet, and having come to the conclusion that Syphax— who had been strengthening his army by fresh recruits, had seized a town containing Roman stores, and had first tampered with and then tried to poison Masannasa — was not prepared to change sides, but was still under the influence of his Carthaginian wife, made up his mind to put in practice what he had been preparing all along. He had taken care that among the legates sent from time to time Scipio to Syphax there should be some of sufficient military experience, prepares to disguised in various ways, to be capable of reporting on the position ^^^^^'^ and strength of the enemy's camp. He now gave Syphax a hint J^^ '^^ that he was ready to listen to his terms. Syphax entered eagerly Hasdrubal, into the negotiations, and the messengers between the camps became 20J. still more frequent, till Scipio obtained all the information he required. The huts in the two camps he found were of wood and thatched with reeds, while those of the Numidian reinforcements were of still lighter material, and for the most part were outside the camps. Such huts could easily be burnt, and this Scipio determined to attempt. But he took care first to distract the enemy's attention. At the beginning of spring he began launching his ships and getting the engines on them into working order, as though he meant once more to assault Utica, When all his preparations were complete he sent a final message to Syphax, desiring to be authoritatively assured that the Carthaginians would ratify the terms proposed by Syphax if he accepted them for Rome. Syphax obtained the assurance from Hasdrubal, and thenceforth behaved as if peace were certain, relaxing all the usual precautions, and allowing his men to go backwards and forwards to the camp as if there were no enemy near. His exultation indeed was dashed by a second message from Scipio informing him that, though anxious to confirm the peace himself, the majority of his 382 HISTORY OF ROME council disagreed with him. Still such preparations as Syphax saw going on in the Roman quarters seemed to point to a leisurely resumption of the siege of Utica, and he was wholly unprepared for an attack upon himself. This, however, was what was impending, unknown to the Roman army itself. Burning of The tribunes most in Scipio's confidence were ordered on a the camp of Syphax, 20J, and of Hasdrubal. certain day to see that their men had their evening meal served out early, that when the usual bugles sounded at supper-time they might be prepared, instead of eating, to march out at once without exciting suspicion. It was early in the year, and by the end of the first watch it was possible to march out without being observed. Soon after midnight the whole army had covered the seven miles between their camp and the enemy. The Roman army was then divided. One half, under the direction of Laelius and Masannasa, was despatched to the camp of Syphax, while Scipio himself led the other towards that of Hasdrubal, the more distant of the two. Masannasa and Laelius advanced in two divisions, the former leading, as being better acquainted with the locality, and Laelius occupying the rear as a reserve. Masannasa stationed men at all possible outlets, and in a short time the huts outside and immediately inside the camp were blazing. The fire once alight caught row after row with marvellous rapidity, and a scene of indescribable confusion followed. The Numidians could not understand what had happened, nor were Syphax and the men within the camp better informed. Thinking it an accidental conflagration they leapt out of bed, or sprang up from their camp fires where they were feasting and drinking, sometimes with the cup still in their hands, and rushed towards the burning tents. Numbers of them were trampled to death in the crowd, or perished in the flames, while those who escaped these dangers fell into the hands of Masannasa's pickets, and were killed before they had time to understand what had happened. Meanwhile the men in Hasdrubal's camp, observing the con- flagration in that of Syphax, which they imagined to be accidental, either started to render aid, or stood unarmed outside the gate gazing at the dreadful spectacle. Both alike were speedily attacked and put to the sword by Scipio's division, which also forced its way 'into the camp and fired the huts. Both camps were now suffering equal horrors. The flames spread so rapidly that the surging mass of panic-stricken men could not force its way along the pathways, choked by horses and other beasts of burden, consuming in the flames, or in a state of frantic terror. Defence in such circumstances was not to be thought of, and escape all but hopeless. Syphax and Hasdrubal indeed, accompanied by a few horsemen, did manage to THE CARTHACIINIANS REINFORCED 383 make their way out, as well as some others. But the vast majority of those two great armies, with their immense trains of horses, beasts of burden, and slaves,, either perished in the flames or fell unarmed and defenceless under the Roman sword. Whatever we may think of the morality of such an operation The effects undertaken in the midst of negotiations, its effect was signal, of the , . , . , , 1 destruction Instead of watchmg their enemy shut up on a promontory and ^^^^^ exhausting his strength on the siege of Utica, which they could view camps, with comparative indifference, the Carthaginians were now in daily 203. expectation of seeing the Roman standards from their own walls. They gratified their wrath indeed by condemning Hasdrubal to death in his absence, — for he knew only too well what to expect, and was hiding in the country, where he soon collected a band of followers. But, that done, they anxiously debated their next step. Should they send for Hannibal ? Should they ask for a truce from Scipio to discuss terms of peace ? Or should they still hold out and induce Syphax once more to rally to their aid ? The last and most courageous course was decided upon, princi- The Daily, we are told, by the influence of the Barcine faction, to whom Cartha- T 1- n 1 t-- .I.- £[imans, war with Rome was an hereditary policy, as well as by this time a ^^^ ^^^ matter of life or death to themselves. There were also reasons arrival of against despair. Syphax was still at the head of a considerable Celtiberian. force, having escaped Scipio's pursuit, and was said to be safely ^'^^^^f^J^^ established at Abba, collecting scattered fragments of his army. He ""^^^^^ was indeed meditating a farther flight into his own dominions, but if still to he could be induced to remaija, there might still be hope of preventing resist. Scipio's approach. They and Syphax were presently encouraged by the arrival of more than 4000 Celtiberians, who had been hired by Carthaginian recruiting agents. Their numbers were exagger- ated at Carthage, and their warlike qualities much vaunted. The spirit of the people revived, and it was resolved once more to try their fortunes in the field. Within a month Hasdrubal again led out an army from Carthage, and joined Syphax and the Celtiberians on the " Great Plains." When Scipio, who was preparing to press on the siege of Utica, Scipio goes heard of this new rally of the enemy he threw everything else aside J^J^^^^^ in order to meet and crush it. His imperiimi was now extended till the end of the war, and having received reinforcements and supplies of corn from Sardinia, Sicily, and Spain, he could more easily divide his forces. Leaving troops to support the ships in blockading Utica, he marched to meet the enemy in the Great Plains. On the fifth day he pitched his camp on a hill between three and four miles from the Carthaginian camp ; on the next descended into the plain and encamped within a mile of the enemy. Two days 3^4 HISTORY OF ROME Battle on the Great Plains, 24th June, 20J. Scipio advances to Tu?ies, Hannibal and Mago summoned to Africa. Capture of Syphax. were then spent in cavalry skirmishes, and on the fourth both sides drew out for battle. Scipio followed the tactics which he had employed before. The chief part of the fighting in the early part of the day was left to the cavalry on the two wings, and it was not until he found himself successful on both that he brought the heavy armed troops in the centre into contact with the enemy. Here the Celtiberians offered a stubborn resistance, inflicting considerable loss on the Romans, and though they were eventually cut to pieces, the delay enabled Syphax and Hasdrubal to escape from the field. Syphax hurried off with his light horsemen to his own dominions, soon to be pursued and taken by his bitterest enemy. Leaving Laelius and Masannasa to follow Syphax, Scipio advanced towards Carthage, receiving the submission of town after town, and carrying those which resisted by assault. He found little indeed to withstand him. The government of Carthage had been forced, owing to the protracted war, to levy heavy imposts of men and money, and the wretched Libyans welcomed a change of masters, which could not, they thought, be for the worse. Finding himself after some weeks gorged with booty, Scipio despatched it to the camp on the sea near Utica, and, thus lightened, marched to Tunes, pitching his camp in sight of the walls of Carthage. The Carthaginians, however, were not yet at the end of their resources. They had sent to Italy to recall Hannibal and Mago ; and meanwhile diverted Scipio's attention from themselves by de- spatching a fleet to attack the Roman ships at Utica. From Tunes Scipio and his officers could see the ^eet leaving the harbour and steering for Utica. Alarmed for his own ships, he broke up his camp, and made a rapid march to Utica also. There he found, as he expected, that the Roman ships were in no situation to fight. They were moored under the walls, and heavily laden with machines for assaulting and battering them, and would be helpless before a well-managed fleet of war vessels, able to move at pleasure, to charge and retire, and practise all their skill. He was obliged, therefore, to protect his ships of war by a triple or quadruple ring of transports, from which, as from an entrenchment, the lighter craft might dash out to annoy the enemy, and behind which they might again retire for safety. The dilatoriness of the Carthaginian fleet had given time for these hasty arrangements ; and, when it at last arrived, it found the bustle of preparation over, and all in readiness to receive them. The Carthaginians, however, inflicted some loss on the Romans, and by means of long poles, to which great hooks were suspended by iron chains, dragged off six of the transports. But whatever satisfaction this slight advantage may have caused in Carthage was outbalanced by the success of Laelius and Masan- XXV DEFEAT OF MAGO IN ITALY 385 nasa against Syphax. While Scipio was engaged on his march to Carthage they had pursued the unfortunate king into Numidia. He had there been able again to collect an army, but had been defeated, and was now a prisoner in the Roman camp ; whilst Masannasa recovered his own dominions with part of those of Syphax. Thus deprived of hope from Numidia, the Carthaginians sent The ambassadors to Scipio to ask for terms. They might, at any rate, by Cartha- so doing obtain sufficient delay to allov/ for the return of Hannibal ; ^^^^^'" ,.^,. ... . ,. - ,, negotiate. and, 11 his presence did not improve their prospects, they would not be any worse off than before. They accordingly made no difficulty about the conditions, which, besides the usual stipulation for re- Terms turn of captives, deserters, and runaway slaves, demanded the with- demanded. drawal of Carthaginian armies from Italy and Gaul ; the renunciation of all claims in Spain ; the evacuation of all islands between Africa and Italy ; the surrender of all but twenty ships of war ; an imme- diate supply of 300,000 modii of spelt and 300,000 of barley, and an indemnity of 5000 talents. , A three months' truce w\as granted to obtain the ratification from Defeat of jRome, and a few deserters and runaways were handed over to Scipio ^lago m !to prove the sincerity of the Carthaginian government. The Roman ^^^^'■p^^ (Senate was not, however, in a mood for concession. Laelius, accom- panied by agents of Masannasa, had already informed the fathers of (the true state of affairs in Africa, and any anxiety which might have jbeen felt from the presence of Mago in Italy was dissipated by the jvictory of Quintilius Varus and M. Cornelius. Mago had advanced 5nto the territories of the Insubrian Gauls, but had been completely ^defeated, and was himself so severely wounded that he died on board 'ship off Sardinia, while most of his ships were captured by the Roman squadron stationed in Sardinian waters. The entire recovery of Roman 'influence in Italian Gaul was farther testified by the long-delayed release jof Gains Servilius and Gains Lutatius, the triumvirs seized sixteen tyears previously by the Gauls in the attack on Placentia. To satisfy the Roman expectations at this time, therefore, a very The complete submission on the part of the Carthaginian legates would embassy jhave to be made. But when they appeared before the Senate they Z'^""- Iprofessed to have no farther commission than to explain that the sole responsibility of the war rested on Hannibal, and to ask for peace on Jthe terms arranged at the end of the last war with the consul Lutatius (241). They were promptly dismissed without being allowed to enter the city.^ ^ This is not inconsistent with the assertion of Polybius that the Senate signi- lied to Scipio that they would accept the terms he had imposed. The Punic jenvoys were dismissed, it appears, because they did not ask for these terms, but or something else, viz. , the status qtio at the end of the first Punic war. 2 C 386 HISTORY OF ROME P. Sem- pronius Tuditanus defeated by Hafinibal, 204. Hannibal leaves Italy, 20J. Serviluis wishes to pursue Hannibal. Meanwhile the resolution of the Carthaginian Senate had been communicated to Hannibal, and he knew that his career in Italy was at an end — that wonderful career of brilliant victory, of indomitable resolution, of almost ceaseless activity. It was only in the previous year that he had for the last time defeated a Roman consul, and driven him back with the loss of 1200 men into his camp ; and even if it is true that Sempronius had been able to retaliate shortly after- wards by a similar defeat of Carthaginian skirmishing parties, nothing had happened which gave his enemies any hope of dislodging him from Lacinium, where, for nearly three years, he " greatly stood at bay." Now all was to go for nothing. That his victories had been fruitless was very greatly due to the niggardly support which he had received from home. And now he was recalled to save it from the dangers which that dilatory and jealous policy had done so much to create. But however keen his regrets or just his resentment, Hannibal recognised the inevitable duty of obedience, and indeed had, for some time past, been silently preparing for the necessity which he foresaw. Ships had been got ready in the harbour of Croton ; the less useful part of his forces had been drafted on various pretexts into towns still under his influence in Bruttium ; and it is asserted by Livy — perhaps from malignant rumour, which constantly attributed cruelty to Hannibal — that a number of Italians who had taken refuge in the sanctuary of Juno in Lacinium, to avoid the campaign in Africa, had been slain in violation of the sanctity of the place. What- ever may be the truth of such stories, it is easy to believe that Hannibal embarked in obedience to the summons with keen feelings of disappointment ; that, casting his eyes back upon the retreating shores of Italy, he thought of what might have been had he led his soldiers to Rome straight from the bloody field of Cannae, and had not spent time and strength in the pleasant lands or round the walled towns of Campania. The great enemy was gone : and the consul Cn. Servilius Caepio, exulting at the thought that Italy had been freed in his year of office, and while the war with Hannibal was his special province, was eager to crown his glory by pursuing him to Africa. But in Sicily he was overtaken by an order to return. The anxiety at Rome was still great, and the Senate had compelled his colleague to name a dictator for the express purpose of summoning him back by the authority of his majus iviperium. Hannibal, meanwhile, crossed safely to Africa, and disembarked at Leptis.i He seems to have spent the winter in negotiating alliances ^ Of Hannibal's proceedings in Africa it is impossible to get a reasonable view from Livy. Perhaps he found no account in his authorities, yet both Appian and Zonaras give at least an intelligible narrative. According to Livy Hannibal XXV THE LAST PROVOCATION FROM CARTHAGE 387 with Numidian princes, whose jealousy of Masannasa he sought to Hattnibal stir up, and in collecting stores, horses, and Numidian cavalry. For in Africa. in spite of the Senate having approved the terms offered by Scipio "^^ P^^- ,_-.. . '^ .... „,, "^^^ parations, to the Carthagmians, a campaign was now mevitable. ihe Senate 203-202. had left Scipio full discretion ; and an incident had since happened which, in his view, amounted to a breach of the truce on the part of the Carthaginians. A large fleet of transports, laden with provisions for the Roman The seizure army, and convoyed by thirty war vessels under Cn. Octavius from of Roman Sardinia, was blown by a storm upon an island in the bay of Car- ^"-^P^' ^^^3- thage, within sight of the city. The opportunity was too tempting to the citizens, who had been suffering from short supplies ; and, in spite of remonstrances from those in favour of maintaining the truce, the people voted for seizing the prey. Scipio at once despatched envoys to remonstrate ; who, after an audience of the Senate, were introduced to a public meeting, and reproached the citizens with the breach of a treaty which they had themselves sought with such abject humiliation, and had now infringed because they believed themselves safe under the protection of Hannibal. The people were The \ again divided in opinion ; but the majority, both of the Senate and Cartha- \ the people, were against restoring the booty, and were irritated at the S^^"'^"-^ haughty tone of the Roman legates. The war party once more reparation gained the ascendant, and even contrived a plot which would make and infure the renewal of hostilities inevitable. The Roman envoys were sent ^^^ Roman back to the Roman camp near Utica without an answer, but under ^^^ ^^' the safe conduct of two triremes. But these triremes were only to convoy them within sight of the Roman lines ; and a message was sent to Hasdrubal, the admiral of the Punic fleet at Utica, to have vessels ready to attack them as soon as the convoy withdrew. The order was obeyed, and the legates barely escaped captivity, while many of their crew were killed or wounded. This was the signal for the recommencement of the war, and in The war a fiercer and more angry spirit than before : the Romans incensed ^'<^newed, by the outrage, the Carthaginians rendered desperate by the con- sciousness that they had fatally committed themselves. Accordingly Scipio now treated the inhabitants of Carthaginian territory with great additional severity. Towns were no longer lands at Leptis in 203 (xxx. 25) : in 202 he goes to Adrumetum, rested his soldiers there for a few days, ad rejiciendum ex jactatione marifiitta — as though they had just landed ! — and starts at once by forced marches for Zama (xxx. 29). Then follow the incidents of the Punic spies spared by Scipio, the interview with Scipio himself, and the speeches, different from and much longer than those in Polybius (xxx. 29-31), and the battle next day (xxx. 32). There is no word of the winter's preparations or the campaign before the battle, and no chronological data, except the two years. HISTORY OF ROME 202. Campaign of Scipio in Cartha- ginian territoty. Scipio restores the Cartha- ginian envoys. Hannibal will choose his own time. Meeting of Hannibal and Scipio. admitted to terms on their submission, but were ruthlessly stormed and their inhabitants enslaved, and every preparation made for the decisive battle which he now saw was inevitable. Masannasa had departed in the previous autumn to secure his own dominions, with the addition of a great part of those of Syphax ; but he was now summoned to return to the help of the Roman army with all the cavalry he could muster. He was ready to do this, for his existence and his power now depended on Roman success, as Hannibal was careful to point out to rival Numidian princes. The return of the Carthaginian envoys also gave Scipio an opportunity of putting him- self diplomatically in the right. Not knowing what had happened, they came to the Roman camp at Utica, and were detained by Baebius, the officer in command, awaiting Scipio's instructions. Scipio immediately ordered them to be sent home uninjured : a respect for international and religious obligation which made the desired impression, and was commended by Hannibal himself. But the people of Carthage were impatient once more to try the fortune of war, now that they had at the head of their forces the famous general who had so often defeated the Romans in the field. But he declined to be hurried. In answer to urgent messages he bade the citizens " attend to their own affairs, and leave him to choose his own time of fighting." In the course of the summer, however, he moved to the neighbourhood of Zama, and attempted to recon- noitre the position and forces of Scipio. His spies were caught, and, by Scipio's orders, shown everything and sent back unharmed. A cavalry skirmish took place, which resulted in favour of the Romans : and then Hannibal seems to have wished to treat. It seems that he still had hopes, based partly, perhaps, on the moderation of Scipio and his own exceptional renown, that some conditions might be obtained which would content the Romans without rousing too fiercely the passions of the war party at home. Thus, if the Romans would accept the absolute cession of Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, with a pledge on the part of Carthage that she would never take up arms for their recover)^ and a larger indemnity for the captured ships ; and, in return, would remit some of the more galling of the pre- liminaries, a peace might be made honourable to both sides. But this hope proved abortive in two ways. In the interview which he sought and obtained with Scipio (of the truth of which there is no reasonable ground for doubting) 1 he was given clearly to understand ^ Ihne, of course, rejects it as a fairy tale. But we cannot suppose that of matter so interesting in the history of the Scipios Polybius should have not had means of knowing the truth. No doubt many inaccurate versions of it got about, and the writers of so-called histories exercised their ingenuity in inventing speeches. But if any one will compare those given by Polybius with those in XXV BATTLE OF ZAMA 389 that the Romans held that they had alTeady got by their own exertions and victories all that he offered as a concession, and that the late action of the Carthaginian government had rendered indulgence im- possible. In the second place the war party in Carthage was irre- concilable. A popular outbreak had taken place at the very mention of peace, and the vengeance of the people had fallen on Hasdrubal, whom they believed to have prolonged the war from deliberate treason as much as from incompetence. Hannibal had demanded on his arrival in Africa that he should be pardoned, and he was living in retirement at Carthage. In the excitement now aroused by the sug- Death of gestion of making submission to Rome he was again sought out, and Hasdrubal. would have been torn to pieces or crucified, had he not taken refuge in the mausoleum of his family, and there poisoned himself There was nothing for it, therefore, but to fight. It was getting Battle of late in the year,i and Scipio was impatient to end the war. For the Z.a7na adverse party at home had shown a disposition to snatch the credit ^ -.\ . from him, and, in spite of a popular vote assigning Africa still to 202. ; Scipio, the Senate had allowed the consuls to draw lots for it, and had arranged that Tib. Claudius Nero (to whom it fell) should cross ; thither with a fleet of fifty quinqueremes, and enjoy equal powers with Scipio, the result of which would be that, as consul, the triumph I would be his. I The battle which followed the abortive negotiation was probably ! fought several days' march from Zama, which has supplied its name, and which was, it seems, the scene of the previous cavalry skirmish : ' and from one at least of our authorities it would appear that Scipio ' managed to force Hannibal to fight on ground unfavourable to ' himself, having come up with him while in the act of changing camp. I Hannibal had an army broadly divided into five classes : there was Hannibal's ' his veteran " army of Italy," on which he could thoroughly rely ; «''»y- I secondly, there was a considerable body of Numidian cavalry, secured ; during the previous winter ; thirdly, there were, besides a corps of ' Macedonians, i 200 mercenaries, partly Europeans, — Celts, Ligurians, I and Baliarians — and partly natives of Mauretania ; fourthly, a newly ' raised force of Libyans and Carthaginians ; and, lastly, a large number ; of elephants. The mercenaries were to occupy the front rank in the centre covered by the elephants, while on either wing were the Cartha- ginian and Numidian cavalry ; and on the rear of the whole were stationed the veterans of the "army of Italy." On this occasion, as often, the elephants proved disastrous to , Livy, he will see the difference between a sober amplification of data supplied and a piece of rhetorical fine writing (Polyb. xv. 6-8, Livy xxx. 30, 31). ^ The date of the battle has been fixed on i8th of October, because of an eclipse. 390 HISTORY OF ROME chap. The their own side. The Romans had got used to them, and provided elephants, against them by the simple expedient of leaving space for them to run through. Their order was in three lines as usual, but instead of the maniples being arranged in the quincunx, like the spaces on a chessboard, they were drawn up immediately behind each other, so as to leave spaces in the lines. ^ These spaces were at first filled with the light-armed or velites, who, when the elephants charged, first irritated them with missiles, and then stepped aside behind the maniples. Some of the animals at the very beginning got unmanage- able, being frightened by the noise of trumpets and horns sounding the charge, and rushed back upon the Numidians ; others, though they did charge the enemy and inflicted some damage, got so pelted with missiles that they either ran straight away down the spaces between the Roman maniples and were of no more use, or turned and rushed off the field between the two armies. At the best they had done little good to their owners. The Numidian cavalry also on Hannibal's left wing were routed by Masannasa, and the Cartha- ginian cavalry on their right by Laelius. Defeat of It remained to be seen which of the two bodies of heavy-armed Hannibal s ^^,^^ ^|-^g stronger. The miscellaneous mercenaries of Hannibal met in a death-grapple with Roman legions, but, though they fought well, they were inferior both in strength and in the excellence of their weapons. Moreover, in the melee the Romans supported each other well, the rear ranks pressing on those in front, filling up the places of those that fell, and adding their weight to the impact ; but in the case of the enemy the mercenaries did not find themselves backed up by the Carthaginians in their rear. These last, probably raw levies, lost heart and did not advance, until the mercenaries, finding themselves overpowered, and believing that they were betrayed by their own side, turned upon the Carthaginians and began to cut their way through them. The Romans followed close, and the Carthaginians, thus driven to bay, and finding themselves engaged with two enemies, fought for their lives with such desperation that for a time they threw the Roman hastati into some disorder. This was, however, quickly rectified ; and eventually the field was thickly strewn with the bodies both of the Carthaginians and mercenaries slain 1 Not * * « but mercen aries XXV THE END OF THE WAR 391 by each other or by the Romans. The survivors endeavoured to take refuge in the Hnes of the yeterans whom Hannibal was keeping in reserve, but he ordered his men to lower their spears and repulse them, and they accordingly escaped as they best could off the field to the ground lately occupied by the cavalry. The last combat was with the veteran reserve. The Romans Final could not charge over ground encumbered with the debris of the struggle fight, with dead and dying : the front line, moreover, was in disorder, "^,1 ., „ , . . . *'- , ^ . . ' , , ' Hannibal s havmg gone m pursuit of the nymg mercenaries. These obstacles, ^jeterans probably also prevented an advance of Hannibal's veterans, which it might have been difficult to withstand. At any rate they did not stir : and Scipio had time to have the wounded removed to the rear, and to rally the hastati by sound of bugle. The principes and triarii were then brought slowly up so as to fall into line with the hastati^ and, thus formed, the whole line advanced to the charge. It was the most severe fighting of the day. The veterans stood their ground with obstinate valour without giving way a step, each man that was killed falling in his place. The battle was only won at j length by the return of the cavalry under Masannasa and Laelius J from the pursuit of the enemy's horse. They now fell upon I Hannibal's rear, and in a short time the whole was in confusion. Many were killed where they stood, nor had those who fled much ! chance of escape, for the country was flat and open, and the horse- I men easily caught and cut them down. Twenty thousand are said I to have fallen, and almost as many to have been taken prisoners, I while the Roman loss is set down as 1 500. Hannibal himself ' escaped with some cavalry to Adrumetum and thence to Carthage, ! but his camp fell into the hands of Scipio, and the country between it and Carthage itself was at the mercy of the Roman general. The war was at an end. As far indeed as the objects for which End of it had been undertaken were concerned it had been over long before, ^^^ "'^^' I From Spain and Sardinia the Carthaginians had been finally expelled. ^'~'^' \ The attempted combination of the north Italian peoples against Rome i had fallen to pieces with the retirement and death of Mago ; and the I more formidable and once all but successful rising of the southern H Italians and Greeks had collapsed with the recovery of Campania, the fall of Tarentum, and the final retirement of Hannibal. For the j last two years the Carthaginians had been fighting, not for the extension of territory, but for bare existence. That too was now over. They had no new army to put in the field, and an auxiliary force of cavalry under Vermina, son of king Syphax, which arrived after the battle, was cut to pieces by the victorious Romans. Nor '1 were the Carthaginian ships, especially in the presence of a Roman fleet, sufficient to keep their harbour open and the sea safe. 392 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Carthage submits, 202. Roman terms. Their severity. They must take what terms they could get if they would avoid a siege. Accordingly when Scipio, having sent on his main army under Cn. Octavius to Tunes by land, returned to Utica, and thence with a fleet, lately strengthened by a squadron under P. Lentulus, started for Tunes, he was met by a ship decked with olive branches and all the other signs of submission and peace. He would not receive the ambassadors then, but appointed them to meet him at Tunes. The answer they received was brief and haughty. " They deserved nothing at his hands but condign punishment," he told them, " yet the Romans had resolved to treat them with magnanimity. They must, however, thankfully receive any terms offered them." These were of course of increased stringency, but yet such as left Carthage still a nation and free. The territory in Africa held before the war they were still to possess with all appurtenances. They were to enjoy their own laws and have no Roman garrison. But they were to return the ships and goods taken during the truce in full, with all captives or runaway slaves ; to hand over to the Romans all their elephants, and all war vessels except twenty ; to wage no war outside Africa, and none within it without permission of Rome ; to restore Masannasa all his dominions and property ; to pay 10,000 talents in yearly instalments within fifty years ; and to give 100 hostages for their good faith, selected by the Roman general among youths between fourteen and thirty years of age. Lastly, as a preliminary, they were to supply the Roman army with provisions and pay for three months, or until such time as a ratifica- tion should come from Rome. The money fine (about ;^2, 400,000) was not an excessive one when spread over fifty years, and the limits assigned to the territory in Africa were reasonable. The two points which were almost intolerable to the Carthaginians, even in their present state of humiliation, were the surrender of the ships — without which their commerce and their wealth must be ruined — and the prohibition of war in Africa without permission from Rome. This would subject them to constant encroachments from the Numidian princes, galling to their feelings as well as ruinous to their agriculture, especially as their enemy Masannasa was to be established on their frontier with additional power. It would be, moreover, a standing witness that they were not really a free State, but were under the dictation of another government. Some spirits, braver or more reckless than the rest, were still found in Carthage to urge the rejection of the terms at all hazards. But Hannibal was present, and in plain words warned his country- XXV TERMS OF THE PEACE ACCEPTED 393 men that they had no choice, and had reason to be thankful that the Hannibal terms were no worse. He even roughly pulled down one of the insists on senators who rose to speak on the other side, excusing himself by ^^. ^^^^^ saying that he had been so long time abroad with the army that he accepted. ' had forgotten the habits of civil life. Both Scipio and Hannibal in fact were acting wisely : Scipio, in not wishing to destroy a great and populous city, and to drag on a war which had already pressed on his countrymen for sixteen years ; and Hannibal, in counselling submission rather than the endurance of a long siege, which, even if it ultimately failed, must entail suffering and ruin beyond calculation. The legates returned to Scipio signifying the acceptance of March the terms. The only point still to be settled was the amount due ^^^- '^^^^ for the stores on board the ships captured during the last armistice. ^". ^" ^, 1 • 1- • 1 • , 1 T • gimans They were now scattered m every direction, and it would be im- accept the possible to recover them, but the valuation of the amount due on terms. them was left to Scipio to arrange. The envoys were immediately sent Coss. off to Rome, where they were received not unkindly, and allowed to Gncrus select about 200 of their countrymen, who were prisoners there, Cornelius to take back with them to Africa, with a message to Scipio that the p^'^JI^i^^ Senate desired that, on the conclusion of the peace, they should be paetus, set free without ransom. There was still some caballing at Rome 2or. to share the triumph of Scipio ; Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, one of the consuls — who by a combination of circumstances were elected late this year — insisted on having Africa as his province, and the Senate, as a compromise, gave him the fleet, with orders to go to Sicily, and, if any renewal of the war took place, to cross to Africa. But nothing changed the minds of the people. The question being put to them they voted to extend Scipio' s iinperiuni in Africa, and that the Senate should solemnly (Jurati) decide as to who was to preside at the making of the peace {dare paceni\ and bring home the victorious army. The sentiments of the people on this head, how- ever, were so clear that the Senate could but assign both honours to Scipio. Fetials were sent to see that the proper ritual was I observed in making the peace, at which he presided ; and then, having caused the Carthaginian fleet of 500 vessels to be burnt, jand having taken over and punished deserters, and installed JMasannasa in his new dominions taken from Syphax, he prepared to depart. These various arrangements had been made with the assistance of Scipio s ten commissioners sent out, according to precedent, to the conquered ''^^^^^"- ^^ [country to assist the proconsul. When they were finished he jsent Cn. Octavius to Sicily to hand over the fleet to the consul jCornelius, and put his men on board the remaining transports. 394 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xxv At Lilybaeum he parted with his troops, sending them by sea to Rome, while he went by land to Messana, and crossed to Rhegium. His His journey through Italy was a triumphal progress. The people triumphant ^^ ^^ cities poured out to greet the conqueror ; the country folk recep^ ion ^m^di the roads as he passed, and he was everywhere greeted as the saviour of Italy. The journey was crowned by a magnificent triumph at Rome, followed by splendid games, lasting several days, for which he supplied the money. It seems doubtful whether king Syphax was in the procession, as Polybius asserts. Livy says that he died at Tibur shortly before, but that his public funeral about the same time served to bring his defeat and capture prominently before the people. He had not been treated ungenerously, and his son Vermina was afterwards restored to part of his father's dominions. Scipio hence- Africanus. forth adopted the cognomen of Africanus, which descended to his family. It was not, as Livy says, the first instance of a name taken from a conquered country, for M. Valerius Maximus had assumed the title of Messalla from his conquest of Messana in 263, but it seems to have set a fashion afterwards widely followed by many who had less claim to such honour. The joy at Rome was well grounded. The long agony of Hannibal's occupation of Italy was at an end. The dreaded enemy had not only been driven from Italy, but had been beaten in his own country. Italy was free ; Spain was open to Roman trade and Roman arms ; the islands of the western Mediterranean were occupied by Roman fleets and soldiers ; and the great question had been settled for ever, whether western Europe was to be Latin or Semitic. Authorities for the second Punic war, see p. 312. CHAPTER XXVI DOMESTIC AFFAIRS AFTER THE SECOND PUNIC WAR Settlement of Italy after the second Punic war — Changes in Roman life during the epoch — The Senate — The army — Tendency to leave country life — Litera- ture : Ennius, Plautus — Their illustration of city life — Their identification of Greek and Roman gods — Cato and country life. At the end of the Hannibahan war Rome was supreme in Italy, but Settlement her supremacy had to be secured, and the traces of the struggle of Italy. wiped out. The Italian towns generally returned to the position of socii without change of status or additional burdens. But to this rule there were some exceptions. The Bruttii had set the example of The revolt to Hannibal, and were now punished by being degraded, at any Bruttii. rate for the present generation, from the position of socii j they were not enrolled with the army, being only allowed to serve magistrates as lorarii ; and their whole country was assigned as a provmce to one of the praetors. But the Greek cities fringing the southern shores of Italy secured more indulgent treatment. Even Tarentum, which The Greek some wished to degrade to the position of Capua, appears to have re- cities. mained a civitas foederata on terms not worse than those enjoyed by the loyal towns Naples and Rhegium, whereby local freedom was secured on the payment of a fixed stipendiiwi., and the supply of a fixed number of soldiers or seamen upon conditions differing in the different states.^ In Campania the amount of punishment had been carefully Campa?iia. apportioned to the degree of guilt, distinctions being drawn not only between whole towns but also between families and individuals. As a rule the existing generation was deprived of all civil rights but was not enslaved. Excepltions were towns which had remained loyal and had suffered at Hannibal's hands. Such was Nuceria, the i ^ Thus we find the Locrians claiming exemption from service out of Italy, and apparently getting their claim allowed (Polyb. xii. 5). 396 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Nuceria, A tell a, Acerra. Etrnria. Colonies, 194- Liter num, Salernum, Voltur- num, Venn si a, Sipofitum, Tempsa, Croton, Copia. Disloyalty of twelve Latin colo7iies punished. inhabitants of which, having abandoned the town rather than submit to Hannibal, were now allowed to transfer themselves to Atella (the Atellani being removed to Calabria), and to retain all rights and privileges enjoyed before. In like manner the people of Acerra returned to their town and rebuilt its ruins (210). Nuceria was repeopled by other loyalists, and in the next generation was again an important town. With these exceptions the Campanians were so moved about and split up, that there was nothing to fear from them ; and a large tract of their country was retained as ager publicus and leased to Roman tenants. In Etruria no special measures seem to have been taken. Towns like Arretium, where signs of revolt had been manifested, were over- awed by arms, and their senators forced to give hostages. This had proved so effectual that towards the end of the war they were wholly pacified ; and it was Arretium among other Etruscan towns which, in 205, furnished Scipio with such voluntary contributions as enabled him to go well equipped to Sicily. For the rest, two methods were employed for Romanising Italy. Confiscated lands were divided among Roman citizens, and colonies were sent out to various parts with full civil rights. Thus we hear of a commission of ten to divide the ager publicus in Samnium and Apulia, in 201, among the veterans of Scipio's army, while a great batch of colonies was decided upon immediately after the war, and actually formed in 194. In Campania were thus settled Liternum, Salernum, and Volturnum ; in Lucania, Buxentum on the site of the Greek Pyxi ; in Apulia, while Venusia received a supplementum, Sipontum was newly founded ; in Bruttium Tempsa and Croton were made Roman colonies. " Latin " colonies were also established at Thurii under the name of Copia, and at Vibo under that of Valentia. Thus communities of Romans were being established in all parts of Italy. But the war had also tried the fidelity or shaken the pros- perity of those already existing. In 209 twelve Latin colonies 1 refused to contribute men or money. They excused themselves indeed on the ground of inability, but the Senate believed that they desired to abandon the empire. Affairs in Italy were then in too critical a state to allow of compulsion or punishment ; but in 204, when the fall of Capua and Tarentum, and the retirement of Hanni- bal to the Lacinian promontory, had removed the tension of the war, the Senate resolved to show its sense of their disloyalty. Their magistrates were summoned to Rome and were informed that each colony must furnish twice the usual number of infantry with 120 1 They were Ardea, Nepete, Sutrium, Alba Fucentia, Carseoli, Cora, Suessa, Circeii, Setia, Cales, Narnia, Interamna (Livy xxvii. 9). XXVI SETTLEMENT OF ITALY 397 cavalry. If cavalry was impossible, three foot soldiers were to be sent in lieu of each cavalry man, while in addition to the property tax or tributum, on the same scale as that raised from Roman citizens on the valuation of. the censors, each colony was to pay yearly a percentage to the Roman treasury. In case of non-compli- ance the magistrates were to be retained as hostages. As the colonies had avoided military service for six years they had no real difficulty in obeying. Other Latin colonies had not shown a similar disloyalty, and Livy enumerates eighteen which had been conspicuous for their good services. 1 Even the maritime colonies of Roman Coloniae citizens submitted in 207 to the suspension of their exemption from fnanhmae. military service so long as an enemy was in Italy.^ In the north the two Latin colonies, Placentia and Cremona, Placentia had suffered severely from the Gauls while the Roman arms "«^ were engaged elsewhere. Their lands were wasted, and the <^^'^'''^'^^- number of colonists diminished by losses in the field and by the departure of whole families in search of safety. In 206 the Senate tried to remedy this state of things by ordering all absent coloni to return, and by sending an army under a praetor to protect them. But in 200 we find a mixed body of Gauls and Ligurians again invading them. Placentia seems to have been partly de- stroyed, but Cremona closed its gates and held out till it was relieved by the consul Aurelius Cotta. It was not until 195 that the two colonies were finally restored to prosperity and their enemies crushed by the consul Valerius Flaccus ; and more wars had to be fought before the Romans had a firm hold upon the valley of the Po. But from Etruria southward Italy was now secured, and the grievances which afterwards led to the Social war, though arising from the nature of this settlement, were of a different kind, and more analogous to the old quarrel of patrician and plebeian. Meanwhile some changes, political and social, had been develop- changes in ing themselves in Rome itself. Of the former, perhaps the most Ro^ne. striking was the growth of the power of the Senate. There was no Incrmsed formal alteration of its functions ; it had no more legally defined ff^^\;g„ate powers of control over the magistrates than before ; its decrees could always be overridden by a lex or plebiscitum. But in practice nearly the whole administration was directed by it. While magistrates ^ Livy xxvii. 10, 2 The maritime Roman colonies had this privilege [vacatio militiae), though they were bound to furnish men for the fleet (Livy xxxvi. 3). In 207 Ostia, Alsium, Antium, Anxur, Minturnae, Sinuessa, and Sena all applied to be allowed to maintain this vacatio militiae, but with the exception of Antium and Ostia were refused. In these two last men of military age were forced to take an oath not to pass a night outside the walls of their towns (Livy xxvii. 33). 398 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Depart- ments left to the Senate. The Senate filled with ex-officials, mostly of plebeian origin. were loyal to the unwritten constitution, and anxious that the respon- sibility of their acts should not rest wholly on themselves, questions of every kind were referred to the Senate ; and the number of such questions largely increased in a time of war, and when the relations with other states were numerous and complicated. Thus certain administrative departments were tacitly allowed to fall into the hands of the Senate. It received and answered foreign ambassadors, directed the movements of commanders in a campaign ; and, above all, the interference of the Roman government in the internal affairs of the Italian socii, sometimes very minute and strict,^ was wielded entirely by it. Again, the " provinces " of the magistrates were, as a rule, settled by lot ; but the Senate decided for which of these provinces the several colleges of magistrates should draw, and in cases of special importance assigned the provinces without lot. Its claim to do so was generally admitted, and if now and again some consul or praetor resisted, it was politic enough to give in, or, to avoid responsibility by referring the matter to the people. In a few cases, such as that of Terentius Varro and Publius Scipio, where popular feeling was strongly opposed to the wishes of the senators, they yielded with no great show of reluctance. And such conces- sions were frequently rewarded by the strengthening of their own hands ; for it often happened that when the Senate referred a matter to the people, the popular vote remitted it to the judgment of the Senate. The people and Senate, in fact, were as yet on the whole of one mind ; and it had not yet occurred to any statesman to call out the dormant powers of the people to defeat the Senate for his own purposes. Not less remarkable was the gradual change which had been taking place in the composition of the Senate itself Briefly, it had ceased to contain a preponderance of members drawn from the old patrician gentes^ modified by an admixture of plebeian magistrates and ex-magistrates. It was now filled in an overwhelming majority with an official class drawn from plebeian families ; a result arising partly from the natural decline in the number of the patrician genies^ partly from the increase in the number of magistrates, who thus generally sufficed to fill up the vacancies. If they did not, as the Dictator appointed in 2 1 6 to make up the Senate found to be the case, then those vacancies were supplied by men distinguished in the army, who were as likely to be plebeians as patricians. In the next eight lectiones (from 214 to 179) no such measure was necessary, the ex-magistrates being found sufficient to fill the places, so that the Senate was steadily recruited from the middle ranks of the citizens, ^ See the case of the " Bacchanalia." XXVI THE SENATE AND THE ARMY 399 and consisted of an official class, the members of which had all had experience in the practical work of government. ^ As consuls or dictators, they had commanded armies ; as praetors had transacted legal and judicial business ; as aediles had been responsible for police and internal order; as quaestors had learnt the management of finance. They formed a new nobility, which for the next century and a half The new was to conduct the multifarious business of an already mighty empire, 'nobility. It is their gradual deterioration under the temptations to luxury at home, and peculation or oppression abroad, which led to the revolu- tions of the future. Already they were beginning to rouse popular suspicion. The tribune who fulminated against Marcellus in 209 included the nobility generally under the charge of protract- ing the war for selfish purposes ; and the plebiscitu7n Claudium (218), which forbade a senator or his son owning a vessel of more than 300 amphorae burden, illustrates both the ideal of a senator's position, which should be above the temptations of mercantile trans- actions, and the suspicion already aroused that the senators did not act up to it. In the army no important change in formal constitution had The army. taken place, beyond the organisation of the roj'arii, the light-armed men formerly distributed among the maniples, into a separate corps under the name of velites. Service in the legions was still theoretic- Velites. ally a privilege of those included in the five classes. But the needs of the time had occasionally caused freedmen, or slaves manumitted for the purpose, to be employed ; and the socH from the Italian Socii. towns became a regular element in every Roman amiy, equalling in number the citizen soldiers of the legion. Serving side by side with them the Roman soldier became less Roman and perhaps somewhat less amenable to discipline.- Long service abroad also, often without fur- lough,'* made men unfit for ci\il life, and at any rate prevented them from providing for themselves. The military class, therefore, became The more distinctly marked off, and those settlements of veterans on con- veterans. fiscated lands were begun which in after days offered many oppor- tunities to the promoters of civil war. Though some instances of fraud are letailed by Livy during this Decline in period, the high standard of official honesty, so admired by Polybius, numbers of was not yet seriously impaired. Rich men were still patriotic enough ^ In the list of the Senate for 179, ingeniously and laboriously compiled by Willcms {le Sc'?iat, ch. xi. ),^of 304 members 88 only belong to patrician gentes, 216 are plebeians ; all are members in virtue of having held office. 2 Mutinies were rare, but it may be noticed that the mutineers in Spain (206) selected two Italians, not Romans, to command them. ^ The mutineers in Macedonia (199) complained that they had served con- tinuously in Africa, Sicily, and Macedonia, and had not seen Italy for many years (Livy .\.\.\ii. 3). citizens. 40O HISTORY OF ROME Abandon- ment of country for citv. Importa- tion of works of Greek art. Literature. (/) Ennius \23g-16g) ; to supply the needs of the state ; and no elements of disorder were brought to light by the critical position of the city.^ Yet two effects of the war was somewhat disquieting. The first was a serious decline in the number of the citizens, amounting between 222 and 204 to more than 50,000 ; the second was the increased tendency of the farmers to leave the country and come to Rome. Once there it was difficult to induce them to return. Their farmhouses had perhaps been burnt, their cattle driven away, their free labourers enrolled in the legions, and their slaves run away. It was too much to expect them to leave the city, with its occupations and amusements, and take up again the toils of country life, which seemed to promise only bankruptc)'. The opening of the vast wheat fields of Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia lowered the price of corn and made farming in Italy unprofitable, except perhaps on a large scale, and by means of slave labour. The constant tendency, therefore, of the small farmer would be to sell his holding and come to Rome, there to invest his capital in commerce, and trust to cheap food and the chances of city life. This tendency, which had existed long before the second Punic war, seems to have at least received some impetus from it, and was in the future to increase to an alarming extent. For the present we are told that the consuls exerted all their authority to induce the farmers to return to the country. This age also not only saw an extension of the taste for the objects of Greek art, consequent on the large importations of such things from Syracuse, Capua, Tarentum, and other towns, but also the definite establishment of a literature based on (^reek models. Livius and Naevius had set a fashion which soon found followers ; and two writers should be noticed now who confirmed this tendency, and, with one who resisted it, did much to fix Latin as a literary language, and in different ways illustrate Roman life. Q. Ennius was born at Rudiae in Calabria, and was brought to Rome by Cato, who met him in Sardinia in 203. From that time, with the exception of a second service in the army of Nobilior in 191, he lived principally at Rome, where he supported himself by teaching — being acquainted with Oscan, Latin, and Greek — and by writing. He was the chosen friend of Africanus and other nobles, and professed to be a disciple of the Pythagorean school of philosophy. He seems, however, to have been imbued with the rationalising spirit of the Epicureans ; for he translated the ' Sacred Treatise ' of Euhemerus, in which he applied the account of the gods as originally great kings and captains to the Latin divinities ; and ^ A fire in 210 created some feeling of uneasiness, but it was eventually put down to certain Campanians, and was very likely accidental. XXVI ENNIUS AND THE ROMAN NOBLES 401 his favourite tragedian was Euripides, whose plays he translated for his works; the Roman stage. 1 He wrote also Saturae and epigrams, a pane- gyric of Scipio, and other poems. His most famous work was the Annales^ a history of Rome from its foundation to his own day, in hexameter verse, in which he freely used the early legends, and doubtless did much to fix them in the popular imagination. Among the fragments of this poem there is one which may help us to realise the growing influence of the Greek man of letters among the nobles of the day, who, like Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey in a later age, usually entertained one or more such about their persons. He his descrip- speaks of the great man after delivering some public oration as tioti of the " Calling for him in whose company and conversation at table he ^'''^'^^ ^^^<^- took delight, when wearied with public business for more than half 2^^^^' the day in the broad Forum or the sacred Senate ; one to whom he could confide his secrets, small and great, and safely utter whatever rose to his lips, good or bad ; one with whom he could share his relaxations in public or private. Such a man must be of the strictest honour ; not Hkely to make mischief either from levity or malice ; learned, loyal, pleasant, witty ; content with his own and seeking nothing more ; with tact to seize the moment for speech, brief and to the point. He must be skilled in antiquities and history, ready with piecedents, ancient and modern ; and above all, must know when to be silent," ^ If this gives us a glimpse of the manners of the great, from {2) Phn/tNs another poet, a considerable part of whose work has come to us, [254-^ ^4)- we may learn something of common life. T. Maccius Plautus was born about 254 at Sassina, in Umbria. We know little of his life beyond the fact that his parents were poor though free, and that coming to Rome as an actor he lost the money there gained by speculation, and became so reduced that he was obliged to work for hire in a mill. Though the plays, some of which were composed in the intervals of this servile work, were, like those of his predecessors, translated from the Greek of the later comedy, yet he used his models more freely, and, without attempting originality in plot or generally in ^ A passage in one of his translations contains a statement of Epicurean doctrine, which he probably would have softened if he had not agreed with it. Trag. 354, ed. Vahlen : — Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam coelitum, Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat humanum genus. Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis, quod nunc abest. ^ Ennius, Annales, 239, ed. Vahlen. A comparison with similar maxims of Horace for intercourse with the great {e.g. Epp. i, 7, 46 ; i, 18) will show how, with externals not much changed, the superiority in dignity and simplicity is with the earlier age. 2 D 402 HISTORY OF ROME Popular prejudices. Greek terms employed by Plautus. dialogue, introduced Roman allusions and expressions which almost for the first time in surviving Latin literature seem to show us the people and their thoughts and opinions. Thus, though the Punic wars are only once alluded to, the national prejudice against the double-faced Carthaginians comes out in the description of a char- acter in the Poenuluss who " knows everything and pretends to know nothing — a true Carthaginian " ; just as another national prejudice as to the morals of the Greeks is betrayed by the use of pergraecari and co7tgraecari to indicate loose and luxurious habits. ^ Again, the signs of the growth of a foreign element in Rome may be detected in the terms for which Plautus found no ready equivalent in Latin. Thus the banker is called trapezita^ and, like other Greek men of business, was supposed to be a cheat, cunning at evading the laws.2 So also ternis connected with shipping are mostly Greek. The merchant adventurer, sailing in his own ship, is 7iattc!crus^ though the speculator in such gear is a fucraitor, and sea-sickness is nausea j for, in spite of the naval efforts of the first Punic war, the Romans had not become a sea-going folk ; and socii navales, as a tenn for their sailors, witnesses to the source from which they got them.^ Certain luxuries also appear to have had no Latin name in use. The maker of fancy-bread or rolls was artopta;^ the refreshment bar was a thermopoHum ;^ the best perfume was murrha^ the per- fumer viyropola or myrobreccharius., and his shop a myropoliwii ; while the perfumed douche after the bath is described by a hybrid expression as imguentum ecchciimataS' Ladies did not live apart in a Roman house as at Athens, and there was no equivalent for the Gx^^V gyncEcacum to the time of Cicero." Nor was there any word in Latin for the needy hanger on, the parasitiis or sycophanfa, a con- temptible connexion far removed from that of cltcfts and patronus ; and while he uses a Latin word for dice {alea) the throw is constantly expressed by the Greek bolus. Again, the early Roman was exercised in arms, in real or mimic war, and the manly exercises of the Campus,^ without the more artificial arrangements common in Greece. The palaestra and gymnasium therefore could only be described by their Greek names, though they speedily became acclimatised, along with the bath and its luxuries, while the larger private houses already had the ambulacrum and por/icus, which served some of the purposes of the palaestra. 1 Poen. pr. 112 ; Cist, i, i, 21, 61 ; 4, 3, 21 ; Bacch. 4, 6, 15 etc. 2 Pseud. 2, 4, 67 ; Cure. 4, 2, 23. But mensa for a bank is used, Cure. 5, 3, 4. 3 Mil. 4, 3, 15 ; Asin. i, i, 55 ; Merc. 2, 3, 54. ^ Aul. 2, 9, 4. ^ Cure. 2, 3, 13. ^ As. 5, 2, 79; Cas. 2, 3, 10; Aul. 3, 5, 37; Amph. 4, i, 3; Poen. 3, 3, 88. ^ Bacch. 3, 3, 24 ; Most, i, 2, 67. ^, —J J -^ , „ — _, ^j — , ^ ^ Most. 3, 2, 68 ; Cicero, 2 Phil. § 95. XXVI SLAVERY AMONG THE ROMANS 403 The value of eloquence, and the rise of the new nobility by Eloquefice popular favour gained in pleading causes, are illustrated by the «^«^ ^^^ advice given to the young jnan in the Trinumus^ " to serve his ^^ friends in the Forum if he wishes for public office " ; and by another '^ ^^"' ^' passage describing the growing desire of such men to have round them a body of well-to-do clients, without much regard to their character. These are the " clients " of the later Republic, not heredi- tary dependents, but men whose interests centred round some leader, statesman, or general, and formed the nucleus of the coming revolu- tions. ^ Closely allied is the appearance of bribery, as office began Ambitus. to be valuable from the foreign provinces. The first law against ambitus was not passed till 181, but the thing itself was becoming notorious, and the tipsy slave in the Triiiumus is made to moralise with solemnity on the growing scandal.^ A still graver feature in Roman life, copiously illustrated by Slaves iri Plautus, is the number and ill-treatment of slaves. Though Greek comedy and in name and in the parts they sustain in the plays, yet the extra- ^ J^' ordinary fertility of expressions, wholly Latin, for their torture or punishment, throws a lurid light on the position of these unfortunate men and women. '^ The cat {Jhigriau) and the rods {virgae) are the usual implements of punishment. But there are numberless worse modes of torture. The poor wretch was sometimes hung by his hands to a beam, with weights attached to his feet, while his flesh was pierced with goads. Sometimes a heavy fork of wood was placed on his neck, to the ends of which his hands were bound, and he was flogged or goaded as he staggered under the weight ; and if he stole he was branded with the letters FUR.* A punishment Slaves in much dreaded was the being transferred to the country establishment, ike country. and there being forced to work in chains on the land, to grind at the mill, to hew wood and draw water, or labour in the stone quarries, imprisoned during the night in the hateful crgastulum. Finally their masters coiild, and sometimes did, punish them by execution on the cross. The honest slave in the Miles (2 4, 19) is made to say, " I know that a cross will be my grave. That was the sepulchre of my father and grandfathers to the fourth genera- tion." After making allowance for comic exaggeration, it seems clear that, if such language was to have any point at all, it must indicate a vast growth in the number of slaves, whose masters believed that they could -only hold them in subjection by the utmost severity ; and particularly that the hardest labours of the farm were ^ Trin. 3, 2, 25; Men. 4, 2, 1-30. "^ Trin. 4, 3, 26. ^ For severities to women see Merc. 2, 3, 77; True. 4, 3, i-io. * For list of slave punishments see particularly Asin. 3, 21 ; Men. 5, 6, 8. 404 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP Street life as described by Plautus. I dent iji ca- tion of Roman and Greek divinities. now performed almost entirely by them. When this began we can- not tell exactly ; but the Punic wars, in flooding the markets with slaves, doubtless largely extended it ; and as the Roman citizens became more and more averse to the dulness of the country these large gangs of slaves became a real danger to the State. Of the daily life of the streets it is not so easy to get a view. A passage in the Curculio i will show us the Forum and its neighbour- hood — the comitiuni crowded with electors listening to the profes- sions of candidates, as well as a spot on the north of the Forum near the altar of Venus Cloacina ; the street near the Basilica haunted by idlers and loose women ; the fishmarket full of purchasers, eyed anxiously by hangers-on watching for an invitation to dinner. The men of wealth do business in the part of the Forum nearest the capitol. Close by the lacus Ciirtius men are hawking wine. Near the vetcres iabernae, on the south side, congregate the money-lenders. Near the temple of Castor and the 7'icus Tusciis are more loose characters ; while the Velabrum is full of tradesmen's shops, such as butchers and bakers ; and the Suburra is lined with eating-houses and taverns. At the porta tn'gcmina, and all along the road to Ostia, stand or crouch the beggars with which every visitor is well acquainted to this day.^ In the midst the acdiles exercise the office of police and petty magistrates : see that the streets are cleaned ; regulate the markets ; test the soundness of the goods offered for sale ; and, when the games are coming on, give out contracts for theatrical properties, and exercise control over the actors, who are mostly slaves, punishing those who do ill.'^ Lastly, in both Ennius and Plautus we see the identification of the Greek and Latin gods all but complete. It was perhaps the exigences of translation that helped on the process, which doubtless had also other determining causes. At any rate, Ennius gives the list of the twelve gods of the Greeks under their Latin titles,* which is also repeated by Plautus, with some variations and additions, such as Summanus ( = Pluto), and others, most of whom had temples in Rome. A number of rural deities were still locally worshipped, who had no Greek analogues ; ^ but the State religion was henceforth ^ Cure. 4. I. The genuineness of the passage is doubted because of the men- tion of the basilica, for the Basihca Porcia was built in Cato's censorship, B.C. 184, the year of Plautus' s death. But as sub-basilicani occurs in Capt. 4, 2, 36, it seems better to believe that the name was attached to some building earlier. At any rate the passage, if an insertion, is old enough for our purpose. ^ Cist. I, 2, 3; Capt. I, I, 22. ^ For the various functions of the aediles see Stich. 2, 3, 29 ; Men. 4, 2, 25; Capt. 4, 2, 34; Rud. 2, 3, 43; Trin. i, 3, 80; 4, 2, 148. * Ennius, Annates, i fr. ; Plautus, Bacch. 4, 7, 31. ^ Enumerated by Varro, R.R. i. XXVI CATO AND COUNTRY LIFE 405 confined to the worship of these deities, with certain additions, such as that of the Bona Dea or Magna Mater, introduced from Asia in 205. Thus Roman theology,, if not now for the first time settled, received its first definite expression in literature. ^ Thirdly, from M. PORCIUS Cato, who stoutly resisted the fashion (j) Cato of writing or copying Greek, and who was prolific in speeches and {2j4-i4g). histories, we have a treatise on the management of a farm of about 100 jugera, from which something may be gathered of the country life at this period, — all the more interesting from the consideration that in no other sphere is custom so persistent, and that therefore in many respects we may feel sure that what we read applies equally to Latin farmers many generations before. In his preface he praises Praise of farming above other industries. In ancient times, he says, the f^'^''"""S- highest compliment was to call a man a good farmer. It is farmers who are the mainstay of the state : they are the bravest men and the best soldiers ; their trade is not open to the risks of the merchant or the odium of the money-lender. Farming, however, must not be treated as of secondary importance : a man should make his chief residence in the country, only lodging in the city for the sake of public duties. Those done he should, like Cincinnatus, return to his farm. In Cato's time the actual work, once performed by the fanner and his free labourers, was done by slaves, for whose manage- nient, allowance of food, dress, and wooden shoes he gives minute directions. But the old habits and customs still remained, especially in the methods of securing the favour of the gods for the operations of the farm. The first thing the owner must do on arriving at his Country house is to greet the Lar Familiaris : before a sickle can be put into S^ds to be the corn an offering of incense must be made to Janus, Jupiter, ^'^^^^ and Juno, and a pig sacrificed to Ceres, to whom also first-fruits must be given when the crops are about to be stored in the barn. When the grain is sown a daps is to be given to Jupiter. When the oxen are turned out into the meadows an offering is to be made to Mars Silvanus. If a woodland is to be cleared a pig must be offered to the deity inhabiting it, and another when the ground is ^ The list of the twelve gods jn Ennius is contained in the distich : — luno Vestci Minerva Ceres Diana Venus : Mars Mercurius lovis Neptunus Volcanus Apollo. Mars, who in the Latin rehgion was the god of death and destruction, here repre- sents Ares, the god of war. PFautus adds Latona, ISpes, Ops, Castor and Pollux, Virtus, Hercules, Submanus, Sol, Saturnus, all of whom, e.\cept Latona and Sub- manus, had temples at Rome. The worship of Apollo, which seems at first not to have caught on at Rome, though he had a temple since 413, was much pro- moted by the establishment of the ludi Apollinares in 212. There was no temple of Latona, yet her name was joined with that of Apollo in a Icctisternium held in 396 to avert a pestilence (Livy v. 13). 4o6 HISTORY OF ROME Divisions of the far 7n and animals employed. Food. The market. The holidays. first broken by the plough. Mars, in this rustic hierarchy, was god of Wight and murrain to crop and flock, and a form of prayer is given to be used to him by the farmer. ^ Such a farm would contain plough-land, meadow, garden, olive-grove, orchards of apple, pear, and figs ; with woodland, in which the chief trees were elm, poplar, cypress, oak, ilex, and willow for basket- work. The beasts used on the farm were oxen, mules, and asses for the mill ; horses seem seldom employed for agricultural purposes. The food used in the farm - house is shown by the directions to the villica, who is always to have a good store of poultry, eggs, dried-peas, service-berries, figs, raisins, wallnuts, and preserved or dried fruits of various kinds, and must be skilled in grinding fine or coarse meal or groats. Nothing is to be wasted : the worn sagum served out to the slave is to be returned before a new one is given, in order to make patchwork coverlets. The wind- falls of the olives are to be collected to make pnhnentiuium for the slaves, and the skins of the pressed grapes to make their wine or posca. Every eighth day the farm produce is to be taken to Rome or elsewhere for market, while at certain seasons there were fairs {)nercatus\ such as that at the gro\e of Feronia at the foot of Mount Soracte. Wet weather was to be utilised for clearing or repairing the oil or wine vessels and other implements ; while the olive crop was gathered by bands of Icgiili or pickers at a special rate, or sometimes sold on the trees at a valuation. The four great holidays in the year were the Lupercalia in March, the Palilia in April, the ^ The formula of the Arval Brethren for this purpose is preserved in an inscription discovered in 1778 : — Enos, Lases, iuvate (ter) Neve lue rue, Mannar, sins incurrere in pleores. (ter) Satur fu, fere Mars. Limen sali. Sta. Berber, (ter) Semunis alternei advocapit conctos. (ter) Enos, Marmar, iuvato. (ter) Triumpe, Triumpe, Triumpe, Triumpe. Which the Bishop of Sahsbury thus translates : — Help us, oh Lares, help us. Lares, help us I And thou, oh Marmar, suffer not Fell plague and ruin's rot Our folk to devastate. Be satiate, oh fierce I\Lars, be satiate I (Leap o'er the threshold ! Halt ! Now beat the ground) Be satiate, oh fierce Mars, be satiate ! (Leap o'er the threshold ! Halt ! Now beat the ground) Be satiate, oh fierce IVfars, be satiate ! (Leap o'er the threshold ! Halt I Now beat the ground I) (Call to your aid the heroes all, call in alternate strain ! Call, call, the heroes all, Call to your aid the heroes all, call in alternate strain !) Help us, oh Marmar, help us, Marmar, help us I (Bound high in solemn measure, bound and bound again. Bound high and bound again !) I XXVI THE HABITS OF FARMERS 407 Saturnalia in December, and the Compitalia in January. In the two last named the slaves were specially permitted to share ; but from religious functions of the family generally they were jealously excluded. On other holy days, though work did not cease, it was of a lighter kind, or \vas bestowed upon the highw^ays on the demand of the authorities of the pagus. Many recipes for country dishes, simples, and fomentations were traditional among the farmers, who still believed that even a dislocated limb would yield to a charm recited with the cabalistic w^ords, of which Cato gives a specimen. ^ Such was the life that in its primitive simpHcity still lingered in the country districts of Latium and Campania, while in mountainous districts the shepherds formed a distinct and hardy class, and in the Shepherds woodlands and forests there were large bands of swineherds, of a'td snn?ie- whose methods and habits Polybius has left us some curious ''^^'''^•^• particulars. 2 It was such men that formed the backbone of the nation : it was from them that the armies which conquered the world were replenished. And even in regard to the intellectual life of the state, it will be observed that of the three men here mentioned as representatives of literature one was a South Italian, the other an Umbrian, and that the third, though a Latin and a Roman citizen by birth, lived chiefly in the country. Rome had the power (the true note of a nation) of absorbing and inspiring all with her spirit ; but the best of the raw material was found not in the city but in the country-. 1 Motas vaeta daries dardares astatarics dissiinapitcr^ R.R. 160. ^ Polybius xii. 4. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIRST MACEDONIAN WAR 214-205 The state of Asia and Greece from 323 to 215 — The development of the three great kingdoms of Egypt, Asia, and Macedonia — The lesser Asiatic powers, Pergamos, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Galatia — The extent of the Macedonian influence in Asia and Greece^The Achaean and Aetolian Leagues — The ac- cession of Philip V. — He conceives the idea of invading Italy— His treaty with Hannibal — The Romans declare war with him (215) — His defeat at Apollonia — -His vigorous measures and victory over the Aetolians at Lamia (209) — The war languishes for some time (208-206), but the Romans, by the advice of Sulpicius, are unwilling to make peace — The Aetolians therefore make a separate peace with Philip : followed by general pacification at Phoenice (205). The importance of the MacedoH' ian wars. Divisions of the Eynpire of Alexander 323-301. Among the incidents of the struggle with Hannibal had been a collision with the king of Macedonia. What is called the first Macedonian war (214-205) was not marked by any great battles or important changes of territory, but it pledged the Romans to a certain protectorate and the maintenance of a definite state of affairs in Greece and Asia Minor. This led to the second war with Philip (200-197), and to the extension of that protectorate over all Greece ; and this in its turn involved the war with Antiochus and the Aetolians, and another large extension of Roman responsibility (193- 188). The Romans thereby took their place in the development of a world-wide history. The affairs of Africa, Italy, Greece, and Asia became inextricably involved ; and our narrative can no longer be confined to the rise or fortunes of an Italian power : it becomes part of the history of the civilised world. It is necessary, therefore, to obtain at least an outline of the political state of the world at the time. The victories of Alexander the Great had for a brief period welded into one huge empire the Greek peninsula, nearly all Asia up to the Punjaub, the Islands, and Egypt. At his death (323) disintegration imniediately began. For a time the whole remained nominally under CHAP. XXVII THE DISRUPTION OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE 409 his successors on the throne of Macedonia or their guardians. But the generals or native princes who retained or undertook the adminis- tration of the several provinces, nearly thirty in number, were bent on establishing practical independence, and were for the most part in continual hostility with each other. From this confusion there emerged in 306 five great powers, the The six rulers of which then for the first time called themselves kings — Egypt ^^^'S^^ 306. under Ptolemy, son of Lagus ; Syria under Antigonus ; Upper Asia under Seleucus ; Thrace under Lysimachus ; Macedonia under Cas- sander. In addition to these, Demetrius Poliorcetes (a son of Antigonus of Syria) also assumed the title of king, though without definite dominions, his chief work during the next few years being to pose as the champion of Greek freedom, guaranteed by treaty in 311 against Macedonia, in the course of which he received the title of general (yye/xtov) of all Greece. The ambition of Antigonus caused a general combination against joi. The him. In 301, at the battle of Ipsus, he was defeated and killed, and battle of his dominions were divided. There were now four great kingdoms — formation Egypt under Ptolemy ; Syria (or, as it was called, Asia) under Seleucus ; of four Thrace and Asia Minor under Lysimachus ; and Macedonia under great Cassander. Demetrius Poliorcetes still kept the title of king and the kingdoms. possession of Cyprus and part of Phoenicia, though, after he had been defeated with his father at Ipsus, the Athenians refused to admit him within their walls. In 297, however, he determined to reassert himself in Greece. Macedonia He took Athens after a long siege, and was proceeding to make A^^'' ^97 himself master of Peloponnesus when he was recalled to greater '^ ^^^' hopes. Cassander, king of Macedonia, died in 296, and was suc- ceeded by his son Philip IV., who within a few months also died, and was succeeded by his two brothers Antipater and Alexander. The joint kings soon quarrelled, and the younger one, Alexander, asked help both of Demetrius and Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Pyrrhus was the first to arrive. He drove out Antipater and established Alexander on the throne ; and when Demetrius came later he found Deinetri/ts himself coldly received. He even believed, or affected to believe, that Alexander was attempting to have him poisoned. He therefore anticipated the treachery by causing him to be assassinated, and was himself proclaimed king (294). But his ambitious policy in Greece, Thrace, and Asia ended m final overthrow at the hands of Seleucus in 286. Three years later he died in captivity. For ten years (286- Ten years 277) Macedonia was the scene of constant confusion and revolution, now divided between Lysimachus of Thrace and Pyrrhus of Epirus, now seized by various pretenders whose hold on power was short and stormy. The confusion seemed rendered hopeless by the wave of 2()4-2S6. anarchy, 2S6-2JJ. 4IO HISTORY OF ROME Gallic invasion and rise of the Atiti- gonid dynasty, 280-277. Philip V. succeeds in 22g : but does not reign till 220, The Mace- donian kingdom and Greece in 220. The Thracian kingdom disappears, 281-280. Pergamus. Gallic invasion which swept over the country, and in which king Ptolemy Ceraunus lost his life (280) ; until in 277 Antigonus Gonatas, son of Demetrius, obtained peaceful possession of the crown ; and in a reign extending (with two brief interruptions) over thirty-eight years, guided the country back into paths of order and material prosperity. He was succeeded by his son Demetrius II. (239), who on his death in 229 left a son eight years old named Philip, under the guardianship of his cousin Antigonus Doson, who, while treating the boy with all kindness, practically remained king until his death in 220. In that year Philip V. began his real reign ; and it was with him that the Romans came in contact. The Macedonian kingdom thus transmitted was something more than the territory known geographically by that name. Though Greece was nominally free, Macedonian influence was widely ac- knowledged in a large part of it, and Macedonian garrisons were stationed in many of the towns, especially in the three " fetters of Greece " — Demetrias, Chalcis, and Acro-Corinthus, which controlled Thessaly, Euboea, and Peloponnesus respectively. It is true that even in Thessaly the people were supposed to enjoy their own con- stitution and laws, and not to be subjects in the same sense as the Macedonians ; but practically they were entirely at the orders of the king or his ministers, as were also the people of Locris, Phocis, and Doris. Even in Attica and Peloponnesus there were several towns in which a Macedonian garrison was placed, and in which, therefore, the orders of the Macedonian government were paramount. Moreover, the superior vigour and energy of the Macedonians gave them a special prestige, not only in Greece, but among the less manly subjects of the other kings also. It became the fashion to imitate their manners and dress, no less than their military tactics and methods of drill ; and although they were content with, and even proud of their monarchical government, they retained and exercised a privilege of free speech and blunt re- monstrances with the king that moved the surprise and envy of more servile peoples. The Thracian kingdom of Lysimachus disappeared with the death of that monarch in 281 in a war with Seleucus of Syria; who was himself assassinated in the course of the next year (280) at the instigation of Ptolemy Ceraunus. From that time Thrace ceased to be among the great powers. It fell into a state of complete anarchy. The cities of the Chersonese were claimed by the king of Egypt and actually annexed by him in 247 ; while Asia Minor passed to the kings of Syria, or maintained a virtual independence. Thus we find at Pergamus a wealthy citizen named Attalus assuming in 241 the title of king, and his kingdom at one time embracing a large part of xxvii EGYPT, SYRIA, AND MACEDONIA 411 Asia Minor, at another reduced almost to the single city of Pergamus and its immediate territory. The government of Egypt had throughout these changes remained Egypt firmly in the family of the Lagidae. Up to 205 four Ptolemies had peaceful succeeded each other in peaceful succession, and established their ''""^ authority in Cyrene, Cyprus, and the Cyclades, while the possession ''' '' ^^'' of Coele-Syria and Palestine was a constant source of dispute between them and the Seleucid kings of Asia. The dynasty, however, remained Greek, and gathered round it in Alexandria Greek or Macedonian troops, Greek writers and libraries, and Greek artists, and never amalgamated with the people, who then, as now, were apparently content, though with occasional outbursts of fanatical violence, to produce the wealth of that extraordinary soil on the sole condition of being allowed to live and serve. But though the Ptolemies did not aspire, like the kings of Asia, to world-wide conquests, they attracted the commerce of the East and West to Alexandria, and had the influence which accompanies wealth. The Seleucid kings of Syria or Asia regarded themselves as Asia, occupying the place of the old Persian Empire, as organised or 301-220. subdued by Alexander. All Asia belonged to them in theory. Yet large parts of it had really become divided into separate independent kingdoms, and those parts which were nominally satrapies of the kingdom were in real truth constantly in rebellion. Little more than Cilicia, together with Syria Superior or Phoenicia, was practically in the hands of the king ; and even here the possession of coast towns was often disputed by the king of Egypt. Of the attempts of Antiochus the (ireat to make his kingdom of Asia a reality we shall have to speak hereafter. The result of these developments was the existence of three large Three powers — Syria or Asia, Egypt, and Macedonia ; while in Asia the ^'^'^S^ great king's dominions were fringed by a number of smaller king- ^^^°^^ doms or states — Pergamus, IMthynia, Cappadocia, and Pontus, ruled Egypt, by kings ; and a region on the Halys, in which the wandering Mace- Gauls had found a home and established a polity since about 250, donia. and which obtained the name of Galatia from them. It was to their Five couraireous resistance to these marauders that Attains chiefly owed ^^'^o^dary his royalty and Prusias of Bithynia his reputation. In the far East pef^amiis the Bactrians and Parthians successfully resisted the attempts of Bithynia, Antiochus to annex them ; and lastly, throughout Asia there were Cappa- a number of Hellenic settlements, independent or semi-independent, docia, which tended to keep alive a certain culture, and at any rate the Q^i^fi^ knowledge of the Greek language, in the various dynasties with which ojj-iSj. Rome afterwards came in contact. While the kingdoms of the East were thus breaking up and 412 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Greece at the end of the third century B.C. The freedom of Greece nominally respected. Change in the centres of power in Greece. Athens. Thebes. reforming, Greece in some of its essential features remained what it had always been. It was still a race and not a dynasty that was meant by that term. No man called himself king of Greece : no body of men, whether hereditary or elective, could speak for all Greece. The love of local autonomy had survived ruinous internal strife, commercial disaster, and foreign conquest. Yet there was a real unity in this disunion. A common origin, language, and religion still caused the Greeks to stand out before the world as a distinct nation, representing a culture and civiHsation in which all wished to share, and which all recognised as Greek and Greek alone. It must partly be attributed to the sentiment excited by their character and unique intellectual position that the freedom of the Greeks had been so often, at least in name, respected. Philip II. and Alexander the Great had both been content to accept the title of their "general" [-/yye/xwi/], and had posed as champions of Hel- lenism. The same position was taken up by Antipater in 321 as guardian of the Macedonian kingdom, and in 3 i 2 by Cassander, who explicitly confirmed the freedom of Greece. Demetrius Poliorcetes, indeed, in 307, made himself master of Athens ; but he took the same title as did Philip II. and Alexander, and professed to champion Greek freedom against Macedonia. When he became king of Macedonia (295-287) his rule over Greece was continued, and for that period, more nearly than at any other, Greece was formally part of a kingdom. But in the confusion in Macedonia which followed his defeat in Asia, to the succession of his son Antigonus Gonatas (287-277), Greece became for the most part again practically free ; and though in some cities there were still Macedonian garrisons, in the majority the old autonomy remained, and also, unhappily, the old divisions and quarrels. But the centres of power and influence were not the same as of old. The Asiatic Greek cities had grown in wealth and importance beyond those in Greece proper. And in Greece proper itself there had been a great change. Athens still retained her walls and the walls of the Peiraeus, though the long walls which united the two had fallen into ruin ; but of her wide possessions outside Attica nothing remained. She still attracted the admiration as well as the benefac- tions of various kings and princes, but of political power or influence she had become wholly bereft, and was content to rest upon the glories of her past and the reputation of her schools of philosophy. Her dread of the power of Macedonia caused her to be closely allied with the Aetolians, and inclined from the first to welcome the Roman alliance. Thebes had never recovered from the vengeance of Alexander, and with Boeotia generally was in a feeble and demoralised state. THE AETOLIAN LEAGUE 413 without patriotism or public spirit, its old institutions only existing in the form of meaningless and demoralising celebrations and banquets, and was disposed to rely wholly on the Macedonian protection. Sparta, far from retaining her old ascendency, had been reduced Sparta. to the narrow limits of the ancient Laconia. With the flight of Cleomenes (222) she had lost the semblance of her peculiar consti- tution, and had fallen into the hands of a series of tyrants, the last of whom, called Nabis (207), made himself formidable by collecting round him a body of mercenaries gathered from all the worst ele- ments of Greece, and by joining in close alliance with the pirates of Crete. From enmity to the Achaean League, which was inclined to Macedonian protection, Sparta, like Elis and Messenia, was during this period in sympathy rather with Aetolia, and against the political union of Peloponnesus. The confederacies (Kotm) of Epirus and Acarnania were of no Acamania political importance. The Romans had already obtained a footing and at various points in their territories, as at Corcyra and Dyrrachium ; ^P^''^'^- but as a rule they were inclined to cling to Macedonian protection against the piracies or the encroachments of the Aetolians. In the midst of this general decay two powers had gained and The for some time had maintained something like consistence and life. AetoUan These were the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues. The Aetolians had in ancient times been little known in Greece. Strange stories were told of their wild and savage life, their raw food, I and their open mountain villages. Yet when the Athenian Demos- I thenes invaded them in 426 they had shown that they could combine [ for self-protection ; and both Sparta in her day of power and Philip i IL of Macedonia had had to reckon with them. They first appear as I taking a distinct part in Greek politics in the Lamian war of 322. i The presence of their soldiers at Crannon brought upon them an Services I invasion of the Macedonian generals, which they baffled by retreating of the 1 to their mountains ; and their reputation in Greece was much extended ^'^^"^i"^''^- I by their services against the invading Gauls in 280-279. It was they 1 who defended Delphi, and did most to cut to pieces the barbarous 1 horde. From this time they stood out as one of the chief powers in I Greece. They joined to their League parts of western Acarnania, ( southern Epirus, many cities in Thessaly, as Pharsalus, Echinus, I Demetrias, Hypata, and Herecleia ; in Peloponnesus, as Mantinea, j Tegea, Orchomenus, and others ; in Thrace, as Lysimacheia ; in I Asia Minor, as Cius and Chalcedon. The exact nature of the rela- Itions between the League and these outlying towns is somewhat obscure ; but it at least involved the obligation of protection against ^ the attacks of others ; and though the League government was not ^always able to supply that protection with sufficient promptitude, it and Achaean Leagues. 414 HISTORY OF ROME predatory habits The was never absolutely refused. ^ At home there was a regularly con- governmetit stituted government capable of speaking in the name of the whole of^^^^. people. A Strategus, assisted by thirty counsellors or Apocleti, a ^Leasm hipparch, and a secretary were elected every year. The assembly of the people was held at Thermus for this election, and at other times and places as required by puWic business. The decisions of this assembly were of absolute authority ; but the general policy of the League was much influenced by the views and character of the strategus for the time being. That policy seems on the whole to Their have been highly oppressive to their neighbours. The system of piratical private or public piracy was openly recognised ; private citizens main- ^^^, tained the ri^ht of hiring themselves out in bodies to fight for any government that would pay them ; and wherever war was gomg on they professed to have the right of carrying off spoil from either of the contending parties, whether friends or enemies. The The second important power in Greece at this time was the Achaean AcHAEAN LEAGUE. Twelve cities of Achaia, the northern district League. ^f Peloponnesus, had formed a league long before Herodotus wrote. ikmentr^ It had not been one of the great powers in the days when Sparta and Athens were the leading states in Greece, yet it had always enjoyed a special reputation for good faith and disinterested conduct, which led to its being selected to arbitrate in more than one dispute between Greek towns. During the Macedonian period it had shared the general decHne. Many of its towns were occupied by Macedonian garrisons ; some had by natural causes become deserted or fallen into complete insignificance ; and the old federal union or govern- ment was at the beginning of the third century B.C. scarcely more than The revival a memory or tradition. A revival, however, had been begun in 284 of the by four cities of the old federation — Dymae, Patrae, Tritaea, Pharae League in ^^^j^ forming a league for mutual assistance. These were soon ^ ^' afterwards joined by three others, and for twenty-five years (279-255) these seven cities constituted the entire League, electing two strategi annually in turns. In 255 the dual office was abolished, and for the first time Margos was elected sole strategus. From this date the League rose rapidly in importance. About three years later it was joined by Sicyon under the influence of Aratus, the true founder of 1 An inscription (C. I. G. 2350) containing the terms made with the island Keos (about B.C. 240-220) will show something of what was implied in such an arrangement : ' ' The Aetolians think it good to preserve the existing friendship with the Keians, and that no Aetolian shall plunder the Keians from whatsoever port he may sail, either by land or sea, either on the score of an Amphictyonic decree or any other — the Keians being now Aetolians. But if any one shall plunder the Keians the strategus of the time being shall have power to decide upon goods brought into Aetolia, and his assessors shall have authority to levy the fine for the Keians upon those who plundered them. " XXVII THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE 415 the new League, who expelled the tyrant from his native town, and on being elected strategus of the League for the second time, in 243, set himself to persuade the oth.er cities of Peloponnesus also to expel their tyrants and Macedonian garrisons, and to join the League, which implied free democratic institutions in each of its members. Corinth and Megara joined in 243 ; and when the death of king Demetrius (229) seemed to weaken the influence of Macedonia, there was a wide-spread movement among the tyrants of Peloponnesian states to resign their powers, and add their cities to the League. Thus it was at this time that Megalopolis, Argos, Hermione, and Phlius gave in their adhesion ; and the League came now to include all Peloponnesus except Elis and Laconia, and some towns in Arcadia which were members of the Aetolian League. The great adversary of this revived Achaean League was Cleomenes The war of of Sparta, whose hostility was supported by the jealousy of the Aetol- the League ians. The Cleomenic war (227-221), while it ruined Cleomenes ^^^^^^^^^^ and enfeebled Sparta, introduced again the influence of Macedonia 22^-221, ' in Peloponnesus. Antigonus Doson responded to the invitation of and the Aratus to assist the Achaeans against Sparta in 224, crushed Cleo- renewed menes at Sallasia (221), and then returned home to die. His death !-^^,^^^^^ ^z- (220) was foUowecl by renewed activity on the part of the Aetolians. Macedonia. Under Dorimachus they had for some time been employed in infest- ing Messenia from Phigaleia in xA.rcadia, which belonged to their League ; and now (220) the same man, along with a restless soldier named Scopas, induced the existing Aetolian strategus, Ariston, who was a man of no military talent or force of character, to sanction a regular war, — though without any formal diplomatic breach. The War %vith youth of the new sovereign of Macedonia, Philip V. (then seventeen ^^^ years old) encouraged the belief that active steps would not be taken ^^^ by the Macedonians. It was always an object of the Aetolians to establish or extend their power in Acarnania and Epirus, and Messenia was the constant field for their depredations. In all directions, there- fore, their privateers went forth, damaging their enemies and enriching the State. The Achaeans, under the influence of Aratus, proclaimed war. But though Aratus had many of the highest qualities of a statesman and military organiser, he was ineffective in the field. The Philip V. Achaeans suffered many reverses ; and in the meeting of the League invited into in the summer of 220 it was resolved to solicit the alliance of Epirus, ^^^ ^^^^' . poTinesus. Boeotia, Phocis, Acarnania, and Philip of Macedon against the com- mon enemy. In the war which followed (220-217) the youthful king Philip showed both energy and skill beyond his age, and the Aetolians were glad in 216 to negotiate a peace, which was suggested by emissaries from the sea powers Chios, Rhodes, and Byzantium, and from king Ptolemy of Egypt. 4i6 HISTORY OF ROME Philip conceives the ambition of invading Italy. Influence of Det?ietrius of Pharos. Philip makes peace with the Aetolians. Prepar- ations for the Italian war, 2IJ- 2/6. A Roman squadron of observa- tion, 216. But if the Aetolians were prepared for peace so was king Philip. In the course of his great campaign his ambition had become roused, and the ideas of Empire which had inspired previous kings of Mace- donia had taken possession of him. He soon ceased to be merely the champion of Achaean independence and of Greece against Aetolian wrong-doing. His eyes were turned, like those of Alexander and Pyrrhus of Epirus, to the West. The suggestion came from Demetrius of Pharos, who had taken refuge with him in 219 after the victories of Aemilius Paullus in the Illyrian war. Polybius assigns the deteriora- tion in Philip's character to the influence of this unprincipled adven- turer, whose objects in the advice given to the king were purely selfish. He desired the humiliation of Rome to gratify his personal vengeance, but still more because by that means alone could he hope to recover his lost dominions. He therefore constantly instigated Philip to leave Greece, where he was now sufficiently strong, and to turn his attention to conquests in Illyria as a stepping-stone to Italy. In the summer of 217, as Philip was watching the sports at the Nemean festival, a courier arrived with the news of the Roman defeat at Thrasymene (22nd June). The king showed the letter at first to no one except Demetrius, who at once urged him to seize the oppor- tunity of pushing his designs upon Italy. Philip found no opposition in his council when the measure w\t,s proposed to them. Aratus could not deny that the successes won by the king were sufficient to enable him to make peace with dignity ; and others were eager for any arrangement which would unite Greece in the presence of the growing power of Rome. Philip immediately set about his preparations. In the winter of 217-216 a hundred galleys were built for him by Illyrian ship- builders ; and by the summer of 216 they were afloat, and their crews in training. But the Romans were not wholly unprepared. Scerdi- laidas, one of the princes who had been established by Roman in- fluence or consent in part of the dominions of Queen Teuta, had given information at Rome of the suspicious preparations of Philip, and had asked aid for himself. The Romans, however, were wholly bent upon the struggle with Hannibal, and the preparations for the battle of Cannae. They therefore merely sent an order to the commander of the fleet at Lilybaeum to detach a squadron of ten ships to watch the Illyrian coast. But as it happened, this proved sufficient to alarm Philip. He was about to enter the mouth of the Aous when some vessels arrived in haste with information that the Roman fleet was at Rhegium on its way to Apollonia. Philip and his fleet were seized with a panic, and sailed back day and night until they reached Cephallenia. There he endeavoured to excuse his ignominious flight by pretending XXVII PHILIP AND HANNIBAL 417 that he had been invited to carry out some operations in Peloponnesus. But he had lost a great opportunity in Illyria ; and it was not till after the battle of Cannae and Hannibal's advance into Campania that he ventured on farther steps. At Rome, meanwhile, it had become clear that Philip was dan- The gerous, and that the origin of his policy was the advice of Demetrius, Romans for whose surrender accordingly an embassy was sent just before dem^^^<^ the battle of Cannae. The news of that disaster, however, decided ^.^^^^^ ^ Philip to openly join the Carthaginians. We have seen how his Demetrius, ambassadors fell into the hands of the Romans with the text of the 216. treaty, thus giving them timely warning of what was going on. It was not till 215 that Philip learnt what had happened, and Philip despatched new emissaries to Hannibal. These last succeeded in makes a bringing to him a copy of the treaty to which Hannibal had sworn ; ^^/^^^i ^ but even then he took no immediate measures in aid of his new ally. 2ij. Either the Roman fleet now permanently stationed at Brundisium alarmed him, or his thoughts had been recalled to Greece. A revolu- tion in Messenia had given him an opportunity of getting rid of the oligarchical party opposed to him there : and for two years (2 i 5-2 1 3) he was more or less engaged in this country. His evil genius, Philip's Demetrius of Pharos, fell in 2 14 during an assault on Mount Ithome ; ^oss of but Philip continued the attack upon the Messenians afterwards in Popularity person ; in the course of which, m addition to many other acts ot 214-213. cruelty, he was believed to have got rid of Aratus by poison. These proceedings, however, did much to ruin his popularity among the Greeks, and disposed even the Achaeans, who owed so much to the Macedonian kings, to attach themselves to Rome. At the time, therefore, at which Philip provoked the enmity of The Rome, the hostility which he had roused against himself in (jreece, eletnents and the mutual animosities of the Greeks themselves, afforded a ^f j^Yzi?^ I ready means of forming a combination against him. Sparta, indeed, ^^ philip. I chiefly from hostility to the Achaean League, and because its tyrant I found every man's hand against him, was ready to maintain alliance I with Philip. But the Achaeans, his usual allies, had been deeply '; offended by his proceedings in Messenia and stood aloof. The I Aetolians desired extension of territory at his expense, and were I especially jealous as to Acarnania and the Thessahan and Asiatic ; towns which belonged to their League. The lUyrian princes, Scerdi- j laidas and his son Pleuratus, owed their position to Roman favour, \ and were always apprehensive of Macedonian encroachment. The ruler of the Athamanians, Anaxymander, had also reason to fear his more powerful neighbour, and was glad to join the Roman attack ; while in Asia Minor the king of Pergamus from the first was ener- \ getically on the side of Rome : for Philip was encroaching in the 2 li 4i8 HISTORY OF ROME The Romans determine upon war with Philip, 215- M. Valerius Laevinus in com- mand of thejleet from 214 to 211. Valerius makes a treaty with the Aetolians, 211. Confeder- acy against Philip. Thracian Chersonese and even in Asia itself, and, moreover, was a friend and relation of Prusias of Bithynia, his own constant enemy. Antiochus the Great had secured the chief power in Asia Minor by the capture and death of his cousin Achaeus, who had taken it from Attains, but was at present (212-205) engaged in his expedition into Upper Asia, and did not as yet affect Greek politics. The terms of Philip's treaty with Hannibal, by which he engaged to exclude the Romans from Corcyra and Illyria, determined the Roman government to proclaim war against him, although they were engaged at the same time in their life and death struggle with Hannibal. But little was done on either side for the first three years. A fleet indeed, with one legion, was stationed at Brundisium, under the propraetor M. Valerius, with general orders to keep guard against an invasion, but at first had little to do. In 214 a message from Oricum informed Valerius that Philip, with i 20 ships, had sailed up the Aous ; was attacking Apollonia ; and was likely to attack Oricum also. These Greek towns in Illyria were convenient places of landing from Brundisium, the latter at the mouth of the Aous, the former some seven miles up the stream, and were already closely allied with Rome. Valerius, therefore, acted promptly. Leaving T. Valerius in charge of Brundisium, he crossed with his main fleet to Oricum, expelled the Macedonian garrison, and then advanced by land to Apollonia. He threw himself with 2000 men into the town by a road which the king had neglected to guard, and joined the Apolloniates in a sally upon the king's camp. Philip escaped with difficulty, abandoning his camp and siege artillery, which was appropriated to the defence of the town. M. Valerius wintered in Oricum, and his imperhun was prolonged through 213 and 212. We have no details of his operations in those years, though he is said to have been successful both by land and sea. He concluded a treaty with the Aetolian League (211), which was to include, if they wished it, the Eleans, Lacedaemonians, king Attalus, and the Illyrian princes Pleuratus and Scerdilaidas, in virtue of which the Aetolians undertook to make war on Philip and to supply a minimum of twenty-five quinqueremes to the Roman fleet ; and in return were to be allowed to take Acarnania, and retain all towns that might be taken as far north as Corcyra. The Aetolians at once commenced operations, and Valerius took Zathynthus, which, with Oeniadae and Nasus in Acarnania, he caused to be assigned to the Aetolian League. Corcyra itself was held as a dependency of Rome. Philip, threatened by this formidable combination, retaliated by a rapid march upon the territory of Apollonia. From thence he hurried into Thessaly to secure the loyalty and co-operation of the the Aetolians at Lamia, xxvn THE LEAGUE AGAINST PHILIP 419 Thessalian towns. From Thessaly he was recalled to defend his Philip's frontiers from an invasion of Thracians and Maedi ; and while vigoroHs engaged with them he heard that the Aetolians were invading Acar- 'f"-^^^^'-^^^- nania. He hurried off to the rescue, but learnt on the way that they had retired. In the spring of 210 Valerius sailed from Corcyra to Naupactus, 210-20S. and took Anticyra in Locris ; but while there was recalled to Rome Sulpicius to enter upon his consulship. His successor P. Sulpicius Galba ^ ^ ^^, ,.,,., ^ T^ • 1 • ,/-,,• f. . , command did little at first. But in this or the following year king Attalus of the fleet. purchased the island of Aegina from the Aetolians for thirty talents, and made it the headquarters of his fleet. There Sulpicius joined him, and the two projected an attack upon all points in eastern Greece in the hands of the king of Macedonia. Philip replied to Victory of this move by taking Echinus, a strong town on the coast of Phthiotis P^^^^P o'^^^ belonging to the AetoHans, in spite of the efforts of Sulpicius and the Aetolians to relieve it. He then resolved to proceed to Peloponnesus and recover the friendship of the Achaeans by helping them against 2og. their enemy Machanidas, tyrant of Sparta. The Aetolian army, sup- ported by some troops of Attalus and a thousand Roman soldiers, tried to prevent him, but were beaten with considerable loss at Lamia. At the harbour town of Lamia, called Phalara, legates from Ptolemy, The mari- Rhodes, Athens, and Chios met the king and endeavoured to induce timepoivers him to make peace. Their efforts, however, were in vain, and he /'^^'^^^^'^"'^^ continued his march into Peloponnesus, strengthening and securing ^^ Euboea on his way against a possible attack of Attalus. He resided at Argos during the following autumn and winter, attended another abortive peace conference at Aegium, and gained a small success over a Roman force which was making a raid upon the territory of Sicyon. But the licentious conduct of the king and his court during the winter still farther alienated the feelings of the Achaeans, and he returned to Demetrias in the spring of 208 to find himself beset with appeals from every quarter, testifying to the activity of his enemies, while he had done much during the past months to deprive himself of his friends. Thus the Achaeans called for help against an impend- The ing attack by Machanidas of Sparta and the Aetolians ; the Boeotians expected and Euboeans against Attalus and the Romans ; the Acarnanians ^A^'^^^^'" and Epirotes expected to be attacked by Aetolians or by Scerdi- laidas and Pleuratus ; whilst the frontiers of Macedonia itself were threatened by hostile Thracian tribes, and Philip was cut off from the south by Aetolian troops holding the pass of Thermopylae. In the presence of these various and formidable dangers Philip Philip's showed his highest qualities of courage and vigour. The several energy. delegates were dismissed with promises of aid, which, as far as his means extended, was promptly given. A garrison was sent to the 420 HISTORY OF ROME The Romatis and king Attahis in Euboea. Attains retires to Asia, and the war languishes . Philip dis- appointed of support from Carthage, 208. Philip orders a new fleet to be built ^ 208-20"/. island of Peparethus to intercept Attalus when he came as usual to Aegina ; other troops under Polyphontes were sent to Boeotia and Phocis ; others under Menippus to Euboea. He himself advanced to Scotussa, on the borders of Phthiotis, with the intention of inter- rupting a conference summoned by the Aetolians at Heracleia, immediately to the north of Thermopylae. He was too late to interrupt the congress, but he left a strong force at Scotussa and retired to Demetrias, as the best centre from which to keep watch over Peparethus, Phocis, and Euboea, between which places and Demetrias he established a system of fire signals or beacons, whereby he would at once become aware of any attack made upon any one of these points. Meanwhile king Attalus, after leaving the conference at Heracleia, joined Sulpicius at Aegina, and the combined forces made an attack upon Euboea. Oreos on the north of the island was taken, but Chalcis was successfully held by the Macedonian garrison, and the rest of the campaign was unfavourable to the allies. Attalus, while attempting a descent upon the coast of Opuntian Locris, was sur- prised by Philip, who had been warned by his beacons of the danger to Euboea, and was marching southward. Attalus was obliged to fly back to Oreos, whence he was recalled home by the news that Prusias of Bithynia was invading the Pergamene territory. Sulpicius also remained inactive at Aegina : while Philip continued his march towards Peloponnesus, after again rejecting proposals of peace suggested by envoys from Egypt and Rhodes. In Peloponnese his ostensible object was to assist the Achaeans against Machanidas of Sparta. But he also hoped to find a squadron of Carthaginian ships in the harbour of Aegium, where he attended the autumn assembly of the Achaean League. The Punic admiral, however, had feared to enter the Corinthian Gulf lest he should be caught there by Sulpicius, who, as he was informed, was shortly to be expected at Naupactus. Finding, therefore, that he must depend on his own resources for continuing the war at sea, Philip ordered one hundred new ships to be built at Cassandreia (Potidaea). But of the operations of the next two years (207-206) we have no details. Stirring events in Spain and Italy distracted the attention of the Romans from Greece ; the Aetolians professed to feel themselves neglected by their aUies ; and the absence of king Attalus, who was detained in Asia by troubles at home, helped to cause the war to be carried on slackly. On his side Philip had some reason to desire an accommodation with the Aetolians. The Achaeans, under the inspiring leadership of Philo- poemen, gained a great victory over the Spartans at Mantinea, in which the tyrant Machanidas was killed (207) ; and Nabis, who PACIFICATION OF PHOENICE 421 contrived to seize the tyranny in succession to him, devoted the earlier part of his reign to strengthening his position in Sparta, and left the Achaeans alone. It did not suit Philip's policy that the Achaeans should be independent of his aid. He is said to have tried to get Philopoemen poisoned ; and at any rate circumstances combined to make both the king and the Aetolians ready to listen to suggestions of peace. Accordingly negotiations for a general pacification were more Negoti- than once renewed, with the good offices as before of Egypt and the ations for maritime powers, in the years 207 and 206, and were only (^ general prevented from succeeding by the opposition of Sulpicius, who f^^^^ ^ persuaded the Senate that it was for the Roman interests that Philip Sulpicius, and the Aetolians should remain at war with each other. P. Sem- 206. pronius was therefore sent out in 205 with a reinforcement of 10,000 infantry and 1 000 cavalry. But when he arrived to relieve Sulpicius The he found that the Aetolians had already accepted a separate peace Aetolians with Philip. By so acting they violated the treaty of 211, and for- ^^^^e a feited the advantages secured to them by that arrangement ; but the ^^^^'^ ^ ° . / . . ° ' peace with immediate result was that in a few months negotiations were renewed, phUip. and a suspension of hostilities, at least for a time, for all who had been parties to the war was agreed upon. The advent of the Roman army under Sempronius had been the Peace of signal for the rising of the Parthini and other lUyrian tribes, to Phoenice, counteract which Philip invaded the territory of Apollonia, hoping to ^^•^■ provoke Sempronius to come out of that city and give him battle. He failed to do this, and while he was still there he was approached by legates of the Epirotes. There was a general weariness of the war, which had now dragged on for nine years without producing much definite result ; and the Epirotes induced Philip to consent to meet Sempronius, and the representatives of other nations interested, at Phoenice, in Epirus. The only condition exacted from PhiHp, beyond the undertaking not to molest states in alliance with Rome, seems to have been the surrender to Rome of his suzerainty over the Parthini and certain towns in Epirus, with the reservation of Atin- tania for future consideration. No question of all that had induced the various parties to the war to join in it was settled or, apparently, discussed. It was a peace on the basis of the status quo atite^ and could hardly be anything better than an armistice. The real importance of the treaty, as expressing the results of Importance the nine years' desultory Warfare, was that it clearly defined the two ^f ^^^ sides, — the protectorates of Macedonia and Rome,— for the safety ^^^ y- of which they were respectively pledged. On Philip's side the The two parties to the peace were Prusias of Bithynia, the Achaeans, the confeder- Boeotians, Thessalians, Acarnanians, Epirotes ; on that of the ^""' 422 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xxvii hostilities. Romans, the people of Ilium/ king Attains, Nabis of Sparta, the Eleans, Messenians, and Athenians. Having already made their own terms with Philip, the Aetolians were not parties to this treaty, and were not pledged, as were the others, to resent an attack upon a member of either body of allies. They would have to be dealt with separately at any future outbreak of hostilities ; but they did not consider their treaty with Rome of 2 1 1 to be abrogated, and we shall find them hereafter claiming the possession of captured cities The in virtue of it. For the Romans the war had served its immediate prospect of object, which was to prevent Philip from giving help to Hannibal, renewed y^^^ j|. -^^^ jgfj- j^-g legacy of responsibility and therefore of danger for the future. Each of the parties to the treaty on the Roman side would be certain to appeal to Rome in case of encroachment or injury of any sort from Aetolian or Macedonian ; and to such appeals neither honour nor interest would allow the Senate to turn a deaf ear. Troubles of this sort were only too likely to arise ; Philip was neither beaten nor dismayed. The Achaean League had not approached its great object of combining all Peloponnesus in one confederacy, and had continually to fear the encroachments of the Spartan tyrants and the hostility of the Aetolians. The outlying towns joined to the Aetolian League would be a constant source of quarrel between them and the sovereign of Macedonia. It must have been evident to all prudent men that a renewal of the war was not far distant, and that the question of Roman or Macedonian supremacy on the east of the Adriatic would have to be decided by arms. ^ That is New Ilium, which was believed to represent the ancient Troy, or at least a restoration of it on a closely contiguous spot. It had some time during this war applied for Roman protection on the ground of the Trojan descent of Romulus, and a strong sentiment in its favour had been roused at Rome, though its inhabitants were really Aetolian Greeks. We shall see the same sentiment influencing the part taken by the Romans again ; and at any rate it seems to be the first Asiatic city enjoying the direct protection of Rome. Authorities. — The history of this war is given in a fragmentary manner by Livy in the intervals of his account of the Hannibalian war (xxii.-xxix. ). A very full account of Philip's character and his policy in Greece is given by Polybius, but of the actual war with Rome the surviving fragments contain only a few details. There is an interesting account of Philip's first idea of joining in the struggle (v. loi), and the text of his treaty with Hannibal (vii. 9), but little more. The influ- ence of Demetrius of Pharos, on which Polybius lays stress, is dwelt upon by Trogus (Just, xxviii. ); an account of the peace of Phoenice is given by h.\)^\'AXi,Macedon. 11. But the usual secondary authorities pass over this war very lightly. CHAPTER XXVIII THE SFXOND MACEDONIAN WAR 200-195 The conduct of king Plnlip during the peace of 205-200 — His league with Antiochus against Egypt (205), and his attacks on the Cyclades and Thracian Chersonese of Asia (202-201) — The Rhodians and king Attains declare war with him (201) — Appeals from Ptolemy and the Greek states to Rome — The Roman commissioners in Egypt and Greece (203-201) — The Romans pro- claim war (200) — P. Sulpicius Galba lands in Epirus and sends aid to Athens — Ineffective campaigns of 200 and 199 — Arrival of T. Quintius Flamininus (198) — Victory of Flamininus in the Antigoneian Pass and his march through Greece — The Achaean League join Rome (198) — Peace congress of Nicaea fails (198-197) — Campaign of 197 and battle of Cynoscephalae— Freedom of some Greek states proclaimed at Isthmian games (196) — War with Nabis of Sparta, settlement of Greece and triumph of Flamininus (195-194). When the treaty of Phoenice was referred to the Senate no difficuhy The peace was made as to its ratification. The attention of Government and 0/20^-200. people alike was fixed upon Africa and the final conflict with Provoca- Carthage. But from the very first Philip committed himself to Hons of measures which were neither unnoticed nor forgotten at Rome, ^'^S although for the moment they were ignored. ^' About the very time at which the peace was being settled he had A Mace- received an application from Carthage, now in desperate straits, to doman effect a diversion in its favour by invading Italy or Sicily. The king ■^/,^/^^jJ/ could not openly renounce his new alliance ; but he either commis- {„ Africa. sioned one of his nobles, named Sopater, to raise, or connived at his raising, a body of 4000 men to cross to Africa. These men fought at Zama under Hannibal, and many of them became prisoners of war to the Romans. This fact could not be denied ; but it was done in such a way as to enable the king to disavow it ; and though the truth was thoroughly understood at Rome, there was no disposition at present to allow anything to interfere with the complete settlement of the quarrel with Carthage. 424 HISTORY OF ROME League of Philip with Antiochus to divide the dominions of Ptolemy V. of Egypt, 205. Operations among the Cyclades and at Rhodes, 204-202. Philip in the Thracian Chersonese and Asia, 202. But more than this, Philip almost at once began a series of aggressions in Greece and Asia. Antiochus had returned in 205 from his great expedition into central Asia, flushed with success, and with a reputation for personal gallantry and military capacity which had gained him the title of the Great, hardly justified by his conduct in the subsequent struggle with Rome. Towards the end of the year he entered into a flagitious bargain with Philip to divide between them the outlying dominions of the youthful king of Egypt, Ptolemy Epiphanes. His own share was to be Coele-Syria and Palestine, with parts of Gyrene and Egypt itself; Philip's was to be the Gyclades and the cities and islands of Ionia. In order to carry out his part of the arrangement Philip was obliged to strengthen his power in the Aegean, and this at once involved him in hostilities with Attalus of Pergamus, and with the powerful naval state of Rhodes. He employed for his purposes Heracleides of Tarentum, who had been guilty of double treason during the conflict of Hannibal and the Romans for that town, and Dicaearchus, an Aetolian pirate. He began with an attack upon the Cyclades, the reduction of which was at once commenced by Dicaearchus with a squadron of twenty ships. To Heracleides was committed the task of preventing the Rhodians, the naval guardians of the Aegean, from interfering to protect the Islands. This he did first by aiding the Gretans in a war against Rhodes, in which their piracies had involved them, and secondly by a piece of congenial treachery. He crossed to Rhodes, pretending that he had abandoned the service of Philip, and having gained the confidence of the authorities, found an opportunity of setting fire to the arsenal and burning enough of their ships to cripple for a time any expeditions for the relief of the Gyclades. Philip himself marched at the head of an army towards the Hellespont, and seized Lysimacheia, which commanded the entrance of the Thracian Ghersonese, and had for some time been a member of the Aetolian League, though formerly belonging to the king of Egypt. He then crossed to the Asiatic side and took two other towns, which were also at that time in political connexion with the Aetolians, Ghalcedon and Gius, and annexed them to the dominions of his brother-in-law Prusias of Bithynia. But in the case of Gius it was only an empty town which he thus handed over. The Gians made a stout resistance, and when at length, in spite of the remonstrances of envoys from Rhodes, he succeeded in taking the place, he broke his promise of granting impunity to the people. They were sold as slaves and their property treated as spoils of war, — a cruelty inflicted also on the people of Thasos on his way home, although they had surrendered without a struggle. and devastates xxviii PHILIP AT WAR WITH ATTALUS AND RHODES 425 These acts were not intended as a provocation to the AetoHan The League. They were done in pursuance of his bargain with Rhodians Antiochus, in virtue of which Phihp claimed all places that had ^^^ ^^"S' belonged to the king of Egypt in the Aegean and the coasts of proclaim Europe and Asia. But they at once aroused the fears and anger of war Attalus and the Rhodians. The fate of Cius had been watched against with great anxiety at Rhodes, but by messages of pretended ^^^^^^P^ moderation Philip had prevented active measures for its relief. When the news of its fall and the treatment of its people became known, both Attalus and the Rhodians determined upon war, and a powerful fleet was prepared for the spring of 201. But Philip once more displayed the greatest spirit and activity. Philip Early in 201 he invaded the territory of Attalus, and advanced invades up to the walls of Pergamus itself. Being unable to take the city he ravaged the suburbs, sparing neither house nor temple. But in spite ^/SJ' of this plunder, and the sack of Thyatira and the neighbouring territory of lands, he soon found himself short of provisions ; nor did Zeuxis, Pergamus. Antiochus's satrap at Sardis, supply his wants as he had hoped. He therefore went on board his fleet to attack the islands. He had already taken Samos and was besieging Chios when the Battle of I combined fleet of Attalus and Rhodes appeared. Finding the siege Chios, of Chios long and difficult he resolved to retire to Samos, and to ^^^' j do so was obliged to elude or conquer the allied fleet. Failing to elude them he was forced to fight. His ships on the whole got the worst of the battle : yet Attalus himself was all but captured, and with difficulty escaped to Erythrae, with the loss of his own ship and \ others attending it. The losses, indeed, on both sides were serious, I including the chief admiral of both fleets. « But if the battle of Chios was of doubtful result, the same could Philip's I not be said when it was renewed shortly afterwards off Lade. Here ^^^"^^^^ ^^ I Philip's victory was decisive, and was followed by the occupation of j Caria and the reduction of the Rhodian Peraea. But while he was 1 thus employed on land, Attalus and the Rhodians had repaired and i increased their fleets, which were now strong enough to prevent him I from attempting to return to Macedonia. He therefore wintered in ( Caria, although reports reached him of disturbances in Macedonia i which made him anxious to be at home. Again his provisions ran I short, and he was reduced to humiliating supplications for supplies, \ and was compelled to allow his army to live on simple robbery. In I the spring, however, he eluded the hostile fleets, which, after vainly j chasing him for a time, put in at Aegina (200). I From Aegina Attalus crossed by invitation to Athens. The I Athenians had already had cause of complaint against Philip for assisting a raid of Acarnanians upon their territory ; and, therefore, 426 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Attains secures the alliance of Athens, 200. The Romans undertake to protect Egypt, 204. Farther appeals to Rome, 204-201. Philip's envoys in Rome, 20 J. Answer of the Senate to Philip's envoys. their usual anti-Macedonian feelings were at their height. Attalus was received with enthusiasm ; every honour which words could bestow was lavished on him, his name being even given to a new tribe, as though he were one of the eponymous heroes. An alliance with him and Rhodes was unanimously voted, and full civil rights bestowed on all Rhodians. There was also at Athens at this time some legates from Rome, who took advantage of the enthusiasm of the hour to enrol Athens among the "friends of Rome," whom they were now seeking to combine against the king. For by this time it had been resolved at Rome that war must be made on Phihp. As early as 204 legates from Alexandria had come to Rome denouncing the nefarious schemes of Antiochus and Philip, and begging for assistance. The Romans had experienced the friendship of Egypt during the Punic war, and had learnt the value of its corn fields ; they were therefore quite ready to guarantee its independence. Three legates were sent to order the two kings to abstain from attacking Egypt as a friend of Rome, one of whom, M. Aemilius Lepidus, remained in Alexandria for some years as a guardian of the young king's interest. But other complaints also had been pouring in from the allied states, alleging acts of aggression on the part of Philip's officers, almost from the month in which the treaty had been made. These complaints became so frequent that in 203 three more commissioners — C. Terentius Varro, C. Manilius, M. Aurelius Cotta— were sent to Greece to investigate the matter on the spot. Philip replied by sending ambassadors to Rome in the course of the year 201. But though they offered explanations and excuses on some points, they also lodged formal complaints as to acts of hostility, of which they alleged the Roman commissioners had themselves been guilty ; and finally demanded the restoration of Sopater and the other Macedonians taken prisoners at Zama, whom they spoke of as private citizens serving for pay in Hannibal's army. The senators listened to this message with indignant surprise. Aurelius had also sent an agent to represent the case of the com- missioners, who assured the Senate that they had in every case acted only in defence of an allied state ; and that, so far from being a mere private mercenary, Sopater was a man high in the king's confidence, one of his purpurati, and had been sent by the king with men and money expressly to assist Hannibal. The Senate therefore answered sternly that the king had doubly broken his treaty, first in assisting the enemies of the Republic, and secondly by injuring its allies ; Scipio and Aurelius had both done only their duty, the former in taking the Macedonian soldiers prisoners, the latter in defending Roman allies from the hostile acts of the king's XXVIII THE ROMANS INTERPOSE IN GREECE 427 officers. " It was plain," they added, " that the king desired war, The and he should speedily have it." The war, however, was not popular Romans at Rome. The people had but just emerged from the long agony ''^^^"^^'^^^^7 of the struggle with Carthage,' and it was difficult to persuade them ^^^. to enter upon another, especially where the interests to be defended 200. were not those of Romans, but of Greeks, of whom they knew little Coss. P. that did not inspire contempt. It was only when the consul ^^P^^^'f ,, , . . . . , , .-.'-... ■' . . . Galea II., Sulpicms msisted that, if they wished to prevent another invasion ^ Aurel- of Italy, they must fight the king of Macedonia in his own lands, ius Cotta. that they were induced to cancel the vote forbidding the war. But Prepara- before its formal declaration the Roman commissioners in Greece tionsfor had warned the various allied states of what was coming. We have organising seen how they had secured the alliance of Athens. They were still 'f^^pf"r^ there when a Macedonian force under Nicanor entered Attica and advanced as far as the Academy. They sent a herald to him for- bidding him to molest that or any other city allied to Rome ; and Nicanor did not venture to disobey, for the breach between his master and Rome was not yet openly avowed. They then left Athens and visited the other allies, — the Epirotes at Phoenice, Amynander in Athamania, the Aetolians at Naupactus, and the Achaeans at Aegium, — assuring each that any attack by Philip upon them, or upon any state allied to Rome, would be followed by instant war. About the same time a Rhodian fleet sailed among the Cyclades and obtained the adhesion of all but three — Andros, Paros, and Cythnos, in which there were still Macedonian garrisons. But Philip also was well prepared, and even before war was Energy and declared sent Philocles with 2000 infantr)^ and 200 cavalry to invade activity of Attica again : while he himself marched to the Thracian Chersonese ; "5^/f^-^'. received the submission of nearly every town on his way and in the ^/w^^ ' Chersonese itself; and, being met at Maroneia by his fleet, crossed to Asia and laid siege to Abydos. The defence was long and desperate, though the citizens received little help from outside ; for only a small garrison and a single quadrireme was supplied by the Rhodian fleet stationed at Tenedos ; whither also Attains came on hearing of the siege. Diplomatic interference was indeed tried, but Philip contrived to allay the alarm at Rhodes while he turned a deaf ear to all remonstrances, even to those of the Roman commissioners, who on hearing at Rhodes of the siege of Abydos, sent one of their number, M. Aemilius Lepidus, to deliver to the king in person the last orders of the Republic : " He must abstain from attacking The any Greek town, leave untouched all places under the power of Roman king Ptolemy, and submit to arbitration the indemnities claimed by ''*^^^' Attains and the Rhodians for injuries done by him." The king answered that the Romans had been the aggressors. Aemilius 428 HISTORY OF ROME Fall of A by do s, and exasper- ation against Philip, 200. The consul P. Sulpicius lands in. Epiriis and despatches Claiidius Cornelius to defend Athens, Romans su7'prise and partly burn Chalcis, bluntly interrupted the royal speech by exclaiming : " But what about the Athenians and the Cianians ? And what about the Abydenians at this moment? Did any of them begin hostilities?" The king kept his temper at this unceremonious address, remarking with ironical courtesy that he excused Aemilius for three reasons : " he was young and unused to conducting such business, he was very handsome, and lastly he was a Roman." He added, however, that for his part he demanded of the Romans that they should not break the treaty and make war on him ; if they did, he would by God's help defend himself as best he could. The king had his barren diplomatic triumph ; and presently a more substantial advantage in the fall of Abydos. The citizens resisted to the last, fighting desperately upon the ruins of the walls which his battering rams had thrown down, and finally killed their wives and children, and then themselves, rather than fall into his hands. But though he had thus secured his passage into Asia, he had exasperated his enemies, and confirmed them in their resolve to join their fortunes with those of Rome. The Rhodians, Attains, and the Athenians at once warmly espoused the Roman alliance, and were preparing in their several ways to contribute active assistance. Shortly after the capture of Abydos news reached the king which compelled him to return to Greece. The consul P. Sulpicius with his army and fleet had crossed to Epirus somewhat late in the summer, and would probably not make any important movement that year. But the land force was to winter at Apollonia, and the fleet under L. Apustius at Corcyra : the Romans, therefore, were preparing to carry on the war continuously, and the king must reckon upon an invasion of his western frontier. But besides that, when Sulpicius landed at Dyrrachium he was met by envoys from Athens, announcing the invasion of Philocles, and begging for help. The consul had at once detached a squadron of twenty ships and a military force under C. Cornelius Centho, who had not only saved Athens, but had also made a descent upon Euboea ; surprised the king's chief stronghold, the town of Chalcis ; killed the royal commandant Sopater ; burnt the royal stores, and set free a number of captives whom the king had deposited there. The Romans, indeed, had not been in sufficient force to retain Chalcis without abandoning Athens, and had therefore retired after doing all the harm they could ; but the king was eager for revenge, and resolved on an immediate attack upon Athens. SaiHng to Chalcis he crossed the Euripus into Boeotia, and marched into Attica, hoping to surprise the city. The Athenians, however, had had timely warning, and when xxviii OPERATIONS ON THE FRONTIER OF MACEDONIA 429 the king arrived he found the gates closed, the walls manned, Battle and every one on the alert ; while on the road leading to the opposite gate called Dipylum were drawn up a mixed body of Athenians ^^Py^^^ and Pergamenians. These he attacked with great fury, and drove ^^oo^^^"^' them with heavy loss within the walls. But though he had shown conspicuous personal gallantry in the charge, he did not succeed in effecting an entrance ; and next day, finding that the garrison had been reinforced by Roman soldiers and more troops of Attains from the Peiraeus, he retired towards Eleusis, wasting the country as he marched, and hoping to seize the fort and the temple of Demeter. But the fleet from the Peiraeus appearing off Eleusis, he abandoned Attica and marched by Megara to Corinth, and thence to Argos to attend a meeting of the Achaean League. He was anxious to retain the loyalty of the Achaeans and to Phmp and induce them to commit themselves to his side against Rome. And the the moment seemed opportune, for he found them consulting on Achaean measures to be taken for defending themselves against Nabis, tyrant ^^^^^^^' of Sparta. He offered to undertake this business, and relieve them of ^Zo"^" all anxiety, on condition of their supplying a sufficient garrison for Oreum, Chalcis, and Corinth. This would have secured the double I object of weakening the League by removing the flower of its troops \ from Peloponnesus, and committing it to hostility with Rome. But the strategus Cycliades prudently avoided the snare by alleging the , League law, which prohibited any measure being brought before j an assembly other than that for which it was summoned. Thus Destruc- I baffled Philip returned to Attica, where he was joined by a reinforce- tion of the ment under Diodes ; and though he failed to take either Peiraeus ^^^i^^rbs of ; or Athens, he made terrible havoc of the temples, tombs, and farms ^^'^^"■^• in the neighbourhood, and then, as the season was growing late, returned to Macedonia through Boeotia. I Thus in the first year of the war the king had been by far the Results of I most active and apparently the most successful. But he had not the first I really improved his position in Greece. The Achaeans, his natural y^^^ ^f ^^^ ! allies, had avoided committing themselves. The fleets of Rhodes ^^^' \ and of Attains, stationed at Aegina, protected the islands and I threatened his movements in southern Greece. The Romans them- I selves had as yet done little beyond protecting Athens. The consul ; P. Sulpicius had fallen ill and was unable to direct any great move- I ment, even if such had been desired at so late a period of the season. ' Still the frontiers of south-west Macedonia had been devastated, and I some border fortresses captured which commanded the passes over ) the mountains ; and a defeat had been inflicted upon a Macedonian I force under Athenagoras, who attempted to cut off the legatus L. I Apustius while he was crossing a stream. 430 HISTORY OF ROME The Roman ■winter quarters visited by many envoys, 200-igg. Philip's prepar- ations. Ineffective campaign of 1 99 . The Aetolians join the Romans, igg. The winter of 200-199 was passed by the consul in quarters between Apollonia and Dyrrachium, where he was visited by envoys from the aUies and the tribes round Macedonia hostile to the king. Pleuratus, son of Scerdilaidas from Illyria, Amynander, king of the Athamanes, and Bato, prince of the Dardani, all came for instructions; while legates from Attalus anxiously inquired what help their master was to expect in the spring. Pleuratus and Bato were told to be ready to assist in an invasion of Macedonia early the following year; Amynander was commissioned to rouse the Aetolians ; the legates of Attalus were promised that the Roman fleet should join their master at Aegina in the spring. But the king was also taking active precautions. The islands of Peparethos and Sciathos, which might be used by the enemy as the basis of an attack upon Demetrias, were dismantled, and rendered useless for that purpose. The king's son Perseus was despatched to guard the north-west frontier against the Dardani ; and envoys were sent to dissuade the Aetolians from breaking their treaty with Philip and joining the Romans. The Aetolians avoided immediate decision ; the issues were not simple in their eyes. Philip was undoubtedly a hindrance to Greek freedom, and had many ideas as to the extent of his territories which militated against their own ; but, on the other hand, they had begun already to fear that the victory of Rome would mean a greater danger still to freedom and to their own ambition. In spite of promises and preparations nothing effective was done. Sulpicius moved into the country of the Dassareti in the spring of 199, and later on into Eordaea. Philip encamped in the same neighbourhood, cut off foraging parties, and attempted to draw the Romans into a general engagement. It was his first experience of a regular Roman army, and he is said to have been deeply impressed with the formidable nature of the camp ; while his soldiers were dismayed by observing in the frequent skirmishes how much more effective than their own spears were the Roman swords, which lopped off limbs and made horrible gashes. But the campaign died away in indecisive skirmishes, — in one of which indeed the king had a horse killed under him, and was himself wounded and only saved from capture by the devotion of a soldier, who dismounted and gave up his horse to him, falling himself under the swords of the enemy. The superiority of the Romans in the field, however, had been sufficiently demonstrated to convince the Aetolians in the course of the year that they had better take part against Philip. In conjunc- tion with Amynander they invaded Thessaly and advanced within a short distance of Demetrias. But the king surprised them near Gomphi, as they were returning and wasting the plain of Thessaly, and they were only saved from annihilation by Amynander's XXVIII T. FLAMININUS ARRIVES IN GREECE 431 knowledge of the mountain passes into Athamania. At the same Repulse of time the king's general Athenagoras (who accompanied Perseus) ^^^ repulsed the Dardani in the North and compelled them to retire ^''"^'^^• with considerable loss. In the West therefore Philip had held his own with considerable success. In the East the naval war had been of a similarly desultory character, but on the whole had been less favourable to Philip. The Movements Roman fleet under L. Apustius, after wintering at Corcyra, joined of the that of Attains at Aegina, and attacked such of the Cyclades as were 'f^^^'^^/^^''-^ still held by Macedonian garrisons, — Andros, Cythnos, and Paros. Aegean, At Andros they were successful, at Cythnos they failed. Thence, 799. being joined by twenty Rhodian ships, they coasted as far as the Chalcidic peninsula and returned to Euboea laden with spoil. But such piratical expeditions were not of great importance, any more than the violent decrees passed at Athens against Philip, or the destruction of his statues and erasing of inscriptions in his honour. The most useful achievement was the capture of the strongly fortified town of Oreus in the north of Euboea, which fell just before the Roman fleet had to return for the winter to Corcyra. Nor were the indecisive movements of 199 improved by the advent of ^99- the consul P. Villius, who superseded Sulpicius late in the summer c^y^eiius of that year ; and, like his predecessor, seemed intending to put off Lentulus, all active operations till his second year. P; Villius. It was not destined, however, that he should have the chance of success or failure. The consul for 198, T. QuintiusFlamininus, resolved not to waste his year of office by staying at Rome for ceremonial observances, but to go at once to the seat of war.^ T. With the arrival of Flamininus the war received a new impetus. Qj^^^t\^^ He found Villius encamped at the foot of the Antigoneian pass, ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ which led from Chaonia into Macedonia by the valley of the Aous. over the The Roman point of attack had therefore been changed from the command north-west to the south. It was a more difficult way of entering Macedonia, though the nearest for troops coming from Corcyra. Philip was defending the upper end of the pass, where a narrow gorge — the Stetta Aoi — connected it with the valley of the Aous. He was in a very strong position, and when Flamininus arrived with 8000 fresh infantry and 800 cavalry, and had sent Villius home, he found himself in a great difficulty. To remove to the old point of attack was to waste the whole summer, and yet it seemed impossible to turn the king's position. For forty days the two armies remained within sight of each other without ^ Since about 205 it had become the custom of the consuls not to leave Rome till after the games of Apollo (July 6-13). The new consul, therefore, was generally too late to do much till the next season. in the spring of jq8. 432 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. A fruitless conference. The king's position betrayed, ig8. Flight of Philip into Thessaly. moving, and some of the leading men in Epirus even suggested a conference with a view to peace. A meeting actually took place between the consul and the king, but led to no result. Flamininus demanded as a preliminary that the king should withdraw his garrisons from all Greek towns, without any distinction between those which he had found already so guarded when he came to the throne and those to which he had himself sent garrisons for the first time. When asked for a more distinct definition the consul began by naming all Thessalian towns. But it was in Thessaly that the king's supremacy had been the most complete and unquestioned : with some exceptions it was practically a part of Macedonia. He at once broke off the conference, exclaiming indignantly, " What harder condition could you have imposed if you had beaten me on the field .? " The war of skirmishes between outposts therefore was continued ; and though the Romans could beat the enemy in the open, they were always foiled when they tried to force their way up the pass, which had been strengthened by balistae set at every available point. But, as usually happened in mountain warfare, a superior knowledge of the ground did what mere force could not do. A shepherd offered to show Flamininus a track which would enable him to get on the rear of the enemy. With some hesitation, and on the assurance of the chief men of Epirus, he despatched a picked body of 4000 infantry under his guidance, supported by 300 cavalry, as far as they could go. Their movement was covered by extra activity on the part of the skirmishers. On the morning of the third day the signal that the 4000 had reached their position was given by smoke ; and Flamininus at once ordered a general advance. The king's troops came out to meet them, in full confidence in their impregnable position. On this occasion the Romans advanced so far up the pass that the Macedonians believed that they had got them in a trap, when a shout in their rear showed them that they were themselves being attacked on both sides. In sudden panic they fled in every direction : while those who could find no escape were surrounded and cut to pieces. The slaughter, however, does not appear to have been great, for pursuit in the unknown mountain ways was scarcely attempted : but with some difficulty the royal camp was reached and occupied by the Romans for the night. The king at first fled precipitately ; but finding that he was not pursued he recovered his presence of mind, halted on an eminence, and collected his scattered troops. Only 2000 were eventually found to be missing ; and thus with his main army still intact he marched up the valley of the Aous. Where the roads branched to Macedonia and Thessaly he halted for several days, unable to make up his mind XXVIII FLAMININUS ENTERS GREECE 433 which route to take. Eventually he determined in favour of the latter : and descending to the valley of the upper Peneius arrived at Larissa. His aim was Demetrias, but, being refused entrance into Pherae, he turned northward again and finally intrenched himself at Tempe. The effect of this victory in rousing the allies to action was Sufferings immediate, and the war fell at first with full weight on the unhappy ^/ *^^ Thessalians. In the course of his march Philip burnt or dis- . ^^^'^ ' '■ tans. mantled many of the towns through which he passed to prevent their affording shelter and food to Flamininus : while by the southern pass the Aetolians and Athamanians again poured into the country, plundering and destroying as though in an enemy's land. Flamininus seized the opportunity of showing the different spirit The march in which he meant to treat Greeks. Having admitted the Epirotes, ^f P^'^^^^- whose Macedonian inclinations had been changed by the victory in the Antigoneian pass, to friendship and alliance, he started leisurely in the track of Philip. But he refrained from pillage or even severe exactions, exhorting his soldiers to regard the country as their own, and was received almost everywhere with signs of enthusiastic welcome. He furnished himself with supplies by trains of carts from his fleet of transports which lay at anchor in the Ambracian Gulf, whence the stores could be brought through the pass to Gomphi. But as he advanced eastward, until brought to a stand by the stout resistance of Atrax, about ten miles west of Larissa, he found that he was too far from his supplies, and that the Ambracian harbour was inadequate for the number of transports necessary. The vessels were therefore ordered to come to Anticyra on the Corinthian Gulf; and having abandoned the siege of Atrax he marched to the south. Here again most of the cities opened their gates to him, or were easily compelled to do so, and found that the consul was always ready to grant them full freedom on condition of expelling their Macedonian garrisons. In some indeed the Mace- donians were able to offer more resistance. Thus Daulis, strong in its lofty position, was only taken by a stratagem ; and Elateia kept him at bay for a considerable time. While he lay opposite Elateia he received the adhesion of the The Achaean League — an event especially welcome, as it made it more Achaean easy than ever to carry out his policy of acting as champion of Greek -^J^^"^^ liberty. In the previous winter Philip had felt great anxiety as to Romans, the attitude of the Achaeans, and had tried to propitiate them by autumn of restoring certain towns which had been held by his troops.^ The ^9^- Eleans were mollified in the same way ; and his own subjects gratified ^ Orchomenus, Heraea, and Triphylia. The Achaean decree for the admis- sion of Orchomenus is extant {Hicks, p. 321). 2 F 434 HISTORY OF ROME The debate hi the Achaean assembly. Offer of the allies. Reply of Philip's legates. Answer of Athen- ians. The second day of the meeting. by the imprisonment of the unpopular Heracleides of Tarentum. These measures, however, seem to have been regarded rather as evidences of his fear than of his benevolence ; and when the com- bined fleets of Rome, king Attalus, and Rhodes— after taking Eretria and Carystus in Euboea, and making prisoners of war of their Macedonian garrisons — dropped anchor at Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth, and began making preparations for the siege of Corinth itself, held since the time of the Cleomenic war (222) by a Macedonian garrison, the time seemed to have come when the Achaean League must decide whether to stand by Philip at all costs or make terms with the stronger party. It was in fact an important crisis in the fortunes of the League and of Greece ; and the manner in which it was treated in the open assembly of the people is interesting. L. Quintius Flamininus, the brother and Icgatiis of the consul, was in command of the Roman fleet at Cenchreae, and it was he who proposed negotiation. Aris- taenus, the strategus of the year, was known to be inclined to the Roman side ; and Cycliades, the leader of the Macedonian faction, had lately been expelled and had taken refuge with Philip. Accord- ingly Lucius sent L. Calpurnius, supported by legates from Attalus and Rhodes and Athens, to the meeting at Sicyon, where Philip also was represented by ambassadors. The envoys of the various allies spoke first, beginning with the Roman Calpurnius. They offered the tempting bait of entire freedom from Macedonia ; and, as an earnest of that, the expulsion of the Macedonian garrison from Acrocorinthus, and the restoration of Corinth to the Achaean League. Then the legates of Philip were heard, who recalled the services of the Macedonian kings to the Achaeans in their struggles with the Aetolians and with Sparta. Lastly, the Athenians replied to the royal legate, dwelling on the king's treachery and cruelty, and all they had suffered at his hands. These speeches lasted all day. The whole case was laid before the people in the best way, by hearing the advocates of all the parties interested put their own case. The next day was to be devoted to a debate between the two factions on the statements thus put before them. But when in the next morning's assembly the herald made the usual proclamation inviting any one who wished to speak, instead of the usual orators coming forward eager to get the ear of the assembly, there was a profound silence — a silence of perplexity and fear. On the one hand the Lacedaemonian tyrant, their constant enemy, was a friend of the Roman ; on the other, if they resisted Rome, they had too much reason to fear that her arms would prove too strong both for them and Macedonia. To the Macedonians they were bound by many obligations, by gratitude for protection in the past as well as ASSEMBLY OF THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE 435 taenus. the present ; yet the actual wearer of the Macedonian crown had lost their confidence by his treachery to the Messenians, and by his suspected compHcity in the murder of both Aratus the father and Aratus the son. The conflict' of feelings was too strong ; no one was found bold or decided enough to come forward with advice. At length Aristaenus, after vainly attempting to rouse them by speech of taunting allusions to the contrast between the violent language heard Aris- every day in their social or political gatherings and their silence now, delivered a set speech. He pointed out that the Romans, with Attalus and the Rhodians, were asking their active alliance, while Philip only asked for their neutrality. The reason of this difference was that Philip was diffident of being able to return their services by protecting them against Sparta and Rome ; while the allies, con- fident in their position and in their power to resist the Macedonians, felt themselves competent to repay them for their support. The Romans in the former war with Philip had been hampered by their struggle with Carthage ; from that they were now relieved, and the successes of Titus Flamininus had conclusively proved how much they were the stronger. Putting aside therefore all question of Philip's own conduct at Athens and in Messenia, at Cius, and Abydos, it was plain that he was not able to defend them from the depreda- tions of the allied fleet, or the hostility of Nabis, much less from the two combined. No less evident was it that they were unable to defend themselves against these enemies. Therefore, though the Romans asked for their alliance, they could really compel it : they had better therefore grant it at once, and avoid the discredit of merely waiting on fortune. The opportunity of doing so with grace would not recur ; they might now be free from Philip ; but they must decide now once for all whether the Romans should be their friends or their enemies. The speech was received with mingled shouts of approbation and The disapproval. A motion had to be brought forward by a board of ten magistrates called Demiurgi ; and they were divided as to the legality of putting this question, for a decree had been passed rendering it unlawful, not only to vote, but to put to the vote any motion hostile to Philip. When the third day, however, came, the Demiurgi had decided to put the vote. The voting was by nations, and by common consent the Dymaeans, Megalopolitans, and Argives abstained. The Argives, partly from the traditional sentiment in favour of a dynasty, whose founder -U^as believed to have come from Argos, had always had peculiarly intimate relations with Philip ; the Dymaeans owed the restoration of their citizens, who had been made prisoners by the Romans three years before, to the generosity of the king ; while the people of Megalopolis could not forget the services of Antigonus decision. 436 HISTORY OF ROME Corinth and Argos remain loyal to Philip, i()8. Flamin- inus winters in Greece, ig8-ig7. Philip wishes to treat. Doson in restoring them to their city, from which Cleomenes had ex- pelled them. The rest of the assembly voted in favour of an alliance with Attains and the Rhodians. The question of an alliance with Rome was left undecided until a confirmation should arrive from the Senate. The accession of the forces of the Achaean League to those already investing Corinth did not bring about the downfall of that place. Nor were the hopes of help from the Corinthians themselves fulfilled. The Macedonian garrison was apparently popular there, and its commander, Androsthenes, had been made a citizen and elected chief magistrate. Moreover, there was a large number of deserters from the Roman fleet within the walls, who knew that they could expect no mercy if it were surrendered to the allies. There- fore, when a reinforcement was successfully thrown into the town by Philocles, the Macedonian commander of Chalcis, the siege on the advice of Attains was abandoned. Having saved Corinth Philocles proceeded to Argos. The breach with Philip was exceedingly unpopular there, as had been shown since. It had been the custom at the ordinary assemblies for the herald to join the name of Philip with the names of the protecting gods of the city. But the omission of his name in consequence of the decree of Sicyon caused such a storm of indignation, that the herald was obliged to repeat the formula with the name of Philip restored to its place of honour. Satisfied, therefore, of popular support, some of the leading men arranged to put the town into the hands of Philocles, the Achaean garrison being allowed to depart unharmed. Thus, though the Achaean League had formally joined the allies, Argos and Corinth still remained Macedonian. Meanwhile, having taken Elateia, Flamininus put his army into winter quarters in various towns of Locris and Phocis, within reach of his supplies at Anticyra ; while the fleet under his brother Lucius retired as usual to Corcyra. Philip was not yet beaten, and still held the " fetters of Greece " — Demetrias, Chalcis, and Acrocorinthus — yet it was evident that Roman influence was growing to be para- mount, not only in Greece, but in Asia also. In the course of this year Roman legates had demanded from Antiochus that he should abstain from attacking the territories of Attalus, and had been obeyed, though the king was fresh from a conquest of Coele-Syria. In other ways Rome was finding the profit of her extended empire. Masannasa had shown his gratitude by the despatch of Numidian cavalry, elephants, and corn to the seat of war ; while Sicily and Sardinia supplied in abundance the food and clothing required for the army. A desultory war had been going on with the Boii and the Ligurians ; but it had not required more than the normal con- sular armies, and had not weighed heavily on the people, and had XXVIII CONGRESS AT NICAEA 437 often indeed added to the wealth poured into the treasury from Africa and Spain. Philip must have felt conscious that he was engaged in resisting a power of almost inexhaustible resources. At any rate in the course of the winter (198-197) he sent a herald to Flamininus, inviting him to attend a congress of the several states concerned with a view to a peaceful settlement. To Flamininus the suggestion of a congress was welcome. It Flamin- need commit him to nothing; and if he were superseded in 197 he ^'^"-^ might return to Rome with the credit of having finished the war. ^^"■^^^^^^' If his hnperium were prolonged, he might renew operations, should the king prove unreasonable, without any additional difficulty. He, however, granted as a favour what in fact he desired, in order that the king might not feel himself at an advantage. The place of meeting was fixed at Nicaea, on the Malian The gulf, between Phocis and Thessaly. The king came by sea congress of from Demetrias, with the Boeotian Brachylles and the Achaean ^^'f^^^^- Cycliades. Flamininus was accompanied by king Amynander, and ^'^^^_^^^^/ there were legates from Achaia, Rhodes, and Aetolia. Philip declined to leave his ship, and on Flamininus asking of what he was afraid, answered proudly that he feared nothing except the gods, but that he distrusted the Aetolians. " If there is a chance of treachery," said Flamininus, " the danger is common to us all." " There you are wrong," replied the king ; " the risk is not the same. If Phaeneas perished there are many Aetolians who could be strategus ; if I fell there is no one to be king of the Macedonians." Flamininus waived the point, and at once asked for the king's demands. Philip, however, professed that it was rather the part of the consul to state on what terms the Romans would cease to attack him. Thereupon Flamininus declared that the king must evacuate all Greek towns : must restore prisoners and deserters to their several states : hand over to Rome all parts of Illyria seized since the peace of Phoenice (205), and to Ptolemy all cities taken since the death of Philopator. To these demands the envoys of Attalus added the restoration of ships taken in the battle of Chios, and the repair of temples round Pergamus. The Rhodians asked for the evacuation of the Peraea and certain other towns in Caria, the restoration of Perinthus to Byzantium, and the withdrawal of Macedonian garrisons from Sestos, Abydos, and all ports and harbours in Asia. The Achaeans demanded Argos and Corinth ; the Aetolians that Philip should evacuate Greece, and especially should restore to them the cities which had belonged to their League.^ ^ The principal cities meant are Cius and Calchedon in Asia ; Lysimacheia in the Thracian Chersonese (Polyb. xv. 23) ; Pharsalus, Larissa Cremaste, Echinus, and Phthiotid Thebes in Thessaly (Polyb. xviii. 3). 438 HISTORY OF ROME Three months' truce to consult the Senate. Stern anstver of the Senate. The war is continued. Duplicity of Nabis. Philip's difficulties. The king replied to these demands — summed up by Alexander Issius, an Aetolian — in a clever and sarcastic speech, which seems to have amused and interested Flamininus, and roused some sympathy with the king in his mind. He promised to satisfy some of the demands of Attalus and the Rhodians, but he refuted with pride the arguments of the Aetolians, and bitterly reproached the Achaeans with ingratitude, though he offered to restore Argos to them. Finally he announced his intention of dealing with Flamininus alone, and demanded that the several claims should be handed to him in writ- ing. " He was alone, and must have time to consider them." "Of course you are alone," said Flamininus : " you have put all your friends worth consulting to death." The king only replied by a grim smile to this sarcasm, and the conference broke up for the day. On the second day he came designedly late, and demanded a private interview with Flamininus. The result was a proposition which failed to satisfy fully any of the claims, except that of the Achaeans, to whom he offered Argos and Corinth ; and, finally, on the third day he proposed that the whole matter should be referred to the Senate — a proposition which Flamininus, with some difficulty, prevailed upon the allies to accept. A truce for three months was arranged on the king consenting to withdraw all garrisons from Locris and Phocis, and giving a written undertaking to make no attack meanwhile upon any state allied to Rome. The tone of the Senate, however, was uncompromising.* They listened to all the deputations with patience, but to the king's envoys they simply put the question, "Would Philip surrender the three towns ? " 1 And when the envoys replied that they had no authority to make such a promise, they were at once dismissed. The iinperium of Flamininus was continued, with full discretion as to making peace : no embassy was to be again received from Philip unless charged with the promise of evacuating all Greece. War was therefore to be continued, and Philip exerted himself to strengthen his army and secure allies. Abandoned by the Achaeans he turned to their bitterest enemy, Nabis of Sparta, offering him Argos as the price of his alliance. After some show of scruple Nabis occupied Argos, from which he and his wife exacted money with more than their usual cruelty, but immediately opened communications with Flamininus, and even supplied him with some Cretan archers, at the same time making a four months' truce with the Achaeans. In recruiting his army Philip found increased difficulty. His numerous wars had drained the country, and he had to enrol men under and over the military age to fill up his thinned ranks. How- ^ That is, Demetrias, Chalcis, and Corinth. XXVIII FINAL COMBAT BETWEEN PHILIP AND ROME 439 ever, by the end of March he was at Dium, on the south-eastern coast of Macedonia, and there set vigorously to work to train and drill his troops. Flamininus, too, was early on the move. At the beginning of First spring he broke up his quarters at Anticyra and entered Boeotia. movements The Macedonian inclinations of the Boeotians were notorious ; y annn- but still their fears caused the Thebans to meet him in a com- '' plimentary procession, by which they hoped to avoid an actual visit to their town. But ignoring their real wishes Flamininus, who had a considerable body of troops close behind, entered the gates with the deputation, and, accompanied by king Attains, attended there a meeting of the Boeotian League. The arguments which he brought forward silenced, if they did not convince, the Boeotian deputies, and in a few days he was able to set out to join his main army at Elateia, feeling that he left no enemy on his rear.i Philip, too, had by this time entered Thessaly, and was encamped The two at Larissa. The two armies were not ill-matched in point of num- armies m bers, though the Romans were somewhat stronger in cavalry. The ^^^^^ y- flower of the king's army was a body of 16,000 heavy-armed men, who were to be drawn up in the famous Macedonian phalanx, sup- ported by about 7000 light-armed troops of various nationality, and 2000 cavalry. The Roman army of two legions with their usual allies was increased by about 6000 Aetolians, infantry and cavalry, who joined at Heracleia, just north of Thermopylae, whither Flamininus had come to attend a meeting of the Aetolian League. His army was farther swollen by 800 Cretan bowmen (procured apparently 1 by Nabis) and 1 200 Athamanians under king Amynander. The two armies were marching by different roads, and for some The two \ time did not get information of each other's whereabouts. Philip at ^''"'^^^ on Larissa was on the inland road leading through Pharsalus ; Flamininus, ^ ^^^J^^ I advancing from the south, was on the coast road leading by Phthiotid ' Thebes to Pherae. At length, hearing that Flamininus was between I Phthiotid Thebes and Pherae, Philip took the left-hand road from Larissa I leading to Pherae, and encamped about four miles north of it. The i two armies were separated by a low range of hills {Mofts Chalcodomos\ which concealed them from each other. Their cavalry, sent out to make ( reconnaissances, came into collision from time to time, the advantage I ^ It was at this meeting that king Attalus was struck with paralysis as he was beginning his speech. He lingered for a few months, and was taken home to Pergamus to die, and was succeeded by his son Eumenes II. The character of this "burgess sovereign," as Moninisen calls him, is presented to us in most attractive colours by Polybius and Livy. The good faith to his pubHc engage- ments was united to a homely affection in the character of husband and father \ unusual in the history of royal families of the age. 440 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. generally remaining with the allies, chiefly owing to the valour of the Aetolians. But neither general was satisfied with his position. Philip presently moved to the west, wishing to get into the plain of Scotussa, both as being better suited to the phalanx, and as THESSALY & SOUTHERN MACEDONIA n 'alker &■ Boutall sc. ENGLISH MILES O 5 10 20 30 40 supplied with abundance of corn. Flamininus divined his intention, and moved in the same direction, but on a line considerably south of the king. Thus Philip came down into the plain of Scotussa from the north, round the foot of a range of hills called, from BATTLE OF CYNOSCEPHALAE 441 their shape, the Dogsheads {Cynoscephalae), to a spot called Melan- tium ; Plamininus entered the same plain by the south, and encamped on the road to Pharsalus, near a temple of Thetis. Philip being anxious to reach Scotussa left the hills, and, in spite of violent rain, continued his advance and pitched his camp in the plain, sending back a reserve to occupy the ridge of Cynoscephalae. These operations had taken three days. The next morning a An thick mist following the rain obscured the view, and Flamininus sent engagement out some cavalry and light infantry to reconnoitre the enemy's posi- ^"- ^ ^"^^' tion. These men came unexpectedly upon the Macedonian reserves on the slopes, the mist having effectually concealed both from each other. Reinforcements were sent for in haste by both to their re- spective camps, the Macedonians at first getting the better of the encounter, owing to their position on higher ground ; while the Romans were at one time only saved from decisive disaster by the gallantry of the Aetolian cavalry. Philip had not expected battle on that day, and had, in fact. The battle detached a large force to forage. Moreover, it was not a ground of Cynos- ^ favourable to the phalanx : they were too near the hills, which Jf ^l/""^' I were rough, and in places precipitous. The phalanx required an ^autumn I open country, and it was chiefly because of the obstacles presented of igj. by walls and gardens and streams that he had abandoned his posi- I tion near Pherae. To accept battle on the mountainous ground, I where the fighting was now going on, would be even worse. I It was the first time, at any rate since the days of Pyrrhus, The i that the Romans had encountered the much-dreaded Macedonian phalanx. , phalanx ; and though they presently learnt how to dislocate : and defeat it, the alarm which it inspired was long in dying out. Thirty years later L. Aemilius, the victor at Pydna, con- ] fessed that he had never beheld anything more terrible. The I numbers forming the phalanx of course varied according to circum- I stances; but its normal arrangement consisted in massing 16,000 I men in close order, sixteen deep, involving a space of open ground at I least 1000 yards in breadth. They were armed with long spears j called sarissae, of length var>'ing from sixteen to fourteen cubits, held I in such a manner that those of the first five ranks projected in front, ; and presented a bristling wall of steel. The sarissae of the remaining 1 eleven ranks were held in a slanting direction over the heads of the I ranks in front, and formed some protection against missiles. These j eleven ranks, though they did not add to the number of spears pre- sented to the enemy, added enormously to the weight of the charge. I Such a body of men, moving in a compact mass, would come with , irresistible force upon anything opposed to it. The disadvantages were, in the first place, the difficulty of finding sufficient extent of 442 HISTORY OF ROME Disadvant- ages of the phalanx. accepts battle against his better judgment, and is defeated, 197- Results of the battle. perfectly unimpeded ground on which it could act ; for ditches, banks, or other obstacles dislocated it at once. In the next place, it was effective only in front. The men were so closely locked together that they could not turn either to flank or rear, and the unwieldy length of the sarissae made them useless except for the one move- ment. It was not surprising, therefore, that the Romans, with their more flexible order and more convenient arms, soon found how to harass and defeat the phalanx. When it charged through their lines the Roman maniples learnt to open out and let it pass, and, unless it was supported by cavalry or light -armed troops, could attack it on flank or rear, when their short strong swords could be used with deadly effect on men encumbered with the huge and burdensome sarissae. Philip was quite aware of the disadvantage of accepting battle on this ground, but was over -borne by repeated messages from the field, describing in exaggerated terms the repulse which the Romans had sustained, and urging him to strike at once. Reluctantly he got his men out of camp, and occupied the ground from which the advanced guard of the Romans had been driven, and there massed as much of his phalanx as there was room for. This was his right wing, which he commanded in person, and it proved strong enough by charging downhill to scatter the Roman left. But his left wing could not keep together, or form up in time. The Roman right was upon them while still dislocated by the nature of the ground. A rapid charge, led by Flamininus and preceded by the elephants, at once put them to flight ; and the Roman right being thus victorious, one of the military tribunes by a brilliant manoeuvre settled the result of the whole battle. Instead of joining in the pursuit he led his division to the rear of Philip's right wing, which had defeated the Roman left, and charged. The king was surprised to see his men, when apparently victorious, suddenly throwing away their arms and turning to flight, and the lately defeated Romans facing round. Gaining some high ground he saw that they were being attacked on both sides, and knew that all was lost. He rallied some Thracian and Macedonian cavalry, and fled at full speed along the road to Tempe. The immediate effect of the battle was to put an end to Mace- donian influence in Greece. Henceforward it would be to Rome and not to Pella that controversies would be referred and applications for help made. And to this Philip seems at once to have made up his mind. He had collected the remains of his army, and effected his retreat within his frontiers. The loss had not been numerically great in comparison with other important battles, but the moral effect he knew would be Ov^erwhelming; he therefore immediately sent a XXVIII TERMS SETTLED AT TEMPE 443 herald asking for a truce to bury his dead and for a personal inter- view with the proconsul. Flamininus, scorning the insinuation of the Aetolians that he was influenced by royal gold, granted an armistice of fifteen days, and agreed to meet the king at Tempe. The king came to this meeting with the knowledge of other reverses Other to his arms and allies. In Peloponnesus Androsthenes, commandant ^'^"'^^^^es of at Corinth, had sustained a severe defeat from the Achaeans stationed J*^ ^"^ ^ ' . . troops in at Sicyon ; in Asia the Rhodians had recovered the Peraea m Caria pelopo/i- and other cities close by ; and lastly the Acarnanians, who still clung nesus, to him— partly from loyalty and partly from hatred to the Aetolians C^^^". — had been forced to submit to the fleet under Lucius Flamininus. '^^camania On all sides therefore Philip found his cause depressed and that of j^j Rome triumphant, and he must have felt that the very existence of his dynasty now hung on the moderation of the proconsul. Flamininus had no disposition, however, to push the king to ex- Moder- tremity, or to destroy Macedonia. He represents the best and ation of most honourable phase of Roman policy towards Greece. He P^'^'"^>^- seems really to have wished for its liberty and prosperity ; and, like /^;„,,;,.^/j- some of the wisest Greeks themselves, regarded a strong Macedonia Philip, as a necessary bulwark against the northern barbarians. Nor did afid his he intend that Philip's place in Greece should be taken by the ^'^^/^/J''"'' Aetolians, who were likely to be equally oppressive to other Greeks Aetolians. and more dangerous to trade on the seas. He had been annoyed by the arrogance with which they claimed the credit for the victory at Cynoscephalae, and still more by their cupidity in plundering the king's camp before any Roman troops arrived, and he did not dis- guise his resentment. He refrained from consulting Aetolian officers, and declined to admit their claim under the treaty of 2 1 1 to the possession of all towns taken, since they had forfeited it by making a separate treaty with Philip in 205. And now to their disgust he showed every intention of treating Philip with moderation. Philip did not appear at the conference of Tempe till the third Cotiference day, when the allies had already discussed the terms to be offered <^i Tevipe. him. Flamininus declared his intention of enforcing nothing more than had been demanded before — the evacuation of all (ireek towns; and this had been approved by all except the Aetolians, who main- tained that the freedom of Greece could only be secured by his deposition. When Philip arrived he anticipated all demands by at once offering this evacuation. Thereupon the Aetolian Phaeneas somewhat roughly asked why the Thessalian towns — Pharsalus, Larissa Cremaste, Echinus, and Phthiotid Thebes — were not at once restored to the Aetolian League. Philip replied that they were welcome to take them. But here Flamininus interposed. These towns, except Thebes, had voluntarily submitted to Rome : their 444 HISTORY OF ROME Flamin- inus winters at Elateia, Te7i com- missioners sent to Greece, ig6. General principles of the settlement of Greece. The com- missioners at Corinth, i()6. position would have to be decided by the Senate. Thebes had resisted and been captured, and the Aetolians might therefore take that, but only that. The Aetolians, who had hoped to regain all they had lost, exclaimed, that by the fall of Philip Greece had only got a change of masters. In spite, however, of their discontent, a four months' truce was arranged, to allow of the necessary reference to Rome, and the king having paid 200 talents and given his son Demetrius and others as hostages (to be restored should the senates refuse ratification), Flamininus went into winter quarters at Elateia, sending delegates to Rome along with the ambassadors of the king. The news of the victory of Cynoscephalae caused great joy at Rome, and the peace was exceedingly welcome. Flamininus was continued in his command for another year ( 1 96) — though the new consuls both desired the province — and ten commissioners were named to proceed to Greece and settle the details of the new arrange- ment in consultation with him. The Senate, however, laid down general principles. Greek cities in Europe and Asia were to be free and autonomous ; but those at present under the authority of the king, or in which there was a Macedonian garrison, were to be surrendered to the commissioners before the next Isthmian games (July), to be dealt with separately. The Greek states in Asia, which had been occupied by Philip,^ were to be set free at once, and the restitution of Cius demanded from Prusias. Farther, the king was to restore all captives and deserters, surrender all but three war-vessels, — besides his own sixteen-banked galley, — and pay 1000 talents (about ^{^2 40,000), half at once, and the rest in ten annual instalments. The object of the distinction between the Greek towns in Asia (which were at once to be set free) and those in Europe seems to have been that the case of Demetrias, Chalcis, and Acrocorinthus might be reserved. It was not clear whether these "fetters of Greece" could as yet be safely abandoned. This was a point that Flamininus and the commissioners would have to decide. The Roman commission opened its session at Corinth in the spring of 196. In spite of the loud remonstrances of the Aetolians, and, as it seems, against the advice of Flamininus, the commissioners resolved for the present to retain the three towns. They had been warned before leaving Rome of the danger threatening from the possible interference of Antiochus in the affairs of Greece. He had taken Coele-Syria from the king of Egypt, had secured Ephesus, and had only been prevented from giving active aid to Philip in Europe ^ Euromus, Bargylia, lasus, Abydos, Myrina, Perinthus, and the island of Thasos. xxviii PROCLAMATION AT THE ISTHMIAN GAMES 44S by the threatening attitude of the powerful Rhodian fleet ; and in 197 had crossed to the Thracian Chersonese and taken possession of the nearly abandoned town of Lysimacheia. At any moment intrigues in Greece might invite him farther south. The com- missioners therefore could only be induced to grant the town of Corinth to the Achaean League. Acrocorinthus, Chalcis, and Demetrias were still to have Roman garrisons. As the time for the Isthmian games approached the excitement Prodama- throughout Greece as to the decision of the commissioners rose high, ^^'^'^ ^{ *^^ and drew an unusually large number of spectators to Corinth. The ^^J^g]^^'^ most various and contradictory rumours had been spread abroad, ^j^iy jgd. and the announcement from Flamininus was awaited by the crowd in the stadium with the greatest anxiety. The herald's trumpet suddenly sounded, and his voice was heard proclaiming silence. He then read the decree : " The Senate of Rome and T. Quinctius, pro- consul and imperator, having conquered king Philip and the Mace- donians, declare the following peoples free, without garrison or tribute, in full enjoyment of the laws of their respective countries, namely, Corinthians, Phocians, Locrians, Euboeans, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Magnesians, Thessalians, Perrhaebians." These included the districts and towns which had been more or Feelings less under control of Philip, and as to which it had not hitherto been excited by known whether the Romans meant to retain rule over them or to set ^ * them free. The sentence therefore which announced their freedom was received with such a storm of applause that the full list of names I was not heard, and the herald was compelled to repeat them. In the wild outburst of joy at what seemed the realisation of their I best hopes, the people overwhelmed Flamininus with the expression ; of gratitude. He was almost crushed to death by the crowds that I pressed round him to touch his hand, and almost smothered under I the garlands and flowers which they showered upon him.^ I It was a great work done efl'ectively and with honest intention. Full effects I and it was not Rome but the Aetolians who afterwards brought its '^f ^^^ I results into jeopardy. No doubt, when the first flush of enthusiasm 1 was over, there seemed something in what the Aetolians were always ] saying, that Greece could not be free with foreign garrisons at the , three "fetters." But even this pretext for discontent was before long removed by Flamininus. Nor did his settlement show any jealousy of Greek confederations. Phocis and Locris were joined again to the Aetolian League, and Corinth with some other towns was adjudged 1 This famous scene is often alluded to as a proclamation of the freedom of Greece. It will be observed that its application is limited to those parts of f Greece which had been in the hands of the king of Macedonia. Of the rest of Greece there was no question. 446 HISTORY OF ROME to the Achaean League. The outlying towns indeed, which had once been in poHtical union with Aetolia, were to be free and autonomous, and the AetoUans were specially annoyed at not being allowed to have Division of Pharsalus and Leucas. But it was in Thessaly that the commissioners Thessaly. had most to do, for it had more than any other part of Greece been absorbed in Macedonia. Four communities were erected or restored which had been loosely included under that designation — Perrhae- bians, Dolopes, Magnesians, and the remainder to be called Thessaly. Each of these four were to be autonomous. The wishes or claims of particular towns within these districts had to be considered separately, and we find traces of disputes and arbitrations in such cases extending for some years onwards.^ In Euboea it was proposed to give Oreus, Eretria, and Carystus to the king of Pergamus ; but finally they too were declared free. Some rectifications of the Macedonian frontier toward Epirus and Illyria were also made. Thus the Orestae were declared autonomous ; the Illyrian towns Lychnis and Parthus were given to Pleuratus ; and others to Amynander. The general tend- ency was to consolidate nationalities, and to discourage distant pos- sessions, or the holding of isolated towns in one district by the people of another. When the awards were completed, the commissioners separated to the several districts assigned to them, to see that the arrangements were carried out, both in Europe and Asia Minor. Those who had undertaken Caria afterwards visited Antiochus at Lysimacheia, in the Thracian Chersonese, where they were met by some of the other commissioners who had already been in Egypt. They expressed their surprise that he should have crossed to Europe with so large an army and fleet, and demanded that he should evacuate all Greek towns taken from Ptolemy, or which had been subject to Philip, and attack none already autonomous. The king declined to admit the right of Rome to interfere in Asia ; and maintained that he was in the Chersonese to recover what was rightfully his, and was at that moment engaged in restoring Lysimacheia, left to the mercy of surrounding barl^arians, who had plundered and depopulated it. As to Ptolemy, he had already made peace with him, and confirmed it by a matrimonial alliance. The embassy led to no result, and was presently interrupted by a false report of the death of Ptolemy, in consequence of which Antiochus dismissed the ambassadors and -hurried off to Cyprus, leaving his son Seleucus in charge of Lysimacheia. Visit of the com- missioners to Antiochus. ^ For instance, in an inscription lately discovered containing the final decree of the Senate in a dispute between Narthakion and Melite in Thessaly, which had been decided by Flamininus, then referred to the arbitration of the Samians and other states, and finally laid before the Senate. — Bulletin de Correspondance Helldnique, vi. 364. XXVIII CONFEDERACY AGAINST NABIS 447 For the present no farther step was taken. A nearer if not a Flajnhi- greater danger threatened the tranquillity of Greece in the person of «'««-f ^^^^^ Nabis tyrant of Sparta. The imperium of Flamininus was again ex- ^'^ Greece, tended for the year 195 : for though Philip had not only submitted, ^^ but had asked to become a " friend and ally " of Rome, there was still business to be done in (Greece, and the army was still there. The commissioners in their report, while warning the Senate of the danger impending from Antiochus, had declared the pretensions and conduct of Nabis to be the most immediate peril. The question of peace or war with Nabis therefore had been committed to the discretion of Flamininus. Early in 195 he proceeded to Corinth and summoned a conference of Greek states and allies. They were unanimous in favour of war with the tyrant, who, besides his other numerous acts of aggression, was in occupation of Argos, — a city of the Achaean League. The only discordant note came from the Aetolians, who wished the war to l^e left to themselves, and that the Roman troops should be immediately withdrawn from Greece. The rest, howe\er, were ready to co-operate with Flamininus : Eumenes, Confed- the Rhodians, and king Philip all sent ships or men, and cavalry ^'"'^O' was raised in Thessaly. L. Quintius brought the Roman fleet from ^^^l"^ ^f Corcyra and blockaded Gythium, the chief port of Laconia, while sparta, Titus himself proceeded to attack Argos ; and when Argos showed igs- no signs of wishing to get rid of its Spartan garrison, he transferred the attack to Sparta itself. Sparta was no longer, as in old times, an open town ; it had been fortified in the early days of the Diadochi, and Nabis had now a strong force of Cretans guarding the walls. Yet he was soon reduced to negotiate ; and could urge that he was Siege of no worse than when the Roman proconsul had accepted his alliance Sparta. against Philip. But Flamininus replied by pointing to his subsequent cruelties at Argos and the piracies of his fleet ; and declared that, the Romans being determined to complete their task of freeing Greece, he must submit or stand a siege : he might, however, have a truce in order to send ambassadors to Rome, on condition of immediately evacuating Argos and other towns in Argolis ; restoring all ships taken from maritime towns ; surrendering all his own ships except two galleys ; restoring exiles to their property and civil rights ; dis- missing his mercenaries ; abandoning all possessions in Crete, and refraining from external alliances and wars ; withdrawing garrisons from all towns which sought the protection of Rome ; building no more forts either in his own or other territory ; and, lastly, on pay- ing 150 talents. Nabis naturally wished to reject such terms, which would reduce him to the position of a petty inland prince surrounded by enemies. The allies, on the other hand, were against allowing him even that alternative : and were only persuaded by Flamininus 448 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Freedom of Argos proclaimed at the Nemean winter of ^95- Return and triumph of Flamin- inus, ig^. Restoration to liberty of enslaved Rotnans. The dangers ahead. pointing out to them the heavy requisitions which a long siege would bring upon them all. After a short experience of the siege Nabis submitted, and at the next Nemean games there was a repeti- tion on a smaller scale of the scene at the Isthmian games of the previous year, — the freedom of Argos, once more joined to the Achaean League, being proclaimed amidst the applause of the spectators : the Aetolians again murmuring that with a tyrant still at Sparta the freedom of Greece was a sham. The work of Flamininus was now all but done. After another winter spent at Elateia in deciding points of dispute as they rose, he summoned a final meeting of the free states at Corinth. To them he addressed a farewell speech, in which he recapitulated the history of the Roman occupation of Greece, its motives, and its result on the freedom of the Greeks. He tried to allay the one feeling which marred the enthusiasm with which his speech was received by point- ing out that, in the case of Nabis, the choice lay between leaving him so weakened as no longer to be dangerous and practically de- stroying a great historic town. His farewell exhortation to harmony and moderation drew tears from his emotional hearers ; and their feelings were still farther stirred to their depths when he finally an- nounced his intention of withdrawing the garrisons from Acrocorin- thus, Chalcis, and Demetrias, and bade them judge between Roman faith and Aetolian malignity. When the applause had died away he added that there was one favour they could do him which he should value above all others. There were in Greece large numbers of Romans who had been sold into slavery as prisoners during the Hannibalian war. They could give him no more pleasing proof of their gratitude than by searching out and redeeming these men. Before the conference broke up the Roman soldiers were seen defiling down from Acrocorinthus ; and when Flamininus — after withdrawing the garrisons from Chalcis, Oreus and Eretria in Euboea, and from Demetrias in Thessaly — arrived at Oricum, on the coast of Epirus, to take his army across, he found awaiting him 1200 Roman captives redeemed by the Achaeans at the cost of 100 talents. Others were redeemed in other parts of Greece, and these ransomed citizens formed the most glorious feature of his triumph. The good faith and disinterested poHcy of Flamininus had raised the reputation of Rome, and caused (we are told) applications from peoples and sovereigns in all directions for his protection. If in their subsequent dealings with Greece the Romans may be justly charged with harshness or insincerity, the honest attempt to establish its liberty of this true philhellene ought to be remembered to his and their honour. The wisdom of the entire withdrawal of Roman XXVIII DEPARTURE OF FLAMININUS 449 troops may fairly be questioned. The elements of discord were not destroyed, and in a few years the Romans had a great part of the work to do over again. But if Flamininus erred, the error rose partly from a generous confidence in the people, whom he believed himself to have served to the best of his power ; and partly from failing to take sufficiently into account that spurious patriotism which prefers national disaster to the least diminution of a hollow inde- pendence ; which grasps at the shadow and misses the substance ; and places the gratification of local or private pride and resentment before the good of a whole country. It was to the Aetolians, and their tool and victim Nabis, that Greece owed the next disturbance of her peace. Authorities. — Our most continuous source of information is still Livy (xxxii.-xxxiv.), who in this period makes use principally of Polybius, often simply translating from him. The surviving fragments of Polybius himself are also of the utmost value (xv. 20-24; xvi. 1-13, 24-37; xviii. 1-52). For this period also the secondary authorities — Diodorus fr. 28 ; Appian res Macedonicae ; Plutarch Titus Flamininus; Zonaras ix. 15-18 (see Dion Cass. fr. 58) ; Orosius iv. 20, Eutropius iv. 1-2, — are rather fuller than usual, and all contribute some- thing. 2 G CHAPTER XXIX WARS WITH THE BOH AND LIGURES, AND IN SPAIN 200-178 PROVINCES COLONIES — continued [Hispania, Citerior and Ulterior] Parma ^ B.C. 197 Mutina J- . . B.C. 183 Gallia Cisalpina . . B.C. 181 Saturnia j Graviscae . . B.C. 18 r COLONIES Aquileia . . . . B.C. 181 Bononia . . B.C. 189 Luna 1 Pollentia \ b c 18 ^''''^^ ^ ' ' ^•^- ^^° Pisaurum J " ... 4 Luca .... b,c. 177 I. The Boii — The importance of the struggle with them and the Ligures — The Boii attack Cremona and Placentia (199) — The Insubres help the Boii, and are defeated by C. Cornelius Cethegus (197) — Marcellus takes Felsina (196) — L. Cornelius Merula defeats the Boii, but is refused a triumph (193) — Scipio Nasica finally conquers the Boii (191) — The province of Gaul informal from 191, formal from 181 — Road made from Bononia to Arretium, and the construction of the via Aemilia (187) — Colonies at POLLENTiA, PiSAURUM, Bononia, Parma, Mutina, and Aquileia (189-183) — Ligures: The Friniates and Apuani threaten Pisae and Bononia (187), defeat Q. Marcius (186), but are defeated by M. Sempronius Tuditanus (186), and finally crushed by L. Aemilius PauUus {181), and are transferred by M. Baebius to Samnium (180) — Colonies at Pisae and Luna. IL Spain — Extent of Roman power in Spain — The limits of the provinces of Hispania Citerior and Ulterior — Hostility of the Celtiberi (205-198) — Appointment of two additional praetors for Spain (197) — Serious risings (197-196) — Cato comes to Spain as consul, defeats the Spaniards near Emporiae, and advances to Tarraco- — Causes the towns to throw down their walls — Assists the praetor of Hispania Ulterior — Takes Vergiuni Castrum (195-194) — Reverses of Sex. Digitius (194-193) — P. Cornelius Scipio Cn. f. conquers the Lusitani — C. Flaminius the Oretani (193-192) — Twelve years comparative peace in Spain (191-179) — Great Celtiberian rising (181-179) — Victories of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus and his settlement (179-178). The wars with Philip and the settlement of Greece by Flamininus were followed closely by the struggle with Antiochus (193-190) ; and these led by slow but inevitable steps to the formation of a CH. XXIX SUBJECTION OF SPAIN, THE BOII AND LIGURIANS 451 Roman empire in the East. But meanwhile in the West also the The Romans were making steady progress, were consolidating their consoH- power in Italy, and laying the foundation of a new Romanised ff^^^J^^ Spain ; though it was not till the end of the Numantine war (133) 200-181 ' that the Spanish provinces were fully established ; and even then the Lusitani still gave trouble, and the Cantabri and Astures remained a constant source of danger till their defeat in the time of Augustus (20). In Italy the Ligurians on the north-west, and the Boii in the Cispadane valley, often assisted by the Insubres on the north of the Po, had caused frequent alarms during the Hannibalian war ; and their hostility continued when that war was at an end. If the Romans were to be masters of the whole of Italy south of the Alps, , and to command the Riviera as an approach to Spain, it was necessary to pacify or crush these tribes. It was therefore in Spain and in North Italy that during this period, and for many years afterwards, the most persistent efforts of Rome were maintained. Making less noise in the world than the more sensational victories in Macedonia, Greece, or Asia, the Spanish and Italian campaigns, renewed year after year, now with conspicuous success and now with disheartening I failure, not only best illustrate the dogged persistence of the Roman I character, but also resulted eventually in forming the most permanent : and solid basis of the empire. The nucleus of the Roman power in the valley of the Po was T/ie Boil ' formed by the colonies of Cremona and Placentia, established in ^"^ 1218 after the great Gallic war of 224-222. These colonies had '^ !^^ \ been the chief object of attack in the rising of the Boii and Insubres Cremona in 200, which had been promoted by the Carthaginian Hamilcar, a and survivor of the forces of Hasdrubal or Mago. Prompt orders were Placentia, sent to Carthage to recall Hamilcar; and though the Carthaginian ^"j^^^^, , , , , ■ , 1 1 defeated by government had no power to do this, they endeavoured to save ^_ FuHus themselves from Roman vengeance by declaring him an exile and Purpurea, . confiscating his property. The question, however, was settled by a 200. ] decisive victory gained over the Gauls by L. Furius Purpureo, in , which Hamilcar perished. From that time forward year by year a praetor or a consul, or sometimes both consuls, had the duty 1 allotted to them of continuing the struggle. I And side by side with this was the struggle with the Li- 77ie jgurians, — hardy mountaineers of the rugged Apennines or Ligurians. audacious pirates on the seas, — who had also during the Hanni- balian war remained faithful to Carthage, and were now always ready to help the Boii. They had joined in the attack upon Cremona and Placentia in 200, and were continually invading or threatening the territory of Pisae, which for some period 'previous to 225 had been closely allied with Rome — the port for 452 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. jgg-iq8. Baebius, and Lentulus, and Paetus. igy. The Ligurian Ilvates, afid the Boii. Coss. C. Cornelius Cethegus, Q Mi?iucius Rufus. her ships sailing to Spain, and the base for her military operations in north-west Italy. There was, therefore, every motive on the part of the Romans to force the Ligurians to submit or at least to remain passive within their frontiers. We find accordingly that during this period the consular armies are almost constantly divided between them and the Boii. The two wars go on side by side : when the Ligurians are quiescent or sustain a heavy defeat, the Roman legions are led off to assist those engaged with the Boii : when the Boii are forced to hide themselves in their villages or woods, the legions engaged wdth the Ligurians are reinforced by those from the valley of the Po. The consuls had, as the phrase went, the "province of Italy," and their duties were not always defined more closely. In the year after the repulse of the attack upon Cremona and Placentia (199) the praetor Gnaeus Baebius Tamphilus sustained a severe defeat at the hands of the Insubres, then in alliance with the Boii ; nor did the consul Lentulus, who took over his command, contrive to wipe out the disgrace by any brilliant exploit ; nor the consul of the following year (198), Sextus Aelius Paetus, though supported by the army of the previous year in addition to his own, under the praetor Gains Helvius. The presence of the two armies, however, overawed the Boii and their allies, and the consul had only to continue the measures of his predecessors for the restoration of Cremona and Placentia. There seemed profound peace throughout Italy, broken only by a servile outbreak at Setia, which, though causing great alarm at Rome, was easily suppressed. Yet in 197 both consuls, with full consular armies, were employed in North Italy ; for fresh outbreaks were threatened both in Liguria and the valley of the Po, and the Insubres were preparing to cross the river, in conjunction with the Cenomanni, to assist the Boii. But the Cenomanni had long been faithful allies of the Romans, and in the battle with C. Cornelius which now took place on the Mincius, deserted their kinsfolk and joined the consul, who entirely defeated and scattered the Insubrian forces. The other consul, Minucius, failed to bring the Boii to a pitched battle ; but finding them dismayed by the defeat of their allies, and therefore abstaining for the present from any hostile demonstration, he was able to lead his forces against the Ilvates, the only Ligurian tribe at the moment in arms. The Ilvates submitted ; and these operations, the details of which are very obscure, were considered to justify a four days' suppHcatio at Rome. Yet how little had been really accomplished was shown next year when both consuls were sent against the Boii, who inflicted a some- what severe defeat upon Marcellus (son of the famous opponent of XXIX WARS IN NORTH ITALY 453 Hannibal), forcing him to remain for some time within his entrenched ig6. Coss. camp. They had not, however, sufficient endurance to persevere in ^- J^urius beleaguering a camp, and soon dispersed. Whereupon Marcellus ^^/^^^^' crossed the Po, entered the district of Comum, and gained a great Claudius victory over the Insubres. He took the town of Comum, and forced Marcellus. the Insubres to scatter into their villages, and then being joined by After some his colleague L. Furius, the two returned to the territory of the Boii ^f^^^^^^ and received the submission of Felsina (Bononia). Thence he takes marched against the Ligurian tribes, the Laevi and Libici, who were Felsina again in arms. But the Boii hung upon the rear of the Roman ^^^^ defeats army, and as it was retiring from Liguria ventured to attack it. ^^^^ ^°^^- They were repulsed with great slaughter, and Marcellus was allowed a triumph over them and the Comenses. The next year was not marked by any great event. One of the 195. Coss. consuls (Cato) went to Spain. The other (Valerius Flaccus) fought ^- ^<^l^rius a successful battle with the Boii at the silva Litana, between .f/'^p^^' -^ Bononia and Placentia, the scene of the defeat and death of 'c'ato. Postumius in 216. It seems not to have been till the spring of the 194. Coss. next year (194) that he crossed the Po and met another combined ^- ^^^pio army of Boii and Insubres near Mediolanum. When he had de- ■^'^'^!!^^ feated them he was summoned south of the Po again to join the new Sempron- consul Sempronius Longus, his own impcrium having been pro- ius Longus. longed for a year. Before he could effect a junction with him, Sempronius had been attacked by the Boii, and had retired with considerable loss to Placentia. According to some authorities he was relieved by his colleague Scipio ; but the fact seems to be that nothing of importance occurred during the rest of the year, and that when his impcriiun as proconsul was extended for the year 193 Sempronius was still at Placentia and unable to make any farther movement ; and that, as a result of this failure, a great rising for the year of 193 both of Ligurians and Boii appeared imminent. A force had been sent to Pisae in 195 under P. Porcius Laeca, 193. and was still there under the command of M. Cincius. From the ^o^^- ^: latter came a despatch in the spring of 193 which dissipated any ^f^^f^^^Q hopes of peace which might have been entertained. It announced Mht^ucius that " meetings of the Ligurian confederation were being held ; that Thennus. the territory of Luna had been ravaged ; the territory of Pisae ^f'^/^^ entered ; and the whole coast was being plundered." The alarm was ^g^"^^{j farther increased by a despatch from the proconsul Sempronius Ligurians. Longus, announcing that i 5,000 Ligures were all but at the gates of Placentia, and that the Boii were on the point of rising. The Senate declared a tuinulttcs in Gaul. Minucius, who had appointed his levy to meet at Arretium, was ordered to his 'province' of Liguria 454 HISTORY or ROME Minucius at Pisae, igj-192. Victory over the Ligures. L. Cornelius overco7)tes the Boii, ig2. Cornelius refused a triumph. at once. Two of the praetors were to have an additional army of 3000 foot and 100 horse, together with 5000 foot of Socii and 200 horse. All applications for furlough were postponed ; and the other consul, Cornehus, was directed to relieve Placentia. Minucius met his army at Arretium, and marched down the valley of the Arno to Pisae. He found that city surrounded by a great host of Ligurians, which was daily being increased by fresh arrivals attracted by the hopes of plunder. He succeeded ni crossing the river and entering the town ; but does not seem to have done more than barely hold his own for the rest of the summer, having been indeed on one occasion only saved from absolute disaster by the gallantry of his Numidian cavalry ; and when the time for holding the comitia came, a duty which had been allotted to him, he urged the Senate by letter to transfer the task to his colleague, who had by this time practically finished the w^ar with the Boii. It was not till towards the end of his year of office, the spring of 192, that he brought the enemy to a pitched battle, in which he defeated them with considerable slaughter, occupied their abandoned camp, and was able to enter southern Liguria and storm villages and strongholds, which he found filled with the plunder of Etruria. L. Cornelius had meanwhile been more quickly successful agamst the Boii. He had begun the campaign by laying waste their territory with fire and sword, without being able to induce the enemy to leave their strongholds and give him battle. At length, laden with booty, he was retiring upon Mutina, marching somewhat care- lessly as though through a country now thoroughly subdued. Taking advantage of this, the Boii passed his position by night and occupied some narrow ground in front of him, closed in by marsh or forest. The consul, however, gained intelligence of the movement, and ascertained their position by sending out his cavalry to_ reconnoitre. Leaving the triarii in charge of his baggage and booty, with directions to strengthen the camp, he marched in battle order upon the Gauls, who were thus by the failure of their own stratagem forced to fight. The Romans won the battle, but lost heavily themselves, and did not effectively pursue and annihilate the enemy ; so that when the consul, on his return to Rome to hold the comitia, demanded a triumph, he found the senators prejudiced against him by a letter sent to many of them by his legatus, M. Claudius. In this letter the large losses were ascribed to the incapacity of Cornelius, who had only been saved from disaster by the extraordinary valour of the soldiers. Whether these criticisms were deserved or not, they sufficed to induce the Senate to refuse Cornelius a triumph ; though, without judging of the facts, it based its refusal on the ground that XXIX REDUCTION OF CISALPINE GAUL 455 Cornelius had not brought Marcellus with him to Rome to sub- stantiate the charge, but haci preiferred to leave him in command of the army, whereas his legate Sempronius still enjoying imperium, it would have been more natural to have entrusted the command to him. The next consuls did little : but in 191 the Boii were crushed by '^^• the consul Scipio Nasica, whose colleague Glabrio was engaged in Cornelius Greece. Scipio inflicted an immense slaughter upon the enemy, Scipio boasting that he had left only old men and boys alive. The whole Nasica, tribe were forced to become Roman subjects, and to see half ^"^ • their territory become domain land open to colonisation and division ^/^^^^-^ at the will of the Roman government. The magnitude of the Final destruction inflicted upon the Boii was testified by the number of subjugation captives and horses, arms, standards, and every kind of spoil which % xxxii-xxxv. For the Spanish wars something is to be got from Appian, Res Hisp. 38-44, from Plutarch's Life of Cato, and from Zonaras, x, 17. For the Gallic wars practically the only source is Li\y, with occasional lights from •Strabo (v.), and Plutarch's Life of Aemilius Paullus, c. \i. CHAPTER XXX ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT AND THE AETOLIANS 193-188 Greece after the settlement of Flamininus (194-3) — Discontent of the Aetolians — They resolve to call in Antiochus^The kingdom and early reign of Antiochus — His confederacy with Philip for the partition of Egypt — He occupies the Thracian Chersonese — His haughty answer to the Roman envoys — -Hannibal at his court — Hannibal's plan rejected — Nabis of Sparta breaks the terms of his treaty, and the Roman fleet come to Peloponnesus — Death of Nabis (192)- — Preparations in Rome — The Aetolians occupy Demetrias and invite Antiochus to liberate Greece — Antiochus arrives in Phthiotis and is proclaimed strategus of the Aetolians at the congress at Lamia — He takes Chalcis (192) — He attempts to form a Greek confederation — Decay of his forces in the winter of 192-191 — M'. Acihus Glabrio comes to Thessaly in 190 — Defeat of Antiochus at Thermopylae, who returns to Asia — L. Cornelius Scipio with his brother Africanus come to Greece in July 189, grant six months' truce to the Aetolians and march to the Hellespont — -Meanwhile the Roman fleet had taken Sestos, and sailing to Samos shut up the king's fleet at Ephesus — Reduction of towns in Caria — Failure at Patara — Great defeat of the king's fleet in the bay of Teos — In October 190 the consul Scipio crosses the Hellespont, and in November conquers the king at Magnesia, who is forced to evacuate Asia Minor — Settle- ment of Asia and victories over Pisidians and Gauls by Cn. Manlius Vulso (189-188) — End of the Aetolian war and capture of Ambracia by M. Fulvius Nobilior (189-188). Elements of THOUGH the settlement of Flamininus had been favourably received trouble i?i by a large part of Greece, there were several centres of dissatisfaction ^^reece— £j.Q^ which trouble might at any time arise. The Aetolians had Aetolians never ceased to protest that Greece had only gained a change of Boeotians, masters by the Roman victory over Philip ; and they had a special and Nabis grievance of their own in the fact that the Senate had declined to of bparta. j-ggtore to their League certain towns which had once belonged to it, particularly Pharsalus and the island of Leucas. The Boeotians had retained their Macedonian sympathies, exasperated by the assassina- tion of the Boeotarch Brachylles, the leader of the Macedonian party, CHAP. XXX CAREER OF ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT 465 with the connivance, as they believed, of Flamininus. These feelings had shown themselves in the \vinter of 196-195 by frequent murders of Roman soldiers or citizens in soHtary places in Boeotia. As many as 500 are said to have perished in this way, until Flamininus de- Murder of manded satisfaction of the Boeotian community, and when it was Roman refused, on the ground that the murders were mere private crimes, soldiers entered Boeotia with an army and laid waste the country : only con- ^"- ^"^^^^^' senting to hold his hand on the intercession of the Achaeans and Athenians, the surrender of the criminals, and the payment of thirty talents. Lastly, as long as his enemies the Achaeans could count on Roman support, Nabis of Sparta had no hope of recovering his seaports, or freeing himself from the humiliating terms which had been forced upon him. The Aeotolians were the first to stir. Their new idea for the The salvation of Greece was, in fact, a very old one. It was to call in AetoUans the aid of another foreign power. As of old the king of Persia, ^^^^ ^^'^ and in later times the king of Macedonia, had been invoked to aid ■^''^ parties in Greece, so now the Aetolians proposed to call for help upon Antiochus, king of Syria. Antiochus III., called the Great, had been king of Syria for more Antiochus than a quarter of a century, with various fortunes. Besides Syria he king of claimed to be lord of a great part of Upper Asia and Asia Minor ; Syria from but at the beginning of his reign he had had to meet an insurrection ^^-^'^ '' of his satraps in Persis and Media ; had engaged in an unsuccessful war with Ptolemy IV. for the possession of Palestine ; and, though his cousin Achaeus recovered in his name the parts of Asia Minor which Attains had taken, he had immediately set up as an independent sovereign himself By the fall of Achaeus in 214, however, Antiochus recovered Asia Minor ; and a seven years' expedition in Upper Asia (212-205) added to his reputation, and extended his alliances as far as India. In 205 he began, in conjunction with Philip V. of His attack Macedonia, that attack upon the young king of Egypt, of which upon we have already heard as involving Philip in hostility with Rome. t'fole7nyV., Antiochus began his share of the enterprise by an invasion of Coele- Syria, of which he gained possession, after a victory over Ptolemy's general (the Aetolian Scopas) at Panium, near the sources of the Jordan, in 201. In this enterprise he had shown some of the qualities His of a statesman as well as of a soldier, particularly in his treatment of ireatmetit the Jews, whom he conciliated by the grant of privileges, and by oftkefews, respecting their law and customs. This was followed by an attempt upon some of the outlying possessions of the Egyptian king in Caria and in the Thracian Chersonese ; and it was this that brought him into collision with the Romans, who had undertaken the defence of Egypt as well as the cause of Greek freedom. Before actually enter- 2 H 466 HISTORY OF ROME Character of Antiochus and his dominions. Atitiochus and Flani- ing upon the reduction of Caria and the Chersonese he had made terms with Ptolemy, and had given him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage, with Palestine and Coele-Syria as her marriage portion. He would therefore claim the cities of Asia Minor and of the Cher- sonese with some show of right, and could confront Rome without the fear of the hostility of Egypt in the background. As to his personal quaHfication for the task of resisting Roman supremacy, upon which he was now entering, it was not easy for the Greeks to judge. He had on several occasions, during his great expedition into Upper Asia, shown conspicuous personal courage, not unmixed with the cunning and occasional cruelty which appear to mark the oriental despot. Nevertheless he had proved, as in the case of the Jews, that he was able to treat those over whom he obtained power with prudence and magnanimity ; and the name of Great seems to have been as much a tribute to the ruler as to the soldier,^ The character of his policy, as well as the reputation of his power and great resources, had no doubt its influence in suggesting to the Aetolians the idea of asking for his aid. On the other hand, he had never as yet measured swords with a great military power like that of Rome. His triumphs had been over the difficulties of nature rather than over disciplined armies ; for even at Panium, though his enemies were commanded by an Aetolian, the mass of the army con- sisted of unwarlike Egyptians. Moreover, he was now no longer young, and was surrounded by flatterers and intriguing courtiers, who closed his ears to the sound of wholesome but unwelcome truths, and caused him to view with suspicion signs of energy and honesty as dangerous to himself. The peoples also over whom he ruled were heterogeneous and loosely united. He could command considerable levies from his distant satrapies, and could summon a fleet from Phoenicia ; but these armies were inspired by no united feeling of patriotism and no mutual confidence. The first sign of failure would be the signal for immediate dispersion. Though in 196 Antiochus answered the Roman envoys at Lysi- macheia with haughty indifference, he does not appear to have felt entire confidence in his position ; for in the next year legates from him visited Flamininus at Corinth with propositions for an alliance. They were referred to the Senate. The king accordingly, after strengthening himself by a renewed alliance with Egypt and by a treaty with Ariarathes of Cappadocia, sent ambassadors to Rome (193). They were answered that unless the king abstained from entering Europe, the Romans would free the Greek cities in Asia froin ^ Plutarch [Apophthegm.') says that he wrote to the Greek cities that, if they re- ceived any orders from him which were contrary to their laws, they w'ere to neglect them, in the assurance that they had been given in ignorance. XXX HANNIBAL AT THE COURT OF ANTIOCHUS 467 him. The ambassadors exclaimed against an answer which must Antiochus disturb the peace of the world ; and, as a compromise, three com- ^n<^ ih^ missioners — P. Sulpicius, P. Villius, P. Aelius — were sent to nego- ^'^"^^J^ tiate with the king in person at Lysimacheia. " They found him in no mood for yielding. He had already been Antiochus, appealed to by the Aetolians, who promised that Nabis would make influenced a movement in Peloponnese, and hoped that they would be able to ^ stir up Philip of Macedon to strike another blow against Roman ^^^^ ^^^ supremacy. But he had also at his court the most famous general Aetolians, of that or perhaps any time, the implacable foe of the Romans, the "'^^ill resist, great Hannibal himself. He had been driven into exile by the ^93-^9~- malignity of the oligarchical party in Carthage, of which the Roman government, contrary to the advice of Africanus, had availed itself to consummate the ruin of their great enemy. As early as 200 the Senate had protested against Hannibal being employed as a military commander. But though the Romanising oligarchs had obediently recalled him, the people had been faithful, and had elected him as one of the Shophetim or " kings." He strove in that position to break up the tyranny of the oligarchical body of Judices ; to restore the national finances to a sound position ; and to prevent the malversation of public money by which these men lived in luxury. This made him enemies at home who were ready to sacrifice him to Roman hatred, and who now ( 1 96) denounced him at Rome as having entered into correspondence with king Antiochus. The Senate at once rg6-rgs- fastened on the excuse, although Scipio protested against the weight Hannibal of Roman authority being thrown into the scale of Carthaginian j,^^ ^^^ party quarrels, and three commissioners were at once sent to Carthage, thence to Their professed purpose was to adjudicate on some of the quarrels Antioch. perpetually arising between Masannasa and the Carthaginians ; but, on their arrival they put themselves into communication with the political enemies of Hannibal, who well understood the object of their mission. He had made provision for flight, and during the night following the arrival of the Roman commissioners made his way from the city to a point on the coast near Thapsus, where a ship was in readiness to receive him. Thence he sailed to Tyre, the mother city of Carthage, where he was received with all honour as the most illustrious of Phoenicians. He stayed there, however, only a few days. King Antiochus was said to be at Antioch, and' it was to him that he was. now determined to attach himself. When he arrived at Antioch the king was gone to Ephesus ; and after being entertained with honour at Antioch by his son, he followed the king himself to Ephesus. Antiochus during the winter of 195 was fluctuating in his mind between a desire to answer Roman pride with equal pride, and doubt 468 HISTORY OF ROME Hannibal' s platt for a IV ar against Rome, i(pj. Roman envoys at Apameia, igj-192. The story of the con- versation of Hannibal and Africanus . as to his ability to meet the forces of the RepubHc. The Aetolians were making much of their grievance as to PharsaUis and Leucas, and their ambassadors were urging the king to interfere in Greece. The arrival of Hannibal seemed likely to turn the scale. But Antiochus had not the courage, or perhaps the imprudence, to embark upon the plan which Hannibal proposed. He asked for 100 ships, 10,000 infantry, and 1000 cavalry, that he might sail to Carthage and induce the Carthaginians to renew the war by a fresh invasion of Italy. Meanwhile the king was to enter Greece with his army, prepared, if necessary, to cross even to Italy. The plan was soon known or suspected by the Romans ; for Hannibal had sent a Tyrian named Aristo, whose acquaintance he made at Ephesus, to Carthage, charged with the task of ascertaining the feelings of the Barcine party there ; and the purpose of his visit, though he carried no letters, was at once divined by Hannibal's enemies, and duly reported at Rome (193). It was with the knowledge of this intrigue, therefore, that the Roman commissioners were sent to Antiochus, while the Cartha- ginians were prevented from making any movement by the threaten- ing attitude of Masannasa, whose dispute with them was intentionally left undecided by Africanus and his colleagues. It was not with any hope, or perhaps desire, of peace that the ambassadors visited Antiochus. Their charge was rather to observe and report upon the king's position and forces. Various accidental circumstances delayed the interview : and when the earliest to arrive, P. Villius, did obtain an audience, it was interrupted by the news of the death of the king's son. But though the king was at first absent, the Romans found Hannibal at the court, and the friendly inter- course they maintained with him furnished the jealous courtiers with materials for rousing the suspicions of Antiochus as to the good faith of his famous guest. It was to allay these suspicions that Hannibal told the story of the early vow of undying hostility to Rome exacted from him by his father, and assured the king that as long as he was at enmity with Rome he might count upon his good service. There was a tradition — which Livy seems to disbelieve — that Africanus himself was a member of this commission and conversed in a friendly manner with Hannibal. Among other things Scipio asked him who in his opinion was the greatest general that ever lived. "Alexander," said Hannibal. "Who next.?" " Pyrrhus." Who third ? " Myself" " What would you have said then," asked Scipio, "If you had conquered me?" "I should have said that I was greater than either Alexander or Pyrrhus." ^ ^ The answer is rather too obvious and fulsome, and had it been really given would surely have been retailed by Polybius. We have only fragments of XXX PREPARATIONS FOR WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS 469 But whatever were the circumstances in which the envoys spent The king their time during the king's retirement in mourning for his son, they ^^^^ got no satisfactory answer at the end. Antiochus had been shut up P^omtse^ with his most intimate friends, who knew little of the world beyond *' Asia, and believing, or affecting to believe, that the great king was the most powerful monarch upon earth, urged him to undertake the protection of Greece against Rome. Accordingly when the Roman envoys went to Ephesus (early in the spring of 192) they found that there was still less disposition on his part to yield. He did not personally appear ; but Minio, one of his ministers, was instructed to deliver a long and somewhat provocative argument. , The application of two Greek towns, Lampsacus and Smyrna, to be delivered from Antiochus, had formed the basis of the Roman demand. Minio ridiculed their anxiety for the freedom of these towns in face of their own treatment of Naples, Rhegium, Tarentum, and Syracuse, over which they had the same right as Antiochus , over the Asiatic cities, — the right of conquest. The upshot of the ' speech was a rejection of the Roman demand. The Roman envoys I indeed answered the arguments : but the matter had passed beyond I discussion. The king was urged on all sides, — by his own council, ( by Alexander of Acarnania, by messages from Aetolia, and by Hannibal, when admitted to an audience. A full belief in his ', own resources, joined to a confident expectation of welcome and I support in Greece, as soon as he moved, combined to make him I turn a deaf ear to all counsels of prudence ; and the Roman com- missioners were allowed to retire without a word of concession. The commissioners had not reached Rome, it seems, when the jg2. The consuls and the praetors for the year 192 had already drawn lots for Romans \ their provinces. But the unfavourable nature of their report was ^^P^f^ '^f'^< \ . . . . . , -11 i\i^ <^na make anticipated, and it was determined that measures must be taken to p^^p^y. prepare for the now inevitable war. Two of the praetors, M. ations. Baebius Tamphilus and A. Atilius Serranus, had drawn the two j Spanish provinces. The allotment was annulled, the praetors already I in Spain continued in their office, and Baebius was sent with two I legions, and their usual contingent of allies, into Bruttium. Atilius was put in command of the fleet, for which he was to build thirty quinqueremes, to enrol the necessary number of socii navales, and to receive 1000 infantry of allies and 1000 Roman soldiers from Polybius for this period, bift that the story was not in his books seems clear from the fact that Livy — who follows him closely — expressly attributes it to the Greek history of C. Acilius (Livy, xxxv. 14), — which he quotes at second hand from Q. , Claudius Quadrigarius. It is repeated with some variation by Appian Sy>: and Plutarch Titus Flam. xxi. Zonaras (ix. 18) says that Scipio went from Carthage to Ephesus, but says nothing of the conversation. 470 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Nabis britigs the Romans again into Greece, jg2. Fall of Nabis. one of the consuls, who was ordered not to leave Rome till the commissioners returned. The report of the commissioners however did not announce any overt act of hostility on the part of Antiochus, and war was not yet therefore openly declared. It was the action of Nabis of Sparta that brought the Romans again into Greece. Envoys from the Achaean League announced that he had broken the terms imposed upon him by the Romans, and was already endeavouring to recover Gythium and other maritime towns. An addition of loo quinqueremes was ordered for the fleet ; and Atilius was directed to cross to Peloponnesus to defend the Roman allies. The rumours in Rome becanie more and more alarming : Antiochus was coming to Aetolia, and from thence would attack Sicily ; the Aetolians were in arms ; all Greece might soon be in revolt. To meet these dangers immediate steps were taken. A squadron was sent to guard Sicily. A fresh commission was sent to Greece headed by T. Quintius Flamininus, whose influence there was still believed to be paramount ; and M. Baebius was ordered at once to proceed to Brundisium. The alarm was completed when Attains, brother of king Eumenes of Pergamus, arrived with the intelligence that Antiochus had already crossed the Hellespont and was with his army in Europe. It was now late in the year. The elections of the new consuls and praetors were hastened, and Baebius ordered to cross to Apollonia. In Peloponnesus indeed things had not gone unfavourably. The attempt of Nabis to recover his seaports, and his incursions on Achaean territory, had been answered by immediate proclamation of war upon him by the Achaean League. Under the able Philopoe- men the Achaeans, after losing an important naval battle, decisively defeated him, and shut him up once more in Sparta and its immediate territory. He made an urgent appeal to the Aetolians for help, as it was at their instigation he had moved. But the Aetolians appear to have decided that he was no more to be trusted, and to have thought that they could best secure the alliance of Sparta by taking the credit of freeing her from her odious tyrant. Accordingly a force was sent there ostensibly to support him, but with secret orders to kill him. This was accomplished by a ruse when he was actually at the head of his own troops : but love of plunder overcame all considerations of prudence, and the Aetolians began to loot the city. The people rose in self-defence and massacred large numbers of them : and Philopoemen, hearing of what had happened, hastened by the help of the Roman fleet at Gythium to annex Sparta to the League. But though the Aetolians had by their own greediness missed Demetrias. XXX ANTIOCHUS COMES TO GREECE 471 taking possession of Sparta, they were resolved on getting rid of The the Roman supremacy ; and in full assembly, in spite of the advice AetoUans of the Athenian envoys, and the presence and authority of Flamin- ''f^^^^'^'^J^ mus, voted "to mvite Antiochus to liberate Greece." As a Rome, 102. preliminary to this they determined to get possession of Demetrias and Chalcis. Demetrias had by the award of Flamininus, at the They end of the Macedonian war, been declared free and the chief town occupy of the community (to koivov) of the Magnetes. But a rumour had got about that the Romans meant to restore it to Philip. The indigna- tion of the people found expression by the mouth of the chief magistrate Eurylochus, who in the presence of Flamininus declared that " Demetrias was only nominally free, in reality was enslaved to Rome." The slur upon Roman good faith was prudently repudiated by the majority of the meeting, and Eurylochus found it necessary to escape to Aetolia. But there were many who sympathised with him ; and the Aetolians took advantage of this feeling and of the popularity of Eurylochus to gain admittance into Demetrias for their troops under pretence of restoring him. They failed, however, at Chalcis. There too they had the help But. fail at of exiles of the anti-Roman party. But the townsfolk were on the Chalcis. alert, and were deaf to the profession of the Aetolian leader Thoas, that he had come to free them from servitude to Rome. " We are not slaves to any one," they said, "and we have no need of an Aetolian or any other garrison." And Thoas, who hoped to surprise them, or to find a strong enough party to admit him, but was not prepared to besiege a powerful city, retired baffled. But the open revolt of the Aetolians from the Roman alliance Antiochus decided the wavering determination of Antiochus. Three towns in crosses to Asia, which had appealed to Rome, and which he did not wish to Greece. leave behind him as enemies, caused him to pause— Smyrna, Alexandria Troas, and Lampsacus. Moreover, he had not made up his mind to adopt or reject Hannibal's bolder and more hopeful plan. But now the Aetolian Thoas insinuated that, if he followed it, the glory would all be Hannibal's and not the king's : while, if Hannibal failed, his fleet and army would be fatally weakened. " Hannibal," he said, " was a soldier of fortune, who might usefully be employed as a subordinate : but would be intolerable in a position of supremacy." The king listened and was convinced. Demetrias in hand was more tempting than a prospective invasion of Italy. Leaving therefore the rebellious cities in Asia for future Arrives at consideration, he sailed to Pteleus in Achaia Phthiotis on the Devtetrias. Pagasaean Gulf, where he was met by Eurylochus and the chief Magnesians, and accompanied by them sailed next day into the harbour of Demetrias. 472 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. At the congress of Lamia he is proclaimed strategus of the Aetolians, ig2. The war is to be begun by an attack on Chalcis. The Achaeans declare war with Antiochus and the Aetolia?is. The Aetolians, on hearing of the arrival of Antiochus in Demetrias, immediately summoned a meeting and passed a decree welcoming him as a deliverer, and appointing a conference to be held at Lamia in Malis. At Lamia he v^as received with extraordinary enthusiasm. In a crowded meeting he explained that, though he had come with small forces at that time (for he had but 10,000 men) he was prepared, directly spring made the seas navigable, to flood Greece with troops, and to spare no exertions till he had shaken the Roman yoke from their necks. But when the king retired it became manifest that there were two parties in the meeting, headed by Phaeneas and Thoas. The former wished to regard Antiochus as a mediator in the controversies between themselves and the Romans : the latter as a general in a now acknowledged war. The opinion of Thoas prevailed ; for it was idle to expect the Romans to submit their case to the arbitration of a foreign king. Antiochus was declared " strategus " or general of the Aetolian League, to act in consultation with the thirty regular counsellors, who in the League constitution were known as Apocleti. The only subject left for discussion was not whether war should be begun, but how best to begin it. The result of the deliberation was that the first point of attack should be Chalcis, which the Aetolians had lately vainly attempted. Antiochus acted with promptness. He marched through the pass of Themiopylae with 1000 infantry, met the Aetolian levy at Chaeroneia, pitched his camp at Salganeus, which commands the northern entrance of the Euripus, and at once crossed over by sea into Euboea. The Aetolian commanders were met by some of the chief men of Chalcis, headed by Mictio, who in answer to their request that, without renouncing their friendship with Rome, they would receive Antiochus as an ally and friend who had come to liberate Greece, replied that they knew of no Greek city which had either a Roman garrison or paid tribute to Rome, and therefore were at a loss to understand whom the king was come to liberate, or from whom. They declined to receive him within their walls and would make no terms with them or him unless they left the island. Once more the Aetolians were fain to abandon Chalcis : and the king, who had remained by his ships, resolved to return to Demetrias, and to pave the way for future movements by attempting to secure allies. The Achaeans received his envoys at their meeting at Aegium, at which Flamininus was present. Hopes had been entertained of divided counsels in Achaia from a supposed jealousy between Philopoemen and Flamininus. But the vain braggings of the royal envoys, backed by the invectives of the Aetolians, who claimed the credit of the defeat of Philip, were met by a scornful speech of XXX ANTIOCHUS AT CHALCIS 473 Flamininus, who pointed to the weakness of the king's forces when compared to the high talk of covering the sea with his ships and flooding the land with his soldiers : and appealed to the meeting to decide between these vain boasts and the tried faith and power of Rome. The decision was unanimously in favour of the Roman alliance and of proclaiming war with the Aetolians and Antiochus. Elsewhere the king's legates were more favourably received. The The Boeotians, who had not forgiven the punishment their own Boeotians treachery had brought upon them two years before at the hands of ^'•^""'^• Flamininus, did not, indeed, give a definite answer, but promised to give it to Antiochus in person when he came to them ; and it was evident that they were ready to join him if they could feel a reason- able hope of his success. Amynander, king of the Athamanes, was another whom the Amynan- machinations of the king's envoys drew into his alliance. He owed der joins much to Roman protection at the time of the Macedonian war ; but Antiochus. he was under the influence of his wife Apamia and her brother Philip, who claimed to be descended from Alexander the Great, and were beguiled by a hint that, if they could persuade Amynander to join Antiochus, they should be rewarded by Philip being made king of Macedonia. But while these negotiations were going on, Antiochus was Chalcis preparing for a blow which was rendered effective almost by occtipied by accident. On his return to Lamia and Demetrias he sent off his A^{\o<^^^^ general Menippus with about 3000 men, and his admiral Polyxenidas with his ships, to make one more attempt on Chalcis, before the place jg2. had been strengthened by the reinforcements which he heard were to be thrown into it by king Eumenes and the Achaeans. He followed in person some few days afterwards with 6000 men and a few Aetolians who meanwhile had mustered at Lamia. They were too late to prevent the passage of the reinforcements from Eumenes and Achaia ; but while Menippus was encamped at Salganeus, 500 Destruction Roman soldiers sent by Flamininus, and accompanied by the of a body of Chalcidian Mictio (who had gone to ask for them), came in sight. Finding their road to Aulis blocked, these men returned to Delium and encamped near the temple of Apollo on the coast ; and not expecting to be attacked, as war had not been declared, strayed about the country in search of food and firing without any precautions, Menippus took advantage of this to attack and cut them ofl", and only a small part of them escaped. Thus the first blood had been shed by the king. War would doubtless have been proclaimed in any case : but it was important in a religious point of view that the Romans should have such definite ground for proclaiming it. This was rendered still more valid by the fact that many of the in the autum7t of Roman soldiers. 474 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Winter of ig2-igi. The Greek states and king Antiochus. Hannibal advises that the king of Macedonia should be won over. The utiburied bodies at Cynos- cephalae. Romans had been killed within the precincts of the temple of Apollo at Delium ; for the profanation of this asylum would entail the wrath and vengeance of the gods. But its immediate effect was the admission of Antiochus to Chalcis. He had arrived at Aulis with his main army, just as the success of Menippus silenced the Romanising party at Chalcis, the leaders of which effected their escape. The soldiers of Achaia and Eumenes occupied for a short time the town of Salganeus, and the remains of the Roman force a castle on the Euripus : but both had eventually to evacuate these places ; and Antiochus took un- disputed possession of Chalcis and with it the whole of Euboea. The king had made up his mind to winter at Chalcis ; and he was soon actively employed in negotiations with various Greek states. Hannibal had warned him that a combination of these states formed but a rotten foundation on which to rest. But Hannibal's policy had been rejected, and the king was eager to enroll allies. To the Eleans, who complained that their opposition to the Achaean pro- clamation of war had put them in danger of invasion, he sent i ooo men. To the Epirotes, who expressed affection for him, but urged that they were too much exposed to invasion from Italy to move, he promised to send relief Boeotia he visited in person, and was welcomed in Thebes with the utmost enthusiasm. Some flimsy pretence indeed was kept up of disclaiming hostility to Rome, but in fact the Boeotians voted to join the king against her. In Thessaly he held a conference at Demetrias : some of the towns were ready to join at once, some were hostile, some temporised. Hannibal, who was present, urged that, as his own plan had been rejected, it was supremely necessary for the success of the present policy that the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of the king of Macedonia should be secured. The former might be obtained by working on his secret feelings of anger at his subordin- ation to Rome ; the latter by directing Seleucus, son of Antiochus, to invade Macedonia from Lysimacheia, and so give Philip enough to do in his own country. His advice, as before, was rejected, and Philip was even needlessly provoked. In the course of his progress through Thessaly it occurred to Antiochus to show his goodwill to the Macedonians by collecting for burial the bones of those of them who had fallen at Cynoscephalae, and had been left unburied. This in itself was a reflection on Phiflp, and to make that reflection more pointed he employed for the business the new pretender to the Macedonian kingdom, PhiHp of Megalopolis. Having taken over a considerable number of Thessalian towns, of which Pherae alone made serious resistance until he came to Larissa, he found his position near the latter town threatened by a combined force of XXX ARRIVAL OF A CONSULAR ARMY IN GREECE 475 Romans under the praetor Baebiiis and Macedonians under king Philip ; and therefore, dismissing his AetoHan and Athamanian alHes for the winter, he retired to Chalcis. Chalcis proved to be the king's Capua. He had fallen in love Antiochus with a young Greek lady there, and now celebrated his nuptials with at Chalcis, great pomp, followed by a round of festivities and gaieties. While '^'^'^^'' '/ thus occupied he neglected business of all kinds ; and his army, ^" sharing in the dissipations of its leader, degenerated both in discipline and physical condition. To the original error therefore of the plan of the war was now added a fatal slackness in the preparations for it, which affected his allies no less than his own troops. The spring saw his army disorganised and no appearance of the promised forces from Greece. On going to Acarnania, to secure the Antiochus adherence of the Acarnanians, he found he same division of opinion '^"- Acar- and interests as elsewhere. Some of the leading men were in his '""""• favour, and some of the towns, such as Stratus and Medion, fell into his hands : but Thyreum closed its gates and refused to make any alliance without the sanction of Rome ; and the Leucadians, encouraged or overawed by the proximity of the Roman fleet, declined to commit themselves. The king everywhere professed to be wholly disinterested, and that he had come not to annex, but to set free. He was soon recalled by graver news. The early spring of 1 9 1 had been spent by the praetor Baebius, igi. M. in conjunction with king Philip, in securing or recovering numerous Acilius cities in Thessaly. He was besieging the pretender Philip of ' ''^''^'^• Magalopolis in Pelinnaeum, on the upper Peneius, and king Philip arrives in was investing Limnaeum, a few miles to the north, when the Thessaly. consul M'. Acilius arrived with a fresh army of above 22,000 men. The two towns quickly surrendered ; and the pretender Philip was sent in chains to Rome, after having been saluted in mockery as king by the Macedonian troops, and as " cousin " by Philip. This was followed by the surrender of many other towns with Sudden the garrisons placed in them by Antiochus. Almost at a blow the ^f^ll^pse whole work of the previous autumn and winter was undone ; and X,^^^, ^f Antiochus hurried back to his army at Chalcis, to meet his enemies, Antiochus no longer as the acknowledged champion of Greece, but as an in Greece. invader driven to his last hold. Town after town between him and Larissa opened its gates to the consul, — Pharsalus, Scotussa, Pherae, Crannon, — and their garrisons either enlisted under king Philip or were allowed to depart disarmed to Demetrias. Hannibal's warning was amply justified : at the first touch of danger the imaginary Greek alliance had melted into air. The king sent urgent messages to the Aetolians for their promised contingent. Slowly and reluctantly 4000 of them mustered 476 HISTORY OF ROME The Aetolians at Heracleia. Antiochus at Ther- mopylae, Battle at Ther- mopylae. at Hypata and Heracleia, while the king found that even his reinforcements from Asia were delayed, and that his whole army amounted only to 10,000 men. With these he entrenched himself to the south of the pass of Thermopylae, which he strengthened by a trench, a double stockade, and in parts by a wall. On the Aetolians he enjoined the task of guarding the mountain paths by which the Persians had in old times got to the rear of Leonidas. By this time they had abandoned Hypata and were concentrated in Heracleia, and disliked the idea of dividing their forces : for if the king won the victory, they were looking forward to join in the pursuit and plunder ; if he lost, they desired to keep together for defence. How- ever 2000 of them were eventually told off to guard three points at which the mountains were passable. The loftiest was called Callidromus, and here 600 Aetolians were stationed, but seem to have felt so secure that they kept but careless guard. Meanwhile the Roman army had arrived at the entrance of the pass after laying waste the country round Hypata and Heracleia. The defences raised by Antiochus were sufficiently strong to be defended by his light-armed troops, while his heavy-armed remained in reserve drawn up in phalanx. But Acilius knew of the possi- bility of outflanking him by means of the mountain passes. Two Retreat of Antiochus, men apiece, were despatched to make the attempt. Flaccus apparently failed to arrive at the point at which he aimed, but Cato was more successful. Having obtained a countryman as guide he began the ascent of Callidromus, until, as darkness was coming on, it was discovered that the guide had lost his way. But Cato, accompanied by one L. Maelius, who was a good mountaineer, set out in quest of the path. In spite of the darkness of the moonless night these two hit the track and placed landmarks to guide them. They thus led their men towards the summit, and as they neared it found themselves in the presence of an enemy, of whose numbers they were ignorant. Some of the cohors Firmana (veterans from the colony of Firmum) made a rush to the front, captured one of the enemy, and learnt that they were 600 Aetolians. Reassured as to the number opposed to them they continued their advance. The Aetolians fled almost without a blow, or were surprised and killed, and Cato on descending found himself above the rear of Antiochus's position. Meanwhile the main Roman army, with great exertion and some loss, had carried the first stockade, but were unable to make their way over the second in face of the sarissae of the phalanx, and under fire of the ballistae and other artillery placed at the various points of vantage. But Antiochus himself had been wounded in the face by ANTIOCHUS RETIRES FROM GREECE 477 a stone and had retired to the rear and when Cato's force appeared The kings above them, his men at first believed it to be an Aetolian reinforce- bosses, igi. ment ; but were seized with panic, as soon as they discovered the truth, and turned to flight. Though the various hindrances which had been placed across the pass prevented a rapid or general pursuit, many were killed by the cavalry and Cato's contingent, who pursued as far as Scarpheia. The king did not halt until he reached Elateia, where he collected the remains of his army, and made the best of his way back to Chalcis. Only 500 are said to have remained of the 10,000 which he had brought with him: the rest had perished in the battle, or had been cut off by the cavalry as they wandered helplessly through the country, or had been made prisoners. There was, of course, an end of any farther resistance in Greece. Boeotia The Boeotian cities, conscious of their defection and of their help- submits. lessness, sent out deputations from all directions with suppliant wreaths and every sign of humiliation. Acilius treated them with contemptuous lenity, — only at one spot, the temple of Itonian Pallas in the territory of Coroneia, — was he irritated by the sight of a statue of Antiochus into giving permission to his men to pillage, but even that permission was soon withdrawn, and the Boeotians were made to suffer nothing more than a severe rebuke. Immediately after the battle of Thermopylae, Atilius, in com- The mand of a Roman squadron in the Peiraeus had intercepted a large provision fleet of provision ships from Asia off the island of Andros, sinking -^^^^.'2' 1 • , 1 •, 1 1 • 1- 1- J • J Antiochus some and capturmg others ; while ten war vessels which had arrived intercepted. at Thronium, on hearing of the disaster, at once departed, some going to Asia and some to Demetrias, in case the king should be there. But Antiochus had not ventured to remain in Greece. Taking his Antiochus young wife with him he embarked at once, and arrived safely at goes to Ephesus, having eluded the Roman squadron. Ephestcs. The consul was at once admitted into Chalcis, the royal com- Acilius mander having escaped before his arrival, and the whole of Euboea occupies quietly submitted. Acilius, having thus secured Euboea, returned ^ ^"• to his position at Thermopylae. L. Scipio and Cato were sent to announce his success at Rome, where a three days' siipplicatio was decreed, made the more joyful by the ovatio of Fulvius Nobilior on The his return from Spain. Meanwhile Acilius had to deal with the Aetohans. Aetolians. Their army was still at Heracleia immediately north of the pass of Thermopylae. He sent them a message, pointing out that Greece was pacified, and they isolated, and urging them to Fall of submit and obtain pardon for their infatuated conduct. Receiving Heracleia. no indication of submission in response to this appeal, he laid siege to Heracleia. The Aetolians, though in such inadequate numbers. 47« HISTORY OF ROME The Aetolians seek peace, igi. Feelings of king Philip. He xuishes the Aetolians to join him. made a desperate and even heroic defence ; and it was not till worn out with fatigue and constant sleeplessness — Ever the labour of fifty that had to be done by five — at the end of nearly a month, that they at last surrendered the citadel, when the town was already in Roman hands. Among the prisoners was Damocritus, who had haughtily answered Flamininus, when he demanded the text of the decree passed by the Aetolian assembly to invite Antiochus, that "he would give it him in Italy, when the Aetolians had encamped there." The fall of Heracleia seems to have convinced the Aetolian League that they were in grave danger, and envoys were sent to Acilius to ask for a truce and to make a treaty of peace. They were indeed in a peculiar position. Philip of Macedon had not been present at Thennopylae, but had met the consul soon afterwards, excused his absence on the score of illness, and, while he was engaged at Heracleia, had undertaken for him the siege of Lamia. But that he was not whole-hearted in promoting the Roman cause might naturally have been expected, and was in fact shown by a curious incident. The Aetolians had not wholly despaired of their cause after Thermopylae, encouraged by the obstinate defence of Heracleia : and had in fact despatched envoys to Antiochus at Ephesus, urging him to renew the attempt on Greece, and at any rate to send them money to support the war. The king was lavish in promises of a second expedition, and gave the money asked, but retained Thoas, one of the ambassadors, under some honourable pretext, sending Nicander home with his gracious message. Nicander found the Romans in possession of Heracleia, but Lamia freed from its siege. This had come about by the jealousy of the Romans, who had not wished Philip to have the prestige of its capture, or the credit of sparing it when taken ; and the consul had accordingly bidden him desist from the siege. Philip had obeyed and transferred his camp to some distance from Lamia, but no doubt with some bitter feelings as to his subjection to Rome. At any rate when Nicander, leaving the money at Lamia, tried to make his way home between the camps, he fell into the hands of the Macedonian pickets, and was taken to the king. He expected to be treated as a prisoner ; but to his surprise was honour- ably entertained, and had an interview with Philip in which that monarch pointed out to him the mischief which the Aetolians had done by bringing first the Romans, and then Antiochus, into Greece ; and urged that " they should forget the past, adhere loyally to himself, and not look out to take advantage of each other's difficulties." He bade him take this message to the Aetolian XXX THE SUBJECTION OF THE AETOLIANS 479 government, and sent him off under safe escort. This was no obscure hint that Philip had still hopes of a revival of Macedonian influence, at the expense of Roman supremacy, and it no doubt helped to encourage the obstinacy of the Aetolians, For all negotiations failed. When the fall of Heracleia in- The duced Phaeneas, the Aetolian strategus, to send envoys to Acilius, Aetolians the consul treated them with haughtiness, and refused to listen to '''^^^^ ^"^ , . , , 1 , , M , 1 Roman their arguments, but granted a ten days' truce while he was engaged /^,;-„,j in distributing the spoil of Heracleia, sending L. Valerius Flaccus to igi. them at Hypata with his ultimatum, who refused to enter into argu- ment, and demanded unconditional submission. This after some hesitation they agreed to make to Acilius in person. On accepting their submission Acilius told Phaeneas and his colleagues what the Romans required of them : they must undertake not to go to Asia either as an army or individually ; must surrender the Epirote Menestratus, in command of their troops at Naupactus, and king Amynander of Athamania. Upon their demurring to this abandonment of their allies, Acilius roughly informed them that they were dediticii and must do what they were told. They were no longer ambassadors, but subjects, and he could even put them in chains. He went so far as actually to cause them to be fettered. Though he immediately countermanded this, Phaeneas was so com- pletely cowed that he assented to all demands, only asking time to obtain the ratification of the Aetolian assembly. But the Aetolian assembly at Hypata indignantly rejected the peace, furious at the treatment of their strategus, and encouraged by Nicanders report of the promises of Antiochus, and of the words of king Philip. Acilius therefore was obliged to continue the war. The Aetolian The war forces were concentrated at Naupactus, and to that place he now i^'ith the directed his attack. For two months in the autumn of 191 the siege --^^iohans of Naupactus went on. It seemed on the point of falling, and with 7\7aupactus, its fall Aetolia as a nation would, it was believed, cease to exist. In jgi their despair the League government turned to Flamininus, who had {autumji). been engaged all this summer in composing the disturbances in Pelo- ponnesus caused by the refusal of Elis and Messenia to be enrolled in the Achaean League, and had just arrived at the Roman camp at Naupactus. Though they had in former times rejected his counsel and insulted his person, they knew that his policy in Greece had ever been to preserve nationalities, and that he had already saved Chalcis from punishment at the hands of Acilius ; and as a last chance they begged his interposition in their behalf. Flamininus did not give them any hopes at first : but he actually obtained for them what they wanted. His view, which he con- trived to impress upon the consul, was founded on the desire to 48o HISTORY OF ROME On the inter- position of Flamin- inus, Acilius abandons the siege of Naupactus. Results of the campaign ofigi. Antiochus not safe in Asia. preserve north-western Greece as a counterpoise to Philip of Macedon, who had been recovering considerable power, nominally indeed by the permission of the consul and in the service of Rome, but, as was known perhaps to Flamininus, with secret hopes of a more independent position in the future. He pointed out to AciHus that he would not do well to spend his whole year of office (now drawing to a close) in the capture of two cities, while he left Philip the credit and material advantage of his conquests of Demetrias, and in Dolopia, Aperantia, and Perrhaebia, which would in effect become again provinces of the Macedonian kingdom. Acilius, who does not seem to have been a strong man, and perhaps was a corrupt one, listened to these representations. He had obtained ample wealth to adorn a triumph, and he was willing to leave the rest to Flamininus, even at the cost of desisting from what was almost a successful siege. Flamininus therefore suggested to the besieged Aetolians that they should ask for a truce to enable them to send ambassadors to Rome. This was granted, and an embassy from the Epirotes, who had assisted Antiochus with money though not with men, was also referred to Rome. Finally Philip of Mace- don — who had been engaged during the siege of Naupactus in taking over Demetrias and recovering the districts lately occupied by the Aetolians — still took care to openly identify himself with the Roman success : he sent ambassadors to congratulate the Senate, and begged leave to offer sacrifice to Jupiter on the Capitol and present an oblation of gold. Whatever bitterness there was in his heart, and whatever suspicions were entertained at Rome, were carefully concealed. The Senate gave a gracious answer, remitted the remainder of his war indemnity, and sent back his son Demetrius, who was residing as a hostage at Rome. This was the end of the first year's war with Antiochus, in which it was settled definitely that in European Greece at any rate he was to have no concern. But he was slow to appreciate his position. His promises of a return in the next year with greater forces, his immediate calling out of troops from his distant satrapies for the next campaign, showed that the voices of flatterers could still close his ears to the truth. The Romans might be fought again in Greece : but what if they attacked him in Asia ? His courtiers told him that that was impossible. Only Hannibal was more clear- sighted or more honest than the rest, and ventured to say " he was rather surprised at their not being there already than doubtful of their coming : the king must prepare to fight for Asia itself." Roused by these faithful words to a sense of danger, the king proceeded to strengthen his posts in the Chersonese, that they might be capable of blocking the Roman march. But that was XXX THE SCIFIOS COME TO GREECE 481 only one narrow gate. The sea was open, and the Roman fleet was The on the move. It was now under the command of C, Livius SaHnator. Ro7uan He had been acting with vigour from the first ; had punished •^^^^' ^9^- Cephallenia and Zakynthus for their participation in the cause of the Aetohans ; and then, taking over the old fleet from Atilius at the Peiraeus, crossed to Delos, and thence to the coast of Asia Minor. The king hurried back to Ephesus, and allowed his admiral Polyxenidas to engage the enemy, while he was himself busied in collecting land forces. Polyxenidas was anxious to attack the Roman fleet at once, before they could be joined by the ships of Eumenes and Rhodes ; and in the engagement off Phocaea Eumenes arrived almost in the moment of the Roman victory, and the Rhodians only joined the next day, as the Romans were pursuing the royal fleet Defeat of towards Ephesus. But it was too late in the season for farther th^ king's operations. The Roman ships were hauled up at Canae, opposite the ^pf^^^ I south coast of Lesbos, and protected by a ditch and stockade. The J retaliation was begun : for the first time a Roman force was wintering in Asia. It is true that the Roman difficulties in Greece, which might The ^interfere with an attack on Asia, were not yet at an end. The Aetolian jAetolian embassy had failed, and the Aetolians were still at war with ^^'^'^^^y ^/ J Rome. Before their audience with the Senate the news of the victory off Phocaea had reached Rome, and the senators were not disposed I to make any concessions. They were required to submit to the will of the Roman people, to pay 1000 talents, and to make a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance ; and upon the legates desiring to |know on what points they were to submit to the will of Rome, they were refused an answer, and ordered to quit Rome the same day, |and Italy within fifteen. But this afforded Antiochus no foothold in Greece. The Aetolians found their southern seaboard ravaged by jthe Achaeans, and could do nothing but occupy Corax, the heights ,|Over Naupactus, in the expectation that this town would be the first jpoint of the Roman attack in the spring. Acilius, however, who igo. jbegan the campaign of 190 before the arrival of his successor, Acilius ^preferred to secure the towns on the road to Naupactus before ^^^^\ [jattacking Naupactus itself. He besieged and took Lamia, which ig^i^^g^ ihad all but fallen to Philip in the previous year ; and then proceeded Amphissa. to invest Amphissa, which promised to make a stout resistance. His successor, L. Cornelius Scipio, to whom the province of Arrival of Greece had been assigned without lot, on the promise of his brother the^cipios, Africanus to accompany him as a legatus, arrived towards the end of ^^"^ ^^^" July with a consular army at Apollonia, and marched across Epirus nd Thessaly to the head of the Malian gulf. The Aetolians were o be attacked at every point, and Hypata, their chief town in that 2 I 482 HISTORY OF ROME Truce for six months with Aetolians, igo. Loyalty of Philip. The pre- parations of Antiochus in the 7vinter of igi-igo. district, was summoned to surrender, but refused to do so without orders from the League government. The consul would not stay to besiege it, but sending on Africanus towards Amphissa with a contingent, followed more slowly with his main army. Africanus was met by a deputation from Athens pleading for mercy to the Aetolians. He gave them hopes of liberal treatment ; but when the consul arrived he reiterated the terms of the Senate, — unconditional submission to the will of the Roman people, and payment of 1000 talents. The first might be admitted, at any rate in words : for the latter they had not the means. After consultation a fresh embassy was sent from Hypata asking that the sum demanded should be lessened, and that the submission should exclude the personal slavery of any Aetolian. That was rejected. But the Athenians at length obtained for them an armistice for six months to allow of fresh embassies to Rome. Thereupon the siege of Amphissa was broken up, Acilius departed} for Italy, and the consul proceeded to make arrangements for his- march towards the Hellespont, with all anxiety as to movements in Greece at an end. In fact the six months' armistice, though granted with difficulty, and as an extreme favour to the Aetolians, exactly suited his plans. It left him free to act without thought of immediate danger in Greece, and it committed him to nothing. The terms to be imposed on the Aetolians might be aggravated or alleviated hereafter, according to circumstances. Before starting on his northward march the consul ascertained, by sending Gracchus to Bella, that Bhilip was prepared to give the Roman army every facility and liberal supplies on their way through his dominions ; and that the roads and bridges were in a state to admit the passage of an army. In fact the king met them personally, saw that everything was in readiness for them, and accompanied them to the Hellespont. Like others he was charmed by the character and manners of Africanus, on whom also his own facile temper and good breeding made a favourable impression. The campaign of 190, however, was destined to be fought principally at sea. The wdnter of 191- 190 had been spent by Antiochus in active preparations. The defeat of his ships in the autumn by the Romans, unsupported by the Rhodians, convinced him that he must materially strengthen his fleet. While, therefore, he remained himself in Bhrygia to superintend the mustering of his land forces, he sent Hannibal to Bhoenicia to secure fresh vessels and men from these famous seamen, leaving the defeated Bolyxenidas to repair the old ships and build others. He looked out every- where for allies, — oifering Eumenes his daughter and large con- cessions of territory, and sending even to the Galatians, who retained some of the warlike qualities of their original stock. Meanwhile his XXX NAVAL WAR IN THP: AEGEAN 483 son Seleucus was in charge of the cities on the sea-coast of Asia, Division of whose loyalty to him was in danger from the machinations of feeling in Eumenes and Rome. He found the feelings of the country ifi^f'^ favourable to him. The wintering of the Roman fleet at Canae had given the towns a taste of what a Roman occupation would mean. Complaints were beginning to be heard, as at Phocaea, where the citizens had had Roman soldiers billeted upon them, and had been required to supply them with clothes. There was there- fore a division of feeling in that and other towns, the upper classes being generally for the Roman, the lower for the Syrian alliance. All that the magistrates of Phocaea could do was to give notice to Seleucus that they meant to be neutral. But he was aware of the popular feeling, and promptly advanced to occupy the town. Meanwhile, the first care of the Roman admiral Livius was to secure Movements the passage of the Hellespont. Early in the spring, accompanied of the by some Rhodian ships, he sailed to Sestos. The people of that J^omanfleet town were greatly alarmed, and sent out the priests of Cybele or ^^ ^^^' Galli, in solemn procession and clothed in their religious vestments, sun-enders, to beg for mercy. No harm, however, was intended them, and Abydos they at once submitted to Roman orders. But Abydos was not ^^^'^f^- so peacefully inclined ; and Livius accordingly blockaded it, and was on the point of receiving its submission, when he was called south Poly- by the news of a severe defeat inflicted on the main Rhodian fleet in xenidas the bay of Ephesus by the king's admiral Polyxenidas, himself an defeats the exiled Rhodian. The point of danger was changed by this disaster. ^/^^ '^'' The king's fleet would command not only the southern coasts of Asia Minor, but the Cyclades and the passage into Greece. Livius The therefore hastily returned to Canae, got the rest of his ships afloat, Roman and proceeded southward. He found Seleucus already in possession fleet goes of Phocaea, Cyme, and other towns ; and therefore, waiting only to ^"^^ be caught up by the ships of Eumenes, he steered straight for Samos. He met with rough weather off the headland of Corycus ; but the wind was north and e\entually brought him safe into harbour at Samos, while it prevented Polyxenidas from intercepting him, as he was trying to do. Here, after demonstrations at the mouth of the harbour of Ephesus, and some not very successful descents upon the Ephesian territory, the command of the Roman L. fleet was taken over by L. Aemilius Regillus, who had just arrived Aemilius to succeed Livius. A, council of war was held to decide on the ^^'^^^''^ course of action. The object was to destroy the king's fleet, or so ^j^^ to occupy it as to prevent it from rendering any assistance either in command. the Hellespont, or among the Islands, or by keeping the allied fleet employed. Livius suggested blocking up the harbour of Ephesus by sinking vessels at its entrance. But Eumenes objected that they 484 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. igo. Livius takes over some important towns, but fails at Patara. The allied Jleet ret urns 7iorth. The successes of Seleucus in Aeolis. Antiochus wishes to treat with Aemilius. would Still be obliged to keep watch ; for directly they departed, the Ephesians would haul up the sunken vessels. It was finally decided, on the advice of the Rhodian Epicrates, who had joined with ten vessels to supply the place of those lost in the recent disaster, to secure the coast of Lycia. This district had once belonged to the king of Egypt, at another time to the Seleucidae, and though it was now nominally free, Antiochus had garrisons in several of its towns. The people disliked being connected with Rhodes, and would be inclined to side with Antiochus ; and it was therefore important to reduce it to obedience. L. Aemilius remained with the main fleet at Samos, but he sent Livius with a small squadron of Roman and Rhodian ships to visit Rhodes, and to act in regard to Lycia in accordance with the wish of the Rhodian government. As he sailed down the coast, some of the chief states gave in their adhesion — Miletus, Myndus, HaH- carnassus, Cnidus, and Cos ; but he failed to take Patara, and after dismissing his Rhodian aUies sailed home. AemiHus, on hearing of this failure, started with the main fleet for Patara. But a strong feeling was entertained by his officers that they were neglecting their proper sphere of duty, and merely serving the interests of Rhodes ; and yielding to this he returned to Samos. Nor had he been there long before important events called the combined fleet farther north still to Elaea, the harbour town of Pergamus. For while the allied fleet was thus employed in the southern Aegean, Seleucus had been carrying all before him in Aeolis. Partly by liberality and partly by severity he had secured the loyalty of the cities of that district, and was now actually invading the territories of Eumenes, He was already devastating the country round Elaea, and was approaching Pergamus. There he was joined by his father Antiochus with a large army, which was opposed without much success by sallies from the town led by Attains the brother of king Eumenes. These events naturally caused Eumenes to hurry to Elaea. He was presently followed thither by the combined Roman and Rhodian fleet ; for Aemilius had also received a despatch from L. Scipio announcing the submission of the Aetolians and his approach to the Hellespont. The arrival of this formidable fleet at Elaea, combined with the news of the Aetolian failure and the approach of the Scipios, induced Antiochus to send a herald offering to treat with Aemilius, encamping meanwhile in great strength close under the walls of Elaea. The Rhodian admirals were inclined to accept the proposal, but Eumenes urged upon the praetor that he could not with propriety give terms to the king when the consul was so near ; or treat on a good footing when the king was in such force and and the Phoenician ships. XXX LAST ATTEMPT OF ANTIOCHUS AT SEA 485 practically beleaguering Pergamus. These arguments were irre- 790. sistible, and Aemilius briefly answered the king that no negotiation was possible before the arrival of the consul. Then followed a kind of pause, as if every one were waiting for Waiting what the coming of the consul would bring. Antiochus, before for Scipio. returning to Ephesus, remained in Mysia with his army for a time, seeking to overawe the country, and sending messages to induce Prusias of Bithynia to join him, who, however, had already received a despatch from Scipio, and had determined that it was safest to stand by the Romans. Seleucus was driven from before Perga- mus by some Achaean allies, whose help Eumenes had secured earlier in the year, and retired to Phocaea. Eumenes remained in Pergamus : the Roman and Rhodian fleets were back at Samos to prevent Polyxenidas from moving out of Ephesus. The first event to break this temporary calm was the defeat by Defeat of the Rhodians of the Phoenician fleet for which Hannibal had been Haimibal , sent to Tyre. The Rhodians had been lying in wait at the mouth ' of the Eurymedon ; and had at last sighted the Phoenicians and I forced them to fight. In numbers they were not unequally matched ; i but the superior seamanship of the Rhodians had given them the I victory. Yet the loss they inflicted on the Phoenician ships does not seem to have been great. They only secured one prize, and ' Hannibal himself escaped into the harbour of Ephesus. I In spite of this reverse Antiochus resolved that his fleet should Antiochus I make one more attempt to conquer the enemy. He could not resolves ' prevent the march of the Scipios ; but he hoped that he might ^^"\ , embarrass them seriously, if they arrived on the Hellespont to find ^navaT their fleet shattered and the strait perhaps in possession of his ships, battle. , The Roman ships also were for the time almost alone at Samos. Many of the Rhodians were refitting at Patara, and Eumenes .had gone to the Hellespont to assist the transport of Scipio's army. jThe king reviewed his fleet in the harbour of Ephesus, and I conceived a plan for extricating it from the blockade. He marched jwith his army to Notium, the harbour town of the ruined Colophon, la few miles north of Ephesus, and laid siege to it, ordering his fleet to proceed to the same place. What he had anticipated took place. jThe Colophonii, as the people of Notium called themselves, sent I urgent messages for help to the Roman fleet, which Aemilius, tired of ja long inactivity, was glad to give. But first it was necessary to sail to Chios for provisions, that Roman island having been selected as a magazine of stores from Italy. On ^hips e?iter 'his way Aemilius learnt that the king had a large quantity of stores ^^'^^^■^ ^ collected at Teos on the Lydian coast. He determined to capture them ; and after a false alarm caused by the sight of a squadron of 486 HISTORY OF ROME jgo. and are nearly trapped. Battle in the Bay of Teos. pirate vessels in the bay he entered the harbour of Teos. It con- sisted of two basins, an outer one in front of the town, and an inner one called Garaesticum, This last had an entrance so narrow that two ships found it difficult to enter abreast without breaking their oars. The Romans rowed into the inner harbour and disembarked the soldiers in search of plunder. The Teian magistrates came as suppliants to Aemilius, but were told that they had acted as enemies in supplying Antiochus, and that the raid would be continued until they supplied an equal amount to the Romans. Polyxenidas, the king's admiral, got information of the position of the Roman ships, perhaps from the pirates ; and thinking that he had them in a trap, moved to the small island called Macris, near the southern promontory of the bay, and dropped anchor just out of sight, intending under cover of the next night to block up the passage into the inner harbour, for which twenty ships would be sufficient, and line the shores and quays with soldiers. Happily for the Romans the Rhodian Eudamus had warned them of their dangerous position, and Aemihus had removed the ships to the outer harbour. But once there, both soldiers and sailors again disem- barked, some to bring wine and provisions from the town, and some to scour the country in search of what they could get. This had been going on for some days, when a rustic informed Aemilius that the enemy's fleet had been lying at anchor for two days at Macris and seemed to be on the point of making for Teos. Immediately the bugles sounded the recall, and the military tribunes hurried to the town to force the men on board, and to send out parties into the country to bring back the foragers. Town and fleet were in a sudden bustle of preparation ; and the excitement and hurry were so great that it was with difficulty that the men could find their proper ships. At length, however, Aemilius was able to get his ships out of the harbour and into line. Arrived at the open bay they sighted the enemy coming towards them in a double line of much greater length than their own. The Rhodian ships, however, corrected this by their superior speed. They rowed into line on the Roman right and so faced the extended left of the enemy. The numbers were not very unequal. The king's fleet consisted of eighty-nine, the Roman and Rhodian of eighty vessels. But those of the Romans were of stronger build, and when the ships ran alongside of each other their fighting men proved infinitely superior to those of the enemy. The Rhodian vessels not only excelled in flexibility of movement, but they were also furnished with scoops or baskets of burning materials at the end of long poles fitted to their prows. By means of chains these could be dropped on an enemy's ship with fatal effect ; and made them so dread a charge, that, in avoiding it, they XXX THE ROMANS f ROSS THE HELLESPONT 487 #i frequently presented their broadside to the Rhodian prows, and so igo. were more easily staved in. A sea-fight in these circumstances becomes a series of single combats impossible to describe. Before long the ship of the king's admiral was seen to be hoisting her sails for flight, and, the wind setting fair for Ephesus, all the rest which could followed the example. Forty-two ships of the king's fleet were either sunk or so water-logged, burnt or battered, that they fell into the enemy's hands. Of the Roman fleet only two were destroyed, though many had received more or less serious damage. One only of the Rhodians was captured. The Romans and their Rhodian allies were now masters of the Antiochus, sea : there was no longer any hope of intercepting the Scipios : the driven Hellespont was in the hands of the ships of Eumenes, and Antiochus A^»^ could do nothing to prevent the Romans crossing. He was obliged andfyg^^ to concentrate all his forces with the hope of defeating them in Europe. Asia. Accordingly he withdrew his garrison from Lysimacheia, in the Thracian Chersonese, desisted from the attack on Colophon (Notium), retired to Sardis, and then collected all his troops, sending to Ariarathes of Cappadocia and elsewhere for reinforcements. In fact he was thoroughly disheartened, and could form no plan of operations. The withdrawal of his garrison from Lysimacheia was a mistake, which only despair would have suggested. He could not indeed hope to assist so distant a possession ; but it might have detained the Romans through the winter, and time was urgently needed for the collection of his army. Meanwhile Aemilius, after a demonstration in front of the harbour Capture of of Ephesus, which set the seal on the abandonment of the sea by the Phocaea. royal fleet, put in at Chios to refit ; and sending the Rhodians to assist the crossing of the army at the Hellespont, directed his course to Phocaea, still in the hands of the king's soldiers. The town held out obstinately for some time ; but, finding all hope of relief from Antiochus at an end, surrendered. The soldiers were so angry at the treachery of the people and the obstinacy of their resistance, that Aemilius was unable to prevent the pillaging of the town, and was only with difficulty able to save the inhabitants from massacre. When order was at length restored, he took measures for the repair of the town and the re-establishment of the people, while he selected its harbour as the winter quarters of the fleet. While the fleet was thus everywhere successful, destroying the The cotisul last hopes of Antiochus by sea, the consul L. Scipio and his brother crosses the Africanus arrived with the army at the Hellespont, where they found ^l^^^^f^^f' everything prepared for their passage by the care of Eumenes. The last part of their march had been easy beyond their hopes. They had expected to have to capture Lysimacheia, but found it abandoned HISTORY OF ROME igo. Antiochus attempts to negotiate. Scipid s advice to the king. by the royal garrison, and full of supplies, so that they were able to await those stragglers who had fallen out during their march, as well as their convoys of provisions. They had expected that the passage of the Hellespont would have been resisted, but it was as peaceably accomplished as though they were crossing the Tiber. But on the Asiatic side they had to wait some days for Africanus, who, being a member of the College of Salii, was unable to travel at that particular time, which happened to be that on which the sacred Ancilia at Rome were carried in solemn procession. ^ The king took advantage of this delay to attempt negotiation. He sent a Byzantine Greek named Heracleides to the Roman camp, charged not only with an open message to the consul, but also with a secret communication to Africanus. To the consul he declared that the king was ready to abandon Lampsacus, Smyrna, Alexandria Troas, and the towns of Aeolis and Ionia, which had declared for Rome, and to pay half the expenses of the war. The answer of the consul to the eloquent commonplaces of Heracleides was short and stern : " Antiochus must pay the whole expenses of the war, and must abandon the whole of Asia on this side Mount Taurus." Nor had the private message to Africanus brought more satis- factory results. Earlier in the year a son of Africanus had fallen into the king's hands, and had been liberally and kindly treated by him. 2 He now offered to restore the young man free of ransom, and to pay Africanus himself almost any sum he chose if he would secure the acceptance of the terms. Scipio accepted the restoration of his son, while declining the offer of money; and- sent back in return a courteous message, which yet plainly pointed out to him his miscon- ception of his position. " The king had no longer anything to offer the Romans. By the abandonment of Lysimacheia he had given up the chance of hindering their advance : by the loss of Phocaea he had 1 This appears to date the crossing as taking place on 19th October. Polybius (xxi 13) says that Scipio was unable to travel for thirty days after that. The best known festival of Mars was in March. Of the October festival little seems to be known (see Marquardt, xii. 170). The crossing must have taken place at least as late as this, for Scipio did not leave Brundisium until after the ludi Apolhnares (July 6-12), Livy xxxvii. 4. •,- u 2 Appian {Svr. xxix. ) supposed this to have been Scipio Aemilianus, the younger Africanus, who, however, was not son to Africanus, but adopted son ot his eldest son, and moreover was not born till five years after this. The person meant is probably Africanus's younger and less worthy son, Lucius or Gnaeus (Livy xli. 27). The particular circumstances of his capture Livy had not been able to ascertain. It was probably during the manoeuvres of the fleet on the coast of Lycia early in the year : for we find that a legatus of the consul L. Apustius was there, and that after his ill success at Patara Livius did not go straight home but went to visit the Scipios first in Thessaly, perhaps to communicate the loss of his son to Africanus (Livy xxxvii. 16). XXX THE ARMIES OF ROME AND THE KING 489 practically been deprived of the command of Aeolis. He had taken 790. the bridle, and must now submit to be mounted. In return for the king's kindness to his son, Scipio could only urge him not to fight a battle, but to make peace at all costs." The result of the embassy determined Antiochus to risk an Antiochus engagement ; for defeat could scarcely impose harder terms on him resolves to than were already demanded. It was late in the year, and the fS^*- ships were all being laid up for the winter, but it was still possible in ^^^^^^,„ that climate to continue military operations for a time. The Roman occupy the army moved from town to town in the Troad, finding no opposition Troad. anywhere, and at Ilium being welcomed as friends and kinsfolk. From Ilium six days' march brought them to the mouth of the Caicus, where they were met by Eumenes. Antiochus, with 70,000 infantry and 1 2,000 cavalry, was encamped Antiochus near Thyatira, on the road between Pergamus and Sardis. Africanus shifts his was lying ill at Elaea, and, when sending thanks to the king for the quarters restoration of his son, had urged him not to fight until he himself was ^!y"^ , . 11 1 • • 1 T , , , . , . , . , Thyatira well enough to rejom the army. It may have been this advice which ^^ ^^^ influenced the king to shift his quarters to the vicinity of Magnesia district of ad Sipylum ; but it was also no doubt from a desire to reach the Mag?iesia plains of the Hermus, where his phalanx and his numerous cavalry would both be of greater service. There he entrenched himself strongly, and awaited the approach of his enemy. j The consul followed him, having found the camp at Thyatira The two [ deserted, and encamped about four miles from the king, with a tribu- armies in I tary of the Hermus between them. There the two armies remained position. I for three days without farther movement beyond a skirmishing attack I of the king's Galatian mounted archers upon the Roman outposts, ' which was repulsed with some loss as the)' were recrossing the I river. On the fourth day the Romans themselves crossed the river, land repulsed another cavalry attack whilst engaged in making their jnew camp. For four days the two armies were drawn out in front 'of their camps in fighting order, without either advancing to offer j battle. On the fifth the Romans advanced into the middle of the I plain between the camps. Still Antiochus did not move. The consul I determined to force a battle by attacking his camp ; and accordingly removed his own quarters nearer those of the king, and again drew up in battle order. At last, fearing that delay would discourage and perhaps disperse his army, the king resolved to fight. The Roman army consisted of two legions of citizens with corre- The forces sponding numbers of socii, together about 21,600 men, and were on either supported by about 6800 auxiliaries, composed of Achaean, Perga- ^!^f' T- 11- 1 ^ -1 T>,r 1 • 1 TheRo?naji /mene, Iranian, and Cretan troops, with some Macedonian and Qy^^^,,. Thracian volunteers. The Roman soldiers and socii were drawn up ad Sipylum. 490 HISTORY OF ROME I()0. The kijig's order. The phalanx. Battle of Magnesia {December), in the usual triple line of hastati, principes, and triarii, their right being- supported by the cavalry and auxiliaries. Their left rested on the river, and only required the support of four squadrons of horse. On their rear sixteen elephants were kept in reserve, for they Avere not able to meet the fifty-four larger Indian elephants of the king, while the charge of the camp was committed to the Macedonian and Thracian volunteers. The Roman army had the advantage of homogeneousness. The bulk of it consisted of men armed alike, used to drill together, taught the same movements, and accustomed to the same tactics. The king's army — numbering 80,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry — was a miscellaneous collection of different and often widely separated nations : using different arms, different tactics, and different lan- guages. The flower and chief strength of it were the 16,000 men trained to form the Macedonian phalanx. These were drawn up in ten divisions, thirty-two deep, each division containing 1600 men, and having a front of fifty — a variation from the usual massing of the whole phalanx together, caused probably by want of space. Between each of the divisions were two elephants, their foreheads protected with armour, and carrying towers with armed men on their backs. On the right of the phalanx were 1500 Galatian light horsemen, 3000 heavy-armed horsemen {cataphi-actae)., and 1000 cavalry of the guard or agenia, consisting of picked men from Media. Then came a motley throng of various nations. The whole was sup- ported by sixteen elephants ; and the line farther extended by more mounted archers of the nomad Dahae, with Cretan and Mysian archers and slingers. On his left wing 1500 light Galatian horsemen were supported by 2000 Cappadocians sent by Ariarathes, 2700 auxiliaries of various nations, 3000 cataphractae, and 1000 ordinary cavalry from Syria and Phrygia. In front of these horsemen chariots also were stationed armed with scythes, and dromedaries carrying archers. Farther to the left came Tarentine horsemen, Gallic cavalry, Cretan mercenaries, Carian and Cilician infantry, and cetrati from Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Lycia, supported, as was the right wing, by archers, slingers, and sixteen elephants. Scipio Africanus was still at Elymaea ill. His place, as chief adviser to his brother, was taken by Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus ; and it was he who seems to have decided when to give the king battle, and to have taken the actual command on the field. The morning of the day was wet and thick with mist, which proved to be of greater detriment to the king's army than to the Romans. The latter were less numerous and more compact, and the fog did not make their movements wholly unintelligible to each other,; while it created great confusion in the more widely spread and worse dis- XXX SUBMISSION OF ANTIOCHUS 491 ciplined masses of the king's army. The damp also damaged the igo. bow-strings, shngs, and thongs of the spears, but had no effect on Effects of the Roman swords and pila. The scythed chariots were especially ^'^^ ^"•^''• difficult to work in the mist, for when the horses were frightened or wounded they dashed wildly about, and often did as much damage to friends as foes. When these had been got out of the way the ground was cleared for action ; but the confusion which had been caused in these preliminary difficulties not only threw the auxiliaries on the king's left wing into disorder, but also affected the steadiness of the phalanx, so that it failed to hold its ground before the charge of the Roman heavy armed troops. The men were so hampered by the crowding defeat in of their beaten auxiliaries that they could not properly use their of the huge sarissae, and before long the left and centre were driven in upon phalanx. their camp. On the right, however, where Antiochus was command- ing in person, it was the Romans who were forced back towards the camp. But M. Aemilius Lepidus, who was in charge of the camp, met the retreating troops, and induced them by exhortations, threats, and even blows to turn and face the enemy. Antiochus, therefore, suddenly found his pursuit checked ; and at the same time per- ceived that he was being charged on the rear by some cavalry led by Attalus, who, having noticed the disaster which was happening to the left wing, came to the rescue from the now victorious right. This settled the issue of the battle. The rout speedily became Defeat afid general, and, as was usually the case with such huge masses oi flight of orientals, all idea of resistance or rally seemed at once out of the Antwchtis. question. The slaughter both on the field, in the camp, and in the pursuit was very great, even if we cannot trust our authorities, who place it at 50,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry. The Romans had a large number wounded, but only 300 infantry killed and 24 cavalry. Antiochus escaped to Sardis, and thence to Apameia, whither his son Seleucus and his nephew Antipater had preceded him. The results of the victory were immediately manifested in the Results of deputations from the Asiatic cities which thronged the Roman camp ^he victory. and offered their submission. Thyatira and Magnesia ad Sipylum were the first ; and they were quickly followed by similar envoys from Ephesus (abandoned by Polyxenidas when he heard of the battle), Tralles, and Magnesia on the Maeander, Sardis opened her gates, and there the consul took up his quarters for the winter. Before many days a herald arrived asking that envoys from the Antiochus king should be received. Leave being given, Zeuxis, governor of submits to Lydia, and Antipater, the king's nephew, came with full powers to J'^^^/'"^" ■offer an unconditional submission, and to ask on what terms he would be admitted to the friendship of Rome. The answer was given by Africanus, who had now recovered from his illness and 492 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. igo. The terms. The Senate s decision, February i8g. i8g. Coss. M. Fulvius Nobilior, Cn. Man tins Vulso. had rejoined the camp. The former demand that Antiochus should abandon all Asia west of Mount Taurus was of course repeated, and to it was now added that he must pay 15,000 Euboic talents (^3,600,000), — 500 at once, 2500 on the ratification of the treaty, and the rest in twelve yearly instalments of 1000 talents; must surrender all elephants, and such ships of war as the Senate might demand ; give up prisoners and deserters and certain Greek officers serving with him, and above all Hannibal the Carthaginian ; and finally must repay Eumenes 400 talents, the balance of the sum lent him by Attains, and give twenty hostages at once. The envoys could only consent, and legates were despatched to Rome to obtain the ratification of the treaty, accompanied by envoys from various states interested, and by king Eumenes in person. No special difficulty embarrassed the senators in regard to Antiochus. They were content with the terms exacted by the Scipios, and the treaty was confirmed. The real difficulty was the settlement of the country thus evacuated by the king. The general principle on which they wished to act was that all Greek states should be free ; but they also had to satisfy the claims of their allies Eumenes and the Rhodians — claims which covered not only districts inhabited by Asiatics, but also those held by Greeks. It was impossible that they should have the local knowledge required for the settlement of these matters, and for answering the claims urged by the several deputations then in Rome. They therefore naturally followed the precedent in such cases by nominating ten commissioners to proceed to Asia and make the different awards on the spot. Still the speeches of Eumenes and of the Rhodian ambassadors, — the first submitting that unless the Romans meant to keep the parts of Asia which they had taken for themselves, he had the best right to expect them ; the Rhodians pleading for the liberation of all Greek cities, — suggested to them some general principles on which the settlement was to proceed. I. In Asia, west of Mount Taurus, what had been subject to king Antiochus was now to be subject to king Eumenes, except Lycia and Caria south of the Maeander, which were to belong to Rhodes. II. Of Greek cities, those which had paid tribute to Attalus were to continue to pay it to Eumenes ; those which had been subjected to tribute by Antiochus were to be relieved entirely ; those which had been free throughout from either king were to continue free. To Cn. Manlius Vulso, one of the consuls for 1 89, was en- trusted the task of carrying out this settlement in conjunction with the ten commissioners. But Manlius found that his first task must be to secure the peace of the country from barbaric and warlike tribes in the south, inhabiting the highlands of Pisidia, and the XXX THE GAULS IN ASIA 493 marauding Gauls in the centre. Thus Moagetes, tyrant of Cibyra The and a district round it, was forced to pay a fine of 100 talents and settlement 1 00 medimni of corn ; the people of Telmessus, on the complaint 'f, "^/.^ ^ of their neighbours the Sindians, were fined 50 talents ; while igg-iSS. Aspendus and other towns were taken, plundered, or fined. Having partially at any rate pacified this dangerous part of the country, he marched towards Galatia ; and at Pessinus was met by a procession of the priests of Cybele, in their sacred vestments, who promised him success, — which indicated the feelings, if not the foreknowledge, of those who had the misfortune to be neighbours to the Gauls. The Gauls had been in Asia since the beginning of the third Asiatic century. Like the Northmen of later times, they had made them- Gm^^-^- selves the terror of all peaceful and unwarlike folk, and forced cities and kings to pay them tribute. Even when they at length got a Normandy of their own, and settled in permanent homes in the district called afterwards Galatia, they still made open profession of universal robbery. The three tribes — the Tolistoboii, Trocmi, and Tectosages — mapped out the whole of Asia into districts in which they should respectively exercise their right of pillage ; the Trocmi taking the shores of the Hellespont, the Tolistoboii Aeolis and Ionia, the Tectosages the inland parts of Asia Minor. Such people were naturally regarded as common enemies, to be beaten back by whoever aspired to be supreme in Asia. Thus Attains earned his kingdom by his victory over one great horde of them (about 241) ; and Prusias of Bithynia (about 220-218) won great glory by cutting to pieces another in the vicinity of Abydos ; and Antiochus I. (281-261) gained his title of Soter, or Saviour, from the grateful Greeks for a victory over them, and lost his life in a second great battle with them. Almost alone among the rulers Attalus had ventured to refuse them their blackmail ; and all alike employed them as mercenaries when " need arose. It was their service in that capacity in the army of Antiochus that now gave the consul the pretext for invading them. The real reason, however, was a better one. If Rome was to deprive Asia of such protection against the The ?7eed barbarians as the power of Antiochus, however imperfectly, had f^^' . supplied, she was bound to see that the Greeks and other peaceful ^1^^"^*^ folk were secured against such a scourge. Manlius had already done this in regard to the Pisidians, he was now to do the same in regard to the Gauls ; and it was his success, more than the victory over Antiochus, that reconciled the feelings of the Asiatic Greeks to the new supremacy. The burden of the royal exactions was within limits and could be borne, the plunderings of the Gauls were incalculable and intolerable. The work was done with fair completeness. The Tolistoboii were 494 HISTORY OF ROME Manlius defeated in the neighbourhood of Mount Olympus, whither they had subdues the conveyed their famihes and goods for protection ; and the Tecto- Astatic sages in the vicinity of Ancyra. The Trocmi had perhaps been weakened by some recent defeats, at any rate they do not appear as offering any resistance to ManHus. The Gallic envoys who after these battles visited the Roman camp, desiring peace, were ordered to follow the consul to Ephesus, where he meant to winter. When there, however, he refused to make a treaty until king Eumenes should be present — ^who had suffered most from them — and it was not concluded till the end of the next year (i88), just as the consul was about to cross the Hellespont on his way home. Here they were granted peace on condition of remaining strictly within their own territories, and avoiding all incursions upon the dominions of Eumenes, and of paying tribute to Rome.i Final Manlius, after wintering at Ephesus, went to Apameia to meet treaty with ^q. commissioners and Eumenes. He found that Antiochus had nioc us ]-,ggj^ honourably fulfilling his engagements, and had withdrawn his settlement garrisons from the towns. The commandant of Perga alone still of Asia, retained the post assigned to him, and with a sense of mihtary duty j88. and loyalty which deserves record, refused to give it up without the king's orders, which however he shortly afterwards received. The business remaining to be done, therefore, was to send the treaty as confirmed by the Senate to the king, to see to the destruction of the ships at Patara, and to publish the award of the commissioners as to the future condition of Asia. It carried out in its general principles the orders of the Senate. Autonomous cities which had stood by Rome were to remain autonomous ; those that had made terms with Antiochus or paid him tribute were now to pay the same to Eumenes. The Greek cities on the coast — Miletus, Colophon and Notium, Cyme, Mylae, Clazomenae with the island of Dry- mussa, Ilium with Rhoeteum and Gergithufti annexed, Chios, Smyrna, and Erythrae — were all to be free and autonomous. Rhodes was to have Lycia and Caria south of the Maeander except Telmessus. Ariarathes of Cappadocia was admitted to friendship with Rome on the payment of a fine of 200 talents, and Prusias of Bithynia was deprived of Mysia. The fiaw in these arrangements was the assignment of Lycia to Rhodes in full sovereignty, and not, as the Lycians at first understood it, as equal allies. This was contrary to the strong feeling of the Lycians themselves ; and the Romans twenty years later saw reason to revoke the gift. But it was Eumenes of Pergamus who was the greatest gainer. Not only had he been guaranteed the payment of the debt of ^ I Maccabees viii. 2. ijyayov avrovs viro (popov. CONCLUSION OF THE AETOLIAN WAR 495 Enmenes. Aetolians, Antiochus to him, and secured by treaty from both him and the The Gauls, but he now received an enormous extension of territory. In position of Europe Lysimacheia and the Thracian Chersonese were assigned to him ; and in Asia the whole of Phrygia and Mysia, Lycaonia, Milyas, Lydia,' and the cities of Tralles, Ephesus, and Telmessus. The case of Pamphylia was reserved for the decision of the Senate, as being partly on one side of Taurus and partly on the other. He was therefore to be the chief power in Asia, instead of the wealthy king of a single city and small territory ; and in this position he soon incurred the jealousy of Rome, whither henceforth all complaints from Asia found their way. Meanwhile the Aetolians had also been forced to submit. In The the summer of 190 Scipio had granted a six months' truce to enable them to negotiate with Rome. Though they did not violate this ^9'^'^^9- truce in the letter, yet circumstances led to actions on their part which caused the Roman government to resolve on continuing the war. It was brought about by Amynander, king of the Athamanes. This prince had been deeply involved in the intrigue which brought Antiochus into Greece, and in 191 helped with a body of his countrymen to hold Pellinnaeum in Thessaly for Antiochus. At the approach of Acilius the Athamanian garrison surrendered them- selves into the hands of king Philip, who, being anxious to regain Athamania, treated them with special consideration ; but Amyn- ander, fearing the anger of the Romans and Phihp alike, fled with his wife and children to Ambracia. The district of Athamania, thus deprived of its king, was administered by officers of Philip, who behaved with such harshness that the Athamanians were eager for the return of Amynander. It was during the six months' truce granted The by Scipio in 190 that the Aetolians undertook the cause of their guest, Aetolians and supplied him with troops with the assistance of which, joined ^^'^^^ Amy- 1 • ri •n/ri- -lAi- nander to to the exertions of the anti- Macedonian party m the Athamanian return to towns, he regained possession of his kingdom and expelled the Atka- Macedonian garrisons. Philip made some vain attempts to recover mania. the country ; and Amynander tried to propitiate the Romans by sending envoys to Rome and to the Scipios in Asia, excusing himself for having used the help of the Aetolians, and explaining that he had taken nothing but his ancestral dominions. But being thus in arms the Aetolians took the opportunity of re- They covering certain districts which had once been theirs, but of which they had been deprived by Philip, — Aperantia, Amphilochia, and Dolopia, constant subj^ects of dispute between them and Macedonia, lochia, and The government of the League was preferred by the people of these Dolopia, districts, and their troops were welcomed. But their action involved <^utu7mi of an innovation on the arrangement sanctioned by Rome at the end of ^^'^' recover Aperatitia , A fui 496 HISTORY OF ROME the Macedonian war (196), and the Aetolians could only hope that it would be passed over in case of some disaster in Asia inducing the Romans to wish to make peace with them. But towards the end of 190, in the midst of their triumph, the result of the battle of Magnesia became known, and the Aetolians learnt that the Romans, on the complaint of Philip, intended to prosecute the war against themselves at the expiration of the truce. i8g. The war had been assigned to the consul M, Fulvius Nobilior, M.Fulvius -vvho in the spring of 189 crossed to Apollonia. There some of the Nobihor leading men of Epirus met him and advised that the campaign Apollonia. should be begun by an attack upon Ambracia, the old capital of Pyrrhus, enriched by him with noble buildings and numerous works of art, and for some generations an important city of the Aetolian League. Fulvius accepted the advice, and the Aetolians in Ambracia Ambracia stood a siege memorable for the extraordinary fertility of IS besieged device shown on both sides, in mine and countermine, in sally and and a assault, and every art of attack and defence. Nevertheless its S2irrenders. ultimate fall seemed certain, and its impending fate caused much feeling in Greece. In answer to urgent messages sent by the Aetolians, when they first knew that they were to be attacked, envoys from Rhodes and Athens had arrived at the Roman camp ; and now Amynander obtained a safe conduct from the consul, that he might appeal to the citizens, among whom he had lived during his year's exile, to save themselves by a timely accommodation. Other towns in Acarnania joined in the chorus of appeal. Fulvius himself seemed unwilling to reduce the Aetolians to extremities, influenced in their favour by his half-brother, son of M. Valerius Laevinus, who had in 2 1 1 made the first treaty with them. Terms At length the Ambraciots submitted, though with the condition given to the ^^^^ the Aetolian garrison should be allowed to depart unharmed, and the Aetolian League agreed to the terms imposed by Fulvius. They were to pay 200 Euboic talents, restore deserters and captives, surrender every city annexed by them since the consulship of Lucius Flamininus (192), and not to attach any other to their League. Cephallenia was expressly excluded from the treaty, and was after- wards reduced separately by Fulvius, and made a libera civitas under the protection of Rome. Fulvius then took over Ambracia, and removed to Rome the collection of statues and pictures made by Pyrrhus, but otherwise did no harm to the town, and was rewarded by the terrified Ambraciots with a crown of gold, as a liberator and benefactor. The terms, which the Aetolians regarded as oppressive and had with difficulty been induced to accept, were not confirmed at Rome without demur. Philip's envoys complained of the interference in Athamania and the annexation of Dolopia, and earnestly pleaded XXX TREATMENT OF AMBRACIA 497 for the rejection of the treaty. The pleading of the Athenian and Rhodian deputies, however, prevailed, and the treaty was sworn to, with the additional proviso tha,t the Aetolians were strictly bound to follow Rome in war and peace. The interests of Philip were guarded by the clause requiring the Aetolians to abandon all concjuests since 192 ; and the Achelous was fixed as the frontier between Acarnania and Aetolia. The Acarnanians had always been on bad terms with the Aetolians, but had hitherto been accustomed to look for support to Macedonia ; henceforth their territory was under the guarantee of Rome. Though the Ambraciots had treated Fulvius with honour as Ambracia their liberator, their envoys at Rome told a different tale in 187. made a free Encouraged by the consul M. Aemilius they complained of the ^^'^^^' 7- hardships inflicted upon their citizens, the plunder of their town, the selling of wives and children into slavery, and the stripping of ornaments from their temples. Whether it was the influence of party spirit or a tardy awakening of conscience, the Senate were so far moved by these appeals as to pass a decree restoring full liberty to the Ambraciots, with the one condition that in its harbour Roman citizens should be exempt from tolls and dues. The question of the restoration of the pictures and statues was referred to the pontifices. They do not appear, however, to have been restored ; and thus another step was taken in the process of filling Rome with the pro- ducts of Greek genius, which had begun for the first time on a large scale with the sack of Syracuse a quarter of a century before. Authorities. — For the war with Antiochus we still have the most connected narrative in Livy, xxxv. -xxxviii. ; but the fragments of Polybius (xviii.-xxi. ), whom Livy chiefly follows, are also full and valuable. Appian [Syriacae, 6-21) gives us a fresh and instructive account of the campaigns ; and much is to be learnt in various ways from V\\x\.3xc\\% Lives of Flaniininus, Cato, Sind. Philopoeine?t. Trogus (Justin, xxxi. 3 sq.)\ Josephus [Antig. xii. 3, 3-4, for the conduct of Antiochus to the Jews); Zonaras, ix. 18-21; Orosius, iv. 20. Of Diodorus Siculus (xxix. ) there are a few fragments relating to the war. 2 K CHAPTER XXXI FROM THE END OF THE WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS TO THE END OF THE THIRD MACEDONIAN WAR, I90-166 Last days of Antiochus, Hannibal, and Scipio — The anti-Roman policy of Philip V. in the last years of his life — -Death of his son Demetrius — Death of Philip and succession of Perseus (179)— Character of Perseus — His activity and schemes for asserting the independence of Macedonia and regaining supremacy in Greece — The jealousy of Rome and the complaints against Perseus made by Eumenes — The Senate decide to go to war (172) — The first campaign in Thessaly and defeat of Licinius — Reduction of Boeotia (171) — The second campaign in Thessaly also abortive — Rising in Epirus(i7o) — Third campaign : Marcius Philippus enters Macedonia — Perseus intrigues with Genthius, Rhodes, and Eumenes, but is only helped materially by Cotys (169) — Fourth campaign — Aemilius Paulus defeats Perseus at Pydna, who is captured in Samothrace (168) — Division and settlement of Macedonia — Punishment of Epirus, Aetolia, and the Macedonian party in Greek states — Deportation of Achaean statesmen — Supremacy of Rome — Antiochus and Popilius at Pelusium. Change of In the period immediately succeeding the defeat of Antiochus the Personages. Great the stage was being cleared of its old actors. Antiochus lost his life in 187 ; Hannibal and Scipio both died in 183 ; and though Philip V. survived nearly four years more (179), they were years of domestic unhappiness and public failure and mortification. An evil destiny seemed to pursue all the men of chief note in the late wars. After the battle of Magnesia (190) Hannibal fled to Crete, knowing that his surrender would be demanded by the Romans. Eluding the cupidity of the Cretans, by concealing his gold in bronze figures of his gods, he presently returned to Asia ; and, after some obscure wanderings, found concealment for a time in the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, who was engaged in one of his frequent quarrels with Eumenes of Pergamus. His presence was betrayed by the new vigour manifested in the counsels of Prusias, whose fleet won an important victory over that of Eumenes. But the Romans were on the watch, and Flamininus, who happened to be near at hand on one Hannibal. CHAP. XXXI HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO 499 of the numerous commissions in Greece or Asia, at once demanded his surrender. The king was too weak to resist such an order, and Hannibal anticipated the fate a^vaiting him by putting an end to his own Hfe by means, it is said, of a poison which he carried on his person concealed in a ring. The place of his death was Libyssa, between Chalcedon and Nicaea, thus fulfilling an oracle which had declared that " Libyan " soil should cover his body.i Whatever may be thought of the Roman policy which drove The Hannibal from Carthage, it could not be expected that the govern- Romans ment should view his presence in Asia Minor with indifference. The Ha7inibal Romans were pledged to support Eumenes, and Hannibal had shown no intention of living a private life. On the contrary, he had all along professed that active enmity to Rome was the undying motive of his actions. The Romans were forced in common prudence to demand his surrender. It is fortunate for their credit that his suicide spared them the shame of doing with him what they almost certainly would have done. His character as a leader has been sufficiently displayed in the wonderful campaigns in Italy. As a statesman he is conspicuous for honesty and good sense. A rough humour marks some of the anecdotes preserved of him, and the vigorous directness of his language made him but a half- welcome guest at the court of Antiochus, who, despite of some brilliant qualities, had neither the clear sight nor boldness to perceive or carry out the only policy which had a chance of success. The Roman verdict, on the other hand, which stamped him as crudelis^ was not without some justification ; and though it is possible to feel admira- tion for the patriotic soldier and the champion of a ruined cause, it is difficult to sympathise strongly with an adventurer ready to give his services to any petty Asiatic prince, if only he might annoy the old enemies whom he could have no hope of defeating. The duties and activities of his conqueror Scipio had fallen on Scipio lines more favourable to his reputation. His sword was only drawn 4A'^^'^^-5'- in the service of his own land. In his first campaign he had saved his father's life ; in the darkest hour of his country's fortunes he had been true to her. In Spain, from which others shrank, he had avenged his father's death and restored the fortunes of Rome. If he had failed to keep Hasdrubal back from Italy, the failure had been amply atoned for at Zama ; and the conqueror of Hannibal had generally been credited with the defeat of Antiochus rather than the brother on whose staff he was serving. Still the last five years of his life were full of difficulty and mortification. There does not seem to have been any loss of popularity among ^ Ai^vccra. Kpv\peL /ScDXos ' kvvi^ov defias. 500 HISTORY OF ROME Activity of the party in opposition to Scipio. His disregard for legal forms. His impeach- tnent. the citizens at large ; but in the Senate he was a member of the minority, and the opposite party, which had all along been annoyed at his early exercise of those powers which they themselves had only attained at mature years and after a regular gradation of official life, had of late been particularly active in attacking the magistrates en- gaged in foreign commands. Thus a prosecution had been com- menced against M'Acilius in 190, on which Cato offered to give evidence, and was only withdrawn on Acilius ceasing to be a candi- date for the censorship. The "acts" of Fulvius Nobilior in Ambracia were rescinded on the proposal of the consul M. Aemilius, in 187. In the same year the triumph of Cn. Manlius was opposed by a majority of the commissioners sent to Asia, on the ground of his unauthorised pursuit of Antiochus over Mount Taurus, and his equally unauthorised invasion of Galatia. And now Scipio himself was attacked. The accusers, as to whose names there was doubt in Livy's time, acted as the mouthpiece of a party in the Senate led by Cato, whose opposition to Scipio had not relaxed since his service under him as quaestor in 205. Old scandals were raked up : the alleged neglect and extravagance in Sicily ; the mismanagement at Locri ; his salutation as king by the Spaniards ; the court paid to him by Antiochus in restoring his son : all pointing, as they alleged, to corruption or unconstitutional ambition. Scipio had indeed on his return from Africa shown his modera- tion in avoiding the honour of perpetual consul and dictator ; yet he sometimes displayed an imprudent contempt for legal forms. On one occasion, it was said, when the quaestors had some scruple as to opening the money chests in the treasury, he called for the keys and opened them on his own authority, remarking that no one had a better right to unlock them than the man to whom it was owing that there was anything to lock up. And when his brother Lucius was called upon for his accounts of money received in the campaign of 190-189, Publius took the books from his hands and tore them to pieces before the Senate, exclaiming that it was unworthy to demand an account of 4000 sestertia (about ^28,000) from a man who had paid 200,000 (about ^1,400,000) into the treasury. Lucius and his legates, however, were condemned, and, on refusing to make good the sum of money demanded, he was arrested by the praetor, the tribunes deciding to refuse their auxilium. Publius rescued him by force, and was then himself impeached before the centuriate assembly by two of the tribunes. He came into the comitium, escorted by a large number of friends and clients, and advanced to the foot of the Rostra, where it was the custom of accused persons to stand. When it came to his turn to speak, he mounted the platform and, without XXXI DIFFICULTIES IN GREECE AND ASIA 501 alluding to the charges against him, reminded his hearers that it was the day on which he had conquered Hannibal at Zama, and bade them follow him to the temple' of Jupiter on the Capitol to offer thanks to the gods and to pray for more citizens like himself. Then he left the Rostra and walked towards the Capitol, followed by the whole assembly, so that the tribunes and their officers were left alone. But his pride was deeply wounded : he retired to his estate at Liternum, where he passed the rest of his days, and where his ashes were buried at a spot marked by a statue that existed in Livy's time. His absence from Rome gave his enemies courage. His impeachment was renewed, and when his brother Lucius pleaded illness as an excuse for his not obeying the summons to attend, the tribunes would have forced him to come, had not one of them. Death of Tiberius Gracchus, a political opponent, though afterwards if not Africanus then his son-in-law, resisted the desire of his colleagues. He was \.' ^^' " . . . . ... , . . lAiernum, allowed to die m peace, leavmg it as an injunction to his heirs that the j§j^ ungrateful city should not have his ashes. Though the Romans had declared the European and Asiatic Greece and I Greeks free, and had committed the rule of Asia to native govern- Asiafro7n Iments, they were by no means quit of them. Constant appeals ^ '^ 0171. ■ reached Rome, answered by frequent missions of legates, and it was plain that before long an active intervention would be demanded I which would not again be withdrawn. In neither country, indeed, I had the settlement been one likely to last. In Asia Eumenes of I Pergamus was intended to be the chief power : but his quarrels with iPrusias on the one hand, and with Philip on the other, were con- istant sources of difficulty; while his relations with Greece roused 'suspicion against him at Rome, where there was a disposition to checkmate him by showing special honours to his brother Attains. I Another difficulty was Rhodes. The Lycians disliked the Rhodes. iRhodian government, to which they had been assigned, and were i ready with complaints ; and the naval supremacy which the Rhodians 'aimed at in the Aegean was not long in attracting the jealous I observation of the Romans. Aetolia since 189 had been a vassal of Rome ; but its turbulent Aetolia. 'people, shut off from their old habits of piracy, had turned upon each other, and the country was the scene of frequent sanguinary affrays land massacres. In Peloponnesus the forcible addition of Sparta to Pelopon- ' the Achaean League had been a fruitful source of quarrel : and both Sparta and Elis, unwillijig members of the League, were encouraged to lay their complaints before the Senate. Even in the more con- tented part of the League there was a sharp division between those who hated and those who wished well to Roman influence. A third party, prepared to respect the terms made with Rome and yet to resist nesus. 502 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The designs of Philip V. Philip's anger with Rome. He has to withdraw from Thessaly and Thrace, i8s. Prepara- iioti in Mace- donia. encroachment upon them, had been led by Philopoemen ; but since his death (183) the Romanising party had become more active, and assisted the wSenate in dividing and distracting the League. With Phihp of Macedonia questions soon arose threatening that renewal of war, which actually took place under his successor. He had been rewarded for his assistance in the war against Antiochus with cities in Thessaly and Athamania, as well as Magnesia, including the important town of Demetrias, — one of the three "fetters of Greece." Not contented with this he pushed his authority in the Thracian Chersonese, claiming to occupy Aenus and Maroneia, on the ground that he had taken them during the war, and that they had not been mentioned in the settlement of the Roman com- missioners. The Romans were jealous of any encroachment in the Chersonese, as commanding the shortest passage into Asia, and had assigned it to the friendly Eumenes. The Senate, therefore, when approached by emissaries from the Thessalian towns and from Eumenes, sent three commissioners in 185, headed by Caecilius Metellus. Their decisions in favour of the withdrawal of Macedonian garrisons from Thessaly, as well as from Aenus and Maroneia, were received with great anger by the king, who hinted that the present state of things was not destined to last for ever — " the last sun had not set." He conformed, however, for the present, but from this time forward nursed a settled purpose of one day renewing the war, and shaking off the intolerable yoke of Rome. He paid great attention to the training and efficiency of his army ; collected stores of arms and war material in the towns, and on various pretexts or by acts of violence removed from the coast towns those whom he believed to be disaffected to himself, filling up their places with Thracians and other barbarians, on whom he thought he could rely (182). But these transactions had not been allowed to pass unobserved. Immediately after the mission of Caecilius in 185 complaints had poured in against Philip from every side, and he had sent his younger son Demetrius to defend him before the Senate. Demetrius was known at Rome, where he had been for some years as a hostage ; and the Senate now sought to introduce division in Macedonia by treating the young prince with special honour, and Flamininus appears to have told him outright that it was intended that he should succeed to the Macedonian crown : while a fresh commission was sent to insist on the king obeying the orders of the Senate and evacuating the towns named by them. Philip was forced to obey, but the favour shown to Demetrius proved fatal to him. Perseus, the king's elder son, worked on his father's jealousy, continually representing Demetrius as engaged in treasonable correspondence with Rome, and at length induced him XXXI PERSEUS KING OF MACEDONIA 503 to consent to his son's death by producing, it is said, a letter of Flamininus to Demetrius, referring to a plan for destroying his father and brother and securing the crown for himself (181), Philip never held up his head again. He found power slipping Death of from his hands, and the courtiers crowding round the young heir : Philip, while before long he learnt that the letter, on the strength of which '79- he had consented to his son's death, was a forgery. Worn out with sorrow and the infirmities of premature age, haunted with the furies of a conscience stained by cruelty and intemperance, he sank into a dishonoured grave at Amphipolis within two years of the death of Demetrius. He had wished, it is said, to have named Antigonus, nephew of Antigonus Doson, as his heir. But death came on him suddenly ; his physician contrived to let Perseus know of it promptly, and the succession was secured, Antigonus put to death, and Perseus ambassadors sent to Rome to ask for the continuance of the friend- king, 779- ship and alliance made with his father. 168. For the first two years of the new reign this friendship was at least in appearance maintained. The only immediate difficulty was one created by the late king, who had instigated the Bastarnae, a wandering tribe from the Dniester, to invade the Dardani, hoping to divert the attention of the Romans from his own intrigues. But for the present the Dardani succeeded in driving back the invaders, and the Roman government contented itself with a warning. Other sources of uneasiness, however, presently arose. The new king was character possessed of many attractive qualities. Noble and royal in figure of Perseus. and appearance ; dignified in his manner ; sober, chaste, and temperate in the enjoyments of life, he set an example which the court was quick to follow. Public business seemed likely to be conducted with steadiness and ability, and it only required such a change in the Macedonian government to turn the eyes of the Greeks once more to it. Perseus from the first was believed to be intent His policy. upon recovering the influence once exercised in Greece by Macedonia. He began, as his father did, by strengthening his hold in Thrace. He expelled a prince named Abrupolis on the plea of some unfair dealings as to the mines of Pangaeum ; and when the Dolopians, who had a controversy with him, appealed to Rome, he invaded their country and forced them to submit to his authority. He made a progress in Greece to Delphi, under pretext of consulting the oracle, and though he only remained there three days, his presence made a great sensation. He was said also to have taken pains to conciliate towns on his road, and to have invited the renewal of friendly relations. He even offered terms to the Achaean League. An order of the League Assembly had closed its territory to Macedonians or to kings ; consequently Macedonian territory was also closed to Achaeans, 504 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. i74-n3- The policy of Perseus alarms the Romans. Emnencs in Rome, denounces Perseus, JT2. Attack on Eumenes. and served as a refuge for their runaway slaves. These Perseus offered to restore, if the Achaeans would renew their friendship. Though a majority of the League declined the offer, a considerable minority wished to accept it, and the jealousy of Rome was roused. It was a primary object of Roman policy to keep Macedonia and Greece at variance. Only so could the Roman interference in Greek quarrels, which was continually being invoked, be exercised with security ; and the policy of Perseus was offensive to Rome in proportion as it was acceptable in Greece. There was a general feeling that an outbreak was at hand ; and many states in Greece were inclined to rest their hopes on Perseus. Eumenes of Pergamus was unpopular : the benefactions by which he tried to gain favour in Achaia and else- where seemed vulgar and ostentatious ; while Macedonia was under- stood and had a long established prestige. Who could tell whether Perseus might not, in the end, prove a match for the great Republic, when it would be well for those states which had been loyal to him ? The Romans were aware of the state of things. Frequent com- missions were sent into Greece and Macedonia, which Perseus studiously ignored. In Thessaly there was a commercial crisis, giving rise to intestine quarrels which App. Claudius was sent to allay ; while the control of a similar disturbance in Aetolia was entrusted to Marcellus, with orders to proceed to Achaia and keep alive the hostility to Macedonia. A commission of five, headed by C. Valerius, was also sent to Macedonia to investigate what was going on there, and afterwards to cross to Egypt to renew the alliance with the king (173-172). It was while this commission was still at work that the resolution was come to at Rome, to go to war with Macedonia. Early in 172 king Eumenes in person laid before the Senate the proofs of the hostile intentions of Perseus. He pointed out the hold already obtained by him in Boeotia and AetoHa ; the increase in his military power by the inexhaustible recruiting ground obtained in Thrace, and the replenishment of his ranks during a long peace. Every step taken by him was attributed to deliberate hostility to Rome : his expulsion of the Thracian prince Abrupolis ; his intrigues in Boeotia, which had caused the death of the leaders of the Romanising party ; his invasion of the Dolopes ; his visit to Delphi ; his inter- ference in the financial affairs of Thessaly and Perrhaebia. The impression made on the Senate was increased by the defiant torie of the Macedonian emissary Harpalus, who answered Eumenes, and by the advocacy of the Rhodian ambassadors, — them- selves under grievous suspicion, — ^who retorted upon Eumenes that he was pursuing an exactly similar policy in Asia. It was farther deepened, when, after Eumenes had been dismissed with large WAR WITH PERSEUS INEVITABLE 505 presents and every mark of honour, it became known that his Hfe had been attempted at Delphi, which he visited on his way home, and that the would-be assassins, though they had not been arrested, were believed to have been in the pay of Perseus. And when Valerius and his fellow-commissioners returned to Rome with a report confirming the statements of Eumenes, and bringing with them a Delphian named Praxo, at whose house the assassins of Eumenes had lodged ; and farther, when a certain L. Rammius of Brundisium was produced, asserting that Perseus had instigated him to poison the Roman legates who usually lodged at his house on their way to Greece, it was decided that war should be begun in the next consular year. The praetor Cn. Sicinius was ordered to enrol an army to muster at Prepar- Brundisium. A request from Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, to be ationsfor allowed to send his son for education at Rome was gladly accepted ; '^'^'^' ^'^^' friendship and alliance were made with certain Thracian tribes who asked for it; commissioners were sent to Asia, the Aegean Islands, and to Crete and Rhodes, to secure their adhesion ; and Eumenes, I now recovered from his wound, hastened home to make preparations. , War was not yet formally declared, but three legates were sent to Macedonia to demand satisfaction on pain of the renunciation of I " friendship " with Perseus. The king, being with difficulty induced i to give them audience, spoke with the greatest bitterness of the I constant visits of Roman commissioners to spy upon him, and of his j state of dependence. He ended by handing in a written reply, in Perseus I which he denied being bound by his father's treaty, only renewed at ^^fi'-^^^i- 1 the beginning of his reign as a formality, and demanded that, if the \ Romans desired a new treaty, the whole of its conditions should be {discussed afresh. The legates answered by renouncing his friend- \ ship ; to which the king stopped to reply, as he was leaving the room, by ordering them to quit the country within three days. I The war was thus made inevitable ; and the Romans were The I encouraged in entering upon it by the reports of the various com- Uiiissions. The only allies which Perseus seemed to have were jGenthius, son of Pleuratus, of Illyria, and Cotys, king of the I Thracian Odrysae. Eumenes, Antiochus, and Ptolemy had been (approached by Macedonian envoys, but were reported to be still ,' hostile to him ; and though the Rhodians were said to be wavering, J ambassadors from the island, then at Rome, tried to persuade the Senate that their loyalty was beyond suspicion. Prusias of Bithynia had married a sister of Perseus, yet he resolved to stand aloof and I watch the result of the contest ; while Antiochus did not wish to interfere, but yet saw with satisfaction the Romans engaged in war with Macedonia, as ofifering facilities for his designs upon the dominions of Egypt. It was well known that in Greece feelings isolation of Persetis. 5o6 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. I J I. Coss. P. Licinius Crass?is, C. Cassius Longinus. The war is begun. The campaign in Thessaly, 171. Victory of Perseus near Larissa. were divided, and that in each state there was a party sympathising with Macedonia. At the end of the war the vengeance of Rome con- founded with these the moderate party who wished to stand aloof from either side and maintain a position of strict adherence to treaties. For the present active participation with Perseus, except in a small part of Boeotia, was prevented by a Roman commis- sion of five, who between them visited every part of the country. Perseus affected surprise when an army under Cn. Sicinius landed at Apollonia early in 171, and sent legates to Rome to ask the reason. They were received in the temple of Bellona without being allowed to enter the city, and were only answered that the consul would presently be in Macedonia to hear any complaint which might be made, but that they were not to return. Meanwhile one of the commissioners, O. Marcius Philippus, had met Perseus on the Peneus, and had granted a truce to enable the king to once more send ambassadors to Rome, though he knew that it was useless, and that the war was resolved upon ; but he knew also that the prepara- tions were not well advanced, and that delay would be an advantage to Rome, — a piece of double dealing afterwards reprobated by a minority of the Senate. It was not, in fact, till the middle of July that the consul crossed to Apollonia and took over the command of the four legions (16,000 men), with their complement of 800 cavalry, 15,000 infantry and 1200 cavalry of the allies, auxiliaries from Liguria, Crete, and Numidia, and elephants. Perseus, whose council had decided against farther efforts at conciliation, had already moved his army of 39,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry from its camp at Citium, between Pella and Beroea, into Thessaly, and taken up a position at the foot of Mount Ossa. About half were Macedonians trained to fight in the phalanx ; the rest were of various nationality. The troops seem to have been in a state of great efficiency and confidence ; while the cities of Macedonia vied with each other in supplying provisions and money. Licinius also entered Thessaly, and en- camped on the Peneus, near Larissa, where he was joined by Eumenes and some Greek allies. Part of the fleet under the praetor C. Lucretius sailed up the Gulf of Corinth to the southern coast of Boeotia, while the rest, under his brother Marcus, went to Chalcis — where squadrons from Rhodes and other places mustered — and landed troops to besiege Haliartus. The consul was unsuccessful in Thessaly, and sustained a some- what severe defeat in a cavalry engagement near Larissa ; and though Perseus failed to follow up his advantage, and indeed suffered a reverse later on near Crannon, the first yeai-'s campaign had done nothing towards crushing him, and had called forth warm enthusiasm XXXI DILATORY CONDUCT OF THE WAR 507 for the king in many parts of Greece. The net result to the Romans was the capture of some ThessaHan towns, and the reduction of the three towns in Boeotia which had sided with Perseus. Hahartus was taken by M. Lucretius after a long siege, its inhabitants sold, and its walls levelled with the ground ; Thisbe surrendered to the praetor C. Lucretius without a struggle ; and Coronea was taken by the consul in the autumn. The other consul, Cassius, who had been sent to Gaul, attempted to enter Macedonia through Illyricum, but appears to have been stopped by Perseus himself, or a detachment of his army. After his victory in the first cavalry engagement, Perseus had 170. been induced by the wiser members of his council to ofifer peace on Coss. A. the same terms as his father. The answer showed the implacable f^ jfr' determination of Rome. Perseus, Licinius had answered, must submit unconditionally, and the future government of Macedonia must be left to the discretion of the Senate. But though the A futile Senate's tone was thus haughty, it was not supported by a corre- campaign. sponding energy. The consul of the next year (A. Hostilius) failed to enter Macedonia from Thessaly, and suffered at least one defeat ; Cephalus had been goaded into rousing a somewhat violent insur- rection in favour of Perseus in Epirus ; L. Hortensius succeeded Mis- Lucretius in command of the fleet, and outdid him in extortion conduct of upon the coast towns, without performing any exploit of importance Horten- to atone for it ;i and lastly, App. Claudius suffered a mortifying- defeat in an attempt upon Uscana in Illyricum. The complaint of plundered temples, and of works of art shipped i6g. Coss. to Italy from a friendly city like Chalcis, is a forerunner of the Q-Marcius corruption that was soon to mark the steps of many Roman magis- , , ^ ipp'us trates in their dealing with extra- Italian states, and is a striking Se'rvilius. commentary on the ineffectiveness of the conduct of the war up to this time. The consul of the next year, Q. Marcius Philippus, did, however, advance matters somewhat. Perseus, with ill-timed parsi- mony, had failed to obtain active co-operation from Genthius of Illyricum or from the other states, which at this crisis might have been easily won over by a display of liberality, and was therefore unsupported. He was encamped at Dium, which commanded the coast road from Perrhaebia into Macedonia, whilst his general Hip- Macedonia pias held the passes over the Cambunian mountains. Philippus, "^ length however, baffled Hippias, crossed the mountains, and descended ^^ ^^^ ' upon Dium.2 Perseus, taken by surprise, retired upon Pydna, order- ing his treasure to be thrown into the sea, and recalling his garrison 1 An inscription exists containing an Athenian decree bestowing citizenship upon Hortensius as a "benefactor." Such were the pitiful means taken to avert his depredations (Hicks, p. 338, C. I. A., ii. 423). - See Map, p. 440. 5o8 HISTORY OF ROME at Tempe. Philippus entered Dium, but did not stay there. He retired along the coast road to Phila, in order to secure the con- nexion with his suppHes on his rear. Perseus thereupon reoccupied Q.Marcius Dium, which Phihppus answered by taking Heracleum, some miles Philippus j^Qj-j.]^ Qf Phila. Nothing more was done that year : and if Perseus ericampu ^^^^ angry with Hippias for allowing Philippus to cross the moun- Heracleum, tains, the Romans were equally discontented with Philippus for ^<^9- making no more use of his success. Nor were the movements of the fleet of importance ; and Eumenes, after visiting the consul at Heracleum, to congratulate him on having effected an entrance into Macedonia, returned home for the winter, and was rumoured to have been in friendly communication with Perseus. Still the fact of the Romans having actually entered Macedonia had a considerable effect in Greece. The Achaeans sent Polybius to offer the assistance of a League army in Thessaly, and the Romanising party in each state was encouraged. The Senate felt strong enough to reject the request of an envoy of Prusias to make peace with Perseus, and to show its indignation at a similar demand from Rhodes by declaring those Carians and Lycians who were under Rhodian government to be free. A commission, however, was sent to investigate the state of things in the camp at Heracleum, when Philippus asked for farther supplies ; and their report was disquieting. The position of the Roman camp, they said, was dangerously near the enemy ; provisions were running short ; App. Claudius at Lychnis was not strong enough to effect a diversion, and had, in fact, been obliged to beg help from Achaia, — which the Achaeans were prevented from giving by the regulation against answering such demands unless sanc- tioned by the Senate ; lastly, Eumenes' loyalty was doubtful. i68. L. It was felt that the crisis demanded a man of military experience, PauluTlI "^"^^ ^' ^'^^I'^'^i^ius Paulus, who had already seen much fighting in C. Liciyi-' Spain, and had celebrated a triumph over the Ligurians, was induced ius once more to stand for the consulship. He was sixty years old, a Crassus. brother-in-law of Africanus, and had on more than one occasion been Aemilius rejected as a candidate for office. Now, however, he was felt to be j'^^'^f, the right man, and somewhat against his will was elected consul. Iheconu ^^ ^^^^ ^° ^^^^ ^^^^ fresh legions with him, and to be followed by mand in 6oo cavalry enlisted in Gaul ; while the praetor L. Anicius was to Macedonia, relieve App. Claudius at Lychnis, the chief town of the Dassaretae, in order to crush Genthius, who had now definitely declared for Perseus, and had even imprisoned some Roman legates. Paulus Paulus was to start immediately after the fen'ae Latinae (31st command ^^^^h), and not wait, as had of late become the custom, for the April 168. games of Apollo in July. The story was often told that, on returning from the meeting of the Senate, his daughter met him with the cry, XXXI AEMILIUS PAULUS IN COMMAND 509 " Perse is dead," referring to a favourite dog, and that he took it as 168. an omen of success. A bett'er omen was his own energetic and honourable character. He found the Roman camp, between Phila and Heracleum, somewhat demoraHsed from the apparent impos- sibiHty of attacking the position of Perseus, and suffering from want of water. He took immediate steps for the restoration of discipUne, and reheved the latter distress by showing how to open the springs in the neighbouring mountain slopes. Still the position of Perseus Perseus on was a very strong one. He had fortified himself on the north bank the Eni- of the Enipeus. His left rested on the sea, his right on the range P^^^^- of Mount Olympus. Though the Enipeus was nearly dry in the summer, he had availed himself of wood from the forests to erect such a formidable fortification along its bank, that it was clear to Aemilius that the position could not be carried in front. The king's army was considerable also in number, although his parsimony had deprived him of the help of the 10,000 Gallic horsemen who had come at his invitation, but had insisted on having a large sum of money paid in advance. Yet he must have felt that he was almost alone and was playing his last card. Genthius, whom he had also Perseus treated with curious meanness, had already surrendered to the praetor g^t^ no L. Anicius. Though the Rhodians had almost openly declared for ^^^^V frovt him, they could give him no effective aid while a powerful Roman ^/^^^^j. ly fleet was in the Aegean, and their attempted negotiation with Paulus Eume?ies. utterly failed. Eumenes had been secretly offering his intervention to secure peace with Rome ; but he too had demanded a large sum, which Perseus was unwilling to pay ; and, even if he had been will- ing, Eumenes was now under such suspicion at Rome that the value of his intervention was more than doubtful. The king's one ally was the Thracian Cotys. After some weeks' delay the consul was relieved from his The difficulty by the gallantry of Scipio Nasica and his own son Fabius posUion of Maximus, who volunteered to turn the position by a pass leading '^'f^"! l over the chain of Olympus past Pythium and Petra, of which they Scipio had learnt from native traders. While they were on their way with Nasica and 8000 infantry and 200 Cretan archers, Paulus distracted the Pabins attention of the enemy by an attack upon his outposts on the '^ 'iu^- Enipeus, in which for two days his men suffered severely. On the third he made a feint of moving towards the sea, as though intending to get on the king's rear by help of the fleet. Perseus was thus put off his guard, and was only informed at the last moment of Nasica's movement by a Cretan deserter, who had managed to outstrip the Roman troops. He at once sent a detach- ment under Milo to hold the pass. But it was too late : the Romans had already surprised the weak outpost, and now defeated Sio HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Battle of Pydna, 22nd June 168. Flight of Perseus. He takes refuge hi Samo- thrace. Milo after a sharp struggle. The king in alarm broke up his camp and retired on Pydna. Paulus thereupon crossed the Enipeus, and having effected a junction with Nasica, advanced within sight of the king's new position, — a plain traversed by a small stream and bordered by low hills. Nasica wished to attack at once ; but the more experienced Aemilius refused to begin a battle immediately after a march with an enemy who had had some days to rest, and insisted on first securing their camp. An eclipse of the moon terrified the Mace- donians, as foreboding the fall of the king ; but the Romans were saved from alarm by the presence of the learned Sulpicius Callus, who was able to foretell and explain it. The battle next day was brought on almost by accident, a contest between the watering- parties of the two armies gradually bringing out the full forces on either side. Here, for the first time, Paulus saw the famous Mace- donian phalanx in action, and afterwards confessed the terror with which it inspired him. At first it carried all before it and forced the Roman line to give way. But its very success was its ruin. As it advanced it gradually became more and more dislocated : gaps appeared in the dense mass of spears, of which the Roman soldiers were quick to avail themselves. At close quarters the men had to drop their sarissae and trust to a light dagger and small shield, which proved useless against the sharp strong sword of the Roman. The struggle seems to have lasted little more than an hour ; the rest of the afternoon was occupied in the pursuit of the now disordered mass. The king, who had been disabled early in the day by a kick of a horse, fled with his bodyguard and some cavalry to Pella. On his way most of the cavalry deserted ; and when he reached his palace, he found the leading men in Pella unwilling to come in answer to his summons. Early the next morning therefore he continued his flight towards Amphipolis, accompanied by about fifty Cretans and two oflicers, hoping that the river Axius would effectually delay pursuit. From Amphipolis, which he reached on the third day, he sent legates with a letter to the consul, who was engaged in rapidly reducing the cities in north-eastern Macedonia. Aemilius refused to answer the letter because Perseus still styled himself king ; and the people of Amphipolis, in alarm for their own safety, were eager that he should leave. He obtained shipping in the Strymon, and still accompanied by the Cretans, who were kept faithful by the treasures which he was carrying with him, he arrived at Samothrace, the island of the mysterious Kabiri, whose shrine gave it the privilege of sanctuary, — a privilege which Cn. Octavius, who presently arrived with the Roman fleet, did not venture openly to XXXI RESULTS OF THE BATTLE OF PYDNA 511 violate. He endeavoured, however, to work on the scruples of the j68. Samothracians, reproaching them with giving harbour to the would- be murderer of Eumenes and Demetrius, and to his minister Evander. After endeavouring to save himself first by sacrificing Evander, and then by escaping to the dominions of Cotys, the king eventually surrendered himself and his elder son Philip to Octavius. They were taken at once to the camp of the consul Aemilius, who received He him with severe reproaches, to which the king made no answer, surrenders He was nevertheless profoundly moved by the humiliation of a king ^' " lately so powerful, and entertained him not unkindly. Perseus was ji„jpfii. kept for the present in easy captivity at Amphipolis, until in the polls. following year he was taken with his children, and the children of Cotys, to adorn the triumph of Aemilius at Rome. On the intervention of his conqueror he was, however, freed from prison. End of and with his sons allowed to live in a private station at Alba Perseus. Fucentia. But his wealth, which he had so carefully husbanded, was all gone, and his second son is said to have been apprenticed to the trade of a worker in bronze. This was the end of a dynasty which had given PhiHp H. Effects of and Alexander the Great to history. It was to be the end ^i the battle Macedonian national identity also. But the victory of Pydna had ^^ ^^/^/^f still wider consequences affecting not only Greece and the Islands, states. but Asia and Egypt also. The various states hastened to send envoys to the consul's camp, or to Rome, to offer congratulations and * make their court ; and those who were conscious of secret wishes for the success of Perseus, or of overt acts in his favour, were forwardest of all. Legates from Rhodes were already at Rome to The offer their services in effecting a reconciliation with Perseus. They Rhodlans. at once substituted a fulsome compliment and congratulation ; but were plainly told that the Senate fully understood that their object Eumenes. had been to save Perseus, and would know how to requite their hostility. King Eumenes, conscious of his secret intrigues, sent his brother Attalus to Rome with congratulations, and later on arrived himself in Italy. Prusias of Bithynia, with his son Nicomedes, came Pruslas. begging to be allowed to sacrifice on the Capitol in honour of the victory, having previously mollified the commissioners sent to his kingdom by the most abject humiliation, appearing in the dress and cap of a manumitted slave, as though a freedman of Rome. His Visit of humility gained its object, and afforded the Senate the means of in- ^'"^^^^^J flicting a marked slight on Eumenes. For when, next year, the latter ^/ _ arrived in Italy, a decree was at once passed, forbidding the visits of kings to Rome in person. A quaestor met Eumenes at Brundisium, and communicating to him the order of the Senate, asked him whether he wanted anything. Quite aware of the meaning of this 512 HISTORY OF ROME i68. No new • prov- inces' but general disarm- ament and liability to tribute. The Illyrians. Senatus Co7isultu7n de Mace- don ibzis [Livy xlv. i8, 29). rebuff, Eumenes answered shortly that he wanted nothing, and returned to his own dominions. Rome, in fact, was crowded with emissaries from every direction ; and whether it wished it or no, the Senate found itself compelled to act as arbitrator in a hundred disputes, and to have a distinct foreign policy. The idea of establishing provinces, in the technical sense, to the east of the Adriatic, was not yet definitely recognised. The policy adopted was rather that of leaving all states internal freedom, but so isolating and weakening them, that all alike would be practically in the power of Rome ; while the domain lands of the sovereign princes or towns became the property of the Roman people. Tribute or tax paid before to native princes or central governments was now to go, though generally on a reduced scale, to the Roman exchequer in return for the military protection which the Republic undertook. Thus the Illyrians were to be "free," their cities and strongholds were not to be garrisoned by Roman soldiers, nor were Roman magistrates to administer justice ; yet, with the exception of certain towns which had been eminently loyal, they were to pay a vectigal to Rome of half the amount formerly paid to their kings ; and they lost the right of military organisation, or national combination. A still more illusory " freedom " was given to the Macedonians. The whole country was to be divided into four regions, with the capital cities of Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, Pelagonia. Be- tween these regions there were to be no rights of intermarriage or ownership of land and houses ; and each was to have its own council and magistrates. Only in those parts which bordered on warlike barbarians were armed garrisons to be permitted, and certain regulations were to be observed through all the districts alike. 1 No timber was to be cut or sold for shipbuilding ; the working of gold and silver mines was prohibited, on the ground that they would require a service of Roman publicani.^ though the iron and copper mines were still kept open, paying to the Roman exchequer half the royalty which they had paid to the king. The salt industry was protected by a prohibition of the use of imported salt, but at the same time restricted by its exportation being confined to the Dardani, who were allowed to buy it at Stobi, as the staple town. A hundred talents, half the amount payable to the king, was to be returned yearly to the Roman exchequer. The Macedonians quite understood that they were reduced to political nullity : but they had feared some- ^ There was certainly to be no central government, yet Livy (xlv. 32) seems to imply that a council of synedri was chosen for business affecting the whole country, perhaps chiefly to arrange for the incidence of the tax due to Rome. At any rate, they would have nothing to do with the internal administration of the regions or any truly national functions. XXXI SPOLIATION OF MACEDONIA AND EPIRUS 513 thing still worse, and the order which compelled the removal to 168. Italy of all the late king's courtiers, military and naval commanders, and officials of every description, may have been felt as a relief at first ; while the reduction of the royal tax by one-half seemed a boon, even if, as has been thought, the extra expense of a quadruple administration was afterwards found to nullify it. Moreover, the laws now drawn up by Paulus, in conjunction with the ten com- missioners, who had brought the Se?7ahis CoJisiiUuni containing the general principles of this arrangement, proved to have some permanent advantages. Yet Macedonia was not only left politically impotent, but stripped of the accumulated treasures and wealth of centuries. The crowd which came from Greece and spoils of Asia to attend the games held by Aemilius at Amphipolis were Macc- treated to a sight of the spoil of Macedonian cities, now ready for donia. transport to Rome. Pictures, statues, gold and silver plate, furniture adorned with ivory, and all the richest product of Macedonian looms, were spread out for the inspection of the curious, before being shipped in readiness for the proconsul's triumph. To crown all, a huge pile of arms of the conquered army was fired by the proconsul's own hand. Macedonia was not only to be robbed, but to be made a show and a warning to the world. Still greater severity was exercised in Epirus, of which Eplrus, Aemilius was made the instrument. The rising in favour of Perseus, ^68-167. into which Cephalus had been goaded, was to be sternly punished ; and the Senate briefly ordered that the spoil of the cities of Epirus should be given to the soldiers, who had been greatly discontented with their share of Macedonian plunder. Accordingly, when Aemilius, on his way home, arrived at Passaron on the coast, he sent for ten leading men from each of the seventy cities, chiefly of the Seventy Molossi, and ordered them to collect the gold and silver of their ^'^^^^^ dis- several towns into some public place, a detachment of soldiers being '"'^^^^j^'^[ sent to each to see that the work was done thoroughly and simul- inhabi- taneously. The unhappy people believed that, if this were done taitts sold. properly, they would be spared. They were bitterly mistaken. The towns were given up to pillage, the walls thrown down, and 150,000 persons sold into slavery. The blame for this abomination rests almost wholly with the Senate, though Aemilius' share in it can hardly be altogether excused. But it was not only in Illyricum, Epirus, and Macedonia that the Rhodes. Roman ascendency was now asserted. The hand of the victorious Republic fell heavily on all who had assisted Perseus or maintained what was regarded as a malevolent neutrality. For nearly two centuries friendly intercourse, without formal treaty, had been maintained with Rhodes. The islanders now tried to avert the 2 L 514 HISTORY OF ROME 168-167. Delos a free port. Eumenes. Greece. Deporta- tion of suspects to Italy. consequences of their doubtful policy during the war by applying for an alliance. But the Senate had resolved on punishing Rhodes by destroying the naval supremacy she had so long exercised in the Aegean. She was ordered to withdraw her garrisons from the Peraea, — the district of Caria and Lycia which had been already declared free ; and a severe blow was struck at her commercial prosperity by handing over Delos to Athens and declaring its harbour a free port. This at once diverted much of the traffic of the Levant from Rhodes to the old Island route, in which Delos was a convenient place of call, and in a single year diminished the harbour dues at Rhodes by a sixth.^ The Rhodians were finally admitted to alliance, but nothing was done to restore her crippled commerce. Nor were the Romans content with the slight already put upon Eumenes. His brother Attains was ostentatiously patronised, and king Prusias encouraged to lay every kind of information against his old enemy and rival. The commission sent under C. Sulpicius Gallus to Asia even posted up notices inviting complaints against him, which brought a host of angry informers to their court at Sardis ; while the hostility of the Asiatic Gauls, who had invaded his territories, was openly or covertly encouraged. Every part of Greece was to be subjected to the same inquisition of the Macedonian commissioners. There was no idea as yet, any more than in Macedonia, of introducing a provincial administration ; but it was to be shown clearly that Rome would not tolerate any state or party hostile to herself The three rebellious cities in Boeotia had long ago suffered for their mistake, and no farther severity was exercised there beyond the execution of Neon of Thebes. But in all parts of Greece the same decree was enforced, — conspicuous members of the Macedonising party were to go to Italy and stand their trial. There was little difficulty in selecting them. In every city traitors were eager to curry favour by denouncing their political opponents. Aetolia had lately been the scene of civil violence and bloodshed ; yet the advisers of the commissioners were Lyciscus and Tisippus, themselves the authors of the massacre. In Epirus Charops had become infamous for every vice ; yet he was one of the two who advised the commissioners as to that country, with what result we have seen. The decision was the same in every case. No other circumstance was taken into account ; the one question was as to fidelity to Rome. The persons denounced by the several informers were to go to Italy with their families, — that was the simple and uniform order enforced in Aetolia, Acarnania, and Boeotia. ^ This is the statement of Polybius (xxxi. 7, 25), if we read dcprjpTjKaTe for evpTjuaTe. If the latter stands the sentence means, if it means anything, that the harbour dues had been reduced to a sixth, which seems incredible. XXXI ANTIOCHUS IV. WARNED OUT OF EGYPT 515 In Achaia, where possible resistance was feared, rather more care The was taken. No documents implicating the Achaeans had been Achaean found in the Macedonian archives, and Aemilius was inclined there- ^'^'^g^^^< fore not to act on the partizan representations of the Romanising ^ Callicrates. But he was overruled, and two of the commissioners, C. Claudius and Cn. Domitius, were sent to Peloponnese. In an assembly of the League they declared that certain leading men had helped Perseus, and demanded that the assembly should proceed to pass sentence of death against them : when the vote was carried they would reveal the names. The assembly refused to commit such a flagrant injustice ; whereupon the commissioners named all The who had borne office during the war. One of these, named Xeno, Achaeans asserted his innocence, and offered to stand his trial either in Greece ^^^* ^^ or Italy ; and eventually a list of about a thousand was drawn '^ ^' up, on the information of Callicrates, all of whom were ordered to proceed to Italy. They were distributed among the cities of Etruria ; and when no sign of the promised trial was given, frequent embassies were sent to Rome, begging that they might return or have a chance of establishing their innocence. But the senators, after several ambiguous replies, at length settled the question by saying briefly that they considered it undesirable that they should return. Among them was the historian Polybius, who used his credit among the nobility at Rome in their behalf. But sixteen years had passed before the poor remains of these dctejius^ amounting to about 300, were contemptuously granted leave to return. Throughout Greece there was henceforward no state which could AjiHochus venture to resist an order from Rome. How completely the same Epiphanes ascendency was established outside Greece also is strikingly ^'^ f-v^ ' illustrated by the scene between Antiochus and the Roman envoy in Egypt. The connexion between Rome and Egypt had been growing ever closer since the early days of the Hannibalian war. The Egyptian sovereign had become used to look for Roman protection, and for some time, at the beginning of the last war, a Roman commissioner had remained at Alexandria. Farther help was now needed. Ptolemy V. died in 181 and left two sons, Philometor and Physcon, by Cleopatra, sister of Antiochus the Great. Philo- metor succeeded his father and engaged in a war with his cousin Antiochus Epiphanes 1 for the recovery of Coele-Syria, alleged to have been assigned as the dower of Cleopatra. Antiochus in- vaded Egypt, defeated Philometor, took him prisoner at Pelusium, and advanced to Memphis. Whereupon the other Ptolemy — Physcon ■ — assumed the diadem at Alexandria, calling himself Euergetes II. But Antiochus adopted the cause of his prisoner Philometor, 1 Antiochus IV., son of Antiochus the Great (175-164). 5i6 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. XXXI C. Popiliiis Laenas meets Atitiochus IV. at Pelusium, i68. The Jews, 162.. established him as king at Memphis, and proceeded to besiege Physcon in Alexandria, He refused to listen to remonstrances from Rhodes and other Greek states ; but on orders coming from Rome, broke up the siege, and consented to take a sum of money (169). The two Ptolemies then made terms with each other, and with their sister Cleopatra were reigning jointly in Alexandria. But Antiochus, seeing that his policy of weakening and dividing Egypt, and thereby securing Coele-Syria, was defeated, took advantage of the Romans being engaged in the Macedonian war to invade Egypt once more. Appeals were promptly sent to Rome by the Ptolemies, and in 168 C. Popilius Laenas was despatched to Egypt. He found Antiochus four miles from Alexandria : and when the king advanced to meet him, with outstretched hand, he ignored the greeting, and only held out the tablet containing the Senate's decree forbidding him to attack Egypt. Antiochus read the tablet and answered that he must consult his council. Popilius thereupon drew a circle in the dust round the king with a vine staff which he carried in his hand, and bade him give his answer before he stepped out of it. The haughty assurance of the Roman, supported by the news of Pydna, already received, overpowered the king's courage or pride. He signified that he was ready to obey the Senate, and was then greeted politely by Popilius and allowed to arrange the day for the with- drawal of his troops into Syria. Six years later, when the Jews had again suffered from the cruelty of Epiphanes, and feared the same under Demetrius, the patriotic Judas Maccabaeus looked to an alliance with the Roman Republic (162) as the best security for his country. Thus free states and sovereigns had alike become the clients of the city of the Tiber. Authorities. — Livy, 7-1 1, 14 ; xxiv. I, 3, 4 xxviii. 42-xlv. Polybius, xxii. 8, 9, 15-18 ; xxiii. 1-4, xxvii. 1-18 ; xxviii. -XXX. Plutarch, Philopoefne?t, Aemilius Paulus. Appian, MacedoJiicae, Syriacae (45), Illyricae. Diodorus, fr. of xxix.-xxxi. Eutropius, iv. 2-4. Justin, xxxii. 2-33. Florus, ii. 12-14. Zonaras, ix. 21-23. Orosius, iv. 20. Valerius Maximus, ii. i, 2, 7, 14 ; iii. 3, 2. For the Jewish alliance, Joseph. Ant. xii. 10 ; i Maccab. viii. CHAPTER XXXII MACEDONIA, GREECE, AND CARTHAGE, 1 6 8- 1 46 PROVINCES [Illyricum ^] . . 167 B.C. 173 Macedonia , . 146 B.C. 164 Africa .... . 146 B.C. 159 [Achaia 1] . . 146 B.C. 154 COLONY Auximum in Picenum . • 157 269,015 327,022 328,314 324,000 Suspension of the tribntinn, growing luxury and consequent cases of peculation and embezzlement— Laws, Calpurnia derepetimdis {i^g) — Sumptuary : Orchia (182), Fannia (161), Didia (143)— Greek literature and teachers — Writers imitating Greek literature — Terence, Pacuvius, Statins Caecilius— Cato's opposition— Expulsion of Greek rhetors (161)— Visit of the philosophers (155) — Demohtion of stone theatre (151)— The Bacchanalia (186)— Laws against bribery, Aemilia Baebia (182), Cornelia Fulvia (159) — Ballot laws, Gabinia (139), Cassia (137) — Macedonia between 167-146, the discontents arising from the Roman settlement : war with the pseudo-Philippus, and formation of the province (148-146)— Destruction of Corinth and settlement of Greece (146)— Carthage, the Roman policy in favouring Masannasa — Immediate causes of the third Punic war— Consuls land at Utica (149)— Inefficient conduct of the war (149-148) — Rising reputation of Scipio the younger Africanus (147)— Destruction of Carthage— The province of Africa (146). The victories of the last half-century seemed to promise ease and Effects of wealth to Rome. She was to live on the spoils and revenue from the wars the conquered countries. Not only did they pay a fixed tax to her ^"' ^"^^• exchequer, but the rich lands of Capua, the royal domain lands of the kings of Syracuse and of Macedonia, became public property, and produced a large annual rent. It was found possible in 167 to relieve citizens from the property tax or tributuin^ which was not collected again until the year after the death of lulius Caesar. But the sudden influx of wealth had the usual effect of raising the standard of expense ; and new tastes and desires required increased means for their gratification. All manner of luxuries were finding ^ No yearly governor was yet appointed to these, and though practically Roman provinces, they were not completely so in form. ' HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. IS6-I46. Lex Calpurnia de repetimdis, 149- Leges iumptu- ariae. Greek teachers and literature their way into the city from the East. Splendid furniture, costly ornaments, wanton dances and music for their banquets, became the fashion among the Roman nobles ; and the younger men went to lengths of debauchery and extravagance hitherto unknown. 1 The result to many was financial embarrassment, from which relief was sought in malversation and extortion. The old standard of honour in regard to public money was distinctly lowered,^ and cases of misconduct and oppression were becoming more common and less reprobated. All were in haste to get rich, and the opportunities afforded by service amidst conquered or weak peoples was too tempting to be resisted. A commander who opposed this passion did so at his peril, and the triumph of Aemilius Paulus in 167 was opposed at the instigation of some of his own officers, because he had insisted on paying the greater part of the Macedonian spoil into the treasury. The fashionable taste for Greek works of art, in the adorn- ment of private houses, was another incentive to plunder, and in 149 it was for the first time found necessary to establish a permanent court or qicaestio for cases of malversation in the provinces. Attempts were indeed made to restrain the extravagance which was at the root of the evil. In 184 Cato, as censor, had imposed a tax on the sale of slaves under twenty above a certain price, and on personal ornaments above a certain value ; and though the lex Oppia^ limiting the amount of women's jewelry, had been repealed in spite of him in 195, other sumptuary laws were passed. A lex Orchia in 182 limited the number of guests, a lex Faniiia in 161 the amount to be spent on banquets; while a lex Didia in 143 extended the operation of the law to all Italy. And though such laws, even if enforced, could not really remedy the evil, they perhaps had a certain effect in producing a sentiment ; for long afterwards we find over- crowded dinners regarded as indecorous and vulgar.^ Another cause, believed by some to be unfavourably affecting Roman character, was the growing influence of Greek culture and Greek teachers. For many years the education of the young, once regarded as the special business of the parents, had been passing into the hands of Greek slaves or freedmen. The children of Livius Salinator (consul in 219) had been instructed by the Tarentine Andronicus, who had many other pupils. The Athenian Metrodorus was the resident tutor of the sons of Aemilius Paulus ; and the schools for boys of a less exalted rank seem usually to have been kept by Greeks. The laws of the Twelve ^ Livy, xxxix. 6 ; Polyb. xxxii. Polyb. vi. 56 ; xviii. 35. Cicero, in Pis. § 67. Thus the statute imposing a fine for non-attendance at church, though long fallen into desuetude, has perhaps helped to attach the idea of respectability to a custom. XXXII CATO'S OPPOSITION TO GREEK CULTURE 519 Tables are said to have beea used as an elementary reading book, 186-146. yet all who went beyond such elements seem to have learnt Greek, which was more commonly spoken by the upper classes than French among ourselves. Most of the legates employed abroad seem to have been able to speak it ; and though the Tarentines laughed at the pronunciation of the Romans (282), yet they were at least able to make themselves understood. On the superiority of Greek patron- culture there was a division of opinion. The Scipios and their ised by party patronised Greek philosophy and literature. Their friend and S<:ip^o ««^ protege Terence (193-168) only continued, indeed, the work of his Jl- , predecessors in translating Greek comedies ; but his translations were more exclusively Greek in spirit than the adaptations of Plautus ; and his example was followed by Statins Caecilius, who died about 169, at any rate in his later work ; while M. Pacuvius, a nephew of Ennius, seems to have dealt almost exclusively with Greek tragedy. This tendency, which went far beyond a mere question of literary opposed by taste, was opposed by a party of which M. Porcius Cato was the the conser- most striking member. Born about sixteen years before the beginning ^"^^"'^ of the second Punic war, he lived to see the commencement of the party of Cato, third. His public career had been honourable. As praetor in Sar- dinia (199), as consul in Spain (195), he had shown inflexible honesty, strict justice, and personal frugality. As censor (184) he had made his name a synonym for severity. The influence of his really great Character virtues was marred, not only by the caustic bitterness of his speech, and views but also by a certain hardness and inhumanity, and a more than ^ ^"'^'^' Roman contempt for the provincials, whom he would nevertheless protect from injustice. He regarded his slaves as mere chattels, treated them with cold severity, and sold them when they were aged or infirm, to avoid the expense of their maintenance. His social views also were deeply tinged by political prejudice against Scipio and his party, to whom he had been in violent opposition ever since serving under him as quaestor in Sicily (205) ; and in spite of undoubted integrity he made his virtue so offensive that he is said to have been a defendant in fifty lawsuits. In Cato's view the reform needed was a return to the old ways, before Rome was infected by Greece. The best life was that of the old citizen-farmer, who left the plough for office or service in the army, and returned to it when his duty was done. Slaves were to be kept for working on the farm, not for personal luxury. Children should not be entrusted to them, but should be taught by their parents, and not Greek but Latin. Religion was to be the worship of the Lares, conducted by the head of the family according to the old Latin rites. If men would write, they should write in Latin, and on the history of their own country. He hated to see the young Roman dandies lounging in the Forum, 520 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Cato fails to resist Greek in- 186-146. or loitering in the rhetorician's lecture-room, when they should have been looking after their farms, doing civil business, or training them- selves on the Campus. He wished the Forum had been paved with sharp cobbles for their benefit. He set an example in these points himself: took the minimum number of slaves possible with him to his provinces ; diligently superintended his farm, and was seen riding into town in shabby clothes and bringing his country pro- duce for sale. He wrote a history from which to teach his son reading ; composed a treatise on farming, and a chronicle of Rome from the earliest times ; cultivated eloquence only for practical purposes, and long refused to study the literature of Greece at all. But he could not stem the current any more than he could make himself rich with his old-world notions of economics. The influence of his party may be traced perhaps in the senatorial decree of 1 6 1 against the Greek rhetors, and in the sumptuary laws, as well as that of I 5 I for the demolition of the stone theatre begun by the cen- sors ; and four years earlier he had successfully urged that the philo- sophers who had come on a mission from Athens, should receive their answer promptly and be dismissed, when he saw Roman youths crowding to hear them lecture. Still all that he most disliked was daily becoming more universal. Greek doctors, Greek school- masters and pedagogues — half tutor and half servant — -multiplied. There was a great influx of them after the fall of Macedonia ; 1 and the decree of the Senate against Greek rhetors seems to have failed in its object, for they became well estabhshed ; and in 92 it was the Latin rhetors, who set up in opposition to them, that were silenced. ^ Not more successful was the conservative party in maintaining the ancient religion. New objects of worship were readily admitted in Rome. The cult of Cybele or the Magna Mater, introduced in 204, when Scipio Nasica had been selected as the " best man " to receive the sacred image from Pessinus, had become quickly popular, and had been incorporated without difficulty in the state religion. But the Hellenisation of that religion was becoming complete. The fact of the earliest Roman literature being based on Greek had helped to identify Greek and Latin divinities, and to assign the legends belong- ing to the one to the other. Now Greek philosophy was introducing an easy scepticism as to all alike ; and in the place of an ordered and decorous national worship, many were seeking the excitement of secret and mystic rites, subversive, it was believed, of morals and loyalty alike. In 186 great scandal was caused by the discovery that nightly orgies were being held in Rome and Italy. The young of Baccha- both sexes were initiated in these Bacchanalia, which were said to be nalia. at once obscene and treasonable. Information reached the consul Novelties in reli^ioti. Polyb. xxxii. 10. 2 Gellius, XV. II. XXXII LAWS AGAINST AMBITUS 521 Postumius through a certain freedwoman named Hispala, whose lover Aebutius was about to be initiated. The consul laid the matter Senatus before the Senate, and the immorality of the initiations, as well as the Consultum seditious nature of the assemblies, was regarded as established. More ^^^^/^an- than 7000 men and women were said to be implicated ; and the Senate alibus, issued a stringent decree forbidding the Bacchanalia, or the assembly 186. of more than five persons for any secret rites. 1 The ringleaders were arrested, and for the most part anticipated their fate by suicide. It was the same idea, identifying novelty in religion with political inno- vation, which in 1 8 1 caused the order for the destruction of the rolls found in a stone coffin in the Janiculum, and said to contain com- Expulsion mentaries of king Numa and certain Pythagorean writings, — a fraud of which, rightly or wrongly, was regarded as an attempt to introduce ^^^J^ ^^^^^ novel doctrines dangerous to the State. These measures did not, ^yorship- however, repress the tendency. Soothsayers and astrologers found pers of their way into Rome, as well as the votaries of the mystic rites of Sabazius. Sabazius, both of whom were expelled in 137.^ This restless yearning for excitement, and this hunger for wealth to satisfy new cravings, were dangerous symptoms in those whose task it was to be to govern other nations. The money value of office, from the opportunities which it gave abroad, is shown by I what candidates were willing to pay for it ; and it is now that the Laws \ series of laws against bribery began to be passed, which, with ever- '■^g^^^st I increasing severity, vainly attempted to repress this form of corrup- tion. The lex Emilia Baebia (182) forbade distribution of money Leges , by candidates ; the lex Cornelia Fulvia (159) assigned exile as the tabellanae. \ punishment of the offence ; and when neither had the desired effect, Lex a remedy was sought in secret voting. The first lex tabcllaria (139) ^'^^^^"'■^^ established the ballot in elections; the second (13?) in all trials Lex Cassia. before the people except for perduellio. But all alike failed to beat back the rising tide of corruption to which they bear witness. I Meanwhile events were developing the power of Rome abroad, — Greece and in Macedonia, Greece, Asia, and Africa with rapidity ; in Spain with Macedonia. I slow and painful struggles. The settlement of Macedonia by ! Aemilius, in some respects successful, could not have seemed satis- factory to patriotic Macedonians. Though the annihilation of political existence was accepted with apparent acquiescence, yet the fourfold division of the country, with its accompanying restrictions of 1 A copy of the decree remains on a bronze tablet, found at Tiriolo, in Brut- tium, in 1640, and now at Vienna. See C. L L. 196, and almost any collection of Early Latin. It is in the form of a circular letter to the Italian towns ordering it to be set up in a conspicuous place within ten days of its receipt, and is especially interesting as showing how the Romans already interfered in the internal affairs of the Italian towns, just as in 143 the sumptuary laws were made applicable to them. - Valerius Max. i. 3, i. 522 HISTORY OF ROME Andriscus claims the crown , 152. Defeat of Andris- C71S, 148. Two other pretenders. Macedonia becomes a provi7ice, J47-146. mutual intercourse, must have hampered enterprise and depressed industry.! Internal disputes and disorders broke out from time to time, and involved appeals to Rome and the visits of Roman com- missions, and the expense of the divided administration probably more than counterbalanced the reduction in the tribute. It is not surprising, therefore, that the blessings of a constitution without a sovereign did not appear self-evident to the Macedonians, and that there were among them some who desired to regain a real national life. The opportunity came with the appearance of more than one pretender. The first was a certain Andriscus, said to be of humble birth, who professed however to be a son of Perseus. He seems to have first made known his claims about 152: but finding no immediate support in Macedonia he went to the court of Demetrius of Syria, who, being anxious to conciliate the Romans, arrested and sent him to Rome. Being treated with contempt, and carelessly guarded, he escaped, and gathered an army, mostly of Thracians, on the Strymon (149). The first impulse in Greece was to ridicule him ; but before long he had been joined by many Macedonians, had defeated the Roman praetor P. luventius, and was invading Thessaly. From Thessaly he was driven by Scipio Nasica, with the help of troops from Achaia, and in the next year was defeated by Q. Caecilius Metellus, who took the title of Macedonicus from his victory. Andriscus fled for refuge into the dominions of a Thracian prince, who was, however, induced to surrender him, and he adorned the triumph of Metellus.'^ Yet another pretender appeared in 147, calling himself Alexander; and a third under the name of Philip in 143, both claiming to be sons of Perseus, and succeeding for a time in collecting a force of runaway slaves and other elements of disorder, until suppressed by Roman troops. An end was now put to the empty form of freedom enjoyed by Macedonia. With the addition of Thessaly and parts of Epirus it was formed into a province, to which a praetor or propraetor was to be sent every year. The change seems to have been distinctly beneficial. The abolition of the fourfold division, and the construction of the great military road {via Egiiatia) from Dyrrhachium and Apollonia to Thessalonica, facilitated intercourse and trade ; and in spite of suffering periodically from the extortions of Roman capitalists or of dishonest magistrates, the province of Macedonia, ^ In 158 it is said that the working of the mines was again permitted. This must refer to the gold and silver mines, for iron mines had not been closed ; and it does not seem certain whether the measure was one for relief of distress, or a sign of confidence in the peaceful state of the country. ^ Andriscus is usually called pseudo-Philippus, as though he pretended to be Philip, the elder son of Perseus, who had died at Alba two years after his father, about 162. But according to others he professed to be the son of a concubine of Perseus, brought up clandestinely by a Cretan at Adramyttium in Mysia. XXXII DISPUTES IN THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE 523 protected by the Roman forces against the Thracian barbarians, remained among the most prosperous and loyal in the empire. ^ The commission of Metellus in Macedonia seems to have in- Greece eluded a general superintendence in Greece ; and when he had and the disposed of Andriscus his attention was directed there. The death ^'^^^<^^<^n of the unprincipled leaders, whom the Roman policy had encouraged ^''^ in various parts of Greece, had by this time helped to restore tranquillity. But there were elements of discord in Peloponnesus still working disastrously. The forcible assignment of Sparta Disputes to the Achaean League in 188 had proved as impolitic as it was '^^^^ unjust, leading to constant troubles, which generally involved appeals V^''^^- to Rome. The Senate was jealous of the League, as the one power- ful organisation now existing in Greece, and encouraged appeals from its members, in which its decisions were for the most part unfavourable to the Government. Among the detained Achaeans, who in I 5 1 returned embittered by exile and inexperienced in affairs, was Diaeus. Being elected strategus for 150-149, he seized the Policy of opportunity of a dispute with Sparta as to certain boundaries to Diaeus, involve the League in war— in order to cover, it is said, a personal ^^^' charge of corruption against himself. The Spartans having appealed to Rome, Diaeus went there in person to represent the Achaean case. The answer of the Senate was that Sparta must submit to the award of the Achaean government /;/ all things short of life and death. By omitting this last qualification he induced the League to declare war against her, as having broken a fundamental law which He forbade such appeals from separate states. Professing, however, to declares be warring, not against Sparta, but against certain traitors in that ^^^^^^-^^^ city, he was at last induced to name twenty-four men as guilty. Sparta, They escaped to Rome, and being condemned to death in their 1^0-148. absence, their case became merged in the larger question of the continued adherence of Sparta to the Achaean League. Diaeus had either been deceived himself or had deceived his country- men as to the intention of the Senate ; while the Spartan envoy Menalcidas had also assured his fellow- citizens that the Senate had decreed that Sparta should be free to break off from the League. Thus both sides believed themselves justified in con- sparta tinuing hostilities. The Roman commission, sent to decide the breaks off question on the spot, did not arrive till 147. Meanwhile the A'^'" ^'^^ Spartans had set up their independence and elected a strategus of '-'■^S^^- their own, but had been worsted in the field by the Achaeans. The latter continued to push on their advantage in spite of friendly warnings sent by Metellus, and were therefore in no mood to listen to L. ^ Macedonia, Jidelis et arnica populo Romano provincia (Cicero, pro Font. § 34). S24 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Roman comtnis- sioners at Corinth, 147- Sextus lulius Caesar at Aegium. War with Achaeans, 147. Q- Caecilius Metellus in Greece, 146. Aurelius Orestes and his fellow-commissioners, when, summoning a meeting of the League magistrates at Corinth, they announced that Sparta, Corinth, Argos, Orchomenus in Arcadia, and Heracleia in Phocis, were to be separated from the League. Diaeus, who was again Achaean strategus, summoned the congress to consider this. But the Corinthians did not wait for its decision ; they broke out into a riot, plundered the houses inhabited by Spartans, and roughly handled Orestes and his colleagues when they tried to quell the disturbance. Orestes reported this incident in strong if not exag- gerated terms at Rome, and the Senate at once sent a fresh commission, headed by Sext. lulius Caesar, with full powers. At a meeting of the League congress at Aegium, Caesar, touching lightly on the offence at Corinth, plainly stated that the orders of the Senate as to the towns mentioned must be obeyed. The alternative was war : and the more prudent party in the con- gress wished to obey, and to avail themselves of the disposition of the Senate to wink at the violence offered to Orestes. But Diaeus, whose year of office was coming to an end, was to be succeeded by Critolaus, who was at the head of the anti- Roman party ; and these two men, believing that the moderation of the Romans arose from fear, owing to the unfinished wars in Africa and Spain, determined to resist. They obtained a vote to defer a settle- ment until a meeting with Spartan legates at Tegea ; and when Caesar went to Tegea, Critolaus, after keeping him waiting till the last moment, again refused to settle anything without a farther reference to a League congress. Convinced of his determined hostility Caesar and his colleagues thereupon returned to Rome, where war with the Achaeans was promptly determined upon. Critolaus spent the winter (147-146) in visiting the Peloponnesian cities, and inciting them against Roman interference. By proclaiming a temporary relief of debtors he induced the popular party in most to follow his policy, though the cities in Elis and Messenia were prevented by the presence of the Roman fleet from supporting him. In a meeting at Corinth during the winter some legates sent by Metellus were again roughly treated; and Critolaus, accusing all opponents of treason, and hinting that he had the promise of foreign support, induced the Achaeans once more to declare war against Sparta for separating herself from the League. As the Spartans had acted on Roman authority, this was practically war against Rome, and as such it was regarded there. Metellus was anxious to use his general powers in Greece to settle this war before he was superseded by the consul of the year. Early in 146, therefore, he advanced through Thessaly by the coast road skirting the Malian gulf Critolaus had meanwhile collected the League army at Corinth, and encouraged by the adhesion of XXXII FALL OF CORINTH 525 some Chalcidians and Boeotians — the Thebans particularly being 146. discontented with certain awards made by Metellus in their disputes ^^■^■^- <^: with the Phocians — had advanced north of the pass of Thermopylae J^^'^^'-'^^^ and was now besieging Heracleia, as one of the towns that had j^ separated from the League. When he heard from scouts of the Mununius. approach of Metellus, he broke up the siege and retired through Thermopylae, which he left unguarded, towards Scarpheia. But he was overtaken and defeated by Metellus before he could reach that Defeat of town, and was either lost in attempting to escape over the salt- Cntolaus marshes, or put an end to his life by poison. By the Achaean ^^^-^ . constitution his predecessor Diaeus now became strategus, and ^^^ showed every intention of carrying on his policy. By proclaiming the emancipation of slaves of military age he obtained 10,000 men in addition to the general Achaean levy, while a forced con- tribution from the richer members of the League supplied him with money. There was great confusion and alarm throughout Peloponnese, increased by the arrival of fugitives from Thebes and other parts of Boeotia who had fled before the advancing Roman army. Nevertheless Diaeus secured his re-election as strategus, Diaeus. and about midsummer came to Corinth to take command of the troops. He had made a mistake in dividing his forces between Corinth and Megara ; for the troops in the latter, by instantly retiring upon Corinth at the approach of Metellus, had produced a feeling of defeat and panic. Still, believing that in no case would he be personally included in an amnesty, he rejected all proposals from Metellus, and imprisoned and put to death several of the higher officers who advocated their acceptance. Consequently siege of Metellus was obliged to lay regular siege to Corinth, and had to Coritith. relinquish the hope of finishing the war ; for before it fell he was superseded by the consul L. Mummius. Mummius sent Metellus back to Macedonia, and encamped in Mum-mins the isthmus with an army raised by adhesion of allies to 26,000 arrives men and 500 cavalry. The Romans from over- confidence seem M^^f to have been at first somewhat careless, and the Achaeans j^^j ^\ gained a slight advantage in a sally, which encouraged them to offer battle. But in this they were so disastrously defeated, that Diaeus abandoned his army and fled to Megalopolis, where he killed his wife and then poisoned himself On the third day after the battle Mummius took Corinth. The town was Destruc- stripped of everything of value ; and the works of art, pictures, tion of statues, and ornaments of every description were collected for Corinth. transport to Italy. Much, however, was spoilt by the greedy and ignorant soldiers, and Polybius — who, had lately returned from a similar spectacle at Carthage — saw some of the finest pictures thrown 526 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. T46-14S. Settlemeiit of Pelopon- and of Greece generally. Cicero, pro Place. § 100. Rotnan domain lands in Greece. Civitates liberce. on the ground and used as dice-boards. Mummius was an honest man and kept nothing for himself, but ignorant and perhaps contemptuous of art. It was told of him, as a satire on this ignorance, — though he was probably only using a regular formula, — that in contracts with the shipowners who transported these things to Italy a clause was inserted by him that they should replace them by others equally good if they were lost at sea. Corinth was then dismantled and burnt, and remained a mere village until its restoration in 46 by Caesar. The rest of Peloponnese was settled by ten commissioners sent out immediately after the fall of Corinth. The Achaean League was dissolved, and a constitution drawn up for each separate state, with the advice it seems of Polybius, who was employed to visit the various cities and explain its terms. For a time the members of the several states were prohibited from owning property in others, and the meeting of the League assembly was forbidden, — though the former regulation was afterwards withdrawn, and the latter relaxed for certain purposes chiefly religious. The same measure was applied to all other federations (Koiva) ; and the policy of weakening Greece by a thorough division was strictly followed. No ' province ' of Greece in the technical sense was erected, no yearly governor, pro- praetor or proconsul, was sent to govern it. But in practice Greece was not one but several provinces. Each recognised civiias or state paid a fixed tribute to the Roman exchequer and was ultimately under the authority of the Senate ; and thus we find Cicero enumerating as among the ' provinces ' Achaia, Thessalia, Boeotia, Lacedaemonii, Athenienses. The freedom which they were supposed to retain was only that of local government : for certain purposes they were under the governor of the province of Macedonia, who could levy soldiers in them ; and in every external relation which characterises a sovereign state they were subject to Rome. In other ways Greece as a whole was much reduced ; not only was Thessaly entirely and Epirus partly assigned to the province of Macedonia, while Aetolia lay desolate and neglected, but large tracts of territory became ager piibliciis — the absolute possession, that is, of the Roman people, who received a rent or vectigal from it. This was the case with the whole territory of Corinth — of which, however, a certain portion was granted to Sicyon on condition of paying for the Isthmian games ; this was the case with all Euboea, all Boeotia— Thebes and Chalcis having shared the fate of Corinth, — and with other cities which had been taken by force. Yet there were still certain cities, such as Athens, Sparta, and Sicyon, which were in a better position than the rest, enjoying the rights secured them by former treaties, and being known as libercE civitates.^ who seem to have b^n relieved from tribute, and into which a Roman magistrate entered without his lictors ; while several smaller XXXII MASANNASA AND CARTHAGE 527 cities were for special reasons also granted immunity from tax. The fall of Greece politically was accompanied by deterioration in other ways. Ever since the period of the battle of Pydna the population had been declining and the cities falling into ruin. This doubtless facilitated the Roman conquest, but cannot safely be attributed to it. Polybius alleges more fundamental reasons, — the odious habit of infanticide, and the relaxation of morality which marked the epoch. The subjection of Greece had been preceded by the still more Carthage disastrous ruin of Carthage. During the last half-century Carthage, from the though precluded from foreign extension, had largely recovered her end of the wealth and prosperity at home, and was being watched with vigilant •^^'^^'^'^ jealousy by the Romans. At the end of the last war they had 202-1^6^^' established Masannasa in an extended Numidian kingdom, in such a way as to make controversies with Carthage inevitable. He had been secretly encouraged to encroach on Carthaginian territory, and in the references to Roman arbitration the decision was invariably in his favour. As early as 193 the Carthaginians by one of these decisions had not only lost a considerable district, but had also had to pay an indemnity of 500 talents. This was followed by similar incidents : Masannasa had lost no opportunity of exciting the Roman suspicions ; and when, during the war with Perseus, Cartha- ginian ships had joined the Roman fleet, he sent his son Gulusa to warn the Senate that the Carthaginians meant to use for their own purposes the ships which they pretended to have built for the Roman service. Naturally there was a party in Carthage that regarded these things as intolerable, and were for resisting the encroachments Quarrel of Masannasa and the dictatorship of Rome. This party became of Masan- prominent when, in i 54, the quarrel with Masannasa became acute ^'^^'^J^^^ owing to the disputed possession of part of the Great Plains, which j„ j..^ he claimed in virtue of the Roman settlement. Commissioners were sent from Rome to investigate the matter — with secret instructions to support the king— and effected a short suspension of hostilities ; which, however, began again upon fresh encroachments by Masan- nasa. More than one Roman commission visited Carthage in the course of the next two years. But the popular party was now getting the upper hand ; and indignant at the flagrant injustice of the commissioners' decisions, the Carthaginian government refused to refer any new question of territory to them, maintaining that the one point for their decision was whether the treaty of 202 had been infringed. Finally, when Masannasa's son Gulusa appeared with one Cartha- of the commissions to negotiate, they refused them admission to the g^^''^ans city. The war thus continued resulted in severe disaster to the ^/^^^^, "^ Carthaginians, and reduced them to the necessity of accepting nasa. almost any terms the Romans should choose to impose. 528 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The Senate resolved to destroy Carthage, ISO. Oppositio7i of Scipio Nasica. Coss. L. Marcius Censor- inus, M. Manilius, 149- A majority of the Roman Senate had, however, by this time gradually come to a determination in regard to Carthage which is one of the most iniquitous known to history ; and the chief adviser of it was the veteran champion of right and justice, Porcius Cato. He had served on one of the commissions, and had been struck by the sight of the rich and cultivated lands, by the splendour and wealth of the city. With a narrowness of view, which generally characterised him in dealing with foreign nations, he regarded the prosperity of Carthage as necessarily a menace to Roman supremacy and enterprise, and never ceased to urge that she must be destroyed. According to the well-known story he was wont to end every speech in the Senate, on whatever subject, with this sentiment ; and tried on one occasion to impress upon the fathers the nearness of their peril by bringing some splendid figs into the Senate house, and explaining that they were grown only three days' sail from Rome. To men less prejudiced, and to whom justice even to an enemy was still of some weight, the difficulty was to discover any grounds for war. To Cato and his party it was sufficient that Carthage was prosperous ; and they maintained that her military and naval preparations, forced upon her by the conduct of their own agent Masannasa, constituted a breach of her treaty with Rome. Scipio Nasica — once judged the " best man " by the Senate, — on the contrary, held that as yet no act of the Carthaginians justified war, not even the recent refusal to admit Gulusa and the commissioners. But the disasters of the struggle with Masannasa, while they en- couraged the war party at Rome, left the Carthaginians so weak that they were obliged to pacify the Senate by every possible concession. The leaders of the party of resistance to Masannasa were condemned to death ; ambassadors were sent to Rome to plead their excuse, and to beg the Senate to state what would be considered sufficient com- pensation. The Senate refused to name the terms, declaring that the Carthaginians well knew what they must be. War, in fact, had been determined upon, and the consuls of the year ordered to proceed with their armies and fleet to Lilybaeum ; though the Senate still allowed the Carthaginian envoys to imagine that it might be averted by full submission. Just at this crisis the city of Utica surrendered itself unconditionally to Rome. It was the largest, town in the country, next to Carthage itself, from which it was only eight miles distant, and its excellent harbour and military strength gave the Romans exactly the place of landing and position for a war with Carthage that they required. This was therefore not only a blow to the safety of the Carthaginians, but also took away the credit of the step, which after long and painful discussion they had resolved upon as necessary — namely, the surrender of their whole XXXII CARTHAGE IS TO BE DESTROYED 529 country /^r deditiotiem} trusting to the mercy of the Repubhc. That The mercy was indeed cruel. The envoys who conveyed the surrender Cartha- were told that the Senate " granted them freedom and independence, ^^^^^"^ the inviolability of their shrines and tombs, and the enjoyment of J^^y'' ^^ their territory," but on condition of sending to the consuls at Lily- territory to baeum 300 boys of noble birth as hostages. No mention, as J^ome. the terrified Carthaginian Senate remarked was made of the city Roman itself; and there w^as some hesitation as to sending the hostages.- conditions But the alternative was immediate war, and with bitter misgivings j/^ ^^^ the boys were sent. Nevertheless the consuls proceeded to Utica, ^*^"^* and the Carthaginians were ordered to apply to them for farther in- structions. Their envoys were received by the consuls in solemn state, sitting on the raised tribunal and surrounded by their co7tciliiiin^ and were next informed that all arms, missiles, and war engines must be (2) at once brought to Utica. This measure was peculiarly hard at the 'Surrender time ; for Hasdrubal, whom the citizens, at the bidding of Rome, "^^ cirms. had condemned to death as a leader of the war party, was actually encamped with an army against their city. The order, however, was obeyed. Two hundred thousand stands of arms and two thousand catapults were brought in waggons and given up to the consuls, (j) who then at length revealed the purpose of the Senate in its full ^(^^noval to severity. Acting on their secret instructions they infomied the ^ _"^^^^ envoys that Carthage must be abandoned, and all its citizens miles from removed to some spot not less than ten miles from the sea. the sea. History hardly presents a determination of greater cruelty Terror and executed with more ingenuity of torture long drawn out. The g fief of envoys received the announcement with passionate expressions of ^^^ envoys. grief and terror, raising their hands to heaven, striking their heads, and throwing themselves on the ground. But nothing moved the consuls. All the comfort they could give was the promise that the sacred buildings and tombs should be preserved and open for worship, and the fishermen still allowed to carry on their industry in the sea. The envoys were afraid to return home ; and begged that at least Roman ships should be sent to Carthage to prove that they were acting under conipulsion. Nor was this precaution un- Frantic necessary. Those of the envoys who ventured to return betrayed excitetnejit by their faces that they brought bad news, and the people, in a ^^ state of terrified expectation, waited outside the Senate house ^ ^*^' to hear the worst. A cry of horror from the senators, followed by an interval of stony despair, caused the crowd to burst in and ^ See p. 129 note, for the significance of this. 2 The historian Polybius was hastily summoned by the consul Manilius to persuade the Carthaginians to give the hostages. He started at once, but learnt at Corcyra that they had comphed (Polyb. xxxvii. 3). 2 M 530 HISTORY OF ROME Cartha- ginians resolve to resist. Failure of the first attacks on Carthage, ^49- P. Scipio Aemili- demand to be told the truth. A storm of indignation followed, which found vent in cries and execrations, in violence to the envoys, or to those who had advised the sending of the hostages, in assaults upon Italians in the streets, or in a hasty rush to the city gates as though to close them against the enemy ; while the temples were crowded by a terrified crowd uttering frantic appeals and reproaches to the gods. But these wild scenes were followed by an heroic deter- mination and heroic efforts. It was resolved at all hazards to resist the orders of Rome, and to defend the city. Hasdrubal consented to be reconciled to his country, and to undertake her defence with the troops which he had collected to attack her. The whole city was turned into a workshop of arms, in which men and women in relays laboured day and night ; and a vast number of shields, swords, cata- pults, and missiles were produced each day, the women even cutting off their hair to be twisted into cords for the engines. The delay in the Roman attack gave time for these preparations. For the consuls, partly perhaps because they thought that serious resist^ ance by an unarmed populace was impossible, partly from caution, did not advance upon Carthage at once. They spent some time in negotiating with Masannasa, as to whose cordial support they seem to have been uneasy, and still more in securing bases of supply in Leptis, Hadrumetum, and other towns. They did not, therefore, find a city ready for surrender when they at length arrived under its walls. Manilius attempted to assault the outer wall of the great suburb or Megara, Censorinus landed on the taenia, a narrow strip of land be- tween the lake and sea, to attack the walls toward the sea, where they were weakest. Both, however, were repulsed more than once, to their own dismay and the encouragement of the citizens, and had to entrench regular camps for fear of Hasdrubal, who was encamped near at hand on the borders of the lake. Censorinus effected a breach in the seaward wall, but an attempt to carry the city through it was repulsed with some loss, in which the Romans were saved from disaster by the prudence and gallantry of Scipio Aemilianus. In fact, the consuls were not competent for their task, and Scipio, though only a military tribune, seems from this moment to have gained the enthusiastic confidence of the army. He was the younger son of Aemilius Paulus, the conqueror of Mace- donia, and had served with some distinction in the war against Perseus, and afterwards in Spain. His aunt was the wife of the great Africanus, and having been adopted by his cousin, the son of Africanus, he was now known as P. CorneHus Scipio Aemilianus. A charming account of his pure and loyal character has been left us by his friend and tutor Polybius ; and we cannot but regret that it fell to the lot of the best Roman of the day to carry out one of the XXXII FAILURES BEFORE CARTHAGE 531 worst public crimes of which the Repubhc was guilty. In the operations which took place during- the rest of the year and the succeeding winter he more than once saved the troops from dangers into which incompetence or imprudence had led them. Towards Winder of the end of the year Censorinus returned to Rome to hold the 14^-148. consular elections, and Manilius, after with difficulty resisting a night surprise in his camp, spent the winter in scouring the country and collecting supplies, dogged by the Carthaginian cavalry com- mander, Hamilcar Phameas, who more than once surprised and cut off detached parties ; while, on the other side, the Carthaginians all but succeeded in setting fire to the Roman fleet. When com- missioners came from Rome to inspect the state of affairs, neither Manilius nor his staff could refuse Scipio the credit of his eminent services during these operations, and the veteran Cato, who died at the end of 149, on hearing of them expressed his admiration of him, and his contempt of his incompetent superiors, in a line of Homer : " He alone has the breath of life in him, the rest are but flitting phantoms." ^ Attracted by his character, and perhaps somewhat by his name, the Death of aged Masannasa on his deathbed left to Scipio the task of arranging Masaji- for the division of his kingdom between his three sons. He crowned '^^•*'^- his achievements by receiving the surrender of the cavalry commander, Hamilcar Phameas ; and when, in the spring of 148, Manilius, being about to be superseded by Calpurnius Piso, resolved to send Scipio home with Phameas, the soldiers, accompanying him to his ship, openly expressed their hope that he would return as consul to command them. Piso, who arrived in the summer of 148 to command the army, j^s^ Coss. with his legate Mancinus to command the navy, proved a complete Sp. failure. Without venturing to assault the city, he spent his time Postunnus in minor operations — against Clupea, Hippo Diarrhytus, and other ,^ ^"^^^ j towns, — in most of which he was unsuccessful. Discipline became Calptir- relaxed, and deserters from Numidia — amongst others Bithyas, with fiius Piso 2000 men — were finding their way to Carthage, whilst the sons of Caesonius. Masannasa seemed to be in no hurry to fulfil their obligations as to reinforcing the Roman troops. The hopes of the Carthaginians rose ; they tried to rouse the country against the Romans, and sent messages to Andriscus in Macedonia, encouraging him to continue the war. Hasdrubal, elated by his successes, was full of confidence. There was great anxiety at Rome, and the people were eager to place the command in the hands of Scipio, though he was not yet of the consular age. He had come to Rome to stand for the aedileship, but a large number of the tribes returned his name as consul. This was irregular — for the consul was properly elected in the centuriate assembly — and it could only be regarded as an ^ ^ olos ■Kiirvvrai 'toX ds tr/ctai aicraoviXi. 532 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Scipio takes over the comtnand, 147- Hasdrubal puts Roman prisoners to death. informal resolution of the people. Accordingly a bill was brought before the tribes relieving him from the terms of the lex Afinalzs, and he was then elected by the centuries, and a further law passed by the tribes giving him the ' province ' of Africa without drawing lots, i He arrived at the seat of war with a supplemcntmii of soldiers to fill up the legions, as well as with a body of volunteers from the allies ; and was immediately joined by Gulusa, the son of Masan- nasa, to whom he had assigned the command of the Numidian army as his share of his father's inheritance. His arrival was not a day too soon. Not only had Piso failed to effect anything against the town, or to maintain discipline in the army, but Mancinus was in actual danger. The soldiers on the- taenia had succeeded in effecting a breach in the walls toward the sea, and had entered the town. Mancinus hastened after them with a number of half-armed men from the fleet, but had been driven back and beleaguered on a solitary cliff, and was only saved by the appearance of Scipio's rein- forcements. He was now sent home, and the fleet was put under the command of Atilius Serranus. Scipio's next care was the restoration of discipline. The straying of the soldiers from the camp in search of plunder for their own advantage was put an end to ; non-combatants and idle characters were expelled from the camp ; superfluous luxuries were forbidden ; and the men brought to a state of efficiency. Before long he actually penetrated the outer wall into the Megara, but finding that extensive suburb broken up by woods, streams, and buildings,^ affording ample opportunity for ambuscades, he thought it prudent to retire. After this Hasdrubal left his camp outside the walls and withdrew within them ; and his namesake Hasdrubal, grandson of Masannasa, being murdered about this time, he became governor of the town. His first act was to retaliate upon Scipio by bringing his Roman prisoners to the wall, and there^ putting them to death in sight of their comrades with horrible tortures. His object is said to have been to make his fellow-citizens feel that they had no hope of mercy from the Romans, and must resist to the last. It is scarcely possible, as some have done, to doubt a fact which Polybius must have seen with his own eyes or heard of immediately from those who saw it ; yet though he represents Hasdrubal as a glutton, a tyrant, and a debauchee, it is true that he had for two years baffled the Roman army outside the walls, and ^ This seems to have been the course of events from a comparison of Livy, Epit. xhx. and 1., with Appian, Pun. 112; though Livy leaves it doubtful whether the objection of the Senate was founded on the election by the tribes, or only on the breach of the lex A?malis. This law, brought in by L. Villius (Livy, xl. 44), fixed the age for the aedileship at 36-37, for the praetorship at 39-40, for the consulship at 42-43. Scipio was born in 185. XXXII HASDRUBAL'S DEFENCE OF CARTFIAGE 533 now maintained an heroic defence within them, refusing until ahnost the last the offer of mercy to himself apart from the rest of the citizens. lapius Cothon CARTHAGE GREEK STADIA ROMAN MILES ENGLISH MILEC ITaLker &■ Boutall sc. Having completed the necessary reforms in his army, Scipio now burnt Hasdrubal's deserted camp, and erected a continuous line of 534 HISTORY OF ROME Complete investtiient of Carthage, 147. Scipid s mole. The Cartha- ginian fleet issue by a new channel. Capture of Nepheris, winter of I47-I4(>- fortifications across the isthmus which formed the approach to Car- thage, thus completely cutting off supplies from the land side. The only chance for the besieged lay in the provisions which the Numidian Bithyas could send round by sea. Though vessels were not numerous, and the Roman fleet was on the watch, some supplies were landed ; for the Roman ships could not guard all the coast, or venture always to follow the lighter craft who ran into the harbour in spite of them. Yet these supplies were wholly inadequate ; and, in the course of the autumn and winter of 147-146, the people were reduced to horrible extremities of famine. To complete the process of starvation, Scipio determined on the erection of a mole from the taenia, which would at once block up the mouth of the harbour, and give him passage on to the end of the quay of the larger or merchants' harbour. It was to be formed of great stones, and at the base to be 96 feet broad, narrowing gradually to 24 feet at the surface. It seemed an impos- sible enterprise to the Carthaginians, and never likely to be formid- able. But it was pushed on day and night with such energy, that they became alarmed, and began to cut a new entrance to the Cothon, and to build vessels of every kind of wood they could find, keeping this so secret, that Scipio got no certain information of their purpose, until this new channel being thrown open a fleet of fifty triremes, with numerous smaller craft, sailed out. The Romans had in many cases beached their ships, or were so intent on assisting the operations on land, that if they had been at once attacked they might probably have been destroyed. But the Carthaginians wasted two days in mere naval demonstrations, and when on the third they began a real attack, the Romans were prepared ; and, though the battle was indecisive, the new entrance became quickly blocked up when they attempted to return, and the larger vessels were compelled to anchor along the outer quay, where they suffered so severely from the Roman ships that only a few eventually made their way back into the Cothon. Next day Scipio attacked the wall of the quay from his mole, and though the besieged garrison made a desperate resistance, and even succeeded by wading through the sea in setting fire to his siege works, yet these were erected again, and the siege pressed on. The summer was spent in these operations, and Carthage was still untaken. But in the winter the source of her supplies, which, however scantily, still found their way in, was finally closed by the capture of Nepheris, a fortress somewhere on the lake of Tunis, the headquarters of Diogenes, who had charge of the business of supplying the capital. The capture of this place was entrusted chiefly to Gulusa, supported by a detachment of the Roman army under Laelius, and superintended by Scipio, who passed backwards and forwards between it and his camp. Carthage being thus finally cut off from its only source of supply, XXXII THE CAPTURE OF CARTHAGE 535 the outer harbour being completely blockaded, and the siege works Fall of along the quay now reaching the height of the city wall, Scipio Carthage resolved upon delivering his final assault. During the winter some "^ ^^^'^ negotiations had taken place with Hasdrubal, who offered to sur- ^^^^^^ ^J render, if life and freedom were granted to all the inhabitants ; but Scipio, in spite of the advice of Gulusa, had declined to pledge him- self to anything except to the personal safety of Hasdrubal and his family, who refused to accept a favour apart from his countrymen. When he saw that the assault was coming, Hasdrubal ordered the outer harbour to be fired. In the confusion that followed Laelius managed to scale the wall higher up, and, having thus got possession ' of the Cothon, admitted Scipio with the whole Roman army, who easily occupied the market-place. There remained three streets of Fighting houses, six stories high, leading up to the Byrsa. From these the ^'^^ ^^'^ , Romans were assailed by every kind of missile ; until, forcing their ^^^^^^^• way into some of them, and clambering from roof to roof, they fought with the famished enemy in detail, hurling them from the roofs, or , cutting them down with their swords. For six days and nights this , desperate fighting was maintained by relays of men sent forward by Scipio, who himself scarcely stopped to eat or sleep. It was not until J he reached the foot of the Byrsa that he gave the order to fire the houses, in which numbers of helpless inhabitants perished. He had I no need to storm the Byrsa. The wretched people who had taken I refuge there almost immediately surrendered on the promise of their Surrender I lives ; and 50,000 men, women, and children were allowed to descend ^f ^^^ 1 under guard, and became prisoners of war. This number, probably '^-^^•^^• \ not a tenth of the regular inhabitants, speaks strikingly of the havoc I which famine and disease had made among them. About 900 Roman deserters, who had no mercy to expect, along with Hasdrubal and his wife and children, took refuge in the temple of Aesculapius. Before long Hasdrubal made his way out secretly and accepted his life from Scipio : but the desperate deserters set fire to the temple, and perished in the flames ; while Hasdrubal's wife, disdaining to follow her husband's humiliation, slew her two boys, and threw herself with them into the burning ruins. For some days the city was given up to plunder. Silver and gold and the works of art in the temples were reserved ; and many of the latter, which had come from Sicily, were restored to their original sites. When free plunder v/as stopped, the remaining booty and slaves were sold, and the army rewarded. A swift ship adorned with specimens of the spoils was immediately sent to carry the news to Rome, where the exultation of the people was shown by (Sacrifices, games, and all the other forms of popular rejoicing. It as resolved in the Senate to send commissioners to organise the 536 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. XXXII new possession ; but, meanwhile, orders were despatched to Scipio to entirely destroy the city : the plough was to be drawn over its site, and a curse pronounced upon whoever attempted to rebuild it. Scipio obeyed, but felt the full horror, and foreboded the evil results, of such a step. As he gave the order for firing the town and suburbs, he turned to Polybius, his old friend and tutor, " Oh, Polybius," he said, " it is a grand thing ; but I shudder to think that some one may one day give the same order for Rome." And as he gazed at the burning city, where the fire raged for seventeen days, he thought of the empires which had perished, and murmured the lines of Homer — The day shall come when holy Troy shall fall, And Priam, lord of spears, and Priam's folk. The The settlement of the country was the work of the ten com- provifice of missioners sent to assist Scipio. The provincial arrangements, Africa. which had now become established in principle, were followed. The site of Carthage and its immediate territory became domain land of the Roman people, and was leased out to tenants. The whole dominion of Carthage was made into the Roman province of Africa, to be administered by a yearly magistrate from Utica. It consisted, as in other provinces, of a collection of "cities," with municipal liberties and a fixed territory, for which the inhabitants paid a rent or stipendrnvi to the Roman exchequer. Some towns which had distin- guished themselves by fidelity to Carthage were mulcted of territory, or altogether destroyed, and their lands assigned to others. The kings of Numidia were not granted any addition to their territory, nor would they be allowed to make any encroachments on lands which were now Roman, as Masannasa had done when they were Carthaginian. The only notice taken of them appears to be that the public libraries of Carthage were presented to them. The Romans had committed a great crime ; they determined at any rate that the fruits of it should be their own. Their merchants soon found a pro- fitable trade with the interior from Utica ; and the foreboding of some of the aristocratic party, that the fall of Carthage would re- move a check upon the rising discontents of the lower orders, found its fulfilment, perhaps, when Gracchus raised a storm by proposing a new colony on its site. Authorities. — For the war with Andriscus, Polybius, xxxvii. 2 and 9 ; Livy, Ep. xlix. 1. liii. ; Pausanias vii. 12, 9 ; Diodorus, fr. of xxxii. ; Velleius, i. 11 ; Eutropius iv. 6, 7 ; Florus ii. 14 ; Aurehus Victor Ixi. ; Zonaras ix. 28. For the Achaean war and fall of Corinth, Polybius xxxix. 10-13 I Livy, Ep. li.-lii. ; Pau- sanias vii. 12-15 ; Orosius v. 3. For the third Punic war, Polybius xxxii. 2, 8-16; xxxvi. 1-8; xxxvii. 1-3, 10; xxxviii. i; xxxix. 1-5; Livy, Ep. xlix.-li. ; Appian, Pun. Ixvii. -cxxvi. ; Diodorus, fr. of xxxii. ; Eutropius iv. 5; Orosius iv. 22 ; Zonaras x. 26-28. CHAPTER XXXIII WARS IN SPAIN 155-133 Wars with Ligurians and Dalmatians (168-155) — State of Spain after the settle- ment of Gracchus {176). I. The Lusitani invade tribes subject to Rome (154) — Campaigns of L. Mummius and M. Atilius (154-152) — Treacherous massacre of the Lusitani by Galba (150) — Rise of Viriathus (147) and disasters of Vetilius, G. Plautius, and Claudius Unimanus (147-145) — Cam- paigns of Q. Fabius Aemilianus (145-144) — Defeat of L. Quinctius (143) — Peace made by Q. Fabius Servilianus (142-141), but rejected by Q. Servilius Caepio, who causes the murder of Viriathus (141-140) — Campaigns of Decimus Junius Brutus in north-west Spain (138-136). II. Celtiberian Wars — the Titthi, Belli, and Arevaci — Disasters of Q. Fulvius Nobilior (153-152) — M. Claudius Marcellus makes terms and founds the town of Corduba (152-151) — War with the Arevaci at Numantia and the Vaccaei continued by L. Licinius Lucullus (151-150) — Five years peace (149-144) — ^The Arevaci again revolt (144) — Campaigns of Q. Caecilius Metellus, Q. Pompeius Rufus, M. Popilius Rufus, C. Hostilius Mancinus, Q. Calpurnius Piso (144-134) — Scipio Aemilianus sent to Numantia, which he takes after a long siege (134-133). For twelve years after the fall of Perseus (i 68-1 57) such wars as state of the Romans undertook were not with distant nations, but were affairs fought for the consolidation of Italy. The struggle with the f^^^ '^^• Ligurians was always with them, involving once at any rate (163) j^j^^ an expedition to Corsica. But in Africa they were content for the Liguriatis. present to allow Masannasa to keep the Carthaginians in play ; and in the East such questions as the restoration of Ariarathes, Aria- the deposed king of Cappadocia, did not call for armed interference, rathes. especially as the death of Eumenes in 159 placed on the throne of Pergamus a king (Attalus II.) in whom they had greater confidence. At length an outbreak among the Dalmatians, who quarrelled xh^ with their neighbours the Lissi and Daorsi, tribes under Roman Dalma- protection, roused the Roman Government for a time to the sense of i^atis. its extended responsibilities; and the consul of 156, C. Marcius Figulus, conducted a campaign against them with varied fortunes. 538 HISTORY OF ROME Wars in Spain , See p. {i) The Lusitani. L. Mummius, '54-153' M. Atilius, 153-152- S.Sulpicius Galba, 151-150- Treacher- ous massacre of the Lusitani, i5(>- It was reserved for Scipio Nasica, consul for 155, to subdue an enemy who survived to give trouble as late as the time of Augustus. From this time also the Romans were engaged in the West with some of the most resolute and dangerous enemies they had ever encountered. The value of Spain to the Roman merchants, the wealth extracted from her mines, was so great, that in spite of con- stant disasters the struggle was continually renewed. The war was twofold : that with the Lusitani, living south of the Douro, in what is now Portugal, leading to the eight years' struggle with Viriathus ; and that with the Celtiberian tribes, especially the Vaccaei and Arevaci, culminating in the heroic resistance and final destruction of Numantia. The settlement of Gracchus (176) seems to have secured quiet for a time in Spain. For the outbreak which now occurred, after twenty-three years, the conduct of the Roman praetors may very likely be in great part responsible. Still it is to be remembered that the mutual depredations of robber tribes must have caused constant complications, and that governors sent out to thus struggle with Chaos must not be always judged by ordinary rules. The troubles were begun by raids of the Lusitanians upon tribes under Roman protection. The south of Baetica was overrun, and the praetors Manilius and Calpurnius Piso (155) suffered more than one defeat, though the Lusitanian leader Punicus fell in the course of the campaign. His successor Caesareas again defeated the praetor L. Mummius (154-153), killing 9000 men and taking many standards. Mummius, however, afterwards repaired this disaster and recovered the standards ; and moving northward to the Douro defeated an army under Caucaenus, relieved the town of Ocelum {? Ciiidad Rodrigo)^ and was allowed a triumph. His successor M. Atilius (152) made little progress; and in 151 Ser. Sulpicius Galba found the Lusitani still harassing the obedient tribes. He attacked them at first with some success, but finally lost heavily in a carelessly conducted pursuit, and was obliged to go into winter quarters at Conistergis, on the extreme south of Lusitania. Next spring, how- ever, he was assisted by the consul L. Licinius Lucullus, who was engaged on the Celtiberian war, and the two entered the Lusitanian territory in different directions. The Lusitani in alarm offered a submission, which Galba accepted with a promise of redressing their grievances by a grant of new territory, if they would meet him in three separate parties. The people not only unsuspiciously assembled at the places named, but consented to deliver up their arms, as being no longer needed now that they were under Roman protection, and were then treacherously massacred by Galba's order. Among the few who escaped was a shepherd named xxxiii VIRIATHUS TAKES THE LEAD 539 Viriathus, who was to show for the next nine years what desperate Viriathus. patriotism could do. Galba was denounced at home by the tribune L. Scribonius Libo and in the last speech ever delivered by the aged Cato. But though brought to trial on his return, his subtle oratory or his great wealth secured his acquittal ; and in spite of numerous scandals connected with private business transactions, as well as the complaints of the army as to the embezzlement of the Lusitanian spoil, he escaped unscathed, and was consul in 144, when he even had the assurance to demand to be sent again to Spain,— one of the earliest as well as the most flagrant instances, soon to be too common, of wealth dishonestly acquired securing its own immunity. The Lusitani, however, were for the present reduced to taking Gaius refuge in the mountains, and it was not until 147 that the praetor Vetilim Vetilius found them collected in formidable numbers. A party of Z^'^^^^^- them were besieged in a stronghold and were on the point of ''^^' surrendering, when Viriathus, who happened to be among them, urged them to hold out in view of the former treachery of the Romans, and being elected leader by acclamation contrived to extricate them. Before long he decoyed Vetilius into an ambush, where the praetor, who was old, fat, and inactive, lost his own life with that of 4000 men. Two other praetors, Gaius Plautius and Claudius Unimanus (146-145) were in their turn baffled by the skill of the new leader and the re-awakened enthusiasm of his people, and expiated their misfortune or incapacity by condemnation at Rome. But now that Carthage had fallen, and Greece had been subdued, Q. Fabius the Senate determined that such a state of affairs in Spain should ^^axtmus no longer be tolerated. The consul Q. Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, ^''" ^' younger son of the conqueror of Macedonia, was sent agamst ^^^. Viriathus with two legions. After devoting the winter to the training of his new levies, he proceeded against him in 144 by the Fabian method of dogging his steps without offering battle, until at length the opportunity came of striking a blow. Viriathus beaten in the field was obliged to shut himself up in a fortress, while Fabius wintered at Corduba. But Viriathus was not at the end of his resources, he instigated a revolt of the Celtiberian tribes, the Aravaci, Titthi, and Belli ; and having thus caused the Romans trouble in the upper province, he turned again into Lusitania and defeated the praetor Quintius, — the proconsul Fabius having now apparently returned to Rome, — and forced him to take up his winter quarters at Corduba several months before the usual time. A consul was again sent in 142. Q. Fabius Maximus Ser- q. Fabius vilianus was apparently successful in his first year ; but either from Maximus policy or from reverses in his second he listened to proposals of ^_^^'^^^- ia?ii/s, 142- 141. 54<3 HISTORY OF ROME Servilius Caepio, 140-139- Death of Viriathiis, ^39- Decimus Junius Brutus Callaiciis, 138-136. (2) Celti- beriaii war. peace from Viriathus, and made a treaty which was confirmed by the people. But his brother and successor Q. Servilius Caepio persuaded the Senate that it was unworthy of their dignity to negotiate with Viriathus. The Senate at first suggested that Caepio, without openly renouncing the treaty, should covertly irritate Viriathus ; and presently, on some pretext probably thus obtained from Viriathus himself, again proclaimed war. Caepio overtook Viriathus in the territory of the Carpetani with such superior numbers that the Lusitanian did not venture to give battle ; but skilfully eluded him and enabled the greater part of his army to escape. Next year (139) Caepio was sup- ported by the army of the upper province under M. Popilius, and thereupon Viriathus felt it necessary to attempt negotiations. One after the other of the Roman demands was accepted, even to the surrender of many of his countrymen and of his own relations. But when finally the Roman proconsul demanded the surrender of all arms, Viriathus determined on resistance. Caepio however had corrupted his agents, who contrived to murder him in his sleep, and when they asked for their reward he had the assurance to answer that the Romans did not approve of the murder of a general by his own soldiers. His fellow-countrymen honoured Viriathus with a splendid funeral, and for a time attempted to continue the war under a new chief named Tantalus. But he proved incapable of the task, and presently most of them surrendered their arms, and accepted lands assigned them by Caepio. When next year (138) the consul Decimus Brutus was sent into Lusitania he turned his arms to the North, took the strong town of Talabriga, and penetrated far into the territory of the Callaeci {Gallicia). It is to his campaigns that the pacification of Lusitania was mainly due, though even after them there were renewals of disorder, and in 98 L. Cornelius Dolabella, and in 93 P. Licinius Crassus, celebrated triumphs over the Lusitani. Side by side with this a still more difficult war had been going on with the Celtiberians, so fiercely contested and so dangerous, that it was difficult to enrol soldiers or induce officers to give in their names for it. This "fiery war," as it was called, began whh Segede, a town of the Belli. On being ordered to desist from rebuilding their walls and to supply a contingent of troops and a contribution of money, the Segedeans replied that the settlement of Gracchus only forbade the forming of new fortifications, and ex- pressly exempted them from such obligations. The former plea was probably an evasion ; the latter may have been well grounded : but the Senate replied that all such exemptions were granted " during pleasure," and prepared to enforce its orders. The consuls entered on their office on the ist of January instead of the 15th of March, Nobilior, T. Annius ]\ farce II us. 152. xxxiii DIFFICULTIES OF THE SPANISH WAR 541 expressly that an army might be promptly sent off;i and Q. Fulvius Coss. Q. Nobilior arrived early in the northern province of Spain with an ^'''jl^iif^ army of nearly 30,000 men. But the people of Segede, abandoning their town, took refuge with the Arevaci, and the combined army decisively defeated Nobilior with the loss of 6000 Roman soldiers. is3- The battle was on the day of the Vulcanalia (23rd August), which was always afterwards regarded as unlucky. Nobilior sustained Defeat of fresh losses under the walls of Numantia, in which the Arevaci and Nobilior. their allies had secured themselves, in spite of the assistance of Numidian cavalry and elephants sent by Masannasa, and after several other minor disasters and the loss of his magazines at Ocelum, he went into winter quarters, where he again lost largely from sick- ness and shortness of food. His successor, M. Claudius Marcellus, was somewhat more for- M. tunate. The Titthi and Belli at once submitted, and with the Arevaci Claudizis sent ambassadors to plead their cause before the Senate. He himself was in favour of peace, and had already conciliated the natives by the mild treatment of Ocelum and Nercobriga, which he had recovered ; and on going into winter quarters at Corduba had taken steps for establishing a mixed community of natives and permanent Roman residents, hardly to be distinguished from a colony — a title, indeed, which Strabo gives it.^ But the Senate would not consent. The envoys of the Titthi and Belli, received as friends, warned the Senate The against their late allies the Arevaci, and against diminishing their Titthi, forces in Spain ; and when the legates of the Arevaci, not admitted ^ ^' within the walls, had an audience of the Senate, they showed such ^^,,^^^ ^j^_ haughty determination to claim the full settlement of Gracchus that they were dismissed without an answer, and orders were despatched to Marcellus to continue the war. The consul Lucullus, however, was sent as soon as possible to L. Licinius supersede him, but found the greatest difficulty in getting military Lncullus, tribunes or legati or soldiers. At this crisis Scipio Aemilianus, then ^^^" thirty-four years old, imitating his adoptive grandfather, the elder Africanus, volunteered for the service. His example had a good effect in inducing others to undertake the duty ; and by forcing all on whom the lot fell in the tribes to serve, an army was got together. When Lucullus arrived in Spain he found that, in spite of the Senate, Marcellus had made terms with the Arevaci. But he was deter- mined not to be baulked of his chance of reputation and wealth. 1 The consular year henceforth, though apparently at first with some excep- tions, begins on the ist of January, the new arrangement being found more convenient. 2 Yet like Italica, Aquae Sextiae, and other extra Italian settlements, it had not the full rank of a colony. 542 HISTORY OF ROME Lucullus proco?isul, ISO. After an interval of six years {149-143) the Numafi- tine war is begun by ^- Caecilius Mete II us, 143-142. The Carpetani, a protected tribe, complained of raids committed upon their territory by the Vaccaei. Lucullus without orders from the Senate attacked them, and massacred the people of Cauca with such treachery that the neighbouring inhabitants, rather than yield, burnt what they could not move of their property and fled to the mountains. He then laid siege to Intercatia, the inhabitants of which, warned by the treachery practised on the people of Cauca, held out obstinately, and only surrendered at length on the personal guarantee of Scipio — who had distinguished himself during the siege by a single combat with a champion of the Vaccaei — that the terms should be respected. The Roman army had suffered severely before Intercatia from sickness and the unaccustomed food ; and it suffered still more before Pallantia, which Lucullus next unsuccessfully attacked, so that he had to abandon the siege and retire into winter quarters at Corduba. He sent Scipio to Masannasa for more ele- phants, and next year (150) joined Galba in the invasion of Lusitania. Disappointed in the hope of finding stores of silver and gold among the Vaccaei, who, in fact, were a tribe farming land in common, and neither possessing nor valuing the precious metals, he yet returned to Rome rich and infamous to found a temple to Felicitas. During the next six years, which witnessed great events in Greece and Africa, there was comparative quiet in northern Spain. It was not till 143 that Viriathus, who had been all along maintaining the struggle in Lusitania, succeeded in instigating the Arevaci to move once more, and that a consul was again sent against them with a large army. Q. Caecilius Metellus, the conqueror of the Macedonian pretender, found the Arevaci engaged in harvest, and without much difficulty reduced the open country to submission. But the towns still held out, especially Termantia, Numantia, and Contrebia, and Metellus, whose character for strict discipHne, prudence, and humanity was much enhanced by his two campaigns, left a thoroughly trained army for his successor O. Pompeius Rufus, but deliberately weakened, it is said, by wholesale grants of furloughs, remissions of service, and waste of stores, from dislike of Pompeius. 1 Though Metellus had beaten the enemy in the field and taken many towns, Termantia and Numantia still held out ; and Pompeius began his command by an attempt on Numantia. Failing to make an impression he transferred his attack to Termantia with equal ^ This story is told by Valerius Maximus (ix. 3, 7), and is rather inconsistent with the words of Appian (vi. 76), who says that he handed over " an army of 30,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry in a most excellent state of discipline." It may have been invented by Pompeius or his friends to account for his own failure. Similar complaints were afterwards made against Pompeius himself, probably with more foundation. XXXIII MORE DISASTERS IN SPAIN 543 want of success. He then began a regular investment of Numantia, Investment throwing up earthworks and diverting the river, in order to starve it ^f Numan- out. But his workmen were cut off by salHes of the besieged ; he ^'"' ^^^' lost heavily in an ambush ; and finally was glad to go into winter quarters to train the new levies, which had come to replace many of the veterans of Metellus, and there to receive proposals of peace. He demanded openly the usual submission to Rome, return of fugi- tives and deserters, and payment of money : but at the same time he pledged himself to certain secret articles in favour of the Numan- tines, which, on the arrival of his successor M. PopiHus Laenas, he had the effrontery to repudiate, in spite of the presence of Roman officers who were witnesses of his promise. Popilius referred both parties to the Senate, who decided that N.Popilius the war was to go on. But Popilius accomplished nothing, and Laenas, Numantia was still untouched when he was relieved at the end of ^39-^3^- his second year by C. Hostilius Mancinus. Mancinus was still more unfortunate. He was decisively de- Cos. C. feated and obliged to take refuge in a disused camp of Nobilior's, Hostilius which was not secure. He was only saved from utter destruction by ^'^'^"^'"' the influence of his young quaestor Tiberius Gracchus, whose name Aanilius and character induced the Numantines to accept a treaty acknow- Lepidns, ledging their independence, and adopting them as friends of Rome J^37-^3<^- on equal terms. Mancinus was superseded by the other consul M. Aemilius Lepidus, and summoned home with the Numantine legates to state his case. Meanwhile Lepidus, while the question of Numantia was thus pending, indulged his desire of reputation and plunder by invading the Vaccaei, on the plea that they had suppHed the enemy with provisions. The Senate, however, quickly decided that the treaty with Numantia should be annulled, and Mancinus was sent back stripped and handed over to the enemy, who, however, refused to receive him.^ Orders were sent to Lepidus to withdraw from the ^^^g^ of expedition against the Vaccaei and the siege of their capital Pallantia, f^^^^^^^'^- and to resume the siege of Numantia. He, however, ventured to dis- obey, on the grounds that the Senate were not acquainted with the facts — that the Vaccaei were supplying Numantia with food ; that he was actually in their country ; that Decimus Brutus was assisting him ; and that, if he retired now, Roman prestige would be ruined. Eventually, however, he and Brutus had to raise the siege of Pal- lantia, abandoning their sick and wounded, and pursued by the ^ Plutarch says that Mancinus was an excellent man, but supremely unlucky. All sorts of omens are said to have foretold his misfortune, as, for instance, a voice was heard as he embarked, exclaiming, "Mane, mane, Mancine " (Valer. i. 6, 7). His return to Rome after his surrender gave rise to a dispute as to whether he had lost his citizenship. 544 HISTORY OF ROME Pi so, ijj. triumphant Pallantians. Brutus recouped his reputation by a brilHant campaign in the next year, but Lepidus was recalled, brought to trial, Q. and fined. His successor Piso, from fear or prudence, did not Calpurmus approach Numantia at all, but spent his year of office in aimless movements in Carpetania and the territory of Pallantia. It was time that some man of military reputation and tried character should take the place of these incompetent magistrates, who owed their position to ability in the Forum or family interest. All eyes were turned to the conqueror of Carthage. Scipio was P- now about fifty-two years old. He had been in Spain in i 51-150, Cornelius ^^^ ^^^ done good service there. In the third Punic war his Africanus character had made him the only possible person to finish what the consul a incompetence or corruption of others seemed to render hopeless, secondtime, and this appeared an occasion of a similar kind. Without being a ^34- candidate for the consulship, and in spite of the law,^ he was unani- mously elected by all the centuries, and the Iberian war was assigned as his province. He made no new levy, but was accompanied by 5000 volunteers, and a corps of 500 personal friends under the com- mand of his nephew Buteo. On his arrival at the camp his first task was the restoration of discipline. He expelled all non-com- batants — traders, soothsayers, priests, and harlots ; sternly suppressed the luxury which the slackness or corruption of previous commanders had connived at ; reduced the kit of the soldiers to a saucepan, drinking cup, and spit ; and caused the waggons and sumpter cattle to be sold. He would not engage in any warlike movements till he judged his men fitted by a long series of labour and training for service on the field. Towards the end of the year he led them by a circuitous march to Numantia, where he was joined by Jugurtha with elephants, archers, and slingers. There he formed a winter camp, and set his men to work to regularly invest the town and throw up every kind of siege work before it. Among those who came from Rome with him was young Gaius Marius on his first campaign, destined many years later to scourge the corruption and weakness of the Optimates ; and here he must have met for the first time with Jugurtha, whose intrigues with these venal nobles were to give him the opportunity he required. Numantia Numantia was an unwalled town, but situated on a steep emi- again ^ nence which could only be approached on one side, where it was defended by ditches and other works. Scipio constructed a line of fortifications and trenches outside these along an arc measuring about ^ The holding of the consulship a second time appears to have been forbidden by a law about B.C. 151, Ijut we do not know the name or exact date of the law. But this second consulship of Scipio is the only example between 151 and 104, when Marius was consul for the second time. invested. Numantia, ^33- XXXIII FALL OF NUMANTIA 545 three miles ; and finding that the besieged could still get provisions up the river Douro, he built a fort on each bank and connected them with cables and chains, keeping a floating dam of blocks of wood armed with spikes across the stream. Thus cut off from supplies, the Numantines in vain attempted to break through his lines, on which a careful system of signals secured prompt help for the point attacked. Through the winter, spring, and summer (134-133) the Horrible garrison held out until reduced to eating the corpses of the slain, and siifferings even to killing the weak or sick for food. One body of 400 men "/ ^^^ . managed to escape and tried to rouse neighbouring cities to bring ^l^^^^f/' aid. But Scipio discovered where they were, compelled their sur- render, and caused their hands to be chopped off. Reduced to Surrender despair, at length they accepted Scipio's demand of unconditional of surrender, — though even then many preferred suicide ; and it was not ] till the third day after the surrender had been agreed upon that the ' miserable survivors appeared, scarcely human in aspect, wolfish from hunger, horrible from filth, with long shaggy hair, and bodies scarcely clothed in rags. Scipio selected fifty to adorn his triumph, and sold the rest as slaves. The town he completely destroyed — a matter of trifling labour compared with his task at Carthage. The Senate had given no order for this destruction, but made no objection, and Scipio j adopted the additional name of Numantinus after his triumph in j 132. The territory was divided among loyal natives, others being ( punished according to their several degrees of guilt. The Arevaci ^^e future \ were not, after all, either destroyed or wholly subdued ; but there ^ was comparative peace for some time, and it was not till 95-94 that I Titus Didius, after taking Temessus and Colida, and killing 20,000 ( men, forced them definitely to abandon walled towns. j Authorities. — For the Lusitanian wars and Viriathus, Appian vi. 56, 75 ; Livy, Ep. xlix. liii. liv. ; Velleius ii. i ; Diodorus Sic. xxxiii. fr. ; Dio Cassius, » fr. 73, 75 ; Orosius v. 4. For the Celtiberian and Numantine war, Polybius XXXV. 1-5; Appian vi. 45-55; 76-100; Livy, Ep. xlvii. xlviii. liv. -Ivii. lix. ; Velleius ii. 4 ; Floras ii. 17; Orosius v. 5, 7 ; Eutropius iv. 8 ; Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus 5 ; Diodorus Sic. xxxiii. For anecdotes of Metellus see Frontinus iv. i, 23; iv. 7, 42; Valerius Max. v. i, 5; vii. 4, 5. The Arevaci in 2 N CHAPTER XXXIV SERVILE WARS IN SICILY State of Sicily since 205 — Speculations in land — Miseries of the slaves — Disorders in the island from about 139 — Murder of Demophilus, and organisation of rebellion under Eunusand Cleon — Defeat of the praetors — M. Perpenna retakes Henna — Defeat of Hypsaeus — Campaigns of C. Fulvius Flaccus {134-132) and P. Rupilius — Capture of Tauromenium — The lex Rjipilia (132) — Second war in 103 — Fraudulent reduction to slavery — Legal decisions of Licinius Nerva liberating 800 slaves — Protests by the landowners — Outbreak under Tryphon and Athenion — L. Licinius Lucullus (103-102) — C. Servilius (102-101) — M'.Aquillius ends the war (101-99). The Spanish wars had brought into prominence the unworthiness of some of the new nobihty. As they were ending, the troubles at Rome in connexion with the legislation of Tiberius Gracchus showed the dangers that underlay society in Italy, and gave a foretaste of the violence soon to become frequent in the capital. Contemporary with this last an insurrection of slaves in Sicily threw a lurid light upon another plague spot in Roman civilisation. Sicily from For sixty years after the expulsion of the Carthaginians and the 203. absorption of the kingdom of Syracuse, Sicily had apparently enjoyed continuous prosperity. Its fruitful plains were rich with corn, its hills covered with sheep, its harbours crowded with merchant vessels, and its towns still decorated with some of the masterpieces of Greek art. It was, on the whole, peacefully administered by its praetor or propraetor, with two quaestors, one at Syracuse and the other at Lily- baeum, and had come to be regarded as almost an integral part of Roman territory, "a suburban province." Nevertheless a large pro- portion of the men and women living in it were in a most miserable Position of position. The richness of its soil had caused Roman speculators to landteriure l3uy up large estates, which they cultivated exclusively by gangs of tn Sicily, slaves, native or foreign, generally without residing on their properties or taking proper measures even for the bare support of the men who produced their wealth, and whom they encouraged to supply their CHAP, xxxiv THE SLAVES IN SICILY 547 necessities by open brigandage. Some of the wealthier natives, who had retained or purchased estates, followed the bad example and even bettered the instruction : so that Sicily is described as rapidly becoming Disturbed a constant scene of robbery and murder, scarcely safe for living in state of the outside the walls of a town, or for peaceful travellers to traverse, ^^^^^ry. The praetors from time to time attempted to restrain these disorders ; but the masters of the slaves were influential at Rome,i and could pro- cure the prosecution and probable condemnation of any praetor who offended them ; and the magistrates, therefore, often preferred to share the profits of the speculators as the price of a convenient blindness. The slaves, besides the habits of robbery almost forced on them, had terrible wrongs to avenge. The horrible life of the Wrongs of ergastula, the heavy chains in which they had often to work, the ^^^ slaves. brandings and the blows, the wrongs to women and children, and in many cases the fraudulent proceedings by which they had lost their I freedom, all contributed to swell the storm of just resentment now to burst upon the rich landowners. Large numbers of slaves had been imported into the island from the East ; but there were also numerous natives who in the various sieges and battles had been reduced to this state : so that some must have been peculiarly exasperated by , serving on the lands which they or their fathers had once owned. Of , all wars that of slaves against their masters is the most equitable and I even praiseworthy ; yet the pent-up rage actuating it, and the absence of the conventions tending in some degree to mitigate a contest between belligerent nations, make it too often bloody and cruel I beyond other wars. Women and children have to suffer for the I sins of husbands and fathers ; and the brutality which their own ( oppression has helped to create is exercised in all its horror on the i oppressors. * It was not exclusively or mainly against Roman masters that the The \ rebellion was directed. Native owners, while aping Roman luxury, inmrrec- had often outdone Romans in cruelty, and were even more hated l^^^j.^^^^^ 1 because more constantly present. It was on the estate of a Sicilian slaves {Greek, Demophilus of Henna, that the insurrection began. He and of Demo- Ihis wife Megallis had gained an evil eminence in inhumanity to their philus of slaves. They at length conspired to murder them, and to strike for /^"^^' J freedom under the leadership of a certain Syrian slave named Eunus, who had acquired great influence by the profession of magic powers ^ Diodorus says that the owners were mostly equites, who acted as judices in the prosecutions of the praetors. But he here anticipates the law of Gains Gracchus by ten years : at this time judices were exclusively senators ; still they may in many cases have been interested in Sicilian properties, and if the equites were not yet sitting on juries, they were wealthy men and might at any time become senators and so judices. 548 HISTORY OF ROME Eunus proclaimed king, and overcomes the island, 139-135- M. Perpenna, 135- L. Plant ius Hypsaeus, r34> C. Fidviiis Flaccus, 134-^32- P. Rupilius -^32. Siege of Tauro- mcnium. and the performance of some magic tricks. Collecting a body of 400 men the slaves seized Henna, killing men, violating women, and dashing out the brains of children. Demophilus and Megallis were dragged from their country house to the theatre at Henna and there torn to pieces. Yet even in the height of their rage these men proved that they were not lost to all feelings of humanity. A daughter of Demophilus, who had been conspicuous for her kindness to her father's slaves, was rescued by some who remembered her beneficence with gratitude and conveyed in safety to relatives at a distance. Eunus was now proclaimed king, and organised a regular govern- ment, with assembly and council according to the Greek type. The only free inhabitants of Henna who had been spared were the workers in iron, who were now forced to manufacture weapons for the multi- tude of shepherds, farm labourers, and domestic slaves who flocked to Henna, rudely armed with axes, scythes, or even pointed stakes hardened in the fire, and iron spits snatched from kitchens. Eunus soon had an army of 6000 men, with which he scoured the country, plundering and slaying. One praetor after another sustained defeat at his hands, and every success added to the numbers that joined his standard. Another formidable rising began at Segesta under a slave named Cleon, who joined Eunus, and acknowledged his autho- rity ; and the numbers of insurgents soon rose to 20,000 and eventually to 200,000 men, nearly every city in Sicily, except Messana, being infected \vith the contagion of disorder. The first success against them was gained, it seems, by the praetor M. Perpenna, who retook Henna (135). But his successor L. Plautius Hypsaeus (134) was again defeated ; and the consul C. Fulvius Flaccus, though at the head of a regular army, appears to have been only partially successful. When P. Rupilius took over the command in 132 the slaves were still strong enough to defeat his legate and son-in-law Q. Fabius and seize Tauromenium, where they made their last stand. The town and citadel of Tauromenium {l\iormitui) were all but impregnable ; but, as the slaves had no means of getting provisions by sea, it might be starved out : and this Rupilius proceeded to do. The men were reduced to the most horrible extremities of famine ; until a certain Serapion having betrayed the citadel, and Cleon with a brother of Eunus having fallen in an attempt to break out, the city was surrendered. Eunus, who, with the name and insignia, had assumed all the luxury of royalty, escaped, but was afterwards captured, and died in a loathsome prison at Morgantia. Similar risings at Athens, Delos, and other places had been mean- while suppressed with comparative ease ; no slave war equalled that of Sicily in its persistence or in the horrors which accompanied it. XXXIV THE RUPILIAN SETTLEMENT IN SICILY 549 Rupilius followed up the capture of Tauromenium by hunting down E7id of fugitives, and punishing many hundreds with the cross, which their ^he war. outrages no doubt were considered to have richly deserved. It is unfortunate that such saviours of society seldom think of redressing the wrongs which give rise to the disturbances punished with such applause. Some reform in the administration of Sicily, indeed, was considered to be necessary, and ten commissioners were sent, with whose help a new scheme of government was drawn up, known as the lex Rupilia., under which, according to Cicero, Sicily enjoyed The lex peace and prosperity for many years. But this charta, though it Rupilia, may have improved the legal status of the Sicilians and their ^3^- relations with Roman tax-gatherers and citizens residing there, appears to have made no change in the system of land tenure or the position of the slaves. Perhaps, warned by the sufferings Some slave of these terrible years, masters may have been more careful to grievafices treat their slaves with some approach to humanity. But one griev- ^"^f^- ance, at any rate, was left unredressed, the reduction, that is, of ^''^^^^^' freemen by fraud or violence to the condition of slavery : for thirty years later a fresh rebellion of slaves broke out in Sicily, which had its origin in a matter connected with this point. It was not, indeed, in Sicily only that the slave question was causing trouble. There were at that time outbreaks in Italy also — one at Nuceria and two at Capua — the latter proving so dangerous as to require the presence of the praetor L. Lucullus with a legion (103). Almost simul- taneous with this last was the second outbreak in Sicily. The attention of the Senate had been called to the question by The Nicomedes of Bithynia, who on being asked to supply Marius wath question of a contingent for the Cimbrian war, complained that large numbers ^^^^S<^^ of his subjects had been reduced to slavery by the publicani on J^^^^^ /^-, various oppressive pretexts. The Senate ordered investigations to be held in the provinces, in order to release such inhabitants of the free or allied states as could be shown to have been thus illegally enslaved. In vSicily the praetor Licinius Nerva had already declared the enfranchisement of more than 800, when he was assailed by such vehement protests from the landowners that he grew frightened and closed his court. But the slaves were so much agitated by the hope and its disappointment, that plots for a general rising were at once made. The first, under a certain Varius, was quickly suppressed ; but it was followed by another, which began with the murder of a Roman knight by his slaves. The rebels elected Salvius (Tryphon) king, who soon found himself at the head of 20,000 men, with whom he besieged Morgantia, defeated the praetor, and scoured the country at his will. A similar rising began at Segesta under Athenion, also proclaimed king, who, being joined 550 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. XXXIV not only by slaves but by the poor and the fliers from justice in every direction, marched to the Leontine plains, killing all who refused to submit. The hope that the rivalry of Tryphon and Athenion would ruin the slave cause was disappointed by tlie submission of the latter ; and the united forces occupied Triocala, a place of great strength twelve miles from Thermae Selinuntiae, where Tryphon strongly entrenched himself, and collected large supplies. The L.JJiinius praetor L. Licinius Lucullus (103), lately engaged in suppressing a rising at Capua, was now sent with two legions, chiefly of Roman citizens, with which he defeated Tryphon in the field, and compelled him to shut himself up in Triocala ; but from want of ability, or, as was believed, from corruption, made no progress in the siege. His successor Gains Servilius (102) proved equally ineffective, and, like his predecessor, was condemned and banished. But Lilybaeum and Morgantia had both held out against the slaves, whose final reduction was effected by the consul M'.Aquillius (loi), who won a great battle, in which Athenion (now sole leader on the death of Tryphon) was killed. Though severely wounded himself he continued the campaign against the rebels, and gradually secured peace throughout the island. In 99 he was awarded an ovation, in which some of his captives were compelled to fight with wild beasts. Like his predecessors he was prosecuted for malver- sation ; but, unlike them, was acquitted. The slave wars in Sicily were for the present at an end ; and the slaves so strictly forbidden to bear arms that L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, praetor about 96, is said to have crucified a slave for killing a boar with a hunting spear. But the evils of the system were to be again forcibly illustrated when Spartacus, thirty years later, was able for nearly three years to play the part almost of another Hannibal. Lucullus praetor, 103. C. Servilius, 102. Af .Aquil- lius^ loi-gg. Authorities. — (i.) Diodorus Sic. xxxiv. fr. ; Livy, Ep. Ivi. ; Strabo vi. 2, 6 ; Valerius Max. ii. 7, 3 ; Florus iii. 19 ; Orosius v. 6. For the lex Kupilia, chiefly scattered references in Cicero's Verriue Orations, especially 2, 13, § 32. (ii, ) For the second war, Diodorus xxxvi. fr. ; Livy, Ep. Ixix. ; Florus iii. 19. CHAPTER XXXV THE GRACCHI, 133-I2I PROVINCES CENSUS Asia B.C. 127 B.C. 142 . 328,342 Gallia Narbonensis . B.C. 118 B.C. 136 • 323.000 B.C. 131 . 313.823 COLONIES B.C. 125 • 390.736 Fabrateria (for Fregellae) . B.C. 124 B.C. 115 • 394.336 Minervia (Scylacium) \ Neptunia ( Tarentum) / B.C. 122 Junonia (Carthage) soon dis- established . B.C. 122 Narbo Martius . B.C. 118 Depopulation of Italy — The ager publicus — Tiberius Senipronius Gracchus, tribjams plebis in 133, attempts to re-enforce the Licinian law — Diffi- culties of the attempt — Deposition of his colleague Octavius — His law passed and a land commission formed — He promises other reforms, but is killed while seeking re-election as tribune for 132 — His younger brother Gains returns to Italy in 132 — Supports Carbo's law for allowing re-election of tribunes — The Italian holders of ager fubliciis protest against the resumption of their allotments — Scipio supports them and transfers the judicial power of the commissioners to the consuls — Death of Scipio (129) — Foreign affairs from 129 to 125 — Gaius Gracchus in Sardinia (126-125) — Elected tribune for 123 — His legislation : (i) de provocatione, (2) lex frumen- taria, (3) lex militaris, (4) de provinciis, (5) lex judiciaria, (6) de sociis — Collection of the taxes in Asia — His roads, bridges, and colonies at Fabra- teria, Tarentum, Capua, and Carthage — Outbidden by the tribune Livius Drusus — Not re-elected a third time as tribune for 121 — Proposal to annul his colony of Junonia at Carthage — Death of Gracchus during the riot on the day of voting — Prosecution of his followers — Results of the movement. While the dangers attending the multiplication of slaves were being /j/j. illustrated in Sicily, the decrease of the rural population and the appearance growth of poverty among the free were becoming serious in Italy, of free These evils are said to have struck Tiberius Gracchus, son of the pacificator of Spain and grandson of the great Africanus, as he inhabitants in Italy. 552 HISTORY OF ROME The ager publicus. The difficulty dealing with it. Tiberius returns from Spain, 136. travelled through Etruria on his way to Spain as quaestor in 137. The country was cultivated by gangs of slaves, and seemed bare of free inhabitants, while the towns and especially Rome were full of citizens struggling with poverty. As he afterwards expressed it, " The wild beasts in Italy had lairs and sleeping places, but those who fought and died for her had no share in anything except air and light." Reflecting on these things, it seems, his mind recurred to the management of the ager publicus^ that land which in various parts of conquered Italy had nominally remained in the ownership of the State when not assigned to colojii. Laelius had already made an attempt at reform, but had desisted for fear of the hostility he foresaw. The law of Licinius (367), limiting the amount of this land to be held by any one person, had never been repealed, but had from the first been constantly evaded and was now almost forgotten. At times the occupation of this land had been allowed on such easy conditions that the idea of undisturbed ownership naturally grew up, and the small paym.ent to the State came soon to be regarded as a tax rather than a rent. Sales, mortgages, marriage settlements extending over 200 years had confirmed the habit of regarding it in the light of absolute property. Though such land probably did not form a large proportion of ^f the estates of the richest men, yet it was sufficiently important to a considerable number to make any interference with it a task of great difficulty, especially to one who, like Gracchus, belonged by birth and every kind of tie to the class most affected. He and his brother Gaius were the surviving sons of a large family born to their father, one of the best and most liberal of the Optimates, by Cornelia, daughter of the great Africanus. She was a woman distinguished not more for her illustrious birth than for the dignity of her character and the endowments of her intellect. A collection of her letters was extant in Cicero's time,i and they were regarded as a model of prose style ; and in an age of increasing frivolity she was conspicuous for simplicity of life and devotion to the education of jier sons. ' When Tiberius Gracchus returned from Spain he found himself an object of popular interest. The disaster in the Numantine war was attributed solely to the incompetence of the proconsul Mancinus ; that its consequences had not been worse was looked upon as owing to the character and energy of his young quaestor Gracchus. In 134 therefore he was elected tribune without diffi- 1 Two extracts are preserved in the fragments of the work of Cornelius Nepos, De Historicis Latinis. XXXV THE LAND LAW OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS 553 culty, and immediately set himself to carry out the remedial measures of which he had been thinking. He was now twenty-nine years old ; his brother Gaius, nine years Tiberius younger, was serving at Numantia under Scipio Aemilianus, who had Gracchus married their sister Sempronia. . He himself was married to a daughter t^^bimus of Appius Claudius ; was an accomplished and persuasive orator ; ^^^'^"' '^^' simple in his habits ; pure in character ; and far removed by taste and temperament from the role of an agitator. It was not part of his plan to attack the power and influence of the Senate ; but his proposals necessarily involved him in a bitter contest with the members of that body and with the wealthy equites, which forced upon hrni the proceedings that discredited him. The popular expecta- tion of the benefits to arise from his tribuneship was shown in a way common in Rome, — by pasquinades and writings on the walls, I calling upon him to relieve the poverty of the people by dealing with the ager piiblicus. His first proposal was designed to conciliate the holders of public pirst land. Possessors of more than the legal amount (500 jugera for the -proposal father, and 250 jugera for each son) were to be compensated for <:ompara- I disturbance on a fair valuation. But the landholders were not ^'^y^ : satisfied. Every possible hindrance was put in the way of the '^'''^'''''^'• I law being brought forward ; and finally one of his colleagues, M. Second ( Octavius, though a personal friend, was induced to veto it. proposal ( Gracchus had been too much elated by popularity to submit I tamely. The compensating clauses were withdrawn, and another i law substituted, which simply proposed to divide the land held ^PP^^^^- in excess of the legal amount. This law had also two clauses Zndtm- which distinguished it from previous agrarian legislation : a com- missim. mission was to be appointed to superintend the new distribution. Alienation and the alienation of the new allotments was to be forbidden. forbidden. Octavius interposed his veto to prevent the law being brought Octavius before the people : Gracchus retaliated by a veto on the proceedings "^'etoes the of other magistrates, and by putting his seal on the treasury to prevent P^'oposal all payments and receipts. There was a deadlock. Octavius would fs'TepHved not give way, and Gracchus is said to have been forced to arm ^of office^'*^ I himself against plots upon his life instigated by the rich. When he J tried to bring forward his law his enemies contrived to stir up a riot, ] and forcibly removed the voting urns. A compromise in the Senate I was vainly attempted, and then Gracchus resolved on deposing his ' colleague Octavius from office by a vote of the people. It was a distinctly revolutionary proposal, and struck at the root of the con- stitution and the independence of the magistrates. No principle was more fundamental in the Roman polity than that a magistrate could I not be resisted in the exercise of his legal powers during his year of more drastic. 554 HISTORY OF ROME The land bill passed. First land commis- sion. Dangerous position of Gracchus. Tib. Gracchus cayididate for a second year of office, though he might be impeached when he laid it down. The person and power of a tribune were peculiarly guarded against such attacks. Still it was impossible to hmit the competence of a popular vote. Gracchus argued that a tribune was elected to protect the people : if on the contrary he injured them, he thereby abdicated his functions and might be as lawfully deposed as a king who exceeded his prerogative. Right or wrong the reasoning of Gracchus prevailed. The vote was passed, Octavius was dragged from the rostra, and L. Mummius substituted for him, without apparently any farther disturbance. The land bill was then brought in and promptly passed ; Tiberius Gracchus, Appius Claudius, Gaius Gracchus named as commis- sioners, and set to work, with judicial powers to decide on dis- puted questions as to the status of the land to be dealt with. But as the summer wore away and the time approached at which Gracchus would have to lay down his office, the spirits of his adver- saries revived, and they openly proclaimed their intention of revenge when he was once more a private citizen. His supporters had crowded into Rome from the country ; but, the law once passed, they had returned and were busy with farm-work or the preparations for the expected allotments. It would not be easy to recall these, and the unconstitutional proceedings against Octavius had no doubt alienated others. Gracchus cannot be acquitted of at least ill judgment in making the commission such a family coterie, con- sisting of himself, his brother, and his father-in-law. It must have given his enemies a good excuse for representing his measures as intended for personal aggrandisement, and perhaps even for the attainment of despotism or regnuvi, the suspicion of which had been fatal to so many earlier reformers. Whether the re-election of a tribune was lawful was somewhat of a moot point. The general feeling was no doubt against it, and the struggle between the two parties was now concentrated upon this question.! The Senate in rather a petty spirit had shown their ^ A Senatus Consultum in 460 had declared that the continuation of a magistrate's office beyond the year, or the re-election of the same tribunes, \sas unconstitutional {contra retnpublicam), Livy iii. 21. This resolution of the Senate however had no legal force, though it shows what the constitutional rule or doctrine was. In 342 plebiscita prohibited holding the same magistratus within ten years or two magistratus in the same year (Livy vii. 42 ; x. 13 ; xxiv. 40 ; Cicero, de Legg. iii. 3). But all such rules were liable to suspension in special circumstances ; and it was somewhat doubtful whether they applied to the tribuneship, as not being a magistratus. At any rate the exceptions to the rule had been common at one time in regard to the tribunes, and the question now was whether the circumstances were such as to justify one. — See Marquardt and. Mommsen, ii. p. 176. XXXV MURDER OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS 555 dislike of Gracchus by refusing the land commission a grant for their expenses from the exchequer ; but he was now able to offer an additional motive for those who had benefited or were to benefit under his land law supporting his candidature. In the course of 7-^^ trea- 133 died Attains III., last and worst king of Pergamus, leaving the si', to extend the inheritance of their fathers. We have seen with what persistence they had year after year struggled to bring into order the north-west of Italy, and secure an uninterrupted road into Spain. They were now to find themselves responsible for the peace of Gaul beyond the Alps. The town of Massilia had been on terms of close friendship with Rome since the time of the second Punic war. In 154 the Romans had defended it from its neighbours the Ligurian Oxybii ; and recently (in 125) the consul M. Fulvius Flaccus had been sent at its request and had won a great victor\- over another dangerous tribe, the Salluvii, inhabiting the country between Massilia and Antibes, who were joined by the \'ocontii living between the Isere and the Durance. Flaccus returned to celebrate his triumph in 123, and was succeeded by C. Sextms Calvinus, who was in Gaul for two years as proconsul, completed the conquest of the Salluvii, and founded the town called Aquae Sextiae. His successor Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus finding a war going on between the Alio- CHAP. XXXVI THE CIMBRIAN INVASION 569 broges and Aedui, espoused the cause of the latter and conquered the AUobroges at Vendahum (122). He remained in Gaul during 121-120 under the consul Q, Fabius Maximus, and two victories were gained over the AUobroges and Arverni {Aiiverg?ie). Bituitis king of the Arverni was captured and carried off to Italy to adorn the consul's triumph, and imprisoned at Alba Fucentia. The large The district of southern Gaul between the Alps on the east and the Provitice, Cevennes and upper Garonne on the west, as far north as the lake '''^'^• of Geneva to the coast of the gulf of Lyons and the Pyrenees, was formed into a province, and in 1 1 8 a colony of Roman citizens was founded at Narbo, under the title of Narbo Martins, to be its capital. The province was called in general terms Gallia Transalpina or Gallia Narbonensis — or simply the Province, as opposed to other parts of Transalpine Gaul, a name which has survived in the modern Provence. Massilia with its dependencies was not under the governor of the Province, but remained a libera civitas in alliance with Rome, though much of its commercial prosperity was transferred to Narbo, which the Romans took great pains to support. In other parts of the West also real or pretended disorders were The being suppressed. On the plea of their support of piracy Q. Caecilius Balearic Metellus in 123 subdued the Balearic islands (^Majorca T^ndi Mi7iorcci). '^^^o.nds. In 119 L. Caecilius Metellus conquered the Dalmatians, who were Dalmatae. accused of harrying the protected tribes of Illyricum. On a similar plea the Thracian Scordisci in Pannonia were attacked by the consul C. Scordisci. Porcius Cato, governor of Macedonia (114), who fell into an ambush and nearly lost his life in the course of the invasion. The Scordisci, how- ever, weie subdued two years later by the consul M. LiviusDrusus (112), But now a more terrible danger threatened Italy on the north- east. In 118 Q. Marcius Rex had subdued the Stoeni living near Stoeni. the Euganean hills between Verona and Padua ; but in 113 news was brought to Rome of a vast horde of barbarians who had arrived in the valley of the Drave, and were expected either \ to cross the Alps into Italy or to penetrate into Illyricum. The The nationality of the Cimbri, as these people were called, is still a Ctmbn. vexed question. The ancient writers are almost unanimous in calling them Celts, and what is known of their armour and customs points the same way and against classing them with Germans. It is scarcely doubtful, however, that they came from Jutland, and were now wandering, for what cause beyond their restless nature we do not know, in search of fresh settlements. The consul Cn. Papirius Defeat of Carbo (113) went into Noricum to meet them and sustained a severe C^- defeat near Noreia, the modern Neuiiiakt in Styria. In the next J^Pp"^ eight years, joined by the Teutones on the borders of the Gallic Noreia, province and by the Tigurini in Switzerland, they hung like a cloud iij. 570 HISTORY OF ROME Defeat of the consul Cn. Manlius and the proconsul Q. Servilius Caepio in Gallia Trans- alpina, lOJ. Five consecutive consulships of Gaius Marius, 104-100. The Jugurthine 7var, J 1 2-/06. upon the northern frontier of Italy, and defeated one consular com- mander after another who were sent to bar their progress. The consul M. Junius Silanus was beaten by them in 109. L. Cassius Longinus was defeated and slain by the Tigurini in 107. The consul Q. Servilius Caepio took Tolosa {Toulouse) in 106, which had sided with the invaders, and plundered the stores of gold kept in its temples ; but in the next year, as proconsul, with the consul Cn. Manlius, he sustained a terrible defeat, losing his camp and 80,000 men, besides vast numbers of camp followers. The country between the Rhone and Pyrenees was now at the invaders' mercy, and hav- ing glutted themselves with its spoils, they crossed the mountains into Spain, but were repulsed by the Celtiberi and returned into Gaul. The Cimbri now left the Province in the hands of the Teutones and Ambrones to make their way into Italy from the west ; while they themselves, in whole or in part, moved to the east and prepared to enter Italy down the valley of the Athesis {Adtge\ the two hosts intending to meet in Gallia Cisalpina. Thus Italy was being threatened on two sides, and the alarm was so great at Rome that Gaius Marius, who after the capture of Jugurtha had remained as proconsul in Numidia in 105, was elected consul in his absence for 104, and four times in succession after that year, in spite of all constitutional rules. He was the champion and nominee of the popular party : and the continuous power thus given him was a measure, not only of the terror prevailing, but of the distrust entertained of the ability or honesty of the aristocratic magistrates, who had failed in Numidia and against the Cimbri alike. To understand how Marius, a man of humble birth, without wealth or political connexions, had risen to this position we must follow the course of the war against Jugurtha, begun in the third year after the advent of the Cimbri was first reported at Rome. Masannasa died in 149, leaving his kingdom of Numidia to his three sons Micipsa, Gulussa, Mastanabal, who divided the royal functions according to an arrangement made by Scipio Aemilianus. Before long the two latter died, and Micipsa reigned alone till i 1 8, when he bequeathed his dominions to his two sons Adherbal and Hiempsal, and joined with them a natural son of his brother Mas- tanabal, whom he had adopted. 1 This was Jugurtha, who had served 1 Masannasa ob. 149 Micipsa ob. 118 Gulussa I Mastanabal I Adherbal killed at Cirta Hiempsal killed 118-117 at Thermida Massiva murdered in Rome no Hiempsal ob.after 62 I Juba ob. 46 Jugurtha Cauda xxxvi THE CRIMES OF JUGURTHA 571 in the siege of Numantia, and had returned home with a strong letter of recommendation from Scipio. He had the quaHties to win favour, character and the cunning to conceal his unscrupulous ambition till the time of came to gratify it. First in all manly exercises, in the chase and Jugurtha. the field of battle, he indulged in no idleness or luxury, and boasted of no success. He was older than his cousins and co-heirs, and had secretly resolved to reign without them, acting it is said on hints from Roman nobles, whose acquaintance he had made at Numantia, that any favour could be got at Rome for money. Disagreements as to the division of the royal treasures soon gave him a pretext. Hiempsal was murdered by his orders in his house at Thermida ; Murder of and Adherbal hurriedly sending off legates to Rome to denounce Hiempsal. this crime, after a faint show of resistance, took refuge in the Roman , province, and thence went in person to Rome to plead his cause. The kingdom of Numidia, enlarged by the addition of most of the kingdom of Syphax as far west as the river Mulucha, and consider- able portions of the old dominions of Carthage, had been held in I nominal independence by Masannasa, but in a close alliance with ( Rome, which gave the Romans a right of interference in regard to ' its foreign relations, and practically in the form of its government. : Since this reconstruction at the end of the second Punic war, it I had become a favourite field of commercial enterprise, and its capital ! Cirta was full of Roman negociatores engaged in the African trade. < The Romans therefore had every motive for keeping Numidia in a j state of peace and strictly subordinate to their authority. j There could be no doubt of Jugurtha's crime and of the justice Legates of Hiempsal's case. But legates from the crafty Numidian appeared f^°^^^ I in Rome laden with money: and, instead of calling Jugurtha to account, ^o^^i^t^yact i the Senate named ten commissioners to proceed to Numidia and Hiempsal \ divide the country between the two. The head of this commission by bribery, i was L. Opimius, who as consul in 1 2 1 had made himself conspicuous ^^7- \ in the punishment of the adherents of Gains Gracchus. He and I others of the commission seem undoubtedly to have received bribes ,j from Jugurtha. They awarded him the wealthier and more warlike \ share, including what was afterwards called Mauretania Caesariensis, ■I while to Adherbal was given Numidia proper, with its capital Cirta. i But no division made by the commissioners was likely to last. Jugurtha's \ Adherbal was of a quiet and unwarlike disposition ; Jugurtha policy of \ vigorous and ambitious, a splendid soldier, and restrained by no fear ^'I^j^^^^j i or scruple. He purposely irritated Adherbal by depredations on JJJ.J12. ' \ his frontiers, returned insulting answers to his expostulations, and forced him to take up arms. The cousins met near Cirta, into which Adherbal was soon forced to retreat. There Jugurtha closely be- sieged him, though he was able to despatch messengers to Rome to 572 HISTORY OF ROME Siege of Cirta. Two embassies frotn Rovie fail to induce Jugio-tha to raise it, Death of Adher- bal. Massacre of Italians. War declared against Jug7irtha, IJ2-TII. L. Calpttrnius Destia in Numidia is bribed by Jngjirtha, I J I. Sp. Postumius Albimis, iio-iog. Jugicrtha in Ro7ne. lay his wrongs again before the Senate. Legates were sent to Africa ; but Jugurtha was ready with specious pleas, asserting that Adherbal had conspired against his life, and that he was only acting in self- defence. Whether from corruption or conviction, the Roman legates quitted Africa without having induced him to raise the siege. A despairing letter from Adherbal moved a party in the Senate to vote for instant war ; but the senators in the king's interest, or who honestly thought, as some may have done, that he had made out a case for himself, proved the stronger ; and as a compromise another legation of men of higher rank headed by M, Scaurus, \\i^ princeps senahis, was sent, who summoned Jugurtha to appear before them at Utica. He listened to the threatening message of the Senate, but did not break up the siege of Cirta ; and the second embassy left Africa without having effected more than the first. Adherbal, in despair, followed the advice of the Roman residents in that city, and sur- rendered on terms. But Jugurtha cared little for engagements of any sort. Adherbal was immediately put to death, and the inhabitants massacred without distinction between Numidians and Italians. The tribune C. Memmius denounced the intrigues of the nobles whereby Jugurtha had enjoyed immunity so long, and the Senate no longer ventured to oppose the popular sentiment. It was forced for shame to assign the ' province ' of Numidia to one of the consuls designate, L. Calpurnius Bestia ; to sanction the enrolment of an army ; and to decline receiving Jugurtha's son and other legates unless they brought an unconditional surrender. Bestia began the campaign with spirit, took several towns, and a large number of prisoners. But presently, along with his legatus Scaurus, he succumbed to the temptation of Jugurtha's gold, and admitted him to make an open and formal surrender, which left him practically in full posses- sion of his territories, while the Roman army remained inactive in its quarters. Again Memmius denounced this scandalous trans- action ; and in iio, on the proposal of the tribune C. Mamilius, a tribunal was appointed to determine who had received bribes from Jugurtha. Bestia and many others were condemned, though Scaurus escaped by getting himself nominated one of the three qiiaesitores. The conduct of the war was meanwhile given to the consul Spurius Albinus, who made haste to take over his command, but, when obliged to return to Rome for the elections, had done nothing. The scandal had been so great, that the praetor L. Cassius had been sent in IIO to bring Jugurtha under a safe-conduct to Rome, to give evidence as to those who had taken his money. He still found that he was able to gain support by the same means ; but was obliged to fly secretly from the city when it became known that the young prince Massiva, a son of Gulussa then residing in Rome, whom Albinus METELLUS AND JUGURTHA 573 proposed to set up as king of Numidia, had been assassinated by his Murder of order. In the absence of Albinus from Numidia, his brother Aulus, Massiva. whom he had left in command, made an expedition in January of 109, and met with such severe . disaster that he was forced to make a disgraceful treaty with Jugurtha, and to withdraw his army Treaty of into the Province. Albinus hurried back, but found the army too Aulus. much demoralised to do anything effectual. The Senate repudiated the treaty of Aulus : but no hope of prosecuting the war with any good result remained, unless some one should take the command who was at once able and incorruptible. Such a man was Q. CaeciHus Metellus, who in the summer Q. of that year took over the army of Albinus. He found it in a CaeciHus disgraceful state of disorder, and would attempt nothing until by ' f . ':^ ^'^ expelling from the camp all the ministers of luxury, and forcing \q„ the soldiers to regular and severe labours, he had restored it to a state of efficiency. The report of his incorruptibility induced Jugurtha to offer submission on condition of his own and childrens' lives being secured. Metellus, without giving any answer, tried to persuade the ambassadors by promises of great rewards to sur- render Jugurtha ; and meanwhile marched into Numidia, ably supported by his legate Gains Marius, who was in command of the cavalry. Jugurtha attempted to cut him off by occupying a strong Battle of position above the river Muthul, but was defeated with great loss, the river and forced to take refuge in a wild country covered with forest and -^^^^thut. rock, and could do nothing but attack detached parties of the Roman army, keeping to the hills and avoiding a pitched battle. After devastating Numidia and occupying many towns, Metellus finally laid siege to Zama, — the " citadel of Numidia." Zama, however, proved for the present impregnable, and Metellus put his army into winter quarters in the Province, leaving garrisons in the towns which he had taken. During the winter Jugurtha was persuaded by Bomilcar,— the assassin of Massiva, whom Metellus had worked on by promising him impunity for his crime, — to again offer a submission. But the negotiation fell through on the question of Fruitless a personal surrender ; and when the season for campaigning ^egotta- came again, Metellus set out to recapture Vaga, the inhabitants of which had during the winter surprised and massacred the Roman garrison, leaving none alive but the commander T. Turpilius Silanus. This accomplished, he proceeded to attack Jugurtha, who having discovered that Bomilcar was tampering with his most intimate friends, and that he could trust hardly any one about him, was moving from place to place with restless haste. Where Jugurtha commanded himself his men stood firm, but the rest were easily put to flight ; and he was forced to make his way over the 574 HISTORY OF ROME Jugurtha again de- feated ; joins Bocchus, spring of io8. Gains Marius consul. Previous career of Marius. His con- nexion ■with Metellus. desert to Thala, where Metellus followed him. With his children and treasure he escaped by night, and the town fell into the hands of Metellus, though not till after a siege of forty days. Meanwhile Jugurtha had made his way across the desert to the country of the Gaetuli, where his money enabled him to get soldiers, and where he was near enough to the western Mauretania to negotiate with king Bocchus. The two agreed to march together upon Cirta, near which Metellus was now encamped, having detached a part of his army to secure Leptis. Thus the year io8 was wearing away, and while encamped at Cirta Metellus learnt that the third year of office decreed him by the Senate, in which he hoped to finish the war, was not to be his, but was to fall to the new consul Gaius Marius in circum- stances peculiarly galling to his pride. Gaius Marius, born near Arpinum in 157 of parents in humble circumstances, had risen slowly in political life, which he appears to have been encouraged to enter upon by L. Caecilius Metellus, consul in 119, to whose family his own had been in some way attached as chents. He first distinguished himself when serving at Numantia under Scipio Africanus the younger, who is said to have pointed him out half-playfully as the man likely to succeed himself as a military commander in case of great national danger. It was not, however, till five years after his return from Spain that he ventured to stand for office. In 1 19 he was tribune, and during that year carried a law, of which we do not know the terms, intended in some way to secure purity in elections. The Senate passed a decree against the law being brought before the people ; but Marius threatened to imprison both the consuls unless they withdrew the decree, as being an inter- ference with the liberty of a tribune, and the law was passed. Though he had won popular favour by this boldness, he failed to secure the next step in official rank, the aedileship, and was only returned at the bottom of the list of the praetors for 115. His year of office as praetor added nothing to his reputation ; but being propraetor in farther Spain in 1 1 4-1 13, he showed energy in putting down brigandage and civilising his province ; and about this time acquired some additional social position by marrying lifia, of the aristocratic family of the Caesars, and aunt to the future dictator. In naming him as one of his legati in the African war, Metellus no doubt imagined that he was selecting a useful officer, who had given evidence of energy and respectable ability, and who at the same time was attached to his own family by traditional ties ; but he had no idea that he was on a par with himself, or likely to interfere with his commission in Africa. It was a shock to him therefore when during the winter of 109-108 Marius applied for leave to go home to stand for the consulship. He had been promised the highest honours by fortune tellers, and had or XXXVI MARIUS CONSUL AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 575 been secretly preparing for it for some time by gaining the good-will of the soldiers. Strict in discipline, he had shown that readiness to share in their toils, hardships, and rough fare, which, when com- bined with undoubted courage and military skill, is sure to secure their allegiance. He had let it be known also that he believed more energy might have been shown in pursuing Jugurtha, and that he would undertake to finish the war in a very short time. Metellus received the application with indignant surprise. In the tone of an indulgent superior he advised Marius to abandon a measure which could only result in mortification ; and finally, when he could not persuade him, said sarcastically that it would be time enough for him to think of standing for the consulship when his son, the young Metellus, then twenty, serving on his father's staff, did the same. However Marius Marius continually repeated his request, which had at last to be granted. ^^^^ ^^ He arrived in Rome when the inquiry under the lex Mamilia /^^ / • 1 • r -i stand jc mto the corruption of the officers in the previous part of the war was ffig consul still involving the nobility in grave scandal, and giving the popular ship. party a strong case against them. He had taken care also that he should be preceded by letters from merchants and soldiers complain- ing of the dilatory proceedings of Metellus ; and from Cauda, a son of Mastanabal, whose pretensions to be treated as a royal personage had been slighted by Metellus, and who had received Marius' promise of supporting his claim to the throne in the future. The popular feeling thus roused overbore all opposition from the nobles. Not lo-j. Coss. only was Marius returned for the consulship by all the centuries, ^- Casstus but a plebiscitum also gave him the command in Numidia, which Q^fu^^^' overrode the Senatorial decree already passed continuing the im- Marius. perium of Metellus. We have seen how Metellus was informed of this when almost in the presence of the enemy. He was so deeply mortified that, when Marius arrived, he deputed one of his legati to hand over the army to him, and returned to Rome with the feelings of a disgraced man. To his surprise he was received with every honour, and no objection was made to his triumph or his cognomen of Numidicus. It was not against him personally that the prejudice had grown, but against the supremacy of a class which had shown itself unworthy. Marius had openly spoken of his success as a blow to the nobles, Marius and his consulship as a spoil taken in war with them. Nevertheless ■^^J^f'^^^ the Senate did not venture to refuse him a supplejnenlum for the Africa. legions, or anything else he asked. They even hoped that his activity in pressing men into his service would ruin his popularity. But the result was the reverse. He induced veterans to re-enlist ; he made a point of selecting Latins of tried courage without regard to their possessing full citizenship ; and instead of formally convening the 576 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. His inno- vations in enrolling his armv. Marius in Africa, lOJ. Capture of Caps a. Capture of the royal fort on the Mulucha. L. Cornelius Sulla. centuries in the Campus Martius, and selecting from the five classes, he received all who volunteered, whether rated up to the standard of the fifth class or no. This reform was maintained ; the number of needy citizens ready and fit for service had no doubt much increased as land became more and more concentrated in few hands, and it was imperative to find some employment for them ; but by it almost the last shred of the old theory of a citizen soldiery serving as a public duty was torn away. Men enlisted as in a profession, expecting to live on pay and plunder, and to be maintained afterwards by grants of land ; and in the revolutionary times now drawing near, these men, anxious to join any army, or as veterans willing to return to the only employ- ment for which they were fit, were a ready material for any leader who could find them pay or offer hopes of plunder. For the present all went well. Marius found plenty of volunteers, even more than the number he was authorised to levy ; and soon after he had entered on his consulship arrived at Utica and took over the army. He at once led them into a rich district, gratified them with booty, and set them the comparatively easy task of capturing forts and small towns, whose garrisons weitc too weak to resist. But while thus apparently indulging his soldiers he kept the most vigilant look-out for all chances. Jugurtha and Bocchus had not ventured to await his attack, but had retired in different directions, hoping to find some opportunity of catching him off his guard. But Marius beat Jugurtha at his own tactics, and eventually in a skirmish near Cirta forced him to throw away his arms and fly. Bocchus was already trying to make peace for himself But Marius would listen to nothing. He determined that to finish the war Jugurtha must be deprived of every stronghold. By a movement of extraordinary rapidity he seized Capsa, a strong position near the Tritonian lake, and one of the royal treasure cities, which he burnt, killing or selling all its inhabitants. He followed this up by a series of assaults upon other cities and forts, until he reached another depot of the royal treasure in the far west, on the river Mulucha, which separated the dominions of Jugurtha and Bocchus. This fortress, perched on a high rock, proved more difficult than Capsa. He was on the point of retiring, when a way up the rock was discovered accidentally by a Ligurian soldier gathering some edible snails on its side. Thus far, therefore, his success had been sufficient ; but the great object of capturing Jugurtha was apparently as far off as it had been in the time of Metellus. He was now, how- ever, joined by his quaestor L. Sulla, who had stayed behind to enrol cavalry from the Italian allies, and arrived just after the capture of the fort on the Mulucha. Though inexperienced in war, and nineteen years younger than Marius, his abilities and vigour quickly made him XXXVI CAPTURE OF JUGURTHA 577 beloved and respected by the soldiers and valued by his chief. They Jvgurtha soon had an opportunity of testing their powers. Jugurtha had per- ^^^ suaded Bocchus by a promise of a large part of his dominions to join .^"J^.^ J^ him again, and the two kings reappeared in force towards the end of Romans the year 107, and swept down upon the Roman camp with unexpected near Ciria, suddenness. The attack was repulsed and the armies of the kings ^^^^ ^"^ ^^7- dispersed, but only to gather again. Following the march of the Romans towards their winter quarters, they fell upon their rear when close to Cirta. Once more the Romans were all but defeated, and Jugurtha brandishing a bloody svvord exclaimed loudly that he had killed Marius with his own hand. The lie was presently confuted by the appearance of Marius himself, who came from the van to support Victory of his wavering rearguard, and a brilliant charge of Sulla's cavalry upon Manus the Mauri decided the result of the day, Jugurtha was surrounded as he was frantically endeavouring to rally his men to complete what he thought was a victory, and escaped almost alone through the darts t of the enemy. The result of these engagements induced Bocchus once more to Winter of try to make his peace with Rome, even at the price of betraying his ^07-106. ally. As soon as the king's legates reached him in Cirta, Marius despatched L. Sulla and A. Manlius to visit Bocchus, who assured them of his devotion. He obtained permission to send plenipotentiaries to Rome, who expatiated on the king's repentance, and obtained a rather grudging decree admitting him to friendship and alliance. Bocchus then begged that Sulla, whose winter quarters were at Utica, Bocchus should again visit him. Even then he appears to have been hesi- ''"•'^^^^ tating and to have been negotiating with Jugurtha. But the firm tone and uncompromising spirit of Sulla at length prevailed, and Bocchus consummated his treachery by inducing Jugurtha to meet him and Sulla in conference, letting Jugurtha imagine that he meant to put Sulla in his hands, as a hostage whose high birth and estimation at Rome would give him the greatest advantage in treating. Jugurtha had Jugurtha a suggested this treachery, and it was turned upon himself. He came Z^"^^^''- to the conference, unarmed and with few attendants, was surrounded by troops and handed over to Sblla, who took him and his son to Marius. The news that this dangerous enemy was in chains, and was to be brought to Rome to adorn a triumph, caused great exultation ; and Mai-ius when in 105 — during which year Marius still remained in Africa comma.7ider with his army — the defeat of Manlius and Caepio by the Cimbri made ^^^^■^. ^ ^ it imperative to find a general whom they could trust, the eyes of all turned to Marius, and he was elected consul in his absence, in spite j of the law, and bidden to return to save his country. He entered Rome in triumph on the same day as he took up his 2 P 578 HISTORY OF ROME 104. Mariiis triumphs, and takes thejield against the Cimbri. Marius consul third time, lOj. Marius fourth time cofisul, 102. The battle of Aquae Sextiae, 102 {autumn). First day. second consulship, the ist of January 104. Jugurtha and his two sons were led in the procession, and afterwards thrust into the vault of the Mamertine prison and left to starve. The ceremonies usually performed at the beginning of a new consulship being over, Marius advanced towards Gaul to meet the threatened invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones. But the barbarians were engaged in their fruitless expedition into Spain, and had not come into contact with him when his year of office was drawing to a close ; and he was elected a third time in his absence, and spent yet another year in waiting for the enemy. He had to return to Rome to hold the elections at the end of 103, his colleague Orestes having died. He pretended to deprecate re-election ; but easily gave way before the reproaches of the tribune L. Saturninus, — who declared that, if he refused, he would be a traitor to his country, — and was returned with Q. Lutatius Catulus for the fourth time. The great storm was now ready to burst. The Teutones and Ambrones were in southern Gaul, and were ready to make their way into Italy along the coast ; while a vast horde of Cimbri were entering in the east by the Brenner pass. Marius commanded in Transalpine Gaul : Catulus in Cisalpine Gaul near Verona. The first to move were the Teutones and Ambrones : and Marius now crossed the Alps and posted himself strongly on the lower Rhone, securing his communication with the sea by digging a canal through the alluvial deposits at the mouth of the river. Through the summer he kept his men employed in such laborious works, and refused to be tempted to give the enemy battle till he could do so to advantage, in spite of the murmuring among his soldiers, who were eager to try their strength against the barbarians under a leader whom they trusted. The Teutones encouraged by what seemed his timidity grew more insolent, and even attempted to storm his camp. Failing in that, they resolved to pass him by and enter Italy. For six days, it is said, their vast host filed past in view of the Roman army, some of them so near that they could shout jeeringly to the men on the vallum, asking if they had any messages for their wives at Rome. But as soon as they had passed, Marius broke up his camp and followed. He found them encamped near Aquae Sextiae, about sixteen miles north of Marseilles, and only a few days' march from the pass into Italy, and determined to give them battle there. The barbarians were in possession of the stream, and when his men complained of want of water Marius pointed to their camp, and said that they could get it there but would have to pay for it with blood. The first day's battle was in fact brought on by struggles for the water, in which the Ambrones were cut to pieces or chased to their lager of waggons ; in defending which the women XXXVI DESTRUCTION OF TEUTONES AND CIMBRI 579 fought as desperately as the men, clinging to the shields and spears of the Romans, and enduring wounds and blows with the bravest. At nightfall the ground was thickly strewn with dead Ambrones : but the Teutones were still collected in vast numbers ; and the night was made hideous by their yells over the dead, mixed with war cries and threatening shouts. Next day, however, C. Marcellus with 3000 Secondday. men made his way through rough ground to some hills on their rear. The barbarians tried to carry this position, but were driven back and found Marius with his main army waiting for them in the plain, while Marcellus charged down upon them from the hills. They were defeated with a slaughter so immense as to amount to almost annihilation. More than 100,000 are said to have fallen ; and the Great plains on which they lay produced an extraordinary harvest for some slaughter of seasons afterwards, while the Massilians are said to have used the Teuto7ies. I bleaching bones to fence their vineyards. Even now remnants of the battle are found, and the village of les Pourrieres {putridi) recalls the memory of the slaughter. The battle had taken place late in 1 02, and while Marius was cele- Marius brating his victory by burning a huge pile of spoil which could not J^P^ ti»ie I be removed, couriers brought the news that the consular elections ^'^'"^^'^> I were over, and that he had been returned a fifth time. The province in Transalpine Gaul being thus secured, he returned to Rome with j his army to enter on his consulship and to consult as to the danger , still threatening in the north-east. Catulus had not been able to pre- Defeat of I vent the Cimbri from crossing the Brenner ; and in the spring of loi Catulus j they had descended upon his position on the Adige, somewhere ^f^'^ \ between the lago di Garda and Verona, with such fury that he had ^^^ 1 to retreat beyond the Po. Marius at once started to his assistance, * met him marching up the Po, like Prince Eugene in 1706, and i crossing that river found the Cimbri near Vercellae, whither they ' had come after ravaging the plains of Lombardy, expecting to I meet their allies the Teutones and Ambrones, whose destruction ! at Aquae Sextiae they do not seem to have known. They tried at I first to negotiate, and sent messengers to Marius asking for land in which to settle for themselves and their brethren the Teutones. J " You need not trouble yourselves about your brothers," replied I Marius grimly, " they have got land which they will never have to ! surrender." He also showed the legates some of the Teutonic chiefs, j who had been stopped in their flight by the Sequani, and handed over ^^^/^ ^y- ] to him. " It was a pity they should go away without greeting their July loi, brethren," he said. When the Cimbric king challenged him to single battle combat at a fixed time and place, he replied that it was not the habit of the Romans to allow their enemies to name the time or place at T/^/^ which they were to fight. He would however engage to meet Vercellae. on the Raudian s jiear 58o HISTORY OF ROME chap, xxxvi him on the third day on the plains of Vercellae. On these plains — called the Raudian plains— the battle took place, in which the Cimbri in their turn were annihilated. It is useless to try to name exact numbers, and the calculations vary between 200,000 and 100,000. The horde was utterly destroyed, and the women killed themselves with their children, although many thousands of both sexes were also taken alive and sold into slavery. Catulus, with whom Sulla was now serving, regarded the credit of the battle to be chiefly his, and complained that Marius had by his dispositions en- deavoured to deprive him of his due share of the glory. Popular sentiment, however, was on the side of Marius. He was offered two triumphs, but would only accept one, and that in conjunction with Catulus. The danger that had been overshadowing Italy for twelve years, the forerunner of many similar terrors in generations to come, was dispelled. It had had the effect among other things of raising a mere soldier to the highest position in the State. The events which followed showed how little capable he was as a politician of directing the fortunes of the country, which he had known how to protect as a general. Authorities.— Sallust, Jugurtha, Livy, Ep. 62, 64-67. Velleius ii. 11, 12. Diodorus fr. of xxxv. Plutarch, Marius, Sulla. Orosius v. 15, 16. Florus iii. 3. Strabo vii. 2 (for the Cimbri^. Die Cassius fr. 88, 89. Eutrop. iv. 26, 27. Appian fr. of res Numidicae. CHAPTER XXXVII THE FIRST PERIOD OF CIVIL WARS, IOO-84 Political parties at Rome— The Senate and the equestrian order— Frequent scenes of violence— Marius and the reformed army— The second tribunate of L Appuleius Saturninus— Murder of Nonius— Agrarian law of Saturninus and banishment of Metellus— Murder of xMemmius— Death of Saturninus and Glaucia (100)— Events abroad from 102 to 92— The lex Licinia Marcia and alienation of the Italians (95)- Compromises proposed by M. Livius Drusus (91) — Death of Drusus— Prosecutions of Varius — The Marsic or Social war (90-88)— Sulla consul with command of the Mithridatic war— Revolu- tionary proposals of Sulpicius and the substitution of Marius for Sulla— Sulla advances on Rome— Death of Sulpicius and flight of Marius (88)— Cinna consul in 87— Expelled from Rome, raises army and returns with Marius— Reign of terror in Rome— Death of Marius in his seventh consulship (86)— Suc- cessive consulships of Cinna, persecution of the party of Sulla, and preparations to prevent Sulla's return (85-84)— Death of Cinna (84). The division between the parties of the Optimates and Popiilares was Political now becoming more clearly defined and more bitter. The reaction Parties at after the legislation of Gains Gracchus had brought back some of the ^"'^^' *^^ old evils in an acuter form. Land was falling again into the hands anT"''^^' of great proprietors, and poverty was on the increase — abundant "poj^ulares material for political discontent. The Senate was becoming miserably weak and discredited, its numbers sinking,i and its authority flouted by magistrates who obtained office by the influence of family cliques and wished to be unrestrained in it. Moreover on the question of the Tke Senate judicia in public trials it was constantly estranged from the equestrian "^"'^ ^^^ order, which accordingly, for the most part, threw its influence on ^^J-^^^^'^'^ the side of the Populares. The chief aims of the leaders of the """^ ^''' Populares were to break down the monopoly of office maintained by the great families ; to reform the administration; and to widen the basis of power by removing the barriers which at present separated Italian and Roman. But in order to carry their followers with them, 1 Speaking of the period about 100 and 95, Appian says that the number of the Senate could scarcely be kept up to 300 {Bell. Civ. i. 35). 582 HISTORY OF ROME Constant scenes of violence. Position of Marius. His refortns in the army, 107-102. Capite censi and Italians admitted to the legions. who especially in the last point were jealous and suspicious, they had to satisfy the immediate demands for relief suggested by the wants and difficulties of the time. This complexity of interests helps to account for the bitterness of opposition on the part of the Optimates on questions apparently subordinate, and for the sudden desertion of their followers sometimes experienced by the popular leaders. Mean- while the scandals and failures of the oligarchical government were increasing ; and the reform, which Sulla afterwards sought in strengthen- ing the Senate and curbing the power of the tribunes, the leaders of the Populares tried to accomplish by severer laws, frequent prosecu- tions, and by putting the administration more directly in the hands of the people. But the violence which was becoming more and more common at elections and meetings for legislation showed clearly that in the end the question of supremacy would be decided by arms ; and it was therefore success in war, and the power of commanding the allegiance of the soldiers, that now marked out a man as chief of either party. Marius in many ways was ill-suited to the position of a political leader. The popular party had generally been led by some aristocrat of ability and eloquence, who espoused its side from conviction or from per- sonal quarrels with his own equals ; Marius belonged by birth to the lower class of farmers, and had no gift of elocjuence to make up for his lack of social influence or political insight. But he had the confidence of soldiers, and by the changes he had introduced in the army had made it a readier instrument in the hands of a party chief. Though his reforms were primarily intended to increase its effectiveness in the field, they resulted in the final disappearance of the notion of it as a citizen militia, in which the distinctions of civil life and the census determined the rank, arms, and place in the field of the men, who, though receiving pay, yet by a theory which had not Cjuite ceased to be a reality were also performing a necessary duty of citizen- ship. Marius raised the number of a legion to 6000, divided into ten cohorts, in which citizens — without regard to any property quali- fication — and Italian allies were freely admitted. Once become members of a legion all distinction disappeared : the old division of hastati, principes, and triarii was dropped, and the men were arranged on the field according to the will of the commander. When so arranged, generally in the old triple order, these names were still used to describe them, but they no longer marked a different rank in the legion, or indicated the men who were necessarily to form these divisions. The velites, as part of a legion, also disappeared, their place being taken by foreign troops, slingers, archers, and the like from Crete, the Balearic Isles, and other places. The rule that the Roman cavalry should consist of men drawn from the eighteen MARIUS AND SATURNINUS 583 centuries of equites had long been falling into disuse. They The were the richest men of the State, with no special aptitude for equites their work, were insubordinate, and a difficulty to the commander. ^^^^^ f^ Instead of them cavalry was levied from Gaul or other places, and "^^^ the equites were only employed as a cohors praetoria — staff and cavalry. bodyguard of the imperator — -iiito which he admitted his friends and sometimes promoted legionaries. This praetorian cohort had been formerly represented by the c.xtraor dinar ii — certain of the socii (cavalry or infantry) selected for this service by the commander, along with his own friends who volunteered. Thus Scipio in the Numantine war had a body of 500, all volunteers or personal friends, who did this duty ; and when the distinction between citizens and socii in the legion was done away wath, the praetorian cohort The cohors became a means whereby the rich equites, who declined to serve praetoria. with common soldiers, could perform the ten years' service necessary before being candidates for office. The anny thus became a paid body of men, who for the most part regarded service not as a temporary duty but as a profession ; and not being influenced by strong senti- ments of loyalty to the constitution or city, looked to its commander first, as securing them continuance of employment and grants of land afterwards, for which there was no provision in the law. And as the equality in the legion ignored the census, so did it tend to obliterate the distinction between citizen and Italian. Service in the army Citizenship became one of the means of obtaining citizenship, which Marius, for through the instance, on one occasion bestowed upon a thousand men of Camer- ^^^y- inum as a reward, excusing himself by saying that in the noise of arms he could not hear the laws. A farther step was taken when in the Social war he enrolled freedmen in the legions, who had hitherto, except at great crises, only served in the fleet. Other reforms attri- Effect of buted to him were in matters of detail, for the comfort or efficiency of refining. the soldiers. But taken as a whole they produced a different army, — recruited from all Italy, with auxiliaries furnished by the provinces and client states, and ready to follow its leader even against Rome itself. It was the knowledge that Marius might depend upon such an L. army that seems to have induced Saturninus, the next party leader Appuleitis and reformer of importance, to look to him as the most capable "^^^^- tltTtZlS leader of the popular party. L. Appuleius Saturninus, as quaestor quaestor, in 104, had Ostia as his "province" and the superintendence of the 104; corn supply. The Senate, thinking him remiss, superseded him and tribune, appointed M. Scaurus in his place. This or other reasons induced ^^^' him to join the opposition, by whose influence he became tribune in 102. In his tribuneship he mortally offended the Optimates by his law of niajcsfas, under which he prosecuted Manlius and Caepio for 584 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. A coalition of three, lor. Murder of Nonius. Agrarian law of Satur- ninus and the attack upon Metellus. Vacilla- tion of Marius, mismanagement in the Cimbrian war.i Metellus Numidicus, leader of the Optimates, would have retaliated by striking his name from the roll of senators, but was prevented by his colleague in the censor- ship ; and from this time Saturninus acted with the popular party, and, in order to carry out his policy, sought re-election to the tribunate for loo. For that year Marius also desired a sixth consulship, while another vehement member of the party, C. Servilius Glaucia, was a candidate for the praetorship. The three therefore united their interests with the idea, like that of the triumvirate of thirty years later, that by a simultaneous possession of the chief offices they would control the administration. But in loi Saturninus denounced and insulted the ambassadors of Mithridates for bribing senators. The accusation was very likely true ; but his opponents represented his conduct as a dangerous violation of the law of nations, and brought him to trial : and though the senatorial judges did not venture to condemn him in the face of the loudly expressed wishes of the multitude, yet he lost his election, and A. Nonius, who had been forward in denouncing him and Glaucia, was returned instead. On the evening of the election, however. Nonius was murdered, and Saturninus was named in his place. Marius and Glaucia also carried their elections, and the first point was thus gained. The first law proposed by Saturninus in his second tribuneship was for the division of the lands in Gallia Cisalpina, lately occupied by the Cimbri or their allies. It was sure to be opposed by the Optimates on the same grounds as other proposals for extra-Italian settlements of citizens. There may, perhaps, have also been in this case some scruple at treating as forfeited the lands of a province not guilty of any act of hostility. At any rate Saturninus anticipated resistance to the execution of his law, and added a special clause ordering every senator to take an oath of obedience to it under a heavy penalty. Marius as consul assured the Senate that he would not take such an oath ; but, when the law passed, immediately took it, and advised the Senate to do the same. One senator, however, was firm. It was known that Metellus Numidicus would decline the oath, and the hope of securing his civil ruin is said to have been the ^ All crimes harming or diminishing in any way the Roman State were anciently included under the range oi perdue I lio. Thus Cn. Fulvius Flaccus was charged with perduellio in 211 for losing an army (Livy xxvi. 3). This seems now to have been superseded by majestas [crimen iniminutae jnajestatis P. R.), which might strike those magistrates who had incurred disasters and yet could not be brought under the laws de repetundis. Under the law of majestas the trial was before an ordinary court ; whereas cases of perduellio were decided by duoviri especially elected, with an appeal to the co?nitia, — an obsolete process revived by Caesar in the case of Rabirius in 63. xxxvii MURDER OF SATURNINUS 585 motive for inserting the clause. Rejecting the offer of his friends to protect him with arms Metellus retired to Rhodes, and the usual interdictio aquae et igjiis was passed upon him. The new legislation then proceeded unchecked. Glaucia carried a law de repetimdis^ in which senators were more strictly barred than before from the judiciaj while Saturninus carried laws for new colonies in Sicily, Law of Achaia, and Macedonia, in which Italians were to share ; and for Satur- fixing the price of the pulDlic corn at five-sixths of an as for a modius, '^^'^"•^• instead of allowing it to vary with the market price. This last was carried, in a scene of some violence, in spite of a hostile decree of the Senate, of the intervention of his colleagues, and of a statement of the quaestor Q. Caepio that the exchequer could not support the expense. But while Saturninus had gained sufficient popularity to secure his re-election for 99, the conduct of Marius had brought him into contempt. He was politically extinct and had no chance of being elected again. Saturninus was all the more anxious, therefore, that the other member of the trio should succeed in his canvass for the consulship, although the law ordered an interval of a year between the praetorship and consulship. One of the candidates, M, Antonius, seems to have been certain of election : the rival of Glaucia was C. Memmius. Assassins were accordingly hired and Memmius Murder was got rid of by the dagger. Whether this was done quietly ox of C. in an election riot, Saturninus and Glaucia were universally beheved ^'^^«""- I to have been the instigators of it. A popular reaction set in against them : and finding their lives in danger they took refuge, I with some others of their party, on the Capitol. The Senate Death of I seized its advantage to pass the usual decree declaring them public -5^^^^- . 1-1 1-1 • 1 • ^ ^1 ntniLS and I enemies, and armmg the consuls with special powers against them. Qi^^^ia \ Marius was in a position of great embarrassment. The men were joo. I his friends and partisans ; yet he was not prepared to break ^ entirely with the party of law and order, and to risk the loss of I what remained of his reputation as a statesman. He tried to play I a double game, admitting the emissaries of the Senate by one door j and those of the popular party by another. Finally he took the 'necessary steps to arrest the conspirators, whom he yet hoped to I protect. He cut off the water pipes supplying the Capitol, and Saturninus and his friends were soon forced to surrender. To save Itheir lives he placed them in the Curia: but a mob of equites i broke in the door or untiled the roof and killed them — a murder of which the Senate expressed its approval by enfranchising a slave who claimed the honour of killing Saturninus ; though forty years later an eques named C. Rabirius was tried for it, at the instance of Caesar, and all but condemned. 586 HISTORY OF ROME Estimate of the policy of Satur- Marius goes to Asia. Laws of Satur- ninus suspended, 99- Cilicia, I02. Spain, gj, Cyrene, 96. Alienation of the Italians, the lex Licinia et Miicia, 95. Setting aside the murders of Nonius and Memmius, which have rightly attached an evil reputation to Saturninus, there is a good deal to be said for him as a statesman. The Optimates hated him because he attacked and denounced the fraudulent and incompetent members of their body. In giving the Italians a share in the Gallic lands he risked his popularity to promote the enlightened policy of equalising them with the citizens ; and though his corn law was a financial mistake, it was a mistake shared in by many ; while his personal freedom from corruption is acknowledged by Cicero. The ominous feature in the conflict was the fact that such a policy as his could neither be promoted nor defeated without violence, disorder, and assassination. Unscrupulous partisans went beyond their leaders and hurried them on irresistibly, and the Senate was only too ready to employ the sharpest weapon which law or terror put into its hands. For the present the policy of the popular party was checked. Marius, with his credit on both sides utterly lost, left Rome for Asia on a votiva legatto, pretending that he must perform a vow to the Bona Dea, and endeavoured to find a new field for his warlike prowess by promoting the quarrels of Nicomedes and Mithridates. The colonies and the division of the Gallic lands under the laws of Saturninus were suspended, and Metellus was recalled. But the storm of pro- secutions went on : the scandals of the Jugurthine and Cimbric cam- paigns were not forgotten, and were followed by others as gross ; nor did any marked successes abroad help to cover the discredit of the governing class. The praetor M. Antonius had suppressed some piracies in Cilicia and reduced part of it to the form of a province (103-102), and T. Didius had fought some successful campaigns in Spain (97) : but the East was much neglected, and when Ptolemy Apion in 96 left Cyrene to the Romans, the Government would not undertake to form a new province. It con- tented itself with levying a tribute, and, declaring the cities free, left them to fight out their differences among themselves. Unsuccessful abroad, the policy of the Optimates was mischievous at home. We have seen that in various ways access to the citizen- ship was being opened to the Italians. If the process had been let alone, this privilege might perhaps have been quietly extended so as to embrace so large a number that the question would have solved itself. But in 95 the consuls L. Licinius Crassus and Q. Mucins Scaevola, both men of high character, and the latter a considerable jurist, determined on tightening the law, — a process which has often resulted in hastening the revolution which it is intended to prevent. The grants of consuls, military commanders, or leaders of colonies, — even colonies voted though never actually formed, — had it seems produced a number of THE PROPOSALS OF M. LIVIUS DRtJSUS 587 citizens whose claim to that status would hardly bear a strict investi- gation. The consuls, perhaps from their devotion to jurisprudence, could not endure a process, however wholesome, which did not rest on a legal basis ; and they proposed a law establishing a com- mission for investigating such claims, and ordering all who had illegally assumed or acquired the citizenship to return to their own towns. No immediate outbreak took place, but there was a growing feeling among the Italians that they should either share the privileges of the Romans or separate entirely from them. Such a separation would not now, as in old times, mean the loss to Rome of so much foreign territory. The Italian cities were becoming part and parcel of the State ; the army was filled with Italians ; in every district, side by side with the unenfranchised, were living full citizens. A struggle between the two classes would in effect be a civil war. Such a struggle was now inevitable, and was actually brought Proposals about by the failure of an attempt to obviate it. One of the tribunes of th^ for 91, M. Livius Drusus, son of that Livius who had been employed l\ 'l'^.^ . 1 1 o 1 • 1 ^ • ^ 1 ^ ^ M. Livius by the Senate to outbid Gams Gracchus, was a young man of great jjnisus gi. eloquence and virtue, who had already served with good reputa- tion as quaestor in Asia. By birth, tastes, and connexions he was allied to the Optimate party, from which in fact he never willingly separated, though he incurred the enmity of both parties alike. He saw that the cure for the dissatisfaction in Italy was to make it a united state without distinction of civil status. This was the main object of his policy, and to carry it out it was necessary to con- ciliate all orders in the State — Senate, equites, and poorer citizens. Like many who try by compromise to satisfy contending factions, he eventually dissatisfied all — became hated by the party of privilege, and but faintly trusted by those whose claims he wished to support. He first tried to put an end to the continued contest be- tween the Senate and equites as to the judicia by a compromise like that attributed to C. Gracchus by Plutarch. He proposed that to the Senate, then weakened both in credit and numbers, 300 equites should be added, and that the list of jurors should be made up from the roll thus formed. Neither order was pleased. The existing senators thought that they v/ould be swamped by the new He dis- members, who would form a distinct party ; the equites thought satisfes all that the 300 would cease to have any sympathy with them, and that ^^^ ^^^' the measure only disguised their exclusion from the judicia. At the same time Livius attempted to gain to his side the urban populace by the usual proposition for increased distributions of corn, new colonies in Italy and Sicily, and assignments of land, many of which had been long ago voted — both on the proposal of his own father and on that of Saturninus, — and not carried out. The people, however, though glad 588 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The Senate declare his laws invalid. Rumours of his treasonable practices. Death of Drusus, of these measures, were easily made suspicious by the knowledge that his ultimate purpose was to put the Italians on an equality with them- selves ; whilst the richer Italians, who had long occupied parts of the ager publicus., were alarmed at his proposed assignations of land, for they could not see where it was to come from without disturbing some of their own holdings. Thus he had incurred the enmity of Senate and equites, who for once combined against a common danger; while the Italians, whose interests he had at heart, were divided, the richer among them denouncing his laws, and joining with the publicani, who feared a loss of profit in the collection of the dues on the public lands. The laws for the distribution of corn, the colonies, and the judicia were however passed, but in violation of the lex Caecilia-Didia (98), which forbade miscellaneous propositions to be put in a block to the people, and in spite of some alleged defect in the auspices. The Senate accordingly declared them invalid. Drusus disregarded this vote, and was proceeding to carry them out, in spite of the wildest rumours by which it was sought to alarm the people. The old cry of course was raised that he aimed at kingly power. The very oath that was to be administered to the Italian allies binding them to follow him was handed about ; it was stated that 10,000 Marsians under Pompaedius Silo had been on their way to Rome to demand their rights in arms, until met and persuaded by C. Domitius to adopt more peaceful measures ; a plot to murder the consul Philippus at the feriae Lalinae on the Alban Mount had also, it was said, been known of by Drusus, though he had warned Philippus to be on his guard. Whatever foundation there may have been for such stories their circulation succeeded in bringing Drusus into suspicion. But that the hopes of the bulk of the Italians still rested on him was presently shown by the prayers for his recovery offered throughout Italy, when he suddenly fainted while speaking in the Forum, and was carried home insensible. He was subject, it is said, to the falling sickness {inorbiis coinitialis)^ some form of epilepsy, for which he had on one occasion gone to Anticyra to try the cure of the hellebore. This per- haps may account for his sudden death not long afterwards, though the prevailing opinion was that he was assassinated. Believing that his life was in danger, it is said, he lived in retirement, receiving his partisans in his own house. On one occasion, as he was bidding them farewell in the open portico, he suddenly exclaimed that he was stabbed, and fell, sprinkling the bust of his own father with his blood. A leather-cutter's knife was found in his side and in a short time he expired. No investigation was held ; and whether violent or natural, his departure seems to have dashed the last hopes for the Italians of a peaceful settlement. Preparations for revolt had doubtless been XXXVII BEGINNING OF THE SOCIAL WAR 589 already made, and perhaps some o\ ert proceedings had taken place, Prosecu- which gave an excuse to the tribune Q. Varius in 90 to institute a tions of number of prosecutions under a new law of inajesfas, extending that of '^'^"^• Appuleius, which was carried in spite of the veto of the other tribunes by a body of equites who appeared at the Comitia with drawn swords. There followed another storm of impeachments, before which Calpurnius Bestia, Aurelius Cotta, Memmius, and others went down. But the proceedings of the court were violent, and so entirely directed against political opponents, that the restoration of the Varian exiles became a point in the programme of the popular party hereafter. The Social war was actually begun by an outbreak at Asculum in The Picenum. Information of the secret communications going on be- Social war, tween Italian towns reached the proconsul Q. Servilius, who was in 9^'^°- command of that district with a legatus named Fonteius. He at once went to Asculum, and harangued the citizens in such threaten- ing terms, that the popular indignation broke out with irresistible violence. Servilius and Fonteius were murdered, and a general Murder of massacre of Roman citizens in the town began. It was the signal Q- for a general rising. On a sudden it became apparent that the ^^^^"^^ Roman policy in Italy of breaking up nationalities and dividing the ponteius at country into separate towns or municipia^ unconnected with others Asculum. inhabited by the same nation, had not been successful. The old names still meant something : and in a brief space we hear of the Vestini, Marsi, Peligni, Marrucini, Samnites, and Lucani all joining the revolt Revolt of of the Picentes, each with leaders of their own. Hardly in the midst the of the old struggles with Volscian or Samnite had Rome seemed Italians. in greater danger. The superiority of her position now chiefly consisted in the fact that Italy was studded with thirty-two Roman and forty Latin colonies, generally established with a view to military purposes, which for the most part remained faithful. In the former the Roman citizens were usually in sufficient strength to overawe the unprivileged natives ; the latter, though only enjoying the Fidelity imperfect citizenship called Latinitas, were still in a superior position of the to the viimicipia. It was these immicipia^ towns which endured the <^olonies. burden of tribute and military service without the public rights of citizenship, in which the rebellion spread. Some chntafes foederatae., which, though not enjoying the franchise, had joined the Roman system on favourable terms, such as Naples, had no motive for sharing in the rebellion, and in fact preferred their own status ; while the Samnites and Lucanians, though they eventually accepted :he Roman franchise, would have preferred and long contended for .entire separation. j The movement spread rapidly through Italy, and the greatest Exertions were necessary. Before the winter of 91-90 was over, the 590 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Italian consuls. The consuls P. Rutin us Lupus, I.. Inlius (Jiiesar, and their le^uti, go. The iLhir in the South, go. rebels had organised a new state on the model of the Roman consti- tution, the seat of which was to be Corfinium. A large forum and senate-house were laid out, a senate of 500 named to superintend the war, and two consuls with six legates each to conduct it. The Senate, as at first selected, must in some way have represented the various nations, but no arrangement seems to have been made for what we mean by a representative government in filling up vacancies or for electing the consuls. The two first were a Marsian named Q. Pompaedius, who was to command with six legates in the north of Italy, and Gnaeus Papius Mutilus, a Samnite, with six legates in the south. There was no great concentrated campaign. The only plan seems to have been that these consuls and their legates in their several districts should attack Roman colonies and such of the iniuiicipia as had Roman garrisons or many Roman residents. It was a war therefore scattered all over Italy, and the Romans had to make arrangements corresponding to that of the enemy. The two consuls, P. Rutilius Lupus, L. lulius Caesar, undertook the north and south respectively, and under them were a number of legates of con- sular or praetorian rank. Thus under Rutilius were (X Caepio, Cn. Pompeius Strabo, C. Pcrpenna, C. Marius, Valerius Messala ; under Caesar, P. Lentulus, T. Didius, Licinius Crassus, L. Cornelius Sulla, M. Claudius Marcellus ; and auxiliaries were sent for from Gaul, Africa, Numidia, and other places. It was in the south, where the Italian " consul" Papius commanded in chief, that the war was at first most active and dangerous. The consul Caesar lost a battle to Vettius Cato, a legate of Papius, near Aesernia, which fell after a long and heroic defence by Marcellus. Meanwhile Papius had invaded Campania : Nola, Stabiae, Salernum, Nuceria all fell into his hands ; and then going to \'enusia he took Oxyntes, son of Jugurtha, who was confined there, and dressing him in royal purple appealed so strongly to the loyalty of the Numidian auxiliaries that Caesar found it safer to send them home. Another Latin commander named Marius Ignatius took Venafrum, and massacred two Roman cohorts stationed there ; Licinius Crassus was beaten by T. Lafrenius near Grumentum in Lucania; and the Picenian C. Judacilius occupied \'enusia, Canusium, and a great part of lapygia. Before the end of his year, indeed, Caesar had won a battle over Papius near Acerrae, but had not been able to prevent him from laying siege to that town, and had himself been beaten by Ignatius near Teanum Sidicinum. He retired again towards Acerrae, the siege of which by Papius he endeavoured to raise. However his victories over Samnites and Lucanians were received with joy at Rome, and were made the occasion of the Senate laying aside the sagum and appearing once more in the toga. He was continued XXXVII END OF THE SOCIAL WAR 591 in office in the following year as proconsul, and died while engaged in the siege of Asculum, In the north the vicissitudes had been still greater. C. Perpenna The war after losing 4000 men was deposed by the consul Rutilius from his ^« ^he command, his troops being transferred to Marius. But Rutilius °^^ ' ^°- himself soon after fell. He was stationed with Marius, at some little distance from each other, on the Tolenus, a tributary of the Liris, and contrary to the advice of Marius crossed the river to attack Vettius Cato. The first news Marius had of his disaster was given by the arms and corpses brought down the stream. By a rapid march Marius seized Cato's camp, while he was engaged in pursuing the army of the fallen consul ; and thus forcing him to retreat killed 8000 of his troops. But he does not appear to have done much more ; and when he returned to Rome at the end of the year had only some doubtful successes over the Marsians to recount : while Q. Caepio, who had taken over the army of Rutilius, and boasted at first that he had done as much as Marius, was defeated and killed by O. Pompaedius in the territory of the Vestini. In Picenum Pom- peius Strabo was defeated by Lafrenius and retired upon Firmum. Here, however, Lafrenius was in his turn defeated and killed, and Pompey gained a series of victories over the Picentes, which caused the magistrates at home to resume the state robes which had been laid aside, and began the siege of Asculum. The Roman fortunes, how- Movement ever, were sufficiently low to induce the Etruscans and Umbrians, of Etrus- who had hitherto held aloof, to declare on the side of the rebels. ''''"^• But the Umbrians were defeated by A. Plotius, and the Etruscans were conciliated by the lex lulia, now carried by the consul, which The lex gave the franchise to all Italians who had not been actually in arms.i J"lia, 90. The consuls of the next year were dnaeus Pompeius Strabo and Successes of L. Porcius Cato, grandson of the censor. Cato, who took over the ^^^^'J^^^'^ ^"^ army of Marius, was after some successes defeated and killed by the Marsi, — the second Roman consul to fall in this war. But elsewhere the superiority in the struggle was slowly inclining to Rome. Ascu- lum still held out, but Corfinium had been taken, and the seat of the federal government had to be removed to Bovianum, and then to Aesernia. Strabo intercepted and cut up a body of 15,000 Italians on their way to Etruria ; and in the south Sulla, who in the previous ^ The citizenship had to be accepted by tlie communities (as opposed to individuals), and those which so accepted it were called populi fundi. It seems first to have been proposed that these Italians should be enrolled in ten new tribes, and afterwards that they should be confined to eight of the old tribes (which had now ceased to be local). This would minimise their influence on the voting, and therefore the next (juestion was their distribution through all the tribes. k 592 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Fall of Corjinium, 89. and Bovianum. Mithri- dates refuses assistance. Lex Papiria Plautia, Coss. L. Cornelius Sulla, Q. Potnpeius Rufus, 88. Sulpician revolution. year also had had some successes, and who intended this year to stand for the consulship, had been carrying all before him. He beat Cluentius near Pompeii, and drove him to take refuge in Nola, where he was killed. He took Aquilonia, the chief town of the Hirpini, overran Samnium, and stormed Bovianum, defeating Papius again and again, and returned to Rome with irresistible claims to the consulship. Other successes had been won in Lucania by Aulus Gabinius, though he had himself fallen in an attack upon a camp ; by Sulpicius against the Marrucini ; by Caecilius Metellus in lapygia, where the Latin " consul " Pompaedius fell ; and by C. Cosconius and Lucceius in eastern Samnium and Apulia, An appeal by the con- federates to Mithridates to assist them by invading Italy had been declined on the ground that he must first secure Asia ; and an attempt in this or early in the following year to seize Rhegium in order to carry the war into Sicily had been defeated by the propraetor C. Norbanus. When early in 88 Strabo at length took Asculum, and received the submission of the Marsi, Vestini, and Peligni, little remained to be done except in the south, where Nola and some other towns still held out. But the object of the rebellion, which had cost the life of 300,000 men of military age in Italy, was gained. A plebiscitu))i of the tribunes C. Papirius Carbo and M. Plautius Silvanus extended the citizenship to every member of a civitas foederata in Italy, who within two months declared before a praetor his desire to take it ; while a lex Pompeza gave the Latinitas to the cities between the Po and the Alps. During the Social war the Roman government had had other anxieties. The Salluvii had again rebelled and had been suppressed by C. Caecilius in 90. In 89 there had been a severe commercial crisis, and the moneyed class had assassinated the praetor Asellio on account of his decisions in favour of the debtors : while in that and the following year the movement of Mithridates, to upset the arrange- ments in Cappadocia made by Sulla in 92, had been accompanied by invasions of the Thracians on the north of Macedonia. War with Mithridates had in fact been determined upon when Sulla took up the consulship. His colleague Pompeius Rufus was to remain in Italy, while the command of the southern army at Nola, and the war with Mithridates, for which that army was destined, were assigned to Sulla. But the quiet execution of these arrangements was interrupted by the intervention of the tribune P. Sulpicius Rufus, He had hitherto been a partisan of the Optimates, and in 95 had prosecuted C. Nor- banus in their interests, and was a personal friend of the consul Rufus. His sudden change to the leadership of the opposition was explained by his enemies as the result of embarrassed circumstances exposing him to the temptation of a bribe from Marius, The position XXXVII REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES OF SULPICIUS 593 of Marius was certainly mortifying. He had lost all credit as a Position of politician since his vacillating conduct in regard to Saturninus in ^/arins in TOO ; and when he abdicated his sixth consulship at the end of that ^^' year he ceased to be politically important. He was eager, however, to recover his prestige, and believed that he could only do so in case his services were again needed in war. Since his visit to Asia in 99-98, and his interview with Mithridates, he seems to have had hopes that he might eventually have the command against him. But he had had to see Sulla, once his subordinate, charged with the restor- ation of Ariobarzanes to Cappadocia, from which Mithridates had driven him (92). When the Social war began he was content to act as legate to the consul Rutilius ; but at the end of the first year returned to Rome without having materially increased his reputation. He was ]\iarius sixty- eight years old and began to be thought over- cautious and desires the senile, while Sulla in 89 was acquiring fresh laurels and securing his 'command consulship ; and when in the course of that year the war with Mithri- MUhri- dates was decided on, the command was given by the Senate not to dates. him but to Sulla. This could only be altered by a vote of the people overriding the decree of the Senate, as had once before been done in his favour against Metellus in the Jugurthine war. Whether it was Sulpicius who saw in the old hero's unsatisfied ambition a means for gaining the support of the popular party for the measures he now contemplated, — or whether it was Marius who bribed Sulpicius to propose measures giving the popular party the upper hand, La^cs of and so securing his nomination to the command, — the result was Sulpicius. that Sulpicius now brought in a series of laws which the Optimates regarded as revolutionary. The new Italian citizens (perhaps amounting to 500,000) were to be enrolled in all the tribes, instead of only eight or ten, and so would be able to carry all measures they chose ; freedmen were no longer to be confined to the four city tribes, but were to be spread over all ; those condemned of viajestas by the lavv- of Varius in 90 were to be restored ; bankrupts were to cease to be members of the Senate ; and lastly the command of the Mithridatic war was to be transferred to Marius. The first of Their these laws was necessary for the full enfranchisement of the Italians, object and and was a measure in fact which could not be and was not long ^-"^^ ' delayed : but its immediate effect would doubtless be to render it more easy to swamp the influence of the family coteries which con- trolled elections and legislation. The reform of the Senate would also crush the influence which the richest heads of families had been accustomed to exercise over the poorer senators who practically depended upon them ; and the recall of the Varian exiles admitted the principle of overriding verdicts of juries by a popular vote. The Optimates determined to resist. The consuls attempted 2 o 594 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The consuls order a jusiitium, 88. Riots. Sulla resolves to resist his removal from the command. Sulla and Rufus enter Rome with the army. Death of Sulpicius. Flight of Marius, 88. to Stop the proceedings by declaring a jusiitium^ — a suspension of business for religious observances. But the armed followers of Sulpicius attacked them with such violence that they were obliged to withdraw the notice. In the riot a son of Pompeius Rufus was killed, and he himself had to withdraw from Rome ; whilst vSulla only escaped death by taking refuge in the house of Marius. He presently withdrew to the camp at Nola ; and thereupon the laws of Sulpicius were passed. Marius had now attained his wish, and was to command in Asia. He despatched two tribunes to Nola to take over the command in his name, intending to follow shortly in person. But Sulla was not the man tamely to submit to such a defeat. In his eyes he was legal commander ; the bill which superseded him had been passed by means of such violence as compelled both consuls to leave Rome, and was ipso facto invalid. The army which he commanded was devoted to him, and had shown that it cared for little else. A few months before it had stoned Postumius Albinus, a praetorian legate, and Sulla had been content with a reprimand, remarking that they must atone for their fault by additional energy in the war. It was thus not unprepared for illegal conduct ; and when Sulla laid his case before the soldiers, they eagerly promised to follow him to Rome, and promptly murdered the tribunes sent by Marius. Sulla was joined by his colleague Rufus on the march, and when they approached the city Marius and Sulpicius, after vainly trying to raise a force by offering freedom to the slaves, were obliged to fly. The consuls entered the city, and though the anger of the people at seeing soldiers within the walls was manifested by showers of stones and other missiles from the housetops, they Avere warmly welcomed by the Senate. Sulpicius, Marius, and twelve of their followers were at once declared public enemies, whom it was every one's right and duty to kill. Sulpicius, having taken refuge in a villa, was betrayed and put to death by a slave, who was rewarded by emancipation, and then hurled from the rock by Sulla's order. Marius was more fortunate. He reached Ostia in safety, where he was supplied with a ship, and at once set sail. He was forced, however, by a storm to land near Circeii, and wandered about help- lessly until, being warned by a peasant that horsemen were scouring the country for him, he concealed himself in the woods without food or place of rest. Hunger compelled him to descend upon the beach, and he was again taken on board a ship, the master of which with some hesitation refrained from delivering him up to the horsemen on the shore. But after conveying him as far as the mouth of the Liris, he landed him on the marshy ground near Minturnae. Making his way with difficulty over the bogs and ditches he at last found the hut of an old labourer, who concealed him in a hollow and covered him XXXVII FLIGHT OF MARIUS & LEGISLATION OF SULLA 595 with reeds and wood. When the pursuers arrived and threatened Sd\ the old man, Marius in terror tried to hide himself more completely in the water, but was observed and dragged out covered with mud. He was carried off to Minturnae, and delivered up to the magis- Marius trates of the town, who, after long consultation, determined to put at Afin- him to death. But the executioner sent was a Gallic slave who ^"^^^e. had seen him in his glory during the Cimbric campaign. When he entered the room the well -remembered form rose, the fierce eyes glared in the dim hght, and a voice said sternly, " Man, darest thou slay Gaius Marius?" He threw down his sword and rushed from the room exclaiming, " I cannot kill Gaius Marius." The citizens of Minturnae then repented, and resolved to allow the saviour of Italy to go free. They conducted him to the shore and put him on board a ship. This time the wind was favourable. He sailed first to the island of Aenaria {Ischia), where he found some of his friends, and from thence to Africa, where his son had arrived before him in safety. He stayed himself in the neighbourhood of Carthage and sent his son to beg protection of Hiempsal, king of Numidia. But the pro- praetor of Africa, Sextilius, felt it his duty to refuse him harbourage, and yet did not wish to injure him. He therefore sent a message to ^ him bidding him leave the province. As the messenger waited for I an answer, Marius, after remaining for a long time silent, at last said, ( " Go and tell him that you saw Gaius Marius sitting amidst the ruins Marius at of Carthage." Meanwhile his son had been politely received by Carthage. \ Hiempsal, but had soon discovered that the king was secretly de- signing to gratify the Sullan party by doing him some mischief. \ By the favour of one of the royal harem he escaped to meet his father, who was just about to sail. They made their way to the island of Cercina, and there waited till the news from Rome in- duced them to return to Italy, with some exiles and Mauritanians, whom they persuaded to take service with them. To understand this change of plan we must go back to Rome Sulla in and Sulla. The first measure of the consuls, when they found them- J^ome, 88. selves supreme once more, was to revoke the laws of Sulpicius, whether by the Senate declaring them invalid, as having been passed by violence, or by a regular vote of the people. Certain measures ///^ ^e- were then passed to meet the actual difficulties of the moment : the actionary rate of interest was reduced to a maximum of ten per cent (as it measures. had been in 357) ; the usual order for new colonies was issued ; and the roll of the Senate filled up by the admission of 300 new members. In regard to the comitia the old arrangement attributed to Servius was recalled as far as was possible in the altered state of things. ^ For * It seems, however, doubtful whether this change took place now or after Sulla's return from Asia. 596 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Restraint on the Tribunes. Coss. Gnaeus Octavius, L. Cornelius Cinna, 8y. Sulla crosses to Greece. Pompeius Rufus killed. Revolu- tiojiary measures of Cinna. Cinna expelled from Rotne collects an army in Italian cities, JS. voting purposes those who possessed property to the standard of the first class (100,000 sesterces) were distributed into centuries almost equal to half the entire number, and could thereby command nearly a majority of votes at elections. How far this was applied to the tribes, which since 241 had also been divided into centuries accord- ing to rating, does not seem certain ; but their importance in legisla- tion, usually brought forward by tribunes, was lessened by a regu- lation prohibiting the tribunes from proposing bills without the previous sanction of the Senate, — a condition once imposed by custom then abolished by law, and now for the first time enacted by law. But Sulla was in haste to rejoin his army, which after the restora- tion of order he had sent to Capua. He tried to propitiate the popular party by allowing the election of C. Cornelius Cinna to the consulship for 87, though he first exacted an oath from him to abstain from reversing the measures just passed. Some of the Lucani and Samnites were still in arms, and Nola held out. He therefore had enough to detain him in Italy until the spring of 87, in spite of the tragic events in Asia which demanded his presence. He crossed to Epirus in the early summer, leaving Italy by no means quiet. His legati Q. Caecilius Metellus and Appius Claudius retained the com- mand in Samnium ; but Cinna had shown his animus at once by pro- posing to impeach him, though he had apparently gone to the army without condescending to answer the charge. The northern troops were still under the optimatist Strabo ; for Pompeius Rufus, who had been sent to supersede him, was murdered by the soldiers, and Strabo quietly resumed the command. Yet no sooner had Sulla left Italy than, trusting to the support of the new citizens, Cinna proposed to recall Marius and his friends, and to distribute the Italians among all the thirty-five tribes. His colleague Octavius determined to oppose him, but waited until some act of violence gave him an excuse for interfering. Being informed that a crowd of armed Italians were in the Forum to overawe the citizens into voting for Cinna's bill, and were actually driving the opposing tribunes from the rostra, he led an armed body of men into the Forum, killed many of the rioters, and drove the rest through the gates. Cinna, after vainly endeavouring to raise the slaves, escaped from the city. He set himself at once to raise a party in the Italian towns, which he instigated to take up arms. At Nola he was joined by most of the army under App. Claudius, and by senators and other members of his party, among whom was the able and active O. Sertorius. He was thus distinctly levying arms against the city and joining with her revolted subjects. The Senate at Rome therefore declared him a public enemy and no longer consul, and contrived to have L. Merula, the Jlanie?i dialis, elected in his place, ;! ^^^^V" MARIUS ENTERS ROME 597 as though he were dead. Such a proceeding was of course not provided for by the constitution. : but it rested on the same ground of equity as all depositions of kings or other rulers, namely that he was using his office to the harm of the State. Cinna answered by coming to Capua, where there were troops, with whom he pleaded that the consulship had been given him by them, and could only be taken away by those who had given it. A considerable number of the men took the oath to him, and many more of his partisans joined him there. It was the news of these events which reached Marius in Cercina, Return of and made him resolve to return to Italy. He landed at Telamon Marius, on the Etruscan coast, and immediately communicated with Cinna ^7- who named him his legate with proconsular power ; and the two agreed to advance on Rome, which for the next few weeks was thus threatened by four armies, under Cinna and his three legates, Marius Sertorius, and Carbo. The city walls were in a dilapidated state' and the Senate was striving to protect them by trenches* and other Weakness fortihcations, while sending urgent messages to Strabo in Picenum of the and ordering Metellus and Claudius in Campania to make terms ''^•f^^^^^^- with the people of Nola and come to their aid. Strabo had been annoyed at being refused a second consulship, and it was uncertain what he would do. But he obeyed the summons and advanced towards the Colline gate, Metellus and Claudius came to Rome without however making terms with the Samnites, who presently joined Marius and defeated a Roman army under Plancius. Refusing to supersede the consul Octavius in the supreme command, as the soldiers wished, Metellus retired from the city and crossed to Africa • and Claudius, who was stationed on the Janiculum, finally made terms' with the Marians, and admitted them into the city. Meanwhile Marius had occupied Ostia, and thus got control Marius in of the corn supplies. He then proceeded to take the towns on Latircm. the Appian Way, Antium, Lanuvium, and Aricia, and crossing the river joined Cinna on the Janiculum. The Senate found themselves gradually reduced to helplessness. Large desertions were taking place from the army of the consuls to Cinna, and numbers of slaves Battle at were attracted to his camp by offers of freedom. Strabo's army the Colline was suffering from fever, and, soon after an indecisive battle with ^''^'• Sertorius near the Colline gate, he was himself killed by light- ning. The Senate humbled itself to invite Cinna and Marius into the city, only begging that they would spare the lives of the citizens. Cinna made fair professions, but Marius, who stood by the consul's chair, said nothing, and his grim look gave no sign of mercy. The first demand made by Cinna on entering the city was that Marius and the other exiles who had joined him at Ostia, should be formally 598 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The reign of terror. Coss. L. Cornelius Cintia II . Gains Marius VII. , 86. Death of Marius, jjth January 86. Coss L. Cornelius Cinna and Cn. Papi- rius Ca7-bo, 85-84- recalled. But too impatient to wait for the vote, Marius entered the Forum surrounded by a band of ruffians, and the work of blood began. The consul Octavius had already been killed as he sat on the curule chair, and his head brought to Cinna ; and now every one whom Marius pointed out by word or gesture in the streets was cut down by his attendants, or, as some say, every one whose salutation he did not return. His former colleague and rival Catulus in vain asked through friends for mercy : inoriejidiim est — was the only answer given by the bitter old man. The famous orator M. Antonius took refuge with a humble client, but was betrayed by a wine-seller, whose suspicions were roused by the man sending for a superior kind of wine, and Marius was scarcely restrained from going to feast his eyes upon his execution. Some, such as Lucius Merula, Cinna's substitute in the consulship, were to be subjected to a form of legal trial, but Merula at any rate preferred suicide. Everywhere the trackers of blood were on the search, and no man's life who had opposed Marius was safe.^ Cinna soon got disgusted with these cruelties, and he and Sertorius at length put to death a number of Marius's ruffian guards who were revelling in murder, rape, and robbery, Cinna's next step was to secure the election of himself and Marius to the consulship of 86. But the veteran Marius only survived this realisation of his dream of a seventh consulship a few days. The hero of \'ercellae had lived too long for his fame, and his services to \i\-i country were forgotten in the horror of his last days. Worn out with excitement or fever he died on the ides of January, and was succeeded by L. Valerius Flaccus, who was sent to supersede Sulla in the command against Mithridates. Meanwhile Cinna was all-powerful. He caused himself to be nomin- ated consul with Carbo for 85 and 84 ; and carried laws which were meant to secure the adhesion of the populace of the city and the Italians. The new citizens were distributed among the thirty-five tribes by the censors of 86-85 ; all impediments on the distribution of corn were removed ; three-fourths of all private debts were can- celled ; and some colotii actually established at Capua.- Sulla was declared a public enemy and his town house dem.olished : and the provinces were placed or continued in the hands of adherents of the consuls. In Macedonia alone Sulla was supreme, and there he was 1 Some no doubt escaped. For instance we are told of one Cornutus whose slaves loved him, and covered his retreat by displaying the dead body of one of their fellow-slaves to the pursuers, and pretending that it was their master whom they had killed. - Capua did not obtain the status of a colonia till 59, though a conventus capable of corporate action existed there before, Cicero pro Sest. § 9. Cinna's colony therefore was either incomplete or was abolished by Sulla. XXXVII PREPARATIONS TO RESIST SULLA 599 joined by many of the Optimates who fled from Rome. He presently had what might ahiiost be looked upon as a senate, and he let it be known that, when the war of Mithridates was ended, he was coming Sulla home with his army to protect him, and would ignore all the legisla- prepares to tion of Cinna except in regard to the Italian voters. The Senate ''^^"''''• tried to make peace by proposing that Sulla should come to Rome without his army under a safe-conduct, and that the consuls should cease their preparations for war. Sulla did not openly decline, but Prepara- sent word to say that the exiled nobles must be first recalled, and the ^^ons to authors of illegal massacres punished. There was clearly to be war. ''^■^"^ Z^''"' r^, 1 o 1 r> • • ,, ■ ,1 • and death Ihe consuls spent 85 and 84 principally m collectmg money, troops, of Cinna, and war-ships on the Adriatic coast, and several legions were sent 84. across to Epirus under Cn. Papirius Carbo. In the latter part of ' 84, however, Cinna was killed in a mutiny of soldiers, who declined \ to cross to Greece to attack their fellow-citizens ; and Carbo, now sole consul, returned to Italy, and went into winter quarters at 1 Ariminum. Such was the state of things in Italy in the winter of !■ 84-83. To understand Sulla's position we must follow the course of I the Mithridatic war. I j Authorities. — Livy, Ep. 69-84; Appian, B. Civ. i. 28-78; Velleiu.s . Paterc. 11. 12-23; Plutarch. Sulla, Marius, Seriorius, Pompeius : Florus iii. J 16-18 ; Diodorus. fr. of xxxvii. ; Dion. fr. 95-106 ; Granius Licinianus, p. 23 \sq.\ Orosius v. 16-20. For the Lex Papiria Plautia, sec Cicero /;v Archia, 37. i For the characters and aims of the men of this period the writings of Cicero. jl who served his only campaign under Strabo in the Social war, now become 1 important. CHAPTER XXXVIII AIITHRIDATES ^ IN ASIA AND GREECE The origin and state of the Roman province of Asia — Causes of discontent — Rise of the kingdom of Pontus (315-121) — Early life and character of Mithridates Eupator (120-111)— His victories in the Crimea and extension of the Pontic kingdom north of the Black Sea (111-102) — His tour in Asia (105) He joins Nicomedes of Bithynia in an attack upon Paphlagonia (104) — Obeys Roman commissioners and evacuates Paphlagonia, but occupies Galatia — Breach between Nicomedes and Mithridates in regard to Cappadocia — Meeting of Marius and Mithridates (98) — The Senate order Mithridates to evacuate Cappadocia (94) — Tigranes of Armenia allied with Mithridates — ■ Sulla restores Ariobarzanes (92) — M'.Aquillius in Asia (90-89) — Mithridates determines on war (88) — Defeat of the Roman forces and massacre of the Italians (88) — Mithridates attacks Rhodes, and his general Archelaus occupies Athens (88-87)— Sulla arrives in Greece with five legions (87). Indepen- dent powers in Asia, yet owning an informal protector- ate. Permmus. In virtue of the treaty with Antiochus (189) the Romans had estab- hshed an informal protectorate in Asia. No regular province had been constituted, no tribute imposed except for war indemnities, and no army or fleet stationed in Asia to overawe or protect the peoples. The kingdoms of Cappadocia and Bithynia were left untouched ; the freedom of the Asiatic Gauls was respected, — though they were to cease their depredations on their neighbours ; the Greek cities^ were to be free, and to be relieved of the tribute formerly paid to the Seleucidae or other princes ; the rest of Asia Minor north of Mount Taurus for the most part was given to the king of Pergamus. Besides his ancestral kingdom of Mysia he received in Europe Lysimachia and the Thracian Chersonese ; in Asia Hellespontine Phrygia, Lydia with Sardis and Ephesus, part of Caria, including Magnesia and Tralles, part of Cilicia, Greater Phrygia, Lycaonia ; and in Lycia, Milyas and the harbour town Telmissus. ^ The correct form, as found in Greek inscriptions, is Mithradates, i.e. wor- shipper of Mithras. I have, however, adopted the more familiar spelling of Roman writers. 2 Especially those who had joined the Romans against Antiochus — Dardanus, Ilium, Cyme, Smyrna, Clazomenae, Erythrae, Chios, Colophon, Miletus, and the Lycian confederate towns. 6o2 HISTORY OF ROME Legacy of Attains III. to the Roman people, ijj. The province of Asia formed, I2g. The taxation of Asia. The lex Se?npronia and the publicani in Asia, I2J. It was this kingdom which passed to the Roman people in 133 by the will of Attalus III., and was organised as a province in 129 under the name of Asia with Ephesus as its capital. The European possessions, however, were annexed to the province of Macedonia ; Telmissus was given up to the Lycian federation, and some other outlying districts to various princes, who were to relieve the Romans from the burden of defending the eastern frontiers. The Greek cities declared free in 189 still nominally retained that freedom in 129; and the province consisted of the districts known as Mysia, Caria, and Lydia, with the adjacent islands, and the Greek cities other than those left free. Phrygia for a time was left in dispute, but was subsequently joined to the province. This was surrounded by independent states, which were friends or clients of Rome, the re- publics of Rhodes, Cyzicus, and Heracleia, the Lycian federation, and the three kingdoms of Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Paphlagonia. Lycaonia and Cilicia Trachea (including and sometimes called Pam- phylia) were in 129 assigned to the king of Cappadocia. When the inheritance first fell to Rome, the Roman Government had promised a remission of the tribute paid by the states to the kings of Pergamus, contenting itself with the profits of the royal estates. The rebellion of Aristonicus (i 31-129), however, gave a pre- text for evading this promise. The cultivators of the soil now paid a tenth of their produce {decimiae) ; a rent was levied for feeding cattle on the public pastures {scriptura) ; and an ad valorem duty of 2^ per cent was imposed on imports (portorhan). Besides these burdens, the expenses of Roman governors and the exactions of their retinue, more or less supported by law or custom, had to be borne by the provincials, already impoverished by war indemnities, and deeply in debt to Roman money-lenders or bankers, who flocked over in the wake of the conquering aniiies. The distress of the country was accentuated by the next change. By the lex Semprcmia of Gaius Gracchus (123) the various taxes were sold by the censors every quinquennium to companies of publicani, who paid a fixed sum to the treasury and recouped themselves by the estimated surplus of the revenue. This system, which lasted nearly eighty years, was a fruitful source of oppression. The first object of the publicani was to obtain a handsome profit ; and as the decumae (paid in kind) and portoria varied with the yearly produce and the value of the merchandise, every device was employed to enhance the amount. The closest and most offensive forms of espionage, with every engine of legal chicanery or personal violence, were set at work. If the provincials appealed to the proconsul, they generally found that his interests or fears were on the side of the publicani — his interests, for he might receive a percentage of the XXXVIII THE OPPRESSION OF ASIA 603 profits ; his fears because, if accused on his return, he would have to stand a trial before a jury composed of the very eqidtes who had enjoyed or hoped to enjoy the chance of similar profits. The oppres- sion of course varied somewhat with the character of the proconsul. There were instances of righteous and incorrupt governors, with firmness equal to their virtue. Under such men for a time the pro- vince was happy and prosperous. But they were few and far between ; and the ruin which the disappointed publican! generally managed to inflict upon them scared those who, perhaps no less well disposed, had not the courage of their opinions. ^ For the most part the pro- consuls were conveniently blind, and the people suffered. It was natural that this government should be detested in most Consequent of the States ; that the visits of the publicani should be regarded with ^^P<^P^- fear and anger ; and that the Roman merchants, bankers, and money- ^^^ Romayi lenders, in whose books many of the natives were deeply involved, government should be the most unpopular residents in the towns and harbours, andRoman and while receiving the outside deference which weakness pays to '^^^^^ents. superior force, should yet be eyed askance with the stealthy hatred which has the will without the strength or courage to strike. For thirty-five years, however (123-88), all seemed to be going Division smoothly. The natives groaned or scowled, but the Roman publican of parties and money-lender returned gorged with wealth to plunge into the ^^,^_j. luxuries or vices of Roipe. Yet black as is the picture which all our authorities give, there must have been some counterbalancmg ad- vantages in the Roman sway ; for in nearly every town, when the crash came, we find a Romanising party. Probably this was gener- ally the merchant or trading class, who found the Romans willing and able to protect them against all piracy or pillage other than their own ; and the Roman courts, when not judging cases of revenue, more trustworthy and impartial than those of the natives. Still there was enough well-grounded disaffection to make it certain that at the first opportunity the smouldering discontent would burst into flame. That opportunity came in 88, when the king of Pontus advanced Mitkri- into Roman Asia with an army which had just beaten a combined dates enters force of Bithynians and Italians, bringing with him a Roman governor ^^^ . - ^.,. . . .,. . f , • 1 province of of Cilicia as prisoner in his train, and presently exposing to the scorn ^^^^ in 88. and insult of the inhabitants a Roman legate of consular rank in chains, and treated with every species of ignominy. Mithridates had already achieved no mean work in life ; had extended his power almost to encircle the Black Sea, and had come ^ The most notorious case was that of P. Rutilius Rufus, who having in 95 distinguished himself (as legatus of Q. Mucius Scaevola) by repressing the extor- tions of the publicani, was condemned by a conspiracy of the equites at Rome in 92 flvivy, Ep. 70; Valer. Ma.x. ii. 10, 5.) 6o4 HISTORY OF ROME chap. Character forward as the successful champion of Hellenism beyond the ofMithri- Caucasus ; but during the last fifteen years had found the Roman power more than once thwarting the influence which he desired to exercise in Asia Minor. He was a man of exceptional vigour and ability, A youth of hardship and danger had left him with a frame of uncommon strength and endurance. A brave and skilful com- mander himself, he had the faculty of attaching others to his service with unalterable fidelity, and had been generous in rewarding success and in making allowance for failure. In spite of his stormy youth he had some tincture of Greek taste and culture, had a famous collec- tion of engraved gems and other works of art, and was gifted with such extraordinary powers of acquisition and memory that he is said to have been able to converse in twenty-five languages while transact- ing business with deputies from his widely-spread dominions. On the other hand this veneer of Greek culture could not conceal the vices and passions of the Oriental despot, who measures everything by the standard of his personal desires. His well-filled harem was stained by the blood of more than one wife, and several of his sons fell victims to a father's jealousy. When once his suspicions were roused, however causelessly, past services and tried loyalty went for nothing. Not conspicuously cruel in war, the massacre of the Italians in Asia and the violent removal of the inhabitants of Chios, the cold- blooded murder of his nephew Ariarathes, the young king of Cappa- docia, were characteristic of the barbarian despot ; and while posing as a friend of Hellenism he soon showed that he had no idea of Hellenic freedom apart from himself as master. The The kingdom ruled by this remarkable man had grown up from growth ajid ^^^ dissolution of the Persian Empire. At the time of the invasion ment of ^^ Alexander the Great the name of Pontus as a territorial designa- Pontus, tion had no existence. The country formed part of the satrapy of starting Cappadocia, which then extended from the Black Sea to Mount from the Taurus. Alexander, scarcely entering Cappadocia, committed its division of i. . U- r . . -t-i r^ ^ ■ r ^ Cappadocia conquest to his lieutenants. The Cappadocians refused to accept a in the 4th Macedonian satrap, but after the battle of Arbela (331) the Greek century. towns along the coast of the Black Sea submitted, and obtained various degrees of favour or freedom. Meanwhile Ariarathes, who pretended to trace his descent from Otanes, one of the Magi who killed the false Smerdis in 522, maintained a kind of royal power in Cappadocia while Alexander was engaged in his distant enterprise. After Alexander's death the regent Perdiccas conquered and crucified Ariarathes, and reduced Cappadocia to the position of a Macedonian province, with the addition of Paphlagonia (322). But the quarrels between the successors of Alexander gave the Cappadocians a chance of ridding themselves of the Macedonian yoke. About 315 Ariarathes, XXXVIII RISE OF THE KINGDOM OF PONTUS 605 a nephew and adopted son of the old Persian satrap crucified by Ariarathes Perdiccas, raised a rebellion to regain his paternal inheritance ; while ^i- Mithridates, called Ctistes, or the Founder- — a deposed satrap of Mlthri- Cappadocia Pontica — roused the northern Cappadocians and Paphla- ^^^/^-^ ^^• gonians, and two kingdoms were carved out of the satrapy. That ' '"^ ^^'" obtained by Mithridates was at first still called Cappadocia Pontica, while that of Ariarathes, comprising the basin of the Halys, was called simply Cappadocia. The attempts of Seleucus to reduce them to obedience were fruitless, and from the time of his death (280) they were firmly established. It is Cappadocia Pontica, presently called simply Pontus, which Cappadocia developed into the kingdom ruled over by the great Mithridates. For ^ontua a long time it was not important. The chief power in Asia till the battle p^^"ll\ of Magnesia ( 1 90) was that of the Seleucids ; and even the inferior kingdoms of Pergamus and Bithynia were more than a match for Pontus. But a succession of kings had slowly aggrandised it by marriages, alliances, and other means. Mithridates III. (302-266) Early gained parts of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia ; Ariobarzanes (about l^^"S^ (f 266-240) took Amastris ; Mithridates IV, (about 240-190) received "" ^^■ Phrygia as the portion of his wife, a daughter of Seleucus Callinicus. The battle of Magnesia ( 1 90), though it put an end to the power Beginning of the Seleucids in Asia, brought into the country the still more formid- east along the coast of the Maeotis and the district of Colchis, Treaties of commerce were made with Iberia, the Greater Armenia, and in and Media Atropatena (a vassal state of the Parthians) : and the "^•^'^■ Pontic kingdom was itself rounded off and extended to the upper Euphrates by the annexation of Lesser Armenia, famous for its cavalry and archers. Thus with a territory nearly trebled, with the Black Sea almost a He fears Pontic lake, with an army trained in victory, and an almost inex- ^^e Roman ■power. haustible recruiting ground, Mithridates had become the most powerful king of his day. He soon turned his eyes to western Asia, where his character as champion of Hellenism gave him the required 6o8 HISTORY OF ROME Tour of Mithri- dates i?i Asia Minor about lo^. Asiatic states and kingdoms. dalatia. Paphla- Cappa- docia. Bithynia. pretext. He knew, however, that this policy would bring him into collision with Rome, a power which he had perhaps learnt to hate, when in i i6 it withdrew Phrygia from his sway, in spite of the bargain with his father, and though it had been administered by the Pontic king for more than ten years. Still Rome was formidable, and he desired, if possible, to secure his objects without incurring her open enmity. In preparation for his new enterprise Mithridates made a tour of inspection throughout Asia. Everywhere he found decaying king- doms or oppressed populations sighing for a liberator. The centre of the peninsula was occupied by the Galatae, a loose federation of three distinct nationalities (Tolistobogii, Sangarii, Trocmes), each sub- divided into tribes under tetrarchs. The only central authority was an assembly of 300 of these tetrarchs, meeting on fixed dates in a sacred wood, and judging cases of homicide. It had no political functions, and each tribe managed its own affairs, foreign or domestic. A state so divided was necessarily weak, and would have fallen under the influence of its powerful neighbour, had not Roman policy regarded its independence of other Asiatic powers as imperatively necessary. The Galatae were still the best soldiers in Asia, and the Romans would not risk the loss of such a recruiting ground. Paphlagonia, a smaller district, had also been distracted by divisions, and had been left as a legacy by its last king Pylemenes to the father of Mithridates, The Romans had forbidden the will to be carried out, and the country was again split up among petty princes. Here, too, Mithridates saw a chance and could urge a claim. The kingdom of Cappadocia was in a state of disorder. Since 190 it had been a faithful ally of Rome. But in 130 the death of its king Ariarathes v., the reformer and Philhellene, had left the regency in the hands of his widow Nysa, an abandoned woman said to have caused five of her sons to be poisoned that she might retain her power. Her cruelties provoked a revolution in 125, which placed her sixth and only surviving son Ariarathes Epiphanes on the throne. He retained it until he was assassinated in iii, leaving an infant son, Ariarathes Philometor, under the guardianship of his widow Laodice. But some in Cappadocia remembered that it was once united with what was now called Pontus, and looked to a reunion under Mithri- dates as a security against the miseries of the past twenty years. "The invasion of Mithridates Euergetes during the regency of Nysa, the marriage of Epiphanes with a Pontic princess, his murder by one who was regarded, rightly or wrongly, as an agent of the king of Pontus, were so many episodes which marked the progress of the unionist idea and prepared its triumph." The other Asiatic kingdom which he would visit was Bithynia. XXXVIII FIRST ROMAN LEGATION TO MITHRIDATES 609 Its present ruler, Nicomedes II., had gained power by the murder of his father, who had wished to di^sinherit him. In spite of this he was a popular king, who elevated and hellenised his people. He had been brought up at Rome, and posed as the enthusiastic friend and ally of the Romans. But secretly he bore them ill-will, both on per- sonal and public grounds : because his accession had been opposed by them, and because the contiguity of the Roman province gave rise to frequent disputes as to the jurisdiction of the publicani, who not unfrequently crossed the frontier to exact what they alleged to be due to them from his subjects. He was rich, and possessed a powerful war fleet. Mithridates might count on him for support if he ever wished to strike at Rome. Mithridates had also reason at the time to think that the attention The of the Romans would not easily be diverted to him. The Senate and Ko"^<^f'^ the Optimates desired peace. They cared little what went on in the ^/^J^^^'^^ East, so long as the Roman territories were not attacked to the los-gs. detriment of the revenue. The struggle with Jugurtha had thrown a lurid light on the weakness of the army and the corruption of its officers. A new war meant fresh power to Marius or some other popular favourite dreaded as an opponent of the nobility. They had I also enough to do nearer home. The Cimbri were pouring into Gaul and threatening Italy, and the danger was not at an end till the victory of Vercellae in 10 1 ; Sicily was being threatened with I another slave war, and all possible troops were needed at home : the East was almost without a Roman soldier, and the field was clear for his intrigues, Mithridates began his scheme of aggrandisement with the nearest Mithri- , and smallest of the Asiatic districts. He formed an alliance with ^'■l^'^^ "^"'^ Nicomedes of Bithynia, and the two kings invaded Paphlagonia with ^jl^f"^^ ^^ the intention of each taking the part nearest their own dominions. Paphla- The dispossessed princes hurried off to denounce Mithridates at gonia, 104. Rome, where already legates from Scilur, the Scythian king in the Crimea, had arrived with similar complaints. The Romans were not protectors of the Scythians ; but their complaints helped to warn the Senate of the wide-reaching ambition and strenuous char- acter of the king. Moreover the principle laid down in the treaty with Antiochus— "that the kings of Asia should not set foot on Europe " — was held to apply to the Crimea. Accordingly a commis- A commis- sion was at once sent to the two kings demanding a restitution of the -^^^^ ^^"^ original state of things, both in Asia and the Crimea. Mithridates 'f''^ ^^^^ was not yet prepared for open defiance. He promised satisfaction in the Crimea,but asserted his claim by inheritance to at least the southern part of Paphlagonia, called Gangra. Nicomedes was less submissive, and could not restrain his long pent-up bitterness. Promising to 2 R 6io HISTORY OF ROME Mithri- dates and Nicomedes occupy Galaiia. Mithri- dates bribes Roman nobles, 1 02- 1 01. Suppres- sion of the Cilician pirates, 102. Breach between Nicomedes and Mithri- dates, io2-gS' Meeting with Marius, gg-g8. evacuate Paphlagonia in favour of its rightful sovereign, he at once proclaimed a natural son of his own, to whom he gave the name of Pylemenes, asserting him to be a son of the last king of the whole country. In addition to this covert defiance, he answered a farther demand brought by the commissioners from the consul Marius, to furnish in accordance with his treaty a contingent against the Cimbri, that the Roman publicani had left him no subjects to send. To crown all, under the very eyes of the commissioners, the two kings proceeded to occupy Galatia. It would be difficult to understand why the Senate submitted quietly to such defiance, did we not know from the denunciations of Saturninus that agents of Mithridates were distributing lavish bribes among the senators, that they might close their eyes to what the two kings were doing. But there were other evils in the East which demanded redress ; and, partly perhaps to atone for their neglect in one direction, the Roman government resolved to do something in another. Cilician pirates infested the seas and even ventured to land on the shores of Italy itself The orator M. Antonius had Cilicia as his 'province' in 103-102 with proconsular powers, and was directed to suppress the pirates. He occupied certain ports on the coasts of Cilicia Trachea, to which henceforth a propraetor was regularly sent, and the parts occupied by the Romans, gradually extended and organised, became the province of Cilicia. Eventually Nicomedes and Mithridates brought Roman inter- ference upon themselves by quarrelling over their spoil. Nicomedes began his encroachments by invading Cappadocia. Laodice the queen-regent was a sister of Mithridates, and appealed for protection to her brother ; but before his help arrived she had made terms with and married Nicomedes. This meant the virtual annexation of Cappadocia to Bithynia, which Mithridates resolved to prevent by invading the country. Laodice and her new husband retreated into Bithynia, and her young son Ariarathes VI. was established on the throne. He soon found, however, that he was to be wholly sub- servient to his uncle Mithridates, who, on his venturing to resist, demanded a conference and killed his nephew with his own hand. Though not daring openly to annex Cappadocia, he installed one of his own sons in it, pretending that he was a grandson of Aria- rathes v., whom he had brought up in his court. He took the name of Ariarathes Eusebes Philopator, and the unscrupulous Gordios was made his guardian and chief minister. It was while in Cappadocia that Mithridates met the veteran Marius, who had come on his votiva legatio to the Mother of the Gods, with the double object of cloaking his loss of influence and of seeking occasion in Asia for the war in which alone his eminence XXXVIII INTRIGUES OF MITHRIDATES 6ii was unquestioned. Mithrldates employed all his powers of pleasing MithH- to win over the famous soldier. But Marius was not to be moved, dates "Make yourself stronger than' Rome, or submit to the orders of ZJ^^^^^,/"^ Rome," was his final advice to the king. But no such spirit animated cappa- the Senate. For five more years the practical supremacy of Mithri- ducia, dates in Cappadocia was allowed to continue, although the harsh and ^oo-gj. cruel administration of Gordios provoked more than one popular out- break. But Nicomedes of Bithynia feared for his own territory Jealousy of from the growing ambition of Mithridates, and determined in self- Nicomedes. defence to reconcile himself with Rome. Queen Laodice went thither with a handsome youth whom she affirmed to be her third son by Ariarathes Epiphanes, and consequently the true heir to the throne of Cappadocia ; while Mithridates sent Gordios to assert that the reigning sovereign was really the grandson of Ariarathes Philopator. \ Public feeling at Rome, however, was now beginning to be Roma?i alarmed by the encroachments of Mithridates. Marius no doubt Senate had enlightened his party as to the reality of what was going on in .^" t ^ Asia. The Senate therefore passed a decree ordering Mithridates 9^.9^. ' to evacuate Cappadocia and the share of Paphlagonia which he J had annexed, and Nicomedes to withdraw his son from the rest of Paphlagonia. The same decree declared Cappadocia and Paphla- I gonia free. The Paphlagonians quietly resumed their old govern- I ment of chiefs. But the Cappadocians refused this offer of illusory ( " freedom," which they believed would mean internal discord and ultimate annexation to the Roman province, and obtained per- * mission to elect a king. Their choice fell upon a noble named ' Ariobarzanes, who adopted the title of Philoromaeus. ' Thus Mithridates was forced to surrender the prize in his Tigranes I first encounter with Rome. But though yielding for the moment ^^"^ of ' he had not given up his schemes of aggrandisement. Next time, attacks'^ I however, he contrived to induce another to confront the danger in Cappadocia ' what was really his own undertaking. Of the two kingdoms of at the I Lesser and Greater Armenia, which had been set free after the ^»^tigatio?i \ defeat of Antiochus at Magnesia (190), the former had been for ^J^^^ \ some time incorporated with Pontus, the latter had remained in- ; dependent, and was now under the rule of an energetic and able I sovereign named Tigranes, who had already absorbed the district of Sophene, on the frontier of Cappadocia, and was turning his eyes towards Cappadocia itself. With him Mithridates negotiated an alliance through his minister Gordios, giving him one of his own daughters in marriage, and persuading him to attack Cappadocia, then ruled by the recently-elected Ariobarzanes. ^^'ithout attempt- ing resistance, the feeble Ariobarzanes collected his treasures and 6l2 HISTORY OF ROME Sulla propraetor of Cilicia charged with the restoration of Ariobar- zanes, ()2. Arsaces king of Part hi a sends a legate to Sulla. Effect in Asia of the Social 7var in Italy, gr-88. fled to Rome, leaving the country in the power of Tigranes, who committed it to the regency of Gordios, the tool of Mithridates. Once more Mithridates had to yield the prey which his intrigues had won. The Roman government listened to the appeal of Ario- barzanes, who had not come empty-handed to Rome, and Lucius Sulla was commissioned to restore him. Sulla was praetor in 93, and was to go as propraetor to Cilicia in 92 with the special charge of restoring Ariobarzanes, and with the understanding that his chief object should be to check the growing power of Mithridates. He took only a small force of Roman soldiers, but having quickly secured large contingents from the province and the allied kingdoms, ad- vanced into Cappadocia, defeated the troops raised to resist him, expelled Gordios, and proclaimed the restoration of Ariobarzanes. Having penetrated to the extreme east of Cappadocia Sulla encamped on the banks of the Euphrates, and was there visited by Orobazos, legate of the Parthian king — the first occasion on which the Arsacids came into communication with a Roman officer. Sulla felt the im- portance of the occasion, and the necessity of impressing this great but unknown power with the might of Rome. He received the ambassador seated on a lofty tribunal, with two lower seats arranged for the Parthian legate and the king of Cappadocia on either hand. And though Arsaces afterwards put his legate to death for compromising the dignity of the Great King, the fact remained to the credit of Sulla that to him first the Parthian monarch had sent desiring the friendship and alliance of Rome. It seemed the crown- ing point of his success, and the presage (as some necromancer was careful to tell him) of his future greatness. Asia was apparently more completely in the hands of Rome than ever. With Parthia friendly, with Mithridates and Nicomedes forced to submit, and with the king of Cappadocia wholly dependent on the support of the Republic for his throne and safety, there seemed to be no quarter from which danger might be expected. The province itself was more content than usual, for it had lately been governed (94-93) by the honest Q. Mucius Scaevola and his still more noble legate P. Rutilius, and had experienced a temporary alleviation of the exactions and cruelties of the publicani. The Egyptian and Syrian dynasties, so formidable in the past, were in the last stage of decline, and could never more raise a hand to contest Roman supremacy. All seemed safe and quiet. But this tranquillity was shaken by the news which reached Asia at the end of 91, or the beginning of 90, of the outbreak of the Marsic war. The Roman troops were hurriedly ordered home, and the provinces left unprotected. At once we hear of Thracian incur- sions upon Macedonia, of renewed activity of Mithridates in Asia. XXXVIII ROMAN INTERFERENCE IN BITHYNIA 613 He had been preparing fleets and forces for farther expeditions to the north of the Black Sea ; but his preparations were not complete ; and again he induced Tigraries to be his cat's-paw — to invade Cappadocia, and, expelling Ariobarzanes, once more to set upon the throne Mithridates' own son. About the same time he instigated a revolution in Bithynia. Nicomedes II. had died in 91 and had Revolution been succeeded by his eldest son Nicomedes Philopator, a cruel "^ and cowardly tyrant, whose bastard brother Socrates, after insti- ^^^^y^^^- gating abominable executions in the royal family in the apparent interest of the king, and after securing the support of Mithridates, retired to Rome, accused his brother of atrocious crimes, and asked to be declared king in his place. Rejected by the Senate he retired first to Cyzicus, where he assassinated his sister in order to obtain her property^ then to Euboea, and lastly to the court of Mithridates, just when the news of the Marsic war had made him feel that he might do as he liked in Asia without fear of Roman interference. Mithri- dates did not actively assist this disreputable adventurer ; but he allowed him to enlist troops in Pontus, with which he easily defeated Nicomedes III. and seized on the throne of Bithynia. But again Mithridates found that he had reckoned too confidently iVr. on the blindness or indifference of the Senate. Nicomedes and AguilHus Ariarathes had both hurried to Rome, and found there the crisis of ^^ ^•^^<3!, the Social war already past. The Senate warmly espoused their cause, and a commission was sent to Asia to restore the exiled kings. At the head of it was Manius Aquillius (son of the organiser of the province in 129), who had already distinguished himself in 102-101 by his vigorous suppression of the revolted slaves in Sicily. But though a brave and successful soldier, his character for venality was bad. He had barely escaped being convicted of peculation after his Sicilian campaign, and was not likely to resist the still greater tempta- tion offered by the state of Asia. The instructions given to Aquillius and his colleagues were to Nicomedes restore, by force if necessary, the two kings Nicomedes and Ariarathes and to the thrones of Bithynia and Cappadocia. They brought no ^^^(^^'<^ihes troops, but were to have the services of the small Roman force in the restored province, augmented by the contingents of the allied states, among 8g. which Pontus itself was reckoned. To the surprise of all Mithri- dates submitted. He does not appear to have sent the required contingent, but he did not resist the restoration of the two kings, which was peaceably accomplished in the spring of 89. Whether this proceeded from a politic desire to gain time for preparations, or from a real wish to be at peace with Rome in order to push on his conquests in the north, it would have been prudent on the part of Aquillius to have affected belief in his sincerity. But 6i4 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Aquilliiis forces oil a rupture with Mithri- dates, 8g. Aquillius suggests to Nicoinedes and Ario- barzanes to pillage the lands of Potitus. Mithri- dates demands competi- sation. Mithri- dates avenges himself His strong position in 8g. a peaceful solution of the difficulty was in fact a disappointment to him. He had come to Asia in the hopes of enhancing his reputation as a soldier and of enriching himself. It did not suit him that Mithri- dates should make no resistance. There was, however, one method of producing fresh complications. Though there had been no fight- ing, an army had been raised and kept on foot for some months and had to be paid. The restored kings had not yet had time to fill their coffers, and could not find the money. Who should more justly pay than Mithridates, who had made Roman interference necessary ? In answer to the demand the king produced an account of the sums already disbursed by him in maintaining good relations with the Senate ; the Romans were his debtors rather than his creditors. Aquillius, thus repulsed by Mithridates, demanded payment from Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes, and when they pleaded their inability, advised them to fill their exchequers by raids upon the territory of Mithridates. The advice was acted upon by Nicomedes, though Ariobarzanes was more cowardly or more scrupulous. The former led an expedition over the Pontic frontier to the walls of Amastris, and returned with sufficient booty to repay the money which Aquillius and his colleagues had raised from Roman publicani and bankers in Asia. Mithridates acted diplomatically. He ordered his troops to retire before the Bithynians ; and, when the raid was over, one of his officers, Pelopidas, appeared at the Roman headquarters demanding the punishment of the aggressors, and ignoring the fact that the raid had been advised or connived at by the Romans. Aquillius and his colleagues parried the demand with equal caution. " We will not," they said, "permit Mithridates to be injured by Nicomedes any more than Nicomedes by Mithridates." Thus refused satisfaction Mithri- dates replied by sending his son Ariarathes at the head of an army into Cappadocia, and once more driving Ariobarzanes from the country. Then Pelopidas appeared again and informed the Roman commissioners of the just reprisals taken by his master, who at the same time was sending an ambassador to Rome to complain of their conduct. Still he offered that, if they would even now give him just satisfaction for the injuries of the king of Bithynia, he would not only withdraw from Cappadocia, but would also supply ships and men to put down the Italian revolt. Mithridates was now so formidable that the Roman legates might prudently have listened to this offer. During the year then drawing to a close his generals had conducted a successful campaign north of the Euxine against the Bastarnes and Sarmatians ; his army had been swollen by enormous contingents from Scythia ; his fleet already consisted of 300 vessels of war : many others were being built, and XXXVIII WAR WITH MITHRIDATES BEGUN 615 his wealth enabled him to hire skilful pilots and sea-captains from Egypt and Phoenicia ; while throughout Asia his agents were work- ing successfully in securing him alHances not only in the East — in Iberia, Media, *and Parthia, — but also among the Greek towns in the West, both in Asia and Europe, in Crete, Egypt, and Syria. But Aquillius was blind to the terrors of such a coalition at Final a time when the energies of Rome were still demanded for the re- demand of mains of the Marsic war. He answered Pelopidas by declaring that ^^"""•^• his master must respect the freedom of Bithynia, must evacuate Cappadocia and restore Ariobarzanes, or take the consequences. At the same time Pelopidas was ordered to quit the Roman quarters anci not to return except with a full submission from the king. Mithridates accepted the challenge thus haughtily thrown down, War. and in the spring of 88 open war began. The Roman and allied forces ^P^^^g of were in four divisions. The Bithynian army of 60,000 infantry and 6000 cavalry under Nicomedes was to invade Paphlagonia. Of the rest, one corps commanded by Q. Oppius, governor of Cilicia, accom- panied by one of Aquillius' colleagues, Manlius Mantinus, was to enter Cappadocia ; another under Aquillius himself was stationed on the river Billeos, near the western frontier of Paphlagonia, to support Nicomedes ; a fourth under L. Cassius Longinus, governor of Asia, was posted in reserve at Gordiocome, on the river Sangarios, near the southern frontier of Bithynia, to protect Galatia and Phrygia. To this attack by land was added one by sea ; a fleet of vessels belonging partly to Bithynia, partly to the province of Asia, was stationed (under the command of Minucius Rufus and Gains Popilius) at Byzantium, to close the Propontis to the Pontic ships of war. These preparations occupied the winter of 89-88, and when The huo hostilities commenced the Roman forces collected from the province armies. and allies consisted of about 190,000 men. The army of Mithridates gathered from all parts of his extensive dominions was superior by nearly 100,000 men, including a large body of Greek mercenaries, 50,000 cavalry, and 130 scythed chariots under the command of Crateros. The chief officers were Dorylaus in command of the picked corps or phalanx, and Archelaus and Neoptolemus (apparently Mace- donian mercenaries) for the rest of the army. The king himself was commander-in-chief, and showed extraordinary activity and vigilance in every department. The bulk of the Pontic army was to muster Defeat of in the plain of Amasia, on the south-west frontier of Pontus. But ^_;J^ before this could take place the Bithynians had already entered Pontus by the valley of the river Amnias, where they were met by a spring of force under Archelaus and Neoptolemus, and after a slight success 88, were disastrously defeated and almost annihilated. This was in the early spring of 88, and Mithridates was prompt to follow up Bithynians in the 6i6 IISTORV OF ROME CHAP. Defeat of Aquillius, and general retreat if the Roman forces. Cassias re/ires to Apameia. Success of Miihri- dates. Flight of the Roman command- ers. Capture of Oppius, the advantage. One division of his forces was pushed forward I towards Cappadocia to stop Oppius, while the main army crossed Paphlagonia by forced marches to attack AquiUius on the Billeos. ■ Everywhere the prestige of this victory over Nicomedes stood him in stead : the Bithynian outposts, guarding defiles on his line of march, abandoned their ground directly he appeared ; Nicomedes himself retreated southward to join L, Cassius at Gordiocome ; and Aquillius found his Asiatic auxiliaries gradually deserting and scattering to their homes. He presently felt obliged to abandon his position on the Billeos, and to attempt to join his colleague Cassius also. But before he could traverse the distance between the two positions the advanced guard of the army of Mithridates caught him, and at a place unknown to us, called Protopacheion, he was obliged to fight. The Roman army was completely defeated, and lost its camp with 10,000 men killed and 300 made prisoners. Aquillius himself escaped by favour of the darkness, which prevented immediate pursuit, and crossing the Sangarios arrived at Pergamus. Cassius was more prudent. He distrusted his newly enrolled troops, consisting almost entirely of Asiatics and the fragments of the recently beaten Bithynian army, and retiring southward into Phrygia posted himself in a strong position at a fortified village called the Lion's Head. Here his distrust of his .\siatic troops was justified by their constant desertion : and at length abandoning all idea of giving Mithridates battle, he dismissed them to their homes, and retired with his Roman legionaries to Apameia on the Meander. The failure of the Roman interference was complete, and through- out Asia there was a rush to seek the alliance and protection of Mithridates. Aquillius not thinking himself safe even at Pergamus retired to Mitylene ; his colleague Mantinus escaped to Rhodes ; Nico- medes and Ariobarzanes embarked for Italy and Rome ; Cassius abandoned Apameia at the approach of the Pontic troops, and retired also to Rhodes. Oppius, who had retreated to Laodicea in Caria, attempted to hold the town. But when a herald from Mithridates proclaimed to the townsfolk that, if they delivered up the Roman general, they should be unharmed, they allowed the mercenary troops to escape, and led out Oppius, preceded in mockery by his lictors, and handed him over to the king, whom, like other Greeks in Asia Minor, they were ready to receive as a deliverer from the heavy yoke of Rome. Mithridates, however, was not yet prepared for acts of unpardonable hostility. Oppius was not ill-treated or thrown into chains, but was merely taken in the king's suite as a prisoner on parole. But this was enough to impress the people with the great- ness of the king's power. He entered the Roman province by the valley of the Maeander, and was everywhere enthusiastically received. XXXVIII MASSACRE OF ITALIANS IN ASIA 617 At Ephesus he embarked on board his fleet and proceeded to secure the submission of the islands. Chios submitted with reluctance ; but the people of Mitylene handed over Aquillius with ready officiousness. and of Mithridates treated him very differently from Oppius. He had now Aquilluis. resolved to break openly with Rome, and the punishment of one who had been notorious for oppressive exactions would impress the im- aginations of the people whom he now affected to liberate. He exposed him therefore to every kind of indignity, and at length put him to a cruel death. ^ All the Greek cities were now stirred with the hope of shaking off The Greek the burden of Roman tax-gatherers and money-lenders, of Roman c^i^^^^ pm , . . ^ - , • 1 -1 Mithrt- , proconsuls and their tram. In some few the richer commercial ^^^^^^ ' classes still clung to the Roman connexion, as well as some specially favoured cities, such as Stratonice in Caria, which Mithridates had to take by force ; while at Adramyttium in Mysia, though its Senate , declared for Rome, the popular party massacred the Senate and delivered the town to the king. In the greater number of Greek ' cities there was no appreciable division or hesitation in following the ; example of Ephesus, where the statues in honour of Rome were I thrown down and the royal troops welcomed with every demonstration I of joy. ( But a still more terrible blow was to be struck. The capture of The \ Stratonice completed the conquest of Asia Minor, but it had not ^jH^fJ'^^ ^-^ I relieved the cities of the Italian residents, who to the number of j^g^^jgntsin above 100,000 were settled in them as members of the companies of Asia, SS. publicani, or as bankers and merchants. Many of them were person- ally obnoxious either as oppressive collectors of taxes or extortionate money-lenders, but many more were honest and peaceable traders. \ Public feeling, however, was too much excited to make distinctions. ) All were alike regarded with hatred as the representatives of the I conquering race whom tyranny had made odious to all. As a question I of policy they presented a difficulty to the king. War had been I determined upon early in 88 at Rome, and the consul Lucius Sulla I was already with his army preparing to cross to Asia. The Italian I residents were sure to be a nucleus of resistance to the supremacy of the king, and the support of the Romanising party in each state. !| How was he to deal with them ? He was not long in deciding ; and having decided he carried 1 According to some, however, Aquillius killed himself ; according to others he was taken through Asia riding on an ass, and forced by blows continually to proclaim his name, and was finally killed by having molten gold poured down his throat. In Licinianus, p. 34, it is said that his restoration to liberty was stipu- lated for in the treaty of Dardanus (84). If that is so, it is evident that his real fate was unknown. See p. 635. 6i8 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. All Latin- speakitig residents to be put to death on a Jixed day and cast out utiburied, 88. The order almost universally obeyed. Sotne escape to Rhodes. The con- fiscations used to re- lieve the towns. out his plan with great adroitness, so as to avail himself to the full of the popular exasperation against the Romans. Secret instructions were sent round to the governors of the towns whom he had himself appointed, and to the magistrates of those which were still nominally free, that on the thirtieth day from the receipt of the order every Latin- speaking resident, without distinction between Roman and Italian,^ without regard to sex or age, was to be put to death, and their bodies cast out unburied. Rewards were to be offered to slaves or debtors who killed Italian masters or creditors. Slaves were to have their freedom, debtors the remission of half their debts, while severe punishment was threatened to all who gave harbour to the living or iDurial to the dead. When the fatal day came the horrible order was almost universally obeyed. Neither shrine nor altar was allowed to shelter the fugi- tives. From the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, of Asclepius at Pergamus, of Hestia at Caunes, and of Concord at Tralles, the terrified suppliants were torn away and slain within the sacred precincts. Different degrees and forms of cruelty were used in different places. Sometimes the victims had their hands cut off before being slain ; at Caunes all the children were killed in the presence of their mothers, the wives before the eyes of their husbands, who were put to death last. At Adramyttium they were driven into the sea and drowned. At Tralles the citizens, not willing to stain their own hands with blood, hired a Paphlagonian captain of mercenaries to carry out the order. Here and there a Roman escaped by adopting a Greek dress ; in a few places, such as Cos, Calymne, and Magnesia on the Maeander, the rights of sanctuary were for a time respected, and the Italians managed to escape to Rhodes, the sole Greek territory within possible distance still holding aloof from Mithridates. The number of the victims is variously stated from 80,000 to 150,000, while 15,000 slaves were rewarded with liberty. Whatever were the exact figures of the black list, it is certain that the slaughter was very large, and that the property collected in Pergamus was so vast that IVIithri- dates was able to crown his popularity in Asia by relieving the cities from tribute for five years. This wealth was increased by other acts of spoliation. At Cos he laid hands upon 800 talents deposited by Jewish bankers in the temples, and upon the treasures of a young Egyptian prince (Ptolemy Alexander), whom he took with him to Pontus. It may be true that in some cases the Greek citizens were reluctant to carry out the order. It would be impossible to conceive that in no case had the Italian residents gained the friendship and ^ The recent enfranchisement of the ItaUans perhaps made any distinction between citizen and non-citizen ditificult, even if it were desired. attacks Rhodes atid occupies Peiraeus and Athens, 88. XXXVIII MITHRIDATES REPULSED AT RHODES 619 esteem of their neighbours ; but it seems certain that in the majority the massacre was in the strictest sense popular, and the gratification of a long repressed but burning hatred. Having thus secured Asia Mithridates proceeded to extend his Mithri- power in the rest of Greece. The one place which still remained ^'^^^f^ faithful to Rome was Rhodes ; and therefore, while sending his lieutenant Archelaus to Athens, on the invitation of the Athenians, he himself embarked at Ephesus and sailed with a fleet of war the vessels, carrying siege artiller}^ and all the implements for attacking walls, to that island. The Rhodians were before all things merchants, and had suffered some disadvantages under the Roman supremacy, which had deprived them of their continental possessions in Caria and Lycia, and damaged their trade by opening the harbour of Delos as a rival to their own in 146. Still they were cautious, and had no confidence in the ultimate success of Mithridates. They saw that the immediate effect of joining him would be the failure of their The Italian trade, and the removal of Italian merchants, for which, even Rhodians if Mithridates ultimately succeeded, there was no obvious way in ^f^uVJ^jf which he could compensate them ; whereas if the Romans should j^oiiie. succeed, their vengeance would be certain and heavy. Therefore, though they had received many favours at the hands of Mithridates, ( and indeed had erected his statue in their town as a benefactor, they determined to resist. Their fleet met the king's off Myndos in Caria : ' but though superior in skill it was inferior in numbers, and after a severe engagement the Rhodian admiral Damagoras drew off his ships and returned home. Mithridates followed and blockaded the town of Rhodes, situated on a lofty rock at the north-east corner of the island. But all his efforts to capture it proved futile. For some Mithri- time his siege artillery was delayed by contrary winds ; and mean- "^^^-y"^'-^ while the daily skirmishes which took place went rather against the Rhodes. Pontic fleet and army, the king himself on one occasion all but falling into the enemy's hands. When the artillery arrived attempt after attempt to scale the rock or batter the walls failed, and after one desperate endeavour to effect an escalade by night Mithridates, finding winter approaching, withdrew his fleet to Asia ; where having made an equally unsuccessful attack upon Patara in Lycia, he removed for the winter to Pergamus, which was now to be the capital and headquarters of his great empire. Meanwhile his lieutenant Archelaus had had a much easier and Archelajis more successful task in European Greece. The burden of Roman '^^^ihens, sway had weighed much less heavily on the Greeks of Europe than on those of Asia. Though for certain purposes Greece had been placed under the supremacy of the governor of Macedonia, yet its local liberties had been respected, and the phantom of independence 620 HISTORY OF ROME 88. Divided feelings at Athens. The party in favour of Mithri- dates prevail, and send A r is t ion to Ephesus. Aristion reports in favour of an alliance with Mithri- dates. preserved. Of all the republics of Greece, amounting to some hun- dred, none had been more favourably treated than Athens. Even some shadow of its old imperial position had been restored to it, by allowing it to possess Oropus and Haliartus, and the islands of Paros, Scyros, Imbros, and Lemnos, and above all Delos, as the centre of a flourishing commerce. Yet even at Athens, though not without a Romanising party, there was a feeling that the Roman supremacy stood in the way of a still more splendid future, and a disposition to hail Mithridates as the messiah of a restored Hellenism. In their dreams the Athenians saw once more the empty basins of the Peiraeus crowded with vessels of war or commerce ; the arsenals once more replenished ; the long walls restored ; the Pnyx filled with the ecclesia of a powerful republic, making treaties with kings or dictating measures to subject states. The alliance of Mithridates seemed to offer the opportunity required. He was lord of those regions with which the commerce of a restored Athens would be specially concerned ; and he and his father before him had for many years kept up a friendly intercourse with the republic, attested by a gymnasium built by Euergetes, a college of Etipatoristae of which Mithridates was patron, and by numerous offerings in the temples of Delos. It was determined to send an ambassador to him at Ephesus to offer the friendship of the city^ and to investigate on the spot the state of affairs, and whether it would be prudent for the state to commit itself farther. The agent chosen was Aristion, son of the peripatetic philosopher Athenion, and himself a philoso- pher and rhetorician of some repute. He was received with the highest honours by Mithridates ; was enrolled as one of the king's "friends" ; and wrote such glowing accounts to Athens of the Pontic sovereign's abilities, popularity, and success, that on his return accompanied by a crowd of slaves laden with gold, and bearing on his finger a ring engraved with the portrait of the king, he was received in the Peiraeus with all the honours of a triumph, attended by a bodyguard, lodged in the principal building — the official resi- dence of the chief commissioner of the Delian revenue — and invited to give an account of his embassy from the lofty tribune usually reserved for the governors of Macedonia. The oration which he then delivered dwelt on the wrongs, real and imaginary, which the city suffered under Roman supremacy ; and painted in such bright colours the court of Mithridates, whose ante- chamber was guarded by kings and crowded with ambassadors from every imaginable country, that in a state of wild excitement the citizens rushed to the theatre, elected Aristion chief minister for war (o-T/aarr;- ■yo? kiiX TO. oTrAa), allowing him to choose his own colleagues, and immediately afterwards declared the full republic restored, re- XXXVIII MITHRIDATES SUPREME IN GREECE 621 nounced the friendship of Rome, and accepted the alliance of 88. Mithridates. The example of Athens was followed by nearly all the states in The rest of Greece, from the Achaeans and Spartans in the south to the borders Gi^eece joins of Thessaly in the north, and by the islands of the Aegean with ^^l^^' the one exception of Delos. Besides containing a large number of except Italian residents, Delos owed its commercial position and importance Delos. to the favour of Rome, which it might easily lose, but was not hkely to enhance, by a change of allegiance. An expedition sent out by Failure of Aristion, under the command of another philosopher named ApeUicon Athenian of Teos, was cut to pieces by Orbius, a legate of the governor of ^^'P^^^^'^'^ Macedonia or a resident magistrate at Delos. Apellicon had no knowledge of warfare : leaving his camp without proper defences he was surprised and had to fly back to Athens, with the loss of the greater part of his ships and men. But shortly after this repulse of Arrival of Apellicon Archelaus arrived at Delos : he took the island, put to death Archelaus all the Italians and many of the Delians, sold the women and children, i^n^y ^^rt plundered the temples, and levelled the city to the ground. Half of of 88. the spoil, indeed, was given up to the Athenians ; and their chief Athens magistrate Aristion, who now joined the fleet, was treated with high ^^^^^^^^f honour, and had a guard of 2000 soldiers assigned to him. But it ^^^/^^^ ^^ soon became evident that in shaking off the yoke of Rome Athens the kifig of had fallen under a worse slavery. Aristion was practically a military Pontus. dictator or tyrant, himself the tool of a foreign king. A Pontic garrison occupied the Peiraeus, and Mithridates himself early the following year was elected chief strategus, with Aristion as his second colleague. Seeing that this was coming, a large number of those who still favoured the Roman alliance left the city, until, alarmed at the number of emigrants, Aristion stationed guards at the gates to kill all who endeavoured to escape. Meanwhile Archelaus, established quietly in the Peiraeus, received EstabHsh- the submission of all Greece. One of the Pontic lieutenants, Metro- ^^'^'^f ^f *^^ phanes, seized Chalcis and secured all Euboea. Thebes led the ofMithri- defection of Boeotia, in which Thespiae alone refused to join. The dates in Spartans and Achaeans brought over all Peloponnese, and the neigh- Greece, bouring islands followed suit. The governor of Macedonia, who ^^-^7- should have interfered, was at the time engaged in repulsing an invasion of Thracians, who, instigated perhaps by Mithridates, and certainly allied with him, had penetrated as far south as Epirus, and had pillaged the temple of Dodona. Before the spring of 87 all Greece south of Thessaly, with the islands of the archipelago, had fallen almost without a blow under the supremacy of Mithridates. It was the highest point of his prosperity. From being the king of a comparatively insignificant district of Asia, he had in six months 622 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. XXXVIII Sulla starts for Greece in the summer 0/87. become master of Asia Minor, and of all Greece south of Thermo- pylae, with the islands of the Aegean, The power of Rome, which at the beginning of the year extended almost without dispute over all these lands, had been entirely wiped out. It may well have appeared strange that the Roman government seemed to be tamely submitting to this disgrace, to this loss of territory and prestige. There were not wanting some more cautious than the rest, who fore- saw that the vengeance was only delayed and would assuredly fall. Already the omens were said to be bad for Mithridates, and a crowned figure of victory which was being lowered to his seat in the theatre of Pergamus, just as it was about to touch his head, had slipped from its cords and been broken in pieces. But more alarming than any omen was the news that Sulla had overcome his difficulties at home and was on his way with five legions to Greece. AuTHORrriES. — Seep. 639. CHAPTER XXXIX SULLA AND THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR Success of the quaestor Q. Bruttius Sura in the spring of 87 — Sulla lands in Epirus in the early summer, and marches to Athens — Revolution of feeling in Greece — Siege of Athens and the Peiraeus (87-86) — Lucullus sent to Egypt and the islands to collect a fleet (86-85) — Capture of Athens (86) — Destruction of the Peiraeus — Battle of Chaeroneia (86)^ — Unpopularity of the government of Mithridates in Asia and revolt of Ephesus (86) — Dorylaus defeated by Sulla at Orchomenus (85) — The Romans again supreme in Greece — L. Valerius Flaccus, sent out to supersede Sulla, is murdered by Fimbria (85) — Fimbria overruns Bithynia (85) — Mithridates takes refuge in Pitane (85-84) — i Arrival of Lucullus with his fleet, and negotiations with Mithridates at Pergamus — Death of Fimbria (84) — Return of Sulla to Italy (83). I I When Sulla landed in Epirus in the summer of 87, the fortunes of Q. Bruttius I Mithridates had already received a check. Metrophanes, after con- ^^^<^^ iquering Euboea, had sailed northward, and was threatening Deme- t^g Z-aetor Urias, an important magazine and place of arms of the province of of Mace- I Macedonia. Here he was surprised by the proquaestor Bruttius donia. Sura, lost two ships with their crews and was obliged to sail away, '^^f^^^^ I Bruttius then made a successful descent upon the island of Sciathos, p}ianes (where the stores and booty of the Pontic army had been collected, spring of [killed the slaves in charge, and cut off the hands of free men. S'^, ' Returning to the mainland and receiving reinforcements from J Macedonia he marched south, and met Archelaus and Aristion in Boeotia near Chaeroneia. For three days he maintained the contest, \ driving his opponents towards the coast, until, the Pontic army being reinforced by some Spartans and Achaeans, he was obliged to retire. But his success had already caused a revolution of feeling in Greece, and by the time he had met Lucullus with Sulla's advanced guard, and had been ordered to return to Macedonia, the cities were for the most part ready to submit. Sulla had landed with five legions, or about 31,500 men, and < collecting reinforcements of men and money from Thessaly and Aetolia, was on his march to Athens, now the stronghold of the Pontic 624 HISTORY OF ROME chap. Sulla forces. When he arrived in Boeotia, Thebes set the example of sub- marches to mission, and his camp was visited by legates from many other parts of Athens, Greece, asking pardon for their defection and promising obedience of 87. ^^^ ^^ future. Before long Archelaus could count on nothing south of Thermopylae except Euboea and Attica. There indeed Athens, influenced by Aristion and the Pontic garrison of the Peiraeus, closed her gates and defied the proconsul. Sulla, in spite of a tincture of letters and art, was not the man to feel any sentimental wish to spare Athens for the sake of her glorious past or the genius of her He poets and philosophers. " I am come to Athens," he said, " not to confiscates study but to subdue rebels." Nor had he any scruples as to other ^ ^ . sacred places in Greece, The war required money, which could be treasures of . \ . ^ ^..^ the temples, obtamed from the treasuries of the temples. His agents were sent to the temple of Zeus at Olympia, and of Asclepius at Epidaurus, with orders to bring all the offerings that were of value. To the Amphictyonic council, to whom belonged especially the care of the temple at Delphi, he wrote in mocking terms that the treasures 01 that temple had better be transferred to his custody, as he would be able to keep them more securely, or, if he were obliged to use them, would be able to repay their value. And when his agent, Kaphis the Phocian, reported that he was awed by the sound of the god's lyre within the shrine as he approached it, he wrote back word to him not to be afraid, for singing was a sign of joy, and the god was doubtless rejoiced to hand over his treasures. Siege of He found, however, that the difficulty before him was a formid- Athens ^ble one. The long walls connecting Athens and the Peiraeus had and the ^^^ many years been in ruins. But their materials had been used to r'eiracus, ..v..- . _, _^. 1/-, --iri-i S7-86. repair the fortifications of the Peiraeus and of the city itself, which was still surrounded by walls more than five miles in circuit, some- times double, with huge square towers at the principal gates, able in most parts to resist the ordinary siege artillery of the time. The fortifications of the Peiraeus were still more formidable, as they had been ever since the time oT Pericles. A wall about fifty-five feet in height and fifteen in breadth, built entirely of hewn stone secured by iron clamps, enclosed the whole peninsula within a circuit of about eight miles, and contained an almost impregnable citadel on the height of Munychia. Sulla had not sufficient forces to undertake the siege and assault of both these strong places. He therefore contented him- self with leaving enough men outside the city to prevent the egress of the citizens or the introduction of supplies, and bent his whole energy upon the taking of the Peiraeus, where Archelaus was posted in force, commanding the entrance to the harbour with his ships. To supply materials for this, not only were the treasures of the temples seized and converted into money by Lucullus in Pelo- XXXIX LUCULLUS COLLECTS A FLEET 625 ponnese ; but requisitions were made on all the cities. Long The strings of mule-carts, ten thousand in number, brought timber, iron, Petraeus, and workmen from Boeotia d,nd elsewhere. When that proved '^' ' insufficient he did not hesitate to cut down the sacred groves, and especially the trees of the Academy — spared through so many genera- tions and so many hostile occupations. Still the mighty walls of the Peiraeus defied him, and the construction of his embankment against them was interrupted by frequent sallies of the garrison, in one of which the Roman troops were only saved from a panic by the strenuous efforts of the legate Murena and the opportune arrival of a fresh legion, which had been engaged in collecting timber. Yet I when the winter came neither the Peiraeus nor the city had fallen : \ and Sulla withdrew his troops to a camp between Eleusis and Sf^/la Megara, which he defended by a trench reaching to the sea, and ^vmfers devoted himself to active preparations for the spring. The difficulty ''^^^ of taking the Peiraeus was much enhanced, if not made insuperable, g^.^f,^ ' by the fact that the king's fleet held the sea, and commanding the entrance to the harbour could always throw in provisions. It was therefore necessary to have ships, and Lucullus was despatched 1 during the winter to Egypt and the Roman province of Africa to ' obtain them. I He started with a small fleet of three Greek vessels and the same Lucullus ( number of Rhodian galleys, and made his way to Crete. Having "« E.gypt^ i secured the loyalty of that island he crossed to Cyrene, where he was ^l^^^' , I received with high favour, and asked to give advice as to the ^^^ Aegean I political constitution of the country. From Cyrene, though losing Sea,86-8s. \ some of his ships by pirates, he made his way safely to Alexandria. The lately-restored king Ptolemy Lathyrus (89-81) received him with royal honours, and lodged him in the palace, but refused to supply him with ships, not wishing to take either side in the contest. He, however, sent Lucullus with a convoy to Cyprus, who found means as he was coasting along Syria and Cilicia to get ships from the cities. At Cyprus he learnt that the king's fleet was lying in wait for him on the coast of Asia, He contrived, however, by a ruse to get safely to Rhodes, where he obtained an addition to the number of his ships. Thus strengthened he persuaded the people of Cnidus and Cos to abandon Mithridates, and join him in an attack upon Samos. He then proceeded to Colophon, which he set free, arresting its tyrant Epigonus, and expelling the king's garrison and partisans. These operations, which lasted through 86 and 85, were eventually of great service ; and the fleet thus collected struck the last blow in the war and gave Sulla decisive help at the supreme moment : but for i two years Sulla learnt nothing of them, and had to carry on the war with the disadvantage of an almost total want of ships. 2 s 626 HISTORY OF ROME Fall of Athens, ist March 86. Slaughter of the in- habitants. A ristion in the Acropolis. With the return of spring the siege of Peiraeus and Athens was pushed on with new vigour. Sulla was specially eager to take Athens from irritation caused by insults aimed at him by Attic wits, who jeered at his blotched face, which they likened to a mulberry sprinkled with meal, and satirised his wife Metella. But though the chief efforts had been hitherto directed against Peiraeus, Athens fell first, because it could not be relieved with provisions by sea as the Peiraeus could. Traitors within gave Sulla warning of in- tended sorties or expected convoys of provisions ; so that the latter were nearly always intercepted. Starvation was imminent, and people were seen gathering herbs on the Acropolis and soaking leather shoes and oilskins to make food. The gay and careless Athenians bore privation with admirable good temper and unex- pected patience. But it was impossible that they could hold out much longer. It added bitterness to their sufferings to be told that Aristion — who appears to have quarrelled with Archelaus — was still living luxuriously, and had wealth stored in the Acropolis, whilst they were feeding on grass and leather. When members of the boul^ and priests entreated him to have pity on the people and make terms with Sulla he caused his archers to shoot them down. Nor were his dis- positions complete. A weak place in the walls, between the Sacred Gate into the outer Ceramicus and the Gate of the Peiraeus, was in- sufficiently guarded, of which Sulla was made aware by some of his agents overhearing a conversation. The few sentries fled on the approach of the Roman soldiers, and before daybreak of the first of March a sufficient breach was made for Sulla to march in at the head of his troops. For a while the town was given up to all the horrors of military licence ; the streets flowed with blood, the air re- sounded with the screams of the dying, butchered in the agora, or in the streets and houses where the furious soldiers were allowed to work their will ; while many who did not fall by Roman swords put an end to their own lives in despair. Sulla had indeed forbidden the town to be fired, but it seems as though he intended to denude it of all inhabitants, except those of the Romanising party who had already found their way to his camp. But some of this party now threw themselves at his feet, entreating him to spare the town, and their entreaties were supported by Roman senators in his own army, moved by the unique fame of a city in which perhaps they had themselves studied in their youth. Sulla yielded, saying with sullen scorn that he granted the lives of a few to the merits of many, the living to the dead. The contemptible Aristion caused the Odeum to be burnt, and took refuge in the Acropolis. Here for a short time he held out, blockaded by Sulla's legate Gaius Scribonius Curio. Want of water, however, compelled him to XXXIX FALL OF THE PEIRAEUS 627 surrender, but not, it appears, until after Sulla had left Attica for Phocis.i The fall of the city was followed shortly by that of the Peiraeus, Capture against which every method of attack had as yet proved vain. A ^'^^ huge earthwork had been thrown up to bring the battering-rams and ^^■^Jj'^^^^^'* other engines on a level with the wall, but Archelaus undermined the Peiraeus, mound, so that it suddenly collapsed. With difficulty saving their siege 86. apparatus, the Romans dug a countermine to meet that of the garrison, and the soldiers met underground and fought in the darkness. At another time, having set fire to one of the towers of defence and knocked down some of the upper part of the wall, Sulla sent some of his most courageous men to scale the gap ; but the wall was undermined and shored up with wooden props, which were set on fire by tow and sulphur and other combustible materials, so that it suddenly gave way, bringing down besiegers and besieged in indescribable confusion. Sulla brought up fresh men to the breach ; but Archelaus had suffi- cient reserves to defend the still formidable ruins and in the night to repair the disaster by hastily erecting new loop-walls covering the weakened places in the old. When Sulla assaulted these, thinking that not being thoroughly set they might easily be battered down, he found himself assailed in front and both flanks at once, and was obliged to withdraw his men from the narrow ground between the I debris of the old wall and the curve of the new. The fall of the city, j however, set free a large number of the besieging army, and the I attacks on Peiraeus were resumed with redoubled fury. The walls I were so continuously battered and assaulted that Archelaus was ' forced to abandon them. He retreated to Munychia, which could The \ only be attacked from the sea. The Romans, who had no ships, Pontic ' could not touch him. They occupied and dismantled the rest of the S^^''-^'^"' fCtCllJt Peiraeus, while Archelaus remained on Munychia, avoiding all direct Mu7iychia. engagements with them, but on the watch from it and from his ships to cut off their supplies and so prolong the war. Sulla ordered the ' Peiraeus to be destroyed, and the docks and magazines burnt — a ruin from which it never recovered. Both he and Archelaus, however, had soon imperative reasons for SiUla and quitting Attica. Sulla was called to the North both by the necessities Archelaus of his own position and by the fact that his legate Hortensius had entered Phocis with a corps of 8000 men, and was cut off from ^ According to Pausanias (i, 20, 4) the fall of Athens — by which he seems to mean that of the Acropolis — took place almost simultaneously with the battle of Chaeroneia, so that the messengers from Curio and Sulla mutually announcing the two events met each other on the road. Appian seems to place it soon after j the fall of the city, — ou ywera TroXu ; but Plutarch says that Aristion held out a considerable [(jv^vov) time. CHAP. XXXIX THE WAR IN PllOCIS AND BOEOTIA 629 retreat and unable to venture forw^ard owing to a Pontic force occupy- ing the pass of Thermopylae behind him and besieging Elateia. For while Sulla had been intent upon Athens and the Peiraeus a The army Pontic army under Askathias, a son of Mithridates, in the year Z'] of Mithn- had entered Macedonia. Finding it almost bare of Roman troops, ^^^^^^ he had with little difficulty reduced the province by the spring of 86 atid Mace- and established governors or satraps in the cities. He had then donia, 87- marched southward with the express purpose of attacking Sulla and ^^• relieving Athens. Apparently in order to avoid Hortensius, he had marched through Magnesia to the promontory of Tisaeum, intending perhaps to cross to Euboea. But at Tisaeum he was taken ill and died,i and the command of the army passed to Taxiles, who brought the troops to Thermopylae, and sent a message begging Archelaus to join him, proceeding meanwhile to invest Elateia, the next strong- hold in the way of his march to Boeotia. When the message reached Archelaus the Peiraeus had been lost and he was occupying Munychia, which could be safely left in charge of a garrison. He Archelaus therefore seems to have determined to obey the summons. About (^"-d Sulla the same time Sulla resolved to march into Boeotia and Phocis. J^^ Attica was a poor country and could not supply his army with Boeotia, 86, food ; and having no ships he could not be certain of getting sup- plies elsewhere. His own position also was now most precarious. Since he left Italy the Cinnan revolution had taken place. Marius indeed had died in January of this year (86), but his successor in the consulship, L. Valerius Flaccus, had been named to the command of the Mithridatic war. Sulla was not yet absolutely recalled, but was to remain if he would act under Flaccus. But it was well understood that it was intended virtually to supersede him and deprive him of the credit of conquering Mithridates. It was all-important for him- self and his party to anticipate this by striking a decisive blow. To [do this he was anxious to effect a junction with Hortensius before the j combined armies of Archelaus and Taxiles could attack him. His I own forces were thinned by the various casualties of a long march land a wearisome siege. Taxiles, whom Archelaus had joined at 1 This is Appian's statement [Miih. xxxv. ) There is, however, some difficuhy as to the prince and the circumstances of his death. Plutarch {Sull. xi.) says that 'the son of Mithridates serving in Thrace and Macedonia was Ariarathes, and \{Pomp. xxxvii.) that in some secret memoranda of the king's, which afterwards fell Hnto Pompey's hands, it was discovered that he had ordered his son to be poisoned. Reinach accepts the statement, and supposes that the king had ordered his son to be put to death because he had become convinced of his incapacity. Appian, however, thrice repeats the name (cc. 7, 35, 41), which is found in an Attic inscription (C. I. G. 964). Memnon (ap. Phot. 379 H.) attributes the operations ,in Thrace and Macedonia to Taxiles alone, and dwells on the service done by them to Archelaus in the Peiraeus by securing the market for supplies at Amphipolis. 630 HISTORY OF ROME Junctio7i of Sulla and Hortensius in the valley of the Cephisus, early sutnmer of 86. The battle of Chaer- oneia. Thermopylae by sea, had an army much superior in numbers and furnished with numerous cavalry, war chariots, and all the best arms known to the East. Meanwhile Hortensius had been guided by Kaphis of Chaeroneia round the foot of Parnassus to a stronghold on a precipitous cliff called Tithorea. When he heard that Sulla had entered Phocis he descended from this place of safety and joined him in the valley of the Cephisus, and the united forces encamped on an elevation in the plain of Elateia, called Philoboeotus, which commands the only defile between Phocis and Boeotia. They could not descend to the level ground, because the enemy — still engaged on the siege of Elateia — were greatly superior in cavalry and scythed chariots. Sulla there- fore was compelled for a time to look on passively while the enemy harried the country. But he kept his men so rigorously to work at digging trenches to keep off the cavalry that they clamoured for a battle in preference to such labours. In answer Sulla bade them seize a hill — once the citadel of a ruined town called Parapotamii — which was an important point of vantage on the road to Chaeroneia. Archelaus saw its importance when too late, but failing to anticipate or dislodge the Romans he attempted to march past it and reach Chaeroneia. Sulla had men of Chaeroneia in his camp who entreated him to save the town. He therefore sent off his advanced guard, who outstripped Archelaus and were welcomed as deliverers at Chaeroneia, and he himself presently followed with his main army. He now occupied two excellent positions — Parapotamii commanded the road back to Elateia, Chaeroneia commanded that to Thebes as well as a branch road to Opus. Taxiles and Archelaus were caught, and must either fight or retreat round the lake Copais by a road difficult and full of defiles, leading to the coast opposite Chalcis. It was in a narrow valley near the entrance to this difficult route, between two hills called Hedylion and Acontion, that Taxiles and Archelaus were encamped. The battle was fought betw^een Mounts Hedylion and Thurion, in a somewhat contracted part of the plain of the Cephisus, unfavourable to the use of the war chariots, which required a considerable space for charging ; and at the very beginning of the day the Pontic army had been thrown into confusion by a sudden attack upon the rear of their left flank. Some natives of Chaeroneia had guided a Roman detachment by a shepherd's track over Mount Thurion, which brought them down on the rear of one wing of the enemy. Not only did these men themselves inflict considerable loss on the troops thus attacked, driving them in upon the Roman right, where they were cut to pieces, but the survivors of the disaster demoralised their own army when they rushed into its ranks for safety. Archelaus had forces nearly four times as numerous as those of Sulla, — amounting XXXIX THE BATTLE OF CHAERONEIA 631 to 60,000, while Sulla had i 5,000 infantry and i 500 cavalry, — but they were a motley throng of various nationality, and though capable of obstinate resistance if brought to bay, were no match for Roman legions, if their cavalry failed from want of space, or if the phalanx— the nucleus of the whole army— was broken. Both of these circum- stances occurred at Chaeroneia : and after some severe fighting the whole army became a disorganised mass, rushing for safety to the camp from which they had issued in the morning, followed and butchered almost without resistance by the victorious Romans, who are asserted by Sulla to have lost but twelve men. The slaughter was continued in the captured camp, and the survivors were obHged to light false watch-fires and entice into the same death-trap some of their own men who had been foraging. Out of an army of 60,000, about 10,000 managed to escape with Archelaus round the lake Archelans Copais to the Euripus, and to cross to Chalcis. From this place escapes to he carried on a kind of piratic war, ravaging the coasts of Pelo- ^ ""^^ ponnesus and the island of Zacynthus, from which he destroyed some of the ships employed to transport the army of Flaccus into Epirus. But the victory of Chaeroneia had secured Sulla's position in Sulla in Greece, though fruitless in regard to the immediate prosecution of Greece after the war, since he had not sufficient force to enable him to venture ^^' ^^^^^^ °f into Asia to attack Mithridates himself The next month or two ^^^^^-^ were devoted to refreshing and recruiting his army, to the celebration latter part of his victory by trophies and splendid games outside Thebes, and to of 86. punishing those who had joined the rebellion. Thus at Athens, to which he returned for a time, Sulla condemned to death Aristion and all who had served as his bodyguard or had held any office I during the rebellion, and confiscated their property. The freedom ; of Athens was restored, but all citizens who had remained in the city I were to be disfranchised for life. Delos was given back to her, but the territory of Oropus was assigned to the temple of Amphiaraos, I probably in compensation for treasures appropriated by Sulla, and in I gratitude for favourable oracles before the battle of Chaeroneia. I Thebes also was punished for its defection without regard to its early Ruin of I return to its duty. Half its territory was confiscated, and the revenues Thebes. ] from it assigned to compensate the treasuries of the temples of I Delphi, Olympia, and Epidaurus, which Sulla had emptied. j Meanwhile a change of feeling had been taking place in Asia. The rule of I The government of the king, conducted as that of the Attalids Mithri- Ifrom Pergamus, was at first liberal and popular. A general relief J^^J^ ^^ from imposts, a respect for ancient institutions and for the rights of s8-86. sanctuary, large subventions from the royal exchequer in relief of : distress caused by earthquakes or other disasters, seemed to secure the cheerful allegiance of all and to promise an era of peace and 632 HISTORY OF ROME Grievances in Asia. EpJiesus abandons the king, 86. The hint's measures. happiness. But though only one city, Magnesia ad Sipylum, still openly held out against the royal authority, yet in many other of the Greek towns there was secretly a strong Romanising party, generally consisting of those who had been most influential in politics or most successful in commerce. Their hostility or distrust had been natur- ally roused by the measures of the king, meant to conciliate the lower orders, such as the abolition of debts, and the general enfranchise- ment of slaves who had betrayed their masters. Nor did the king's yoke prove lighter than that of the Romans ; for although taxes were lessened military service was as rigorous and more constant. Large conscriptions were needed for the wars in Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. The success of Sulla and the fall of Athens gave a vent to this discontent, and by the time of the battle of Chaeroneia matters were ripe for change. By an elaborate system of espionage the king was kept aware of what was going on : and the ferocious measures which he took to secure himself, the frequent execution of real or suspected conspirators, the massacre of Galatian tetrarchs with their families, whom he had forced to come as hostages to Pergamus, and the deportation of the inhabitants of Chios on a frivolous pretext, irritated and alarmed the Greek communities. The first movement was at Ephesus. After the cruel treatment of Chios, Zenobius, the agent for the execution of the decree, landed at Ephesus and summoned an assembly of citizens for the next day. A rumour spread among the people that the fate of Chios was in store for them. Instigated by the chiefs of the Romanising party, they dragged Zenobius from his bed and put him to death ; and a decree was passed with enthusiasm renouncing allegiance to Mithridates, whom it declared to have possessed himself of Ephesus by treachery, and proclaiming their unchanging loyalty to Rome, which it asserted the citizens to have always retained, while yielding to superior force. ^ The example of Ephesus was followed by other towns, and a general defection was only arrested by measures of great severity in the case of those cities which the king was able to take ; and finally by a decree declaring all Greek cities which had remained faithful free, debts abolished, slaves liberated, and metics full citizens. This for a time engaged the lower classes in the several cities on his JVew army from Asia under Dorylaus. course follow the return of Roman rule. To secure his influence, however, the king knew that he must be successful in Greece. An army of 70,000 was again raised, includ- ing 10,000 cavalry and 70 scythed chariots. It was carefully selected and placed under the command of Dorylaus, a trusted friend and ^ The decree itself is still extant (Waddington, Inscriptions d' Asie Mineure, No. 136a ; Dittenberger, Sylloge, No. 253 ; Reinach, Appendix, p. 463). XXXIX BATTLE OF ORCHOMENUS 633 councillor. Sailing to Euboea Dorylaus joined Archelaus and the survivors of Chaeroneia, and the two made descents upon the coast of Boeotia and recovered the allegiance of several towns. This brought Sulla back into Boeotia. Soon after the battle of Chaeroneia he had learnt that the consul L. Valerius Flaccus, Sulla and appointed in his place to the chief command in the Mithridatic war, Flaccus. was marching with two legions through Thessaly. He resolved not to accept the secondary place thus left to him, and marched towards Thessaly to meet him. He came upon his advanced guard at Melitaea, at the foot of Mount Orthrys, on the road from Pharsalus. Flaccus had already made himself so offensive to his men by severity '1 and greed that they to a large extent deserted to Sulla, — an example which would have been followed by larger numbers still but for the exertions of the consul's legate Fimbria, who, though a man of violent and unreasonable character, possessed ability and influence. Flaccus, however, gave up the idea of marching into Greece to take over 1 Sulla's army or attack him, and turned northwards to the Hellespont. I Sulla wished to follow him, but urgent messages came from Boeotia j announcing the arrival of Dorylaus, the defection of the Boeotian I towns, and depredations of the Pontic army. In all haste he repassed j the defile of Thermopylae and marched back into Boeotia. The struggle there was short and decisive. Archelaus, with his Battle of '1 experience of Roman troops, advised that they should avoid a regular Orcho- \ engagement. But Dorylaus was intoxicated with the easy successes ''"^"^^^' \ already obtained and anxious to measure swords with Sulla. His first s6. encounter, however, which took place at Tilphasium, a hill and town on the south of the lake Copais, between Coroneia and Haliartus, con- vinced him of his mistake. He too was now anxious to avoid an en- gagement, and hoped rather to wear out Sulla by protracting the war with all its attendant expenses. He therefore selected a position which he thought favourable. This was the plain of Orchomenus on the west of the lake, not far from the battle-field of Chaeroneia, but much wider and more open, where his cavalry and chariots would have full play, and would deter the Roman legions from attacking his camp. It proved a fatal selection. To prevent the excursions of the cavalry, Sulla at once began digging a network of trenches ten feet wide, which he pushed gradually up to the enemy's camp. The cavalry sent to interrupt the work gained some success at first against the companies of Roman infantry posted to defend the diggers. But an incipient panic was prevented by Sulla, who flung himself from his horse, and seizing a standard rushed into the thick of the fight, shouting out, " Soldiers, if asked where you abandoned your general, say at Orchomenus." He was followed by his principal officers, and their example sufficed to shame or encourage the rest. 634 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Destruc- tion of the Pofitic army. Effects of the battle of Orcho- Sulla wifiters iti Thessaly, 86-Ss. Flaccus marches through Macedonia and Thrace to Byzan- tiutn, 86. The main army having now come on to the ground, the ranks were soon reformed, and presented a solid wall of defence. The enemy's cavalry dashed themselves to pieces on the serried ranks of the legions, and fell in immense numbers. The Pontic archers charged by the legions fought desperately, using their arrows as daggers when they could no longer shoot ; so that by the evening the field was covered with nearly i 5,000 dead, among whom was a son or son-in- law of Archelaus. The survivors took refuge in their camp, but were entirely surrounded, and had no way out except across the lake. Next morning Sulla began another trench, to complete the cir- cumvallation, which they vainly tried to interrupt. When it was finished he gave the signal for an assault. The Romans scaled the vallum and another butchery began. Some who endeavoured to escape by swimming in the lake were slain by arrows and ja\elins ; so that in the time of Plutarch, 200 years afterwards, bows, swords, helmets and coats of mail were still found in the mud at the bottom. As many as 50,000 are said to have perished, and 25,000 prisoners were sold by military auction after the battle. Dorylaus and Archelaus escaped to Chalcis : but the question of supremacy in Greece was settled. Archelaus recalled such Pontic garrisons as still held Greek towns to Chalcis, and the country was once more in the power of the Romans. The effect was at once felt in Asia. The Galatians expelled the Pontic satrap : their example was followed by a great number of Asiatic Greeks ; and Mithridates was only saved from an immediate attack by Sulla's lack of ships. He had not enough even to cross to Chalcis, and had to content himself wreaking vengeance on the revolted Boeotians. But if he was not to be anticipated by Flaccus in defeating Mithri- dates he must have a fleet. No news had yet come of Lucullus ; and when he went into winter quarters he began shipbuilding for himself. Meanwhile, Flaccus had made his way to the Bosporus through Macedonia and Thrace, pillaging the towns and enslaving the people without mercy. Philippi was taken ; the royal army besieging Abdera fled, and he reached the loyal town of Byzantium in time to take up his winter quarters outside the walls. But the unpopularity of Flaccus had been increased on the march. Grasping and unscrupulous himself, he had been severe in punishing similar conduct among the men : and while he was in Byzantium, negotiating with shipowners for a passage across the Bosporus, they broke out almost into open mutiny. He tried to remedy this by dividing them, sending the advanced guard under Fimbria across to Chalcedon. But a quarrel between Fimbria and the quaestor about billeting the soldiers, having been referred to Flaccus, was decided in favour of the quaestor. Fimbria, after threatening to return to Rome, and xxxix PRELIMINARIES OF PEACE AT DELIUM 635 being thereupon deposed from the command of the cavalry, pro- moted another mutiny. Flaccus fled for his life to Nicomedia, where Fimbria discovered and put him to death. It cannot be supposed Murder of that the murder of a proconsul by his legatus was approved by the Flaccus, Senate, but the dislike of the dominant party to Sulla was stronger ^S- than any other feeling. Fimbria was not recalled and, though he was repudiated by Sulla and Lucullus (who presently arrived with his fleet on the coast of Asia Minor), it was less perhaps as a murderer than as the agent of the party of Cinna. But the change in the command of the army thus made added to its effectiveness. Fimbria was abler and more active than Flaccus, and a series of successes Success of against the younger Mithridates and other officers of the king in Fimbria Bithynia seemed to promise a speedy termination of the war. ^'^ Nicomedia was carried by assault, and other towns in Bithynia were ^ y^ia. terrified into submission. Mithridates was in instant expectation of Mithri- being besieged in Pergamus, and retired to the harbour town at dates in Pitane. Whether Fimbria could force him to surrender depended Pii<^^^- on the action of the fleet of Lucullus. But Lucullus refused to co- Lucullus operate with Fimbria, and it was Sulla, therefore, who with his own will not ships and those of Lucullus could come at any time to Asia, that '^^-^P^''^^^ Mithridates had to fear. Early in 84 a message came from Archelaus pi^f^j^^ia. requesting a conference. Sulla's political position at the time made it of primary importance to him to end the war. His refusal to act under Flaccus had been answered by a decree of the Senate, proposed by Cinna, declaring him a public enemy and depriving him of his ^^lla command : his town house had been pulled down, his wife and declared a children forced to fly ; and with them came to his camp in Thessaly hostis, 8j. a large number of the Optimates, who believed themselves no longer safe at Rome. And now this same Senate preferred to keep a murderer like Fimbria in command rather than acknowledge him. It was time to make an end of the war and to return in force to Italy. He therefore agreed to receive Archelaus at Delium. After the usual attempts to beat each other down by arrogant Prelim- language preliminaries were agreed upon. The king was to abandon tnanes of all conquests made since the beginning of the war ; to surrender f^^^. "^ the province of Asia ; to evacuate Bithynia and Cappadocia, ^^ and in return was to be guaranteed in the rest of his dominions as "a friend" of Rome. He was to furnish Sulla with seventy decked vessels, with crews and provisions, and 500 archers ; prisoners, hostages, and deserters to be mutually restored. ^ The population ^ Licinianus mentions among those to be restored M'.Aquillius and Q. Oppius. But according to all other authorities Aquillius had been put to death long ago. If it is true that his name was mentioned in the preliminaries, we must either suppose that Sulla did not know of his death and that Archelaus dared not 636 HISTORY OF ROME MithrU dates hesitates to accept the terms. Interview between Sulla and Mithri- dates at Pergamus, 84. of Chios, removed to the Black Sea, were to be allowed to return home, as well as the families driven from Macedonia, while Sulla was to grant an amnesty to the cities in Asia which had sided with the king.i Though the terms were less than might be expected at Rome, the king thought them severe, and never quite forgave Archelaus, whom he suspected of having been bought over, especially when it after- wards appeared that Sulla had granted him an estate in Boeotia. He particularly objected to the cession of Paphlagonia and the supply of the seventy ships ; and he secretly made overtures to Fimbria, while transferring himself to Mitylene, where he would be safe from any enemy who had no ships. But though this made him independent of Fimbria, who was obliged to confine himself to the devastation of the Troad,— among other things utterly destroying Ilium for the offence of asking aid from Sulla, — it put him still more in danger of attack from Sulla, who after the conference at Delium had advanced northwards and was to be joined by Lucullus and his fleet at the Thracian Chersonese. While subduing some tribes on the frontier of Macedonia and Thrace Sulla was met by a courier conveying the king's objections to the terms. Affecting the utmost anger he swore that he would not bate a single point. Archelaus, still in the Roman camp, and treated with extraordinary marks of regard by Sulla, — who had gratified him with the execution of Aristion, — begged with tears to be allowed to go to the king, promising that he would bring the ratification or perish by his own hands. On his return he found Sulla at Philippi, and brought word that the king assented generally to the terms, but desired a personal interview. Of the nature of their interview we have the account of Sulla himself preserved by Plutarch, which, however, is open to some suspicion as composed to defend his conduct from what some thought an act of treason. The king, he says, offered his hand, which he refused to accept until he signified in express terms his acceptance of the treaty. After an interval of silence Mithridates began a long defence of his conduct. Sulla interrupted it by saying that he admired the king's eloquence, but that words could not alter deeds, and that he demanded a direct answer of yes or no, adding a state- ment of the injuries sustained by the Romans at his hands. At mention it, or that the story of the molten gold, etc. was a fiction of the king's enemies (see p. 617 note). ^ This last provision is only mentioned by Memnon of Heracleia, who was likely to be well informed on such a point, though in the rest of his account there are several inaccuracies. The treaty was not written, and therefore there may have been disputes on many points. XXXIX PEACE OF PERGAMUS AND FALL OF FIMBRIA 637 length the king signified his acceptation of the treaty : whereupon Treaty of Sulla caused the deposed kings of Bithynia to come forward and Pergamus, bear witness to the treaty which was to restore them to their domin- ^"f' ions. Mithridates acknowledged Nicomedes with courtesy, but he refused to receive Ariobarzanes, the elect of the nobles of Cappadocia, as not of royal blood, a mere subject or slave, to whose royalty he would give no social acknowledgment. Thus the first Mithridatic war was at an end. It had cost nearly Unsatis- half a million of lives ; it had brought with it the ruin or de- factory struction of a large number of flourishing towns ; and after all it ''^•^^''^^•^ ^f had not been decisive. It had indeed settled that Mithridates' plan ^^^ '^^''''" of uniting Asia Minor and Greece under his sceptre was not to be realised ; but it left the Roman province with a feeling of insecurity, while the king — with such memories in his heart — was still close to the frontier, and still powerful in money, ships, and men. In every city there were still two opposed parties, with the recollec- tion of mutual wrongs and sufferings. The richer class were " Romanisers," the lower were still " Cappadocists," whose perpetual antagonism promised danger and trouble for the future. And it I might well be remembered at Rome that this lame result was (after all the effect of political differences : that if the two armies I of the republic had been acting in unison, and if Lucullus with ^his ships had not declined to support Fimbria, the war might have I been ended for ever by the .captivity or death of Mithridates. ! For Sulla the retirement of Mithridates was not the end of his Sulla's 'difficulties. He was still an outcast by the vote of the Senate ; and difficulties. 'if he was to recover his own position and rescue his party from the faction of the consuls Cinna and Carbo, he must return to Italy at the head of an army which left no foe behind it, and was capable jOf meeting every enemy at home. His own soldiers, indignant at jthe sight of the king allowed to depart unharmed, after all their jlabours and victories, or disappointed at the loss of the easy spoil Iwhich they had expected from an Asiatic war, must be satisfied. Fim- ibria, too, was encamped near Thyatira in the north of Lydia, between jthe rivers Carius and Hermus, and refused to surrender or to fight. ] Sulla began at once to beleaguer his camp by digging trenches Attack round it. Fimbria's soldiers deserted in great numbers, and helped ^^pon to complete the trenches. Those who remained refused to fight their fellow-citizens, or to take an oath of fidelity to him. He failed also to procure Sulla's assassination, and having come to the end of his resources asked for a personal interview. Sulla contemptu- ously refused it, but he sent word by Rutilius — the exiled quaestor of Scaevola — that he would give him a safe-conduct to the sea on condition that he immediately left Asia. But Fimbria knew that his Fimbria. 638 HISTORY OF ROME Death of Fimbria, 84. Settlement of Asia. Punish- m,ent of disloyal towns. Arrears of tribute of 88-84 io be paid. The pirates. life would not be safe when Sulla returned to Italy, and determined to escape dishonour by death. He fled to Pergamus, and stabbed himself in the temple of Asclepius. The wound was not mortal, but he persuaded a slave to kill him, and the whole of his legions, with the exception of a few officers who took refuge with Mithridates, then joined Sulla's standard. Sulla spent the rest of the year and the following spring (85-84) in regulating affairs in Asia. Whether or no there was an article in the treaty granting amnesty to the Asiatic cities which had joined the king's party, he certainly did not observe its spirit. The Greek cities which submitted were not destroyed, but the party in them opposed to Rome suffered ruthless punishment. After despatching Curio with a sufficient force to superintend the restoration of Nicomedes in Bithynia and of Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia, he proceeded to take certain towns which still held out, and therefore might be considered in any case to be excluded from the benefit of the clause. The abolition of the king's proclamation relieving debtors and freeing slaves caused the resistance to be more obstinate, and the punishment the more severe ; the towns were dismantled and pillaged, and their inhabitants sold into slavery. Even in cities not so treated individual citizens convicted of disloyalty were executed. At Ephesus, for instance, all were so treated who could be proved to have been leaders in the rebellion, or to have taken part in the massacre of Italians in 88, or in denouncing the Romanisers in 86. Here too, in the course of his visit, Sulla announced to an assembly of notables from the cities that the five years' tribute — remitted by Mithridates — was now to be paid in full, besides a fine of 20,000 talents, or about ^5,000,000, the whole country being divided into fourty-four districts, to be rated according to the property of the inhabitants, in order to raise the sum. To add to the distress the soldiers were billeted for the winter in various towns upon private individuals, who were obliged, besides lodging them, to pay each soldier four drachmae a day, as well as one meal for himself and any guest he might choose to invite ; and each centurion fifty drachmae and two suits of clothing. This burden on the middle and richer classes made it all the more difficult for the cities to procure the money to pay Sulla's demand. It was only done by borrowing money on heavy and usurious terms, and by mortgaging public buildings of all sorts ; and it left Asia in a state of financial ruin from which it was long in recovering. Nor in return did Sulla secure the country from other evils. In the course of the troubles of the last four years piracy had again become rife. Sailing it is said at first under letters of marque from Mithri- dates, these pests of the sea had increased to the dimensions of a XXXIX SULLA'S RETURN TO ROME 639 fleet, and captured whole islands and towns. lassus and Samos, Clazomenae and Samothrace were seized by them while Sulla was at Ephesus ; and it does not appear that he took any measures to repress them. He was now intent upon his return to Italy. In the late Sulla summer of 84, leaving Murena as governor and Lucullus as leaves quaestor in charge of Asia, he embarked his army — increased by ""^' fresh levies and with ships, which the vast spoils and fines had given 0/84. him the means to acquire, to the number of 1200, — and in three days arrived at the Peiraeus. He stayed for some months at Athens, where he collected fresh troops from Macedonia and the At Athens. Peloponnese, and enriched himself with various treasures, such for instance as the famous library of Apellicon, which contained a great collection of the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus. He found there the well-known Pomponius Atticus, afterwards the friend and correspondent of Cicero, then a young man, who had already made himself thoroughly conversant with Attic ways and speech, and seems to have exercised that charm over Sulla which rendered him the close friend of so many leaders of opposite parties at Rome. Perhaps it was under his guidance that Sulla threw himself into the Attic life for a time, and was among other things initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries and established a new festival called the Sulleia. But the hardships of the last four ye^rs had told on his health. He was attacked with a severe fit of gout, and had to remove to the Libantine plain near Chalcis for the sake of the baths, or to Aedipsus on the Stilla north-west coast, famed for its hot springs. It was not therefore returns to till the next spring (83) that he set out again, marching through It'^ly early Thessaly and Macedonia to Dyrrachium, whence he crossed to ^^ ^' Brundisium with 40,000 men and 1200 ships. Authorities. — Livy, Ep. 78-82. Appian, Mithridatica. Justin, 37, 38. Granius Licinianus, fr. of book xxxv. Diodorus, fr. of xxxvii. Memnon of Heracleia in Photius, Mithridatica. Velleius Paterculus, ii. 23, 24. Plutarch, Sulla, Lucullus. Pausanias, i, 20, 4 ; 9, 7, S ; 30, i ; 33, 6. Orosius, v. 19. The most continuous narrative is in Appian and Plutarch. The date of Licinianus is uncertain, he may perhaps be the earliest of all. The inscriptions illustrating the affairs of Asia during the period will be found in the Appendix to M. Reinach's Mithridate Eupator. CHAPTER XL VICTORIES OF SULLA IN ITALY, AND THE NEW CONSTITUTION 83-78 Sj. Coss. L. Cornel- ius Scipio Asiatictis, C. Junius N orb anus. Sulla's position in Italy. Sulla lands in Italy — He is joined by Metellus, Pompey, Crassus, and many others — His march to Rome — Defeat of Norbanus and the younger Marius at Tifata — -Surrender of Scipio and Sertorius at Teanum — Fire at the Capitol (83) — Campaigns of 82 — Defeat of Marius at Sacriportus, and siege of Prae- neste — Victory of Metellus on the Aesis — The war in Etruria and Gallia Cis- alpina — Battles of Saturnia, Clusium, Faventia, Fidentia — Flight of Norbanus and Carbo — Defeat of the Samnites at the CoUine Gate — Fall of Praeneste and Norba (November 82) — Sulla at Rome — The proscriptions — Sulla dictator — His political reforms — His code of laws — Fall of Nola and Volaterrae — Devastation of Samnium (82-80) — Pompey in Sicily and Africa (81) — Abdi- cation of Sulla (79) — His death (78) — Rome expanded into Italy — Change in the colonial system — Extent of Empire — Number of provinces — Their con- tributions to the Roman exchequer— Indifference at Rome to foreign affairs — The new generation — Development of oratory and literature. When Sulla landed at Brundisium early in 83 no farther disguise was possible, — there was to be open civil war. The negotiations with the Senate had not cancelled the decree declaring him, and those who had joined him, public enemies : his town house had been pulled down, his property confiscated, and the constitutional authori- ties were almost unanimously opposed to him. Both consuls were his enemies : Sertorius, the ablest man of the party, was a praetor ; Marius, nephew and adopted son of the great Gains Marius, was a consul-designate for the next year ; Carbo, who had already been twice consul, was to be his colleague, and was now commanding an army in Cisalpine Gaul as proconsul. The very fact that so many senators and other Optimates had taken refuge with Sulla in Greece, or now joined him on his march, left the comitia in the city — so far as they v/ere consulted at all — even more entirely in the hands of his enemies, who had thus the technical advantage of a constitutional position. On the other hand, Sulla had never laid down his procon- sular /w/r?r/«?«, and until he did so, or until he entered the city, there CHAP. XL SULLA DEFEATS THE CONSULS 641 was no certain means of depriving him of it. The decree of the Senate declaring him a hostis was affirmed by him and his friends to be invahd, as having been extorted by violence, and in the forcible absence of many members. Both sides thus claimed to be legally within their right : no solution was possible except by battle, Sulla had a devoted army, which regarded its military oath to His army. him as of superior obligation to obedience to Senate or consuls. Nor can such a view seem surprising when at this very time the son of Strabo, Gnaeus Pompeius, an eques of three-and-twenty, who had held no office, and was a mere privatus^ had been able to raise three legions in Picenum, without authority and without any one knowing what he was going to do with them. Thus Sulla profited by the changes made in the army by his great rival Marius. His only partisan who could claim a constitutional position was Metellus Pius. When Marius and Cinna entered Rome, Metellus had gone to Africa. Having been beaten there by the Marian governor C, Fabius, he had returned to Liguria and was watching events. He had never laid down the im-perium which he held during the Marsic war, and was therefore still proconsul ; and when he hastened to join Sulla was greeted by him as " Imperator." Carbo and the dead Cinna had been working for some years Sulla's past to secure themselves, and there were now enormous forces on ^««^<^^ foot to resist Sulla. Several Italian towns, and the Samnites gene- ^fl'3^^^ rally, who had not laid down their arms at the end of the Social Way, 83. war, warmly espoused the side of Carbo, and as many as 225,000 men were said to be under arms in various parts of Italy under fifteen different commanders. Formidable as these forces must have seemed, their composition was of some advantage to Sulla, who could pose as the champion of the citizens against rebels. They Defeat of were also widely separated. Carbo was in Cisalpine Gaul ; three of ^orbanus. his legati — M. Brutus, C. Caelius Caldus, and C. Caninas — were kept in play in Picenum by Pompey, who had declared for Sulla as soon as he landed. It was with the two consuls Norbanus and Scipio, who had hastily enrolled an army of 100,000 men from the city and the neighbourhood, that Sulla had first to reckon. They were marching to meet him in two divisions, Norbanus and Marius in front, Scipio at no great distance in the rear. Sulla, who had been warmly welcomed at Brundisium, and was receiving continual ad- hesions, found Norbanus encamped near Mount Tifata, overlooking Capua. The conflict was short and decisive. The consul's raw levies proved unable to face Sulla's veterans, and he had to retreat into Capua with the loss of 6000 men. Sulla, who asserts that he only lost seventy men in this battle, continued his advance along the via Appia, and in the neighbourhood 2 T 642 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Scipio, whose army joins Sulla, obliged to make terms. Prepara- tiofts in the winter of 83-82. Fire on the Capitol, 6th July 8 J. 82. Coss. C. Marius, Cn. Pap- irius Carbo III. The war renewed, battle on the Aesis. Defeat of Marius at Sacri- portus and siege of Praeneste. of Teanum came in sight of Scipio and the second division of the consular army. But the effect of the victory of Tifata was soon manifest. Sulla made some proposals for pacification to the consul, and when Scipio hesitated to accept them, he suddenly found him- self deserted by his army, which went over to Sulla almost to a man. He was left nearly alone in his tent with his son, and was obliged to accept Sulla's terms. But Sertorius, who was with him, seems to have been able to lead off a certain number of men, and on his way seized Suessa, which had sided with Sulla ; and though Scipio, whom Sulla had allowed to go free, repudiated this action of Sertorius, Sulla affected to consider that thereby the terms had been broken, and he continued his advance, wasting the lands of all who were opposed to him. He did not, however, as yet approach Rome. The opposite party was still strong there, and Carbo now came himself to the city from Gaul, and prevailed upon the remnant of the Senate to denounce as hosfes all who had joined Sulla. He and young Marius, as consuls- designate, with their numerous legati, had been raising forces in Latium, Etruria, and Cisalpine Gaul, and Sulla was obliged to pause till he could reckon on armies somewhat equivalent to theirs. The winter, also, which was devoted to these preparations, chanced to be an unusually severe one, which made active operations impossible. But Rome was in a state of great anxiety throughout the autumn and winter of 83 ; and it seemed no slight omen of impending disaster that on the 6th of July a fire had destroyed the venerable temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, which had stood for more than 400 years, the visible emblem of the greatness of Rome, and that in it had perished those Sibylline verses so often consulted in the hour of danger. In the spring Sertorius had gone as propraetor to Spain, and the war began with a severe battle between Metellus and Carbo's legate Caninas on the river Aesis, separating Picenum and Umbria. Metellus was prevented from following up his victory at once by the presence of Carbo, who came to the rescue of Caninas. Before long, however, Carbo, hearing that his colleague Marius had been defeated, retired to Ariminum, the headquarters of his party in the north, harassed by Pompey on the rear. Caninas made his way to Spoletium in Umbria, where presently Pompey and Crassus followed and again defeated him, shutting him up in the town. Meanwhile Marius had been trying to intercept Sulla, who was taking various towns in Latium. But he had sustained so severe a defeat at Sacriportus, between Setia and Praeneste, that part of his army went over to Sulla, and he was himself compelled to fly with the rest to Praeneste. So hot was the pursuit that the Praenestines dared not open their XL DISASTERS OF THE PARTY OF CARBO 643 gates, and had to haul him up the wall by a rope. Sulla invested Praeneste, and, presently entrusting to Lucretius Ofella the task of starving it out, led his army in several columns by different roads to Rome, and pitched a camp in the Campus Martins. But he did not stay long at Rome. He had not, indeed, arrived Sulla's in time to prevent a last act of vengeance on the part of Marius, fi'^'^^ who had found means to send a message to the praetor urbanus, ^^''^^^^ ^^ Damasippus, ordering the execution of four leading senators, one of them the pontifex maximus Scaevola. The order had been carried out with cold-blooded craft. Damasippus had summoned the Senate on pretence of business, had then had three of them assassinated in or just outside the Curia, while Scaevola was killed in the temple of Vesta itself. Still Sulla could not stay to punish this at once. He had just time to order the confiscation of the property of the most violent of his opponents, and to address an encouraging speech to a meeting of citizens, and then started in all haste to attack Carbo, who had come to Clusium on his way to the relief of Marius. His cavalry defeated some Celtiberian auxiliaries Cavalry of Carbo on the Clanis, the survivors partly coming over to him, skirmish partly being cut to pieces by Carbo, who suspected their fidelity. °":^^^. He next defeated another division of the enemy at Saturnia, and then advanced on Clusium. As usual, he dashed upon his enemy without Battle at any well-considered plan, and a severe fight lasting all day long was Clusiutn. after all indecisive. Yet when Carbo attempted to send an army of relief from Ariminum to Caninas at Spoletium, Sulla intercepted and Carbo fails defeated it with a loss of 2000 men, and Caninas in despair took lo relieve advantage of a dark rainy night to escape, only to perish a few months ^P^^^^^^^ later. Carbo still attempted to send troops under Marcius to relieve ^n^ste"^^' Marius in Praeneste ; but he was followed by Pompey, now set free from besieging Spoletium. Overtaken in the difficult ground near Praeneste, he was utterly defeated, and forced to take refuge in the hills. The men laid the blame on Marcius, and either made their way back to Ariminum or dispersed to their homes. Meanwhile fresh disasters befell the Carbonian party in the Battle of north. After his victory on the Aesis, Metellus collected ships and Faventia. sailed up the east coast of Italy, making descents on his way ; and as ^^^\ '^ Carbo and Norbanus held Ariminum, he occupied the next harbour and^GalHa north of it at Ravenna. From that town he led his army to Faventia, Cisalpina. on the Via AemiHa, barring the road between Ariminum and the towns in the valley of the Po. Here Carbo and Norbanus attacked him, but were defeated with a loss of 10,000 men. Six thousand of the survivors then went over to Metellus, while the rest took refuge in Arretium. This was followed by the betrayal of Ariminum by P. Tullius Albinovanus, who even poisoned a number of the officers 644 HISTORY OF ROME Flight and death of N orb anus. Victory of Lucullus at Fidentia. Carbo's last chance. The Samnite army under Pontius of Teles ia. Flight of Car bo. His troops advance on Rome. Battle at the Colline Gate, 1st November 82. at a banquet. Norbanus had refused the invitation, and so escaped; but finding Ariminum in the hands of the enemy, and the rest of Gallia Cisalpina submitting to Sulla, he took ship and fled to Rhodes, where, some time afterwards, when he saw the Rhodian magistrates deliberating what to do in answer to a demand from Sulla for his surrender, he stabbed himself in the agora. The defection of Gallia Cisalpina, indeed, was inevitable when Ariminum was lost ; and soon after that event M. Lucullus, who had been besieged in Fidentia, cut his way out by a sudden sally and defeated the besieging army. The valley of the Po was therefore in the hands of the legates of Sulla. Carbo, whose activity and spirit had been remarkable throughout this campaign, did not fly at once after his defeat at Faventia. He had still 30,000 men at Clusium, and his legates Damasippus, Caninas, and Marcius still were at the head of some troops. One last attempt was resolved upon. An army of Samnites, Lucanians, and Campanians, under Pontius of Telesia, M. Lampronius the Lu- canian, and Gutta of Capua, was on the way from the south to the relief of Praeneste. If he and his legates could effect a junction with them, his colleague Marius might still be rescued. L. Dama- sippus was at once sent off with two legions, but was prevented by Sulla from approaching Praeneste ; and Carbo, seeing all going against him, lost heart, and escaping secretly from headquarters at Clusium with a few friends made his way to Africa, where his own adherent Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus had taken over the govern- ment. The troops remaining at Clusium were attacked by Pompey ; many were killed, and the rest dispersed to their homes. Caninas, Marcius, and Damasippus, indeed, succeeded in joining the Samnites, who were advancing on Praeneste ; but Pompey had followed close behind them, and finding themselves likely to be caught between his army and that of Sulla, they abandoned the attempt to reach Praeneste, in which they had already suffered severely, and made a dash upon Rome. There were no troops in Rome, and its walls were not in a state to stand a siege ; but with Samnites at the gates, party spirit for the moment was hushed, and the men of military age armed themselves and sallied out against the enemy. They were defeated, however ; and when Sulla — following close behind the 700 cavalry which he had sent forward under Balbus — arrived in the after- noon of the I St of November, he found the enemy encamped within a mile of the city. Rejecting the entreaties of his officers, that he would rest his men before fighting, he attacked at once. It was the bloodiest battle of the whole war. Fifty thousand men are said to have fallen in the two armies, and Sulla himself was only SULLA'S VICTORY AND CRUELTIES 645 saved from death by his groom, who seeing a spear coming at him, whipped on his horse and just secured him. Nor did his disposi- tions do him any credit as a general. His right wing under Crassus Victory of was completely successful, and drove the enemy to Antemnae, three ^^^ ^^S^ miles off; but the left, in which he was himself commanding, was "^^'^S^nder driven back upon its camp ; and he was so entirely ignorant of ^'^^^^^' what had happened on his right, that he only learnt that Crassus was at Antemnae by a message from him in the evening asking for provisions. Still, the loss inflicted on the enemy had been very great. Pontius himself had fallen, and a large number of prisoners The left had been taken ; and though at one time in the afternoon Sulla's "^^^S defeat had seemed so certain that a messenger had been despatched '^'''''^" ^'^• to Praeneste begging Ofella to come, and announcing his death, he was able next morning to join Crassus at Antemnae. The enemy were still in considerable force, but 3000 of them offered Sicrrender to submit, and Sulla promised them their lives if they would attack of the their own comrades. A large number having fallen in this unnatural -^^^^^^'^^-^ , combat, the remaining 6000 were taken to Rome, drawn up in the ""Antemnae I Circus, and cut to pieces by his orders. ' Sulla now met the Senate in the temple of Bellona, outside Sulla at the pomoerium, within which he could not legally enter without Ro7ne, , losing his imperium. While he was actually addressing them the ^'^'-^^''' j shrieks of the six or eight thousand Samnite prisoners, who were ^* I being cut down hard by, startled the fathers. Sulla bade them not be disturbed ; they were only some criminals being punished by his ( orders. If the senators were content to condone such cruelty I on the ground that the victims were Samnites, the common enemy, , they soon found that the same measure was to be meted out to I others. The victory at the Colline Gate brought with it the I surrender of Praeneste. Marius committed suicide, but all men of I military age were put to death by Lucretius, doubtless hy Sulla's Severities I order ; and in Norba, the last town in Latium to hold out, when it ^^ P^^^- \ was taken by Aemilius Lepidus, those of the inhabitants who did not ^^^^^ ^"^ I die by their own hand were all executed, and the town was burnt. ^^''^^• I Marcius and Caninas, who had escaped after the battle of the ; Colline Gate, were arrested and at once put to death ; while Marius I Gratidianus — in revenge, it seems, for the death of Catulus in the I Marian massacres — was taken to the tomb of the Catuli and put to I death with horrible tortures. j Though Sulla was probably not the author of this crime, he had I resolved upon a wholesale slaughter, which has rightly blackened his name for ever. It was not primarily personal revenge, or cruelty for cruelty's sake that moved him, though both passions perhaps had their The pro- influence. Rome was to be renewed, and the constitution restored to ^criptions. 646 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 82. Object of the pro- scriptions. The death lists. Sulla dictator^ 82-79. the state existing before the time of the Gracchi ; and to this end those who had in any way contributed to the disastrous change were to be remorselessly removed. He now told the people in public meeting what his intentions were. All who had borne office as praetors, quaestors, or military tribunes, or who had co-operated with the enemy since the agreement made with the consul Scipio in the previous year, were to be first put to death. Forty senators and about sixteen hundred equites were at once named, Sulla remarking that there were others whom he could not at present remember. Everywhere the execu- tioners — chiefly his Celtic guards — were sent in the track of the condemned, not only in Rome but in all the cities of Italy. Death was denounced on all who sheltered, and a large reward promised to all who could prove that they had killed any of them. The vagueness which attended the announcement of the first batch of victims added to the horror of the time ; and it was perhaps with a view of confining the executions to the persons he desired to get rid of that he adopted the plan, recommended in the Senate by C. Metellus, of putting up a list of the condemned in the Forum. Even then, the terrible uncertainty was not removed, for the first pro- scription list was followed by at least two others, and they seem to have been so carelessly supervised by Sulla himself that alterations and additions were always possible. Full rein was thus given to private hatred or covetousness, and many a man perished because he had incurred a neighbour's enmity, or possessed what another desired. Nothing was easier than to get a man's name on the list, and sometimes, as Catiline is said to have done in the case of his own brother, the murder was first committed and the name after- wards inserted. Proscription involved confiscation of property, and Sulla enriched himself with what he called his " spoils," and allowed his friends and freedmen to enrich themselves by pur- chasing for small sums as sectorcs the estates of the dead men, and selling them later on at enormous profit. Even with such deduc- tions the treasury is said to have received about ^4,000,000 from the sales. Many of these executions, perhaps most of those actually carried out in Rome, seem to have taken place while Sulla held no official rank except the military one of proconsul. For what remained to be done, some position recognised within the city seemed necessary. He therefore sent a letter to the Senate expressing an opinion that, in the disordered state of the republic, supreme power ought to be entrusted to some one in order to restore the state, and that he was willing to undertake the task. The Senate of course complied, and as one of the consuls was dead, and the other out of Italy, the old expedient of an interrex was adopted. L. Valerius Flaccus, princeps SULLA DICTATOR 647 or constitut- senatus, was elected, and proposed a bill to the people appointing Bill ft Sulla dictator, with full power of legislation and government every- constit where, and without any limit of time. This would not prevent the "'* ^^^ election of the usual magistrates, but would subject them in their '^!^*''*'^' admmistrative acts entirely to the viajus imperium of the dictator. 82"^" ^'' The office had been in abeyance for 120 years; nor was the new dictatorship like the office of former times except in name. The irregularity of his mode of appointment— by bill, instead of on the nomination of a consul— might perhaps be regarded as unimportant, and had something like a precedent in the case of Fabius Cunctator ; his assumption of twenty-four lictors merely raised a disputed ques- tion in archaeology : 1 where Sulla's dictatorship differed from former dictatorships was first in absence of any limit of time— the old dictators having been confined to six months, and constantly U7iconstl- abdicating sooner— and secondly in the words expressing his com- tutional petence. Of old dictators had been named for the routine pur- ^^^ti^re of poses of holding elections {comitioriwi habe7idoruin c,\ for suppress- ^^^ ""ffi"^^- ing seditions {sedandae seditionis c.\ or for taking the command of the army {rei gere?idae c). But Sulla was appointed to settle the constitution {rez piiblicae coiistitiiendae c.\ which gave him authority to propose every kind of legislation, however much opposed to the spirit of existing laws and customs, without any of the usual checks from Senate or Tribune. To be binding after his dictatorship his laws had to be passed by the centuries, but his unlimited coercive powers would make that a mere form. He was now practically master and monarch, and might well have forborne the mean revenge of ordering the ashes of his great rival Marius to be torn from their grave and scattered on the Aesis. The bill constituting Sulla dictator contained clauses giving him Limitation indemnity for the past and confirming his acts; but also it appears of time of limiting the time during which proscriptions should continue, and ^f'''-^^''^^ sales of confiscated property hold good, to the ist of June 81. This period was probably not longer than was necessary to carry out his plans in Italy, where certain towns still held out, Nola in Campania, Aesernia in Samnium, Volaterra in Etruria,— and had to be reduced. This was made an occasion for disfranchising them and other towns. Sulla did not break his promise of not repealing the Julian law or reversing Cinna's arrangement, which allowed Italians to be enrolled in all the tribes. Special laws or edicts 1 Livy says that no dictator ever had twenty-four hctors before ; but as Poly- bius (iii. 87). Dionysius (x. 24), Plutarch [Fab. i), and Appian [B. Civ. i. 100) all say that a dictator had twenty-four lictors, there may at least have been a diversity of opinion on a subject now a matter of almost ancient history. The last dictatorship was in 202, and then only for holding the comitia. ttons and confisca- tions. 648 HISTORY OF ROME CHAr. Pun I sh- in cut of Samnuim and rebellious Italian towns. Si-79- The new constitu- tion. The Senate. prohibited the inhabitants of particular towns, or certain individuals and their sons, from being so enrolled ; the general law was left untouched. But, in fact, he made it unimportant : for he confiscated vast tracts of land in all parts of Italy; and so nearly depopulated the great scat of disaffection, Samnium, that the towns became mere villages, and whole districts were almost left empty to receive the new colonies of veterans, of whom forty-seven legions, according to Livy, or twenty-three, according to the more moderate statement of Appian, were planted in the empty farms. This was his notion of Romanising Italy -} and it was in fact the most permanent of all his measures. His triumph over Mithridates was celebrated on the istof Feb- ruary (81) with all splendour. He assumed the titles of Felix and Epaphroditus, as though he were the special favourite of fortune and love ; and then went on with the constitutional changes for which he had sought the dictatorship. His object was to restore the oli- garchy, with the control of the Senate rendered effective over every magistrate and every department — resting, indeed, ultimately for authority on the people, but a people purged of many elements of sedition, and looking to the Senate and the consuls for guidance in legislation rather than to tribunes. The Senate, now much thinned by war and massacre, was strengthened by the addition of 300 of the most respectable equites. Their names seem to have been selected by Sulla, but each was submitted to a vote of the centuries. This was only a measure for the nonce. It would not be needed for the future ; for henceforth the quaestorship was to entitle a man to a seat ; and as the numlicr of quaestors was now, owing to the multiplied spheres of duty, raised to twenty, and that of the praetors to eight, there were enough magistrates elected each year to fill up vacancies. It was not a new thing to thus replenish the Senate from the magistracy, but it was now to work automatically, without the necessity of a quin- quennial revision of the censors.- The importance of the censors was already decreased by the fact that, since the tributum was no ^ Sulla is accused of allowing his treatment of particular towns to be influenced by the payment of money (("ic. de off. iii. 22, 87). This may mean, not that he took bribes, but that he allowed towns to commute their offence for a fine to the exchequer. 2 The magistrates and ex-magistrates sat and spoke in the Senate up to this time, but were not senators till the censor made up the list with their names in it. This interval seems to have been abolished by Sulla ; they now became senators at once. The censor's powers were farther curtailed by Clodius in 58 ; and though that law was repealed by Metellus in 52, the office, as far as the exercise of the right of affixing the nota and revising the Senate was concerned, became impossible ; and the last censors appointed (in 50) were unwilling to accept the duties, and did nothing. XL SULLA'S CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES 649 longer paid by the citizens, a census of property was unnecessary. 81 yg. Another reason for their existence now disappeared, and, in fact, the office fell into abeyance : none were appointed till 70, and then it seems without the power of making up the roll of the Senate. The regulations as to the government of the provinces were also The calculated to increase the power of the Senate. Henceforth consuls magistrates and praetors were to stay in Rome during their year of office, and ^^^^^-j^^^ only to have military imperium in their second year in one of the provinces. The particular province which each was to have was still usually decided by lot ; but the Senate arranged beforehand which were to be consular and which praetorian provinces, or could withdraw any particular province from allotment, and so prolong the tenure of any one whom they wished to remain. On the other hand, he was bound not to pass the limits of his province in arms without order from the Senate,^ and to leave it within thirty days of the arrival of his successor, retaining however his imperium until he arrived in Italy, or, if he claimed a triumph, which depended on a vote of the Senate as before, till he entered Rome. The Senate, therefore, at least in theory, controlled the men with military imperium, and could recall them or lengthen their tenure of it. The recent innovations on the tenure of the consulship, marked by the seven consulships of the elder Marius and the election of the younger Marius at twenty-seven, were now forbidden. Not only were the regulations as to age to be reinforced, but no one was to be praetor who had not been quaestor, or consul who had not been praetor. The highest magistracy would, therefore, only be held by men of official experience and sober age. " One should be rower before taking the helm," was Sulla's comment when he saw the gory head of the younger Marius. The Comitia tributa was still to elect the lower magistrates ; but The it practically ceased under Sulla's arrangement, as probably in that comitia. made in his consulship in 88, to pass laws, to be consulted and addressed on public affairs, or to judge in cases affecting the caput of a citizen. These functions were transferred to the centuriate assembly, in which property and age still had the preponderating influence, and to the quaestiones perpetiiae^ in which all public charges were now tried. But while the Italian towns were to be peopled by Gives new citizens drawn from Sulla's veterans, the urban electorate was Comelii. modified by the addition of more than 10,000 slaves of masters who had fallen in arms against him or had been proscribed. They were made full citizens, and enrolled in the urban tribes under the general name of Cornelii, a measure which might be called a noble act of ^ The le.y Cornelia de majestafc (Cicero /// Pis. § 50). 650 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Si-79- The tribunes. The sacred colleges. Sulla s criminal code. Senators jurymen instead of equites. justice, if we could think it done from regard to the natural rights of men, and not rather with a view to strengthen his own hold upon the populace of the city. The tribuneship, again, lost much of its power and prestige. It had indeed wandered far from its original purpose. The auxilium of the tribunes was less and less frequently needed as the administration of the law became more settled ; and they had used their veto chiefly for political ends, generally as tools of a party in the Senate, and to check liberal legislation proposed by any one of their number more mindful than the rest of his proper functions. They had, therefore, ceased to interest the people at large, while Sulla feared the confusion which their powers, if freely exercised, might introduce in the control which it was his object to give to the Senate. They now practically lost their legislative function, for they were forbidden to propose measures without previous sanction of the Senate, or to summon and address the people ; and the office was rendered unattractive to men of ability by the rule which made tribunes ineligible to all other offices. Their right of veto was not wholly taken away, but was restricted in some way not accurately known. Finally the colleges of sacerdotes and augures, which since 104 had by the lex Domitia been filled by election in the Coinitia t?-iln(hi, recovered their right of co-optation ; and the much-coveted member- ship was thereby kept more strictly in the hands of a few families. Besides these organic political changes, Sulla showed extra- ordinary diligence in extending or codifying the criminal law and arranging for its administration. In doing this he followed the precedent of the /ex Calpnr?na in 149. The general principle, that it was the part of the comitia to order the investigation of a public charge by a committee representing it, was maintained ; but, as the lex Caipur7iia had established a standing commission to investigate charges of malversation {lie 7-epetiimiis).^ so Sulla now established nine new standing commissions to try cases of various defined crimes.^ Each would have certain peculiarities in its composition or pro- cedure, but they were all alike in the fact of the juries being drawn from the roll of the Senate, instead of the equestrian order, and in being presided over usually by one of the six praetors,^ — the civil business being left to the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus. It would no longer be necessary for a magistrate to bring in a bill ^ They were de majestate, de sicariis et venejiciis, de parricidio, de pectilatu, de atnbitu, de nummis adulterinis , defalsis, de vi publica. 2 When there was more business than the six praetors could do, it was usual to appoint special presidents — judices quaestio7ium — apparently by lot among ex-aediles. who would usually be praetors the next year. Both classes of presidents are spoken of in general terms as quaesitores. XL POMPEY IN SICILY AND AFRICA 651 before the people to secure the prosecution of any one of these 8i-jg. crimes. Any citizen might now bring the offender to trial : and in fact it became the regular way for a young man courting popular favour, as a preparation for curule office, to prosecute some of the governors of provinces or party leaders at home. The general aim was no doubt to protect the provinces, check the magistrates, strengthen the control of the Senate, and depress the equestrian order, — an aim but imperfectly attained even for a time. The equestrian order, indeed, was a special object of his attack. Large The numbers were put on the proscription lists ; they lost their right ^liiit^^^- to sit on juries ; and Sulla's arrangement for the five years' taxes in Asia deprived them for a time of a profitable field of enter- prise, though before long the publicani were again at work there. Sulla retained power long enough to see that the new constitu- tion should at any rate be tried. He was consul himself in 80 ; but declined re-election for 79, apparently because his new law was then in operation : and when Lucretius Ofella, — the victor at Praeneste, — ventured to appear as a candidate for the consulship Assassin- without having previously been praetor, and refused to withdraw on ^^^^'^ "f Sulla's order, he sent a soldier to cut him down in the Forum, and told ^'/If^"^ those who appealed to hmi on the tribunal to punish the assassin that it had been done by his direction. He was not, however, able or willing to crush the rising influence Pompey in of Pompey, who insisted on a triumph for his actions in Africa, and -^^'^^d' o-nd dared to tell him, when he objected, that "more worshipped the '^^'^l^"' rising- than the setting sun." Pompey had been sent to Sicily at the end of 82 to put down the remains of the party of Carbo, entertained there by the praetor M. Perpenna, who had returned a resolute defiance to Sulla's message demanding his submission. At Pompey's approach he fled, and Sicily remained under Pompey's Death of government. Carbo himself was on his way to Sicily from Africa, ^^''l''^- and sent forward M. Brutus to see whether Pompey had arrived. Brutus being caught off Lilybaeum killed himself; and Carbo took refuge in the island of Cossyra, half way between Sicily and Africa, but was there arrested, brought to Pompey, and at once executed and his head sent to Rome. While engaged in organising affairs in Sicily, in doing which he gained a high reputation for justice and incorruptibility, Pompey received an order from Sulla to cross to Africa, where Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cinna's son-in-law, who had been proscribed and fled to Africa, had taken over the Defeat of troops of the praetor Fabius Hadrianus (burnt in his own praetorium -^heriobar- at Utica), and by the assistance of Hiarbas, a pretender to the throne of Numidia, collected a considerable force. Domitius fell in 652 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Triumph of Pompey on the 12th of March 81.^ His rela- tions with Sulla. Sulla abdicates the dic- tatorship, 79- battle with, it is said, 17,000 out of the 20,000 of his army. Hiarbas ! was captured and put to death, and Hiempsal restored to the throne of Numidia — all within forty days. Returning to Rome, Pompey was met by the dictator at the head of a great procession, and addressed by him with the cognomen of Magnus, which he thence- forth adopted. His claim to a triumph, however, was in strictness barred by the fact that he was a privatus, his rank in Sicily and Africa having been that of propraetor only. Sulla tried to persuade him to forbear asking it, and when it was referred to the Senate openly opposed it. Pompey, however, was firm, and Sulla gave way with the half-contemptuous expression, " Let him triumph then ! " Nor was this the only point in which Pompey dared to oppose Sulla. It seems from coins that he assumed the title of proconsul instead of the lower one of propraetor, under which he had been sent to Sicily and Africa ; and in 79 he supported M. Aemilius Lepidus in his canvass for the consulship against Sulla's express wish and warn- ing. Lepidus was elected even before Sulla's candidate O. Lutatius Catulus. It seems the more surprising, in view of such proof of diminished influence, that Sulla should have ventured to divest himself of supreme power. It is true that all the provinces were now in the hands of his partisans ; that Italy was everywhere dotted with settlements of his veterans, whose interests would induce them to maintain the validity of his laws ; and that the urban voters in the centuries were for various causes influenced by the same consideration. Still the party of his enemies was not destroyed, and there must have been many whose resentment he would have to fear. His resignation, therefore, seems another instance of that bold trust in chance which characterised so many of his actions in war as well as peace. " He never succeeded so well," he used to say, " as when he made least preparation." He looked upon himself as pre-eminently the favourite of fortune. He not only called himself Felix, but his son and daughter Faustus and Fausta. He may haxe been tired of power and resolved to risk it. Happily for himself, perhaps, he did not live long enough to test the gratitude of friends or to give free scope to the ill-will of enemies. He abdicated the dictatorship towards the end of 79, and retired to his villa at Cumae, where in the society of artists, actors, musicians, and men of letters, he gave free vent to 1 This date is deduced from Licinianus, fr. of bk. 36. Clinton has fixed it in September 81, which certainly seems more reasonable. If the 12th March given by Licinianus is to be accepted it would seem more likely to be in 80. But Livy (Ep. 89) says he was twenty-four years old, and on the 30th of September 81 he would be twenty-five. Therefore according to Livy the triumph must have been before the end of September 81. XL SULLA'S DEATH AND CHARACTER 653 his taste for literature and art as well as luxury, though he still interfered in the local politics of the neighbouring town of Puteoli. Before many months had passed he was attacked by a loathsome and painful disease, and seems to have had presages of death, — Sulla's Chaldaeans had assured him that he was to die at the height of death, j8. his good fortune : his son by Metella (whom he had divorced on her death -bed because engaged in a solemn festival for which he would be unfitted by contact with the dead) had appeared in his dreams and invited him to come with him to his mother. He prepared for his end with calmness, busying himself with the composition of his memoirs until two days before it came. Thus the man whose hands were so deeply dyed in the blood of His his fellow-citizens, the scourge of Greece and Asia, the destroyer of funeral. Samnium, died, like his great rival Marius, quietly in his bed ; and in spite of some opposition on the part of the consul Lepidus, was honoured by a magnificent funeral procession to the Campus , Martins, where his body was burned, and a monument erected with an inscription, said to be composed by himself, affirming I that no friend had outdone him in benefits or foe in injuries. Per- I haps he struck the true keynote of his career when he called himself Estimate of I " lucky." He certainly had been supremely fortunate at more than ^'ull<^- I one crisis in his career. Coming to the Jugurthine war almost at j the eleventh hour, by a curious series of chances he all but robbed I Marius of the credit of finishing it. His enemy Fimbria had all but 1 reduced Mithridates to despair, when the opportune appearance of \ Lucullus and his fleet gave Sulla all the advantage of what the i other had done. In the Civil war, while he was all but beaten i himself, both at Clusium and the Colline Gate, he was excellently I served by others. Pompey, Crassus, Metellus, Ofella struck the I decisive blows in the war from which he reaped all the profit. A j great soldier rather than a great general, he showed a courage on I the field — partly born of fatalism — which inspired others, and saved ] him from situations into which a greater strategist would not perhaps jhave fallen. By a mixture of severity towards breaches of military I duty which affected success, and indulgence towards crimes which I were only the offspring of cruelty or avarice, he won and retained the devotion of his army. Dissolute, cynical, and cruel, he could 5 have possessed the love of few in civil life ; yet by two characteristics — definite clearness as to what he desired and utter disregard of human life in attaining it^he not only gained supreme power, but, what was more surprising, left it with safety. To the admirer of the Roman libertas, — that tyranny of the few under republican forms, — this homage to the constitution seemed to compensate for many crimes. 654 HISTORY OF ROME Yet in neither of the two great works of his Hfe was he really success- ful. Mithridates was not crushed, but was soon at war with Rome again. The constitution, which he had created or restored at the cost of so much blood, stood unshaken for scarcely ten years, and finally collapsed in the great Civil war, in which men who shared his achievements or suffered under his tyranny as youths, took principal parts when scarcely past middle age. Italy becomes an extended Ro?ne. Cisalpine Caul. The new Italy. The most permanent part of Sulla's work was the Romanising of Italy. Though certain cities and individuals were disfranchised for the time, Italy became an extended Rome, — the pomoerium, as it were, being pushed up to the Rubicon, south of which no provincial governor might come with an army, and especially no governor of Gaul, without laying down his imperium. Cisalpine Gaul itself was on the way to become part of Italy. The three Roman colonies, Mutina, Parma, and Eporedia, had always enjoyed the citizenship, and at the close of the Social war the four " Latin " colonies — Placentia, Bononia, Cremona, Aquileia — obtained the same rights. Again in 89 the lex Pompeia organised the native communities south of the Po on the model of the Italian municipia, and gave the inhabitants the position oi pe?'egri?ti, which like the Laliiiitas secured them conubium and commercium, though not the suffrage, except in the case of provincial magistrates. Thus, though Gallia Cisalpina remained a province and was governed by a propraetor or proconsul until after the death of Caesar, it was on a peculiarly favourable footing, and was so filled with Roman citizens that it became known as Gallia Togata^ as distinguished from Gaul beyond the Alps. But Italy south of the Rubicon was now united and organised as head of the Empire. The old system of planting colonies in it for military purposes, as though amidst a hostile population, came to an end. Coloni indeed were still established in various parts, and with the old formalities of the military colony, 1 but their purpose was now the provision for poor citizens or veteran soldiers, not military defence.2 Since the lex lulia (89) they enjoyed no higher political status than other cities. All alike came under certain general laws such as the lex lulia municipalis of Caesar, all shared in the 1 Cicero, 2 Phil. § 102. 2 The Italian colonies before the Punic wars have been given on p. 156. Those settled afterwards were : — I. " Latin" : Brundisium (244), Spoletium (241), Copia or Thurii (193), Valenlia or Vibo (192), Pisae (180). II. Roman : Pyrgi (191), Puteoli, Volternum, Liternum, Salernum, Buxentum, Sipontum, Tempsa, Croton (194), Potentia, Pisaurum (184), Saturnia (183), Graviscae (181), Luna (180), Auximum (157), Fabrateria (124), Minervia at Scylacium, and Neptunia at Tarentum (122). THE ORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE 655 immunity from tributum,! ^nd only had the same obhgation as to military service as other cities. The right of voting was of little value perhaps to men who seldom went to Rome, but such as it was they possessed it : and, what was more valuable, they had the citizen's protection or remedy against the arbitrary acts of Roman magistrates. The old differences of internal government still kept up the distinction between coloniae, municipia, praefecturae, conciliabula and fora, — but from the standpoint of political status all alike might be classed as municipia, in which all who enjoyed the municipal franchise were thereby Roman citizens. ^ Therefore the military " colonies " formed by Sulla and others are not to be classed with those of former times, — the list of which may now be considered closed, — -but were rather systematic grants of land. "Latin" colonies could no longer be planted in Italy ; but though the pre- cedent of the Carthaginian lunonia of C. Gracchus in 122 was followed in 118 in the case of Narbo Martins, where the coloni retained their citizenship, colonies in the provinces hereafter had only a restricted citizenship analogous to the old Latinitas. Italy, thus organised, was at the head of an empire already The extent stretching across Europe ; and the territories afterwards added were ^f^'^^^ in some cases, as in Gaul, Greece, and Egypt, already preparing to accept her power, in others were in a sense merely consequential accretions, necessary for the development or defence of that already possessed. There were now ten provinces^ governed by a propraetor Ten or proconsul, with a quaestor and staff, with difoj-imila or charta, under provinces. a law passed in the case of each according to its special circumstances. Their administration gave employment and chances of wealth to many Romans, both among the aristocrats and the middle class. But they also contributed to the greatness of Rome by the auxiliaries which Their they supplied to her army and fleet, and the tribute paid to her exchequer. This tribute was raised in various ways. In Sicily and ij^'perial Asia a tenth {deciimd) of the produce of the year — in wine, oil, wheat, exchequer 1 The twelve colonies which in 209 refused their contingents were in 204 subjected to the census and tributum like Roman citizens (Livy xxix. 15, ■^']), but from the latter they would be freed like the other citizens in 168. ^ To put it differently, a man who was a citizen of one of these towns was ipso facto a Roman citizen, but what constituted him a citizen of one of these towns was still different in different municipia, coloniae, etc. ^ Sicily, Sardinia with Corsica, Hispania Citerior, Hispania Ulterior, Gallia Cisalpina, Gallia Narbonensis, Macedonia, Africa, Asia, Cilicia. Besides these Illyricum or Dalmatia was partly organised, paid tribute, and was under pro- tection, but it seems that no annual governor was sent there regularly till the time of Caesar. Cyrenaica had been left to Rome (95), but had not yet been made a province in form. Egypt it was said, had also been bequeathed, and at any rate its kings depended on Roman support. Greece was partly incorporated with Macedonia, partly enjoyed a nominal freedom. con- tributions to the 656 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Decuma, fortoria, scripttira. Stipend- iu?n. Indiffer- ence at Rome to the East. The new generatio?i. oats, and other grains — was transmitted to Rome.i Customs {por- toria), and a charge for the use of the pasture land {scripttira)^ which had been reserved in the several states, were paid in money. There was this distinction between the two provinces : in Sicily the contracts for farming the revenue were sold at Syracuse ; for Asia, by the censors in Rome, In the other provinces a fixed sum was paid {stipendiwn or iribiitum\ but the manner of assessing it differed in the several provinces, or even in the several communities in the pro- vinces, generally in accordance with the fiscal arrangements existing before the Roman occupation. In every province there were certain cities which, either as a reward for services, or in consequence of terms made at their surrender, were free from the stipendium {im- imtnes). But even these shared in the special land tax {tributimi soli)^ which was raised to pay the expenses of the praetor and his staff, or to defray the cost of war. Besides these sources of revenue the Roman exchequer received a royalty on mines, saltworks, and fisheries, which, like the customs and pasture rents in the several communities within the province,- were paid in money. Like our own Indian Empire this great empire had been built up by men able and active, though sometimes cruel and corrupt, often with little direction or control from home, where the chief interest felt was in the wealth poured into the treasury and the games and shows which accompanied the triumphs. In regard to no part of the empire was this indifference more conspicuous or more harmful in its consequences than in the East, The pirates of Cilicia and Crete swept the Aegean, crippling commerce and ruining cities, and the Romans seemed not to be moved till the audacity of these sea-rovers brought them actually into Italy. Dynasties rose and fell in Asia without seriously disturbing the minds of statesmen or people ; and the good or ill government of the provincials was regarded, not so much a matter for energetic interference and reform, as affording opportunities for party triumphs and personal revenge. Meanwhile the last years of Sulla's life introduce us to a group of men who were to play prominent parts in the closing scenes of the republic, and who, either from the greater abundance of the records remaining of them, or the more permanent import of their work, occupy a larger share than almost any other in the imagina- 1 The publican! calculated the average produce and undertook to transmit a tenth to Rome, making their profit by the excess of the produce over the estimate. A bad harvest, therefore, or a careless collection might cause them to lose heavily ; and in their eagerness for business they sometimes made so high an estimate as to overreach themselves. ^ A province consisted of a collection of urban communities with a recognised territory. But in each there was usually a reserve of public land. XL THE NEW GENERATION AND LITERATURE 657 tion of posterity. Pompey had triumphed in 81 ; Caesar had served his first campaign ; Crassus had laid the foundation of his colossal fortune at the auctions of the Sullan confiscation ; Catiline had committed his first crime ; Cicero had delivered his first speech in a public cause ; M. Terentius Varro, " the most learned of the Romans," was already forty years old, and yet survived them all. With the new men a new literary development was taking place, j-jj^ „^^ The most characteristic and flourishing department was that of literature. oratory. It was natural that it should be so. Most of the upper class desired public office, and one of the surest claims to it was the reputation, not only for skill in addressing Senate or people, but even more for the power of convincing juries, v/ho, being senators or I equites, were above the average in education and intelligence. Ac- cordingly every man of note in this and the previous age was more or less of an orator ; many of them left speeches written out for Orators. ; publication, as Africanus, the Gracchi, Metellus Macedonicus, and many others. The most noted of all before the time of Cicero was M. Antonius (143-87), the grandfather of the triumvir, ( and L. Licinius Crassus (140-91), long looked up to as models j on which young Roman orators should form their style. But in \ other ways also the mass of Roman literature (though only frag- \ ments survive) had been steadily swelling and developing in new ' directions. L. Attius (170-104) had kept to the custom of adapting ' Greek tragedies ; but T. Ouintius Atta (ob. 78) and L. Afranius ] (b. 154) had been prolific in fabulae togatae — comedies on Roman Comediae 1 subjects with titles drawn from Roman festivals or stories. Above tog^-tae. all C. Lucilius (148-103) had almost created a new department of , literature in his satirae., which handled subjects of the day and Satire. I3 started a form of composition claimed as wholly Roman by Quin- j(j tilian, afterwards so brilliantly used by Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. j] It was also an age of memoir-writing. Q. Catulus, the victor at Memoirs. jVercellae, Sulla himself, and P. Rutilius Rufus all left memoirs J behind them ; while more formal history was represented by L. Lu- History. jjcullus on the Social war, Piso on the Civil wars of Marius and Sulla, and by a number of Annalists. In jurisprudence there were already Jurispru- many eminent names, especially those of the two Scaevolae. And deuce. Greek philosophy, which, however imperfectly understood, was to Philosophy. influence so profoundly the best men at Rome, had already been H expounded by the stoic C. Blosius of Cumae, by Q. Tubero, Q. Scaevola the augur, L. Aelius Stilo, and others. Thus both the in- tellectual life at Rome and her foreign dominion were assuming the form which they presented at their highest development. In social life we may notice, first, that family life in Rome was being much undermined by the facility of divorce. Divorce was 2 u 6s8 HISTORY OF ROME known in early times and provided for by the XII Tables, but was so rare that that of Carvilius (231) was spoken of as the first. It is probable that the most solemn matrimony — that by coiifarreatio — was indissoluble except in the gravest circumstances. But marriage in manus or usiis^ which became the prevalent form, was easily dis- soluble by the mere will of either of the pair ; and though Cicero's remark on Pompey's divorce, that it was " generally approved," shows that public opinion was not always favourable, yet it had evidently become exceedingly common, and tended to be more and more so. Secondly, enormous private fortunes were becoming common, and establishments were maintained on an almost in- credible scale. The slaves in a rich man's house were counted by hundreds, every department of household work, dress, and comfort had their special attendants. Crassus thought no man rich whose income could not support an army. Lucullus could spend 50,000 denarii on a single feast. Cicero, who had little paternal wealth, and was forbidden by the lex Cincia (204) to take fees, yet ac- knowledges the receipt of a sum equal to ^160,000 in legacies, and mentions at least seven villas belonging to him besides his town house. In many cases this wealth came from the plunder of provinces. The most conspicuous example of this was C. Verres. As pro-quaestor of Cilicia (80-79) he had not only enriched himself with money, but with works of art from numberless towns in Asia and Achaia. This he carried on to an incredible extent in his three years as propraetor in Sicily (73-71). No chicane, no art, no violence was omitted to wring from towns, nobles, and rich men their money or the most cherished objects of religious or ancestral veneration. His trial took place in 70, and was of special importance as testing the impartiality of the senatorial courts. But though Cicero by his exer- tions made his condemnation inevitable, he was able, on retiring to Marseilles to escape it, to retain the vast majority of his ill-gotten gains, and to live in profusion and luxury till, in 43, he fell an unpitied victim to the proscriptions of the Triumvirs. Authorities. — Plutarch, Lives of Sulla, Pompey, IaicuUus, Sertorii/s^ Crassus. Livy, Ep. 84-90. Appian, B. Civ. i. 79-108 (the only continuous narrative). Florus iii. 21. Dion Cassius, fr. 106-110. Diodorus, fr. of xxxvii. Orosius v. 20-22. Zonaras x. i. Cicero's speech in defence of Roscius of Ameria (81 or 80) refers directly to a circumstance rising out of the proscriptions. His Verrine Oratiofis and Letters to his brother Quintus are the best authorities for the treat- ment of the provinces. CHAPTER XLI WARS IN ITALY, SPAIN, AND THE EAST Lepidus attempts to rescind Sulla's acts — He is sent to Etruria (78) — Attacks Rome — Is defeated and goes to Sardinia {77) — Sertorius in Spain — Defeats many Roman armies — The campaigns of Metellus (79-76) — Sertorius joined by Perpenna and partisans of Lepidus (77) — Negotiates with Mithridates (75-74) — Pompey in Spain (76-74) — Death of Sertorius (72) — Rebellion of gladiators and slaves under Spartacus (73-71) — Victories of Crassus (72-71) — Second war with Mithridates under Murena (83-81) — Wars with Thracians and with the pirates (78-74) — Third war with Mithridates and campaigns of Lucullus( 74-67) — BiTHYNiA left to the Roman people(74) — Battle atChalcedon and siege of Cyzicus (73) — Naval victories (72) — Battle of Cabira (71) — Mith- ridates in Armenia (71-69) — Lucullus invades Armenia, battle at Tigranocerta (69) — Battle of Arsanias (68) — Mutiny in the Roman army (67) — Recall of Lucullus (67). Sulla was no sooner dead than the opposition to his system revived. Coss. M. The consul Lepidus, whose appointment Pompey had regarded as a Aemihus triumph over Sulla, was not long in showing his hand. He was just qK'^^\ the sort of man of whom Sulla had desired to cleanse the state, and ^^^^ Catu- had returned from his praetorship in Sicily (80) infamous for extor- lus, 78. tion and tyranny ; while his colleague, a strong supporter of the Optimates, is represented by Cicero as one of the best and most j honest of men. The two were at any rate always at variance, and Lepidus seems to have relied for support on the discontent existing I in the Italian communities, on which Sulla's hand had been heavy. He began by opposing the ex-dictator's public funeral, but withdrew in deference to Pompey, who, in spite of his inclination to the side of the Populares, his strained relations with Sulla during the last years of his life, and the slight of being passed over without mention in his will, still wished to pay him this last honour. Soon afterwards JReacHon- he brought in a series of laws intended to rescind Sulla's acta. He «0' policy was not indeed prepared to restore the tribunitian power,i but he ^ Lepidus. 1 Verum ubi convenerant Tr. PI. consules uti tribuniciam potestatem restituerent, negavit prior Lepidus, et in contione magna pars adsensast dicenti, non esse utile restitui tribuniciam potestatem, Licimatius (who alone records this). 66o HISTORY OF ROME War of Lepidus, yj. Death of Lepidus. War with Sertorius in Spain, 77-72. carried a law without opposition to renew the distribution of cheap corn, and proposed to recall those who had been banished by Sulla, and restore the lands which had been divided among the veterans to their owners. The contention between the two consuls became so vehement, that the Senate was glad to send both into Etruria, to put down a rising of certain of those dispossessed owners who were forcibly recovering their estates. The Senate had required them to swear not to turn their arms against each other ; but Lepidus regarded the oath as only binding during his consul- ship : next year as proconsul of Narbonensis he would have a free hand. The Senate in alarm ordered him back to Rome, to hold the elections, but he declined to come ; and as Catulus could not safely leave his army, the new year opened without consuls, and Appius Claudius was appointed interrex. With the spring of 77 Lepidus prepared for action. Leaving his legate M. Brutus in com- mand of the valley of the Po with an army at Mutina, he marched against Rome. He found Catulus waiting for him at the Milvian Bridge, and was decisively defeated there, or, as some say, in the Campus Martins, to which Catulus had retired. He retreated to Cosa in Etruria, followed by Catulus, and had to fight again in order to take ship for Sardinia, where he shortly afterwards died from disease, — aggravated by chagrin at his failure ; at the loss of his son Scipio, who had shut himself up in Alba but had been starved out and executed; and, as some say, at the discovery of the unfaithfulness of his wife. Pompey, who had determined to support the Senate, and had received a military command, then marched against Brutus in Mutina. Brutus did not await his attack, but retired to Regium (seventeen miles off) with an escort of cavalry, and there next day was killed by Geminius on the order of Pompey.^ The Optimates had thus for the time successfully defended the Sullan constitution. But a formidable danger was also threatening in Spain. Quintus Sertorius left Italy after the battle of Tifata, at the end of 83, to take up the government of farther Spain as pro- praetor. Some say that he did so under pressure of Cinna and the younger Marius, who found his counsels inconvenient. However that may be, he made himself popular with the Roman residents by his mildness and equity, and with the natives by wise measures, as well as by liberal gifts. He knew that Sulla would supersede him, and had left his legatus lulius Salinator with 6000 men to block the road over the Pyrenees. But when Sulla's nominee, Gaius Annius, appeared, Salinator was murdered ; his soldiers abandoned their entrenchments ; and Annius marched down the country with 1 Scandal said that he surrendered on promise of his life. XLi SERTORIUS IN SPAIN 66i a large army. Sertorius, who had only 3000 men, retired into SertoHus New Carthage, and thence crossed to Mauritania with ships and crosses to men. Repulsed there, and (Jogged by the ships of Annius from -^A^'^^- island to island, he passed through the Straits and landed near the mouth of the Baetis, accompanied by some Cilician pirate vessels. Here he was told by sailors of delightful islands in the Atlantic where the climate was charming, the means of life abundant, and peace unbroken. He longed, it is said, for this rest from war and trouble ; but his Cilician auxiliaries preferred arms and plunder, and he had to cross to Africa again, where, in support of the Mauritani, who were rebelling against their king, he took Tangier, having first defeated Sulla's legate Paccianus. His fame now induced the Lusitani to invite him to become their Sertorius leader. He therefore crossed once more to Spain, and quickly l^'^d^i' established a great reputation among the simple country folk, which "{ •. • he enhanced by a pretence of Divine aid. A favourite fawn, given him by a hunter, accompanied his camp, which he allowed it to be understood had been bestowed on him by Diana, and was a pledge of her support. He soon had a large army, constantly supplemented by refugees from Rome who disliked or feared the present regime. He still claimed to have constitutional imperium, but was in fact in open war with Rome. He made frequent raids on Baetica, the southern province ; took many towns ; and defeated the propraetor Q. Fufidius on the Baetis with a loss of 2000 men, and Cotta in a sea- Caecilius \ fight near Gibraltar. Quintus Caecilius, who came as proconsul to ■ '^ i "-^ I farther Spain in 79, found himself in a country devoid of roads, 'vg-yS. \ always liable to be attacked by an enemy whom he yet could not ! bring to battle ; while L. Domitius, governor of the upper province, Fall of L. \ was, with the legate Thorius, defeated and slain by the quaestor of Domitius \ Sertorius. As in the old wars, the Romans were being pushed to -f"^"'^^'^^- the north of the Ebro : and even there Sertorius defeated two I armies, one under L. Valerius Praeconinus on the Sicoris, and DefeatofL. j another under L. Manlius, who had come to the aid of Metellus Valerius yfrom Gallia Narbonensis. In 'j^ he was reinforced by M. Perpenna, ''^^ ' tia legate of the rebellious proconsul Lepidus, who, after the death of yg^ ijhis chief, came from Sardinia with an army and many nobles who ihad been involved in the abortive movement. He was now at the Sertorius .[jhead of a considerable party of citizens; his constitutional preten- ^^^''^^^ ^^ tions were still more insisted upon ; and it was believed that he meant p'. to march against Rome itself It was resolved, therefore, to reinforce y^. i Metellus with a fresh army under Pompeius, already distinguished for services in the Marsic war and in Africa. He was still at the head of a force outside Rome, kept on foot since the rebellion of 'jLepidus ; and he was now elected to the command in Spain as 662 HISTORY OF ROME Pompey goes to Spain, yd. Loss of Lauren, 76. Pompey defeated 7iear Sucro, 7J. Battle of Saguntum. Ser tori Its acknow- ledged by Mithri- dates, 74. 73-72. Position of proconsul, or rather, as his proposer answered some caviller, pro co7isulibiis. The arrival of Pompey inspired new energy in the Roman forces, which had been slackly handled by Metellus, now past fifty and always inclined to a luxurious life. Yet his first essay was unfor- tunate. He advanced to the relief of Lauron, a town south of the Sucro, which had declared for Rome, and was accordingly being besieged by a division of the forces of Sertorius. But he allowed himself to be caught in an unfavourable position, and was forced to look on while the enemy captured and burnt the town. Next spring he again marched south to attack Dianium, the naval headquarters of Sertorius, and port of Sucro, named from a temple of Diana on the foreland. But Sertorius hastened to defend it, and Pompey, beaten and wounded, retired upon Saguntum. There he was joined by Metellus, who had defeated L. Heracleius at Italica. Another desperate battle was fought, in which the cavalry commanded by Sertorius, though losing heavily, routed the Roman cavalry with great loss, though the di\ision commanded by Perpenna was defeated and cut to pieces by Metellus. On the whole, Sertorius had held his own in a remarkable manner. He advanced to the Ebro, occupied Calagurris, and forced Pompey almost out of Spain. A large party in Rome wished him success, and wrote encouraging him to perse- vere ; and about the same time he was visited by Metrophanes, an envoy of Mithridates, The king offered to recognise him as head of the Roman State, and supply him with money and ships, if he would in return acknowledge the king's right to the province of Asia. Sertorius declined this concession, but offered Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Paphlagonia, which were not Roman provinces though under Roman guarantee. But when, at the end of 74, the cjuestion of the Bithynian succession came up, Mithridates sent him 3000 talents and forty ships ; and in return Sertorius sent M. Marius (the One-Eyed) as "proconsul" of Asia, to co-operate with the king. Thus Sertorius was acting as a constitutional magistrate of Rome, dealing with the empire as already under his control, and with a sufficient number of Roman men of rank in his district and camp to keep up the pretence of a Senate, as Pompey was to do in 49-48, and as Sulla had done before. In 73 Pompey was still confined almost to the north-east corner of Spain. He had exhausted his own resources, and had had to ask for money and men from Rome ; which he got the more readily as the consul Lucullus wished for the command against Mithridates, and feared, if Pompey were discouraged in Spain, that he would return home and be sent to Asia instead. As the war Avent on and became more and more wearisome, it was prosecuted with increasing ^I'l REVOLT OF THE GLADIATORS 663 severities on both sides. Sertorius' temper was embittered by Exasper- desertions, and his savage acts of retahation, especially the killing ation of or enslaving of a number of boys at Osca (Huesca), where he had ^^^toHus. ■ himself established a school, alienated the affections of many. He could not trust his Roman bodyguard, but surrounded himself with Celtiberians, who irritated and shamed his Roman adherents by bringing into painful prominence the fact that they were fighting Successes of against their country. The result was that the armies of Metellus Metellus and Pompey made steady progress in forcing the submission of towns ^"^ that had taken part with him ; and though he still performed some ^"""^^^y- brilliant feats, such as forcing Pompey to raise the siege of Pallantia, he must have felt his cause declining. The more that was the case the sharper his temper and the ys. heavier his hand became ; and Perpenna, who had always chafed Murder of under his subordination, beginning to fear for his own safety, re- ^^^^orius. solved to strike the first blow. To celebrate a real or pretended victory he induced Sertorius to attend a banquet, at which, contrary to his known wishes, certain buffooneries were indulged in, which made him turn on his couch away from the table. At this moment I Perpenna gave the signal by dropping a cup, and the guest next \ Sertorius suddenly stabbed him. Attempting to rise, he was dragged ' back by the conspirators and killed, and many of his guards who I were about the house shared his fate. Perpenna, however, did not Perpenna j gain what he hoped. The natives on every side offered their sub- gains mission to Pompey and Metellus, and he soon found his cause ^^^''"'^^ I hopeless ; he had, however, seized Sertorius' papers, among which ^-^ ^^' (were letters from leading men at Rome, and he hoped by ofifer- \mg them to Pompey to purchase his own safety. But Pompey I refused to see him, ordered him to be killed, and the letters to be burnt unread. Resistance was not wholly overcome in Spain ; certain towns Spartacus, still held out, and the horrors of the siege of Calagurris {Calaherrd) 73-7^- have scarcely ever been surpassed. But attention at Rome was 1) turned to dangers nearer home. The custom of exhibiting gladiators. Gladiators. begun in 264, had become thoroughly established. They were the jmost popular of shows, for which the theatres and almost every other amusement were quickly deserted. The unhappy men thus jforced to mutual slaughter to "make a Roman holiday," were ijperhaps at first criminals, whose lives were forfeited in any jcase, like the slaves brought from Sicily, or at any rate were jprisoners of war. But as the fashion extended the wealthy began }to pride themselves on training the best fighters, and Hkely men |were bought up in every direction. The people of the north ere specially valued for the purpose on account of their size and 664 HISTORY OF ROME 72. Continued victories of Spartacus. Coss. L. Gellius Poplicola, Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, 72- Spartacus at Thurii, 72-71. valour. They were confined in training establishments or ludi until wanted, where their food and exercise were specially directed by a trainer or lanista. A large school of this kind at Capua, in which certain Gauls and Thracians were being trained, was owned at this time by one Lentulus. Two hundred of them made a plot to escape. It was discovered, but about eighty contrived to break out ; armed themselves with knives and spits from a neighbouring cook-shop ; and seized some waggons full of arms going to another gladiatorial school. They elected Spartacus, a Thracian of great power and ability, as their captain, and, entrenching themselves on a spur of Mount Vesuvius, resisted all attempts of the forces in Capua to arrest them. One of the praetors, C. Claudius Pulcher, was sent against them, but was defeated and lost his camp. They were now joined by the slaves from the various ergastula in the country round, and soon had a formidable force. Another praetor, P. Varenus, did no better than Claudius, and the slave army daily increased. Varenus' legate Furius was routed ; another member of his staff, Corsinius, lost his life and many men, with all his baggage and camp ; and Varenus himself was again and again beaten in skirmishes. Spar- tacus traversed Italy almost at his will, intending, it is said, to make his way over the Alps to his native land. But his followers were more intent on plunder, and years afterwards Horace could express a half playful doubt whether any of the wine cellars in the country houses had escaped the " wandering Spartacus." 1 The consuls of 75 were despatched with a regular army against them ; and Crixus, one of their commanders, was defeated and killed near Mount Garganus, on the coast of Apulia. But they were in their turn de- feated by Spartacus when they attempted to stop his march to the north. Cassius, proconsul of Gallia, was beaten near Mutina ; and finally Spartacus inflicted a great slaughter on both consuls in Picenum. It was after this victory that he committed almost the only cruelty to be fairly charged against him, when he forced 300 Romans to fight as gladiators at the funeral of Crixus. His followers now forced him to abandon his plan of crossing the Alps ; nor did he venture to advance on Rome. Turning south once more he occupied Thurii for the winter, where merchants crowded in with every kind of goods. Forbidding the importation of gold and silver, he spent the winter in collecting materials of war and forging weapons, and was ready in the spring for still greater enterprises. Such was the terror inspired by him, that, the war having been assigned as the praetorian ' province,' there were no candidates for the praetorship at the end of 72. At length L. Licinius ' ^ Hor. Od. III. 14, 19, Spartacuni si qua potuit vaga7iteni fallere testa. XLi THE FALL OF SPARTACUS 665 Crassus volunteered, and took the field as praetor against Spar- 7/. The tacus, whose movements, however^ were so rapid and incalculable command that it was impossible to settle on a plan of campaign. Crassus S^^'^^'t ^o entered Picenum and sent his legate Mummius to find and follow the enemy, without attacking him. But Mummius could not refrain from battle ; and in it his soldiers behaved so badly, that Defeat of having sternly reprimanded him Crassus punished the men by Mninmius. decimation. Having thus restored discipline he defeated a body of 10,000 slaves, encamped separately, with a loss of two-thirds of their number. He then advanced against Spartacus himself, whom he Spartacus forced to retire into the extreme south, and shut himself up in defeated Rhegium, where he tried to negotiate with some Cilician pirates to ^'^"^f^^^^ transport his army to Sicily. He hoped to rouse the slaves there RheUtnn and cut off a great source of corn supply from Rome. But the Cilicians, though they received his money, put out to sea and left him ; and Crassus, who had followed him, now endeavoured to shut him up in the Bruttian peninsula by a deep trench and bank from I sea to sea somewhere above Scylacium, about thirty miles in length. ! Spartacus, however, with a third of his army contrived to cross it by Spartacus I means of fascines, and made his way towards Thurii. Alarmed lest breaks out. ( he should again march towards Rome, Crassus asked the Senate to I summon Pompey from Spain and M. Lucullus from Macedonia. But he repented of the application when he found that there were I dissensions in the enemy's ranks, and that a large division of them ' had left Spartacus and was encamped by itself, not far from Volci, under Gains Gannicus and Castus. He routed these men, but was I prevented from a pursuit by the appearance of Spartacus, who had I followed him. Yet he presently compelled the combined forces to Defeat of j give him battle, and after a desperate fight killed 12,000 of them, of Spartacus i whom only two are said to have had wounds in the back, Spartacus 'ff*^^,. 1 • 1 1 • T^ 1- 1 1 • T Petelia. j retired to the mountams near Petelia, where he again turned on ( the Roman forces under the legate Quintus and the quaestor Scrofa, I and defeated them, Scrofa himself being severely wounded. But this ^ was the end of his successes. His followers, always difficult to keep in hand, were elated by the victory, and, forcing him to abandon his system of avoiding open battle, insisted on again attacking the I Roman army. M. Lucullus, who had just returned from his province, shut him off from Brundisium, and Crassus was entrenched in his front and had dug a deep trench to prevent his progress. Spartacus, unable to control his men, prepared for a last desperate struggle. He killed his charger as a sign that he would not fly, but looked for victory or death, and hewed his way through the Roman Death of ranks till, deserted by his followers, and fighting fiercely to the last, Spartacus. even when beaten to his knees, he fell at last among such heaps of 666 HISTORY OF ROxME Pompey cuts off the survivi7ig slaves. The slaves crucified. Jij^atrs in the East. Macedonia and Thrace, Appiiis Claudius, 76. C. Scribonius Curio, 75-73- '^^• Luc7illus, 72-JI. p. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, 7S-74. Reorganis- ation of the province of Cilicia. Mure n a and Mith- ridates, 84-81. slain that his body was never recovered. His army was cut to pieces, while the Romans lost about 1000 men. The survivors of the revolted slaves, still numbering many thousands, were scattered over the mountains in four bands, where they were for the most part pursued and killed by Pompey, returning to claim his triumph over Sertorius, who boasted that, though Crassus had won battles, he had cut up the rebellion by the roots. Some still survived near Thurii in 60 ; but 6000 were crucified along the Appian road,^ — a cruelty shamed by the merciful conduct of Spartacus himself, in whose camp some thousands of Roman prisoners were found uninjured. It is difficult to estimate the effect of the horrible spectacle of these corpses bleaching along the great highway in hardening the hearts of a people whose craving for blood and insensibility to human suffering were already fearfully fostered by the shows of the arena. Meanwhile the officers sent yearly to Macedonia and Asia had not been wholly idle. In 76 Appius Claudius, proconsul of Macedonia, had repulsed the Thracian border tribes in several engagements ; and his successor, C. Curio, for the first time carried the Roman arms to the Danube and celebrated a triumph over the Dardani, though they were not finally subdued until the next year by M. Lucullus. From 7Z to 74 P. Servilius Vatia, as proconsul of Cilicia, had been engaged in a successful war with the pirates. Defeated by him at sea they took refuge in the strongholds of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia. Servilius landed in Lycia ; took Olympus, which was defended by a robber chief named Zenicetes ; and then marched through the country into Cilicia, taking various strongholds on the way, ending with Corycus on the Cilician coast. Crossing Mount Taurus into Isauria, he took the capital) of this strange race of mountain robbers, and defeated them in many dangerous engagements. He was greeted by his soldiers with the title of imperator, and on returning home to celebrate his triumph assumed the name of Isauricus. The province of Cilicia was organised and enlarged by the addition of Pamphylia, Pisidia, Isauria, and Cappadocia, and became the most important bulwark of the Roman Empire in the East. But now the Romans found themselves once more involved in a Avar with Mithridates of Pontus. When Sulla left Asia in 84, after making the treaty of Pergamus, he left L. Licinius Murena as propraetor of Asia, with his quaestor L. Lucullus, to see that the terms of the unwritten agreement were observed. Of all the states that had rebelled against Rome only Mitylene still held out. The reduction of that town and island was presently delegated to M. Minucius Thermus, in whose camp C. lulius Caesar, who having defied Sulla, had found it prudent to leave Rome, was making XLI MURENA AND MITHRIDATES 667 his first campaign. Murena was engaged meanwhile in fighting with pirates and deposing Moagetes the tyrant of Cibyra, which he annexed to Phrygia. But he was ambitious to gain credit by a Second victory over Mithridates himself, and therefore picked a quarrel Mithn- with him on the subject of certain parts of Cappadocia which he ^^^^ ^^''' still retained. Archelaus, who had been rewarded by Sulla after negotiating the preliminaries and had been suspected of treason by Mithridates, now openly joined Murena and denounced the ambitious projects of the king. Murena seized on the pretext for crossing the Mureiia Pontic frontier and pillaging the great temple of I sis in Comana ; and i^^^f^d^^ then wintered in Cappadocia, where he seems to have fortified a ^ ' 3- I town, called after his own name Licinia, to defend the country. In I vain Mithridates appealed to the treaty. Murena professed not to be cognisant of it, and while the king was sending ambassadors to Sulla in Greece and to Rome, he again in the next spring entered i Pontus and pillaged a great number of villages. The Senate sent I Calidius to order him to refrain from hostilities. But the Senate was I the now discredited remnant, which Sulla was on his way to put 1 down, and Murena refused to obey ; or, as some say, Calidius had I secret instructions contradicting his official message. ! At any rate early in 82 Murena advanced to attack the Pontic Murena \ capital Sinope, but was disastrously defeated by Mithridates on the advances j Halys, and his army had to find its way by various mountain roads ^^y^^"!^ ^^ i into Phrygia. The Roman garrisons were driven from the towns in Cappadocia ; and the news made so great a sensation in Asia, that the anti-Roman party, which had been reduced to silence, began to . I stir again, and a fresh invasion by Mithridates was looked for. But j early in 81 Sulla sent Gabinius with positive orders to Murena to Pacifica- \ cease hostilities, and charged with the task of reconcihng Mithridates ^^*^ I and Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia. The king of Pontus once more ^^^^^ ^^ j showed his desire to avoid direct hostilities with Rome. He consented to promise his infant daughter in marriage to a son of i Ariobarzanes, and a festival of marriage and reconciliation was ! celebrated with great niagnificence. Murena was appeased with the promise of a triumph, and Mithridates quietly retained portions of Cappadocia. \ From that date until the question of the succession to Bithynia Peace from arose in 74 he lived on tolerable terms with the Roman governors of ^^-Tf- Asia, who were forbidden by a lex Cornelia to pass the official limits of their province without orders from the Senate. But he still had reason to fear that the Romans eventually meditated a renewal of the war. His ambassadors at Rome were unable to obtain the formal ratification of the treaty of Pergamus, and were told that their master must first evacuate the portion of Cappadocia which envoys from 668 HISTORY OF ROME Mithri- dates prepares for possible war, 78-7S' Roma7t precau- tions. Coss. L. Liciriius Lucullus, M. Aurelius Cotta, 74. The question of the successio7i to Bithynia. Ariobarzanes complained of his retaining. Not getting any answer to a second embassy in 7Z he busied himself in collecting and improving his naval and military forces. The Roman government, aware of this, strengthened their garrisons in Asia from time to time, but did little to stop what was more dangerous, — the ill-feeling which their fiscal system was again rousing in the province. L. Lucullus, who stayed after Sulla's departure till 80 as quaestor, had carried on the financial administration with equity and consideration ; but on his departure the farming of the taxes by the publicani suspended by Sulla was re-established, with the usual results of oppression and discontent. Such men as Dolabella and the notorious C. Verres, proconsul and quaestor in Cilicia (80-78), did more for the cause of Mithridates than an army could do against him. Mithridates was fully alive to these things, and was also availing himself of dynastic changes in central Asia, to which the Romans remained indifferent, in order to secure for himself extension of territory and support. He is even said to have had an understanding with the pirates who invested the Aegean, to whom he would be able to look for strengthening his fleet, or for giving rapid intelligence ; and his dealing with Sertorius had proved how keenly he was watch- ing for every opportunity of striking at Rome. War seems to have been already determined upon at Rome, when, towards the end of 74, Nicomedes of Bithynia died, leaving his kingdom to the Roman people. Nicomedes had also left a young son, whom some at any rate regarded as the heir in spite of this will, and in spite of rumours as to the unfaithfulness of his mother to her husband. The Romans, however, decided to accept the inheritance, and the propraetor of Asia was ordered to take it over, while his quaestor carried off the royal treasury to Rome. The Romans thus obtained a consider- able district on the Black Sea, could command the entrance to it with their fleet, and by blockading the Bosporus could ruin the Pontic trade. It was natural, therefore, to expect that their possession of this new district would hardly be maintained without a struggle ; and either from that idea, or from earlier reports of Mithridates' proceedings, it had been resolved to send an army and special commander to supplement the two legions in Asia (those formerly commanded by Fimbria) and the two in Cilicia. In fact, everything seemed as it was in the former war. Asia dis- turbed : the Thracians invading Macedonia : and Mithridates negoti- ating with the rebels in Spain, as formerly with the Socii in Italy. Pompey was known to be anxious for the command ; and therefore Lucullus — who wished for it also — took care that sufficient money and supplies were sent to him in Spain to induce him to continue the war against Sertorius ; and though the XLi THIRD WAR WITH MITHRIDATES 669 proconsular province assigned to himself had been Cisalpine Gaul, he induced the Senate — under the influence of P. Cethegus to transfer him to Cilicia, which happened to fall vacant by the death of the proconsul L. Octavius ; and, that having been done, he was named by an unanimous vote of the centuries commander-in-chief against Mithri dates. His colleague Cotta was, at his own urgent entreaty, allowed to take part in the war. He was to guard the Propontis with ships obtained on the spot and to hold Bithynia ; while M. Antonius, praetor in 75, was to be in command of the fleet and all the coasts of the Mediterranean, to clear the sea of pirates. Mithridates having spent the winter in every kind of preparation, Mithri- building ships, making arms, and collecting corn, began hostilities in dates begins the spring of 73 by an invasion of Paphlagonia, having first solemnly ^hewar, thrown a chariot and four white horses into the sea as a sacrifice to ^^^"^S of Poseidon. He was accompanied by some Roman officers^ among whom was Marius, the One-Eyed, sent as proconsul by Sertorius and his " senate." In nine days the army marched through Paphlagonia and part of Galatia and entered Bithynia, while the Pontic fleet appeared in the harbour of Heracleia, a city which had lately shown its anti- Roman feeling by killing some Roman agents sent to claim it for Rome. The Bithynians received him with no show of hostility, and the Roman residents fled to Chalcedon, opposite Byzantium, where Cotta had on his arrival in the previous winter fixed his headquarters and collected a fleet. Lucullus, who had also come late in 74, was engaged in restoring something like order in the province of Asia — joined to that of Cilicia for the time, and groaning under the renewed exactions of publicani and money- lenders, who had taken the occasion of the heavy burden imposed on it by Sulla to exact such exorbitant interest, that the provincials had incurred a debt of double the amount of the indemnity, and had only paid it by mortgaging their sacred buildings, and even selling their children. Cotta wished to use the interval to secure the credit of defeating Mithridates ; and accordingly when the king, sending his fleet forward to meet him, marched against Chalcedon, Cotta gave him battle under its walls and was decisively beaten with a loss of Defeat of 3000 men, his legate P. Rutilius Rufus, commanding the fleet, Cotta at being only saved by being drawn up the wall by a rope. The Chalcedon, Pontic fleet also broke the chain across the mouth of the harbour, '^^'^"^ "f destroyed or towed ofi" the Roman ships, and thus opened the passage of the Bosporus. Leaving a detachment to blockade Chalcedon, Mithridates entered Mithri- the province of Asia proclaiming the freedom of the cities from ^^^^'-^ ^^ the imposts in the name of the " proconsul " M. Marius, who was mean- ^'''''^'' while holding the lines of the Sangarius against Lucullus. But ^''''"^'^"'^- 670 HISTORY OF ROME Siege of Cyzicus by Mithri- dates and M. Marius, autumn of 73- Lucidlus relieves Cyzicus. Mithri- dates escapes by sea. Result of the first year of the Lucullus, avoiding a battle, cut off his provisions so successfully that he had to retire to the coast. There he was joined by Mithridates, and the two laid siege to Cyzicus, chief port of Asia on the Propontis, which had clung to the Roman cause and was almost impregnable. i Situated on the neck of an isthmus, which stretched towards a rocky island with artificial causeways and bridges, it had the sea on one side and Mount Dindymon on the other. Its fortifications dated from the time of Timotheos of Athens in the fourth century, and its people, who had abundance of provisions stored in two immense magazines, and a powerful navy in their harbours, were resolute to defend it. The undertaking proved disastrous to Mithridates. Failing to take it by assault he blockaded the city by sea and land. But though he employed every device and every engine known to the science of war, they proved unavailing, and a dreadful storm swept away in an hour the preparations of laborious weeks. Moreover, when Lucullus came to the relief of Cyzicus, Mithridates was persuaded to quit his lines, which were at once occupied by the Romans, and was himself con- fined to the peninsula and the high ground of Mount Dindymon. The approach of winter made it difficult to obtain supplies by sea ; the Roman cavalry cut off his convoys by land ; and famine with its accompaniment of pestilence began to make dreadful ravages in his army. It was necessary for him to break out. But when the long train of beasts of burden, sutlers, and their convoy had reached the river Rhyndacus, a few miles to the east of Cyzicus, the Romans overtook it, killed great numbers, took i 5,000 prisoners, with all the animals and an immense booty. The king after this escaped on board ship by night, but those of his troops who could not find ships were pursued by Lucullus, lost 1 1,000 men while crossing rivers, and finally were shut up in Lampsacus, from which the survivors were taken off by the Royal fleet in the following spring (72). The grand army was at an end. Of i 50,000 men whom Mithri- dates commanded at the beginning of the campaign, 20,000 only could now be mustered ; while the fleet had suffered more than one disaster from storms, and 100 vessels were missing. Moreover, the news of the death of Sertorius took away all semblance of right of his Roman ally, M. Marius, and some of his Roman officers at once made overtures to Lucullus. Yet the king still kept up the 1 These operations have generally been assigned to the year 74, principally because Livy attributes the actions to Cotta and Lucullus as consuls. It has, however, been satisfactorily shown from coins that Nicomedes did not die till late in 74 ; and though the Romans had resolved on war before they became possessed of Bithynia, it was not begun until after that event. The confusion perhaps arose from the fact that Cotta and Lucullus left Rome before the end of their year of office, though no hostilities occurred till the beginning of the next year. XLi THE DISASTERS OF MITHRIDATES 671 fight. With half his fleet he attacked the towns on the Propontis ; while M. Marius led another squadron into the Aegean, where there was nothing to resist him, for Cotta had lost his ships at Chalcedon, and Antonius had been beaten- at Crete. Lucullus, however, collected ships and in two battles off Tenedos and Lemnos, destroyed the fleet Naval of M. Marius, taking him and his two colleagues prisoners, while his I'lctones of army was recovering Bithynia and driving out the Pontic garrisons. ^^J'" "^' Mithridates himself, after being shut up for a time in Nicomedia by Cotta and Triarius, had broken the blockade and forced his way out, but lost sixty vessels and 10,000 men in a storm, and only escaped by getting on board a pirate vessel which landed him at the mouth of the Hypios {Karasa\ whence he was admitted into Heracleia. In another part of Asia his arms had been equally unsuccessful. After the victory of Chalcedon he had sent a large force under Eumachus through Phrygia and Cilicia. At first Eumachus had carried all before him ; had massacred the Roman residents ; and received the adhesion of the Isaurians and Pisidians. But C. lulius Caesar, who was studying rhetoric at Rhodes, crossed to Caria, raised a force of volunteers, and prevented the Pontic troops from approaching the coast, while the propraetor C. Salvius Naso barred their way into Phrygia Epictete, and Mysia. Mamercus, a legate of Lucullus, defeated another army under Fannius and Metrophanes ; a treasure of 10,000 staters, which was being conveyed by Aris- tonicus into the Aegean, to corrupt the islanders, was captured ; and the Gallic tetrarch Deiotarus finally drove the Pontic garrisons from the towns of Phrygia. Mithridates was obliged to look for help to other Asiatic powers, 7/. and especially to Tigranes, king of Armenia. Naturally he found in ^I^thn- his present circumstances that the response was cold and doubtful, ^^^^^^i^ fg Of the kingdoms in the East the one, besides that of Mithridates, Tigranes of which had during the last twenty years increased in power and extent Ar?nenia. was Armenia. Tigranes had united to his original kingdom by successive conquests the districts of Sophene, Atropatene, and Gordiene, and had built a new capital, Tigranocerta, in the upper valley of the Tigris. In 83 the whole of the Syrian monarchy, from the Euphrates to the sea, had submitted to him. In extent of terri- tory, therefore, and external show of power, Tigranes had no rival in Asia ; and Mithridates had endeavoured to secure his friendship and support by giving him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage, and now sent Diodes to demand his aid. But Tigranes was engaged in securing his own hold on Syria, and gave nothing but vain promises, being in fact privately dissuaded from doing more by the envoy of Mithridates himself. Nor was this the only indication of declining power given by the defections or coldness of friends. His own son, 672 HISTORY OF ROME Spring battles of Cabira. Flight of Mithri- dates. He is de- tained in Armenia, 7i-6g. Machares, king of Bosporus, who a year afterwards made terms with Lucullus, even now showed no haste to help him. His minister Dorylaus was put to death for treason ; and other princes and magistrates, among them the grandfather of the geographer Strabo, dehvered up fortresses to the Romans. Still the king by great exertions raised an army and defended the triangle formed by the rivers Isis and Lycos round Cabira. There Lucullus, after a difficult and fatiguing march across Bithynia in the spring of 7 1 (leaving L. Murena with two legions before Amisus) came upon him. He had three legions ; Mithridates 40,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry. At the first encounter the Roman cavalry was totally defeated by the Pontic horse, and Lucullus fell back towards Mount Paryadres, but contrived to gain a position commanding the plain, and defended by a deep ravine. Here they remained opposite each other for some weeks. But though the Pontic army in the skirmishes that took place not only held its own, but once at least inflicted a serious disaster on the Romans, yet, while both camps were in great straits for provisions, Mithridates was the more distressed of the two ; and when, in attempting to cut off a convoy of wheat coming to the Roman camp, he lost between 5000 and 6000 men, he decided to retire into Lesser Armenia. The design was kept secret from the soldiers, who were roused before dawn by the noise of the servants and baggage waggons of the officers quitting the camp. Believing themselves betrayed, they broke out into a furious panic, killed the drivers, and pillaged the waggons. Mithridates himself barely escaped with his life by the fidelity of the eunuch Ptolemy, who gave him his horse, and, accompanied by about 2000 cavalry, fled to the south towards Comana. When Lucullus appeared next morning before the Pontic camp he found it deserted ; and it was plundered in spite of his order to let the booty alone till the enemy was destroyed. The cavalry, under M. Pompeius, was sent in pursuit. But they too lost time by stopping to plunder some of the king's baggage : and finding that he was four days' march ahead of them they returned. Mithridates arrived safely at Comana, from which he sent one of his eunuchs back to a fortress in which his harem was guarded, with orders that all his wives and concubines were to die, lest they should fall into Roman hands. Then he hurried on to Armenia to demand hospitality and succour from his son-in-law. Tigranes did not refuse the fugitive king a certain protection ; but he declined to see him, and assigned him as a residence a strong castle in an unhealthy district, where, surrounded by a so-called guard of honour, he was practically a prisoner for nearly two years (71-69). Meanwhile Lucullus and his legates were carrying all before them. Cities, fortresses, and deposits of treasure everywhere fell into his XLi» LUCULLUS AT EPHESUS 673 hands ; Pharnacia, Trapezus, and other towns on the Pontus yielded yi. without a struggle. Amisos, which had been holding out against Capture of Murena, was taken by assault and burnt, though part of the ^^^f^'^^"^^ inhabitants escaped by sea, apd Lucullus restored the rest to their 4^iso2 ' homes and caused the town to be rebuilt.^ Heracleia, which Cotta had been besieging since the summer of 72, was still untaken. Heracleia But a fleet under Triarius, set free by the victories in the Aegean, now hoMs out co-operated with Cotta. The Heracleote fleet was beaten ; famine ^^^ ^ , ., ... , , 1 . sianmer of and pestilence were ragmg m the town ; and at last the garrison -^ escaped by sea, and the strategus Demopheles admitted the soldiers of Triarius. The town was burnt and pillaged, and Cotta carried off his prisoners and spoil to Italy (70). Lucullus resided during the winter of 71-70 at Ephesus, dis- Lucullus tributing his army into winter quarters in Pontus. He spent the "i^i^iters at time partly in celebrating by games and gladiatorial contests his ^f^^r recent victories, partly in farther regulating the financial troubles of fj^^ the provincials of Asia, still overburdened by debt. He cut down the prcviucial interest legally recoverable to i 2 per cent, and forbade the recovery debtors, of arrears amounting to more than the original debt. Defaulting 7^'7^- debtors finally were not to be dispossessed of their whole property. The creditor could only take one-fourth of the debtor's income, and so gradually wipe out the debt. These debts had been mostly owed to Roman publicani and money-lenders, and their hostility made it easier for his opponents at home in 67 to secure the recall of Lucullus. In the autumn of 7 i Appius Claudius - had been sent to Tigranes Mission to to demand the surrender of Mithridates. Misled by his guides he Tigranes, went a great circuit before reaching the Euphrates ; and when he 7^-70' finally arrived at Antioch he had to wait until the king returned from Phoenicia. He made his demand in peremptory language, and as the despatch of Lucullus addressed Tigranes as king, instead of " king of kings," Appius was dismissed with scarcely the semblance of an answer, though with a decent show of liberality. Extravagantly elated with his recent victories and accession of territory, and with an intelli- gence corrupted by twenty-five years of flattery, the king could not conceive that Lucullus would attack him or could escape destruction if he did. He therefore devoted himself to the development of his new capital, Tigranocerta, and made no special preparations. The attack upon him was still delayed for a year. During the ^ It was here that the grammarian Tyrannion was captured. Lucullus seems to have meant to have taken him to Rome as a friend. But Murena begged him and emancipated him as a friend of Cicero. " Appius Claudius Pulcher and his more notorious brother Publius were brothers-in-law to Lucullus, and were serving on his staff as legati. 2 X 674 HISTORY OF ROME ciIap. Lwcullus takes Sino^e, 70. Lucullus winters in Pontus, yo-bg. Lucullus invades Armenia, 69. Passage of the Euphrates and Tigris Defeat of Mithro- barzanes. winter the blockade of Sinope had been begun by a Roman fleet under Censorinus. It was defended by Leonippus and Cleochares, with a garrison of about 12,000 Cilicians, and a fleet of ships which enabled them in spite of the Roman vessels to receive the pro- visions which were sent from time to time by Machares of Bosporus, the son of Mithridates,— nearly the only service he ever rendered to his father's cause. But when Lucullus rejoined the army in the spring of 70 Machares made terms with him ; and, ceasing to send provisions to the town, consented to send them to the Roman camp instead, as well as all property deposited in his kingdom by the Sinopian generals. The garrison, therefore, threatened with famme, collected all they could gather on board their ships, set fire to the rest and to the town, and escaped to the coast of the Caucasus. Lucullus could now turn his attention to Tigranes, who was offensive to Rome not only from his entertainment of Mithridates, but by his conquests in Cilicia and Phoenicia. The Romans could not view with indifference his becoming a Mediterranean power; and the Jews, allies of Rome since 161, were already alarmed at his progress towards Palestine. Lucullus, therefore, made plans to cross the Euphrates in the spring of 69. Tigranes now seemed to be more alive to his danger. He sum- moned his vassals, admitted Mithridates to an interview, caused the ministers who had kept them apart to be executed, and placed the Pontic king at the head of 10,000 cavalry. But still he thought of invading the Roman domains, not of being invaded himself. Mith- ridates was to march with his cavalry to recover his kingdom ; his own generals were to enter Roman Cilicia and Lycaonia. To his intense surprise these two movements were hardly begun when it was announced that Lucullus had crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris, and was in full march upon Tigranocerta. He had started early in the spring, leaving 6000 men to hold Pontus ; had ■ crossed Melitene by forced marches along the route of the caravans, carrying with him the materials for a pontoon over the Euphrates ; had seized Tomasa, the first fortress in Armenia ; passed through Sophene ; and crossed the Tigris almost at its source. The first messengers who announced this were disbelieved and hanged. But it was impossible to deny facts. The king, however, still imagining himself all powerful, sent 3000 cavalry under Mithro- barzanes, with orders to bring Lucullus dead or alive. They were cut to pieces by a Roman division under Sextilius : and Tigranes hastily recalling Mithridates from his march to Pontus, and Maga- dates from Syria, with all the men in garrisons there, strengthened the fortresses between the Tigris and Tigranocerta, and then re- treated with his main army towards the mountains. Tigranocerta XLi VICTORY OF LUCULLUS AT TIGRANOCERTA 675 was thus left deserted, and its siege was presently commenced by Sextilius, who had cut to pieces a force of Arabians on their way to join Tigranes, and continued by Lucullus when he arrived with the main army. A body of 6000 men, however, was sent by the king to remove his harem and chief treasures, and their success in eluding or breaking through the Roman lines encouraged the king to lead his immense forces— joined by allies and subject kings from many parts — to raise the siege. His contempt was moved by the small- ness of the Roman army, — "too many for ambassadors and too few for an army," and he determined, in spite of remonstrances, to give battle. The two armies were on opposite sides of the Tigris, Battle of and a movement of Lucullus at first made the king think that Tigrano- he was retiring to Cappadocia. When it was found that he had ^^^^' ^^ only marched higher up the river to cross more easily, the king hastily got his huge army into some order, commanding in the centre himself, with two client kings on either wing. It was an unlucky day in the Roman calendar, — that on which Caepio had been beaten by the Cimbrians ; but Lucullus proudly declared that he would make it a lucky one. When he got on the left bank of the river he sent his Thracian and Galatian cavalry to skir- mish up to the enemy and tempt them down on to the plain ; and it was soon evident that the ill-assorted and ill -disciplined Asiatic army was no match for his, with its nucleus of Roman veterans. It was cut to pieces in detachments, and before the day was over the ground was strewn with 30,000 dead, while Lucullus boasted in his despatch that he had only lost five killed and 100 wounded. Tigranes fled with 150 horsemen, flinging away his royal tiara to Flight of escape detection, and was met by Mithridates, who, without re- Tigranes. proaching him with his own long -delayed reception, encouraged and consoled the old man, and was entrusted with the absolute manage- ment of affairs. All the provinces south of the Tigris were now lost to Armenia ; Tigranocerta surrendered ; and an immense booty fell to Lucullus. Eight thousand talents (nearly two million pounds) Dismcm- were found in the royal treasury ; the sale of the plunder brought in berment of a third as much again ; and a large bounty w^as given to each '^" king- soldier. The chiefs in the districts round hastened to tender their submission, and Antiochus Asiaticus ^ was allowed once more to call himself king of Syria. This w^as the climax of the good fortune of Lucullus. Tigranocerta, stripped of the Greek and Asiatic inhabitants placed there forcibly by Tigranes, who were 1 This last of the Seleucidae had fled to Rome when Tigranes took Syria. He i was finally deprived of his kingdom by Pompey in 65. 676 HISTORY OF ROME Battle of Arsanias, September 68. Winter of 68-67. Alutiiiy in the army of Lucullus. Mitkri- dates recovers Pontus. Defeat of Hadri- novv allowed to return to their native cities, soon ceased to be of importance ; and the Roman army went into winter quarters in Gordyene (69-68). Both parties tried during the winter to enlist Phraates, king of the Parthians, on their side, but without inducing him to commit himself In the spring of 68 Lucullus advanced northwards to continue his conquest of Armenia and found Tigranes still at the head of vast forces, which under the vigorous direction of Mithridates baffled his attempts to bring them to battle. Tired of useless manoeuvres, he at length determined to make for Artaxata on the Araxes, the ancient capital of Armenia. In the valley of the eastern Euphrates formed by the mountains Arsanias he was overtaken by the kings, and though he gained another victory, it was at the cost of heavy losses. And now his own army began to show signs of mutiny. Already the troops left in Pontus had refused to obey his summons to join him in Gordyene. He was in a mountainous country in which the summer was very brief, and by the time of this battle (September) the snow began to fall and the cold to be great. The men insisted on turning southward to Mesopotamia ; and after vainly attempting to secure their compliance by humiliating entreaties and promises, he was fain to give in and console himself by taking Nisibis, the one great city south of the Tigris still holding for Tigranes. But during the winter following (68-67) he found himself reduced to complete inaction by this mutinous temper of his troops, who, instigated by his own brother-in-law P. Clodius, refused to endure any more labours and fatigues or to undertake any farther expeditions. The time of service of the two legions was about to expire,^ and they were not prepared to risk their safe return. Meanwhile Mithridates with 8000 men was said to be approaching Pontus. The people of Lesser Armenia and eastern Pontus rose ; began killing Roman residents, and declaring for their king. The legate M. Fabius Hadrianus was defeated near Cabira, when he tried to stop his advance, and was only saved from the gravest disaster by the fact of the king being wounded. He was superseded by Triarius, who came with his fleet to the coast of Pontus and disembarked to relieve him. But Triarius did not venture to attack Mithridates, who was now behind the river Iris, and the two armies wintered in face of each other without stirring. Triarius sent to Lucullus for aid, but his soldiers would not leave the pleasant land of Mesopotamia to enter ^ They had been enrolled in 86 by L. Valerius Flaccus for service against Mithridates in the first war. They were taken over by Fimbria after the murder of Flaccus, and after his death submitted to Sulla, but were kept permanently in Asia. The full term of service was twenty years. Therefore at the end of 67 they could claim their discharge. XLi RECALL OF LUCULLUS 677 on the toilsome winter march back to Pontus. And Triarius thus left Spring of alone was tempted in the spring of 67 to cross the Iris and offer battle ^7- Defeat between his winter station at Gaziura and Zela. He lost almost all v his infantry, while his cavalry was again saved from a hot pursuit by the severe wound received by the king from a Roman centurion who had got access to him under the guise of a deserter. But 7000 Roman soldiers were lying dead upon the field, 24 tribunes, and 150 centurions. Lucullus, now at length on his way back to Pontus, heard the news of the defeat of Triarius, and hastened on to prevent the fruits of his previous conquests being entirely lost. But Mithridates hung about the mountains and refused battle, while a son-in-law of Tigranes, Atropotenes of Media, scoured Cappadocia ; and Tigranes himself was recovering full possession of Armenia. The news of these disasters enabled the enemies of Lucullus at Lucullus Rome, backed by the equites whose enmity he had incurred in Asia, superseded. to secure his recall. His brother-in-law O. Marcius Rex (consul in 68) had already come to Cihcia as proconsul ; and a plebiscitum was obtained conferring the command against Mithridates, with the province of Bithynia and Pontus, on M'.Acilius Glabrio, at the end of his consulship (67). Still it was imagined at Rome that Mithridates was as good as conquered, and that a new province of Bithynia and End of 67. Pontus was awaiting organisation.^ Such indeed had been the impres- '^^^ sion conveyed by the despatches of Lucullus ; and ten commissioners . ^ as usual had been despatched to assist in that business. But when for the new they arrived they found Lucullus almost without an army; while Pontus, province of so far from being ready for organisation, was again in the hands of Pontus. Mithridates. Lucullus had hoped before their arrival to strike some blow to recover his losses ; but Marcius Rex had refused his appeal for help from Cilicia, and his own troops had, in spite of almost abject entreaties, declined to march again into Armenia to prevent the junction of Tigranes and Mithridates, when they learnt that the command was about to pass from Lucullus to Glabrio. Those whose period of service had elapsed marched in a body out of his camp, followed by some who had not the same excuse. This was Glabrids no doubt in great measure directly the effect of the action of Glabrio. ^? Y^' As soon as he arrived in his province of Bithynia at the end of 67 he issued edicts releasing the soldiers from their military oath to ^°^^ ^f Lucullus, who was obliged to see Pontus and Cappadocia completely raMa- recovered by Mithridates without being able to stir : while Glabrio — docia^ utterly incompetent for mihtary affairs — remained inactive in Bithynia, ^ Bithynia had been a province since 74. It was now proposed to add to it the western part of the kingdom of Mithridates. After Pompey's arrangements in 65, it was known as Bithynia Pontus, or Bithynia et Pontus, 678 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xli even allowing the enemy to make raids over its borders. But Lucullus seems to have remained at the head of some troops, and at any rate spent the winter of 77-76 in Galatia, where he still was, when the necessity of the case and the course of politics at Rome brought about the appointment of Pompey. Authorities. — For the war of Lepidus : Appian, B. Civ. i. 105, 107 ; IJvy, Ep. 90 ; Plutarch, Pompeius 15-16 ; Sallust fr. Hist. i. ; Oros. v. 22 ; Licinianus fr. 43. For Sertorius : Livy, Ep. 90-93; Appian, 5. Civ. i. , 108-115; Plutarch, Sertorius, Pompeius 17-19; Oros. v. 23. For Spartacus : Livy Ep. 95-97; Plutarch, Crassus 8-11; Appian B. Civ. i. 116-120; Sallust fr. Hist, 3, 67-71 ; Frontinus, Strateg. i, 5, 20-22. For Mithridates : Livy, Ep. 93-103; Appian, Mithrid. 64-121; Cicero, pro lege Manilia; Sallust fr. Hist. 4; Memnon ap. Photium, 74 R. sq.\ Dio Cassias 36, 3-46; Oros. vi. 19, sq.; Plutarch, Lucullus, Pompeius. CHAPTER XLII POMPEY IN THE EAST Pompey's first consulship — Censors — Restoration of Tribunician power — The judices (70) — Pompey and the war with pirates (67-66) — The lex Manilia appointing him to Bithynia and the Mithridatic war — He goes to Pontus — Two defeats of Mithridates who retires across the Caucasus — Capture of Artaxata and submission of Tigranes — Victory over the Albani (66) — Victory over the Iberes — Reduction of Pontus and settlement of Asia (65) — Syria taken from Tigranes — Dispute in Judaea between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus — Pompey's arrival in Damascus (64) — Death of Mithridates — Pompey takes Jerusalem (63) — Returns to Amisos — Makes final arrangements in Pontus and Asia — Returns to Rome (62) — New Provinces : Bithynia and Pontus (74- 63), Cyrene (74) joined with Crete (67), Syria (64). When Pompey returned to Italy in 71 and crowned his success Coss. Cn. in Spain by crushing the last sparks of the slave war, there seems to Pompeius have been no question as to his consulship for the next year. He ^^^S^^^^ celebrated his second triumph on the last day of December, and j^icinius entered on his consulship on the first of January of 70. His election Crassus, was in defiance of the law, for he was under the consular age and 7^- had held none of the inferior offices. He had commanded armies Pompey's from his earliest youth, but had never been even a quaestor, and did election in not become a member of the Senate until he presided over the first J^^^ ^ meeting of the new year. He had shown in the matter of Lepidus that his sympathy with the Populares stopped short of armed rebellion. Still it was to that side that he was inclined ; and for all these reasons the Optimates regarded his election with anxiety. And, in fact, though he was moderate in his legislation, the reaction against the Sullan constitution made considerable progress during his year of office. Censors were appointed, after an interval of sixteen The years, who struck sixty -four names off the roll of the Senate; he censors of removed the restriction on the exercise of the Tribunician powers ; ^o- and a law of the praetor Aurelius Cotta ordained that only one-third THbune- of a jury should consist of senators, the other two-thirds were to ^\^^ recoTi- ^,. /. , • , • 1 M • •• , structed. be filled in equal proportions by equites and tribuni aerarii, whose 68o HISTORY OF ROME chap. The lex ratable property was next below that of the equites.i In other Aurelia de respects his consulship passed with nothing more serious than judictts. constant bickerings with his Optimatist colleague Crassus, whose influence resulted from enormous wealth. He himself was careful to parade his obedience to the law, appearing before the censors at the review of the knights leading his horse and answering the usual question, whether he had served the required number of campaigns and under what commander, by saying that he had served them all as imperator himself The two years following he spent in retire- ment, seldom appearing in the Forum, though his house was crowded with visitors and admirers. From petty intrigues and unimportant combinations he held aloof with prudent dignity. But an occasion soon arose which seemed worthy of his intervention. The The greatest blot in the administration of the Empire had pirates. \iQQXi the toleration of the pirates in the Mediterranean. Their numbers and audacity had risen to such a height that commerce was threatened with extinction, and the sea had become almost impass- able to any but large vessels with armed men on board. Scarcely a temple or sacred asylum in Asia, Greece, or Epirus had escaped their ravages. The shores of Italy itself were not safe from them. They had captured two Roman praetors with their attendants, and carried off ladies of high rank. They had even run into the har- bours of Caieta and Ostia and set fire to the ships. Now and again some of their victims proved strong enough to be avenged upon them. In 76, for instance, they captured lulius Caesar on his way to Rhodes, and exacted a ransom of fifty talents. He raised the money in certain Greek towns, and then having obtained ships captured and caused them to be put to death at Pergamus. But though some fitful and partial attacks had been made upon them from time to time since the Illyrian war of 220, no great or determined effort had been made to put them down. The Balearic islands were taken in 123, on the pretext of harbouring them ; Murena had dealt with some of them in Asia without much success in 83-82 ; P. Servilius Isauricus had only made a partial and temporary impression in Cilicia and Isauria (74) ; C. Antonius had failed shamefully in Crete (74) ; and though Q. Caecilius Metellus, — who had already dealt ably with them when praetor in Sicily in 70, — was at this very time sub- duing Crete successfully, it had become plain that something ^ Who the tribuni aerarii were is a vexed question. The best opinion seems to be that they were originally tribal officers employed to collect the tributmn and pay the soldiers. They were taken from those whose property was reckoned next below the 400,000 asses, which was the equestrian fortune ; and when the tributum ceased to be collected (168) men so rated still continued to be called tribuni aerarii and were reckoned as a distinct ordo^ though the law of Cotta is the first known recognition of them as such. Coss. C. Acilius Glabrio. XLii POMPEY CLEARS THE SEAS OF PIRATES 68i more was wanted to vindicate the position of Rome as protector of her alHes and subjects. The people of Rome were themselves now experiencing the inconvenience of farther toleration by a serious rise in the price of provisions ; and when the tribune A. Gabinius pro- Lex- posed that a commander should be named, with absolute powers for Gabinia, three years all over the Mediterranean and fifty miles inland from y' all coasts, with 200 ships, and unlimited power of drawing" upon the Cal'pv treasury, all eyes were turned to Pompey, though he was not named. Piso, M. Caesar supported the measure in the Senate, but the majority vehemently opposed it, as granting dictatorial powers dangerous to the state, and Gabinius almost lost his life at the hands of a senatorial mob headed by the consul Piso. But the people in their turn saved Gabinius, and would have killed Piso, had not Gabinius given him refuge in his house. Another tribune, Trebellius, was next set up to veto the bill, and refused to withdraw his veto till seventeen out of eighteen tribes required for a majority had voted on the proposal of Gabinius to depose him. The law was then passed and Pompey Pompey named for the post. After some hollow pretence of reluctance he (Appointed accepted it. In their enthusiasm the people voted him an even more ZyJiic liberal equipment than that originally proposed. He was to have uiars. 500 vessels, 2 quaestors, 24 legates, and 120,000 sailors and foot- soldiers, with 500 horse. The orator Q. Hortensius and Q. Catulus opposed the bill on the grounds that it was dangerous to give a man such great powers, especially outside Italy. Like Marius or Sulla he might return to make himself a despot. But the people were convinced of the wisdom of the measure when, on the day after his appointment, the prices of provisions suddenly fell. Pompey lost no time. Before spring had well begun he had Pompey divided the sea and coasts into nine regions, to be explored and clears the cleared by his several legates; had visited in person the shores of ^l^'^.f^ ^ ^^ Africa and Sicily ; and stationed squadrons along them to protect the corn ships. Then returning to Italy, after a brief visit to Rome, he started again from Brundisium. Within forty days the pirates were scattered, killed, or forced to submit, and their strongholds in Cilicia and Pamphylia taken or destroyed. He wintered in Cilicia, and employed himself in bringing the province to order, founding cities, and settling the best of the pirates in districts where they could live honestly. His only serious difficulty was with 0. Q.Caccilius Metellus, who had been engaged since 68 in his successful war in Crete, ^l^-^^^^"^ which was one of the chief sources of piracy, and greatly resented (^^.(^(^ ' the authority which Pompey's commission enabled him to exercise in that island, as in all others. But the states in Crete, expecting better terms from Pompey, begged him to interfere. He wrote to Metellus, ordering him to suspend operations, and to the cities not Mithri dates, 66 682 HISTORY OF ROME chap. to obey him, and sent his legate L. Octavius to openly oppose him. Crete nevertheless was joined to Cyrenaica, which had been made a province in 75, and Pompey's attention was soon turned elsewhere. The popular party used his success to again mortify the Senate. The lex Qne of the tribunes, C. Manilius, now proposed a piebiscifum, con- Manilia ferring the province of Bithynia upon Pompey, in addition to his ^Pompey the existing powers, with the command against Mithridates, and full command authority to settle all matters in Phrygia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappa- against docia, Cilicia, Colchis, and Armenia. This immense addition to his commission was of course alarming to the Senate, and was opposed again by Hortensius and Q. Catulus ; but lulius Caesar, who was aedile elect, supported it, and Cicero, who was praetor urbanus, spoke in its favour. The law was passed by all the tribes, and as soon as Pompey was informed of it, while pretending indignation at Pompey the constant demands upon his services, he ceased to think of Crete ; ^p^ ^^ A/^ turned his whole attention to his new duties ; and, leaving three legions to cover Cilicia, started for the war. He found Lucullus in Galatia still at the head of an army, and at first treated him with respect ; but made it clear that he had no intention of allowing him any share in finishing the war. He deprived him of all but 1500 of the worst of his soldiers, upset his arrangements, and spoke contemptuously of his pretensions to settle with the commissioners a province over which he had lost all military control. Lucullus was glad to go home for his triumph. Position of But in fact Pompey found Pontus ready to fall into his hands. Mithridates, indeed, was still at the head of 30,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry ; but his fortunes, which seemed so fair in the previous year, were, nevertheless, at a low ebb. The country which he had reoccupied was wasted and desolate ; he had lost the help of the piratical fleets ; and his son-in-law Tigranes, king of Armenia, was again alienated. Of the three sons of Tigranes the eldest in the course of the previous year fell in arms against his father ; the second was executed for hastily assuming the royal tiara when his father was rendered insensible by a fall from his horse ; and, finally, the third, who had seemed the only one loyal, seized the opportunity of his father's absence in Cappadocia to rebel, and when his father advanced against him fled to his father-in-law Phraates, king of Parthia. These young princes were all sons of Cleopatra, the daughter of Mithridates ; and Tigranes, suspecting that they acted at the instigation of their grandfather, was little inclined to help him. Mithridates therefore stood alone, and was no longer con- fronted by 2i faineant like Glabrio, or by a discredited general like Lucullus, with a disorganised army ; but by a man confident and energetic, invested with fullest powers, and enjoying the confidence of Mithri dates in 66 XLii POMPEY DEFEATS MITHRIDATES 683 his army. Still he would not listen to the terms offered by Pompey ; The and tried again as a last resource to attract the Parthians to his Parthian alliance. But in this, too, Pompey baffled him. Envoys appeared ^^^^'^^^^^■ at the court of Phraates, promising alliance with Rome and the Euphrates as a frontier ; and the Parthian king, resolving to accept the offer, prepared to invade Armenia, thus forcing Tigranes event- ually to seek Roman protection. Early in 66 Pompey appeared in Bithynia with an army of 60,000 Pompey in men, which included the two Fimbrian legions that had refused to Pontus, serve any longer under Lucullus. His great fleet was guarding all points along the shore from Phoenicia to the Bosporus, and he now advanced to the frontier of Pontus. In answer to offers made by Mithridates he demanded unconditional submission and surrender of all deserters. The army of the king was full of such men, and their alarm forced him to declare his determination to surrender none, explaining that his envoys had been really meant as spies. Nevertheless he dared not meet Pompey's superior force. He retreated eastward, trying to harass the advancing army by inter- cepting convoys and cutting off detached parties. But Pompey Pompey out -manoeuvred and out-marched him; drew him into country out- ill-suited to cavalry ; got between him and the road into Greater 'f^.^'f'^^^ A J 1-- 1 XT- 1- u r Mithri- Armenia ; and cut up his cavalry near Nicopolis by means of an ^^^^^ ambuscade. Mithridates then entrenched himself on a hill near the river Lycus, where he had an abundant supply of water, and was able to hold out for forty-five days. Pompey sent for reinforce- ments from Cilicia, and cut off his supplies by throwing a corps across the Euphrates and occupying the district on his rear, while he drew round him a vast line of fortresses extending for fifteen miles. At length Mithridates, finding his provisions running short, determined to escape. The wounded and sick were killed, the watch-fires were lit as usual, and in the darkness of the night he and his main army made their way through the Roman lines in the direction of the Euphrates. But they dared not march except by night, concealing themselves during the day in glens and forests. This gave the pursuers an opportunity of out-marching them. On the third day Pompey stationed his men so as to command a defile through which the Pontic forces would necessarily pass in the next night's march. As they entered the defile the Roman trumpets and battle-cry suddenly broke the stillness of the night, and the advanced guard Night found themselves overwhelmed on all sides by a shower of darts, ^^t^^*^ stones, and arrows ; Mithridates was roused by his officers and ^o^t„tai7is endeavoured to draw up his men in battle order ; but they proved unable to withstand the Roman attack, and were cut to pieces, driven over precipices, or trampled under foot by the horses. The 684 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Defeat and flight of Mithri- dates. The younger Tigranes comes to Pompey's Mithri- dates escapes to the Cau- casus. Pompey ht Armenia, autum?i of 66. Tigranes surrenders all his conquests. moon rose during the struggle behind the Romans, but the deceptive light made it impossible for the Pontic archers to take good aim or to judge of distances. The army was annihilated ; 10,000 were killed ; and the rest were taken prisoners, or wandered away among the mountains. Pompey returned his loss as only forty killed and 1000 wounded. Mithridates escaped with some horsemen, who presently deserted him, and arrived with two attendants and his wife Hypsicrate at Sinoria, on the frontier of the Greater Armenia, from which he sent once more to demand the hospitality of Tigranes. But Tigranes was in no case to help him, and with no inclination to do so if he were. The Parthian king had penetrated to his capital, Artaxata, accompanied by the younger Tigranes. As the winter was approaching, Phraates left the siege of the city to this young prince and returned to Parthia. Thereupon the elder Tigranes re- appeared, appealed to the loyalty of his subjects, and proceeded to attack his son. The young Tigranes fled, intending to join Mithri- dates, but, hearing of his defeat, changed his plan, and proceeding to the Roman camp surrendered to Pompey. The elder Tigranes, still believing Mithridates to be the instigator of his son, seized his envoys and sent them also to Pompey, whom he tried to propitiate by offering 100 talents for the head of Mithridates. The Pontic king, thus deserted on all hands, resolved to make his way to the Bosporus and recover the kingdom held by his son Machares, who had betrayed him and made peace with Lucullus. The large treasures at Sinoria furnished a yeai-'s pay in advance for the troops which still remained to him ; and before long he started with a small army along the right bank of the Euphrates on his way to Colchis and the Caucasus. The line of the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, was held by two warlike tribes, the Albani and the Iberes, with the latter of whom he had long had diplomatic relations. He easily persuaded them that a Roman army would endanger their independence ; and having thus, as he hoped, secured an interruption to Pompey's pursuit, continued his march round the Black Sea and wintered at Dioscurias in Colchis. Pompey did not immediately follow him. The Roman fleet under Servilius sailed up the coast of the Euxine as far as the mouth of the Phasis ; while Pompey himself, guided by young Tigranes, marched through Armenia upon Artaxata. There was no resistance ; and at fifteen miles from the city the old king Tigranes appeared, offering full submission. He was kindly received by Pompey ; treated as a king ; and admitted to friendship and alliance with Rome, on condition of surrendering all his conquests in Syria, Phoenicia, Cihcia, and Galatia, and paying a war indemnity of 6000 talents. This did not satisfy the young Tigranes, who was to have as his XLir POMPEY CONQUERS THE ALBANI AND IBERES 685 sole reward the kingdom of Sophene, the south-western district, annexed by his father to Armenia. He had annoyed Pompey by j^j^^ his rudeness to his father when both were entertained by him ; younger and now his language was so haughty and defiant that Pompey put Tigranes him in chains, and resolved to send him, with his wife and family, ^^Z^-^^'^- to Rome to adorn his triumph. Ariobarzanes was restored to the kingdom of Cappadocia, with the addition of Sophene, now taken from the young Tigranes, and charged to protect the line of the Euphrates. Pompey moved into winter quarters on the banks of the Cyrus {K/mr) on the extreme north-western frontier of Armenia, and ob- tained from the kings of the Albani and Iberes a promise of free passage through their territories in pursuit of Mithridates in the spring. But while the Roman troops were keeping the festival Battles of the Saturnalia (17th December) king Oroizes led 40,000 Albani -^ith the across the Cyrus and fell upon the three camps— of Pompey, L. ^^""""^ Valerius Flaccus, and Q. Metellus Celer. The treacherous attack (,1''''' ^'^ was repulsed with severe loss, and Oroizes was obliged to beg humbly for a truce. Next spring, however, though Artokes, king and with of the Iberes, affected to keep up friendly negotiations, Pompey ^hc Iberes resolved to anticipate the attack which he ascertained that he was '^''^^ '" meditating. He surprised him by marching up the Cyrus and seiz- '^' ing the defiles before the Iberian army was ready. Artokes retired behind the Cyrus, burnt the bridge behind him, and tried to renew negotiations. But Pompey continued to advance, and at last came up with him close to the Caucasus. There Artokes was forced to fight, and after losing 9000 killed and 10,000 prisoners, was fain to submit to terms and give his own children as hostages. Having thus subdued a nation whose freedom had never been infringed, either by the Persian kings or by Alexander, Pompey continued his advance in pursuit of Mithridates as far as the Phasis, at the mouth of which a Roman fleet was at anchor. Pomp< But there finding that Mithridates had left Dioscurias, and was ^^'^ ^^ well on his way to the Bosporus, he resolved to follow him no farther. He believed that the Roman fleet in the Black Sea would suffice to cut him off from provisions and other help, and that he might be safely left to go to ruin. He turned his steps once Pompev more to the south ; defeated the Albani again, who were inclined \q returns hinder his passage, killing their leader Kosis with his own hand ; and ^''''^"'' arrived in Lesser Armenia in the early summer of 65, where fortress '^"""''' "J after fortress was captured or surrendered. Sinoria was taken by his legate Manlius Porcius ; Symphorion was surrendered by the deserted Queen Stratonice ; and the archives of the kingdom fell into Pompey's hands at a place called the New Town. Taking up ey Of! asi's. to 686 HISTORY OF ROME At Ami SOS he settles the affairs of Asia, 6S-64- Pontus made a province. Affairs in Syria. March of Afranius into Syria, winter of 6J-64. Rival kings of the Jews. Pompey goes to Damascus 64. his residence at Amisos he proceeded to regulate the affairs of Asia with absolute authority, and was visited by twelve kings desirous to obtain recognition or pardon. He also reduced the kingdom of Pontus to the form of a province, to be united with Bithynia. Stripped of the outlying districts, granted to various princes and tetrarchs, it consisted of eleven urban communities {civitates), some already exist- ing, others founded or restored by Pompey himself, as Pompeiopolis on the Amnias, and Nicopolis in the valley of the Lycus, where he first conquered Mithridates. The one important monarch who still ventured on acts of hostility was Phraates, king of the Parthians — that mysterious people, whose mission seemed to be to create a reaction against the hellenisation of Asia, and to put a limit to the Empire of Rome in the East. Phraates occupied the part of the territory of Tigranes called Gordyene, and threatened the rest. As the remaining dominion of Tigranes had been guaranteed to him by Pompey, L. Afranius was despatched to expel Phraates. Having done so he continued his march with great difficulty through Mesopotamia towards Syria. This great district between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, bounded on the north by the ranges of Amanus and Taurus, and on the south by the desert of Arabia Petraea, had been taken by Tigranes, but was now to become a Roman province. L. Aemilius Scaurus had been sent by Pompey to take possession of it, and arrived in Damascus at the end of 65, which he found already held by two of Pompey's legates. There his interposition was invited in the affairs of Palestine. Hyrcanus II., who was high priest, succeeded his mother Alexandra in the kingdom of ludaea in 69 ; but his younger brother Aristobulus, who was of a far more energetic character, raised an army and defeated him near Jericho, and compelled him to resign the crown. Instigated, however, by Antipater or Antipas (father of Herod), he asked help from Aretas, king of the Nabataei in Arabia Petraea (65). Aretas defeated Aris- tobulus and blockaded him in the Temple, which had been strongly fortified since the time of the Maccabees, he and Hyrcanus holding the rest of Jerusalem. When Scaurus arrived at Damascus both sides appealed to him, and both offered him large bribes. He decided in favour of Aristobulus (who seems to have bidden highest), and ordered Hyrcanus and Aretas to withdraw. Aristobulus pursued them as they retired and inflicted a defeat upon them. Such was the state of affairs when Pompey himself arrived at Damascus from Pontus, leaving the fleet to blockade the shores of the Euxine, and starve out Mithridates. At Damascus he was visited by embassies from all parts of Syria and from Egypt. Among others Aristobulus sent him a POMPEY IN lUDAEA 687 present of a golden vine, worth 500 talents ; and at the same time He makes envoys appeared on the part of Hyrcanus and Antipas, denouncing Syria a the bribery which had secured the intervention in favour of P^^^^^^^* Aristobulus. Pompey wintered in Syria, where his legate Afranius ^/■<5^. subdued the people in the north at the foot of the Amanus range, while he himself was employed in reducing the kingdom of the deposed Antiochus to the form of a province. In the spring of 63 he summoned representatives of the two rivals to meet him at Damascus. Having heard them he refused to give a decision at once, but expressed his intention of coming shortly into ludaea and judging by his own eyes. Owing, however, in a great degree to the skilful advocacy of Antipas his inclination was clearly shown to be Pompey in favour of Hyrcanus: and accordingly Aristobulus, instead of obey- favours ing his injunction to take no warlike steps till he came, proceeded y^'canus. to occupy the roads and passes into ludaea. Pompey therefore determined to attack him and subdue the whole country. Marching He to Pella he crossed the Jordan to Scythopolis, and thence entered invades ludaea. There he summoned Aristobulus, who was securely posted ' f^!^ , early I fi o?. on the hill fortress of Alexandreion. He feigned obedience, mean- while secretly occupying all the strong places he could on the way to Jerusalem. Ordered to deliver up these fortresses he reluctantly obeyed, and retiring to Jerusalem, there fortified himself As Pompey approached Jericho couriers arrived in the Roman Pompey camp informing him that the great object of his mission was ^^^^'-^ rf accomplished. Mithridates was dead. While Pompey in 65 had ^A/^^^,,^-. been parcelling out the kingdom of Pontus, the fugitive lord of these dates. wide domains had been pressing on towards the Bosporus. Arrived after a harassing march on the shores of the Maeotis he summoned his ancient vassals, distributed gold, promised his daughters in marriage to the chiefs, and was soon at the head of a formidable force. His treacherous son Machares in alarm sent envoys to demand pardon and make terms. Mithridates answered by offering a reward for his head, and the unfortunate prince, deserted by all, fled from Phanagoria to Panticapaeum {Kertch\ and there fell on his sword. Mithridates was again a king, and secured himself in the impregnable Mithri- citadel of Panticapaeum. Still he was at bay. The Roman fleet, though it could not starve him, since he was in a land of rich corn fields, could interrupt and hamper the trade of his recovered kingdom. He knew that he must in some way remove the blockade if he was to remain king ; and early in 64 he sent offers of submission to Pompey, agreeing to hold his realms as the vassal of Rome, and to despatch his sons as hostages. Pompey would have nothing but a personal surrender and unconditional submission. Then the old king- conceived the bold project of making his way by land through dates in t he Crimea, 6S. 688 HISTORY OF ROME Mithri- dates medi- tates an invasion of Italy. Death of Mithri- dates, spring of 63. Pompey takes Jerusalem. Scythia, descending into the valley of the Danube, and thence by the Brenner Pass into Italy, where he believed that the Romans were so beset by difficulties, and the Italians so ripe for revolt, that he might yet sweep all before him, and succeed where the less disciplined Cimbrians had failed. This last heroic dream, however, was baffled. His people were suffering from the distress caused by the Roman blockade, aggravated by a destructive earthquake ; he was himself confined to his palace by illness ; and a slight cause might at any time produce a revolution. An attempt to garrison Phanagoria on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus caused a violent outburst, in which his sons and daughters residing there were captured and handed over to the Roman fleet. This example was followed in the Crimea, and soon the king had nothing left but Panticapaeum and the army. Even in the army mutiny was breaking out, and the cruel punishment with which he tried to suppress it only served to inflame it. The troops conducting his two daughters to their Scythian husbands mutinied, killed the eunuchs in charge, and handed over the girls to the Romans. And presently the one son left him, Pharnaces, fearing the fate of his brothers, four of whom had died by their father's orders, conspired against the aged king. The plot was discovered, the secret agents tortured, but the prince pardoned. Mithridates hoped that once on the Italian expedition he would forget his schemes. But a few days before the date fixed for the start Pharnaces appeared among the Roman deserters serving the king ; urged them to join him in delivering themselves from his tyranny ; and sent emissaries through the town to rouse all who were similarly aggrieved. The peopk, hardly knowing what was happening, joined in the movement, and Mithridates from the hill, on which were the citadel and palace, could see the rebels and hear Pharnaces proclaimed king. He knew that his time was come. He had a deadly poison concealed in the hilt of his sword. He drew it forth and began mixing it. His two daughters demanded to share the draught and soon lay dead at his feet. It failed, however, to have a like rapid effect upon himself. Either what remained of the potion was too little, or, as he believed, his body was fortified by antidotes. At any rate he was still alive when the noise of the approaching rebels was heard. He exerted all his remaining authority to induce one of his Gallic guards to give him the death-stroke ; and the emissaries of Pharnaces burst into the chamber to find the great king a corpse. With him fell all resistance to Rome in the East for the present ; and when the news reached Pompey he knew that he could safely delay his return to Pontus till he had finally subdued Aristobulus and the Jews, As he approached Jerusalem he seemed likely to accomplish this without striking a blow. That prince had lost XLii SURRENDER OF JERUSALEM 689 heart, and now appeared in the camp offering complete submission. His offer was accepted, and Gabinius was sent to take possession of the city and obtain suppHes. But the obstinacy of the Jews had not been taken into account. They closed their gates, repudiated the bargain of Aristobulus, and refused all supplies. Pompey, thinking himself deceived, put Aristobulus in chains and advanced to assault Jerusalem. The inhabitants were divided, one part wishing to submit, the other determined to resist. The former delivered the city, the latter entrenched themselves in the precincts of the temple, breaking down the means of communication between it and the city. The men Siege of the in the temple were summoned but refused to submit ; and Pompey temple. pitching his camp to the north of the hill proceeded to invest it. He cut down wood in every direction to fill up the deep moat round the temple hill, and siege artillery was sent for from Tyre. The reso- lute adherence by the Jews, even in this hour of danger, to the observance of the Sabbath gave the besiegers an advantage they were quick to seize.i Still the besieged held out till the third month. At length one of the great towers yielded to the blows of the battering rams, and through the breach the Roman soldiers, headed by Cornelius Faustus, son of Sulla, poured in. Twelve thousand Jews are said to have perished by the enemy's, or by each other's hands, or by flinging themselves from the precipitous rock. Pompey insisted ; on entering the Holy of Holies, and gazed at a shrine without a god, at the golden table and candlesticks, at the censers and incense. I He respected the sublime simplicity of a religion which he did not I understand ; left the sacred objects in their place ; and ordered the I temple to be cleansed and restored. The high priesthood was given to Hyrcanus, with the authority though not the title of king, and I Jerusalem was subjected to a tribute, and, with a curtailed territory, , was treated as a separate community. The towns on the sea coast Restored on I Gaza, Joppa, Dora, Stratonis Turris {Caesared) — were severed from the request j Jewish control, and retaining internal freedom were reckoned in the ^^" I new province of Syria,2 along with the towns of Decapolis. The A^^^»«^«. I final settlement of the country was left to Gabinius when pro- aTadarme \ consul of Syria in 57. Aretas of Arabia Petraea was punished 1 for his interference by an invasion under Scaurus, and was glad to secure by a payment of 300 talents the freedom of his territory I from plunder. Aristobulus and his family were carried off to I Rome. ^ An attack might be repelled on the Sabbath, but not made. Therefore the work of trenches and the like were uninterrupted on it (Jos. Ant. xiv. 4 ; Bell. Jud. I, 7, 3 ; Dio xlvii. 16). 2 Trdo-as 6 YloixirriCo% dipiJKev iXevd^pas Kal irpoaiveifjie rrj iirapxiq. (Joseph. Antiq. xiv. 5, 4). 2 Y 690 HISTORY OF ROME Pompey returns to Pontus, 62. Restoration of the kings. Towns founded or rebuilt. Pompey s journey home, 62. Greatness of Pompey': achieve- ?nents. Jerusalem seems to have been taken in October ^ 63, and Pompey must have been detained for some time making these arrangements for the cities of Palestine ; but early in 62 he started once more for Pontus. At Amisos an envoy from Pharnaces appeared, bringing presents and hostages, and above all, the embalmed body of Mithridates, which Pompey would not look at and ordered to be buried in the royal mausoleum at Sinope. Pharnaces was rewarded with the kingdom of the Bosporus, and the usual title of "friend and ally" of Rome. Phanagoria was declared free ; and a number of the partisans of Mithridates were sent to Rome in readiness for Pompey's triumph. The greater Asiatic kingdoms were restored generally to those who had been driven out — Armenia to Tigranes, Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, Commagene with Seleucia to Antiochus ; while Deiotarus was made tetrarch of a part of Galatia ; Attalus prince of Paphlagonia ; Aristarchus of Colchis ; and Archelaus high priest of Comana, which carried with it royal power. Pompey wished also to perpetuate his name by the restoration or foundation of cities. In Pontus, Eupatoria was changed to Magnopolis ; in Cappadocia, Mazaca was restored, and Nicopolis Pompeii built on the site of his victory over the king ; in Cihcia, Soli became Pompeiopolis, — and so with many cities in Pontus, in Palestine, Coele- Syria, and Cilicia, though in many cases the name was not permanently presei-ved; finally, as a favour to his friend the Greek historian Theophanes, he touched at Mitylene and restored to it the freedom forfeited in 81. These arrange- ments made, Pompey proceeded to Ephesus, Rhodes, and Athens, which he presented with a subscription of fifty talents towards the restoration of the city, and thence to Italy, landing at Brundisium towards the close of the year. He returned with a record of achievement never surpassed. The seas were cleared of the pirates. Two large provinces had been added to the Empire ; from the Caspian and Araxes to the Mediterranean all sovereigns reigned by the will and under the protection of Rome. His ships were crowded with kings, princes, and chiefs, who had ruled or claimed to rule over great territories, and with their families numbered 300. For four years he had exercised an unlimited authority over a vast expanse of country, had set up and deposed, had destroyed and built, had re- warded with imperial magnificence and (more seldom) had punished with unquestioned authority. And in this exalted position he had won esteem and even affection by his unblemished integrity and wise lenity. His return to Italy, at the head of such large forces, ^ Josephus says iv ttj ttjs vrfo-retas rifJ^-^pq., the day of Atonement, i.e. loth October, about loth November of unreformed Roman calendar. XLii RETURN OF POMPEY TO ITALY 691 and with the halo of such glory, was looked forward to with anxiety by the senatorial party, which had always been jealous of him, and with mixed feelings of hope and doubt by the Populares, who had never been able to feel sure of his allegiance. To both it seemed that his advent might be the beginning of incalculable change. But Pompey disappointed hopes and fears alike. He was too confident in the glory which he had won to think of playing the part of a Sulla or a Marius. As soon as he landed at Brundisium, after munificently rewarding the men, and pledging himself to obtain grants of land for the veterans, he quietly dismissed his army. AuTHORniES. — Livy, Epit. 99-102 ; Plutarch, Pompey, 23-43 ; Appian, Bellum Miihridat. 93-121 ; Josephus, Antiq. xiv. 2-4 ; Dio Cassius xxxvi. 19- xxxvii. 20 ; Orosius vi. 4-6 ; Zonaras x, 3-5. The 2nd of the Apocryphal " Psalms of Solomon " appears to refer to the entrance of Pompey into the Holy of Holies, and his death in Egypt as a retribution. CHAPTER XLIII THE CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE, AND THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE State of parties at Pompcy's return — The leaders of the Optiniates — The Popu- lares without a leader — C. lulius Caesar — His early career — His support of popular measures (73-68) — Quaestor in Spain (68) — Supports the Gabinian (67) and Manilian laws (66) — Aedile (65) — Fails to get appointed to Egypt — Index quacstiotiis (64) — As diiovir capitalis condemns C. Rabirius — The Catiline conspiracy crushed by Cicero as consul — Caesar advises against executing the conspirators — His election as pontifex maximus (63) — Caesar's praetorship — His contests with the Senate — Fall of Catiline (62) — Caesar propraetor in Spam (61) — Caesar returns from Spain to stand for consulship — Is not allowed to be a candidate without entering Rome — Elected consul, and forms a league with Pompey and Crassus (60) — His consulship and laws (59) — P. Clodius — His violation of the mysteries (62) — His adoption into a plebeian gens and election as tribune (59) — Cicero is banished and Caesar goes as proconsul to Gaul (58) — Clodius' laws — Quarrels with Pompey who supports the recall of Cicero (57) — Pompey praefecfus annonae for five years — Goes to the congress at Lucca on Caesar's invitation (56). h'c/urn of Pompey, at' of party, or likely to be so. Caius Julius Caesar was born in 100 (or ^ loi), of one of the most illustrious patrician gentes. He had already shown daring and independence. In 83 he married Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, and defied Sulla when ordered to divorce her. Serving his first campaign under Thermus at Mytilene he had been selected to demand from the king of Bithynia the use of his fleet (81-80). Returning to Rome after Sulla's death he gained a great reputation for eloquence in the prosecution of Cn. Dolabella for extortion in Macedonia ij^)^ and of C. Antonius for a like crime in Greece (76). On his voyage to Rhodes to study rhetoric he was captured and put to ransom by pirates, and revenged himself by pursuing and putting them to death ; and while at Rhodes, at the beginning of the Mithridatic war (74), he collected troops, crossed over to Asia, and repulsed the general of the king. He returned to Rome in 'Ji^ and from that time was forward in promoting the Supports measures of the popular party. Thus he supported the law of his ^^^ uncle Aurelius Cotta for transferring the judicia from the Senate to f^^^Hy'^^ the three orders, and the lex Plotia for restoring the exiles of the party of Lepidus and Sertorius. In 68 at the funeral of his aunt lulia, widow of Marius, he rejoiced the Populares by causing the images of Marius to be carried in the procession. But he had not yet held office, and his achievement in Asia was probably little known or cared for at Rome.^ His friends (as well as some of his enemies) ^ As an illustration of the indifference at Rome to any but the most striking events in the provinces may be quoted the story that Cicero tells of his own mortified vanity when landing at Baiae from his quaestorship at Lilybaeum, where 696 HISTORY OF ROME Quaestor in. Spain, 68. Why he supported the Gabiniati afid Manilian laws. Caesar s risiiifi popularity. His aedile- ship in 6j. Wishes to go to Egypt. might remember Sulla's saying that there were the materials of many Mariuses in the young man ; but it was at best as a possible leader in the future that he was regarded when, returning from his quaestor- ship in farther Spain in 67, he gave his support to Pompey, and warmly advocated the Gabinian and Manilian laws.^ All sorts of motives were afterwards attributed to him ; he foresaw that he would want similar powers himself in the future : he hoped that Pompey would crush the powers of the Optimates : he imagined that in Pompey's absence he could secure popular favour for himself. Yet his motives may have been more simple. He was not ready yet to take the lead. He had done nothing to justify a hope of being selected out of the ordinary course for high command. He must rely at present on the ordinary means of securing favour, and rise in the regular course. Meanwhile an important piece of work had to be done, and no one was better fitted to do it than Pompey, whose political leanings at least were on the popular side, and whose appoint- ment would be a hint to the Optimates that family arrangements were not always to shelter incompetence. At any rate, if Pompey did return at the head of his army as an enemy of any party, it would be of that to which Caesar himself was opposed. It is from the time of Pompey's departure to the East perhaps that we may date Caesar's deliberate designs of securing the first place for himself, though it was not till the end of the decade that he can be said to have attained his object and gained the undisputed leadership. He adopted the usual measures for the purpose. Becoming a commissioner for the repair of the Appian Way in 67 he expended large sums out of his own purse ; as aedile in 65 he outshone all his predecessors in the magnificence with which he celebrated the games and adorned the public buildings ; and one morning the survivors of the Marian veterans were delighted to find that during the night the statues of Marius and the representations of his Jugurthine and Cimbrian triumphs, removed by Sulla, had been restored on the Capitol by his order. But he had now not only spent all his private fortune, but was so deeply in debt that but for "his hopes" he must have seen nothing but bankruptcy before him. Some lucrative office alone could save him. At that time there was a burning question in Egypt. The reigning king, Ptolemy Auletes, was a miserable debauchee and feeble tyrant, whose subjects despised and wished to get rid of him. Crassus as censor proposed in the Senate that Egypt should be made tribu- he flattered himself that he had made a profound impression, and had done much towards securing his future elections, to find that no one knew where he had been {Pro Plane. § 65). 1 See pp. 681, 682. XLiii CAESAR TAKES THE LEAD OF THE POPULARES 697 tary to Rome, having been already, it was believed, left to the Roman people by will, and the question of Ptolemy be reserved for considera- tion. The Senate rejected the proposal, for the importance of Egypt to the corn supply made them jealous of allowing any one to go there with imperium ; and when Caesar, as aedile, proposed to secure the mission by a plebiscitwn^ the Senate induced a tribune to veto the measure, which would have relieved him from debt, and have at once made him a formidable rival of Pompey. Baffled in this he next year attempted to frighten the Optimates. He was As Index appointed in 64 by the praetor to act as index qiiaestio7iis in quaesHonis cases of murder, and in that capacity condemned some who had condemns killed citizens during Sulla's proscriptions ; and in the following '^^^^^1 year, getting himself and his cousin nominated in accordance with an obsolete law duoviri capitales^ condemned C. Rabirius of per- 6j. duellio^ when impeached by the tribune Labienus for murdering Duoviri Saturninus. Rabirius appealed to the people, and would have ^«/^^«^"- been condemned by them, in spite of Cicero's defence, had not the augur and praetor Metellus, opposing one obsolete practice by another, pulled down the red flag which by an old custom floated on c. Rab- the laniculum during public business. Its lowering was supposed to "''"'•y saved indicate the approach of an enemy, and all business was at once stopped. ^^ ^^'^ . The attack on Rabirius was not renewed ; but Caesar had effected his tlTflal^ object in warning the Optimates that such things were not to be done with impunity. Again in the last days of 64 he supported an agrarian law of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus, not probably because Caesar he thought that such a wide -reaching scheme had a chance of supports the passing, but because it sketched a policy.^ To fill Italy with 'y',l"Y" prosperous freeholders was the primary object ; but another was to j^ulLs stop a source of discontent by buying out those who held under Sulla's confiscations and regranting the land to the original owners. Cicero successfully opposed the law as he did another, to restore the children of those disfranchised by Sulla, on the ground that the safety of the State was at present bound up with the Sullan settlement. Caesar now had an opportunity of testing the popularity he had Caesar acquired. At the end of 64 or beginning of 63 the office of Pontifex against the Maximus became vacant. Caesar was a pontifex, but if the election Optunatist was to be according to Sulla's law by co-optation, he would have no candidate chance. Labienus was therefore again employed to carry a law for pon- 1 restoring the election to the tribes. Caesar's opponents were ^iA I Q. Lutatius Catulus, princeps senatus, and. P. Servilius Isauricus, under whom he had served. He staked his all on success, refused ^ Ten commissioners were to decide what was ager publicus in Italy and the provinces ; to sell it ; and with the money make allotments and colonies I in Italy. ex maxiynus, 6j. 698 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. L. Set-gius Catiline. 6s. Coss. L. Aur- clius Cotta, L. Man litis Torquatus. First Catiline conspiracy large offers from Catulus of relief from debt if he would retire, and told his mother as he left home on the day of election that he would return Pontifex Maximus or an exile. But he was already praetor elect, and after his year of office was to go to Spain. There at last he would have the chance of commanding troops and showmg his capacity for power. But there were other members of the party of Populares who were not prepared to wait : and the leadership of this section at least seemed open to any one who could grasp it. Such a man was found in L. Sergius Catiline. An aristocrat by birth, though without mhent- ance, he could only hope to satisfy his ambition and desires by the profits of office, and could only hope for office from service to one of the great parties. Earlier in life he is found in the SuUan party, and some of its worst excesses were attributed to him, such as the murder of his own brother and that of Gratidianus with torture. Since then he was said to have poisoned wife and son to make room for a new wife, the rich Aurelia Orestilla, and to have debauched a Vestal Virgin. The extreme licence of abuse indulged in by political adversaries at Rome must make us cautious of such stories. He certainly obtained the praetorship in 68 without difficulty, went next year as propraetor to Africa without remark, and returned in 66 hoping for the consulship. It is now that his definite break with the Optimates begins. The consuls elected at the comitia of 66 were disqualified for bribery, and the Senate (with questionable legality) ordered the defeated candidates to enter on the office. Soon after the beginning of their year (65), in order to prevent Catiline from standing at the next comitia, they instigated P. Clodius Pulcher— at that time an Optimatist — to accuse him of extortion in Africa. The accusation was so timed as to prevent his being a candidate for the consulship : and meanwhile a rumour of a plot, in which he was concerned, was spread abroad. It depended on the merest gossip, which did not spare even the names of Caesar and Crassus. In conjunction with P. Antonius Paetus— one of the candidates disqualified for bribery— he is said to have conspired to kill the consuls on the ist of January, seize the fasces, and put the province of Spain in the hands of a confederate, Cn. Calpurnius Piso. The consuls were warned and took precautions, and the murder, postponed till the 5 th of Februar>', was at last prevented by Catiline giving the signal too soon. This is known as the first Catiline con- spiracy. It is enough to observe that no investigation was ever held, and that the Senate sent Piso to Spain after all with extraordinary powers. Catiline's acquittal on the charge of extortion in Africa — in spite of Cicero's assertion that it was impossible — cannot be held as a XLiii CONSPIRACY OF CATALINE 699 proof of innocence. But so far from regarding him as outside the 64. pale, Cicero wished to conciHate him, and even to be elected with him Cahline at the comitia of 64. He undertook also to defend him on another f^^^^ .f!^ ... - , . - J thecomitia. charge brought against him tpis year, the nature of which we do not know. But whether the charge was again so timed as to prevent his 6j. Coss. profession or whether his evil reputation united all parties against him, ^f- TullUis Cicero and C. Antonius were elected for 63, and Catiline was more Y^f*^'. ' ^ . . Antonius. than ever thrown upon the support of the extremists. Cicero would have us believe that he was aware from the first The day of his consulship, or before it, that a nefarious plot was hatch- schemes of ing : that Catiline had collected round him the needy desperadoes ^ ^ ^"^' whose bankruptcy could only be warded off by revolution, and had promised them offices, plunder, abolition of debts, confiscations, and the usual harvest of political disruption. The time was favourable: Piso would support them in Spain ; P. Sittius in Africa. There were no forces in Italy, and the flower of the army was with Pompey in Asia. The first step was for Catiline to get elected consul for 63. When that failed, there was still the chance of the next election, C. Antonius, one of the consuls, being on their side ; and lastly, disturbances were reported in Gaul which might turn to their advantage, as well as in Etruria, where the land -holders put in by Sulla (who had not prospered), as well as the dispossessed heirs, were ready for revolt. From the first, whether fully aware of these things or no, Cicero Cicero's had seen that it was necessary to buy off the opposition of his fneasures. colleague by resigning to him the rich province of Macedonia. He then introduced certain reforms, intended to benefit the provinces and to prevent violence at home. The abuse of the libera legatio was mitigated by a restriction as to lime : banishment was added to the existing penalties for bribery at elections ; and the exhibition of gladiators forbidden to any candidate within two years of his election, except when carrying out the provisions of a will. These measures went very little way in stopping the evils from which the needy at home and the oppressed abroad were suffering. And as the summer wore away rumours of dangerous associations throughout Italy became frequent. Catiline was again a candidate for the consulship ; and Cicero believed, or affected to believe, that he meant with the connivance of Antonius to assassinate him while presiding 6j>. Meet- at the election. He therefore got the comitia postponed, and on the iftg of 2 I St September (the day last fixed for the comitia) asked Catiline in *^^^"^^^^. the Senate for an explanation. He had already been threatened with " ^ ' an impeachment by Cato, and had retaliated by declaring that, if the Optimates lit the flames of civil war, he would quench them by a general overthrow. He now disdained to clear himself in answer 700 HISTORY OF ROME Catiline to Cicero, but avowed amidst the groans of the Senators that he loses his proposed to give the larger party in the State what alone it needed election. _^ \^2.^^x. Cicero declared his own life in danger and came to the comitia wearing a cuirass under his toga and surrounded by an armed guard Fresh of his supporters. ^ Catiline was again defeated, and then, according to rumours of t^g received story, entered upon a deliberate plot for a revolution. a plot, 'pj^g consul Antonius was believed to be in favour of the conspirators, ^J as well as Caesar, praetor-elect, and the actual praetor urbanus, P. Cornelius Lentulus. Every movement of persons suspected of sympathy had been watched with jealousy. P. Sulla was at Naples : he was believed to be concocting plots in the South. P. Sittius, who had business connexions with the king of Mauretania and in southern Spain, went to Spain leaving orders to sell his property in Italy : it was rumoured that he was going as an emissary of the conspirators. Other reports spoke of a rising in Picenum, and of C.Manlius slaves in Capua and Apulia ; but what alone was certainly known in in Etruria Rome was that C. Manlius, an old officer of Sulla, had collected a at Fae- number of malcontents and was encamped near Faesulae, where the Sullan colonists were in a state of bankruptcy, and had set up his standard on the 27th of October, with the intention of marching towards Rome. The plot Cicero had meanwhile kept a close watch on the doings of Cati- betrayedto line and his confederates at Rome, whose plans were betrayed to Cicero. him by Fulvia, the mistress of Q. Curius, one of the band. But though the Senate had conferred upon the consuls extraordinary powers by the usual decree, Cicero does not appear to have got Measuresof sufficient information to justify an arrest. When the information precaution, ^s to the movement of Manlius was announced in the Senate by L. Saenius, who read a letter he had received from Faesulae, military preparations were begun ; measures taken to secure Etruria, Apulia, Capua, and Picenum ; and rewards offered for information. Meeting in Catiline now determined to join the army at Faesulae, and in a meeting the house of of his Confederates at the house of M. Porcius Laeca, arranged the Laeca^'^^^^ parts to be played by those who remained behind. L. Vargunteius jM Nov. ^^3- Caesar s speech. The only safe course is to observe the laws. Fourth Catilin- arian speech [in the Senate). road up to the Capitol were occupied by armed men, mostly of the equestrian order, who volunteered to take the military oath, which next morning was required of all citizens. At the next meeting of the Senate, on the 5th, Cicero brought the question of the prisoners before it. The Senate had no right to sit in judgment on the lives of citizens. It was the consul who, in virtue of the special powers conferred on him, had for the time the power of life and death. But it was a power which rested on no law, and its exercise was at least invidious ; Cicero therefore desired to be supported by a resolu- tion of the Senate. D. Junius Silanus, as consul -designate, was called on first and delivered an opinion in favour of death. ^ In the same sense fourteen consulars also gave their voices. The next to speak was C. lulius Caesar, as praetor-designate. He warned the senators against embarking on a course of illegality, and proposed that the prisoners' property should be confiscated and they them- selves confined for life in certain municipia : " Their crimes deserved the severest punishment ; but when the excitement was over, severity beyond the laws would be remembered, the crimes forgotten. He suggested no mitigation : in their case death might be regarded rather as a release from suffering. If one law were disregarded, why not neglect another and have them flogged before execution ? ^ The bad character of the men did not make unconstitutional measures safer. The thirty tyrants at Athens at first destroyed only criminals ; they soon went on to attack the good ; and even Sulla had begun by what seemed the righteous condemnation of Damasippus. There was no fear of such tyranny with Cicero consul, but no one could speak for the future." The speech made a strong impression and seemed likely to carry the day. After a time Cicero summed up the arguments for the two proposals, professing that he was able and willing to carry out either, but plainly inclining to the side of severity. Still he failed to do away with the effect of Caesar's speech : and when Tib. Nero (grand- father of the Emperor Tiberius) suggested as a compromise that a final decision should be postponed till Catiline had been cmshed, and that then the accused should be tried in the law courts, being kept meanwhile in custody, Silanus and many others professed to be con- vinced. But M. Porcius Cato (tribune-elect) here interposed, and in ^ This was to include also L. Cassius, P. Furius, P. Umbrenus, Q. Annius, who at present had avoided arrest. A senator named Aulus Fulvius is said to have been put to death by his father. 2 The Valerian and subsequent laws de provocatione would be broken by the consul putting the men to death without trial before the people or a popular jury representing them. The law which prevented the flogging of a criminal citizen before execution was the lex Porcia (see p. 93). XLiii DEFEAT AND DEATH OF CATILINE 705 a fiery speech denounced the conspirators and demanded their death. 1 This seems to have settled the matter. When the consul put the question, the majority were for death, and he lost The Senate no time in acting on the decree. The prisoners were taken to '^''^tc ^^^ the Mamertine prison, let down into the dungeon, and strangled. p^^^^Hy^ When it was over Cicero made his way through the crowd in the Forum exclaiming, "They are dead!" He was encouraged by "Vixe- what seemed to him the universal expression of relief, and was ^^"^■' greeted by Cato and Catulus as " Father of his country." - It was a triumph for the Optimates, but a measure of fatal import The for the constitution. The inviolability of a magistrate was set at ''^-f^^^^- naught in the person of Lentulus, by means of a forced abdication ; the Senate had lent its authority to the consul in breaking the law and usurping the functions of the courts.^ The time was soon to come when hundreds of these Optimates, and Cicero himself, were to reap as they had sown and perish by the sword which they had drawn. Catiline recognised it as reducing him to desperation. He had Death of a force of about 20,000 men at Faesulae, though imperfectly armed, Catiline, and early in 62 attempted to make his way into Gaul. But Metellus Celer with three legions barred the direct road at Bononia, and C. Antonius was advancing against him with another army from the south. At Pistoria he turned to bay. Unable to get food for Desperate his men, he resolved to give Antonius battle, and, if he won, to ^^^/^^ «^'^^ push on to join the Allobroges. He took post in the centre of ^/^^^^^^ his line close by the eagle, once belonging to Marius and regarded ^2. by him with superstitious reverence, and prepared his men in a bold speech for victory or death. Antony was, or feigned to be, ill with gout, and the Roman army was commanded by his legate M. Petreius. The rebels fought desperately. Their centre was driven in by the praetorian cohort ; but the rest fell where they were posted, and the dead bodies were found with all their wounds in front. Catiline himself, when he saw all was lost, rushed into the thickest of the enemy and fell fighting fiercely to the last. Cicero had soon reason to know, though obstinately blind to Cicero's the fact, that he had estranged friends and increased his enemies. ^^^ °f tnjluence. 1 Cicero was indignant with Brutus, who wrote a history of the affair, for representing the vote as being given between Caesar and Cato. Technically, it seems, the two motions before the house were those of Silanus and Caesar. Still, as Cato's speech decided the vote, it was loosely said that the Senate in Catonis sententiam disccssit {'^^Wwsi, Cat. 55; Cic. ad Att. xii. 21). ^ The title /a/6V- ox parens patriae, given by the Senate to the emperors, is not to be confounded with this compliment. It is applied by Livy to Romulus (i. 16) and to Camillus (v. 49) ; and had been given to Julius (Cic. 13 Phil. § 23). ^ The execution was the consul's own absolute act ; though he chose to support himself by the auctoritas of the Senate. 2 Z 7o6 HISTORY OF ROME 62. Coss. D. Lunius Silanus, L. Licinius Muraena. Continuous rise of Caesar. Caesar praetor urbanus, 62. Cato and Meiellus. Caesar defeats the Senate. Futile attempt to co)inect Caesar with Catiline s conspiracy, 62. The tribune Q. Caecilius Metellus, a legate of Pompey, and supposed to represent his views, prevented him from making the usual speech on laying down his consulship on the 31st of December ; and he had to console himself with the cheer which greeted his loud declaration, when the oath was tendered to him, that he had " saved the republic." Yet his feverish anxiety for expressions of approval showed an un- easy sense of his equivocal position. The real gainer was Caesar, whose election as pontifex maximus was promoted by the popularity of his action in regard to the con- spirators. ^ From this time he steadily comes to the front in spite of rumours (on which Cicero never ventured to act) that he and Crassus were privy to the plot of Catiline. The year of his praetor- ship (62) was not marked by striking events, yet he showed sufficiently in it that he meant to defy the Optimates. On the first day of it he attempted, though without success, to oust Q. Catulus from the commission for repairing the Capitol, and fixed a slight upon him by not calling on him to speak first when presiding in the Senate ; and he afterwards supported the tribune Caecilius Metellus when he proposed to recall Pompey to protect citizens from illegal punishment. To this vote of censure on the proceedings of the previous year the Optimates offered strenuous resistance. Cato vetoed the law, was driven from the Forum, and returned with numbers of armed Optimates. It was then the turn of Metellus to fly. He made his way to Pompey' s camp, who had lately come to Italy. The Senate declared him deposed from his tribuneship (per- haps on the ground of his absence from Rome), and suspended Caesar also from his praetorial functions. He, however, continued to preside in his court, till the Senate sent armed officers to drag him from his seat. He then dismissed his lictors, threw off his toga praetexta, and retired to his house. But to have thus drawn the Senate into an illegal position was a real triumph. His house was visited by such crowds, and the popular feeling was shown so threateningly, that two days afterwards the Senate rescinded its decree and offered him an apology. But this was not the last attack by the Optimates. L. Vettius was set on to accuse him before the quaestor Novius of having been an accomplice of Catiline, and O. Curius to denounce him in the Senate on the same ground, promising to produce an autograph letter of his to Catiline. In his defence Caesar appealed to Cicero to testify that he had volunteered infor- mation ; and he succeeded in preventing the reward for informa- tion being paid to Curius : while Vettius was nearly torn to pieces in ^ Both Plutarch (Caes. 7) and Dio (xxxvii. 37) imply this. It has been generally stated that Caesar was elected on the previous 6th of March, on the authority of Ovid [Fast. iii. 415-428). But Ovid is referring to Augustus. XLiii CAESAR PROPRAETOR IN SPAIN 707 the Forum, and was thrown into prison, as was Novius also, for hearing a charge against a magistrate of higher rank than himself ^ At the end of his praetorship Caesar went to his province of Caesar in farther Spain. He was so, deeply in debt^ — wanting (he said) Spaifi, 61. 250,000,000 sesterces to be worth nothing — that his creditors would have retained him, had not Crassus interposed as security for a large sum. Even so he was later than usual in starting, and to the satis- faction of the Senate had to stay some months longer than usual in the next year. In Spain he was principally occupied with military operations in Lusitania and Gallaecia, which were in a state of semi- rebellion, though he had also an opportunity of showing his skill as a statesman in legislation at Cades. For the first time he was able to send home reports of battles won and towns taken, as well as to pay large sums into the treasury. He was probably not much more scrupulous than others in regard to enriching himself; and at any rate after the Spanish government we hear little more of financial embarrassment. His achievements in Spain had been honoured by a supplicatio^ and it was understood that on his return he should be allowed a triumph. He however arrived at the gates of the city Returns to somewhat late in the summer (60), not long before it was necessary ^^'«^ ^^^^ for him to make his professio as a candidate for the consulship. J^^^^^^z- Custom, if not law, made it necessary for that to be done in person ; (^q yet he could not enter the city without forfeiting his triumph, the preparations for which could not be completed in time. He applied to the Senate for a relaxation of the rule requiring a personal jZ^rt*- fcssio. A lex Cornelia in 70 {ne legibiis solverentiir) required such a suspension of a law to be passed in a Senate of not less than 200 members and afterwards to be ratified by the people. The Optimates saw a way of mortifying Caesar, and Cato talked the proposition out. Caesar had therefore to decide between his triumph and his election. Caesar He at once entered the city, made the declaration as required, seven- abaiidons teen days before the election, and was returned with M. Bibulus, who /^^ ^^^"' had undertaken to find the money, which now almost as a matter trhattph. of course was distributed among the tribes. But the animus shown by the Optimates in the Senate proved the S9- necessity of strengthening his position. If he was to be upon a level ^^^^^^'s with Pompey, he must, like him, have a lengthened term of imperium, and in a province where he might have a chance of distinction. In 1 Caesar's complicity in the plot has always been a moot point. Rumour connected both his name and that of Crassus with it, and Mommsen regards it as certain that they were both implicated. The ancient authorities do not counte- nance it, with the doubtful exception of Suetonius (17). According to Sallust (49) Catulus and Piso vainly urged Cicero to include Caesar's name. Cicero nowhere implicates him, as surely he would have done in after times if he had had grounds. objects. 7o8 HISTORY OF ROME Situation of Pompey on his return, 6i-sg. The Senate hesitate to conjirtn his acta. The case of P. Clodius Pule her, 62-61. Spain it was said that, coming across some likeness of Alexander the Great, he had sighed to think that he had achieved so little, though past the age at which Alexander had conquered the world. Gaul seemed the province now most likely to give him the oppor- tunity. But to secure it for a sufficient time and with a free enough hand he must get the support of Pompey : and he now found Pompey willing to help him to his objects in order to secure his own. Pompey's return had been looked forward to with anxiety in many quarters. Cicero hoped for his approval, while Crassus affected fear and removed his family from Rome. The Populares expected his support both against the illegal measures of the Optimates and in the better government of the provinces. C. Antonius, for instance, in Macedonia (62) had been both oppressive and flagrantly unsuccessful against the surrounding barbarians, and Pompey was said to have declared that he must be recalled. But the Optimates generally were suspicious and unfriendly. We have seen how they slighted his request for a postponement of the comitia. That might be defended on good grounds. But to his main object — that of having his acta in the East confirmed— ^he found also unexpected and annoying opposition. It touched his honour and pride nearly that the awards made by him after his victories in the new provinces and surrounding states should be formally ratified. The opposition in the Senate was led by L. Lucullus and his brother. Lucullus naturally resented the fact that Pompey was reaping the fruits of his own labour, and he plausibly opposed the demand of Pompey that the acta should be approved en bloc : it was pledging the senators to they knew not what ; each item should be debated and passed by itself At the best, however, this would take much time, and Pompey failed to hasten it. He found himself disliked by the Optimates and yet not well received by the Populares. " His first speech," says Cicero, " did not gratify the poor, was unsatisfactory to the revolu- tionary party, unacceptable to the rich, and regarded as unsound by the conservatives; and so fell very flat.''^ He could not therefore overcome the opposition in the Senate by any manifestation of popu- larity, in spite of his splendid triumph (28th September 61), and the acclamations of the people hailing him as " Magnus." Nor did his conduct in the two chief party contests in the interval gain him the allegiance of any party in the state. The first of these was caused by the silly freak of the dissolute P. Clodius. He was discovered in woman's dress in the house of Caesar, whose wife Pompeia (a grand-daughter of Sulla) was entertain- ing the ladies engaged in celebrating the mysteries of the Bona Dea, 1 Cicero ad Att, i, 14, xLiii THE TRIAL OF CLODIUS 709 from which males were strictly excluded. It was assumed that he was intriguing with Pompeia, although Caesar declared that he had no reason to think s6, but divorced her on the ground that his wife must be above suspicion. Shocking as this senseless escapade was to religious feeling, its consequences were altogether out of proportion to Its importance. It was made the occasion of a violent party con- flict. The bill for his impeachment contained a special clause as to the selection of the jury by the praetor urbanus. It was proposed under the direction of the Senate by the consul Piso, who however was opposed to it and spoke against it. The Populares looked upon this as a device for tampering with the jury system : Clodius became a popular hero, and the question of his trial a test of strength be- tween the two great parties. Pompey was called upon to express 6t. Coss. his opinion in a co?itio at the instance of the tribune Fusius, and ^^^- ^^/" also in the Senate in answer to the consul Messala. In both 'cases ^"''* ^• he spoke vaguely of his deference to the Senate, but was outbidden Me'^^l'a in that point by Crassus, while he yet said enough to annoy Piso and the Populares, who eventually triumphed. The comitia was broken up by bands of ruffians or mechanics {operae) ; a new bill had to be passed without the obnoxious clause ; and Clodius, by means of exercising his right of challenge, secured a jury in which a majority was easily purchased ;i and a subsequent proposal in the Senate for an investigation was resented by the equestrian order and vetoed by a tribune. The only importance of the whole foolish business was the light thrown on the defects of the jury system, and the lengths to which party feeling would go. Secondary con- sequences were that Cicero made a vindictive enemy of Clodius by testifying to having seen him in Rome on the day of the alleged im- piety, on which he affirmed that he was at Interamna ; and secondly, that Pompey had again failed to please any party. The next burning question was the controversy between the The case Senate and the equestrian order. Cicero made it one of the chief <"/ ^^^ points of his policy to promote harmony between the two. Their ^"'^^^'^f"^' interests were, he contended, closely allied. The equites would be ^';^''''' the chief suffbrers by the triumph of the extremists. A wiping out of debts— «^7w tabi(/ae--^2is a bugbear always before the eyes of rich men, and in some form or other supposed to be always in ^ The Jury pretended to be alarmed and asked for a guard. After the verdict Catulus said sarcastically that he supposed they wanted it to protect their money. Clodius, however, was believed to have succeeded in a double rascality, by intercepting the promised bribe; thus, as Cicero sardonically remarked, after all keeping the law which punished those y^ho paid bribes The lively and graphic letters of Cicero {ad Att. i. 14, 16), describing the scenes in the Senate, contio, and court should be read. Curio divided the Senate on the question of having a special rogatio at all, but lost by 15 to 400. 7IO HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 60. Coss. L Afranius, Q. Cae- cilius Metellus Celer. Fir si {in- formal) triumvir- ate. the popular programme; while allotments of land ^"^ the supply of free corn at the public cost must eventually be made at the ex- pense of the rich. Therefore they should hold together ; they were alike bonij they were equally interested in the mamtenance of the constitution. This harmony was now endangered by what the equites chose to consider a hardship. In the eager competition for state contracts the publicani had bought the taxes of Asia at a price which, owing to a too sanguine estimate, or a bad season, threatened them with bankruptcy. They applied to the Senate in whose hands such matters lay, for some abatement. It was an indefensible claim, and Cicero spoke of it as disgraceful.i Yet he was for going even this length to propitiate the rich middle class. Cato however was uncompromising,-" living," Cicero said, " ni a republic of Plato -and carried the majority of the Senate with him - The breach between the orders grew worse and worse; and Pompey did not avail himself of the opportunity to get credit by healing^ it, or by lending his support to either side. He held aloof altogether, think- ing only of the confirmation of his acta and the satisfaction of his veterans He hoped to secure these by getting his adherent Afranius elected consul for 60. But Afranius proved a failure and had no influence Therefore when Caesar returned from Spain he found Pompey as far from his object as ever ; and, though enjoying im- mense prestige, without a party strong enough to carry his measures. Both had now reasons for discontent with the Senate, and a motive for combination. Caesar could give Pompey what he lacked, the cordial support of the Populares ; and together they might check- mate the Optimates and Cicero by adopting the latter s pohcy of conciliating the equites. Shortly before Caesai-'s election therefore the proposal of co-operation seems to have been made. Caesar, however, could not afford to forfeit the support of the wealthy Crassus, and his first step was to reconcile him with Pompey Thus was formed what has been called the First Triumvirate. It was not, like the triumvirate of 43, a legally established commis- sion ; it was rather on the precedent of the informal agreement of Marius, Saturninus, and C. Servilius Glaucia in 90, to secure the administration in the hands of friends. Caesar went to the comitia 1 Invidiosa res, turpis postidatio, et confessio temeritatis {adAtt. i. ^7)- 2 We do not know Chat they had to say for themselves. The great capitalist Crassus supported them, but he may have been an interested P^;; X- ^^^5° ^ policy was the most barefaced expediency. -the equites must be ^^^^^^^^^ed^ Just as after the trial of Clodius he opposed an mvestigation because the equites regarded it as a slight upon themselves. The only thmg that seems Posj.ble to be urged in favour%f the abatement is that it would perhaps have saved the provincials themselves some extra suffering and pressure ; but that nobody thought of. XLiii CAESAR'S CONSULSHIP 711 walking between Pompey and Crassus ; and all the Optimates could do was to secure the return of M. Bibulus as his colleague, who was devoted to their interests. It was now the turn of . the Populares. Pompey was gratified by S9- Coss.C. the confirmation of his acta, and his veterans obtained allotments of ^"^^"^ lands under an agrarian law dealing with all the ager publicus in ^"f T' ^^' Italy. The Stellatian plain and other lands in Campania were divided among 20,000 citizens who had three or more children; a colonv ^^^^^^ ^ ,, -. , . , . ^^i^^iiy measures. was settled at Capua ; the equestrian order was conciliated by an abatement of a third from contracts for the revenues of Asia ; and the urban populace by fresh bills for distribution of corn. These measures were not carried without some violence. Pompey, who had now married Caesar's daughter Julia, appeared at the head of an armed force in the Campus, nominally to keep order, really to over- awe the voters ; and when Cato persisted in a vehement opposition in the Senate Caesar ordered his lictors to drag him to prison. This was, however, going too far. Cato was respected, if not followed ; and one of the tribunes, on a hint from Caesar, released him. His colleague Bibulus tried in vain to vitiate Caesar's agrarian law by sending him notice that he was watching the sky {se servare de caeld). Finding his interposition neglected he retired to his house and con- tented himself with issuing edicts, much admired as specimens of style, but wholly disregarded. The wits declared that the acts of the year were done in the year of lulius and Caesar, — Bibulus did not count. ^ While thus carrying reforms at home, however, Caesar lexIuUadc was not unmindful of the still more crying claims of the provinces, repetundis. Among his measures was a new law de repetundis, under which the whole of the retinue of a governor was made responsible for ex- tortion. Restitution was to be made to four times the value, and a conviction was to disable a man from bequeathing his property iititestabilis), and in certain cases was to involve perpetual exile. The Senate was studiously ignored : and not consulted as to the legislation which the consul brought before the people. The next step was to secure a lengthened imperium and a The province with chances of distinction. The Senate had allotted P^'ovince " Italy" as the province for the consuls of 59. But Caesar did not -^^^ Caesar. mean to be content with that. The tribune P. Vatinius, who had been his most forward partisan throughout the year, brought in a rogatio conferring on Caesar the government of Illyricum and Cis- alpine Gaul for five years. This was in itself (though perfectly legal) lex an invasion of a department which had always been left to the Senate. Vatinia. But ^he Senate, accepting the inevitable with apparent good grace, ^ Non Bibulo quicquam nuper sed Caesare factum est ; Nam Bibulo Jieri consule ?iil viemini (Suet. lulius, 20). 712 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Measures of security during Caesar s absence. ^8. Coss. L. Calpurnius Piso, A. Gabinius. Cicero to be removed. P. Clodius becomes tribune fors8. even added to this already large province that of Transalpine Gaul. Their motive however was not, it seems, a desire to promote Caesar's honour. The Cisalpine province presented no special difficulty or cause for alarm, although Caesar was known to be in favour of giving the citizenship to the Transpadani : but rumours of dangerous move- ments in Transalpine Gaul had for some time been rife ; and only in 6 1 a rebellion of the Allobroges had been crushed by the praetor Gnaeus Pontinus at Solonium. No doubt some man of energy was needed there ; but the Senate caught at the chance of removing Caesar to a distance, where there was also a possibility of his meet- ing with disaster. His sphere would be in strictness the Roman 'province' or Narbonensis; but any expedition or extension demanded by the safety of the province would be in his hands. Caesar, moreover, would not be cut off from Roman politics as completely as Pompey had been during his Eastern command. Spending the winters at Lucca or Ravenna or some other place in Cisalpine Gaul, he could easily be visited by his partisans, and be kept in touch with home affairs. But still it was necessary to keep the administration in the hands of friends. For 58 therefore the consul- ship was secured for his father-in-law L. Calpurnius Piso Caesonius and for Pompey's legate and partisan A. Gabinius. C. Cato, the tribune of 56, tried to prevent Gabinius from entering upon his office by laying a charge of bribery against him ; but the praetors avoided hearing the case ; and Cato himself was nearly murdered by the mob. He had to content himself with speaking of Pompey as a " private dictator." Farther, they judged it necessary to remove Cicero from Rome at least for a time. His opposition to the policy of the triumvirs was well known. It had even been possible to connect his name with a plot, in conjunction with C. Curio, L. Lucullus and others, to murder Caesar and Pompey ; and though the informer Vettius — who had previously denounced Caesar in the affair of Catiline — contradicted himself so outrageously that he was no more worthy of credit than Titus Gates, and was eventually found strangled in prison, there perhaps remained some uneasiness in their minds. There was one obvious way of getting rid of him. P. Clodius, after his acquittal on the charge of impiety, had gone as quaestor to Sicily (60), and had returned in the following year intending to stand for the aedileship. But though it was impossible to regard him as a serious politician, he seems now to have taken up the side of the extremists among the Populares, and to have had a definite scheme of legislation ; and, above all, to have determined to revenge himself upon Cicero for giving evidence against him. This ven- geance could be conveniently joined with the rest of his extremist politics ; and in order to effectually carry out both purposes, the XLiii CLODIUS BECOMES A TRIBUNE 713 tribuneship would be better than any other office. To become a tribune, however, he would have to become a member of a plebeian gens. As he was not i7i 7?ia?tti patris he could only be adopted by a process called adrogatio in the old coviitia ciiriata^ and with the sanction of the college of pontifices. To hold the couiitia ciiriata also certain religious rites had to be observed requiring the presence of an augur. But with Caesar pontifex maximus, and Pompey a member of the college of augurs, this would not be difficult, supposing them to be willing. They thus had to their hand an instrument for getting rid of Cicero. Clodius made no secret of the fact that his motive in seeking Clodius such an adoption was to qualify for the tribuneship and then to ^"'^ ^^^ attack Cicero. For some time Caesar and Pompey apparently ^l-T^^' hesitated to gratify him. But when Cicero disgraced himself by defending C. Antonius on a charge of majostas for his failures and extortions iil Macedonia, in the course of his speech he made some allusion to the political situation, which was reported in exaggerated terms (he says) to Caesar and Pompey. Within three hours the adoption of Clodius into a plebeian gens was accomplished, Pompey himself presiding. Still Caesar (who had a sincere liking and admiration for him) endeavoured to induce Cicero to leave Rome in some honourable way, — as his own legatus in (laul, — as a member of the land commission under his new agrarian law, — or at least on a tour with a libera legatio. But Cicero declined all such friendly offers. For some time he seems to have hardly credited the inten- tion of Clodius to attack him, and believed that he aimed at a mission to Tigranes of Armenia, or a seat on the land commission ; and when he could no longer shut his eyes to the truth, he buoyed himself up with the belief that his own services had been so extra- ordinary that his safety would be the care of every respectable citizen. Pompey also seems to have assured him that he would be protected. He determined to stay and fight Clodius at home. On the loth of December 59 Clodius entered upon his tribune- ship ; and at the end of the year Ceasar left Rome to enrol his legions and make his preparations for Gaul, but for some weeks was outside the city. Clodius showed his animus at once by pre- P. Clodius venting Bibulus from speaking when fonnally abdicating his consul- P^kher ship on the 31st DecemlDer, and soon afterwards produced his project ^' '' of legislation. The first item was as usual a more liberal distribution cn-iotli of corn. This was only what others had done. The three next items Dec jS. had more important consequences. The first related to the auspices, //is By the lex Aclia (160) a magistrate was prohibited from continuing popular any public business if another magistrate gave notice that the omens '''^"^''''^■'^• were bad or that he was "watching the sky." This was called 714 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The obmin- tiatio. Collegia opificum. The censors. Pi so and Gabinins sent to Cilicia and Syria. Cyprus annexed to Cilicia. Banish- ment of Cicero, March jS. obniiutiatio., and was used as a means of hindering legislation or elections obnoxious to either party. Bibulus had employed the right in the case of Clodius' own adoption, though his interference had been disregarded. Clodius now abolished the clause in the lex Aelia by forbidding such obniintiatio?tes, at least in legislative comitia. The next law also requires a few words of explanation. From very early times (traditionally in the reign of Numa) guilds {sodalitatcs or collegia) of various craftsmen had existed at Rome, each with its own objects of worship and trade rules. But in course of time there had grown up certain other collegia sodalicia., — whether developed from them or entirely independent it is difficult to say, — whose object was to influence elections and legislation. This object was often effected by violent means, the collegia forming the nucleus of riots, and furnish- ing those gangs of workmen {operac) of which we hear so much in the next few years. These collegia had been declared illegal by a senatus-consult in 64 : they were now legalised afresh. ^ The third important Clodian law regarded the censors. Since the severe measures of the censors of 70, by which several of the Populares as well as the Optimates had suffered, the office had been almost in abeyance. Clodius now deprived them of the power of striking off names from the Senate except after a formal trial before both. These laws were of course odious to the Optimates. His foreign policy was equally objectionable to them. He carried a bill assign- ing Cilicia and Syria to the consuls Piso and Gabinius respectively, thus putting the East for the time in the hands of his party ; and another to depose Ptolemy, king of Cyprus, — once called friend of the Roman people, — on the pretext of abetting the pirates, and to send Cato to confiscate the king's treasures. Ptolemy killed him- self; but Clodius effected the double object of getting rid of Cato for a time on an invidious and disgraceful service and of filling the treasury, exhausted by his corn distribution and his remission of a fifth of the vectigalia. But his greatest stroke was to secure Cicero's fall. Early in 58 he brought in a bill rendering liable to prosecution all magistrates who had put citizens to death without trial. As soon as it was passed he appears to have given notice of his action {dicni dixit). The confidence which Cicero had expressed in the support he would find throughout all Italy, in the pledges of Pompey and Caesar, in the good disposition of the praetors and of the majority of the tribunes, proved at once illusory,^ Caesar, who was outside ^ They disappeared under the Empire, only those guilds being licensed which could prove their antiquity (Suet. Aug. 32). The illegitimate collegia came to be regarded as dangerous everywhere, almost like the " secret societies" of our time. ^ This confidence is expressed in a remarkable way in a passage beginning, " Si diem nobis Clodius dixit : tola Italia concurret " ... written to his brother XLiii EXILE OF CICERO 715 the walls, would do nothing. Pompey retired to his Alban villa and refused to see Cicero when he came there. One consul, Gabinius, repulsed him rudely ; the other, Piso, was more courteous but ad- vised him to yield to the storm and retire for a time. By a merciful custom voluntary exile saved a man from condemnation. Cicero's thoughts seem at first to have turned to suicide ; but from this he was diverted by his friend Atticus, and early in April he left Rome for South Italy, intending it seems to go to Sicily. At Vibo (Hip- ponium) in Lucania he heard that Clodius had taken the step always possible in regard to a voluntary exile. He had carried a rogatio declaring him a public enemy, confiscating his property, and pro- hibiting him from " fire and water " within 400 miles of Rome. The Senate indeed had protested, and a majority had put on signs of mourning, but it could not prevent or counteract a law. Clodius proceeded to pull down Cicero's town house on the Palatine, to declare its site dedicated to Liberty, and to dismantle his Tusculan and Formian villas. Meanwhile, having received notice from the praetor in Sicily, Cicero at P. Verginius, that he would not be allowed to come there, Cicero Thessal- arrived at Brundisium on the i6th of April, and on the ist of May ^"^« '^""' crossed to Epirus and travelled along the Egnatian road to Thessal- chiujn, sS. onica, where he remained till November ; and then returned to Dyrrachium in expectation of the recall which he felt sure would come with the new magistrates of 57, and from the differences which had arisen between Clodius and Pompey. For Clodius, growing insolent from success, had irritated and Clodii/s insulted Pompey, with the secret support it seems of Crassus, with q^*ayrels whom Pompey was never on cordial terms. He secured the reversal „' of some of his measures ; prosecuted some of his friends ; connived at the escape of Tigranes, son of the Armenian monarch, whom Pompey had kept as a hostage ; and openly ridiculed and denounced him. His riotous partisans almost murdered Q. Cicero, the orator's brother ; and treated Pompey himself with such violence in the Forum, that he retired to his house, refused to appear any more in the Forum while Clodius was tribune, and resolved to secure the recall of Cicero. Clodius ceased to be tribune on the loth of December, and of 57- Coss. the consuls who came into office on the ist of January following (57), ^^''^'^t'/^/^j Lentulus was a close friend of Caesar's ; and Metellus, who had been ^pinther a legate of Pompey's, was the tribune of 62 who prevented Cicero q, Cae- making the usual speech on laying down his consulship. But Len- cilius tulus, who from this time sided with the Optimates, on the ist of -^/ff<^^^"^ January declared in the Senate that he would not oppose the recall ^ ^^^^' after the elections for 58. It is too long to quote, but it is worth reading as show- ing how far Cicero was blinded [Ad (J. Fr. i. 2, 9). 7i6 HISTORY OF ROME Milo fights Clodius with his own ■weapons. Poinpey appoiyitcd praefectus annofiae forjivc years, sj- J 6. Coss. Cn. Cornelius Ixntulus, L. Mar- cius Philippus. of Cicero ; and his colleague Metellus seems to have joined in the same assurance, purely, it seems, out of deference to Pompey. But it was many months before the measure was carried. Two of the new tribunes were found to hinder the resolution of the Senate being passed, directing the consul to bring in a law, till the 25th of January. But even then, Clodius contrived to prevent the consul carrying out the Senate's order. His law as to the collegia had secured him the services of bands of workmen {operae\ and he con- tinually interrupted by violence the comitia summoned to pass the law. The Optimates opposed him with equal violence. One of the tribunes, P. Annius Milo, collected similar bands, or hired gladiators, with whom he attacked the bands of Clodius, and retaliated by pre- venting the comitia at which he was a candidate for the aedileship. The city was constantly a scene of fierce violence. It was not till the 5th of September that Lentulus was able to bring his law before the comitia centuriata and get it passed. Cicero at once returned. But though Clodius could not prevent that, he could make life dangerous to him by attacks of his mob, and by burning his brother Quintus' house ; while he vehemently opposed the rebuilding of Cicero's own house on the Palatine, and the vote of money for the restoration of his villas. Cicero returned professing gratitude to Pompey, and bent on his old policy of detaching hini from Caesar and attaching him to the Senate. Of Caesar he spoke as bitterly as he dare. " He would not call him an enemy," he said, "but he was aware that he had allowed others to call him so without a word of contradiction." ^ In pursuance of this policy, he proposed immediately after his return that, in view of an alarming scarcity and dearness of corn, Pompey should be appointed pracfcctiis aiwonae for five years, with ships and legates, and authority over all ports, agricultural operations, and corn markets throughout the Empire. Though this removed Pompey for a short time from Rome, it gave him a standing and prestige which might keep him on equal terms with Caesar. }Ie went to Sicily, and succeeded in promoting the supply of corn and bringing down the price. But on his return at the beginning of 56, instead of the popularity he expected, he found himself constantly attacked by Clodius,— now aedile, and therefore safe from impeachment,^ — and an object of jealousy to the Optimates in the Senate. He attributed much of this to the persistent enmity of Crassus, and for a brief time a rupture in the triumvirate seemed imminent. His thoughts turned again to the East. If he could get the commission to restore Ptolemy Auletes to the throne of Egypt, he might occupy again a ^ Post reditu7n in Sen. § 32. XLiii POMPEY GOES TO LUCCA 717 position in the East counterbalancing that of Caesar in the West. But the jealousy of the Senate prevented this, or in fact any appoint- ment. ^ A Sibylline oracle was produced forbidding Ptolemy's restora- tion by force : and, finding himself the object of aversion to the Clodian and Optimate extremists alike, Pompey was compelled to accept the invitation of Caesar to a conference at Lucca, whither Crassus had already gone, in order to settle anew the questions that had arisen since Caesar had left Rome. Thus Cicero's hope of detaching Pompey from Caesar was Renewal frustrated, and the complete agreement between the three was out- ^f ^J^^ . wardly renewed. Events indeed presently showed its hollowness ; a^eement freed Pompey from his double bondage ; and placed him in a position at Lucca, in which complete control of the state seemed to be in his hands. April s 6. Had he grasped it with vigour, — had he seen, as his rival did, that the hour of the old constitutional regime and its hypocrisies had come, the fate of the Republic might have been changed. 1 Cicero, adQ. Fr. ii. 16 ; Plutarch, Pomp. 49 ; Dio Cass. 39, 21-16. Ptolemy had assisted Pompey in the Jewish war in 63 ; had been declared a ' ' friend and ally" in 59 (Caes. B. Civ. iii. 107), and had on his expulsion from Alexandria come to Rome to ask assistance (57). See p. 696. A tribune named Caninius promulgated a rogatio for commissioning Pompey without an army to go to Alexandria and attempt a reconciliation between Ptolemy and his subjects, but it fell through. He was finally restored by Gabinius in 55 (Cic. 2 Phil. § 48). He was the father of Cleopatra, and died in 51. Authorities. — The best are the letters and speeches of Cicero himself. If the letters are read in chronological order, they will be found of extraordinary in- terest. There are, however, only eleven before 63, none unfortunately in that year (the consulship), but a great number from 62 to 56. The speeches most useful for this period are the two Contra Rulliim ; those after his return — in Senatu, ad Qui rites, de Dome sua, de Ilaruspicum rcsponso ; pro Sestio, in P. Vatinium, de Provinciis Consularibus. For the Catiline conspiracy Cicero's four speeches and the monograph of Sallust. With works so entirely contemporary others become less important. Still nmch may be got from Plutarch's lives of Pompey, Cicero, Caesar, Crassus; and from Suetonius' Life of Caesar. We have now Dio's continuous history from 67 onwards, books 36-39. Of Livy there are only epitomes of books 102-104. Appian {Dell. Civ. ii. 1-16) is interesting, but curiously inaccurate. CHAPTER XLIV CONQUEST OF GAUL AND OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR, 58-49 Caesar vainly attacked for actions during his consulship (58) — First campaign in Gaul against the Helvetii and Germans under Ariovistus (58). Sf.COND, against Xhe Belgae and Nendi (57) — Attacks upon Caesar in Rome by Aheno- barbus, and the conference at Lucca (57-56). Third campaign in Gaul, the Veneti — Consulship of Ponipey and Crassus (55). Fourth campaign, de- feat of Germans on the Meuse — Crossing the Rhine — First invasion of Britain (55). Fifth campaign, second invasion of Britain — Outbreixk in North Gaul and loss of a legion (54). Sixth campaign, the Nkrvti and Tre- VERi — Second crossing of the Rhine (53)— Seventh campaign. Rebellion in southern Gaul — Capture of Avaricum — Failure at Gergovia — Capture of Alesia (52). Eighth and Ninth campaigns, reduction and pacification of Gaul (51-50) — Events leading to the Civil war (55-50) — The Senate decide to give Caesar a successor — Refuse to consider his desixitch — Expel the tribunes — Caesar crosses the Rubicon [January 49]. s8. Coss. There had been sufficient show of force at the comitia when Caesar's L. Cat- \2i\\s were passed to give a handle to his enemies. Two of the praetors PisT^A ^'^^ 5^' ^^^^'^ Memmius and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. consulted the Gabinius. Senate on a prosecution ; and one of the tribunes was only prevented by the veto of his colleagues from bringing him to trial, while he was still outside the walls preparing to start for his province. But all such hindrances were brushed aside by alarming news from Trans- alpine Gaul. The part of his province which was south of the Alps was rapidly becoming Romanised, and though the Transpadani were not yet full citizens, the question of admitting them to that privilege was one for a statesman rather than a soldier. Illyricum was always open to attacks from the Dalmatians, and since 167 (when it became a province) there had been at least three wars there. It seems that even now it was looked upon as the most likely part of Caesar's government to require force ; for three out of his four legions w^ere sent to Aquileia, from which they might easily cross. But in fact, during Caesar's rule, with the exception of one brief outbreak towards the end, it remained peaceful, and was only visited by him for the holding yearly assizes or convetitus. CHAP. XLiv CAESAR PROCONSUL IN GAUL 719 Transalpine Gaul, added at Pompey's instance to Caesar's govern- Trans- ment, turned out to be the real sphere of his activity. The province, (^^P^^e regularly constituted since 1 1 8, included the district marked off by ^" ' the Rhone from the lake of Geneva to the Gulf of Lyons, with a west- ward extension to take in Tolosa {Toulouse) and the country between it and the Pyrenees. On the south-west no natural boundary separated it from the Aquitani ; but on the north-west the Cevennes severed it from the Arverni, and on the north the Rhone divided it from the Sequani. The rest of Gaul is divided by Caesar into three compartments — Central or Celtic Gaul, from the Sequana {Seme) to the Garumna {Ga7-on)ie\ extending westward to the ocean ; Aquitania, between the Garonne and the Pyrenees ; and Belgic Gaul, from the Seine to the Rhine. In Celtic Gaul the Aedui, separ- ated on one side from the Arverni by the Loire, and on the other by the Saone from the Sequani, had some years before sought protection from Rome against their dangerous neighbours, and had been received as " friends and allies." ^ But in the midst of domestic troubles Gaul had been neglected. In 78 L. Manilius was defeated by the Aquitani ; in 76 and 75 Pompey found rebellious movements in the province itself In 61 the Allobroges in the northern part of the province had risen and were put down with difficulty. These indications of weakness or neglect had encouraged the Arverni and Sequani to combine against the Romanising Aedui, for whose de- struction they had invited the Germans across the Rhine. The Aedui sent Divitiacus to Rome for help, but none had been given ; and Ariovistus, the head of the motley German horde now in Gaul, had even found means during Caesar's consulship (59) to be recog- nised by the Senate as a "friend and ally." There did not seem, therefore, any immediate need of the legions in the province. It was quite a different danger that hastened Caesar's departure. The The Helvetii — between Basle and Geneva — occupied a country then ^^i'^^iii- much covered with forest and marsh, and had for some years been contemplating a migration to a better district, either westward to Aquitania and the ocean, or, as some said, eastward into Italy. Their easiest way would be to cross the Rhone by the bridge at Geneva — the first town of the Allobroges, — march through the province, and then either recross the Rhone and make their way to Aqui- tania, or turn eastward towards Italy. The news of the contem- plated migration, under Orgetorix, reached Rome in 61, and caused much alarm. But the treason and death of Orgetorix (accused of aiming at tyranny) seems to have delayed matters. It was only in 58 that the report came that they had burnt their villages, ^ Fratres ?iostri , Cicero ad Att. i. 19 (written in 60). 720 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Caesar hastens to Geneva, Defeat a7id destruction of the Hel- vetii. TKe Aediii ask aid against the Germans. Victory over Ario- vistus, autumn of 5S. prepared their train of waggons, and meant to start on the 28th of March. In 107 they had joined the Cimbri ; and the Tigurini had defeated L. Cassius Longinus. The same might happen again. Caesar reached Geneva in a week, ordered a general levy in the province, and broke down the bridge over the Rhone. He thus left the Helvetii only the narrow road between the lake and the Jura, and this he at once closed by an earthen rampart and ditch, strengthened by towers, from the point where the Rhone leaves the lake to where it passes through the Jura and becomes too rapid to be crossed. While this work — extending for more than ten miles — was being com- pleted, the Helvetii were kept back by evasive answers to their request for a passage ; and after a vain attempt to break through the ram- part they went into the territory of the Sequani, who let them pass, and thence across the Saone into the lands of the Aedui. But a crowd of 300,000, including women and children, moved slowly. Caesar had time, leaving Labienus in charge of the earthwork, to hurry into North Italy ; summon the three legions from Aquileia ; raise two fresh ones ; and yet catch the Helvetii while still only partly across the Saone. The Tigurini were cut to pieces ; the rest were overtaken near Bibracte {Autun), and defeated with immense slaughter. The survivors, about 130,000, were sent back to their country. This victory brought submissions on all sides. But the friendly Aedui now asked for help. There were 120,000 Germans of various tribes in Gaul under Ariovistus, who had already defeated the Aedui more than once, and had occupied much of the territoiy of the Sequani who had joined originally in asking their aid. Caesar at once under- took to be the champion of the Gauls. Though not yet a province, Gaul was to be closed to foreign invaders. The step from protection to mastership was apt to be a short one. But Ariovistus was not easily cowed. He claimed the rights of conquest over the Aedui ; declared himself ready to fight Caesar ; and showed that he was aware of the political divisions at Rome, and that he would be pleasing a powerful party there by defeating and even slaying him. By great exertions Caesar anticipated him in occupying Vesontio {Besa?ti-o?i) on the Doube ; and after some diffi- culty with his soldiers, who feared the unknown country and the warlike character of the Germans, came within sight of Ariovistus between Basle and Mulhausen. After fruitless negotiations, Ariovistus attempted to get between the Romans and their supplies from the Sequani, and Caesar was obliged to fight for his own safety. For some days, however, he failed to induce Ariovistus to give him battle. The wise women, it was said, refused leave till the next new moon. When at length the Germans were forced to fight, the Romans DEFEAT OF ARIOVISTUS 721 charged with such fury that they did not wait to hurl their pila, but rushed upon the enemy, and dashed to pieces the close circle with its locked shields, in which they were formed ; while in another part of the field young P. Crassus led a brilliant charge of cavalry which 3 A 722 HISTORY OF ROME Gaul cleared of Germans. Second Campaign. Conquest of north- west Gaul, 57- Great victory over the Nervii. carried all before it. The slaughter was immense, and was rendered still more complete by the hostile natives, who cut off stragglers as they were traversing the thirty-five miles to the Rhine. By this victory north-eastern Gaul was cleared of the foreigner, and the powerful tribe of the Suevi, who had reached the river, returned to their homes. The territory thus " protected," moreover, was not to be abandoned. The legions wintered outside the pro- vince in the country of the Sequani, under the command of Labienus, while Caesar went to Cisalpine Gaul to hold the convejttus and to meet his friends^ During the winter a new danger was growing to a head. The Belgae, in the north-west, between the Seine and the Rhine, were collecting their forces. They feared, it was said, an attack upon themselves ; but an even stronger motive was the fact that by the occupation of " Celtic Gaul " the Romans cut off from the various usurpers in the Belgic tribes a fruitful recruiting ground, and to secure themselves it was necessary to stop the Roman advance. Caesar, on hearing the news, enrolled two new legions i in Cisalpine Gaul, and sent them to Besangon. Early in 57 he arrived there himself, and by a rapid march of fifteen days entered the territory of the Belgae, received the submission of the Remi, and advanced across the Aisne, where he left six cohorts to guard the bridge. He came up with the enemy near Bibrax, which he occupied, and after some days of desultory fighting advanced to Noviodunum {Soissons sur Aistie), a city of the Suessiones, which presently surrendered, as did also the chief town of the Bellovaci, Bratuspantium {Beauvais)., and now found himself in the presence of the most warlike of the Belgic tribes, the Nervii, who were encamped on the left bank of the Sabis (ySambre). Then followed the most formidable struggle in which he had yet been engaged ; and the victory was due above everything to himself His advanced guard selected for a camp a hill sloping down to the 1 In his first year Caesar had in Gaul : (i) one legion which he found there [loth] ; (2) two which he enrolled in the province [nth and 12th] ; (3) three which he brought from Aquileia [7th, 8th, and 9th]. These six legions, with auxili- aries of horse and foot, did the work of 58. In 57 he enrolled two more in Cisalpine Gaul [13th and 14th]. These eight were his whole force till 54. In 54 another was enlisted in the province [isth], but the 14th was only kept at half strength — half being drafted into the other legions. In 53 the 14th was replenished, and Pompey lent two more [ist and 3rd]. In 51-50 he had to send two of these eleven for the Parthian war [ist and 15th], but fresh levies might easily make up for them (Dio. xl. 65, koX /aAXwi' e-wl r% Trpo(pda-€L Tavrrj ttoXXw irXelovs crrparicuras avTiKa KaraXe^eLv), so that in 49 Cicero reckons him to have eleven legions, besides Gallic cavalry {ad Att. vii. 7). The legions now contained from 30Q0 to 3600 men, including cavalry. XLiv DEFEAT OF THE NERVII 723 right bank of the Sambre. Opposite was a similar hill covered with 57. Coss. woods in which some of the Nervii were concealed. They had been ■^• told that the Roman legions marched singly with a baggage train ome tns between each two. When Caesar therefore led six legions into camp, spinther, and the men were engaged in fortifying it, and the long baggage Q. train was seen following, the Nervii rushed from* their hiding, drove Caecilius off the Roman cavalry which had already crossed the river, and in a ^^^^^^^^^ moment seemed everywhere — in the river, on the bank, and swarm- ing up the hill. Caesar, calm in the midst of the storm, recalled Heroism of by bugle the fatigue parties gone in search of wood ; got his men Caesar. into some sort of order, and gave the signal for battle. Even so, if the men had not been veterans, capable of independent action in an emergency, there must have been a disaster. Yet, though the Roman left and centre repulsed the Atrebates and Veromandui ; the right, which was attacked by the main body of the Nervii, was out- flanked, and so crowded as to be altogether blocked and unable to use their weapons. Caesar hurrying to the spot found that many of the cohorts had lost all their centurions, and were on the point of giving way to complete panic. He snatched a shield from a soldier, called on surviving centurions by name, forced the men to take more open order, and, getting the two legions together, led a charge. Its success restored confidence, and w4ien the two legions which had been on the rear of the baggage came up, and when Labienus, who had crossed the river in pursuit of the enemy, sent back the loth legion DestmcHon to his relief, the whole face of the battle was changed. The cavalry, of the ^ which had been driven from the camp, returned ; and though the ^^^^^^^ Nervii still fought desperately, before the day closed they had been all but exterminated. When those who had been concealed with women and children in the forest sent in their submission, they declared that of 60,000 only 500 fighting men remained. Belgic Gaul was now almost subdued, only the Aduatuci held out in their chief town on the Meuse. Caesar laid siege to it, and the garrison and of the soon offered to surrender, throwing their arms from the walls as a Aduatuci. pledge of good faith. They had, however, concealed others, and in the night sallied out against the camp. They were driven back, the gates forced, and the inhabitants sold into slavery. As P. Crassus had meanwhile secured the submission of the tribes Norih- of Normandy and Britanny,^ the whole of north-western France and "^^^tem Belgium was now subject to Rome. The peoples were dediticu, and ^JJ^ as such must accept Roman orders. They were not yet formed into a province. They were in that transitional state in which, though not formally under any laws other than their own, they were in fact 1 The Veneti, Unelli, Osistni, Curiosolitae, EsuHi, Aulerci, Kedones (Caes. D.G. ii. 34). 724 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Wittier of Affairs at Rotne. Opposition to Caesar. j<5. Coss. Cn. Cortieliiis Lentulus Marcel- Htius, L. Marcius Philippus. subjects of Rome, unable to refuse obedience or to make war on their own account.^ In return they would be protected from attack, and would presently take their place in the imperial system, with legal rights varying in the several communities. It was a splendid achievement to have brought this noble country with its vigorous inhabitants to share in the civilisation and world-interests of Rome, and to stand between Italy and the northern hordes which were in the future to be its scourge. The minor tribes of Carnutes, Andes, and Turones were reduced ; the troops put into winter quarters ; and he himself went to hold the cojiveiitus in North Italy and Illyricum. Caesar could now see his way to fame and power beyond his highest aspirations. But to put the finishing stroke to his successes required time. His five years of ofiice would be out in December 54 — five years before the legal term for a second consulship. His work in Gaul would pro- bably be left imperfect, his acta reversed, his veterans left unpro- vided for, and at least the laws, passed in his consulship, neglected or repealed. Already, since his return, Cicero had attacked the policy of the triumvirs,- and had even carried a motion in the Senate fixing a day (i 5th May) for the revision of the land laws,^ a subject already started in the previous December by a Tribune ; ^ while L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, a candidate for the consulship of 55, who, as praetor in 58 had moved an enquiry into the validity of Caesar's laws on the ground of the ohiuntiatio of Bibulus, was openly declaring that as consul he would do what he failed to do as praetor, and would secure Caesar's recall. Nor must we assume that such a policy depended wholly for support on blind party animosity. There must have been many who sincerely deprecated an extension of responsi- bility, and some who even sympathised with the struggles of the Gauls for independence. It cannot seem incredible to Englishmen of our time that honest men should be found to oppose a policy of aggrandisement. Still these movements, whatever their motives, were dangers in 1 Bellum in Gallia maximum gestum est : domitae sunt a Caesare maximae nationes, sed nottdum legibus, nondutn jure certo, nondum satis firma pace devinctae (Cicero de Prov. § 19 (spoken in 56)). 2 The speech pro Sestio (12th March 56), though all direct blame of Caesar or Pompey is carefully avoided, contains a sketch of the different objects of the Optimates and Populares meant to bring discredit on Caesar's party. ^ Ad Q. Frat. ii. 5 ; cp. ib. i. 9, 3. Cicero gave notice of the motion on the 5th of April, and there was at once a scene of great excitement {clamore senatus prope coTtcionali). The point was that funds were wanting to compensate dis- possessed holders of the Campanian lands according to Caesar's law. It took place just as Pompey was starting to visit Caesar at Lucca. ^ P. Rupilius Lupus, ad Quittt. Fr. ii. i. TERMS AGREED UPON AT LUCCA 725 Caesar's path. Nor did Pompey seem to be able or willing to offer Dissert- an effective opposition to them. He had apparently no hold on the ^ions be. extreme party, and could not cope with the violence excited by the ^^^^^^ contests of Milo and Clodiusi When Clodiiis accused Milo de vi ^IT'^ (6th February 56) Pompey, who desired to speak for Milo, was hooted 'crassus. by the Clodian mob, and had to fly for his life amidst a scene of indescribable confusion. He was inclined to put down much of the opposition and insult which he encountered to the influence of Crassus, against whom he began to feel some of the old bitterness. He made no opposition to Cicero's motion as to the Campanian land, and there seemed a danger of his becoming detached from the interests of the triumvirate and joining the senatorial party. On his return from his official duties in Illyricum Caesar had The confer- been visited by Crassus, some time in March, at Ravenna,^ and ^nf^e at there a meeting of the party was agreed upon. Early in April ^^^<^^' 5^- Caesar came to Lucca, just within the borders of his province, and was visited in the course of the month by 200 senators, and so many magistrates that there were said to be 1 20 lictors in the town. Pompey, who as pracfcctus an?io?iae had to go to Sardinia and Africa, stopped at Lucca on his way. Caesar effected a reconcilia- The terms tion between him and Crassus ; and it was agreed that Ahenobarbus "^S^^^^ should not be allowed to be consul for 55, but that Pompey and ^^^"' Crassus should be elected, with the reversion of the provinces of Spain and Syria. For his part Caesar was to have a farther term of five years in his province (53-48), and to be allowed to stand for the consulship of 48 without making his professio at Rome. He would thus have imperium till 31st December 49, and before the time of laying it down would have renewed it as consul, and at the end of his consulship could still farther extend it by taking another province. The effect of this new understanding between the three leaders Effects of was at once manifest. at Rome. Pompey and Crassus were elected ^hereneived at the next comitia, though not without violent opposition, which ''S''^^"^^''^- they were obliged to suppress by a show of military force. But jj-. coss. even before that the demands of Caesar were carried out. Not Cn. Pom- only was a supplicatio — lasting the unprecedented number of fifteen ^^"'-^ days—decreed in honour of his victories ; but the Senate also voted f ^-^f '^^^•^ ^^- 4.1, . • ^ , . . . , Al.Lictnius the extension of his impenum, and named Spain and Syria as Crassus II. consular provinces for Pompey and Crassus.- To Caesar also was ^ Cic, ad Fam. i. 9. 2 The senatus-consultuvi merely excluded the Gauls from the list of provinces to be assigned to consuls for that and following years. The extraordinary ex- tension of Caesar's command, as well as that of Pompey and Crassus, was held to require a lex ; and that was accordingly proposed in 55 by the tribune C. Trebonius. This law, however, is sometimes spoken of a lex Pompeia, as 726 HISTORY OF ROME Third Campaign. The Veneti, j6. Fourth Campaign Germans and Britanni, SS- Defeat of Germans on the Meuse. allowed the unusual number of ten legates, and a large grant of money for his troops. Cicero himself, who looked upon the pro- ceedings at Lucca as an abdication on the part of the Optimatist party, voted and spoke on behalf of these decrees ; and henceforth professed— with however little sincerity— to be devoted to the m- terests of Pompey and Caesar. ^ ^. Caesar had to hurry from Lucca to his Transalpine provmce. The Veneti, living in the modern department of Morbihan in Britanny, had seized two of his officers who had during the winter entered their territory to buy corn, and it was necessary, lest their example should infect others, that they should be suppressed. Their country was intersected by firths, and their towns were mostly on projecting headlands such as that of Quiberon. They were, there- fore, a seafaring folk, possessing numerous ships specially constructed for their shallow waters. In order to subdue them a fleet was necessary, and this Caesar had ordered to be built during the winter and spring in the Loire. It was now ready under Dec. Brutus. Sabinus was sent to the north to prevent the Belgic tribes from giving help, Crassus south to check the Aquitani. Though the flat-bottomed ships of the Veneti could elude the Roman vessels in the firths, they could not escape them in the open. They only used sails ; the Roman oars outstripped them ; and, when caught, the soldiers on board easily secured them. Hooks on long poles {fakes) were invented to tear down their rigging, and only a few out of 220 eventually escaped. The Veneti were practically de- stroyed : their senators were executed, and such of the people as were caught sold into slavery. The Unelli in the north and the Aquitani in the south were conquered by his legates. Caesar finished the campaign by subduing the Morini {BoiilogJie) ; and his troops wintered in the territory of the Lexovii {Bayeux). To his next campaign he was summoned earlier than usual by the news that certain German tribes were crossing the Rhine. This meant rebellion amongst the Belgic tribes near the river, and Caesar at once marched thither. He found the German invaders or immigrants, the Usipetes and Tencteri, — who had been driven out by the Suevi,— in the plain of Goch, between the rivers Niess and Meuse ; stormed their laager of waggons ; and drove the motley crowd of men and women and children, reckoned at 430,000 souls, in utter confusion towards the Rhine. The greater part of them perished by the sword or in the river. A certain number of the chiefs who having been passed in his consulship (Cic. de Prov. §§ 21-30 ; Dio. xxxix. 33 ; 2 Phil. § 24). Cato opposed it and was arrested by Trebonius. 1 "Since those who have no power decline to love me, let me see that I am in favour with those who have power" (ad Att. 4, 5, written in April 56). XLiv FIRST EXPEDITION TO BRITAIN 727 had come to Caesar's camp were allowed to go free, and Caesar justifies his action by alleging a treacherous attack upon his cavalry. Disap- But this, as well as the severity to the Veneti, were viewed with proval at mixed feelings at home ; and Cato actually proposed his surrender ^'^'"^• to the Germans. His party in the Senate, however, was now too strong, and the German name too great a terror at Rome for such a measure. But Caesar was determined to still farther impress the Germans. Caesar He marched to a spot on the Rhine opposite Bonn ; in ten days ^^^^-^ ^^^ caused a wooden bridge to be constructed, by which he crossed into the territory of the friendly Ubii ; and thence marched against the Sicambri, who had entertained the cavalry of the Tencteri and Usipetes. The Sicambri abandoned their villages and took refuge in and the forests : and having burned their houses and cut down their corn, returns Caesar, after eighteen days, recrossed the Rhine, not venturing to "^^^ ^'/ penetrate an unknown country to attack the Suevi, who were said ^^j^ Suevi. to have concealed their property in the woods and to be preparing to fight for their lives. Having made, as he thought, the necessary impression in Ger- First many, he resolved to finish the season by visiting the islands of the (crossing to Britanni, of whose close intercourse with Gaul he had become ^^j^^^^' ' . , . . , , - . ^ , autumn of aware durmg the campaign agamst the Veneti. It was, perhaps, ^^ jealousy of possible interference with their British trade which had caused the rising of the Veneti. Caesar could learn little about the island except from reports of traders ; and they only knew the east and south coasts. Of the interior they knew little or nothing, and even what they knew had always been unwilling to tell. But the island was said to be rich in the precious metals, as well as in tin and lead : and partly from the hope of booty, partly to strike terror into all who aided the Gauls, and partly from curiosity, Caesar resolved to cross. After sending a ship to reconnoitre, he set sail with eighty vessels carrying two legions. The Britons had tried to avert the invasion by sending ambassadors, and Caesar in return had sent Commius, king of the Atrebates, to persuade them to submit. But his landing — probably near Deal — was bravely resisted by the natives. The who rushed into the water to attack his men ; when it was nevertheless ^(^"ding. effected the chiefs submitted and gave hostages. But four days after- wards a violent storm damaged or destroyed all Caesar's ships and prevented the cavalry, who followed him, from landing. This en- couraged the British chiefs to attack him again. They were twice decisively defeated ; but Caesar had been nearly a month in the island without making any advance. It was now about the end of September ; all his ships, except twelve, were refitted, and when the equinoctial storms abated he returned to Gaul. There after punish- 728 HISTORY OF ROME chap. ing an attack of the Morini upon a party of his troops, he put his men into winter quarters in Belgium, where the Menapii on the lower Rhine had during his absence been subdued by his legates Q. Titanus and L. Cotta. Piflh The expedition to Britain seems to have strongly touched the Campaign, imagination of the Romans. Since they had taken the place of the Second Carthaginians in Spain the knowledge of British trade must have ^Britain, reached their merchants. The island was said to supply " corn, j^. ' cattle, silver, iron, hides, slaves, and sporting dogs ; " and still more valuable things, such as gold and pearls, were believed to be Coss. L. abundant there.i The hope, therefore, of opening a rich field of Domitius traffic to Roman enterprise, as well as of obtaining large immediate ^4heno- profit, induced Caesar to make a second attempt, although he was Appiiis leaving Gaul by no means secure, and in fact almost certain to rebel Claudius again if he met with disaster. At the very place of embarkation, Ptilcher. ti-je portiis Itijis (probably JVzssanf), Dumnorix with some Aeduan cavalry attempted to leave him, and had to be pursued and killed. When he landed (probably near Romney Marsh) the natives, alarmed at the number of his fleet, were hiding in the forests, and his disembarkation was not opposed. He advanced to the river Stour ; drove them from a strong camp to which they had retreated ; and, after halting about ten days, — while sending men to repair his ships, which had been beached too near the sea, and had been much damaged by a high tide and severe gale, — he crossed the Thames near Brentford ; defeated Cassivelaunus ; and advanced to Submission his capital, standing probably on the site of St. Albans. He occupied of some the town unopposed, for Cassivelaunus had made his way by another route into Kent, and was attempting the naval camp. Failing in that he sent in his submission ; and Caesar, resolving to return to Gaul /aunus. before the end of the autumn, was content to receive hostages from such tribes as had submitted, and to impose a tribute, which was 1 It has been suggested with some plausibiUty that the British tin had been driven from the markets by that of Spain, and that the trade did not revive till the regular Roman occupation. When Caesar landed no gold or silver was being dug there, and he found nothing worth taking but slaves. Cicero's brother Quintus served in Britain in 54, and though the orator promised to use his skill to magnify the exploit {ad Q. Fr. ii. 13), he soon found it a barren theme. "As to British affairs, I gather from your letters that there is no occasion either for exultation or fear" {lb. 3, ij. In May (54) he says in a letter to Trebatius : " I hear there is no gold or silver in Britain " {ad Fam. vii. 7, i); and to Atticus (October 54), "It has been now thoroughly ascertained that there is not a drachm of silver in the island, and no hope of booty except from slaves" {ad Att. iv. 16; cp. iv. 17). These expressions, however, show what had been expected. This is farther illustrated by the fact that Caesar's fleet was accompanied by a large number of corn and merchant vessels belonging to private speculators, so that the whole flotilla amounted to about 800 vessels. British tribes and Cassive- XLiv FALL OF SABINUS AND COTTA 729 not likely to be paid with great regularity. Late in September he began his preparations for return. ^ The expedition, in one sense successful, had been neither Growing glorious nor profitable ; and though the war vessels and transports dangers m were mostly preserved, a large number of the corn ships accompany- " * ^'^' ing the fleet had been lost. Caesar's absence through the summer had also been a cause of danger in Gaul, where a rebellion was maturing, which he would probably have crushed in the bud had he been in the country. As it was, he helped the latent treason by placing his legions in winter camps at some distance from each other, though all, it appears, within the radius of about 100 miles from Amiens, where he was spending the early part of the winter himself.^ The last raised of his eight legions, under the command of Sabinus and Cotta, was stationed at Aduatuca {To7igres\ between the Meuse and Rhine, where Ambiorix and Catavolcus ruled the Eburones. Suddenly the camp was assaulted and the legion driven in. They Fall of believed that help from Caesar was impossible, and, though Cotta Sabinus was for holding out, Sabinus persuaded him to try to join Q. Cicero at ^"^^^^^y? Charleroi. They were surrounded, and, after a vain attempt to j_^, treat, the legion was cut to pieces, only a few escaping to carry the news to Labienus. Ambiorix was then able to rouse the Aduatuci, Nervii, and other tribes and attack O. Cicero. He defended himself gallantly, and was relieved by Caesar when almost at the end of his resources. But though this success produced immediate effect on the Treveri and other rebellious tribes, the danger was by no means over. The Treveri were secretly trying to persuade the Germans once more to cross the Rhine, and Caesar for the first time found it necessary to spend the whole winter in Transalpine Gaul, and to obtain three more legions in the Cisalpine province, two of which Pompey had raised in 55, but had apparently dispersed on furlough. Thus reinforced Caesar reduced the Nervii before spring had well Sixth begun and overawed the Menapii ; while Labienus conquered the <-ampaign. Treveri and re-established the faithful Cingetorix as their ruler. The ^^' -^ » ^ Aei'vii and two then joined forces and again crossed the Rhine by a new bridge Treveri 1 "On the 27th of October I received letters from my brother Quintus and "^ "^ ' Caesar, dated from the British coast on the 26th of September. Britain was conquered, hostages received — there was no booty, but a tribute had been im- posed. They were on the point of bringing the army across " {ad Alt. iv. 17). - The legions were thus placed : (i) One under Q. Cicero among the Nervii at Charleroi ; (2) one under Labienus among the Remi near Luxemburg ; (3) one under Trebonius at Samarobriva [Amiens) ; (4) one under L. Fabius among the Morini at St. Pol ; (5) one under L. Roscius among the Essuvii at S^ez in Normandy ; (6) one under M. Crassus among the Bellovaci at Mendidier ; (7) one under L. Munatius Plancus at Champlieu ; (8) one under Titurius Sabinus and Aurunculeius Cotta at Aduatuca ( Tongres). Caesar set the fashion of putting Dne of his legati at the head of each legion. 730 HISTORY OF ROME Second crossing of the Rhine. Q. Cicero surprised by the Sicambri. Seventh Campaign. 52. Rebellion in southern Gaul. Unsuc- cessful siege of Ger- goxna. Capture of Alesia, and sur- render of Vercinge- torix. Eighth and ninth Cam- paigns, 51-50. near Bonn, which on his return Caesar left partly standing and guarded. The later summer and autumn were spent in Belgic Gaul, where the Eburones were driven to take refuge in the Ardennes or marshes. Aduatuca {Toiigres) was made the headquarters of the army under the care of Q. Cicero, and Caesar with three legions advanced to the Scheldt. In his absence Cicero, who had not obeyed his orders to keep strictly within his lines, almost suffered a disaster at the hands of the Sicambri, who crossed the Rhine in hopes of plunder. They were eventually repulsed and the camp and town saved, but Q. Cicero did not remain in Gaul next year. After putting his men into winter quarters Caesar held an assembly of the Gauls at Rheims, at which the leaders of the rebellious tribes were con- demned, and then at length felt that he might go to Italy. But next year the danger was in southern Gaul, close to the Province.^ The young chief of the Arverni {Ain>eri^}ie\ Vercinge- torix, took advantage of a movement of the Canutes (about Orleans) to rouse his own and the neighbouring tribes. Caesar hurried across the Alps, drove Vercingetorix into the valley of the Loire among the Bituriges, and followed him rapidly with such troops as he had, leaving orders for the rest to concentrate at Agendicum {Sens). He seized Genabum {Orteans\ and having thus secured a bridge over the Loire, advanced upon Avaricum {Botir'^es), the chief town of the Bituriges. It was taken after a long siege, which Vercingetorix vainly attempted to interrupt. Caesar then marched down the Allier into Auvergne. He was delayed by X'ercingetorix having broken the bridges over this river, and when he arrived at Gergovia {Ger- govie) he found it strongly guarded. It proved almost his only failure. After some weeks' fruitless siege he was obliged to march against the Aedui, who had revolted and seized Noviodunum {Nevers). Yet for the present he let the Aedui be, and directed his whole strength upon Alesia, into which Vercingetorix had thrown himself Round this hill (between Tonnerre and Dijon) the final struggle took place. Vercingetorix had had time to send messengers to rouse the neighbouring tribes ; and before long an army of 24,000 men arrived to attack Caesar's line of circumvallation from the outside. But though they made a furious assault on the weakest point of the Roman lines, they were beaten back with great loss. Vercingetorix surrendered himself in hopes of saving his men, and was reserved to adorn a triumph and to die in a Roman prison. Gaul was now subdued, and though Caesar wintered at Bibracte {Autun), and in the spring of 5 i had to move into the valley of the Loire, and thence north to Beauvais beyond the Oise, to fight a ^ News of the disorders at Rome following the death of Clodius encouraged the rebellion. XLiv DISORDERS AT ROME 73i somewhat severe battle on the plain of Choisy-au-Bec, and again to inflict some severity on the district between the Meuse and the Rhine,^ the greater part of these two years (51-50) was spent in measures of conciliation and in settling counter-claims. Caesar's chief glory is that after so many years of fighting he left this great province on the whole thoroughly loyal, and convinced of the advan- tage of taking its place in the Roman system. Meanwhile the course of affairs at Rome had been gradually Political making it inevitable that supreme power should be in one man's »ff<^trs hands, and that in some way it would have to be settled whether ^^ ^cfvil that man should be Caesar or Pompey. During 54 and 53 there ^ar. had been frequent and bloody struggles between the ruffians hired (^oss. by Milo and Clodius. They prevented the election of consuls for Cn. 53 until six months of the year were passed ; and as this year was Domitius drawing to an end it became certain that the elections for 52 would ^.^J^'^"^^' also be prevented. The first of January arrived without a consul, ^^^^^ and after nearly three more weeks of violence, Milo, who was one of Messalla. the candidates, on his way to Lanuvium met Clodius on the Appian Murder of way near liovillae, and taking advantage of a squabble which arose Clodius, between their slaves, in which Clodius received a wound, caused him ^'^f^'- to be dragged from the house in which he had taken refuge and ■''^^'"'^'y despatched. This was followed by fresh disorders. Clodius' fate roused his followers to fury and awakened sympathy with him among the people. His body was carried by the mob into the Curia and burnt on a pile of broken benches, during which the Curia caught fire and was destroyed. At length, on the 25th of February- the Senate named Servius Sulpicius interrex, and directed him to declare pompey Pompey sole consul, with authority to raise troops and restore order, sole Pompey published an edict forbidding the wearing of arms in the city ; consul, caused the ashes of Clodius to be removed ; and proceeded to carry ^ ruary a series of laws aimed at the root of these disorders. One was a lex judiciarid., which arranged for the selection of jurors by the magis- trates, with a definite right of challenge on the part of the defendant. -^^^-^-^^-^ It also limited the time allowed for the speeches on either side, and abolished or curtailed the system oi laudationcs^ — speeches by power- ful friends of either side, — which, like the "maintenance" in the English courts of the fourteenth century, were employed to overawe juries. Another law, dc jure magistratum)i^ ordained that consuls De jure were not in future to proceed to a province until five years after the magis- tratuum. ^ The last place to hold out in southern Gaul was Uxellodununi [le Puy d' Issolu). Caesar also went with two legions into Aquitania in the course of 51. - This was nearly two months since Clodius' murder (20th January) because, in order to correct the calendar, it had become the custom in alternate years to intercalate twenty days after the 23rd of February. 732 HISTORY OF ROME de Ambitu. Pompeys position. end of their year of office, and renewed the rule of a personal J)ro- fessio on the part of a candidate. After the law was engraved he was reminded that he was pledged to make a special exemption of Caesar in this last point, and he thereupon caused the alteration to be made ; but, perhaps because the legality of such a proceeding was doubtful, the privilege was confirmed to Caesar by a law brought in by the tribune Caelius at Pompey's request. ^ Finally he brought in a severe law against ambitus^ which was to be retrospective up to his own first consulship (70), and under it numerous 'prosecutions at once took place. Under the lex judiciaria the condemnation of Milo {de vi) was secured, order being secured by Pompey stationing an armed guard round the court. For the moment Pompey was regarded by the Optimates as the saviour of Society, and seemed all-powerful. He could not, indeed, get all he desired. He had wished to be named Dictator, and his six months' sole consulship was a compromise. Moreover, in order to prevent the nomination of Caesar as his colleague, he was obliged to take his father-in-law, Metellus Scipio, in that capacity. Nor had his influence been able to prevent the condemnation of Gabinius for majcsfas, though he induced Cicero (much against his wishes) to undertake his defence. Still he was evidently drawing closer to the Optimates and drifting away from his friendship with Caesar. One tie which had bound them had been severed at the latter end of 54 by the death of Pompey's wife lulia in childbed. There was no Crassus now to oppose him ; and there were plenty of people to tell Caesar that he meant to use his renewed influence against him. He had obtained from the Senate a farther extension of five years to his governorship of the Spains, which he had been conducting since 54 by three legates. In 51 he was still outside the walls with imperium, constantly talking of going to Spain, but always allowing' himself to be over-persuaded to stay. The consuls for that year also, whose election he had at any rate not prevented, were both oppo- nents of Caesar ; and when one of them, Marcellus, moved the question of naming a successor in Gaul, although Pompey did not support it, insisting that Caesar would at any time obey the Senate, his opposition was not warm ; nor did he oppose the measures of Marcellus calculated to cast a slight on Caesar, such, for instance, on^the ^^^^ ^^ refusing the citizenship to a magistrate at Comum, in which Caesar colony of ^^^ settled a colony with Latin rights. The magistrates in such a Co7num. colony had the full civitas, yet Marcellus on some pretext ordered one of them to be flogged, as though he had no such privilege. This was meant to be an insult to Caesar, and was followed by more ^T. Coss. Ser. Stilpicius Rufus, M. Claudius Marcellus. The question of Caesar s successor. 1 Cic. ad Att. viii. 3, xLiv THE FALL OF CRASSUS 733 attempts to supersede him in Gaul.^ Marcellus had originally brought the subject forward in the Senate on the ist of January, directly he entered office. On that occasion Pompey had spoken in favour of postponing it till the ist of January next, but yet had not hesitated to express his dislike of the idea of Caesar becoming consul while in possession of his province and army.^ The subject was Motion for renewed at the end of September, and a resolution passed that a Caesar's motion should be made concerning it on the ist of March (50) along ^^^f^^^^^^^^ with a resolution as to the pay of Caesar's troops. These resolutions ^j, were vetoed by a tribune, and did not become se7iatus co7isiiltaj but Pompey, who was present, declared that after the ist of March next the arrangement might be made without injury to Caesar, and that veto or no veto Caesar would yield to the aiictoritas of the Senate. " What," said some one, " if Caesar should choose to keep his army and be consul too?" "What," he answered, "if my son should strike me with his stick ? " Caesar saw what was coming, and took care during 51 and 50 The Hvo to ascertain the feelings of the Cisalpine towns in his favour, especially legions in the spring of 50, when he visited them ostensibly to recommend ''" //f" M. Antonius to their suffrages for the augursbip agamst his old ^,^^^ enemy Ahenobarbus. But late in 5 i or at the beginning of 50 a s^so. still more open blow was struck at him. During the year 5 i there had been frequent rumours of a Parthian The war. The Parthians (first appearing as a powerful people about 256) Parthians. had been brought into contact with the Romans in the Mithridatic war. Pompey had made a treaty of peace with Phraates (63) ; and Gabinius, while governor of Syria (57-55), crossed the Euphrates to take part in a dispute as to the succession between the two sons of Phraates, Mithridates and Orodes. He had, however, retired with- Crassns in out doing anything. When Crassus came to Syria at the end of 55 Syria, his head was full of a great Parthian war,-^ which should make him ^•^"•^^• equal to Pompey and Caesar ; and early in 54 he started for the Euphrates, took Zenodotium, in Mesopotamia, and returned to Syria He attacks for the winter. He had no pretext for the invasion, and had taken ''^'^ no precautions to secure the alliance of the Armenians or others ^^.^ ^^^^^ hostile to the Parthians. He was unfitted by age and manner ^^ just pre- life for a campaign, and everything forboded disaster. In 53 he text,j4-^j. ^ Cicero exclaims against it as illegal in the case of a Transpadanus, even without the privilege given him by office, and professes to be as indignant as Caesar himself [ad Att. v. 11). - Cicero, Fam. viii. 4 ; viii. 9. ^ By the lex Trebonia (the plebiscitum giving him and the other triumvirs their prolonged commands, see p. 725) he had the right to wage war, though one of the tribunes had forbidden it, and even laid him under a solemn curse if he attacked the Parthians. 734 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Battle of Carrhae atid fall of Crassus, S3- Crassus defends Syria and defeats the Parthian s, The two legions. 50. Coss. L. A em Hi us Paullus, C. Claudius Marcellus. rejoined his army in Mesopotamia, rejecting the request of Artavasdes that he should come to Armenia, which Orodes was invading-, and which as a rugged country would be less suitable for the Parthian cavalry. Orodes made peace with Artavasdes, and sent an army under Surenas to oppose Crassus. He was misled by an Arab guide ; was surprised in an unfavourable position ; and after a long day's battle, in which his son fell, retired upon Carrhae. The Parthians followed, and when he again attempted a retreat, he was tempted into a conference and killed. His quaestor C. Cassius Longinus escaped with 500 horsemen across the Euphrates, col- lected the remains of the army, and defended the province of Syria, which he held as proquaestor for the next year and a half. After some feeble attacks in 52 the Parthians invaded the province in earnest in 5 i under Osaces and a son of the king named Pacorus. Cassius, who was at Antioch, decisively defeated them, thereby saving Syria and relieving Cicero, who was governor of Cilicia in 51-50, from a much-dreaded struggle with them.^ That the danger was over could only have been known at Rome late in 51. During the year suggestions had been made of sending Pompey or Caesar against the Parthians ; and finally the Senate ordered two legions to follow Bibulus, who had started for Syria in the summer of 51, and of these legions Pompey was to supply one and Caesar the other. But as Pompey now claimed the return of one ot the legions he had lent to Caesar, the result was that Caesar was deprived of two, as the Senate no doubt wished. He had, how- ever, satisfied himself that he could raise men enough in Gaul, and he sept the ist and 15th legions without remonstrance. He soon found that the alarm had been a pretence, or at any rate was over : for the legions, instead of being sent to the east, were handed over to Pompey, and stationed temporarily at Capua. It was time to act if he meant to hold his own against Pompey. He had more than made up for the two legions by new levies in Gaul, but it was necessary to secure himself in Rome also if civil war was to be avoided. The two consuls were hostile, as well as one of the tribunes, C. Curio, and might be expected to push forward the question of his recall by including Gaul among the provinces to be allotted. Caesar by promises or bribes won over one of the consuls, Paullus, and simply bought Curio, who was overwhelmed with debt. To every one's surprise Curio began bickering with the 1 Cicero, Fam. xv. 14 ; iii. 8 ; viii. 10 ; ad Att. v. 21. Cicero was in Cilicia (much to his own disgust), owing to the provision in Pompey's law ordering a five years' interval between the consulship and a province. In order to supply gover- nors for the interval, the Senate had to pass a resolution ordering all ex-praetors who had not had a province to take one in order of seniority. XLiv THE QUESTION OF CAESAR'S RECALL 735 Optimates. He wished the pontifices to intercalate a month in C. Curio February, though it was the wrong year ; and when refused began >/«j the dropping obscure hints as to Caesar's claims, and putting forward P^^ y ^J proposals of a compromise between him and Pompey, which he knew the latter would not accept ; and finally showed himself as an open champion of Caesar. The first part of 50, however, was quiet. There seemed a kind of lethargy after so much excitement, and both sides paused. This was partly caused by Pompey's dangerous Pompey s illness at Naples, which called forth an immense outburst of ^^^"^^^' enthusiasm in the Italian cities, where prayers were offered up with great fervency for his recovery. The gods ofiered — it was afterwards said — to remove him from the evil to come ; but the prayers and sacrifices of the Italians reserved him for his doom. In one sense this was true, for the feeling thus displayed blinded him to his true position. He believed Caesar's troops to be disaffected, and He declines that he himself had only to stamp on the ground to raise soldiers any- ^^ ^^'^^^ where in Italy, and till December took no precautions against him.i '^^-^■^* For a time it seemed possible to avoid extreme measures. The consul, C. Marcellus, indeed, was anxious to push on the decree for naming Caesar's successor, who was to be Ahenobarbus ; but The though it had been arranged that the motion should be made in the' ^"otton to Senate in March for his leaving his province on the i ith of November, c^esar it had not been passed in June. Curio gave out that he would do vetoed. anything rather than allow it. Pompey professed a wish to do Caesar full justice, but plainly showed that he was for fixing this day. At last, after the consular elections, on the motion being made. Curio vetoed it ; and a proposal to remonstrate with him {agere cum tribimo) was lost by a large majority. Clearly, therefore, nothing would be done that year. But the consuls for 49 were vehement opponents of Caesar, and Curio would be no longer in office. C. Marcellus, as consul designate, had voted for the recall, and the attempt would no doubt be renewed when he became consul. " There is no hope of peace beyond the year's end," wrote Caelius to Cicero in September, " Pompey is determined that Caesar shall not be consul designate till he has given up province and army. Caesar is con- vinced that he cannot leave his army safely." The words were quickly justified. " I have a partiality for 49- Coss. Curio ; I wish Caesar to act like an honest man ; I could die for ^- Pompey," wrote Cicero in June (50) as he was quitting his province. Marcellus. But when he reached Rome (4th January 49) he found the time for /.. cor- compromise and compliment all but past. Curio, going out of ofiice nelius on the loth of December, at once went to Caesar at Ravenna, and Lentulus. 1 In December, at the urgent instance of Marcellus, Pompey left Rome to look after troops, but seems to have done nothing (Cic. ad Alt. vii. 4, 5). 736 HISTORY OF ROME Caesar s letter and ulti- matum, JSt January 49- urged him to march straight upon Rome and wrest his rights from a tyrannical cHque. But Caesar wished to try once more for peace, or to put his enemies more completely in the wrong. Curio was sent back with a letter addressed to the Senate, which he handed to the consuls on the ist of January (49), requesting them to read it. They refused until compelled iDy the tribunes M. Antonius and Q. Cassius. It contained a recital of Caesar's services to the State, and finally expressed his readiness to hand over his province and army if Pompey would do the same. In his view this was the least he could ask. He could not come to Rome and stand the inevitable trial surrounded by Pompey's soldiers. He speaks of the demand as " of the mildest possible kind " ; but the consuls regarded the letter as " threatening and violent," and refused to submit its proposals to the Senate.^ Instead, they made a formal statement as to the danger of the State, or, as the phrase went, retiileriint de repicblica. A stormy debate followed. The consul Lentulus proposed to fix a day at once for Caesar's resignation of his province, and was sup- ported by Pompey's father-in-law, Metellus Scipio, who, as Pompey could not attend a meeting on the Capitol, was supposed to express his sentiments. Marcellus, the other consul, wished to wait till troops had been levied. But Lentulus overbore all opposition. Only one senator voted against a resolution for fixing a day for Caesar to resign on pain of high treason, 2 and declaring that Pompey need not do the same. This was vetoed by the two tribunes Antonius and Cassius. The debate as to whether they should be appealed to to withdraw the veto lasted till nightfall, and was renewed on the four days following on which the Senate could meet.'^ It was not till the evening of the 7th that the two obstructing tribunes were expelled,^ and the sejiatus consultuin ultimmn was passed, ordering consuls, praetors, tribunes, and proconsuls (the last to include Pompey and Cicero), "to see that the republic took no harm." Antonius and Cassius fled from the city, where their sacro- sanct office was of doubtful protection against this dictatorship in commission, and started to join Caesar. ^ Caesar, B. Civ. i. 5, lenissima postulata. Cicero [Fam. xvi. 11), menaces et acerbas literas. So much depends on the point of view ! 2 Eu7n adversus ?-etnpublicatn facturum videri. Caelius was the single voter. 3 The five meetings were on the ist, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th. A meeting of the Senate on the 3rd and 4th of January, which were dies cofnitiales, seems to have been specially prohibited by the lex Piipia (Cic. ad Q. Fr. ii. 33). At any rate the same rule does not seem to have applied to all comitial days — i.e. days on which business was done in the comitia — for the 7th is also a dies comitialis. See Willems' Le Sdnat, vol. ii. p. 152 sqq. ^ Cicero says " without violence" {mdla vi expulsi), but it does not appear how it could have been done otherwise. XLiv CAESAR CROSSES THE RUBICON 737 He was at Ravenna when news reached him of these proceed- ings. Without betraying his intention to the townsfolk he started Caesar after nightfall with the 1 3th legion, from Ariminum, sending orders ^^^^^-^ to the others to leave their winter quarters and follow him. Ariminum "^^'^^^^^^^ was the first town out of his province, which was here divided from January ' Italy proper by the little stream of the Rubicon. To cross it was to ^9, put himself definitely in a position of hostility to the government, and the final step may well have caused him hesitation. He is said to have turned to his officers with the words, " Even now we may draw back " ; and to have finally followed the spontaneous and crosses action of some soldiers who dashed across the stream to listen ^^ to a shepherd playing a flute on the other side. Regarding this as providential he exclaimed, " Let us go where the omen of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies calls us ; the die is cast ! " But of all this he tells us nothing himself. He only says that he addressed his men ; found them ready to avenge the wrongs of the tribunes, and at once led them to Ariminum. There he found the expelled tribunes ; and there Lucius Caesar (a distant relative) came with offers of mediation, along with the praetor Roscius, Vain who brought a message from Pompey. He listened courteously, "^go^i^- and answered that if Pompey would go to Spain and disband ^'^/JJJ. soldiers in Italy, and so leave the comitia free, he would also give „^^,;^. up his legions. But he had no expectation of such a settlement, and did not delay a single day in securing the towns along the coast. The civil war had begun. It was too late to speak of peace, — Civil war. utendum est iudice bello. Authorities. — For Caesar's wars in Gaul we have his own admirable narra- tive. For events in Rome the best guides are Cicero's Correspondence, supple- mented by the Speeches Pro Sestio, In Vatinium, De Provinciis consularibus, Pro Milone. Livy, Ep. 105-109; Appian, B. Civ. ii. 15-33; Plutarch, Lzw:r 0/ Caesar, Crassiis, Cicero; Dio Cassius, xxxviii. 31-xli. i ; l.nc:m s Pharsalia. For Cicero's change of policy in 56 the letter to Lentulus [Fam. i. 9) should especially be read. 3B CHAPTER XLV THE CIVIL WAR TO THE DEATH OF lULIUS CAESAR Civil war — Preparations for the defence of Italy — Caesar's rapid advance — Fruit- less negotiations — Ponipey leaves Italy — Caesar at Rome — Siege of Massilia — Campaign in Spain — Surrender of Massilia — Caesar as dictator holds consular elections (49). Caesar as consul crosses to Macedonia to attack Pompey — His difficulties — Beleaguers Pompey's camp — Pompey pierces his lines — Re- treat to Thessaly — Battle of Pharsalus — Death of Ponipey in Egypt (48). Alexandrine war (48-47) — Expedition into Pontus — Battle of Zela — Second dictatorship (47) — Pompeians in Africa (48-46) — Caesar's campaign in Africa — Battle of Thapsus — Province of New Africa — Rectification of calendar and legislation, year of 445 days (46). Campaign in Spain against Pompey's sons — Battle of Munda — Third dictatorship (45) — Plans for enlargement of Rome — Scheme of colonies — Preparations for Parthian expedition — The con- spiracy — Murder of Caesar (44). 4g. Coss. Claudius Alarcelhis, L. Cornelius Lepidus. The consuls quit Rome. Caesar s advance. The vote of the Senate meant war. Italy and Sicily were divided into districts for defence, and new governors were allotted to the provinces, Gallia Narbonensis falling to Ahenobarbus, and privati being invested with imperiuin when there were not sufficient ex- magistrates. Pompey seems to have left Rome immediately, to raise new levies in Campania and to mobilise the two legions in winter quarters in Apulia. Before another ten days the consuls and a large number of the senators had also left Rome. For the news which reached the city by the 1 8th caused such a panic that in the very act of opening the treasury of the reserved funds, to take out the money voted to Pompey, the consuls hurriedly withdrew. Caesar, it was said, was on his way to Rome. He had seized Pisanum, Fanum, and Ancona ; had sent Antonius across the Apennines to secure Arretium, and intercept any attempt of Pompey to march through Etruria to the north ; and Curio to occupy Iguvium on the pass of the Apennines. No one had resisted him except Attius Varus at Auximum, and even he had been compelled to withdraw by the people of the town. On the 24th of January Lucius Caesar delivered Caesar's answer CHAP. XLV POMPEY LEAVES ITALY 739 to Pompey at Teanum Sidicinum. The consuls and Pompey would Failure of only treat on condition of Caesar's withdrawal from the towns he had negoti- occupied, and Caesar would not do that unless Pompey would fix a '^^^^"■^■ day for going to his provinqe of Spain and cease levying troops. Both therefore went on. Pompey was joined on the 23rd by T. Labienus, who had been left in charge of Cisalpine Gaul by Caesar. But Caesar's successes were not interrupted. The strong town of Aheno- Cingulum (of which Labienus was the patronus) submitted volun- barb^^s tarily. Firmum was easily taken; and, intercepting several Pompeian •"''''^''/'''•^ officers on the march, he arrived on the river Aternus, three miles from Corfinium, where Ahenobarbus had twenty newly-levied cohorts. Pompey, who had found the raising of troops in Campania more difficult than he expected, had on the 25th started for Apulia ; ^ but refused to relieve Ahenobarbus at Corfinium, ordering him rather to join him at Brundisium. Ahenobarbus tried to conceal this from his soldiers, meaning to escape by himself. They discovered it how- ever ; arrested him ; and sent legates to Caesar. The next morning Ahenobarbus and the chief men with him were in Caesar's hands, who, after making a statement justifying his measures, dismissed them all unharmed, even returning to Ahenobarbus a large sum of public money. Pompey was now resolved to leave Italy and summon men and Pompey ships from the East. He had remained some days at Luceria to be <^rosses to joined by the consuls and senators. But when he heard of the fall y^^^^- chiunt of Corfinium he removed to Canusium ( i 8th February), and thence Marck to Brundisium (20th February). When Caesar arrived there on the [/a«.] ^9. 9th of March, he found that the consuls and a considerable part of the army had already crossed to Dyrrachium. Pompey with two legions was waiting the return of the transports. After some fruitless negotiations, and an attempt on Caesar's part to block up the harbour — which, if successful, would have forced Pompey to make terms apart from the main body of his supporters, — Pompey and ^ The first notions of Pompey's forces were much exaggerated (see Cicero, ad Alt. ix. 6 and 9). As a fact he had at first only the two legions in Apulia. These were reinforced by recruits ordered to concentrate at Brundisium, and by others who were serving under other magistrates, until he crossed with five legions (or between 25,000 and 30,000 men, counting cavalry and auxiliaries) (Plut. Pomp. Ixii. ; Caesar, B. Civ. i. 25). Caesar was supposed to have at his command eleven legions with unlimited Gallic cavalry (Cicero, ad Att. vii. 7). Tn reality the "Army of Gaul" consisted of nine legions; of these only one (the 13th) was ready at the beginning of January, the rest being in winter quarters. It was this with which he passed the Rubicon (knowing that Pompey had only two, and they in winter quarters). The 12th legion joined him on the 5th February [8th Janu- ary], and the 8th on the 17th February [20th January], and by taking over captured cohorts and fresh enrolments he had six legions and 1000 cavalry when he arrived at Brundisium, 740 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Caesar s visit to Rome, March- April 4g. Siege of Massilia, April [March'] 49- Fabius sent from Narbo to Spain, Sth May [Sth April] 49- his two legions succeeded in crossing on the night of the i8th of March.i Caesar had not sufficient ships to follow him. He must leave him to gather the forces in the East, while he secured the West, and especially the corn-growing countries ; for, as Pompey had sent for ships from Alexandria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Asia, Rhodes, Byzantium, and other places, he would be able to starve out Italy. Caesar, therefore, after securing the harbours of Brundisium, Tarentum, and Sipontum, sent a legion under Q. Valerius to Sardinia, and arranged for Curio to go to Sicily with another. At the end of March he went with six legions to Rome, where he found some senators and magistrates, though he could not persuade Cicero, whom he met at Sinuessa on the 28th, to come. He did not stay long in the city. His object was to put himself in a constitutional position. Both consuls being absent, and the praetor L. Aemilius Lepidus not being capable, as Cicero told him, of naming a dictator or holding consular elections,'^ he proposed that the Senate should appoint an interrex for the purpose. But he found so much opposition and indecision that, after a few days of fruitless wrangling, he started for Massilia to secure the road for Spain. He seems to have obtained some authority for his legates in Sardinia and Sicily ; and he left Lepidus in charge of Rome, and the tribune M. Antonius in charge of Italy with pro-praetorial authority, and with directions to prevent farther emigrations to Pompey, and to recall those banished under Pompey's laws. The people of Massilia refused him admission within their walls ; but they not only received Ahenobarbus — who, after being dismissed by Caesar at Corfinium, had collected a fleet at Cosa in Etruria, and manned it with his own tenants and other country folk — but made him commandant of the garrison. Caesar therefore decided that he must take the town, and to do so must build ships. In thirty days from the felling of the timber twelve ships of war were built at Aries, and put under the command of Decimus Brutus ; towers and vincae were constructed, and the siege committed to C. Trebonius. But this had seriously delayed him. Two of Pompey's legati in Spain, L. Afranius and M. Petreius, had united their forces, and were stationed at Ilerda with five legions to resist him. He had sent on C. Fabius from Narbo through Perpignan and Barcelona early in May : and when he followed him in June he found Fabius shut up in a narrow strip of country between the rivers Sicoris {Segre) and Cincius. It had been stripped of provisions ; the rivers were impassable from floods ; ^ The dates are those of the unreformed calendar. Those of the reformed lulian Calendar are given in square brackets. 2 Ad Att. ix. 9, quod mains itnperium a minore rogari tion sit ius. XLV CAESAR SECURES SPAIN 741 and his bridges were broken down. Caesar repaired the bridges and Caesar relieved Fabius ; but after some indecisive skirmishes the bridges follows, were again swept away by a storm. Afranius and Petreius holding ^^^^ J^^^ the only sound one, near Ilerda, could obtain provisions, while he ^/aV] was again shut up in the fork of the streams. He was in great peril, ^ and exaggerated reports of his defeat reached Rome, where the difficulties town-house of Afranius was thronged with visits of congratulation, in Spain, and many who had before hesitated crossed to Dyrrachium to join June-July. Pompey. Among them was Cicero, who embarked at Caieta on the I ith of June. But the position was suddenly reversed. A long train of pro- Caesar visions from Gaul had been stopped by the flooded Sicoris. Caesar, ^^^^^'^^^ h however, got a legion across in coracles, constructed after those he ''\ ^^^"'!^^-^ "J ^ r . . . . provisions, had seen in Britam ; and havmg thus men on both sides of the river jji^ j^iy the bridge was quickly repaired and the provisions secured. Before [/j/A long Afranius and Petreius, alarmed at the advance of Caesar's June\ lines, and at the defection of native tribes, attempted to retire beyond the Ebro. But they were outmarched by Caesar, who seized a gorge through which they meant to pass, and they had to choose between fighting and surrender. Their men, however, were against Surrender fighting, and fraternised with Caesar's soldiers; and after some toil- of Petreius some marches, harassed by Caesar's cavalry, they surrendered, and ^^^ were permitted to quit Spain unharmed. Those of their soldiers who 2nd Aug. were domiciled in Spain v/ere allowed to go to their homes, the rest \^2nd July\ were sent to Italy. The third of Pompey's legates, M, Terentius Varro, governor of M. Baetica, felt himself still bound to resist in the interests of his im- 'terentius perator, and was actually engaged in levying fresh troops and collect- . ^'JJ' . ing stores. But the citizens of Corduba closed their gates against Baetica, him ; the people of Gades did the same ; one of his legions deserted ; surrenders and, finding it impossible to proceed, he handed over his remaining lo Caesar, legion to Caesar, as well as his provincial accounts and the balance ^ //^ ^ of public money in his hands. After taking some measures for \Aucr\4Q pacifying the country, Caesar placed Q. Cassius Longinus in com- mand of Baetica ; and reaching the camp at Massilia on the 3rd of Caesar October, found the Massilians ready to surrender. Ahenobarbus returns to managed to escape; but the city, with all arms, engines of war, and ^J^!^^^' money, was given up to him, and was allowed to retain its position [jo/zi^J/cr.] as a libera civitas. Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, and Gaul were thus secured to Caesar ; but Sardinia Africa was in the meanwhile lost, and remained a refuge for the occupied by defeated Pompeians in the next year. For though Q. Valerius had *^^i^^^^^^ >' successfully occupied Sardinia, the senatorial governor M. Cotta escaping to Africa ; and though C. Curio had been equally successful 742 HISTORY OF ROME and Sicily by Curio, 2jrd April l2Sth Marc hi 49- Fall of Curio in Africa, 20th Aug. [20lh /uly] 49- Caesar at Rome, 2nd Dec. [2Sth Oct. ] to ijth Dec. {8th Nov.] 49- 48. Coss. C. lulius Caesar, P. Servilius Vatia. Caesar embarks at Brundis- ium, 4th Jan. 48 {28th Nov. 49\ Caesar at Apollonia, yth Jan. 48 {ist Dec. 4g]. in Sicily, which Cato abandoned without a blow (23rd April), there had been a disaster in Africa. The Pompeian governor P. Attius Varus was supported by luba, king of Numidia, who was attached to Pompey and had reason for hostility to Caesar and Curio. In 81 Pompey had restored his father Hiempsal, dethroned by the Marians ; but in 62, when acting as his father's ambassador in Rome, he had a violent personal altercation with Caesar, then praetor ; and in 50 C. Curio as tribune had proposed to reduce Numidia to the form of a province. luba therefore supported Varus, and though he did not arrive in time to save him from a somewhat severe defeat, yet in a subsequent engagement with the king C. Curio was defeated and killed. Caesar had not time to attempt to retrieve this disaster. While on his return to Massilia he learnt that the constitutional difficulty had been got over, and that he had been named dictator coniitiis /ladendis. He hastened to Rome, stopping at Placentia to put down a mutiny on the 15th November [October], and held the consular elections, at which he was himself returned with P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, who had joined his party. He carried two laws, of which there was pressing need. The Civil war had caused a commercial crisis : credit was shaken, and debts could not be collected. His first law established arbitrators who were to prevent forced sales at panic prices. The creditors were to accept the property o( debtors at a price estimated at their value before the war. His second law gave the civiias to the Transpadani. It had been long promised, and their votes were necessary to him. He also directed the tribunes and praetors to carry on the work of Antony by bringing in laws to restore those who had been condemned \n judicui overawed by Pompey's arms. He spent only eleven days in Rome altogether ; and having abdicated the dictatorship, hastened to Brundisium, where he had appointed twelve legions to meet him. Though he found his legions reduced in strength by the long march from Spain and the unhealthiness of Brundisium, and though the number of transports was insufficient, he yet got seven legions across on the 4th of January. He landed at Oricum, which the commandant surrendered to him as consul, and marched to Apollonia. Pompey's magazines were at Dyrrachium, but he was himself encamped more inland. It became a kind of race between the two, which should reach Dyrrachium first. Pompey outmarched Caesar ; saved Dyrrachium ; and sent ships which recovered Oricum. Caesar was now in considerable danger. He had landed with seven legions : but Pompey had nine, besides large numbers of auxiliaries from all parts of Greece, Thrace, and Asia ; and was also supported by a numerous and powerful fleet, whicli, stationed at POMPEY AND CAESAR NEAR DYRRACHIUM 743 C. Caesar's Camp A. A. Unfinished lines of Caesar. Corcyra under Bibulus,i had attacked and burnt thirty of Caesar's transports while on their way back to Brundisium to bring the remainder of his army over. Through the winter months he awaited them with great anxiety ; even, it is said, attempting to cross himself in an open boat to urge their coming. He nearly lost his life in the attempt, and did not succeed. He then sent Postumius with positive orders that they were to cross at any risk and to run their ships aground anywhere. It was not, however, till the spring of 48 that Arrival of Antony with three veteran legions, one of tirones^ and 800 cavalry, ^^- Antony, arrived at Lissus, about 30 miles north of Dyrrachium. Pompey en- ^^^^^^ deavoured to prevent Caesar effecting a junction with him. In this, [-^^^/i Feb.^ however, he failed, and returned to his old quarters between Petra 48. and Asparagium, south of Dyrrachium. Caesar endeavoured in every way to provoke him to give him battle, seizing strong places, raising forts, and constructing lines of circumvallation, which presently extended for fifteen, miles round Pompey's camp, and included twenty-four castles and forts. Pompey, on his part, erected defensive lines within Caesar's from Petra round to the sea again ; and though he was cut off from the country he could get provisions from Dyrrachium and the sea. His agents were everywhere, col- lecting corn, and raising money by loans in advance of taxes. He was suffering, however, from shortness of fodder for his horses, which died in great numbers ; and as the cavalry was his strong arm he was anxious to put an end to this state of things, and was less able than ever to resist the pressure of his followers, who, un- disciplined, luxurious, and insubordinate, were urging him to attack. Caesar was really in a still worse plight ; his corn was running short, and his men were feeding on bread made of a root called " chava " ; yet their spirits were unbroken, and they threw loaves of this stuff over the ramparts to persuade the Pompeians that they were well off. Pompey however was waiting for a reinforcement from the east, which his father-in-law Metellus Scipio was bringing up the Egnatian Walker GtBoutallsc * Bibulus died early in March [February] 48. 744 HISTORY OF ROME Caesar s line pierced, jrd-^th July [2jrd- 2j//t A/ay] 48. Retreat of Caesar, yth July {27th May]. Pompey pursues for one day, 8th July [28thyiay\ Caesar joined by Calvinus. Pompey in Thessaly. The two armies near each other, Aug. [June] 48. road (and which Caesar had sent Domitius Calvinus to intercept), and still avoided making any movement ; until, as the summer was wearing away, two Allobrogians, in whom Caesar had placed great confidence, but who had abused his trust, deserted to Pompey and pointed out a weak point in Caesar's lines, — their south extremity near the sea, where they were as yet unfinished, and might be turned by landing troops at this point. This was done ; and a temporary embankment, thrown up to block the gap, was found to be only guarded by two cohorts ; and though the quaestor P. Marcellinus, Antony, and finally Caesar himself came to the rescue, it was too late. The lines were pierced and Pompey was entrenched outside them close to the sea. Caesar fortified a new camp hard by ; but after meeting with a fresh disaster in attacking a Pompeian legion, which was march- ing into a deserted camp a little to the north of his position, he resolved to retire to Apollonia and thence to Thessaly, in hopes of being joined by Domitius Calvinus and drawing Pompey from the sea. The Pompeians were highly elated at this retreat, and urged a pursuit. Pompey yielded for one day, but was unwilling to venture farther. He returned to Dyrrachium : but presently, in hopes of being joined by Metellus, marched down the Egnatian road. Domitius Calvinus, warned of the danger of being thus caught between two armies, made his way across the mountains into Thessaly and joined Caesar at Aeginium on the upper Peneius.^ Meanwhile Pompey had also effected his junction with Metellus Scipio, and leaving the Egnatian road marched to the vale of Tempe and thence to Larissa, 1st August [21st June]; and on the 5th [25th June] advanced by Scotussa across the Enipeus and pitched a camp about four miles from Caesar. The two rivals were now within moderate distance of each other, with a country of plain and hill between them suitable for fighting. Pompey had declined to follow the advice of Afranius after Caesar's retreat, — to leave him to be hemmed in by the fleet, while he went himself to Italy, — partly out of regard to the safety of his father- in-law, and partly from a dislike to appear to his Eastern allies to be afraid to fight. Still his better judgment was for avoid- ing a battle and gradually exhausting Caesar, who had no fleet to bring him provisions, and had to depend on exactions from the country, while his own ships were at every point of the coast and could supply him with anything. But the pressure and flattery of his followers, elated with the events at Dyrrachium and the junction with Metellus, and eager to get back to Italy and enjoy the offices ^ Caesar had marched towards Gomphi, south of the Peneius, along the same route as Flamininus in 163. See map on p. 440. , XLV DEFEAT OF POMPEY AT PHARSALUS 745 for which they had bargained and the confiscated properties of the Contrast Caesarians, impelled him to give battle at once. His army was between distracted by intrigues and cabals, and with quarrels as to the ^^^ (^^^i^^- division of the spoil. The dignity of pontifex maximus was especially coveted, and the claims of various men of rank were gravely debated as though Caesar were already dead or a prisoner. The camp was a scene of luxury and folly ; and was crowded with men from the provinces of Asia and the Islands, with Jews, Armenians, and Arabians ; and with sovereigns such as Deiotarus of Galatia and Ariarathes of Cappadocia. On the other side was a smaller army, but largely composed of veterans, enthusi- astically devoted to and believing in their chief In it there was no division of counsels, no rivalry of claims, and no hope but in victory. The battle was to decide whether the evils which had so long sapped the strength of Rome, — the selfish grasp on power of a narrow clique, and its misuse in the government of the provinces, and in the accumulation of enormous fortunes spent in personal luxury, were to give place to the wisdom of a statesman and the hand of a master of men. It is a pity therefore that its details are even less clearly ascertainable than usual. Pompey trusted to the superiority of his numbers, especially in cavalry, to outflank Caesar. His army actually on the field amounted to more than 44,000 Battle of with 7000 cavalry, Caesar's to little more than 22,000, with 1000 Pharsalus, cavalry. The left of Pompey's line, which was longer than Caesar's, f!^ "f"^' was commanded by Ahenobarbus, the centre by Scipio, and the right by Lentulus. Caesar took post on the extreme right of his line, with the 1 2th legion; P. Sulla commanded the left; Domitius Calvinus the centre ; and M. Antonius the right. Pompey's plan was that his numerous cavalry on his left (under Labienus) should outflank Caesar's line on the right and throw itself upon the rear of his legions ; but that his infantry should wait to be charged. Caesar criticises this as failing to take into account the ardour generated by a rapid advance ; and it certainly was unsuccess- ful. Pompey's cavalry drove back Caesar's horse, but was in its turn repulsed by Caesar's reserve, or fourth line, of infantry and archers, and fled in confusion to the high ground, leaving the light armed archers and slingers unprotected. Meanwhile Caesar's infantry, find- ing that the enemy did not move, slackened their charge, that they might not arrive out of breath ; hurled \\\^\x pilaj and then, drawing their swords, closed in deadly embrace. The struggle, which was victory of severe, was decided by Caesar's third line coming fresh on to the Caesar. ground ; and the Pompeians were soon in full flight. Pompey had given up the battle as lost when he saw the defeat 746 HISTORY OF ROME 48, Pompey s camp taken. Flight of Pompey. Pompey resolves to go to Egypt. Civil war in Egypt. Pompey at Pelusium, 28th Sept. {i6th A ug. ]. of his cavalry ; and returning to his camp, and giving orders for the guarding of the vallum, retired to his tent. Caesar pushed on his advantage. Though it was midday, and the heat was terrible he led his men against Pompey's camp. Before long its defenders were rushing through the opposite gate ; and Pompey had mounted his horse and was galloping to Larissa. There he was joined by a few followers, and without resting hurried on to the coast. Finding a corn ship ready to start he reached Amphipolis ; and after one night there sailed to Lesbos, where his wife and younger son were with his friend Theophanes. Taking them on board he proceeded on his voyage down the Asiatic coast. At Attaleia in Pamphylia he obtained some triremes and certain Cilician recruits, and heard that his fleet under Cato at Corcyra had taken up many survivors of the battle as well as those left at Dyrrachium, and had gone to the province of Africa. During his stay at Apameia he collected more ships and men, and was joined by about sixty senators He was looking out for some place of safety. He thought of Syria, which he had in part granted to the Parthian king Orodes ; but by the advice of Theophanes at last decided upon Egypt. Landing at Paphos in Cyprus, he collected more ships, money, and men; and about the middle of October [August] set sail for Alexandria. The sovereign of Egypt was the youthful Ptolemy XII., son ot that Ptolemy Auletes whose cause Pompey had supported at Rome. The boy had been Pompey's ward ; and was at present at Pelusium with an army to oppose the return of his sister Cleopatra from Syria. His ministers or guardians were the eunuch Pothmus and the rhetorician Theodotus of Chios. His army was commanded by Achillas There were also some Roman troops at Alexandria, left there by Gabinius when he restored Auletes in 57. ^^/hen Pompey's message reached the king, announcing his arrival at the promontory of Casius, and asking shelter, the royal council was divided in opinion, but eventually decided that it was not safe to receive him or to let him go. To murder him would be best : "dead men do not bite." The task was entrusted to two Romans, — Septimius, once a military tribune in Pompey's army, and Salvius, a centurion. A boat was sent out with Achillas on board, who greeted Pompey respectfully and invited him to come on shore. On the beach were seen armed men, and ships of war getting ready. It was necessary to risk all. Amidst the agonised anxiety of wife and friends Pompey stepped into the boat, took his place in the stern, and recognised and addressed Septimius as an old comrade. The surly reply received must have warned him of his danger ; and when, as he was stepping out of the boat, he felt the sword of Septimius at his back, he hastily drew the folds of his toga XLV MURDER OF POMPEY IN EGYPT 747 over his face and fell without a struggle. His head was cut off, and Potnpey his body left upon the sand, until his faithful freedman Philip found murdered, some fragments of a stranded boat, with which he made a rude ^ ' funeral pyre, assisted by an old Roman soldier, who found him at his sorrowful task. This was the end of a great career. No contemporary had done greater services to the Empire. From his earliest youth to his death he had been employed at every crisis. The hand of the assassin had indeed aided him against Sertorius : and he only intervened in the war with Spartacu§ when the chief work was done. But the Pompey's delivery of the sea from the pirates had been all his own : and career and though Mithridates had nearly come to the end of his resources ^'^^''^^^^''• when Pompey arrived, it was his energy that finally drove the king from Pontus, and his honesty and ability which settled the new provinces and made the Euphrates the boundary of the Roman Empire. He had been less successful in politics. Beginning with a leaning to the Populares, he had been outbidden and outmanoeuvred by Caesar ; had lost control of the extreme left wing ; had declined to join the Optimates when to do so would have made him all- powerful ; and had joined them when his credit was failing and their cause had become hopeless, and never really trusted, or was trusted, by them. He wished for two inconsistent things, — personal supremacy and the strict maintenance of the constitution ; and did not see that reforms had become impossible except by arms. He had no policy to propose, and trusted blindly to the position which his great services had secured ; and in his last war had allowed him- self to be overruled by incompetent followers. Caesar was six years Contrast of younger, and with boundless confidence in himself, with which he Caesar's inspired others, never felt his career closed while there was work to ^^^^'^<^^^^' do. He had a distinct policy, small respect for laws or customs which barred its success, and little scruple as to the character of the men employed to carry it out. He felt the faculty of government in him and desired to leave his mark in everything, from the Calendar to the highest matters of state. Pompey's victory would have meant the perpetuation of a system which had proved unworkable ; Caesar's meant at any rate a change. Though it was impossible even for him to make a clean sweep of ancient forms, yet under those ancient forms a new constitution was in fact to be created, which would make the government of the Empire a possibility. Caesar had lost only 200 men and about thirty centurions at Caesar Pharsalus, while nearly i 5,000 of the enemy lay on the field or were follows killed by the cavalry in the pursuit ; and nine eagles and 1 80 ^^^"/^^' ^ standards were laid at his feet. The victory was signal, but must r^^^ July] be followed up by the destruction of the party, which still had a 748 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Caesar arrives h Egypt. Outbreaks in Alex- andria. Mithri- dates of Pergaytius arrives at Pelusium, 2nd March [i2th Jan. J 47- great fleet and the command of Africa. Caesar therefore hurried forward in pursuit of Pompey with one legion and some cavalry, leaving orders for another legion to follow. At the Hellespont he was overtaken by this second legion, and marched through Asia, where he stayed for about a week, from the 19th to the 25 th Sep- tember [7th- 1 3th August]. He seems to have been kept informed of the stages of Pompey's flight ; and was everywhere received with great honour, and the announcement of prodigies from complaisant temples. He arrived at Alexandria on the 5th of October [24th August], and was at once informed of Pompey's death, the head being shown him with ready ofliciousness. He turned from it with horror, and shed tears at the sight of his signet ring. His difficulties however were not over. His landing with lictors and the ensigns of imperium was resented by the Alexandrine mob ; and for some days there were riots in which Roman soldiers were murdered. He sent for reinforcements from Asia, and summoned both Ptolemy and Cleopatra to Alexandria, bidding them dismiss their armies, and submit their differences to him, as head of the Roman people, who by their father's will were their guardians. The army at Pelusium under Achillas, 20,000 strong, was incited by Pothinus to resist his decision of a joint reign for Ptolemy and his sister, and advanced on Alexandria. Caesar was not strong enough to fight, and induced Ptolemy to send envoys to Achillas, who however refused them a hearing and put one of them to death. Caesar thereupon secured Ptolemy's person, and shortly afterwards put Pothinus to death. About the loth of November [27th September] Achillas occupied Alexandria and assaulted the palace. Caesar burnt the docks and Egyptian fleet, and transferred his men to Pharos, commanding the entrance to the harbour and connected with the city by the Heptistadium and drawbridges. Achillas was master of Alexandria, and set up Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe as queen, who however soon quarrelled with him, put him to death, and made Ganymedes commander. Caesar obtained ships from Rhodes, and was promised help by Mithridates of Pergamus, who collected an army in Syria and Cilicia. Towards the end of the year Ptolemy persuaded Caesar to allow him to go to Alexandria and negotiate a peace ; but immediately joined the enemy and renewed the war, cut- ting off Caesar's convoys of provisions at sea. At the beginning of March 47 [12th January] Mithridates arrived at Pelusium ; Ptolemy was defeated, and drowned in attempting to escape. Alexandria surrendered on the 27th March [6th February] and Cleopatra was made queen with a boy brother called Ptolemy XI H. In the autumn of 48, while at Alexandria, Caesar was informed that he had been named dictator for a year, consul for five, with the XLV CAESAR'S EXPEDITION INTO ASIA 749 tribimicia potestas for life, and the right of holding all elections Caesar except those of the tribunes. ^^-T"? - But there was still work to do in the East. Pharnaces (the son of jlth^Nov. Mithridates whom Pompey had made king of Bosporus) had invaded i2()thSept.'\ his paternal kingdom of Pontus and defeated Domitius Calvinus and 48. Deiotarus, who tried to make up for his presence at Pharsalus by offering assistance to Calvinus. Caesar started for Asia and Caesar arrived at Antioch on 13th July [23rd May]. There he heard bad leaves Alex- news from home, from the reports of his Master of the Horse, M. '!'!ff^f' 1 , T • 11 • e 2istn June Antonius.i The returned soldiers were mutmous and clamourmg tor [-^^^ ^,j^y-^ bounties. M. Caelius, who had been rewarded for his adhesion by ^7. the praetorship (48), was discontented at C. Trebonius being Troubles preferred as praetor urbanus, and at not getting what he expected in Italy, from confiscations. He refused to carry out Caesar's law as to the 4^-47 ■ securities to be surrendered by debtors, and even instigated the as- sassination of Trebonius. Failing in that, he promulgated a law for Rebellion wiping out debts and rent. The consul Servilius Vatia obtained a ^f Caehus guard, tore down the tablets, and suspended Caelius. Driven from ^^ ^ ' ^" Senate-house and Rostra, Caelius fled to Campania to join Milo, who had been at the head of a band of ruffians at Capua, in wrath at not being included in the number of exiles recalled. Finding Milo already put to death by the praetor Q. Pedius near Thurii, he continued his flight to Bruttium, where he was overtaken and killed. Next year P- Cor- (47) it was Dolabella who caused trouble. He was young, profligate, "^'^^"^ and overburdened with debt ; and not getting the relief he expected for j.^ p^ ' his services at Pharsalus, he got himself transferred to a plebeian gens ; was elected tribune for 47 ; and as he was opposed by his colleague Trebellius, party fights were constantly going on, which Antony could not control ; and when Caesar's difficulties in Egypt, and still more his departure for Asia were known, Dolabella, who had the ear of the mob, was promising ?tovae tabulae and the rest of a revolu- tionary programme, while Antony was called away from Rome by disorders of the troops at Brundisium. Still Caesar determined that he must settle affairs in Asia before Caesar in returning. His movements were extremely rapid. Three days at ^^^' , ^ ^ , ^ ,-- , ^ rr ■ • Summer of Antioch, four at Tarsus, three at Comana, sufficed to settle affairs in ^^ Syria, Cilicia, and Cappadocia. On the 28th July [7th June] he met Deiotarus, whom he deprived of his tetrarchy in Galatia, and took over a legion which he had with him, allowing him to retain 1 Cicero (2 Phil. § 62) asserts Antony to have been named Magister Equitum without Caesar's knowledge, but both Plutarch {Ant. viii. ) and Dio (xlii. 21) speak of Caesar's selection of him. His conduct is bitterly attacked by Cicero, whom Plutarch copies. There was at any rate great disorder, which he could not, or at any rate did not check (Dio xlii. 27). 750 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Zela. Ve7ii, vidi, vici, 27id Alli^. [/2//i June'\ 4-j. Caesar in Rome, .fill Oct. -4tk Dec. [rilh Au^.-ioth OcL]47. Coss. Q. Fufius Calenus, J' Vatinius. Discedite Quirites. The Pompeians in AJrica, 48-47- his royal title, and some small part of Lesser Armenia. ^ Next day he entered Pontus, and answered the envoys of Pharnaces by ordering the king to quit that country and restore to freedom the Roman publicani whom he had seized, and all property he had taken from allies of Rome. Pharnaces pretended obedience ; but when he shuffled and delayed, Caesar moved swiftly upon his position, on a hill three miles from Zela ; defeated him ; and stormed his camp. Pharnaces fled to Sinope, and thence to Panticapaeum, where he was defeated and killed by his own rebellious general Asander. Caesar left Pontus in charge of Caelius Vinicianus with two legions ; gave Bosporus and Deiotarus' Galatian tetrarchy to Mithridates of Pergamus, with leave to drive out Asander ; and hurried back through Bithynia and Asia — settling many disputes on the way and leaving the rest to Domitius Calvinus. From Athens, which he reached in the middle of September, he went to Rome, where he arrived on the 4th of October [i ith August], He only stayed two months in the city, during which he held elections of consuls for the remainder of the year ; arranged for his own consulship with M. Aemilius Lepidus for 46; and suppressed the disorders going on, though without punishing Dolabella or others. He disappointed many of his followers, who had bought confiscated estates, sometimes beyond their marketable value, in the confidence that they would not have to pay, by insisting on the discharge of the debt. It was on this point that a coolness arose between Caesar and Antony (who had purchased Pompey's estate), on which Cicero dwells at length in the second Philippic. He partly, however, satisfied his partisans with offices, priesthoods, and seats in the Senate ; and suppressed a sedition among the soldiers by addressing them as " Quirites," and granting them the dismissal they asked for, but did not wish to have, — only admitting them back to the service as a favour, and taking care to weed out the most unruly. Earlier in the year his legate Vatinius had successfully driven the Pompeian M. Octavius from Illyricum ; but the party was still in great strength in Africa. When the news of the defeat at Pharsalus arrived, Cato, who had been left in charge of the camp at Dyrrachium, joined the fleet at Corcyra. There he found Pompey's elder son Gnaeus, who had been deserted by the Egyptian ships which he commanded, but insisted that with the large fleet still left them they might maintain the war, and was nearly killing Cicero for opposing it. It was resolved to go to Africa, where they expected to be rejoined by Pompey himself, and by Metellus Scipio, who had fled to the protection of King luba and Attius Varus. When they arrived * He was accused of trying to poison Caesar, and was defended by M. Brutus at Nicaea \ad Alt. xiv, i] and by Cicero at Rome. XLV THE POMPEIANS IN AFRICA 751 at Cyrene they heard of Pompey's death from his younger son Sextus : and the ships being dispersed by a storm, Cato made his way by land to the province of Africa, and arrived at Utica early in April 47. He had refused the chief com- mand on the ground that Metellus Scipio as a consular was his superior in rank. Scipio therefore was made commander-in- chief; and Attius Varus, who had been anxious to retain this post in his own pro- vince, took the com- mand of the fleet ; while Cato remained at Utica to support them both. They had now had Caesar a year in which to con- leaves solidate their forces. Caesar hastened to meet them before it was too late. On the 17th of December [23rd October] he was in Lilybaeum. There he collected six legions and 2000 cavalry ; set sail on the 25 th December [31st October]; and in four days landed at Adrumetum, but with only 3000 in- fantry and 1 50 cavalry. Rome for Africa, ^tli Dec. [loth Oct.^.n. 752 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 46. Coss. C. lulius Caesar III. , M. Aemilius Lepidus. The rest were delayed by bad weather. Considius, commandant of Pompeian troops in Adrumetum, refused to yield ; and attacked him as he moved down the coast to Ruspina, where he arrived on the ist of January 46 [5th November 47]. There he received the sub- mission of Leptis, and stationed guards in it. He was, however, in a dangerous position, having landed in Africa with forces inadequate to withstand the combined forces of Scipio and luba, which were advancing upon him, even when about the 4th January [8th November 47] a part of his scattered fleet suddenly appeared. Up to that time he had been obliged to let his small force — -farther diminished by the despatch of Sallustius Crispus to Cercina for provisions — pass the nights on board ship. He now fortified himself at Ruspina, and waited for the auxiliaries and provisions which he had sent for from Sardinia and Sicily. But he would probably even so have been crushed but for the timely intervention of P. Sittius, who with king Bocchus of Mauritania, invaded the dominions of luba, took Cirta, and by this diversion forced luba to return to the defence of his own kingdom, though on the point of joining Scipio. Meanwhile Caesar was joined by many Romans of position in the province ; and his ships came to land at different points, though attacked by C. Vergilius at Thapsus, and sometimes taken. Scipio, however, advancing close up to Ruspina, tried to bring Caesar to battle ; and after a time induced luba to join him with three legions and 800 horse, though he left his main army under Saburra to defend his own kingdom. Scipio being thus reinforced by luba, and by fresh troops enrolled and sent by Cato from Utica, was eager to fight. Caesar too had been reinforced by two legions from Sicily, though in a feeble and disorganised state [iith March=iith January]; and offered or pretended to offer Scipio battle. But though there was some cavalry skirmishing, the armies stood all day without engaging. It was now towards the end of March [January], and nothing decisive had occurred. Caesar took various strongholds, and Varus with his fleet hovered off the coast from time to time, capturing Caesar's transports. But neither side gained any conspicuous advantage, till at last on the 4th April [4th February] Caesar advanced to attack Thapsus. Scipio followed, keeping on high ground, and attempted to throw a reinforcement into Thapsus along a narrow neck of land between a salt lagoon and the sea, defended by a castle and three legions. Scipio began pitching a camp about a mile from this castle, between it and the sea. Caesar recalled his men from the siege of Thapsus, ordered ships up to the shore near Scipio's camp, and thus forced Scipio to fight while his army was partly occupied in fortifying the camp. Yet Caesar seemed unwilling to begin, in spite XLV VICTORY AT THAPSUS AND DEATH OF CATO 753 of the entreaties of his officers. But the soldiers could not be restrained. The men on the left wing forced the trumpeter to sound the charge, and Caesar, finding it inevitable, mounted a horse and, giving the word Felicitas^ led it himself. luba's elephants took fright and rushed through their own lines into the camp. Deprived of their expected support, the Mauritanian cavalry fled ; and the Caesarians with little resistance forced their way into the camp of the enemy. A sally from Thapsus was repulsed ; the fugitives from the Defeat of camp made for that of luba, and, finding that also occupied, retired Sc^P<^ '^"'^ to a hill and gave the signal of surrender by dropping their arms. But Caesar's veterans were so infuriated by long restraint, that he could not prevent them from cutting the unarmed crowd to pieces, or from killing some of their own officers who tried to prevent them. He is said to have lost only fifty men ; the enemy 50,000 in killed, wounded, prisoners, and missing. Three camps fell into his hands, with many elephants and immense spoil. Vergilius still held out in Thapsus, but Caesar did not stay to attack him. Leaving that to Rebilus with three legions, and the attack on Considius at Thisdra to Cn. Domitius Calvinus with two, he started for Utica, occupying Uzita and Adrumetum without resistance. The unarmed people of Utica had been mistrusted by Cato and Death of forced to live outside the walls. Scipio's defeated cavalry would have ^!^^^^',r^[^, vented their fury and disappointment on them, but were beaten oflf by y,^.^ -i ^~ clubs and stones ; even in the town Cato and Faustus Sulla had to bribe them to desist from pillage. But Cato had now made up his mind that his cause was hopeless. After talking cheerfully on philo- sophy to a large number of guests, and commending his family to L. Caesar, he retired to his bedroom and fell on his sword. The wound was not mortal, and was dressed ; but, when left alone, he tore away the bandages and expired. The other leaders either made their peace with Caesar or fell in various ways. luba was refused admittance to his capital Zama, and, retiring to a villa with Petreius, the two agreed to end their lives by a duel. luba killed Petreius, Death of and then induced a slave to stab him. Saburra was conquered and ^"^^' killed by P. Sittius. Faustus Sulla and Afranius soon after fell into y,-^^""/' Sittius' hands, and, though spared by him, were killed in a military Su//a, ami riot. Scipio tried to escape to Spain, to join Gnacus and Scxtus Metcllus Pompeius, but was intercepted by Sittius' fleet and threw himself into ^<^ipio- the sea. Caesar confiscated and sold luba's property, and reduced his Proi'ince of kingdom to the form of a province (Numidia), over which he Numidia set Sallustius Crispus as proconsul. Vergilius then surrendered orNeiv Thapsus ; and having punished or degraded other towns Caesar em- ' J^^'^^'4 barked at Utica on the i 3th June [April], and touching at Sardinia 3 ^ 754 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP 46. Caesar's four triutuphs A year of 445 days. Last year of disorder. Caesar s leisislafion. and fining some towns there, arrived at Rome on the 25th July [25th May]. He celebrated four triumphs — over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Numidia, avoiding thus all reference to the Civil war, and leading no Roman citizen among his captives. It was now that most of such legislation as he lived to carry out was accomplished. Though he left for Spain in December, the reform in the Calendar, on which he had employed the (jreek mathematician Sosigenes, gave him two months more than appears. The Roman year since the time of Numa had consisted of 12 lunar months or 355 days (really 354 d. 8 h. 48', 36"). The solar year consists of 365 days, 5 hrs., 48', 51^". The error had been accumulating, in spite of intercalations, and a correction by the decemvirs, till it amounted to 90 days. This was now to end. A month of 23 days had already been intercalated after February ; and now 67 days were added between the last day of November and the first of December. The "last year of disorder," A.u.c. 708 (B.C. 46), thus consisted of 445 days, and the first of January 709 (h.C. 45) was brought to its true place in the solar year. Caesar was therefore at Rome between six and seven months. He had before his arrival been declared dictator for ten years ; and had been granted censorial powers under the title of pracfcctiis moruni^ — with other honours, some of them usually appropriated to the gods. Well understanding that these measures were the effect of fear rather than affection, he took an early opportunity of disclaiming any intention of vengeance. He aimed at healing the wounds of the last twenty years of party conflict and civil war. Among others, Cicero was allowed to return unharmed to Rome ; exiles were recalled ; senatorial rank restored to others ; and the Senate allowed to recall even some of his most violent opponents, such as M. Marcellus. His measures, apparently passed now, included a reform of the judicia by excluding the tribu7ii aerarii ; ^ a sumptuary law regulating cost of banquets and dress, and levying a duty on foreign luxuries ; a law encouraging marriage by granting certain privileges to fathers ; a law prohibiting senators or their sons from residing out of Italy for more than three years except on military service ; while farther to encourage the residence of free men, it was ordered that on sheep farms not more than two-thirds of the shepherds were to be slaves. He wished also to extend the civitas so as to embrace all worthy men. The Transpadani had been enfranchised by him in 49, as well as the whole of his favourite legion the Alauda. Now the citizen- ship was granted to physicians and all professors of the liberal arts resident in Rome ; and two new colonies, at Carthage and Corinth, ^ See p. 680 (note). XLV CAESAR GOES TO SPAIN 755 were projected to supply his veterans and others with land. Finally, as a restraint upon ambition in the future, the tenure of a praetorial province was confined to one year, that of a consular to two. But as a set off to these wise and liberal measures, it must be Inferiority owned that there was something in what Cicero alleged, that Caesar of Caesar s cared little for the character of those whom he admitted to his ^^^^'^^^ confidence, nay, that he seemed to prefer men of damaged reputa- tion and fortunes. He was now to experience the results of such a Movements choice. In 49 he had left Baetica in charge of Q. Cassius Longinus, in Spain, who had already in 54 gained an evil reputation there, and now 49-4^- made himself so odious that he was assassinated (47). Caesar appointed C Trebonius in his place. But the soldiers in Baetica were exasperated with Caesar's governors. They expelled Trebonius, and when Gnaeus Pompeius (elder son of Magnus) crossed to Spain from Africa, and, after Thapsus, was joined by his brother Sextus, Attius Varus, and Labienus, he was able to collect thirteen legions and defeat C. Didius, whom Caesar sent against him. It was necessary that Caesar should go himself. As soon there- Caesar goes fore as necessary arrangements had been made he started. He left ^^ Spain, Rome on the 3rd of December (46), and was back again at the ^^ ^^' beginning of the following September. The struggle in which he was engaged till the i 7th of March was a very severe one, and there were at times disquieting rumours as to his defeat. The two armies were almost wholly Italian, though Bocchus, one king of Mauritania, sent his sons to Pompey, and the other king, Bagouas, served with Caesar. The Pompeians were mostly veterans, who, having served against Caesar before, and having been granted their lives, had no hope of pardon. Caesar's army also consisted mostly of veterans, incensed at being called on to fight a civil war again. There was likely to be little quarter given ; and, in fact, in no part of the civil war was there so much ruthless slaughter. On Caesar's approach Sext. Pompeius threw himself into Corduba, and sent for aid to his brother Gnaeus, who was besieging Ulia. Caesar, not being able to assault Corduba at once, recrossed the Baetis Campaign and attacked Pompey's magazine, Ategua ( Teba\ commanded by "' Baetica, L. Munatius Flaccus, who l^id been the head of the opposition j/^'^^^ to Cassius Longinus. The surrender of Ategua (19th February) brought many submissions to Caesar ; and after various minor en- gagements Gnaeus Pompeius finally encamped on a plain near Munda. Caesar followed, and on the 17th of March forced him to liatth- of fight. The struggle on both sides was desperate. For a long time '^f"""*^^^"g^- Senate-house was to be built, the old Curia, burnt in the Clodian riots, was to be replaced by a temple of Felicitas. Varro was to ^ Appian, /?. Civ. ii. no. - Tlie entry in the Fasti asserted that Antony's action was by the ' ' order of the people" (Cic. 2 Phil. § 87). ' Cicero, ad Farn. vi. 18. It has been in part preserved on a bronze tablet found near Heraclea in 1732. See C. I. L. 11 19. Bruns, p. loi. ■* ad Att. xiii. 7. ^ ad Att. xiii. 33, 35. ^ Dio. xliii. 49. 758 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Foreign colonies. Prepara- tions for the Parthian expedition. The conspiracy 44. Some causes of it. The Spa?iish triumph. collect a library ; the best jurists to codify the laws. The lacus Fucinus was to be drained ; an immense harbour constructed at Ostia ; a new road made across the Apennines to the coast of the Adriatic. A great scheme of colonisation was also formed. Besides Corinth (which was to involve a canal through the isthmus) and Carthage, numerous veterans, liberti, and others were to be settled in Narbo, Aries, Forum Julii, Buthrotum, Pharos (Alexandria), Berytos (Syria), and Heracleia and Sinope on the Black Sea : and Plancus was directed to found a colony at Lugdunum, and perhaps another in the territory of the Rauraci near Bale. Vast preparations were made for the expedition against the Getae and Parthians. Six legions and 10,000 cavalry were sent over to en- camp near Apollonia, ready to start in the next spring, where Octavius, Caesar's now acknowledged heir, was to study during the winter and learn cavalry exercises. These were to be supplemented by archers from Crete, light troops from Spain and Africa, and slingers from the Balearic Isles, while immense stores of arms were ordered at Demetrias and Magnesia. The expedition was calculated to last three years, and for that period Caesar availed himself of his dictatorial and other powers to name the consuls, praetors, and provincial governors. He was consul with Antony for 44, but he meant to abdicate that office in favour of Dolabella before he departed, — a measure resisted by Antony, who wished to be in sole charge, and had had experience of Dolabella's misconduct, — while he himself as dictator would have two magistri equitum instead of legati, his nephew Octavius and his old officer Cn. Domitius Calvinus. But the conspiracy was now in active formation which was to put an end to all this. No doubt it was largely composed of men whose selfish views had been baulked by Caesar. The prime mover in it, for instance, C. Cassius, was annoyed at not being urban praetor instead of M. Brutus, who, though thus favoured, joined in the conspiracy from an overstrained notion of the duty of slaying a tyrant. But there were other causes of dissatisfaction. On his return from Spain he had again triumphed, and allowed a similar honour, against all precedent, to Fabius Maximus and Pedius. This time there could be no concealment of the fact that the triumph was over Roman citizens, and one of the tribunes, Pontius Aquila, had had the courage to" protest by refusing to rise v,^hen Caesar's car passed him. The reduction of the number of the recipients of the public corn, though a righteous measure and a permanent relief to the exchequer, must have made enemies. His nomination of con- suls, sometimes for a few days, and practical nomination of other magistrates by letters of recommendation to the comitia, showed clearly that the consulship was to be an honorary office, and the XLV THE CONSPIRACY AND ITS CAUSES 759 other magistrates his agents. His large admissions to the Senate of His rela- provincials, freedmen, and supporters of every kind was really a ^^^'" ^'^^'^ blow to its dignity and power, which he farther slighted on one ^ ^'^^ ^' occasion by receiving the fathers, when they came to offer some new complimentary votes, without rising. He lived in Rome, indeed, without a guard ; but when he travelled in Italy he was escorted by about 2000 men ; and though clement and easily moved to pardon, he seems at the same time to have had the misfortune of exciting deep personal resentment. Nearly all his legati in Gaul turned against him ; and there is point in Julian's satire, that the one thing Personal Caesar could not do was to make people love him.^ He had some qiidHties. habits also calculated to give offence. At the theatre or circus, and even at the table of his friends, he showed his want of interest in what was going on by reading and answering his letters ; and to some it must have seemed offensive that the author of a marriage law and a repressor of adultery should himself be the subject of numerous scandals, and that Cleopatra should be Hving in his house. 2 Perhaps it was impossible for a reformer of such a mass of corruption to escape immense odium ; and however he may have unnecessarily excited it, there can be but one opinion of the. treachery of the assassins, many of whom owed their lives to Caesar's clemency, and high office to his favour. Libels began to be scattered about, and sentences to be mysteriously The inscribed on walls calling on Brutus to justify his name. The murder ^nurder was finally arranged at a supper in the house of Cassius, where the ^^^'^"^^ • principal members of the conspiracy met ( 1 4th March), It was agreed that it must be done at once, lest the plot, to which more than sixty were privy, should be betrayed. There was a meeting of the Senate next day ; and Caesar, in spite of warnings, was accustomed to attend without guards. Antony was to be detained by C. Trebonius on some pretext outside the Curia Pompei ^ while the deed was done. Caesar himself seems to have been uneasy. As he lay at supper rjlk on the evening of the 1 4th at the house of Lepidus the conversation ^larch. turned on the question as to which kind of death was to be wished. He . ^^^^^ looked up from his correspondence, which as usual he was engaged ^^ fg the upon, and said briefly, *'A sudden one." Still no one deliberately ^Senate- courts what was now awaiting him. He had received hints couched house. in the guise of predictions ; his wife had evil dreams and entreated him to put off going to the Senate ; meteors had been observed ; the ^ Julian, Co7iviv. 332A. 2 Cicero, ad Att. xiv. 8; 1-20. Some have supposed that Cicero alludes to Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe, who had been brought to Rome to grace Caesar's triumph. But the second of the two letters settles it in favour of Cleopatra. ^ In the Campus Martins, near the Theatrum Pompei. The old Curia was being removed for the temple of Felicitas. 76o HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The murder of Caesar, iSth March 44. KO.I (XV T€KVOV {Suet. 82). The assassins go to the Capitol. omens were bad ; the armour of Mars in the palace of the Pontifex Maximus fell. He was perhaps unwell or unnerved, and decided not to go. But the Senate having met in large numbers, as important business was expected, was waiting for him ; and those in the secret were armed with daggers concealed by the cases of their styli. Caesar's delay alarmed them. Hasty conferences were held, and Decimus Brutus undertook the part of Judas. He went to Caesar's house, and appealed to his pride not to let it be said that he failed to meet the Senate from mere fanciful causes and super- stitious fears. Caesar was convinced, and rose to go about 1 1 A.M. As he crossed the hall his bust or statue fell and broke to pieces, perhaps overthrown by a friendly serv^ant to warn him. As he walked along the street the usual crowd pressed round him with petitions, and one man especially thrust a paper into his hand, begging him to read it at once, as it concerned him ; but he either did not hear or did not understand, and gave it with others to his attendant. When he entered and took his place (the senators as usual rising), those in the secret crowded round him on the pretext of supporting Cimber, who presented a petition for the recall of a brother. He did not mean to grant it, and with some anger at their persistence turned from Cimber, who thereupon clutched his toga with such eagerness as to drag it from his neck. Then P. Casca struck him with his dagger. But from nervousness or haste the blade did not reach his throat, but struck his shoulder. Caesar sprang up and snatched at the weapon, crying, "You villain, Casca! what do you mean ? " But he found himself surrounded by angry faces and gleam- ing daggers ; and when among them he saw M. Brutus — pardoned, promoted, and loved — he gave up hope, and drawing his robe over his face fell pierced by more than twenty blades, aimed at him with such violence and in such confusion that several of the conspirators were themselves wounded. He fell near the base of Pompey's statue, which was sprinkled with his blood. The other senators remained rooted to the spot with terror whilst this was going on ; but when M. Brutus raising the bloody dagger, and calling on Cicero to witness that he had freed Rome, would have addressed the house, the senators rushed out, spreading the dreadful news among the people, though Cicero apparently tried to induce them to meet at once again in the Capitol. 1 Antony and Lepidus, fearing that they might share the same fate, hastily concealed themselves in the houses of friends. But the con- spirators marched through the streets loudly proclaiming their deed, and calling on all lovers of freedom to join them. They expected to ' Ad Att. xiv. 10. XLV AFTER THE MURDER 761 be greeted as saviours of the commonwealth ; but though one or two 44. did join their train, wishing to share in the credit of a deed in which they had had no part, the general aspect of the people, who hastily closed their shops or withdrew into their houses, was so far from encouraging that they retired to the Capitol, on the pretence of offering thanks to the gods, accompanied by gladiators whom Dec. Brutus had had ready near the Curia Pompeii on pretence of some exhibition. The corpse of the murdered dictator was carried in a covered litter by his servants through the streets to his house in the Forum. The curtains waved backwards and forwards, showing the ghastly body with its thirty-six wounds, and the hands swung loose as the litter moved. The sight caused a tempest of lamentation from the excited crowd in the street, and from those who watched from door- steps and housetops. It was plain that the temper of the people could not be trusted. But it was resolved to make one more attempt to gain them. Escorted by their gladiators, the chief conspirators Speeches of descended into the Forum, and M. Brutus made a speech from the ^^- Brutus Rostra, which was listened to quietly, as it dwelt rather on the high '^"'^^^""'^^ patriotic motives of the assassins than on the demerits of Caesar ; but when Cinna followed with a vehement attack on Caesar's character, there was such a threatening exhibition of feeling that the assassins retired again to the Capitol, and fortified themselves there during the night. Meanwhile Antony recovered his courage, and appeared again in Negoti- consular state. Lepidus brought troops into the Forum to keep '""^"'^ '^^^^ order, and Dolabella assumed the consular robes and lictors, in spite of " "^' the doubt as to his election. ^ Negotiations went on during the next day, and on the 17th {Libcralid), at a meeting of the Senate in the Meeting of temple of Tellus, close to Antony's house, Antony, who had got ^^^ Senate possession of Caesar's memoranda and other state papers, as well as ^J^ * ^ ^"J^^ the treasury, made a conciliatory speech, agreeing that no decree of Caesar's not published before the ides of March should be held to be in force, and that the dictatorship should be declared unconstitu- tional.2 In return, Cicero, who came forward with great vigour, proposed an amnesty, and some alteration in the provinces assigned ^ Because whilst it was going on Antony attempted to invalidate it by an obmintiatio (Cicero, 2 Phil. § 82). - Cicero, i Phil. 3 ; 2 Phil. 91. The measure at first was only a resolution of the Senate, but was afterwards embodied in a law (Cic. 5 Phil. § 10 ; Dio Cass. xliv. 51). Some difficulty has been made on the subject, because the dictatorship was offered to Augustus. But w hat had been abolished by a lex might be restored by a lex, which no doubt would then have been easily carried. Moreover, Augustus declined it on the ground that it was illegal {Monuin. Ancyr. 5, 6 ; Suet. Aug. 52). 762 HISTORY OF ROME chap, xlv to Brutus and Cassius was made, which they, however, afterwards decHned to accept. A vote of thanks was passed to Antony for having prevented a civil war ; Caesar's acta were confirmed, and a pubHc funeral was ordered for his body. Thereupon Antony gave his son as a hostage to the conspirators, they left the Capitol, and were entertained that evening by him and Lepidus at supper. It seemed for the moment as if the revolution were at an end, and the old forms of the republic restored to real life : that, as Cicero expressed it, the regnuin was abolished with the death of the rex. In reality it was the beginning of twelve years of confusion, blood- shed, and dissolution, only to be ended by the establishment on a sounder and more permanent footing of the autocracy which seemed to have received its death-blow. Authorities. — Caesar, Bell. Civ. i. -iii. Bellum Alexandrinnm ; Africanum ; Hispaniense (of uncertain authorship, but probably contemporary). Cicero's Correspondence. Appian, Bell. Civ. ii. c. 3, 30-154. Plutarch, Lives of Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Briitus, Antony. Livy, Ep. 109-116. Dio Cassius, xli.-xliv. Velleius, ii. 48-58. Lucan's Pharsalia. Suetonius, Caesar. CHAPTER XLVI THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE AND END OF THE CIVIL WARS Antony and the acta of Caesar — Popular feeling against the assassins — Change in the provincial arrangements of Caesar — M. Brutus and C. Cassius resist — Arrival of C. Octavius (May) — His disputes with Antony — He enrols a legion of veterans — Antony made governor of Cisalpine Gaul for 43, besieges Dec. Brutus in Mutina (44) — Decrees of Senate against Antony — Battle near Mutina — Antony in Gaul, joined by Lepidus, Pollio, and Plancus — Death of Decimus Brutus — Octavius (now C. Caesar Octavianus) comes to Rome and is elected consul (19th August) — Makes terms with Antony — The Triumvirate — The proscriptions and death of Cicero (43) — M. Brutus and C. Cassius in Macedonia and Syria — Sext. Pompeius in Sicily — Battles of Philippi — Death of Brutus and Cassius — Division of the Provinces (42) — L. Antonius and the siege of Perusia — M. Antonius and Cleopatra — Disputes between Caesar and Antony — Peace of Brundisium (40) — Peace of Misenum with Sext. Pompeius (39) — Defeat and death of Pompeius (36-35) — Lepidus deprived of power (35) Antonius in the East — Wars in Parthia and Armenia (38-36) — Cleopatra's renewed influence (36-33) — Battle of Actium (31) — Death of Antony and Cleopatra (30) — Egypt a Pkovinck — The new constitution — Literature at the end of the Republic — New buildings begun at Rome. The confirmation of Caesar's acta gave Antony an opportunity of Antony's securing enormous powers, and soon made it plain that rejoicing on ^''^^'^^-J the part of the Optimates was premature. It was left to the consuls /'l^ ^ /■ to decide what these acfa were, — with the help indeed of a committee, Caesar. which however seems not to have met, — and Antony, who had got Caesar's papers from his widow, was able to carry on the adminis- tration for a time unchecked. He conciliated Lepidus by consenting to his election as pontifex maximus, and Dolabella by allowing him to take up the consulship with the reversion of the province of Syria ; he obtained the disposal of a vast sum of money deposited by Caesar in the temple of Ops ; and was encouraged to neglect the opposition by the evidence of popular feeling. His laiidatio at the public funeral voted by the Senate had roused such a tempest of indignation that the people burnt the body in the Forum, and seizing brands from the pile were with difficulty prevented from firing the 764 HISTORY OF ROME Caesar's nomin- ations to the consul- ship. The Provincial a r range - tnents of Caesar. houses of the murderers. C. Helvius Cinna, poet and tribune, was torn to pieces in mistake for CorneHus Cinna the assassin ; and when this popular feehng was increased by the pubHcation of Caesar's will, under which all citizens benefited, it was no longer possible for the assassins to remain in Rome, and Brutus was relieved, on Antony's motion in the Senate, from the law preventing a praetor urbanus from being more than ten days absent. He and Cassius retired to Antium waiting for the tide to turn : and meanwhile Antony sought, by rearrangement of the provinces, by conciliation of indi- viduals or states, and by securing the command of the troops in camp in Macedonia, to strengthen his position. He spoke respectfully of Brutus and Cassius and the rest, and absolute disorder on the part of the angry people he and Dolabella did check. A man who claimed to be the grandson of Marius, and so a connexion of Caesar's, had signalised this claim by setting up a column on the spot on which his body was burnt ; and it became the rendezvous of Caesarians and the scene of frequent riots, until Antony (early in April) executed some of the rioters, the pseudo-IVIarius among them ; and later on Dolabella pulled down the column and executed more rioters.! Still the arrangements made by Caesar for the consulship and the provinces had included many of the very men now odious for his murder ; and they were not ashamed to claim their rights in virtue of the acfa of the very man whom they had killed for " tyranny." For 43 the consuls were to be Aulus Hirtius, one of Caesar's officers in Gaul, and C. Vibius Pansa, who had already governed Bithynia and Gallia Cisalpina : for 42 Decimus Brutus, meanwhile governor of Cisalpine (iaul ; and L. Munatius Plancus, meanwhile governor of Transalpine Gaul, exclusive of the " Province." Syria, where there was a mutiny on foot under Caecilius Bassus, a Pompeian," was to be held by C. Cassius Longinus ; Africa by Q. Cornificius ; Gallia Narbonensis and Hispania Superior by M. Aemilius Lepidus ; Hispania Ulterior by C. Asinius Pollio ; Mace- donia by M. Junius Brutus ; Sicily by A. Pompeius Bithynicus ; Asia by C. Trebonius ; Bithynia by L. Tullius Cimber. Five of these twelve men were among Caesar's assassins. ^ Of the five, Tre- ^ This pretender seems to have been really a veterinary surgeon named Amatias or Herophilus. He had tried to get recognition from Octavius and others of the family (see Nicolas Dam. 14, Cic. ad Att. xii. 49 ; xiv. 6, 8 ; i Phil. § 5 ; 2 Phil. § 107. Valer. Max. 91, 15, 2 ; Appian, B.Civ. iii. 2, 3). - Q. Caecilius Bassus escaped from Pharsalus to Syria, and being there joined by others induced the soldiers of the governor Sex. Julius Caesar to murder him. He took the title of praetor (46), and for three years maintained himself in Apameia. ^ L. Cimber (Bithynia), C. Trebonius (Asia), C. Cassius (Syria), M. Brutus (Macedonia), Dec. Brutus (Gallia Cisalpina). ns clait?i their provinces. XLVi ANTONY'S AMBITIOUS POLICY 765 bonius, Cimber, and Decimus Brutus, who were not detained by office, The seem at once to have gone to their provinces. But M. Brutus and (Js^^^^f^i C. Cassius, being praetors, would not naturally go till the end of the year ; and Antony soon showed that he did not mean to allow them to take quiet possession. Early in April he had let Decimus Brutus know that he could not propose in the Senate the confirmation of the provinces of M. Brutus and C. Cassius, owing to the anger of people and veterans. ^ And in June, after several different proposals, he carried a law granting Gallia Cisalpina to himself in 43, Syria to Dolabella, Macedonia to his brother Gaius Antonius, the praetor. As a compromise, and as a means of getting them out of the way, M. Brutus and C. Cassius were to have legationes^ the one in Asia and the other in Sicily, to superintend the corn supply.- This they scornfully rejected, and set to work collecting ships and men to secure the provinces they regarded as theirs by right. Civil war in many places seemed imminent. Gaius Antonius went to Macedonia, which he was to govern in the following year, to send over the legions with which Marcus meant in 43 to expel Decimus Brutus from Gallia Cisalpina. Dolabella hurried off before the end of his consulship to wrest Syria from Cassius, who had arrived there before him. M. Brutus leaving Italy with Cassius, and parting from him at Athens, spent the autumn there in preparing to oust Ciaius Antonius from Macedonia. The constitutionalists, now led by Cicero, who since the Ides of Aji/ony's March had thrown himself into politics with immense vigour, — ^'f*^" */ , viewed the proceedings of Antony with increasing alarm and dislike, ^"f"*"' ^ By means of Caesar's papers, in which his enemies declared that he found whatever he wished, he lavished immunities on towns and peoples, restitutions of exiles, grants of lands, and privileges of all description ; and is accused of using the treasure which fell into his hands to relieve himself of an enormous burden of debt. He had a large body-guard of soldiers. Through his brother Lucius, who was a tribune, he gratified the veterans, whom he frequently visited in their settlements, by an agrarian law, and by adding a third decuria to the juries to consist of those who had served as centurions. To secure a longer hold on power he abrogated Caesar's law limiting the tenure of the provinces. He had also outbid the Ciceronians in His deal- regard to Sextus Pompeius, who since the battle of Munda had ^"g^ "ivith collected a considerable force in Spain. Cicero had looked to his ^p^,^^^.-,^^ certain enmity to Antony as a security for their interests in the west ; but Antony now secured his alliance by agreeing to his restitution to his father's property.^ It was clear that Antony meant to be as ' Letter of Dec. Brutus in Cic. Fam. xi. i. - Cicero, ad Alt. xv. 9-1 1. •"* Sext. Pompiius conquered Asinius Pollio in farther Spain, but yielded to the persuasions of Lepidus, who went to visit him (I)io. xlv. lo). 766 HISTORY OF ROME Gains Octavius, b. 2jrd Sept. 63. Takes the inherit- ance and name of Caesar. powerful as Caesar, and that the crime of the Ides of March had not restored the constitution. The situation was farther compHcated by the intervention of the dictator's great-nephew, the young Gains Octavius, He was the son of Gaius Octavius Rufus, once propraetor of Macedonia, and Atia, daughter of M. Atius Balbus and luHa, sister of luHus Caesar. He had been treated for some years as his great-uncle's heir pre- sumptive. On taking the toga virilis in 48 he had at once been elected a pontifex in succession to Ahenobarbus, killed at Pharsalus. His health, or his mother's timidity, prevented his accompanying- Caesar to Africa in 47-46, but he took part in the triumphs of 46, and had afterwards been put in charge of some minor official duties. Though he was again prevented by illness from accompanying Caesar to Spain at the end of 46, he joined him there in 45, shortly after the battle of Munda ; accompanied him to Carthage ; and on his return to Rome was named one of Caesar's two viagistri equitum for the Parthian expedition. Meanwhile he had been sent to ApoUonia, with Maecenas, Agrippa, and other friends, to pursue his studies, and to learn military duties with some of the cavalry from the camp. Here he was informed by a letter from his mother of the murder of Caesar. He did not know to what extent he was his uncle's heir ; but he determined at once to return to Italy, and reached the villa of his step-father, L. Marcius Philippus, near Naples, on the 1 6th of April. He had declined offers of help from the army in Mace- donia, but came with a steady resolve to avenge his uncle ; and, when he knew that he was his heir and adopted son, he determined to accept the inheritance with all its consequences. Proceeding to Rome he cautiously felt his way, for the present concealing all intentions of revenge, and only letting it be known that he would carry out his " father's " will. The legacies to the citizens were paid, the temple of Venus Genetrix, dedicated by the dictator, finished, and the games vowed by lulius with it given. From the first he found himself slighted and thwarted by Antony. He had great difficulty in getting possession of his uncle's money, Antony claiming much of it as public property ; the passing of a lex curiata for his formal adoption into the lulian gens was vetoed by a Tribune (probably L. Antonius) ; and when as an alternative he sought to be himself elected tribune in place of Helvius Cinna, the patriciate conferred on him by his uncle, or perhaps his age, was held to bar his wish. Thus checked he appealed to the veterans planted in various parts of Campania ; and Antony in alarm came to some terms with him, whereby he obtained a large part of his uncle's property, and the opposition to his acting as his heir was withdrawn, though the formal adoption was not completed until after the war of Mutina. Henceforth, XLVi OCTAVIUS AND ANTONY 767 however, he is known by his uncle's name/ and by such we may speak of him. He was in a position of great delicacy. As the friend of his Difficult uncle and the vindicator of his reputation, he must have felt bound ^Q^^^^^^f to support Antony and oppose the Ciceronians. On the other hand, he had no intention of allowing Antony to use Caesar's name to obtain absolute power and render his own position insecure. Yet while, to protect himself, he held communication with Cicero and the con- stitutionalists, he was well aware that they regarded him only as a means of opposing Antony, and would turn on him as soon as they had got rid of that dangerous enemy. While keeping up, therefore, a semblance of respect for Antony as consul, he was consulting with Cicero and providing for his own safety. He was even accused of hiring assassins to kill the consul as he was about to start for Brun- disium in October, to meet the legions brought from Macedonia. - With these legions some believed that Antony meant to come to Rome and carry all his measures by force. Caesar, on this pretext, enrolled soldiers on his own account among the veterans in Cam- He enrols pania and Samnium ; and by offering a liberal bounty had 3000 '^ Ifgioji. men under arms before the end of November. He professed to be acting for the protection, and under the authority, of the Senate, though in reality he had no authority and no official position. He also sent agents to win over the four legions at Brundisium, where Antony had been met with signs of mutiny, which he repressed with great severity. In this Caesar was so successful that two of the four legions, the 4th and the Martia, instead of proceeding by the Antony coast to await Antony at Ariminum, turned off the road and came rctums to to Alba Fucentia ; and the legates of Antony, who meanwhile had /'.'"j^,\^j^j^ returned to Rome along the Appian Way with a strong guard, were ^yw. repelled from the walls with stones. The two antagonists were now at the head of forces in Italy : Antony at Rome, Caesar at Capua. Antony met the Senate on the 28th of November ; but did not, as was expected, demand a decree declaring Caesar a hostis. He brought forward some formal busi- ness, among other things a sortitio for the provinces, by which Gaius Macedonia fell to his brother Gaius. The edict summoning the ^ntomns meeting had contained severe reflections on Caesar ; but the evident ^/^^"i^,^^^ animus of the senators, or the growing power of Caesar, or the ^ Octavius, as soon as he knew of his uncle's will, took the name of Gaius iulius Caesar Octavianus, and is henceforth known as Caesar. But there was at first some hesitation in his family as to so addressing him (Cicero, ad Att. xiv. 12). 2 Suetonius, Aug. lo. Cicero believed it, though most people thought it a trick of Antony's to discredit him {ad Fain. xii. 23). Neither Plutarch nor Appian seems to believe it [Anton, xvi. ; B. Civ. iii. 39). 768 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. 44- M. Antonius goes to Arimi- 2nd Sept. The I St Philippic. Decree of the igth Dec. 44- 3rd Philippic. 4J. Coss. Gaius Vibius Pafisa, Aulas Hirtius. defection of the two legions, caused him to alter his plans. Instead of stopping in Rome till May (43) he withdrew first to Tibur, and, being there supported by fresh levies and partisans, joined his forces at Ariminum at the beginning of December. His purpose was to eject Decimus Brutus from Gallia Cisalpina ; and he reckoned on the support of Lepidus from Narbonensis, Asinius Pollio from farther Spain, Plancus from farther Gaul. Antony once gone, his enemies took courage. Cicero in August had despaired of the republic, and had set out with a libera legatio from Dolabella for Greece. He had returned from Rhegium, because he had heard that Antony was using more conciliatory language, but on the 2nd of September had been goaded by Antony's attacks to declare the grievances of his party in a speech known as the first Philippic. This drew a bitter answer from Antony on the i8th, to which he had replied in the venomous pamphlet known as the second Philippic. No compromise was possible after that. And now an edict sent by Decimus Brutus to Rome from Gallia Cisal- pina, forbidding any one with imperium to enter his province, drew from the Senate what was practically a declaration of war in the shape of a resolution, to be moved on the ist of January by the new consuls C. Pansa and Aul. Hirtius, adopting the claims of Decimus Brutus and others in possession of provinces, and approving the action of Caesar and of the two legions which had joined him. When the Senate met on the ist of January, Caesar was already on his way to Gaul with the two legions from Alba Fucentia, and the third which he had enrolled himself; and Antony was already besieging Decimus Brutus at Mutina. After several days' debate it was resolved to give Caesar a distinct position as pro-praetor ; to send Hirtius to the seat of war with two legions (the 3rd and 35th, which had volunteered) ; but at the same time to send three legates to Antony to announce to him the decision and endeavour to obtain a peaceful solution. Antony's demands in answer were held to be impossible. He was willing to accept Gallia Comata instead of Gallia Cisalpina, with six legions, for five years, or for so long as M. Brutus and Cassius were consuls or pro- consuls, on condition that all his acta were confirmed, including his dealing with the treasure in the temple of Ops, the assignments made under his agrarian law, and his judicial law. The Senate in reply voted that there was a iinmiltns; that Lepidus and Plancus should be summoned to the aid of the state ; and that the suppression of the tiimultus should be entrusted to the consuls and Caesar. Lastly, an indemnity was offered to all soldiers serving with Antony who quitted him iDefore the Ides of March. Cicero was for more extreme measures : for acknowledging a " war," and for proclaiming Antony a XLVi BATTLES NEAR MUTINA 769 hostis. But the consulares in the Senate were more timid or cautious, and Antony's name was omitted. From the latter part of February till the 15th of April the armies of the Republic were watching' Antony, who held places on both sides of Mutina along the via Aemilia — Rhegium Lepidi and Parma on the west, Bononia on the east — while Hirtius was at Claterna, eleven miles east of Bononia, and Caesar at Forum Cornelii, nine miles farther east. The Ciceronians were vainly expecting Decimus Brutus to break out from Mutina, and deliberating on the necessity of sum- moning M. Brutus and his army from Macedonia. But though some skirmishing took place, nothing decisive occurred till the i 5th of April. On the evening of the 14th Pansa had arrived at Bononia with another consular army. An attempt on the part of Antony to intercept the advance of the combined armies half-way between Bononia and Mutina, though at first successful, was finally defeated Battle at with great loss ; and on the next day his camp was all but stormed I'^orum by Caesar and Hirtius. The latter, however, was killed in the [^j^^^7'" struggle, and his death was soon followed by that of Pansa, who had franco), been wounded in the engagement of the i 5th. But Antony had /jM April suffered so severely that he broke up the siege of Mutina, retreated 43- along the via Acviilia ; reached Vada Sabbata by the pass between Death of the Apennines and the Maritime Alps ; and being there joined by a reinforcement under the praetor Ventidius,^ entered Gaul, hoping to be joined by Lepidus and Plancus. These men in Pansu their despatches had been loud in expressions of fidelity to the Senate, Antony s but did in fact presently join him — Lepidus on the 29th of May, retreat into Plancus later in the summer. Decimus Brutus had followed Antony Cnillia two days after he left Mutina ; but Caesar refused to join in the pursuit, or to allow him any of his legions ; and Brutus did not venture to Vada Sabbata. His despatches up to the 3rd of June ^^^^^^ show him to be intending to enter (iaul by the pass of the Little St. piancus. Bernard, in hopes of a junction with Plancus. This towards the end of June he effected ; but when Plancus joined Antony and Lepidus, he was obliged to recross the Alps, and endeavour to reach Ravenna Death of in order to join AL Brutus in Macedonia. From this he was cut off Decimus by the advance of Caesar. His army dispersed, and he endeavoured to reach the Rhine ; but was eventually captured and put to death by a chief of the Sequani, acting under orders from Antony. ^ P. Vontidius Bassus of Picenum was said to have been brought a captive to Rome in the Social war. He had served Caesar in Gaul and been nominated by him praetor for 43. In virtue of his oflfice and of the special decree of the Senate he enrolled a legion and marched to Potentia, but instead of proceeding to Mutina turned off, and by a forced march across the Apennines joined Antony at Vada Sabbata. 3 D the consuls Hirtius (/6th) and Trans- alpina. Brutus, autumn of 43- 770 HISTORY OF ROME C. Cassius in Syria. M. Brutus in Mace- donia. The Senate slight Octavian. He demands the consul- ship. Meanwhile Caesar had secured himself at Rome. The defeat and flight of Antony left him in a peculiar position. The Ciceronian party in the Senate might feel that they no longer needed him. They were encouraged by the success of Brutus and Cassius. Dola- bella, after treacherously murdering C. Trebonius in Asia, had been defeated by Cassius at Laodicea and driven to commit suicide, and Cassius was in undisputed possession of Syria. In December 44 M. Brutus, having collected a considerable force in Greece, took over Macedonia from Q. Hortensius at Demctrias, advanced to Dyr- rachium, and in the spring of 43 captured C. Antonius near Buthrotum. One decree of the Senate in the month of April added Illyricum to the province of Brutus, and another committed the defence of the Empire east of the Adriatic to Brutus and Cassius jointly. Encouraged by these circumstances, the Senate soon showed that they meant to dispense with Caesar. On the news of the battle of the 15th, the complimentary decrees passed conveyed no special honour to him, and the messengers who carried them to the army communicated directly with the soldiers without taking notice of Caesar. His demand of the consulship and of a triumph was rejected, though he was granted consular rank {o7-namcuta consii- 1(1} ia) and an ovation. At the same time votes were passed con- firming Brutus and Cassius in their provinces, and nominating Sextus Pompeius commander of the fleet. Pansa on his death-bed had warned Caesar that the Ciceronians were only using him to thwart Antony, and he was informed of a saying of Cicero's that "the young man w^as to be praised, complimented, and got rid of" ^ Finally, on the death of the consuls, decennnri, among whom Cicero was one, had been nominated {co7istitucndac 7-cipiibIicae) to undo the acta of Antony ; and they were already meddling with the assignation of lands to the veterans. Caesar therefore had a double reason for trusting his legions, of whom the 4th and the Martia absolutely refused obedience to the decree ordering them to join Decimus Brutus. After some fruitless messages, he sent a depu- tation of 400 men, under a centurion named Cornelius, to ask the Senate for the consulship, and Cornelius in the Senate-house, touching the hilt of his sword, said bluntly, " If you do not give it, this will." Cicero seems during the summer to have wished for some compromise, when M. Brutus failed to come over from Macedonia. But he was believed to have a scheme for a second consulship with Caesar, and was laughed down. The extreme party had got beyond him, and still trusted in the forces gathered round M. Brutus and Cassius in the East, and in the legions which Cornificius was sending from Africa. ^ Laudandum adolescentem ornandum tollendum (Cicero ad Fani. xi. 20, 21), THE TRIUMVIRATE 771 Caesar sent a conciliatory message to Antony, and set out for Caesar Rome with his three legions. The Senate ordered the army not to Octavianus approach within a hundred miles of the city. It was its last inde- ^'^■^'^ ' pendent decree. By the middle of August Caesar was in Rome, interreges duly appointed, and on the 1 9th he and his cousin, Q. Pedius, were elected consuls. The rest followed. The soldiers were satisfied with pay and bounties ; Caesar was named commander both of his own legions and those of Decimus Brutus, with imperium superior to all others in all camps ; the care of the city w^as committed to him ; and a lex curiata for his admission \.o gens Iiilia passed. Pedius also Trial carried a law constituting a qiiaestio for the trial of the assassins, of the in which sentence of outlawry was passed on all. One of them, ^•^■^^"^'^•^• Casca, was a tribune, but had fled from Rome at the approach of Caesar, and was now solemnly deprived and condemned with the rest. After less than a month in Rome Caesar advanced northward to Negotia- attack Decimus Brutus. This advance, as we have seen, had been *'^"' '^ sufficient to cut off his escape to Ravenna, and had indirectly caused his death in Gaul. But Caesar was now anxious for a reconciliation with Antony and Lepidus ; for only so could he hope to be able to crush M. Brutus and Cassius. Pedius, no doubt by his suggestion, carried a decree in the Senate, reversing those which had declared Antonius, Lepidus, and their followers hostcs ; and Caesar, on hear- ing of the death of Decimus Brutus, again opened communications with Antony, now joined by Plancus from farther Gaul, and Pollio from Spain, neither of whom stood in the way of peace, A meeting Meeting of was arranged on an island in the Po ; at which decisions were come ^^^^^^^ ^"^ to on the second day, which practically suspended the republican ^^^ ^' constitution. Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus were to be trcsviri 7'ei- publicac constituouiac for five years, with absolute powers, were to form in fact a dictatorship in commission— Caesar abdicating the consulship. The ordinary magistrates were to be appointed, but the Trium- triumvirs were to nominate them at once for the quinquennium. The ^''^''"■^ /'^* western provinces were to be divided between the three, who were ^^dae to nominate legaii in them, — Antony taking all the Gauls except Narbonensis ; Lepidus, Narbonensis and Spain ; Caesar, Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily with other islands. Lepidus was to have charge of Rome with three legions ; Caesar to have three, and Antony four, with which to crush Brutus and Cassius. As a confirmation of the peace thus made Caesar was betrothed to Clodia, a daughter of Antony's wife Fulvia by her former husband Publius Clodius. Finally, The pro- a clause in the agreement, concealed for the present from the army, ^<:^ipiion. arranged for the execution of certain members of the opposite party. Caesar seems to have wished to confine the list to the assassins of 772 HISTORY OF ROME The triumviri reipublicae constitu- endae appointed by law, 27th Nov. 43- Death of Cicero, December 43- lulius, and is indeed said by several of our authorities to have been opposed to it altogether.^ It seems certain that he endeavoured to save Cicero, but gave way to Antony, who in his turn allowed Lepidus to place his uncle Lucius Caesar on the list in return for the privilege of inserting the name of Lepidus' own brother L. Paullus. Seven- teen names were in the first list sent forward to the consul Pedius, who tried to calm the excitement and terror at Rome by assuring all (apparently believing what he said) that no more were to be punished. But when the three triumvirs arrived at Rome, each with a praetorian guard and a legion, at the end of November, and were duly con- stituted in their new office by a law proposed by the tribune Publius Titius (November 27), this assurance was quickly falsified. Next morning a long edict was fixed up in the Forum justifying the measures, and containing a list of 1 30 names, followed shortly afterwards by another list of 150.- Death was denounced on all who sheltered or concealed, a large reward oftercd to every freeman, and liberty to every slave, who betrayed or killed them. The blood- shed in Rome itself must soon have been over, as it would not be difficult to find the condemned ; but in December and January the dreadful work went on in Italy, soldiers scouring towns and villages in search of the proscribed. The most illustrious victim was M. Tullius Cicero. He had com- mitted himself with such rancour agamst Antony, and had taken such a foremost place in the policy of the Senate since the death of the dictator, that he could hardly have hoped to escape. The limits of vituperation in political life at Rome were wide ; but the second Philippic was hard to forgive, and supported as it was by speech after speech scarcely less offensive, it explains if it does not justify Antony's implacability. Nor had Caesar any reason to trust him. When he came to Rome in August for the consulship, Cicero, who had corresponded with and professed friendship to him, had caught at a rumoured intention of the legions to abandon him, and joined in a last attempt to bring fresh republican forces to over- whelm him, and had fled by night from Rome when the rumour 1 Vclleius ii. 66 ; Suet. Ajig. xxvii. ; Dio. xlvii. 7. VcUeius writing in the time of Tiberius could hardly have spoken out even if he had wished. Dio remarks that Caesar's youth prevented him from having many enemies on whom he would wish to wreak vengeance. Suetonius says that he opposed the proscription, but carried it out when settled more severely than either. - Appian says 300 senators and 2000 equites were proscribed [Bell. Civ. iv. 5); Livy (Ep. 120), 130 senators and plurimi equites. Livy perhaps refers to the number actually killed, Appian to those on the lists. Two havens of refuge were open — i.e. the camp of M. Brutus in Macedonia, and that of Sext. Pompeius in Sicily. Of sixty-nine names mentioned by Appian he narrates the escape in one way or another of thirty-one. XLVi M. BRUTUS AND C. CASSIUS 773 proved false. He and his brother Quintus were at his Tusculan villa when they heard of the proscription. They started for Astura, intending to take ship to join M. Brutus in Macedonia. In their haste they had forgotten to bring money, and Quintus returned to Rome, where he and his son were discovered and put to death with great cruelty. Cicero succeeded in getting on board a ship ; but from irresolution or stress of weather landed again at Circeii, whence he started for Rome, but returned and re-embarked, and again landed at Caieta, going to his villa at Formiae, As he lay resting there, news came that the soldiers were approaching. His slaves hurried him into a litter, and took the most unfrequented way to the coast. Some traitor informed Laenas, who commanded the company, and who had once been defended by Cicero, of the route. They quickly overtook him ; and when Cicero heard the tramp of their feet he ordered his slaves to set down the litter, and thrusting his head out of the curtains, received the fatal stroke from Herennius. The head and hands were taken to Antony at Rome, and nailed ytp on the Rostra, and Fulvia is said to have thrust her bodkin through the tongue that had spoken such bitter words of her. But the triumvirs found themselves in straits for money, in spite jygsh con- of the reimposition of the tributum in 44, It was impossible to realise Jiscations, I full value for confiscated property at such a time, or to punish '^^' I dishonest agents, who were mostly soldiers. A kind of bloodless pro- scription therefore followed, by which a fine of 10 per cent was im- ( posed on certain persons. Among them were some ladies, who by Coss. L. I the mouth of Hortensia (daughter of the orator) loudly protested, and ^lumUtus , with partial success. It was a relief to all when the triumvirs separated, j^^^"'^"^' after making provision for the magistrates to be appointed, and the At-milius \ execution of the rttAe of I ulius. Lepidus remained at Rome; Antony Lepidusll. ' went to Brundisium to arrange for the transport of the army to • Macedonia ; Caesar to Rhegium to put down Sextus Pompeius, now I master of a large fleet and of Sicily. I M. Brutus had been acting as in all respects lawful governor of m. Brutus I Macedonia, and had engaged in war with the barbarians, always «='« I attacking its frontier. But he had precluded all reconciliation with ^f^^^^^]"^J^ \ Antony — if any had ever been possible, by ordering or allowing the ^^.^2. I execution of his brother Gains, some say in retaliation for the pro- ( scriptions, though it seems probable that it took place before then. Towards the end of 43 he had gone to the Asiatic side of the Propontis, — still maintaining the authority granted him with Cassius over all cast of the Adriatic, — and had collected a considerable fleet at Cyzicus. Thence in 42 he sent to Cassius to meet him at Smyrna. Cassius c. Cassius had been equally successful in Syria. He had taken over the troops of in Syria, the propraetors Statins Murcus and Marcus Crispus, as well as those of "f^'^f^- 774 HISTORY OF ROME Union of Brutus and Cassius at Sardis, 42. The situation atPhilippi. Caesar at Rhegiutn, Antony at Brundi- sium. DijfficTilties atPhilippi. First battle of Philippi, and death of Cassius. Second battle of Philippi, and death ofM. Brutus, Nov. 42. Caecilius Bassus ; ^ he had driven Dolabella to suicide, and had been joined by most of his troops ; and lastly, had also collected a large fleet, with which he prevented Cleopatra from sending aid to Antony and Caesar. After their meeting at Smyrna they farther extended their operations in Asia and Rhodes, collecting money and troops. Later in the summer, hearing that Antony and Caesar were at length com- ing to Macedonia, they united their forces at Sardis - and proceeded to the Hellespont. Thence they marched along the coast road and found Antony's advanced guard stationed between Philippi and Amphipolis. They occupied two heights south of Philippi, between it and the sea ; drove the Caesarians from a point command- ing the road between their camps and the shore, called Symbolum ; and were thus in easy communication with their fleet, which under Cimber held the island of Thasos and secured them their provisions. Caesar and Antony were not yet arrived at Amphipolis. Caesar had been engaged all the spring and early summer in a doubtful struggle with Sextus Pompeius in the straits of Messina ; Antony had been prevented from transporting his main army from Brundisium by the opposition of Murcus and Ahenobarbus, who were cruising off the coast. Caesar had at length to come with his fleet to the assistance of his colleague, and about August the whole army was across. Even then Caesar was detained by illness : and when he arrived at the seat of war he found the army somewhat discouraged. Brutus and Cassius were too strongly posted to be attacked ; could not be drawn into giving battle in the plain ; and were much better off than their opponents for provisions, owing to the presence of their fleet. It was not until late in October that Antony, by laboriously constructing a causeway across a marsh, which intervened between the camp of Cassius and the sea, induced his soldiers to descend ; drove them back with great slaughter ; and seized the camp. Mean- while Brutus had defeated the division of Caesar, who was not present in person from illness, and had sent some cavalry to announce his victory to Cassius. But from short sight or haste Cassius mistook them for the enemy, and retiring to his tent with his legate Pindarus stabbed himself, with the very dagger, it is said, with which he had struck Caesar. Brutus was still strongly posted and equal in forces to his antagonists, and for about fourteen days refused to give them battle. He was farther encouraged by hearing that some reinforcements sent from Brundisium to Antony had been cut off by Ahenobarbus ; and by knowing that Antony and Caesar were in great straits for provi- sions. But his troops were so confident that they insisted on 1 See p. 764 (note). - This is the time of the famous quarrel and reconciliation. XLVi THE WAR OF PERUSIA 775 fighting. After a desperate struggle the army of Brutus broke and fled : his camp was stormed ; and he himself retreated with four legions to the hills. Next morning he would have renewed the fight, but his officers bade him consult for himself; they meant to submit and try to save their lives. Upon this, Brutus exclaiming, "Then I am of no more use to my country," persuaded his friend Strato of Epirus to give him the death-stroke. With the death of Brutus and Cassius fell the resistance of those Effects of nobles who had for so many centuries guided the destiny of Rome ; ^^^^ and who, with many glaring vices, had on the whole played a splendid ^^"^^->'- part in the world's history. Henceforth it was only a question who should be master of the Empire. A new distribution was made. Fresh Antony was to take Gaul and Africa: Caesar Spain and Numidia. division of Italy was to be common to both, as the head of the Empire and the t^'^^ E.mpire. recruiting ground for the armies. If Lepidus was proved not to have held treasonable correspondence with Sextus Pompeius, as he had been accused of doing, he was to have Africa. Meanwhile Antony was to go to Asia to put down opposition in the East and collect money ; Caesar to Rome, to carry on the war with Sextus Pompeius and arrange for assignments of lands to the veterans. ' From this moment began the rivalry which was only ended ten 41. Coss. I years later at Actium. Caesar returned to Rome, after another ^• illness, early in 41, and found an opposition prepared for him by '_" ^"^^"^ \ Antony's wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius, who had triumphed p. I for some insignificant successes in Gaul, and was now consul. Lucius Scrvilius ( and Fulvia soon got material for a quarrel in the distribution of land ^'<^i^(i ': to the veterans : Caesar retaliated by divorcing Fulvia's daughter, still y^^^'^"^ * a mere child. Prices were high at Rome, because Sextus Pompeius ' and Ahenobarbus infested the seas and stopped the supply of corn. ^^-^^^ "' ^ Dispossessed landowners naturally resented their loss ; while, if the between I confiscations were not carried out, the soldiers mutinied. Fulvia and Caesar I Lucius contrived to turn the odium for all these difficulties upon "^^ ^•. Caesar, as though he had the means, if he chose, of satisfying the J^^ ' veterans without farther confiscations : and refused to fulfil the part fulvia. I of the agreement between Caesar and M. Antony (though it was I written and sealed), whereby Caesar was to have two of his legions. 1 Both sides armed. Caesar's men came to Rome in great numbers, I and in public meeting ordered both to appear at Gabii on a fixed day j to state their case. Lucius refused to appear, and was condemned in his absence, while Caesar's acta were confirmed. Lucius, having wrung from the Senate a decree authorising him to conduct a war (no enemy apparently being mentioned), endeavoured to lead his men to Ariminum. But Caesar had occupied Nursia and Sentinum on the Flaminian road, and Lucius and Fulvia turned aside to Perusia. n^ HISTORY OF ROME Siege and fall of Perusia, March 40. Ahenohar- bus ceases to infest the Italian coast. Antony and Cleopatra, 41-40. Invasion of Syria and Asia by Q. Labienus and the Parthians, 40. 40. Coss. Cn. Dotnitius Calvinus II., C. Asinius Pollio. Peace of Brundi- sium, autumn of 40. There, after a long siege, they were reduced by hunger to submit (March 40). Fulvia and her children went to Greece ; Lucius was allowed to go free, and was presently sent on service to Spain ; but considerable severity was exercised on the senators and equites found in the town, as many as 300, it is said, being put to death, and the old party of the Optimates seems here to have found its final doom. No other outbreak occurred in Italy, except a short and easily suppressed rising of dispossessed landowners in Campania, headed by Tib. Claudius Nero, the husband of Caesar's future wife Livia. The pressure on the market was also relieved by the departure of Ahenobarbus, who sailed away to join Antony : and Caesar entered Rome in triumphal robes and was regarded as a saviour of society. But though Caesar seemed now securely master of Italy there appeared to be danger of a civil war between him and M. Antonius. When the two parted at Philippi Antonius had gone to Asia to raise money, which he or his agents did with great severity. But at Tarsus he had been visited by Cleopatra, summoned to answer for help given by her generals to Cassius. She appeared in a state barge on the Cydnus, lying on a couch in the guise of Venus, surrounded by Cupids and Graces. Sweet scents were wafted to the banks, and the strains of flute and pipe kept time for the silver oars. From that moment Antony became her slave. He accompanied the queen to Alexandria, and forgot the cares of state in banquets, shows, and the chase. From this dream of pleasure he was wakened in April (40) by the news that the Parthians were invading Syria under Q. Labienus, a son of Caesar's old officer, who having been sent to king Orodes by Cassius had remained in Parthia, when he heard of the disaster of Phiiippi. Antony roused himself to go with his fleet to Tyre ; but finding that Labienus had overrun the country and had entered Asia Minor, and that nothing could be done at present, he went to Greece, on the plea that his presence was required in the war against Sext. Pompeius. There he met Fulvia, fresh from Perusia, and his mother Julia, who had since l^een with Pompeius, On their instiga- tion, though he roughly rebuked Fulvia, he resolved to make terms with Sextus Pompeius and attack Caesar ; and, in fact, with Ahenobarbus and Pompeius did make some raids on southern Italy. But on the death of Fulvia, which occurred while this was going on, he consented to treat ^ith Caesar. Ahenobarbus was sent to Bithynia, Sextus Pompeius to Sicily ; and by Maecenas for Caesar, and Pollio for Antony, an arrangement known as the peace of Bnm- disium was made. Antony was to govern all east of the Adriatic and undertake the Parthian war ; Lepidus was to have Africa; and Caesar all the rest, undertaking to put down Pompeius. Antony was to confirm the peace by marrying Caesar's sister Octavia, recently XLVi DEATH OF SEXTUS POMPEIUS 777 left a widow by Marcellus. Asinius Pollio, who seems to have abdicated his consulship, had next year the conduct of an expedition against the Parthini, in which he earned a triumph. This was followed a few months later by a pacification with Peace with Sextus at Misenum, in accordance with which he was to cease Sextus obstructing the corn supply, but was to retain the government of Pompeius, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and Achaia, with a fleet, during" the ^^'. "^ triumvirate, and to have the consulship in due course. Those who had joined him (except the murderers of Caesar) were to recover their full rights ; and he was to receive a large sum of money in compensa- tion for his father's property. Antony then returned to the East to make his preparations against the Parthians. The peace with Pompeius did not last long. He complained that Reneived the terms were not loyally kept, especially on the part of Antony in tuts of regard to Peloponnese ; and the raids on corn ships began again, hostility by and with them the distress in the markets at Rome. Antony and *^^^'^-^. r^ 1 /■ J ,- ... ^ r'ompeius, Caesar also tound many causes of mutual dissatisfaction, though j8-j6. from time to time they were allayed by the influence of Octavia, with whom Antony lived for nearly two years in Greece. Finally, how- ever, Caesar was left to cope with Pompeius alone : and it was not till 36, after many dangers and some reverses, that his able minister M. Vipsanius Agrippa defeated Pompey's fleet off Naulochus (3rd Flight and September), and drove him to fly to Asia, where, though in pur- death of suance of the agreement of Misenum he was consul in 35, he was ^'^'''A^'^-f. put to death by Marcus Titius on Antony's order, of which he ^ ''^"^" repented too late. In the course of the last campaign against Sextus Lepidus had been summoned from Africa to the help of Caesar. Having taken Lilybaeum and Messana, and being joined by the Pompeian legions, he claimed Sicily for himself, and was even believed to have made a plot against Caesar's life. But his army abandoned him, and he had no resource but to fall at Caesar's feet and beg for pardon. His life was spared, and he retained his ofiice Lepidus of pontifex maximus till his death (15); but henceforth he had to deprived of live as a privatus at Circcii, and Africa was added to the provinces '^^ ^^^^^ under Caesar's control. Moreover, the defeat of Pompey was so /^^-^^^t great a relief to Rome that Caesar at once became the hero of the vimtc, 36. day, and every kind of honour was voted to him. The triumvirate had been renewed for a second five years in The seco?id a conference at Tarentum in 2)7 -> apparently without a fresh law. ^fium- One member of it had been since deposed or forced to abdicate. It ^'■''«^«-^. ^-^^ would be a question which of the other two was to be supreme when ^"/^ fjj^ the period ended. -,0 Antony had had a chequered career since 38. His legate V. Ventidius had conquered the Parthians in that year, killed Pacorus, 778 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. The Parthian war. C. Sosius takes Jerusalem, 37- Antony s disasters in Armenia, 36. Antony returns to Cleopatra , 3(>-33- Antony captures Artavasdes Armenia, 34- Establishes his children by Cleopatra in kingdoyns, and asks for a con- firmation frojH the Senate, 33-32. son of king Orodes, and driven Labienus (who now called him- self "Parthian Imperator") into Cilicia, where he was discovered and killed. But Antony was jealous ; deposed Ventidius, who, how- ever, was allowed a triumph ; and took over the command himself with very poor results. He failed in the siege of Samosata, and had to make inglorious terms with Antiochus, king of Commagene. The war in the next year {2,7) was continued by C. Sosius, governor of Syria and Cilicia, who took Jerusalem and restored Herod as king of ludaea. In 36 Antonius carried on a disastrous campaign against Phraates, king of Parthia. His legate Oppius was cut off with a whole division ; and Antony in hurrying to his assistance, though winning some minor battles, lost large numbers of men ; had to raise the siege of Ecbatana ; was deserted by his ally Artavasdes of Armenia ; was continually attacked at various passes in Armenia ; and eventually retired inglorious to Egypt. From that time he again fell under the fascination of Cleopatra. He had left Octavia in Italy in 37, and never returned to her, and even declined to see her in 35 when she came to Greece with money and soldiers from Caesar, though he accepted the presents. Henceforward he assumed more and more the position of an emperor of the East, carving out king- doms and setting up or deposing rulers. Alexander, his son by Cleopatra, was made nominal king of Abilene (Palestine), Crete, Cyrene, and Cyprus ; and after a comparatively successful expedition in Armenia (34), to exact vengeance from Artavasdes, in which that king was treacherously captured and brought in silver chains to Alexandria, the policy of treating the East as entirely subject to himself and Cleopatra was still farther extended. Cleopatra was now styled queen of queens ; her son Ptolemy, openly acknowledged as a son of Julius and named Caesarion, was made king of Syria to the Euphrates, and called "king of kings" ; Alexander was made king of Armenia and all beyond the Euphrates ; and a daughter born to him by Cleopatra declared queen of Libya and Cyrene ; while in t,^, though going on an expedition nominally directed against theParthians, he contented himself with making a treaty with the king of Media. These arrangements he desired to be confirmed by the Senate at Rome. But the accounts of his proceedings were so shocking to the pride of the Romans, who believed that his object was to transfer the centre of government to Alexandria, ^ that the consuls for 32, who were his friends, endeavoured to suppress the despatch, though Caesar took care that it should be known. It was indeed impossible that the contrast between him and Caesar should not be striking. While Antony was suffering reverses in Asia or revelling in Alexandria, Caesar had been performing sub- ^ A similar design was once attributed to lulius Caesar (Suet. ////. 79). in XLVi FINAL QUARREL OF CAESAR AND ANTONY 779 stantial services to the state. His friend and minister, M. Vipsanius Contrast of Agrippa, had in 38 suppressed a dangerous rising in Gaul ; had crossed Caesar's the Rhine to the territory of the Catti ; and had afterwards subdued ^^ ^^-^' the revolted Aquitani. In 35, after relieving the city from the ^^^^^ distress caused by Sextus Pompeius, Caesar had in person or by ^" • j" • legati carried on difficult expeditions in Illyricum and Pannonia, sailing down the Danube and the Save as far as Siscia (Stssek), juyrian and forcing the barbarians to respect the security of the Roman and provinces. In 34 Messalla had suppressed the Salassi for him. He Pannonian had also at his own expense, or that of his friends, begun those J^^^ ^" _ buildings or restorations which made his reign an era in the archi- ' ''' tectural history of Rome. Accordingly, though Antony still had partisans, the people generally had come to look upon Caesar and his ministers as offering a guarantee for peace and honour, while Antony's name was connected with scandalous stories or unsuccessful expeditions. The second tenure of the triumvirate was to expire at the end of The ^i^i-) and Antony wrote to the Senate that he did not wish to be grounds of reappointed. He hoped that he might be regarded by them as their ^"^^*^^'- champion against the ambition of Caesar, who he presumed would not be willing to abandon his position in a similar manner. The causes of mutual dissatisfaction between the two had been con- tinually accumulating. Antony complained that Caesar had exceeded his powers in deposing Lepidus, in taking over the countries held by Sextus Pompeius, in enlisting soldiers for himself without sending half to him. Caesar complained that Antony had no authority for being in Egypt ; that his execution of Sextus Pompeius was illegal ; that his treachery to the king of Armenia disgraced the Roman name ; that he had not sent half the proceeds of the spoils to Rome according to his agreement : that his connexion with Cleopatra and the acknowledgment of Caesarion as a legrtimate son of lulius were a degradation of his office and a menace to himself. The quarrel came to a head in 32. The consuls of that year j2. Cass. had, as we have seen, determined to conceal the extent of Antony's Cn. demands. Ahenobarbus seems to have wished to keep quiet ; but '^''"^^"^ C. Sosius on the i st of January made an elaborate speech in favour i^ardus C. of Antony, and would have proposed the confirmation of his acfa had Sosius. it not been vetoed by a tribune. Caesar was not present, but at the next meeting made a reply of such a nature that the consuls both left Rome to join Antony ; and Antony, when he heard of it, after publicly divorcing Octavia, came at once to Ephesus with Cleopatra, Antony where a vast fleet was gathered from all parts of the East, of which '^f^i his Cleopatra furnished a large proportion. Thence, after some months '^^^"^y '-" of splendid festivities with the crowd of princes and generals collected 78o HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Caesar s prepara- tions. Antony winters at Patrae. ji. Coss. Imp. Caesar III., M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Early half Agrippa takes to7vns in Greece. Cleopatra 7vis/ies to return to Egypt. Battle of Actiuni, 2nd Sept. 31- at Samos, he removed to Athens. His land forces which had been in Armenia were brought down to the coast of Asia, and embarked under L. Canidius Crassus. Caesar was not behindhand in preparations. By the pubHcation of Antony's will, which had been put into his hands by the traitor Plancus, and by carefully letting it be known at Rome what prepara- tions were going on at Samos, and how entirely Antony was acting as the agent of Cleopatra, he had produced such a violent outburst of feeling that he easily obtained his deposition from the consulship of 31, for which he was designated, and a vote for a proclamation of war against Cleopatra, well understood to mean against Antonius, though he was not named. He meant to anticipate an attack by a descent upon Italy towards the end of 32, and came as far as Corey ra. But finding the sea guarded by a squadron of Caesar's ships he retired to winter at Patrae, while his fleet for the most part lay in the Ambracian Gulf, and his land forces encamped near the promontory of Actium, while the opposite side of the narrow strait into the Ambracian Gulf was also protected by a tower and a body of troops. Caesar's proposals for a conference with Antony having been scornfully rejected, both sides prepared for the final struggle next year. The early months passed without notable event, beyond some successes of Agrippa on the coasts of Greece meant to divert Antony's attention. It was not until the latter part of August that troops were brought by land into the neighbourhood of Antony's camp on the north side of the strait. Still Antony could not be tempted out. It was not for some months that his full strength could be collected from the various places in which his allies or his ships had wintered. But during these months not only was Agrippa continuing his descents upon Greek towns and coasts, but in various cavalry skirmishes Caesar had so far worsted the enemy that Antony abandoned the north side of the strait and confined his soldiers to the southern camp. Cleopatra now earnestly advised that garrisons should be put into strong towns, and that the main fleet should return to Alexandria. The large contingent furnished by Egypt gave her advice as much weight as her personal influence over Antony ; and it appears that this movement was really resolved upon. Caesar learnt this and determined to prevent it. On the first day of September he issued an address to his fleet, preparing them for battle. The next day was wet, and the sea was rough ; and when the trumpet signal for the start rang out, Antony's fleet began issuing from the straits, and the ships moving into line remained quiet. Caesar, after a short hesitation, ordered his vessels to steer to the right and pass the enemy's ships. Then for fear of being surrounded XLVi BATTLE OF ACTIUM 781 Antony was forced to give the word to attack. His fleet numbered ji. 500, many of them large galleys of eight or ten banks of oars, furnished with towers full of armed men. Caesar had about 250 ships, generally of smaller size, but more manageable in the heavy surf, capable of reversing their course at a short notice, and returning to the charge, or, after pouring in a volley of darts on some huge adversary, able to retreat out of shot with speed. Antony's ships were often furnished with grappling irons, which were effective if the cast succeeded ; but, if it failed, were apt to damage the ship, or to cause so much delay as to expose the men on board to the darts from the smaller vessel. The battle raged all the afternoon without decisive result. But Cleopatra, on the rear of the fleet, could not bear the Cleopatra suspense, and in an agony of anxiety gave the signal for retreat, ^^t^ ^he A iDreeze sprang up in the right direction, and the Egyptian ships J^^f'^ ^ ^ were soon hurrying out of sight. Antony had not observed the signal, "^ and believing that it was a mere panic, and that all was lost, followed the flying squadron. The contagion spread fast ; every- where sails were seen unfurling, and towers and other heavy fight- ing gear going by the board. Yet some still fought on ; and it was not till long after nightfall, when many a ship was blazing from the firebrands thrown upon them, that the work was done. For General when resistance was over, Caesar exerted himself to save the crews "^'^ftory of of the burning vessels, and had to spend the whole night on board. Next day such of the land army as had not escaped to their own lands submitted, or were followed in their retreat to Macedonia and forced to surrender, and Antony's camp was occupied. It was all over, and the Empire had a single master. \ Antony, though he had not laid down his imperium, was a fugitive j and a rebel, without that shadow of a legal position which the pres- ence of the consuls and senators had given him in the previous year. Some of the victorious fleet were in pursuit of him ; but Caesar himself spent the rest of the year in Greece and Asia, wintering at Samos ; though he was obliged to go for a short time to Brundisium to settle a mutiny and arrange for assignations of land. At Samos he received a message from Cleopatra with the present Cleopatra j of a gold crown and throne, offering to abdicate in favour of her sons, iries to ' The queen was allowed to believe that she would be well treated, ^ , ^^^'"/ (/•^ . !/-,••,* , /<''' her self, ' for Caesar was anxious to secure her for his triumph. Antony, who o/.jo. \ had found himself generally deserted, after vainly attempting to secure the army stationed near Paraetonium under Pinarius, and sending his eldest son Antyllus with money to Caesar and an offer to live at Athens as a private citizen, found himself in the spring attacked on two sides. C. Cornelius Callus was advancing from Paraetonium ; and Caesar himself landed at Pclusium, with the 782 HISTORY OF ROME CHAP. Death of Antony and Cleopatra, 30. A 71 tony and Oct. Caesar contrasted. Changes in the Empire since the death of lulius. Mauri- tania. Egypt. connivance it was believed of Cleopatra, Antony was defeated by Callus, and returning to Egypt advanced on Pelusium. There a slight success over Caesar's tired soldiers encouraged him to make a general attack, in which he was decisively beaten. Failing to escape on board ship he stabbed himself; and, as he did not die at once, insisted on being taken to the mausoleum in which Cleopatra was shut up, and there died in her arms. The queen was shortly after- wards brought from this place to the palace ; and after vainly attempting to move Caesar's passions or pity, eluded the vigilance of his guards, and put an end to her life, as it was believed, by the bite of an asp conveyed to her in a basket of fruit : saevis LUmrnis scilicet invideus privata deduct super ho 7ion humilis mtilier iriiirnpho. Antony had some attractive qualities, but no virtues. His dis- position was open and not ungenerous ; yet his easy temper permitted flagrant oppression on the part of subordinates, and made him the slave of now one passion and now another. It was a good thing for the world that the victory rested with his colder and more passionless rival. Caesar began public life with one strong feeling — a desire to revenge the murdered lulius. In exacting that vengeance he was more than once guilty of cold-blooded cruelty. Hut that accomplished, and his own supremacy established, he devoted a long life to a re- construction of his vast Empire, which on the whole infinitely extended and secured the happiness of the world. The fourteen years which had elapsed since the death of lulius had added little to that Empire. For a time indeed, Cilicia and Syria seemed almost lost to it, the dissensions of revolted Roman officers giving an opportunity to the ever watchful Parthian enemy. This state of things had been checked by the successes of Antony's officers, and Caesar had nothing to fear west of the Euphrates. In Africa the kingdom of Mauritania had been taken over on the death of Bocchus in 33. It was not, however, kept permanently as a Roman province. In 25 luba, son of the king of Numidia conquered by lulius, who had been brought up at Rome, was established as its king, and it was not again reduced to the form of a province till A.D. 40. A permanent addition however was made at once in Egypt. Cleopatra was the last of the Lagidae to reign, Caesarion was put to death, and the two sons and a daughter whom she bore to Antony were taken to Rome and generously received and educated by Octavia. But though Egypt was made a province, it was on some- what different terms to the other provinces. It was so important as a granary of Rome, that it was thought necessary to jealously guard it XLvi THE NEW GOVERNMENT 783 from the ambition of party leaders. Its governor was an eques^ not called propraetor or proconsul, but praefectus Acgypti^ who did not take the fasces or other signs of imperium, and who was immediately answerable to the Emperor. No man of senatorial rank might enter the country without special permission ; and it did not share with the other provinces in the privilege granted by the lex Saeiiia (30) of furnishing members to the Senate. Two legions were permanently kept in the country, which was divided into three large districts (upper, lower, and middle) and subdivided into ?wnies and comae, the governors of which were nominated by the praefectus. With these exceptions, and with certain rearrangements of client 30-2^. kings in the East caused by the deposition of those who had served with Antony at Actium, the Empire, now practically under the rule of Caesar, was the same as it had been at the death of lulius. Nor were the constitutional forms at once changed. The magistrates were still ConstUu- elected, though in the case of the consuls this had become a mere form. ^^^«^^ We have seen that at the time of his death lulius had "designated" ' " * " consuls for three years in advance. At the treaty of Misenum (39) the same had been done for eight years ; and practically henceforth it was in the hands of Caesar, the old forms being however maintained. The Senate in the course of the twenty years of civil disorder had The steadily declined in prestige, while it had increased in number by the ^^'"<^^^- repeated admissions of various party chiefs, and by the cessation of anything like censorial action ; ^ but it still conducted much of the Inisiness of administration, especially in regard to the provinces ; and one of the first of Caesar's reforms was directed to purifying it and defining its powers. Immediately after the victory of Actium the process commenced of centring in his person the functions of the different magistrates. Without being either tribune or The censor, he was invested with tribunician and censorial powers, the lf»P'^>'^fo^- former especially making his person sacred, and giving him a veto on all proceedings, nominally for a limited time, which however was always extended. But he had also imperium, which gave him the command of the army, the right of levying troops, and coercing citizens. He had had imperium ever since 43,'^^ and seems to have adopted the title or pnisnomen Imperator very early, and is entered ^ At ('acsar's first review of the Senate in 29 there were said to be 1000 names on the roll (Dio. lii. 42). - Cicero, 5 Phil. §§ 45-47 ; Monument. Ancyr. i. But Cicero seems to have regarded this as irregular, and only arising from the necessities of the times, 11 Phil. § 20, Imperium C. Caesari belli necessitas, fasces senatus dedit. As triumvir he would still have imperium, and though the triumvirate legally ran out at the end of 33, he had not abdicated the imperium. In 44-43 there were two decrees, one giving him imperium as proi)raetor, the other (after 15th April) giving him con- sular rank. CHAP. XLVi LITERATURE AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC 785 as Imperator Caesar in the Fasti for 2il>' But for this somewhat Procon- irregular imperium a more regular proconsulare imperium was now s^iiare im- substituted, which was held to give him the command in every province, P^^^^^"- even in those which he afterwards left to the care of the Senate. The title princeps seems not to have been official, though it was used as expressing a fact, — that he was chief citizen {prificeps civium). The title Augustus (27) expressed the almost divine character that the Senate was prepared to attribute to him, but added nothing to his powers. These arrangements were, for the most part, made within three The fiew years of the battle of Actium (28-27), and their effect was to produce monarchy. a really new constitution under old forms. The magistrates became executive officers answerable not to the people but to the Imperator ; the Senate, the one remaining trace of the old Republican govern- ment, became outwardly more important than ever, both as an administrative and judicial body, but practically it had to yield to the master of the Legions and the controller of the Exchequer. We have thus traced the marvellous rise of a single city, till its The rise magistrates controlled (as will be seen in the annexed map) the whole of Rome of Europe south of Germany and the Danube, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, -^^^^ *^\^ and a large part of the northern district of Africa. The constitution to^Trend under which it rose to this extraordinary power broke down under the of the stress of its extended responsibilities. After nearly a hundred years Republic, of more or less acute civil war, a statesman had been found capable 7SJ-3o- of remodelling that constitution and organising that vast Empire. It was to remain for many centuries much as he left it, until dis- integrating forces from within and violent incursions from without slowly resolved it into the separate countries of our modern world. Of the literature produced during the last century of the Republic Literature we have, in comparison with the amount once existing, what may be (^f ^^^ ^^^^ considered but a fragment. The first in quantity, as well as in im- "^^^^ ur^ portance, are the works of M. TULLIUS Cicero [106-43]. Setting ^ ". aside their importance to the historian, he is to be specially noted as cicero the founder of a literary style, at once brilliant, correct, and clear, to which nearly all subsequent writers looked as a standard. Though he followed the Greek schools of rhetoric in the construction of his speeches, and translated or epitomised Greek writers in his philo- sophical writings, his language is always the purest Latin, exquisite but not laboured, learned but not pedantic. His works fall into four divisions: (i) Speeches; (2) Rhetorical Treatises; (3) Essays on Moral, Metaphysical, or Political Philosophy ; (4) Correspondence. I. Of about one hundred and ten speeches known to have been 3 !•: 786 HISTORY OF ROME chap. delivered by him we possess fifty-seven, with fragments of about twenty more. They date from 8 1 to the last year of his life. He seems to have carefully prepared, and perhaps written them before delivery, and at any rate to have edited them afterwards. To the historical student the most important are those delivered on public affairs. The three speeches against the agrarian bill of Rullus, and the four against Catiline, were delivered in the year of his consulship (63). The four- teen Philippics (the second of which is a pamphlet cast in the form of a speech) belong to 44-43, in which nearly every step in the con- troversy with Antony from September 44 to April 43 can be traced. To this group might be added the speeches against Verres, for though in form they are the speeches of an advocate, and in great part were never delivered, they form the most valuable state papers we possess on the government of the provinces. So, too, the four speeches delivered on his return from exile (57), those for P. Sestius and M. Caelius, and the <-/2>), as well as a large number of fountains in the city ; and probably the vast building which still stands and is known as the Pantheon. Thus Rome was already beginning to assume a splendour worthy of the capital of the world. Authorities.— The 14 Philippics of Cicero and the Letters. Appian Bell Civ. 111. and iv. Dio Cassius. xhv.-li. Livy. Ep. 1 16-133. Suetonius, Augustus 46. Plutarch, Lives of Cicero, M. Antonius, M. Brutus. Nicolas of Damascus Yx^gTaQxv\.so{\.h^LifeofAjtgustus. Velleius Paterculus, ii. 58-89. Augustus himself left a precis of his administration which was to be inscribed on a column at Rome and in the provinces. Nearly all of it survives on a temple at Ancyra in Galatia The first part gives his version of his conduct in the Civil war, and is here ap pended as one of the few contemporary records of Roman History before the Empire Annos ufideviginti natus exercitutn privato consilio et privata impeiisa comparavi per quern rempublicam dominatione factions oppressafn in libertatem vindicavi. Ob quae senatus decretis honorijicis in ordittem suum 7ne adlegit C. Pansa A. Hirtio consulibus, consularem locutn simul dans sententiae fere?tdae, et imperium miht dedit. Res publica ne quid detrimenti caperet me pro praetore simul cum cotisuhbus providere iussit. Populus autem eodem anno 7ne consulem, cum cos. uterque bello cecidisset, et trium virum rei publicae cofistituendae creavit. Qui parentem meum interfecerunt, eos in exilium expuli iudiciis legitimis ultus f acinus, et postea bellum inferefites rei publicae vici bis acie. eorum INDEX Abydos, siege of, 427 Acarnania, 413 Achaean League, 276, 414, 415; decide on war with Philip, 434-436 ; states- men deported, 515; end of, 523- 527 Achillas, 746-748 Acilius Glabrio, M'., 475-480 Actium, battle of, 780, 781 Adherbal, 260 Aduatuca, 729, 730; Aduatuci, 723, 729 Aebutius Elva, T. , 70 Aediles, 97, 211, 212; curule, 170 Aedui, the, 719, 720 Aegean Sea, war in the, 483 AemiUus, L. (Cos. 478), 79. Barbula. L., 181. Papus, Q. (Cos. 282), campaign in S. Italy, 180-182, 191. L. (Cos. 225), wars with the Roii, 278-280. Paulus, L. (Cos. 216), falls at Cannae. 323-327. Paulus, L.' (Cos. 182, 168), conquers Perseus, 508-510. Regulus, L., commands in the Aegean. 483, 484. Lepidus M. (Cos. 78), 659, 660. L., envoy to Philip. 427. M. , praetor in 49, 740. 750- 759. 760, 761, 764. 769; triumvir, 771, 772, 777 Aeneas, legends of 21, 22 Aequi, II, 29, 72, 73. 75, 104, 151, 152 Aesculapius, worship of, 52 Aesis, R. , 6 Aetolian League, 276, 413, 414; makes peace with Philip, 416 ; treaty with Rome, 418 ; joins Romans in second Macedonian war, 430 ; discontent of. 443. 464 ; invites Antiochus, 465- 468 ; war with, 471-482, 495-497 657- Afranius, L. (dramatist), (Cos. 60), 710, 740 Africa, province of, 536 ; new, 753 Agathocles of Syracuse, 193, 223 Ager publicus, 93, 167, 168, 552 ; complaints of Italians as to, 557, 568, 697 (note). Romanus, 29, 30 Agger of Servius, 43 Agis of Tarentum, 181 Agrigentum, 194 ; occupied by Car- thaginians, 239; siege and fall of. 240. 241 ; sale of inhabitants, 284 ; holds out against Marcellus, 342 ; taken by Laevinus, 361, 362 Agrippa. See I'ipsatiius Aius Locutus, altar to, 121 Alba, king, 22 Alba Longa, kings of, 22; destruction of, 57. Fucentia, 349, 767 Alban lake, iviissarimn of. 85, 86 Albani, Pcmpey's battles with, 685 Albinus, L. , 97 Albula, old name of Tiber, 22 Album of Pontifices, 57 Alesia. 730 Alexander the Great, the division of his empire, 409-411 ; Alexander, king of the Molossi, in S. Italy, 19. 136-138 Alexandria, Caesar at. 748, 749 Algidus, Mt., battles near, 73. 75; camp at, 104 Allia, battle of the, 117 Allifae, battle at, 149 AUobroges. Hannibal among the, 301 ; conquered, 569; envoys of, in Rome,' 701 ; rebellion of, 712 Alps, the, 5, 9 ; passage of by Hannibal. 301-303 794 HISTORY OF ROME Ambiorix, 729 | Ambitus, laws against, 403, 521 I Ambracia, taken by Nobilior. 496, 497 Ambrones, the, 270, 578, 579 Amphipolis, 774 Aniulius, uncle of Romulus, 22 Anaxilas of Rhegium, 78 Ancus Marcius, 39, 40 Andriscus, 522, 531 Andronicus, Livius. 287 Annales maximi, 57 Annius Milo. P., 716. 731. 732, 749 Antiochus III., the Great, of Syria. 424, 465, 466 ; visited by Hannibal. 467; conies into Greece. 471-473; war with, 475-492. IV.. Kpiphanes. ordered out of Egypt, 516. .Vsiaticus. 675 (note) Antium, 29, 67 ; struggles with Vol- scians for, 73 ; surrender of, 125 Antonius M. (orator), 657. C. (Cos. 63). 699, 705. 706. 708. M. 733. 736, 740, 745. 749. 750. 757. 759: his policy after C'aesar's death, 763- 741 ; triumvir, 771 ; at Philippi. 773-775 ; his government of the East, 775-778 ; breach with Augustus \ and death, 779-782. Gaius, 765 773. Lucius, 766, 775 Apennines, the, 6 Apollo, worship of. 52. 405 (note) Apollonia. 742. 744 Appius Herdonius, 73 Appuleius Saturninus, L. , his legisla- tion and death, 583-585 Apuani (Ligurians) removed to Sam- nium, 457, 458 Apulia, 6 ; conquest of, 198, 199 Apuli, the, 19 ; join Samnites, 141 Aquae Sextiae founded, 564, 568 ; battle of, 578 Aquilius M'. (Cos. 129), m Asia, 605. (Son) in Sicily, 550; in Asia, 613; defeated by Mithri dates, 616, 617 ; doubt as to fate, 617 (note), 635 (note) Aquilonia, 160 Aratus, 415 Archidamus, of Sparta, in Italy, 19, 136 (note) Archimedes at Syracuse, 338, 339 ; his death, 341 Ardea, 29 ; siege of, 53 Argei, 36 Ariarathes V. . of Cappadocia, 608. VI., of Cappadocia, 610 Aricia, besieged by Etruscans, 67, 68 ; obtains civitas, 133 Ariminum, 6 ; demanded by the Boii, 273 ; Caesar at, 737 Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia, 611 Ariovistus, 720 Aristobulus, 686. 689 Aristodemus of Cumae, 68 Aristonicus of Pergamus, 558, 561 Army, Roman, first receives pay, 84 ; mutiny of, at Capua, and reforms, 130. 131 ; organisation before the time of Marius, 214-218 ; number in third century, 278 ; mutiny of, in Spain, 373 ; rorarii reorganised as velites, 347 (note), 399 ; socii in, 214. 399; changes by Martius in, 582. 583 Arnus, R., 7, 314 Arpi, Hannibal at, 317; taken by Fabius. 343 .\rretium (Etruria), 153, 396 Arruns, son of Tarquin, 49 : of Por- .sena, 67, 68 Arsian Wood, 63 Arsinoe, 748, 759 (note) Arvales, 40 ; their prayer. 406 (note) .\r\'erni, 719 Ascanius, 21, 22 Asculum, victory of Pyrrhus at, 190 ; beginning of Social war at, 589 Asia, kingdoms in, 600, 680-609 Asia or Syria, kingdom of, 411 ; settle- ment of, 494 ; province of Asia, 561, 602 ; the publicatii and negotiatores in, 602, 603 ; Mithridates in, 603, j 616; massacre of Italians in, 617; I fined by Sulla, 638 I Asinius Pollio. C, 764, 768, 771 Athens. 412, 427 ; joins Mithridates, 620, 621 ; siege of, by Sulla, 624-626 Athesis, R. , 14 Atilius Regulus, C. (Cos. 257), 246. M. (Cos. 256, 426) ; his victory at Ecnomus, 247 ; lands in Africa, 246-249 ; defeated and captured, 251 ; mission to Rome and death, 256-257. Calatinus, Aul. (Diet. 249), 261. C. Atilius Regulus (Cos. 225), falls in battle with Gauls, 278-280 Attalus I. of Pergamus joins the Romans, 417, 418 ; purchases Aegina, 419 ; joins in attack on Euboea, 420 ; pro- claims war with Philip, 425 ; his death, 439 (note). II., 511, 537- INDEX 795 Attalus III., leaves his kingdom to Rome, 558, 561 Atta Naevius, 41, 42, 59 Attius, L. (dramatist), 657. Varus, P., 738-742, 750, 751, 755, 756 Atys, king of Alba, 22 Aufidus, R. , 7 Augustus, 6 Aurelius Cotta, C. (Cos. 200), 397. M. (Cos. 74), in the Mithridatic war, 669. L., 756 Ausones, 132, 134 ; destruction of, 145 Aventinus, Mons, fortified, 35, 39 Aventinus, king of Alba, 22 Bacchanalia, the, 520, 521 Baecula, battle of, 370 Baebius Tamphilus, M., 469, 475 Baetica, 362, 363, 370, 371 Bagradas, R. , 270 Balearic Isles subdued, 569 Bassus, Caecilius, 764, 773, 774. P. Ventidius, 769 (note), 777 Belgae, 722 Bellovisus, king of the Bituriges, 14 Beneventum, battle of, 155 Bibracte, 720, 730 Bithynia, kingdom of, 411 ; left to the Romans, 668 Bithynia and Pontus, 677, 686 Bituriges, the, 14 Blosius, C, of Cumae. 555, 657 Bocchus of Numidia betrays lugurtha, 577. Bocchus and Bagouas, 752, 755. 782 Boii, the, 14, 177, 273, 278, 280; attack Placentia and Cremona, 298 ; wars with, 451-455 Bomilcar in Sicily, 340 Bona Dea, mysteries of, 708 Bononia, 334 Bovianum, 146, 150, 155, 160 ; in the Social war, 591 Bratuspantium, 722 Brennus, 115 Britain, invasions of, 727-729 Brundisium, 17, 199, 200, 739 Bruttii, the, 19 ; subdued, 198, 199 ; punished for assisting Hannibal, 395 Bruttium, 6 ; invaded, 196 ; joins Hannibal, 331 Bruttius Sura at Demetrias, 623 Brutus. See luniiis Brutus Albinus, Dec. , 726, 740, 760, 764, 768, 770 Buxentum, 17 Byrsa, meaning of, 224 Cabira, battles of, 672, 676 Caecilius Metellus, L. (Cos. 251), his victory at Panormus, 256. Statins, 519. Metellus Macedonicus, Q. , defeats Andriscus, 522 ; in Greece, 524, 525. Metellus, Q. , campaign against lugurtha, 573-576 ; banish- ment and return of, 584, 586. Metellus Creticus, Q. , 680, 681. Metellus, Q. (Cos. 51), 706, 715. Pius Scipio, Q. (Cos. 52), 743, 744, 750-753 Caelius, Mons, included in the city, 35, 37 Caelius, M., 736, 749 Caere, Caerite franchise, 127, 133 Caesar. See Itilh(S Calabria, 6 Calagurris, siege of, 663 Calatia, 149, 151 (note) Calendar, reform of, 754 Callipolis, 17 Calpurnius Beslia, L. , bribed by Jugurtha, 572. Piso, L. (Cos. 148), in third Punic war, 531 Camarina, shipwreck off, 254 Camillus. See Furius Campania, 68 ; Samnites in, 83, 128, 129 ; Hannibal in, 320, 332, 343 ; treatment of after second Punic war, 395 ; settlement of, 133 ; senatus con- sultum dc Campanis, 351 Campus Martius, 47, 62 Canae, Roman fleet at, 481-483 Cannae, seized by Hannibal, 323 ; battle of, 325-327 Capitolinus, Mons, 25, 31 ; fortified, 35 ; temple on, 51 Capitolium vetus, 25, 31 Capena, 83, 84 Capetus, king of Alba, 22 Capua (formerly Volternum), 83 ; Hannibal at, 332, 333 ; siege of, 346, 347 ; fall of, 350 ; colonists at, 598 Capys, king of Alba, 22 Carrhae, battle of, 734 Carthage, first treaty with, 41, 57 ; foundation and dominions of, 224- 226 ; constitution of, 228-230 ; mer- cenary armies of, 230 ; city and har- bours, 231, 232 ; treaties with Greeks in Sicily, 227 ; supremacy of, at sea, 796 HISTORY OF ROME 242 ; severe terms to, 267, 392, 529 ; siege and destruction of, 532-536 ; Marius at, 595. Carthaginians send gold crown to Rome, 130 ; in Sicily, 191-193 ; make treaty with Romans against Pyrrhus, 193 ; at Tarentum, 198 ; terms to, after second Punic war, 392 ; their quarrels with Masan- nasa, 527 Carthage, New, 277, 293 ; description of, 367 ; taking of, 368, 369 Carthalo, 261, 262 Carvilius, Sp. (Cos. 292), 160, 161 Casa Romuli, 59 Casilinum taken, 343 Casinum, 320 (note) Cassius Viscellinus, Sp., defeats the Sabines, 69 ; negotiates with Latins, 70, 72 ; his agrarian law, 98 ; his death, 99. Longinus, L. , 615. C, 734. 758, 764. 773. 774- Q-. 736. 741. 755 Casilinum, 320 (note) Cassivelaunus, 728 Castitas Patricia, Chapel of, 175 Castor and Pollux, 71 Castulonensis saltus, 361, 362 Catana, 194 Catilina, L. Sergius, early life of, 698 ; his conspiracy and death, 698-706 Cato. See Porcius Catulus. See Lutatius Caudinae Furculae, 141 -144 Caudiuni, 144 Caulonia, 16 Celtiberian war, the, 540 Celts, 13. 114 Cenomani, 14 Censors appointed, 109 ; functions, 209 Centuriae, 45, 46, 91 Ceres, mysteries of, 329 (note) Chaeroneia, battle of, 630 Chalcedon, battle of, 668 Chalcis, Antiochus at, 474, 475 ; occu- pied by Glabrio, 477 Cilicia, province of, enlarged, 666 Cilnii of Etruria, the, 153. Cilnius Maecenas, C. , 766 Cimbri, the, 569, 570, 578-580 Ciminius saltus, 88, 147 Cincinnatus. See Quintius Cincius Alimentus, L. , 288 Cineas, minister of Pyrrhus, 188 Cingetorix, 729 Cinna, battle of, 146 Cinna. See Cornelius Circeii, 51, 72 Circus Maximus, 41 ; Flaminius, 285 Cirta, siege of, 572 ; fighting near, 577 Civitas, 2, 90, 91, 202, 591, 592 ; gained by military service, 583 Civitas foederata, 268, 589 Clanis, R. , 115 Classes, 45, 46, 596 Claudius, Appius, the decemvir, 95, 99, 102-105. Caecus, Appius in Umbria, 156 ; his writings, 163, 164 ; his censorship, 171, 172, 209 ; his speech against terms with Pyrrhus, 188. Caudex, App. , 237-239. Cento, App., defeated at Uscana, 507. L. , at Rhegium, 237. Pulcher, P. (Cos. 249), defeated at Drepana, 260. M.\RCELLUS, M. (Cos. 222), wins spolia opima, 281 ; at Ostia, 330; campaigns against Hannibal, 332, 335 ; in Sicily, 338-342 ; three days' fight near Canusium with Hannibal, 352 ; his death, 353, 354. Marcellus, M. , in Spain, 541. Nero, C. (Cos. 207), 355, 356, 365. Pulcher, App., 673. Nero. Tib., 776 Clausus, Atta, migrates to Rome, 69 C'leomenes of Sparta, 415 Cleonymus of Sparta, 19, 178 Cleopatra, 748, 759, 774. 776, 778, 779, 781, 782 Cloaca maxima, 41 (note), 51 Clodia, 771 Clodius Pulcher, P. , 673 ; prosecutes Catiline, 698 ; violates the mysteries, 708, 709 ; joins the populares, 712- 717 ; murdered, 731 Cloelia, 66 Cluilius, king of Alba, 36 Clupea, 249, 253 Clusium, besieged by Gauls, 115 ; fighting at, 159, 279 Collatia, 41, 54 Collatinus, 62 Collegia sodalicia, 714 Collegium, pontificum, 38, 171, 212, 213 (note) : augurum, 171 ; election to, 650 Colline Gate, battles at the, 597, 644 Colonies, lists of, 164 (note), 654 (note) Coloniae (Italian) — Aesernia, 269 ; Aesium, ib. ; Alba Fucentia, 151; INDEX 797 Alsium, 269 ; Anxur, 134, 397 ; Aquileia, 456, 457 ; Ardea, 396 ; Ariminum, 200 ; Auximum, 276 ; Beneventum, 200 ; Bononia, 456 ; Brundisium, 200, 269 ; Buxentum, 396 ; Cales, 134 ; Carseoli, 396 ; Casinum, 146 ; Castrum Novum, 175 ; Circeii, 51, 396 ; Copia (Thurii), 396 ; Cora, ib. ; Cremona, 26, 281, 298, 397, 451 ; Croton, 396; Cyzicus, siege of, 670 ; Firmum, 200 ; Fregellae, 134 ; becomes Fabra- teria, 559 ; Fregenae, 269 ; Graviscae, 450 ; Hatria, 175 ; Interamna Lirinas, 146 ; Litermum, 396 ; Luceria, 145 ; Luca, 458 ; Luna, 450 ; Minervia (Scylacium), 551 ; Minturnae, 156, 397; Mutina, 298 (note), 456; Narnia, 153 ; Nepete, 396 ; Nep- tunia (Tarentum), 559 ; Ostia, 397 ; Parma, 456 ; Pisae, 458 ; Pisaurum, 456; Placentia, 281, 397, 451 ; PoUentia, 456 ; Pontiae, 146 ; Salernum, 396 ; Saturnia, 450, 643 ; Sena Gallica, 177, 276, 397 ; Satri- cum, 124 ; Setia, 396 ; Signia, 51, 72 ; Sinuessa, 156, 397 ; Sipontum, 396 ; Sora, 145, 149, 152 ; Spole- tium, 269 ; Suessa, 146, 396 ; Sutrium, 396 ; Tempsa, ib. ; Valentia (Vibo), ib. ; Velitrae, 124 ; Venusia, 396 ; Volturnum, ib. Comitia curiata, 44, 47 : centiiriata, 45, 47, 48, 91 ; SuUan reform of, 395> 396 : tributa, 100, 106, 170. See also 209, 649 Comum taken, 453 ; status of, 733 Consulship, the, 54, 169, 203-211 ; begins on ist January, 541 (note) ; second forbidden, 544 Consus and Consualia, 32 Corfinium, 591, 592, 739 Corinth, destroyed by Mummius, 525 Coriolanus, 74, 75 Cornelius Cossus, Aul. , wins the spolia opima, 81. Aulus (Cos. 343), 129, 130. Lentulus, L. (Cos. 327), 138 ; (Cos. 237), subdues Ligur- ians, 273. Publius in command of ships, 146. Arvina, P. , 141, 149, 150. ScipioBarbatus (Cos. 298), in Etruria and Samnium, 154 ; his epitaph, 154 (note). ScipioAsina, Cn. , defeated at Lipara, 243 ; (Cos. 254), 255 (note). Scipio, L. , takes Corsica, 245 (note). Scipio, P. (Cos. 221), 275. Scipio Calvus, Cn. (Cos. 222), takes Mediolanum, 281 ; in Spain, 311, 333 ; death, 363, 364. Scipio, P. (Cos. 218), his campaign against Hannibal, 298-312 ; in Spain, 322 ; death, 363, 364. Scipio, Cn., in Spain, 311, 312, 322; death, 364. Scipio Africanus, p., saves his father's life at Ticinus, 306 ; conduct after Cannae, 328 ; volunteers for Spain, 365 ; takes New Carthage, 368, 369 ; checks Hasdrubal at Bacculae, 370, and defeats Hasdrubal, son of Cisco, at Ilipa, 371 ; visits Syphax, 372, 373 ; quiets a mutiny, 373, 374 ; re- turns to Rome, 375 ; consul (205) ; goes to Sicily, 375-377 ; at Locri, 377. 378 ; crosses to Africa, 379 ; takes camps of Syphax and Has- drubal, 381, 382 ; meets Hannibal, 388 ; wins battle of Zama, 389 ; re- turns to Rome in triumph, 393, 394 ; Legatus to Lucius in war with Antiochus, 481 ; last years and death, 499-501 ; his sons, 488 (note). Scipio Asiaticus, L. , brother of Africanus, in Spain, 371 ; (Cos. 190), goes against Antiochus, 481- 492 ; impeached, 500, 501. Centho, C. , in Attica and Euboea, 428, 429. Scipio Nasica, P., crushes the Boii, 455. Corculum, 509 ; opposes de- struction of Carthage, 528. Serapio, 556. Scipio Aemilianus, in Africa, 530 ; (Cos. 147), besieges and takes Carthage, 532-536 ; in the Numantine war, 541-545 ; his death, 557> 558- Lentulus, Cn. (Cos. 201), 393- ^^- (praetor in 63), 700-705. Scipio, P. (son of Africanus), 288. Sulla, in the lugurthine war, 576, 577 ; in the Social war, 592, 593 ; (Cos. 88), 592-594 ; puts Sulpicius to death, 594 ; his temporary measures, 596 ; goes to Greece, 622 ; siege of Athens and campaign in Boetia, 623-634 ; makes terms with Mithridates, 635 ; returns to Italy, 641 ; defeats Norbanus, Marius, the younger, and Carbo, 641-645 ; his proscriptions, 645, 646 ; dictator (82-79), 646 ; his reforms, 649-651 ; abdication and death, 652-653. Sulla 798 HISTORY OF ROME Faustus, L. , 689. CiNNA, L. (Cos. 87), recalls Marius, 597 ; the pro- scriptions and revolutionary laws, 598 ; his death, 599. Dolabella, P. , 176, 177. P. (Cos. 44), 749, 761 Cornelii cives, 649 Corcyra, Romans in, 413, 418 Corsica, reduced by L. Scipio, 245 Co>-vi, 243 Cossyra, 254 Cotta, Aurunculeius, 729 Country life, abandonment of. 400 ; described by Cato, 405 Crathis, R., 136 Cremera, R., 79 Crimisus, R. , battle of the, 193 Crotona, 16 ; war with Sybaris, 17, 19 Crustumerium, 29 Cumae, 17, 67, 68, 78 ; attempted by Hannibal, 335 Cures, battle at, 69 Curiae, the, 43-47 Curio, C, 734-736, 740-742 Curius Dentatus, M". (Cos. 290). 162 ; wins battle of Beneventum, 197 Curtius, Mettius, a Sabine, 32 Cynoscephalae, battle of, 441, 442 Cyrene left to the Romans, 586 Dalmatians, the, 537, 538 Damasippus, L. , 643, 644 Debt, laws of, 94, 165-168, 598 Decemvirate, first, 102 ; second, 103- 105 Decemviri sacrorum, 170 Decius Mus., P. (Cos. 340), 131, 132; (Cos. 295), 157, 158 ; (Cos. 279), 190. P. , conquers Umbrians and Etruscans at Mevania, 149 Deditio, meaning of, 129 (note), 529 Deiotarus, 745, 749, 750 Delium, Roman cohort cut off at, 473 Demaratus of Corinth, 40 Demetrius, son of Philip, 502, 503 : of Pharos, 275, 276, 290, 295, 296, 319 ; his surrender demanded, 417 Diaeus defeated at Corinth, 524, 525 Dictatorship, the, 208, 317 (note), 321 (note), 647 (note) Diminutio capitis, 285 Dion of Syracuse, 192 Dionysius, the elder, 19, 192 : younger, ib. : of Halicarnassus, 55 Divorce of Sp. Carvilius, 286 Domitius Calvinus, Cn. (Cos. 53), 13, 744, 745. 750. 755. 758- Aheno- barbus, L. , in Sicily, 550. Cn., conquers the AUobroges, 568, 569 ; defeated by Pompey (65). L. (Cos. 54), 718, 724, 739, 740. Cn. (Cos. 32), 774. 776. 779 Drama, the, 134, 287, 288 Drepana, 255. 256 ; sea fight off, 260 Ducetius, leader of Siceli, 221 Duillius, M., 105, 106. C. (Cos. 260), his victory at Mylae, 244 Duaviri capital es, 38, 697 Dyrrachium, 413, 742-3 Ebro, R., boundary of Carthaginians in Spain, 279, 362, 363 Eburones, 729 Ecbatana, Antony at, 778 Ecnomus, battle of, 247 Egeria, 36 Egnatius, Gellius, a Samnite, 155 Egypt, 198 ; Roman commission in, 504 ; invaded by Antiochus Epi- phanes, 515; Popilius Laenasin, 516; Pompey killed in, 747 ; Caesar in, 748-749 ; Antony in. 776, 778 ; province of, 783 Elissa, 224 Elymi, 221 Enna, massacre at, 339 Ennius, Q. , 26, 400, 401 Ephesus, decree at, 632 (note) Epicydes at Syracuse, 336-340 Epirus spoiled, 513 Equites, procession of, 71 ; cease to furnish the cavalry, 582 ; posteriores, 41, 42 : ordoequesterax\d the judicia, 561, 581, 587, 649, 651 Equus publicus, 45 Era, the Roman, 26, 27 Eryx, Mt. and town, 263, 264 Etruria, 6, 8, 279 ; decadence of, 78 Etruscans, 12, 13, 41 ; in Campania, 13, 67 ; disasters to, 80 ; invasion of Latium under Porsena and Arruns, 64-68 ; combine against Rome (389), 123 ; wars with, 126, 127, 147, 153 • defeated at Mevania, 149 Eumenes, king of Perganms, 482, 484, 492, 498 ; denounces Philip, 502, and Perseus, 504 ; attempted assas- sination of, 505 , ordered to leave Italy, 511, 512 Eunus, leader of Sicilian slaves, 548 Evander, city of, on the Palatine, 23 INDEX 799 Fabii, fall of the, 79 Fabius, Q. , and the Gauls, 115. Maxi- mus, Q. (Mag. Eq. 325), 140 ; (Cos. 310), 147. Gurges, Q. (Cos. 292), 161, 196. Ambustus, daughters of, 174, 175. Rullianus, victories in Sam- nite wars, 155-158. Cunctator, 80 ; conquers Ligurians, 273 ; opposes Flaminius, 277 ; envoy to Carthage, 297 ; as Dictator (217), follows Hannibal, 317-321 ; saves Minucius, 322 ; retakes Tarentum, 352 ; opposes plan of Scipio Africanus, 376. Sonof above, 328, 343. Maxi- mus Aemilianus, Q. , in Macedonia, 509 ; in Spain, 539. Hadrianus, M. , 676. Pictor, 288, 333 Fabricius Luscinus, C, mission to Pyrrhus, 189 (Cos. 278), 191 Falerii, 83 ; truce with, 127 ; removal of inhabitants, 270 Fannius Strabo, C. (Cos. 122), 564 Fasces, the, 203 Feroniae fanum, 37 Fetiales, 39, 213 Ficus ruminalis, 22, 59 Fidenae, 37, 80 Flamen Dialis, Martis, Quirini, 36 Flaminius, C. , his land bill, 276, 277 ; (Cos. 223), defeats the Insubres, 280, 281 ; as censor (220) constructs via Flaniinia, 281 ; (Cos. 217), falls at the battle of Thrasymene, 313-316 Flavius, Cn., divulges \ega\ fortfiulae, 172. Fimbria, C. , legate of Flaccus, 633 ; causes murder of Flaccus, 635 ; successes in Bithynia, 635 ; his death, 637. 638 Fregellae, 138 ; taken by Samnites, 144 ; rebellion at, 558 ; receives colony as Fabrateria, 559 Frentani, 8, 11 Fulvia, 775, 776 Fulvius Maximus, Cn. , 154. Flaccus, M., conquers Volsinii, 239. Nobi- lior, M. , in Spain, 477 ; takes Ambracia, 496, 497 ; his acts annulled, 500. Nobilior, Q. , defeated in Spain, 541. Flaccus, M. , supporter of C. Gracchus, 556, 565, 566 ; victory over Salluvii, 568 Funerals, expense of, 208, 285 Furina, grove of, 565 Furius Camillus, M., at Veii, 86, 87; exiled, in ; recalled, 119-121 ; de- feats the Volscians, 124 ; repels ^ ~ Gallic invasion, 125 ; death, 125, ^ 126. L. , 126 Gabii, siege of, 51 Gabinius, A., 681, 689, 712, 733 Gaesatae, the, 279-281 Gallia Cisalpina, 5, 6, 8 ; province of, 455 : Transalpina, 569, 718-731 Gauls in N. Italy, 14, 15, 114, 115 ; capture Rome, 117; subsequent in- vasions, 125, 126 ; allied with Samnites, 156 ; Hannibal and the, 307, 308, 313 ; their attack on Placentia and Cremona, 397 : in Asia, 411, 413, 493, 494, 600 Gaurus, Mt. , victory at, 130 Gelo of Syracuse, 99, 192 Genthius of Illyria, 505, 509 Genucius, T. , 102. Clepsina, L. (Cos. 271), takes Rhegium, 199 Gergovia, 730 Germans in Gaul, 720-722, 726, 730 Gladiators, first show of, 285 ; rebellion of, 663 Gracchus. See Semp7-07ii7is Great Plains, battle of the, 384 Greece, freedom of, 412 ; chief powers in, 412-415 ; settlement by Flamininus, 444, 445 ; Roman commissioners in, 514 ; settlement of, after fall of Corinth, 526 ; depopulation in, 527 Greek cities in Italy, 16-20 ; name of Magna Graecia, 16 (note) ; decadence of, 19 ; attacked by Italian tribes, 135, 136 ; treatment of, after second Punic war, 395, Greek influences in Rome, 286, 400, 402, 518-519 ; Cato's opposi- tion to, 519. Greek works of art in Rome, 341, 507, 518. Greek religion identified with Roman, 402, 403 Greeks, first diplomatic relations with, 276 : after the war of Antiochus, 501 Haedui, 14. See Aedni Hamilcar at Panormus, 244 ; at Ecnomus, 247. Father of Hannibal, at Hercte, 262-267 ; takes Spendius, 272 ; in Spain, 277, 290, 291. Phameas, 531 Hannibal defeated at Mylae, 244 ; at Lilybaeum, 259. Rhodius, 259. Son of Hamilcar, his oath, 291 ; 8oo HISTORY OF ROME commands in Spain, 293 ; takes Saguntum, 296 ; his march to Italy, 298-303 ; his victories in the valley of the Po, 304-311 ; marches south to Arpi, 314-317 ; foils Fabius in Cam- pania, 320 ; his poUcy after Cannae, 332 ; at Capua, 333 ; beats Fulvius at Herdonea, 346 ; his march on Rome, 347, 348 (note), 349 ; three days' fight with Marcellus at Canusium, 352 ; foiled at Salapia, 355 ; on the Lacinian promontory, 353, 399 ; leaves Italy, 386 ; meets Scipio, 388 ; defeated at Zama, 389-391 ; insists on accepting Roman terms, 393 ; forced to leave Carthage and goes to Antiochus, 467, 468 ; story of his meeting with Africanus, 469 (note) ; his death, 498, 499 Hanno at Messana, 237 ; at Ecnomus, 247 ; at New Carthage, 367, 368 Hasdrubal at Lilybaeum, 256 ; in Spain, treaty with, 277, 291-293. Brother of Hannibal, left in Spain, 299, 322, 333, 363-371 ; starts for Italy, 355 ; defeated and killed on the Metaurus, 357-359. SonofGisco, 355. 363. 366. 371. 372. 381, 382, 388, 389. In third Punic war, 529- 535 Helvetii, the, 719, 720 Heracleia (i), in Magna Graecia, 16; battle of, 186 ; (2) in Phocis, 477, 478 ; (3) in Pontus, 673 Hercte, 264, 265 Herdonea, battle of, 346 Hermaeum, 248 ; battle off, 254 Hermodorus of Ephesus, 102 Hernici, 11, 149 Herod, 778 Hiero I. of Syracuse, 78. II., 199, 223; joins in siege of Messana, 238; makes peace with Romans, 239 ; lends ships, 256 ; sends corn and men to Rome, 323 ; death of, 334 Hieronymus, grandson of Hiero II., 336, 337 Himilco in Lilybaeum, 258 ; sent to relieve Syracuse, 339 Hippo Zarytus, 271 Hippocrates at Syracuse, 336, 337 Hirtius, Aul. , 764, 768, 769 Hispania, the Carthaginians in, 290- 296; the Scipios in, 311, 312, 322, 333. 334. 362-365 ; operations of Africanus in, 365-375 ; affairs in, after Punic war, 458-463 ; two provinces in, 459 ; Cato in, 459, 460 ; settle- ment of Tiberius Gracchus, 462-463 ; wars in, with Lusitani and Celtiberes, 538-545 Horatii and Curiatii, the, 37 Horatius Codes, 64. Flaccus, Q., 789, 790. Pulvillus, M. , dedicates temples on the Capitol, 63 Hortensius, L. , his plundering in Greece, 507 (note) : legate of Sulla, 627-630. Q. , orator, 681, 682 Hostilius Mancinus, C. , disasters of, in Spain, 543 Hydruntum, 17 Hyrcanus, 686 Hyria, 19 I.\PYGIANS, the, II, 17 Iberes, Pompey's battle with, 685 Ilipa, battle of, 371, 372 Illium Novum, 422 (note) lUyrian war, first, 274, 275 ; second, 295, 296 Illyrians subjected to tax, 512 Illyrium, Caesar in, 718, 724 Imperiui7i, 2, 47 (note), 203-205 Indibilis and Mandonius, Spanish chiefs, 370, 373. 374. 458 Insubres, defeat of, 280, 281 ; join the Boii, 451, 452 ; dispersed, 453 fnterreges, 35 (note) Isthmian games, proclamation at, 445 Istri, the, 275 Italy, geography of, 5-9 ; inhabitants of, 10-20 ; Italia vetus, 16 Ianiculum, the Veientines on, 80 ; secession to, 173 lanus, temple of, 36 ; closed, 273 Jerusalem taken by Pompey, 688, 689 ; by C. Sosius, 778 Jews seek Roman alliance, 516, 674 ; defence of the Temple, 689 luba, 742, 750, 752-753 ; his son, 782 lubellius, 187, 199 ludicia, 561, 585, 651, 679, 695, 754, 765 lugurtha, 570-572 ; war with, S7^'S77 '> in Rome (no), 572 ; starved in Mamertine prison, 578 lulia, wife of Pompey, 711, 732 lulius Caesar, Sext. , in Greece, 524. Sext. killed in Syria, 764 (note). L. INDEX 8oi (Cos. 90), 590; his mission to lulius at Ariminum, 737, 738 ; proscribed, 772. C. lulius, his early life, 695, 696; prosecutes Rabilius, 697 ; Pontifex Maximus, 697, 698 ; speech on the Catilinarian conspirators, 704 ; his praetorship, 706 ; in Spain, 707 ; (Cos. 59), 711 ; his conquest of Gaul, 718-731 ; question of his recall, 732- 736 ; crosses the Rubicon, 737 ; in eastern Italy, 738, 739 ; at Mar- seilles and Spain, 739-741 ; consul II., and dictator, 742; war with Pompey in Greece, 742-747 ; at Alexandria, 748, 749 ; in Asia, 749, 750; dictator II., 748; in Africa, I 751-754 ; his triumphs and legisla- tion, 754 ; in Spain, 755, 756 ; last triumph and projects, 756-759 ; his death, 760 , Junius Norbanus, C. (Cos. 83), 640, 641. PuUus, I.. , 261, 263. Brutus, L. , 53. Dec. , gives the first show , of gladiators, 285 ; (Cos. 131), in Spain, 540. Brutus, M., partizan of I Carbo, 641. M., partizan of Lepidus, I 660. M, (assassin of Caesar), 759, ( 7^4. 765. 773-775 luno, statue of, at Veii, 87 I lunonia (Carthage), 559, 564 i lupiter Indiges, 22 ; Capitolinus, 41,51; I Latiaris, 29, 133 Ilustitium, 594 Kings expelled, 53, 54 ; substitute I for, 8g, 90, 203 iLabienus, T. , 697, 720, 729, 739, 745, 755. 756: Q-. 776, 778 ILacinian promontory, 353, 359 jLaelius, C. , 368, 369, 374, 2>n ^ 379. I 384, 385, 390 jLaevi (Gauls), 14 jLanassa, wife of Pyrrhus, 193 Lanuvium obtains Roman civitas, 133 jLarinum, skirmish near, 321 \Latinitas, 133, 589, 592, 654 jLatinus, king, 21, 22. Silvius, 22 JLatium, 6; vetus, 11, 29; subdued by \ Tarquin, 41 ; rebellions in, 124, 126 ; the Latin league, 29 ; war with, 39 ; Rome excluded from, 61 ; hostility of, during Etruscan invasion, 68 ; Latini, great war with (340-338), 131-133 ; end of Latin League, 133 Laudatioiies, 57, 58; of women, 121 Laus, 16 Lautulae, battle of, 145 Lavinium, 21 Lebecii (Gauls), 14 Legio77es (see Army) ; of Caesar, 722 (note) : linfeatae, 160 Lentulus Spinther, Corn. (Coss. 57), 715 Leontini, 194, 337 Lepidus. See Aemilius Leucopetra, 6 Lex: Acilia (121), 561 ; Aelia (160), 713 ; Aemilia (435), 109, 209 ; Aemilia Baebia (182), 521 ; Afittalis (180), 532 (note); Aterriia Tarpeia (454). 97, loi ; A-ufeia (123), 605; Aurelia (70), 679, 695 ; Caecilia Didia (98), 588 ; Calpurnia (549), 518 ; Canuleia (445), 108 ; Cassia (137), 521 ; Cincia (204), 658 ; Claudia (257), 284 ; leges Clodiae (158), 714 ; Cornelia Fulvia (159), 521; leges Cor7ieliae (81-79), 649- 651, 667 ; Cornelia (70), 707 ; Didia (143), 518 ; Domitia (104), 650 ; Duillia (449), 106 ; duodecim Tabu- larutn (451-450), 107, 108 ; Fannia (161), 518; Fla7ninia[i2,'z)^'2.^^\ Ga- binia (139), 521 ; (67), 681 ; Ho7iensia (286), 173 ; I cilia sacrata (492), 97, 100, 206 ; lulia (90), 591 ; leges luliae {$g), 711, 754, 757; Licinia- Ahicia (95), 586, 587 ; Lici7iian (367), 167-169; Manilia (66), 682; Ogulnia (296), 172; Oppia (215), 286, 518; 07-chia (182), 518 ; Papiria (421), III ; Papi7-ia Plantia (89), 592 ; Plotia (73), 695 ; Poetilla (326), 167; de a7nbitu{2S^)' 170 (note) ; Po7npeia (89), 592 ; leges Pompeiae (70), 679, (55). 725; (52), 731. 732; Porcia, 93 (note) ; P7ibliliae (339), 106 (note), 133, 170; Publilia-Volc7'07iis (471), 99, 100; P7ipia (?6i) 736 (note) ; 7-egiae leges, 92 ; Rupilia, (132), 549; Rtitilia (105), 170; (265), 210 ; Sacnia (30), 783 ; Sem- p/-07iia (133), 553, 554 ; Se7nproniae (123), 559, 562, 602 ; Se7-%'ilia (100), 585 ; Trebonia (52), 725 (note), 733 (note) ; Valeria (508), 38, 93, 204 ; (300), 93 (note) ; Valeria- Horatia (447), 105, 112; Vati7iia (59), 71 Libertini in city tribes, 284, 285 3 F 8o2 HISTORY OF ROME Libri lintei, 57, 58, 81 (note) Libui (Gauls), 14 Libyans, subdued by Carthage, 252 Licinius Crassus, L. (orator), 657. C. , • 97. Spurius, 99. C. Licinius Stolo, 167. Crassus, P. (Cos. 171), de- feated at Larissa, 506. Lucullus, L. (Cos. 151), in Spain, 541, 542. Nerva, praetor in Sicily, 549. M. , 695: 725 ; his fall in Parthia, 733, 734. Lucullus, L. , collects a fleet for Sulla, 625-635 ; quaestor in Asia, 639 ; commands in the second Mith- ridatic war, 670, 677 ; mutiny in his army, 676, 677 ; his history, 657. Lucullus, M. , in Macedonia, 666 ; in the Sullan war, 644 ; in the war of Spartacus, 665. Murena, L. , his war with Mi thri dates, 666, 667 Liguria, 5 ; the Ligurians, 13, 14, 273; wars with, 451, 452, 457, 458 ; Lig- ures Corneliani et Bacbiani, 458 Lilybaeum, rise of, 195, 226 ; strength- ened by Carthaginians, 255 ; invest- ment of, 258-262 ; surrender of, 267 Lingones, 14, 115 Liris, R. , 7 Literature, 163, 164, 286-288, 400-407, 657. 658. 785-791 Livia, 776 Livius Drusus, M. , outbids C. Gracchus, 563, 564. Drusus, M. (the younger), his reforms, 587, 588. Macatus, M. , atTarentum, 342-345, 352. Salinator, C. , commands in the Aegean, 481- 483 Locri Epizephyrii, 16, 19 ; troubles at, 377. 378 ; status of, 395 (note) Lollius, Samnite hostage, 199 Lucania, 6, 8 ; invaded, 196 ; subdued, 198, 199 Lucanians, 19 ; join the Samnites, 139 ; attack Thurii, 177, 180 ; join Pyrrhus, 187 ; join Hannibal, 331 ; in the Social war, 589 Lucca, 717 Luceria, 144, 145 Lucretia, 53, 54 Lucretius, C. , commands fleet in Greek waters, 506. Carus T. , 788, 789. Ofella, 645, 651 Lucus deae Diae, 40 Luna, 6, 453 Lusitani, the, 538-540 Lutatius Catulus, C. , victory at Aegusa, 265, 266. Q. (Cos. 103), defeated at Verona, but victorious at Vercellae, 579, 580, 657 (Cos. 78), 659, 660, 701 Macedonia, history of, 408, 409 ; its connexion with Greece, 410; first Macedonian war, 417-422 ; effects of, on Rome, 408 ; second Macedonian war, 423-443; third Macedonian war, 505-511 ; division of, 512 ; plunder of, 513 ; becomes a province, 522 Macella, capture of, 244 (note) Machanidas of Sparta, 419 Macra, R. , 6 Maelius, Sp. , no Magister equitum, 208 Magistracies, continuation of, 554 (note) Magnesia, battle of, 490, 491, 632 Magna Mater, 52, 520 Mago in Spain, 366, 367, 371, 372; ordered to Italy, 374 ; defeated in Cisalpine Gaul, 385 ; dies on board ship, ib. Mahabal after Cannae, 329 (note) Maiestas, 584 (note), 649, 650 Mamertines, the, 193, 194, 234-236 Mamilius, C. , brings in a law to try those bribed by lugurtha, 572, 575 Man liana imperia, 131 Manlius, Aul. , sent to Athens, loi. T. Manlius Torquatus, 131, 132. M. Manlius defends the Capitol, 119; his popular measures and death, 165, 166. T. Manlius Torquatus (Cos. 235), reduces Sardinia, 273. Cn. Manlius Vulso (Cos. 189), in Galatia, 493 Marcellus. See Claudius Marcius C. , first plebeian dictator, 127 ; (Cos. 342), 130. Coriolanus, 74. Tremulus, Q. , victory over Sam- nites, 150. L. , saves the armies in Spain, 364, 365; subsequent services, 373> 374- Philippus, Q. , deceives Perseus, 506 (Cos. 169) ; enters Macedonia, 507, 508. Figulus, C. , 537. RexQ., 569; (Cos. 68), 677 Marius, C, 573; birth and early life, 574 ; (Cos. 107), 575 ; finishes the lugurthine war, 576, 578 ; defeats the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae, 578 ; the Cimbri near Vercellae, 579 ; as a politician, 582, 585, 592 ; his army I reforms, 583 ; in Asia, 586 ; in the INDEX 803 Social war, 591 ; appointed to supersede Sulla, 594 ; his flight, 594, 595 ; return of and death, 397, 398. C. , the younger (Cos. 82), 642, 643 ; defeat of, at Sacriportus, 643 ; death of, 645 M, (the One-Eyed), adherent of Sertorius, 669, 671. Gratidianus, M. , 644. A pretended Marius, 764 Marrucini, 8, 11, 589 Mars, 22, 25, 35 ; flamen Martis, 36 ; as god of blight, 405 (note) Marsi, 11, 153, 589 Masannasa, 363, 371, 375, 377, 379, 380, 382, 384, 385, 390, 527, 528, 570 Massilia, 569, 741 Mauretania, 782 Mediolanuni taken, 281 Mednia, 16 Melpuni, 13 ; taken by Gauls, 88 Memmius, C. (Tril. PL 112), 572 ; assassinated, 585 MeneniusAgrippa, 96. T. Menenius,99 Mercenary war in Africa, 270-272 Messana, 223 ; besieged, 237, 238 Matapontum, 5, 6, 16, 19 Mettius Fufius, 37 Mevania, 149 Milo, ofificer of Pyrrhus, 182, 198 Milo. See Amiias Minucius, L. (Cos. 458), 75. Rufus, M. (Mag. eq. 217), 321, 322. Ther- mus Q. (Cos. 193), in the Ligurian war, 453, 454 Misenum, peace of, 777 Mithridates, Eupator, king of Pontus, refuses aid to the Socii, 592 ; early life and character, 603, 604, 606 ; his conquest of the Crimea, 607 ; invades Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, 609, 610 ; first war with Rome, 615 ; occupies Asia and Greece, 616-619 I his army defeated at Chaeroneia and Orchomenus, 630-633 ; makes peace with Sulla, 636 ; attacked by Murena, 667 ; second Mithridatic war, 668 ; successes of LucuUus against, 669- 673 ; recovers Pontus, 676 ; de- feated by Pompey, 683 ; retreats to Bosporus, 684 ; his death, 687, 688. Of Pergamus, 748, 750 Motye, in Sicily, 192, 226 Mucius Scaevola, C, 656, 657. Q. (jur- ists), 657 Mummius, L. , in Spain, 538 ; (Cos. 146), takes Corinth, 525, 526 Munatius, Placcus, L. , 755. Plancus, L., 764, 768, 769, 780 Munda, battle of, 755 Miinicipia, 589 Murcus, Statius, 773, 774 Muthul, R., battle on the, 573 Mutina, war of, 769 Mylae, battle of, 244 Nabis, of Sparta, 422, 470 Naebian meadow, 63 Naevius, Cn. , 288 Narbo Martins, 566, 655 Navy, appointment of duoviri navales, 146 ; absence of, at the beginning of Punic war, 237 ; first construction of, 241, 242 ; wreck off Camarina, 254 ; a new fleet, 255 ; again wrecked, 249 ; a new fleet, 265 ; fleet during the first Macedonian war, 418 ; fleet for the war with Antiochus, 469-487. Sext. Pompeius commander of, 770 Neapolis, 17, 139, 188, 323 Nebrodes montes, 6 Nemean games, proclamation at, 448 Nequinum, 153 Nervii, 722, 723, 729 Nexus, 93, 94, 166 ; abolition of, 167 Nicaea, congress at, 437 Nicomedes II., king of Bithynia, 549, 609, 610, 611, 613: III., king of Bithynia, 613, 614, 668 Nobility, the new, 165, 399 Nola, Marcellus at, 333, 335 Nomentum obtains civitas, 133 Nonius, A., murdered, 584 Noviodunum, 722 Nuceria, 149, 150 Numa Pompilius, 35, 36 ; pretended writings of, 521 Numantia, war of, 540-545 Numidia, province of, 753 Numitor father of Rea, 22 Nuvius, silver, 200, 245 OCTAVIA, 776, 778, 782 ; Opera Octaviae, 790 Octavius, M. , opposes Tib. Gracchus, 553. 554- ^- (Caesar Augustus), 756, 758, 766-769 ; his first consulship, 770, 771 ; triumvir, 771 ; his part in the proscription, 772 ; his policy and 8o4 HISTORY OF ROME acts, 775-780 ; his victory at Actium, 781 ; his reforms, 783 Oenotri, 17 Opici, II Opimius, L. (Cos. 121), puts followers of C. Gracchus to death, 564-566 ; commissioner to lugurtha, 571 Oppius, Q. , 615, 616, 635 (note) Optimates, the, 581 ; compared with Populares, 693, 694 Orchomenus, battle of, 633, 634 Orgetorix, 719 Oscans, the, 11 Otacilius, Tit., in Sicily, 323 Ovinium plebiscitum, 173 Pacorus, 778 Pacuvius, M. , 519 Padus {Po) R. , 5, 304, 311 Paestum, 6, 16, 19, 323 '^«^". 45 (note), 92 Palaepolis, 9, 17, 138 Palatinus, Mons, 22 ; site of first city, 23-25. King of Alba, 22 Pa/ilia, the, 24, 27 Pandosia, 136 Panium, battle of, 465 Panormus, in Sicily, 192, 226 ; taken by L. Scipio, 255 ; battle at, 256 Papirius, M. , 118. L. Papirius Cursor (diet. 325), 140-144 ; recovers Luceria (diet. 310), 147. L. Papir- ius Cursor, son of above, 160, 198. C. Papirius Carbo (Cos. 120), 566. Cn. Papirius Carbo opposes Sulla, 599, 641-644 ; his death, 651 Papius, Mutilus, Q., Samnite, 590 Parthians, the, 612, 686, 733, 734, 756, 758, 776, 77^ Padres minorum gentiutti, 41 P atria potest as, 92 Pedius, Q., 749, 758, 771 Pedum obtains chnfa<;, 133 Peiraeus, destruction of, by Sulla, 627 Peligni, 11, 321, 589 Perduellio, 38, 92, 584 (note), 697 Peregrini, 285, 654 Pergamus, kingdom of, 411 ; left to Rome, 558, 561, 602; its extent, 600; treaty of, 636, 637, 667 Perpenna, M. , kills Sertorius, 661-663 Perseus, king of Macedonia, 430, 502 ; accession and character, 503 ; policy, 504, 505; war with, 505-511 Perusia, siege of, 775, 776 Pestilences at Rome, 74, 119, 161 Petreius, M., 740, 753 Phalanx, the, 441, 490, 491 Pharnaces, 749, 750 Pharsalus, battle of, 745 Philip V. , 290 ; hears of Thrasymene, 318, 319 ; treaty with Hannibal, 335, 336, 416, 417 ; his scheme for invad- ing Italy, 416, 417 ; opposition in Greece, 417, 418 ; war with, 418- 421 ; makes peace at Phoenice, 421 ; secretly supports Hannibal, 423 ; agrees with Antiochus to partition Egypt, 424 ; at war with Rhodes and Attalus, 425 ; takes Abydos, 427, 428; defends Stena Aoi, 431, 432; has a conference with Flamininus, 432 ; at the congress of Nicaea, 437 ; defeated at Cynoscephalae, 441, 442 ; aids Romans against Antiochus, 474, 475- 438. 439. 482 ; his later designs, 502 ; his death, 503 Philippi, battles of, 774, 775 Philochares of Tarentum, 180 Philonides of Tarentum, 181 Phocaea, victory at, 481, 487 Phoenice, treaty of, 421 Phoenicians in Sicily, 192 ; in Africa and W. Europe, 223, 224 Phraates, 686 Picenum and Picentini, 11, 154, 200 Pirates, the, 680, 681 Pisae, harbour of, 273 ; fighting with Ligurians at, 454 Pistoria, 705 Placentia. See Colonics Plautus, T. Maccius, 401-405 Plebs, origin of, 44 ; rise of plebeians, 84 ; disabilities of, 91 ; informal meetings of, 95 ; first secession of, 96 ; last, 173 ; concilia plebis, 100, 105 ; plebiscita, 105, 106, 173, 286, 399. 572. 584. Plebeians obtain conubium, 108 ; the quaestorship, hi; the consulship, 169; censor- ship, 170 ; the sacred colleges, 172 ; first plebeian dictator, 127 Pleminius, Q. , propraetor at Locri, 377< 378 Polybius (quoted), 14, 56, 63 (note), 165, 219, 228, 230, 231, 238, 302 (note), 321 (note), 333 (note), 368 (note), 488 (note), 514 (note), 529 (note) Po>noe}-ium, 31 INDEX 805 Pompadius, Q. , Marsian leader, 590 Pompeia divorced by Caesar, 709 Pompeii Curia, 759 Pompeius, Rufus, Q. , in Spain, 542. Strabo, Cn. , 591. Rufus, Q. (Cos. 88), 592 ; murdered, 596. Strabo, Cn. (Cos. 89), in Social war, 591, 592, 596 ; his death, 597. Magnus, Cn. , enrols legions in Picenum, 641 ; joins Sulla, 641-643 ; triumphs from Sicily and Africa, 651, 652 ; sent against Sertorius, 661-663 ; cuts off surviving gladiators, 666 ; consul (70), 678 ; Piratic war, 680-682; supersedes Lucullus in Pontus, 682-691 ; his position in Rome, 708-717 ; sole consul (52) 731-733. 734. 735. 736 ; leaves Italy, 739 ; his defeat and death, 743-747. Gnaeus (the younger), 750, 755. Sextus, 751, 755, 765, ^^^, 776, 777 Pons Sublicius, 39 Pontijices, 38, 57, 213, 697 Pontius, C, Samnite, 141-144 ; put to death, i6r Pontus, kingdom of, 603-606 Popilius, Laenas, C, in Egypt, 516. P. (Cos. 132), tries adherents of Tib. Gracchus, 556, 559 Populus, 43, 90, 202 Porcius, Cato, M., 26, 56, 288; quaestor in Sicily, 379 ; his writings, 405, 406 ; (Cos. 195) in Spain, 453 ; his character and views, 519-520: the Basilica Porcia, 404 (note) ; at Ther- mopylae, 476. C, in Macedonia, 569. L. (Cos. 89), 591. M. (Uticensis), speech in the Senate, 704, 705, 710, 711, 742, 746, 750-753- C. (Tr. PL, 56), 712. Licinus.L., 355, 357 Porsena, 63-67 Porta CoUina, 25 : Capena, 40 : Mugionis, 22 : Romanula, 22 Postumius Elva, 70 ; L. Postumius, ambassador at Tarentum, 180, 181. Sp. Postumius at the Caudine Forks, 141-144. L. Postumius (Cos. 291), 161, 162. C. Postumius, killed at the Silva Litana, 323, 334. Sp. and Aulus Postumius Albinus in Numidia, 572, 573 Pothinus, 746, 748 Potitia, gens, 172 Praetoria cohors, 583 Praetors, early name of consuls, 89 Praetorship, 169, 210-211 Proca, king of Alba, 22 Proconsul, first, 138 Proeneste, rebellion at, 124 Proscriptions, by Marius, 598 ; by Sulla, 646 ; by the triumvirs, 771, 772 Provincia, meaning of, 445 Provinces, the, 649, 655 (note) ; revenue from, 656. Africa, 536 ; Africa Nova, 753 ; Asia, 561, 656 ; Bithynia and Pontus, 677 (note) ; Cilicia, 586 ; enlarged, 666 ; Crete and Cyrenaica, 585, 681, 682; Gallia Cisalpina, 455; Gallia Transalpina, 569 ; Hispania citerior, 459 ; Hispania ulterior, 459 ; Macedonia, 522 ; Sardinia and Cor- sica, 273 ; Sicily, 267, 656 ; Syria, 687 Provocatio, 38, 91, 106, 205 ; extended to the army, 217 (note) Prusias, king of Bithynia, 498, 511 Ptolemy, Philadelphus, 198. Ptolemy XL, Auletes, 716, 717. XII., 746, 748. XIII., 74S Publicani in Asia, 561, 602, 668 Publilius Philo, Q. (Cos. 327), 138, 144 Punic wars, I. (264-242), 232-268 : II. (218-202), 289-394 : III. (150-146), 527-536 Pydna, battle of, 510 Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, 6 ; invited to Tarentum, 181 ; parentage and early life, 183, 184 ; first campaign in Italy, 185-191 ; goes to Sicily, 191-195 ; second campaign in Italy, 195-197 ; his death, 197 Pythagoras, 18 ; schools of, 19 Pyxus, 17 QuAESTioNES, 92 ; perpetuae, 518, 650 Ouaestorship, 90, 211 ; open to ple- beians, III Quintius Cincinnatus, L. , 75, 76; dic- tator, no. T. , 124. Flamininus, T. (Cos. 198), goes to Epirus, 431 ; to Thessaly, 433 ; at the Congress of Nicaea, 437 ; conquers at battle of Cynoscephalae, 441 ; at conference of Tempe, 443 ; his settlement of Greece, 444-449 ; forces Nabis to surrender Argos, 447 ; triumphs, 448 ; discontent of Aeolians with, 443, 444 ; sent again to Greece, 470. L. , 447. Atta, T. (dramatist), 659 8o6 HISTORY OF ROME Quirinalis coUis, 25 Quirinus, 35 ; Quirini flamen, 36 Quirites, quiris, 33 Quiritium, fossa, 25, 40 Rabirius, C. , prosecution of, 697 Ranines, Titii, Luceres, 33 Ravenna, 739 Rea, mother of Romulus, 22 Regillus, battle of lake, 70 Regulus. See Ait lias Religion, identified with. Greek, 404, 405 ; novelties in, 520, 521 Republic, fall of, 3 Rex sac ro rum, 89 Rhegiuni, 17, 19, 187, 199, 350 Rhine, crossed by Caesar, 727, 730 Rhodes, 419 ; proclaims war with Philip, 425, 427 ; policy of, in third Mace- donian war, 505, 511 ; its commerce crippled, 514 ; resists Mithridates, 619 Rhone, Hannibal on the, 300, 301 Rome, growth, i ; position, 28 ; street life in, 404 ; adornment of, 779, 790 Romulus and Remus, legend of, 22, 23 ; first king, 31-35 Romulus Silvius, king of Alba, 22 Rubicon, R. , 6, 72? Rubra Saxa, 79 Rufuli, 170 Rupilius, P., in Sicily, 548, 549 Ruspina, 752 Rutili, 21 Rutilius Rufus, P., his unjust condem- nation, 603 (note) ; Memoirs of, 657 Sabellians, the II, 12 Sabine women, the, 32 Sabines in Rome, 32-34 ; wars with, 37,38, 69-73, 104; assist the Veien- tines, 80 Sabinus, Titurius, 729 Sacred Mount, first secession to, 96 ; second, 105 Saguntum, alliance with, 277, 293 ; capture of, by Hannibal, 295, 296 Salassi, 779 Salii CoUini and Palatini, 29 Sallentini, 17, 200 Sallustius Crispus, C. , 752, 753, 788 Salluvii in Gallia Cisalpina, 14 ; in Transalpina, 568, 592 Samnium, 6 ; Samnites, 12, 83, 127 ; attack Sidicini, 129 ; first Samnite war, 129- 131; second, 135-151; third, 154-162 ; joins Pyrrhus, 187 ; invaded, 196 ; in the Social war, 590 ; in the war of Sulla, 644 ; desolation of, by Sulla, 648 Sardinia, 245 ; Sardinia and Corsica a province, 273 Saturninus. See Appulcius ^Scerdilaidas of Illyria, 416, 417 Scidrus, 16 Scipio, see Cornelius Scipionic party in literature, 519 Scribonius Curio, dani, 666 Segesta in Sicily, Sempronius, P. Longus, Tib. C, conquers the Dar- 239, 241, 244 (Cos. 304), 151. (Cos. 218), 298, 304, 308-310 ; defeats Hanno, 335. P., commands in first Macedonian war, 421. Longus, Tib. (Cos. 194), 453. Gracchus, Tib. , in Spain, 462. Grac- chus, Tib. (son of last), Tr. PI. (133), 553' 554 ; his death, 555. Gracchus, Gams, Tr. PI. (123), 559-563; his death, 564, 565 Senators restrained from commerce, 399 Senatus, 2, 206-298, 283, 284 ; its posi- tion after first Punic war, 283 ; in- creased influence during second Punic war, 397-399 ; its decadence in first century, 581 ; bankrupts expelled from, 593 ; Sulla's changes in, 649 ; position under Augustus, 785 Senatus consultum de Latinis, 133 ; de Campanis, 351 ; de Macedonibus, 512 ; de Bacchanalibus, 521 ; ulti- mum, 736 Senones, 14, 157, 176 ; lands of, divided, 277 Sentinum, battle of, 158 Septem pagi, 34 Septimontium, 25 Septumeleius, L. , kills C. Gracchus, 565 Sequani, 719, 720, 769 Sertorius, Q. , 642; war with, in Spain, 660-663 Servilius, Sp. (C06. 476), 80. Ahala, C, no. Geminus Cn. (Cos, 217). sails to Africa, 322. Caepio, Q. , secures the murder of Viriathus, 540. Caepio (Cos. 106), 570 ; killed in Social war, 589. Glaucia, C. , 584- 585. Vatia, P., in Isauria, 166 INDEX S07 Servius 'I'uUius, 42-50 ; his agger, 43 ; his reforms, 43-49, 90 Sibyl, the, 52 ; the Sibylline books, 52, 319. 717. 7S^ Sicambri, 727 Sicani and Siclei, 221, 222 Sicily, history to time of Pyrrhus, 191- 193 ; inhabitants of, 220-223 \ ^^"^- thaginians in, 223, 226, 227 ; object of first Punic war, 219 ; becomes a Roman province, 267 ; war in, 336- 342 ; Carthaginians wholly expelled from, 362 ; slave wars in, 546-550 Sicinius, murder of, 104 Sicoris, R. , 740, 741 Sidicini, 129 Signia, 51 Sila, 6, 199 Silva Litana, 334, 453 Slaves, increased numbers of, 284 ; in comedy, 403, 404 ; tax on sale, 518 ; slave wars, 546-550 Social war, the, 589-592 Socii navales, 242 Soloeis in Sicily, 192, 226 Solon of Athens, laws of, loi Sopater, 423, 426 Sora, taken by Romans, 145 ; retaken by Samnites, 149 ; recovered, 150 Sosigenes, 754 Sosistrates of Agrigentum, 192 Sosius, C. , 778, 779 Spain, See Hispania Sparta, 413 Spartacus, 663-666 Spendius, 270, 271 Spolia opima, 35, 81 (note), 281 Suevi, 722, 727 Suffetes, 228 Sulla. See Cornelius Sulpicius, Ser. , sent to Athens, loi. Q. , negotiates with Brennus, 120. Galba, P., commands fleet against Philip, 419, 520 ; (Cos. 200) in Epirus, 428, 430. Ser.. treacherously destroys the Lusitani, 538, 539. Rufus, P. , revolutionary laws and death of, 592-594. 595 Sutrium, 147 Sybaris, 16, 17 ; its fall, 18 Syphax, 363 ; visited by Scipio, 372, 2>Ti ; renounces Roman friendship, 379 ; negotiations with, 380, 381 ; burning of his camp, 382 ; captured, 384, 385 ; at Rome, 394 Syria, made a Roman province, 687 Syracuse, 190, 192 ; territory of, 223 ; revolutions in, 336-338 ; siege of, by Marcellus, 338-341 ; topography of, 338 ; art treasures of, 241 Tabellariae leges, 521 Talys of Sybaris, 17 Tanaquil, 42, 43 Tannetum, 298 Tarentum, 5, 17 ; Archidamus and Alexander invited to, 136 ; quarrels with Rome, 177-182 ; Pyrrhus at, 185 seq. ; taken by Papirius, 198 ; guarded in second Punic war, 334 ; plot to surrender to Hannibal, 343, 344 ; entered by Hannibal, 345 ; citadel of, defended by Livius, 345, 352 ; recovered by Fabius, 352 ; its position after Punic war, 395 Tarquinii, 62, 83 ; forty years' truce with, 127 Tarquinius Priscus, 40 - 42 : Lucius Superbus, 49-54, 70; death of, 71. Sextus, 53, 70. Collatinus, L. , 61, 62 Tarracina, 72 Tarraco, 362 Tatius, Titus, 32, 33 Taurini conquered by Hannibal, 304 Tauromenium, Pyrrhus at, 194 ; slaves in, 548 Teanum, 129 Telamon, 279, 597 Tempe, conference of, 443 Temples of Bellona, 645 ; Concord, 126, 566 ; Diana, 49, 59 ; Fors For- tuna, 59 ; Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, on Capitol, 23 ; Jupiter Stator and Fere- trius, 59 ; Mater Matuta, 59 ; Vesta, 59 ; Venus, 334 ; Venus Genetrix, 790 ; Honor and Virtus, 341 (note) Teos, sea-fight in Bay of, 486 Terentius Afer, 519. Varro, C. (Cos. 216), 323 ; at Cannae, 324-327 ; his energy after the battle, 328-330 ; in Greece, 426. Varro, M. , 741, 'j^j Terina, 16 Teuta, Queen, 274-276 Teutones, the, 569, 570 ; defeated at Aquae Sextiae, 578 Thapsus, battle of, 752 Theatre begun but demolished, 520 ; of Pompey, 790 Thebes, 412 ; destroyed by Sulla, 631 Thermopylae, battle of, 476 8o8 HISTORY OF ROME Thoenon of Syracuse, 194, 195 Thrasymene lake, battle of, 314-316 Thurii, 16 ; dissensions at, 19 ; Spar- tacus at, 664 Tiber, R., 7 : insula Tiberina, 62 Tiberinus, king of Alba, 22 Tibullus, A., 791 Ticinus, R., battle on the, 306 Tifata, Mt. , 129, 320; Hannibal's camp on, 342 ; defeat of Norbanus near, 641 Tigranes, king of Greater Armenia, 611. 671, 673, 684. Tigranes (his son), 682, 684 ; sent to Rome, 685, 715 Tigranocerta, 671, 675-675 Tigurini, 569, 570 Timaeus, 25, 56 Timoleon, in Sicily, 192, 227 Titles taken from conquered coimtries, 286 Tolosa, 570 Tolumnius of Veil, 82 Trebia, R., battle on the, 308. 309 Trebonius, C. , 740, 749, 755. 759, 764, 770 Treveri, 729 Tribes, 44 ; increase of, 125, 134, 145 ; Italians in, 593, 596 Tribuui plebis, first appointed, 96-98, 205, 206 ; powers curtailed by Sulla, 596, 650 ; restored by Pompi'^y, 679. Mill tares consulari pot estate, 109. Aeran'i, 680 (note), 754. Militum, elected, 170 ; nominated, 203. See Rufitli Tributum of citizens suspended, 517 ; reim]>osed, 773 Trifanum, battle of, 132 Triumvirate, first, 710, 725 ; second, 771 ; renewed, JTJ. See also 585 TuUia, 49, 50 TuUius Cicero, M. , on the Republic, 55, 56 ; his political views, 693, 694 ; (Cos. 63), 699-706 ; his exile, 709- 717 ; meets Caesar, 740 ; joins Pompey in Greece, 741 ; returns to Rome, 750, 754, 756 ; at the murder of Caesar, 760 ; opposes Antony, 765, 767, 768 ; connexion with Octavius, 766, 770 ; death, 772, 773 ; works, 705-7. Q. , 729, 730, 773 TuUus Hostilius, 36-39 Tunes, occupied by Regulus, 249 ; by Scipio, 384 Tusculum, 67 ; rebellion at, 124 ; ob- tains the civitas, 141 Tuscus Vicus, 68 Tyndarion of Naxos, 194 Tyndaris, in Sicily, naval battle off, 246 Tyrrhenian Sea, 6 Umbria, 6, 8, 151 ; the Umbro-Latini and Umbrians, ii; defeated with Etruscans, 149 ; outbreak in, 153 I Urban State, the, 2 Utica, 271, 381-383, 751-753 Vada Sabbata, 6, 759 Vadimonian Lake, the, 149, 177 V^alerius Publicola, P., 62, 63, 69. M., 69. Publius (Cos. 475), 80. Corvus, M. , 129, 130. Maximus, M. , 153. Lucius, killed in harbour of Tarentuni, 180. Laevinus, P., defeated at Heraclea, 185, 186. Maximus Messala, M. (Cos. 263), defeats Hiero, 239, 394. Flaccus, L. (Cos. 195), 397. Laevinus, M., (Cos. 210), takes Agrigentum, 361 ; wins naval battle off Lilybaeum, 362 ; commands fleet against Philip, 418, 419. Flaccus. L. (Cos. 86), sent to supersede Sulla, 633 ; murdered, 635. Triarius, L. , legate of Lucullus, 676, 677. Catullus, C. , 789. Mes- salla, C., 779, 780 Varius, Q. , his prosecutions for niajestas, 589. 593 Veii, 13, 62 ; wars with, 77-85 ; fall of, 86-88 ; effects of siege of, 84 ; pro- posed migration to, HI, 121 ; Roman fugitives in, 117 ]'elabrum, the, 24 Velea or Elea, 17 Velites, 583 Veneti, in Gaul, 726 ; in Italy, 5, 8, 14, 120 ]''er sac7-nm, 319 Vercingetorix, 730 Veretrum. 17 Vergilius, C, 752, 753. Maro, P., 789, 790 Vermina, son of Syphax, 391 Verres, C. , 668, 758 Veseris, battle of, 132 (note) Vesontio, 720 Vestini, 8, 11 j Vetilius, C. , killed in Spain, 539 J Vettius, L. , 706, 712 INDEX 809 Veturia, mother of Coriolanus, 75 Via Appia, 171, 281 ; Aemilia, 456, 769 ; Aemilia Scauri, 458 ; Aurelia, ib.\ Egnatia, 522; Flaminia, e8i, 775 ; Latina, 329 ; Portuensis, 40 Vibius Pansa, C, 764, 768, 769. Vibius Virius of Capua, 350 Vipsanius Agrippa, AT., 766, j^j, 791 Viriathus, 539, 540 Voltumnae, fanum, 123 Voltur, Mt. , 7 Volturnus, R. , 7; gorge of, 320 Volumnia, wife of Coriolanus, 75 Volumnius, L. 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