RECAPITULATION.Decemviri chosen to make new laws for Rome. Absolute power of thepaterfamilias. Laws against libel make Roman history mere eulogium. Tyranny of the second decemvirate. Appius Claudius unjustly claims Virginia for a slave. The people secede, overthrow the decemvirate, and restore consuls and tribunes. The new consuls defeat the Sabines, and triumph in spite of the Senate. By another change of constitution, censors and military tribunes are chosen, instead of consuls. The censors have absolute power to correct public morals. The Athenians fail in their Sicilian expedition, B. C. 415, 414, and leave room for the supremacy of Rome.
Decemviri chosen to make new laws for Rome. Absolute power of thepaterfamilias. Laws against libel make Roman history mere eulogium. Tyranny of the second decemvirate. Appius Claudius unjustly claims Virginia for a slave. The people secede, overthrow the decemvirate, and restore consuls and tribunes. The new consuls defeat the Sabines, and triumph in spite of the Senate. By another change of constitution, censors and military tribunes are chosen, instead of consuls. The censors have absolute power to correct public morals. The Athenians fail in their Sicilian expedition, B. C. 415, 414, and leave room for the supremacy of Rome.
56.The Gauls were now beginning their terrible incursions from the north into the valley of the Po, thus absorbing the attention of the Etruscans; and the time favored a fresh attack of the Romans upon Veii, the nearest state across the Tiber. The war began B. C. 405, and lasted ten years. The necessity of keeping an armed force continually in the field, gave rise to the standing army, which ultimately made so essential a part of Roman power; and, at the same time, obliged the patricians to study the interests of the people. It was now agreed that the soldiers should be regularly paid, and money secured for this purpose by a careful collection of the rents for public lands. The number of military tribunes was doubled. Their chief, the præfect of the city, was a patrician, and chosen by that order, but the remaining five were elected from either or both classes, by a free vote of the popular assembly.
57.After ten years’ warfare with varying success, Veii was taken (B. C. 396) by the dictator Camillus. It is said that on the very day of its surrender, Melpum, the Etruscan stronghold in the north, fell before the Gauls. The loss of these two frontier fortresses began the rapid decline of Etrurian power. The joy of the Romans was commemorated by the whimsical custom, long continued, of concluding every festal game with a mock auction called the “Sale of Veientes.” Cape´na, Fale´rii, Nep´ete, and Sunium were likewise conquered, and with their lands became possessions of Rome. Within half a century, the Etruscans lost to the Gauls all their possessions in Campania and north of the Apennines, and to the Romans, all between the Cimin´ian forests and the Tiber. The nation had already lost its force through unbounded excess in luxury. The nobles were enormously rich, while the people were poor and enslaved.
58.The war of the Romans against Volsin´ii was equally successful; but, by a sudden and terrible reverse, Rome was now doomed to suffer the fate which she too often inflicted. The Gauls, after conquering northern Etruria, overflowed the barrier of the Apennines and spread over central Italy. They met the entire Roman force near the little river Al´lia, and defeated it with great slaughter; then pushing on with irresistible power, they captured and burned the city. So overwhelming was the disaster, that the 16th of July, the date of the battle of the Allia, was pronounced a “black day” of ill-omen, on which no business could be safely transacted and no sacrifices acceptably offered.
59.The vestal virgins withdrew with the sacred fire to Cære, in Etruria; the mass of the people, with the fugitives from the conquered army, had taken refuge in Veii and other Etruscan towns; but the noblest of the patricians resolved to hold the Capitol. Those who were too old to fight, hoped to serve their country equally well by an heroic death. They repeated, after the pontifex maximus, a solemn imprecation,[66]devoting themselves and the army of the Gauls to death for the deliverance of Rome. Then, arrayed in their most magnificent apparel, holding their ivory scepters, and seated each upon his ivory throne at the door of his own house, they sat motionless while the tumult of plunder and pillage was going on around. The barbarians were struck with admiration of these venerable figures, and one of them began reverently to stroke the long white beard of Papir´ius. Enraged by this profaning touch, the old senator struck him with his ivory scepter. It was the signal for slaughter. The Gauls, recovering from their momentary awe, massacred the noble old men without delay.
60.The siege of the Capitol continued six or eight months. At one time it was nearly taken, by the enemy scaling the steep cliff by night. The garrison were asleep, but some geese sacred to Juno gave a timely alarm, and the citadel was saved. Marcus Manlius, who was the first to awaken, succeeded in throwing several of the first assailants down the cliff, and thus maintained the fortress until his comrades could come to his aid.At length, though the garrison were nearly exhausted by hunger, the Gauls were equally ready to make terms, for they had heard that the Venetians were invading their northern possessions. A thousand pounds of gold were paid for the ransom of the city, and the barbarians retired. They were followed by Camillus, the conqueror of Veii and Falerii, who was now again dictator, and who, by cutting off straggling parties of the enemy, regained some portion of the rich booty which they were carrying away; but it is probably not true that he gained any important success over them, as was formerly believed.
61.A period of great distress followed the retreat of the Gauls. The farms, upon which the livelihood of so many people depended, had been laid waste; their fruit-trees, buildings, implements, stock and stores, even to the seed-corn needed for next year’s sowing, had been burnt. Rome was a mass of rubbish, in which even the direction of the former streets could no longer be discerned. The government furnished roofing materials, and allowed wood and stone to be taken from the public forests and quarries, on condition that every person so aided would give security to complete his building within the year. But these pledges were often forfeited; and to meet the expense of rebuilding, as well as to pay the extraordinary taxes for restoring the fortress and the temples, money had to be borrowed, and the poor were again at the mercy of the rich. Innocent debtors were dragged from their homes, to toil as slaves in the shops or fields of their creditors.
Many chose to remain in the Etruscan towns where they had taken refuge, and even to make of Veii a new Rome for the plebeians, where they might live free from the overbearing rule of the patricians, and be themselves a privileged class. Though this wholesale secession was prevented, yet the numbers in Rome were so greatly diminished, that a mass of the conquered Etruscans were brought in to fill the vacant places. These were provided with Roman lands, were organized into four new tribes, and admitted to full civil rights. The “new people” formed more than a sixth part of the whole population of the reconstructed city.
62.No one could see without pity the distress of the people; but Marcus Manlius, the same whose alertness and presence of mind had saved the Capitol, had also reasons of his own for trying to relieve them. He was jealous of Camillus, and thought that his own services had not been duly rewarded. He sold at auction the best portion of his lands, and applied the proceeds to paying the debts of needy persons, thus delivering them from imprisonment and torture. He was rewarded by the unbounded gratitude of the poor; his house was continually thronged with partisans, to whom he spoke of the selfish cruelty of the nobles, in throwing the whole burden of the public calamity on others, andeven accused them of embezzling the immense sums raised to replace the treasures of the temples, which had been borrowed to purchase the retreat of the Gauls.
63.For this charge Manlius was thrown into prison, and the people began to regard him as a martyr to their cause. On his release, he renewed his attacks upon the government. He fortified his house on the Capitoline, and with his party held the whole height in defiance of the authorities. His treason was so evident, that even the tribunes of the people took part with the patricians against him, and he was brought to trial before the popular assembly.
He appeared, followed by several comrades whose lives he had saved in battle, and by four hundred debtors whom he had rescued from the dungeon. He exhibited the spoils of thirty enemies slain with his own hand, and forty crowns or other honorary rewards received from his generals. He appealed to the gods, whose temples he had saved from pollution, and he bade the people look at the Capitol before they pronounced judgment. It was impossible to convict such a criminal in such a presence, for the very spot on the Capitol where Manlius had stood alone against the Gauls, was visible from the Forum. He was afterward condemned for treason and thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, the precipitous side of the Capitoline Hill, looking toward the Tiber.
64.The power of the patricians was only confirmed by this rash and selfish attempt to overthrow it. For seven years the distress of the people went on increasing; the commons lost heart, and their eldest men refused any longer to accept public office. Two younger men now came forward, who were destined, by their firm and wise procedure, to relieve in great measure the miseries of their class.
C. Licinius Stolo was of one of the oldest and wealthiest plebeian families, connected by many marriages with the nobles. Becoming tribune (B. C. 376), together with his friend, L. Sextius, he proposed a new set of laws, designed to remove both the poverty and the political wrongs under which the commons were suffering. (1.) To relieve immediate distress, it was proposed that the enormous interest already paid upon debts should be reckoned as so much defrayed of the principal, and should, therefore, be deducted from the sum still due. (2.) To prevent future poverty, the public lands, hitherto absorbed in great measure by the patricians, were to be thrown open equally to the plebeians, and no man was to be allowed to hold more than 500jugera,[67]or to pasture more than 100 oxen and 500 sheep on the undivided portion. Further, to secure employment to the poor, a certain amount of free labor was required upon every farm. (3.) Two consuls were to be elected, of whom one everyyear should be a plebeian.
65.The strongest objection to a plebeian consulship was on religious grounds; for high patricians held it an impiety to place in the supreme magistracy one who had no right to take the auspices, and whom they regarded as no true Roman. To attack this prejudice in the boldest manner, Licinius proposed to increase the number of keepers of the Sibylline Books from two to ten, and to appoint five of these from the plebeians. These laws were not passed without many years’ violent opposition. At length they were ratified by the Senate and the Comitia Curiata (B. C. 367); and to celebrate this happy agreement between the two orders, a Temple of Concord was built upon the Capitoline Hill. At the same time, a new office, the prætorship, was instituted and confined to the patricians, comprising most of the civil and judicial duties which had hitherto belonged to the consuls, while the latter kept their absolute military power. The first plebeian consul under this arrangement was L. Sextius.
66.The restless and turbulent Gauls re-appeared in Latium, during the same year with the passing of the Licinian laws. They were defeated by the aged general Camillus, who had been six times military tribune and five times dictator. On their second invasion they encamped within five miles of the city, and struck terror, we may well believe, into the hearts of those who remembered the desolations of thirty years before; but, at length, they broke up their camp without fighting, and passed into Campania. On their return through Latium they were signally defeated. In 350 B. C., they spent the winter upon the Alban Mount, and joined the Greek pirates on the coast in ravaging the country, until they were dislodged by L. Furius Camillus, a son of the general.
They made a treaty B. C. 346, after which they never again appeared in Latium. They continued to be the ruling race between the Alps and the northern Apennines, and along the Adriatic as far south as the Abruz´zi. Many towns, like Milan, were held, however, by the Etruscans in a sort of independence, while the Gauls lived in unwalled villages. From their Tuscan subjects, the Gauls learned letters and the arts of civilized life, which spread from them, in a greater or less degree, to all the Alpine populations.
RECAPITULATION.Veii taken B. C. 396, after a ten years’ siege. Defeat of the Romans on the Allia, and capture of their city by the Gauls, B. C. 390. Massacre of the senators. Manlius saves the Capitol, during a seven months’ siege. Rome in ruins. Distress of the poor. Treason of Manlius. The Licinian laws, passed after nine years’ contest, relieve debtors and divide the public lands among the common people. The Gauls overrun central Italy, B. C. 361-346, but at length retire north of the Apennines.
Veii taken B. C. 396, after a ten years’ siege. Defeat of the Romans on the Allia, and capture of their city by the Gauls, B. C. 390. Massacre of the senators. Manlius saves the Capitol, during a seven months’ siege. Rome in ruins. Distress of the poor. Treason of Manlius. The Licinian laws, passed after nine years’ contest, relieve debtors and divide the public lands among the common people. The Gauls overrun central Italy, B. C. 361-346, but at length retire north of the Apennines.
67.From the political struggles which developed the Roman constitution, we turn to the series of foreign wars between Rome and her most powerful rival for the supremacy of southern Italy. The Samnites were a Sabine race, settled as conquerors in the Oscan country. Their possessions were mostly inland, comprising the snow-covered mountain range which separates the Apulian from the Campanian plains, but they extended to the coast between Naples and Pæstum, where they included the once famous cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
The Samnites ranked with the Latins, as the most warlike races of Italy; but the conquests of the former, at the period to which we have now come, had been by far the more brilliant and extensive. In the decline both of Greek and Etruscan power in southern Italy (see Book III, § 90), they had gained control of the whole lower portion of the peninsula, except a few Greek colonies like Tarentum and Neapolis. But Latium, under the leadership of Rome, had advanced surely though slowly, securing each advantage by the formation of Roman colonies, bound by the strongest ties of obedience to the mother city, while the Samnite nation had no settled policy and no regularly constituted head. Each new settlement, therefore, divided and diminished their strength.
68.The conquerors of Cumæ and Capua adopted the luxurious habits of the Greeks and Etruscans, whom they had supplanted, but with whom they continued to live on friendly terms. The Greek-loving inhabitants of the coast dreaded their rude countrymen of the hills, almost as much as did the refined Hellenes themselves, and thus a great division took place in the Samnite stock. The civilized and Hellenized Samnites besought the aid of the Romans against the predatory hordes of their own race, who were constantly swooping down from the Samnian hills to ravage their fields. The Romans consented, on condition of their own supremacy being acknowledged throughout Campania, and their former treaty with Samnium was broken.
69.The First Samnite War began with the march of two Roman armies into Campania, while the Latin allies invaded the Pelignian country on the north. The Roman armies were victorious, and both consuls obtained a triumph. A large force was left, at the request of the Campanians, to guard their cities during the winter. The common soldiers were still burdened with poverty, and the prolonged absence from their farms occasioned serious suffering to their families.
In the second year of the war, mutinous plots were discovered, and a large body of the troops were sent home. On their way they released all the bondmen for debt whom they found working in the fields of their creditors, fortified a regular camp on the slope of the Alban Hills, and were joined by a large body of oppressed common people from the city.But when they met the army hastily raised by the patricians, and sent forth under Valerius the dictator—whose family had always been faithful friends to the people, and who was himself greatly beloved by all classes for his generous character, no less than his military glory—these men, whose revolt had been occasioned by real distress, and not by defect of loyalty, could not bring themselves to fight their fellow-citizens and the defenders of their common country. The two armies stood facing each other, until remorse on one side and pity on the other had overcome all mutual resentment; then, both pressing forward, they grasped hands or rushed into each others’ arms with tears and demands for pardon. The just requirements of the soldiers were granted by the Senate, together with amnesty for their irregular proceedings, and this singular rebellion ended in a lasting peace.
70.The Latins, meanwhile, had been left to carry on the Samnite war by themselves, and their repeated successes encouraged them to assert their independence of Rome. The Romans now (B. C. 341) made peace with the Samnites, and, two years later, turned their arms against the Latins, who were strengthened by alliance with their late opponents, the Campanians and Volscians. The two consuls with their forces moved into Campania, and encamped in the plain of Capua, opposite the army of the three allies. Strict orders were issued against skirmishing or personal encounters, and disobedience was to be punished with death. Ignorant or heedless of the command, Titus Manlius, the consul’s son, accepted a challenge from a Latin warrior, killed his opponent, and brought the spoils in triumph to lay at his father’s feet. The consul turned away his face, and summoning his guards, ordered them to behead the young man before his tent, in the presence of all the soldiers. Roman discipline knew no ties of affection. Manlius, the father, was forever regarded with horror, but Manlius, the consul and general, was strictly obeyed as long as he commanded the armies of Rome.
71.The decisive battle in the Latin war took place at the foot of Vesuvius. The augurs, having taken the auspices as usual, declared that fate demanded the sacrifice of a general on one side and an army on the other. It was therefore made known to the Roman officers that, whichever portion of the army should begin to yield, the consul commanding in that quarter would devote himself to the gods of death and the grave, in order that the army which must perish might be that of the Latins.
Manlius led the Roman right; Publius Decius, the people’s consul, the left. The battle was severe, and bravely fought on both sides; but, at length, the Latin right wing prevailed, and the Roman left began to give way. Decius instantly called the chief pontiff—for, as a plebeian, he himself was ignorant of the ceremonies by which the gods must be addressed—and bade him dictate the form of words in which he was to devote himselfto death. By the direction of the pontiff, he wrapped his toga around his face, set his feet upon a javelin, and repeated the imprecation.[68]Then sending his guard of lictors to the other consul to announce his fate, he mounted his horse, plunged into the host of the enemy, and was quickly slain. The Latins saw and understood the act, but they still fought fiercely, like men who struggled against fate. So equally matched were the main forces, that Manlius gained the day at last only by bringing on the poorer supernumeraries, whom he had armed to constitute a double reserve.
72.A second battle was much more easily won, and the Latins had no strength to rally for a third. The Latin League was wholly broken up, Roman law every-where took the place of local constitutions, and some cities even became Roman colonies. The Latins were one in race and language with Rome, and their transient hostility was exchanged for a close and permanent alliance. The battle under Mount Vesuvius was one of the most important in the history of Rome, for by securing the sovereignty of Latium, it opened the way to the conquest of the world.
73.For the next twelve years the Romans were unable to undertake any great foreign war. Italy was invaded by Alexander of Epirus, uncle of the great Macedonian conqueror, B. C. 332. His quarrel was with the Samnites, but if his success had been equal to his ambition, no engagements with the Romans would have prevented his overrunning the whole peninsula. He was defeated and slain, however, in 326 B. C., and the Romans immediately prepared for a renewed contest with the Samnites, which was to last twenty-two years, B. C. 326-304. The two chief states of Italy fought for sovereignty, and their allies included almost all the other nations in the peninsula.
The events of the first five years were too indecisive to be worth recording. The advantage was generally with the Romans, but the Samnite power was still unbroken, and was able, in 321 B. C., to inflict one of the most severe and disgraceful defeats that Roman arms had ever sustained. The combined forces of Rome, led by the two consuls, were entrapped ina mountain-pass between Naples and Ben´even´tum, known as the “Caudine Forks.” Half the soldiers fell in the fight which ensued; the rest surrendered, but were generously spared by Pontius, the Samnite general, on condition of an honorable peace being signed by the two consuls and by two tribunes of the people, who were present with the troops. The soldiers were then made to “pass under the yoke,”[69]in token of surrender, and were permitted to march away, without their arms, toward Rome. But the Senate, having got back its forces, refused to be bound by the agreement of the consuls. The signers of the treaty, stripped and bound, were given up to the vengeance of the Samnites, but Pontius refused to receive them. He did not choose to punish the innocent for the guilty, nor to justify the Roman government in taking all the advantage of the agreement, and refusing all the sacrifices.
74.The war went on six years without any very important event, until, in 315 B. C., the Samnites gained another great success at Lau´tulæ. Almost all the allies of Rome now deserted what seemed the losing cause. Campania revolted; the Ausonians and Volscians joined the Samnite alliance. But, in the following year, a still more severe and decisive battle gave victory to the Romans. The Samnites were crushed beyond all power of recovery. The war was continued, however, ten years longer, chiefly by the efforts of the Etruscans, Oscans, and Umbrians, to preserve the balance of power in Italy. But these efforts were never united, and the Romans were able to defeat them, one by one, until, in 304 B. C., the Samnites became subject to Rome, and all the other parties concluded a peace. Rome was now, without question, the first nation in Italy; and, considering the disputes which weakened the fragments of Alexander’s empire, might almost be considered the greatest in the world. In intellectual culture, the Romans were still inferior to the conquered Samnites. Pontius, the Samnite general, was well versed in Greek philosophy, and in the elevation of his character far surpassed the proudest Romans of his time.
75.Near the close of the Second Samnite War, the Æqui, who had been for eighty years in a state of neutrality, took up arms against Rome; and immediately after the treaty of B. C. 304, the consuls marched 40,000 men into their territory. A sharp and severe struggle of fifty days resulted in the capture and destruction of forty-one towns. A large portion of the people were sold into slavery, and the rest became subjects of Rome. A few years later, however, they received the rights of citizens, were enrolled in the tribes, and served in the wars against the Samnites.
76.The latter people busily employed the six years’ interval between their second and third great struggle with Rome, in forming and strengthening the “Italian League.” Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls, on the north, were allied with Lucanians, Apulians, most of the Greek cities, and the Samnites, on the south. Rome had the advantage in compactness, numbers, and wealth; her own or her allies’ territory extended across Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and divided the states of her enemies.
The war broke out in 298 B. C., but no important movement was made until, in 295 B. C., the combined armies of the four northern nations advanced toward Rome. The plan of the consuls was at once bold and sagacious. One army awaited the invaders, while another marched directly into Etruria. This movement exposed the weakness of the league, for the Etruscans and Umbrians, deserting their allies, drew off to defend their own territories. The Samnites and Gauls crossed the Apennines to Senti´num, where they were overtaken by the first Roman army. In the battle which followed, the Gallic war-chariots had nearly driven from the field the legions of Decius, the consul, when, remembering the example of his father at Vesuvius, he, likewise, devoted himself to the powers of death for the deliverance of Rome. The legions were at length triumphant; 25,000 of the enemy lay dead upon the field.
77.The Gauls now withdrew from the league, but the Samnites continued the war with unabated resolution. Twenty-eight years after his great victory at the Caudine Forks, Pontius again defeated a Roman army under Fabius Gur´ges. The Romans were so exasperated by this defeat where they were confident of victory, that they would have deprived the consul of his command, had not his old father, Fabius Maximus, offered to serve as his lieutenant.
A great victory was now gained, in which Pontius was captured, and made to walk, loaded with chains, in the triumph of the consul. When the procession reached the ascent to the Capitol, he was led aside and beheaded in the Mamertine prison—he who, thirty years before, had spared the lives and liberty of two Roman armies, and even generously released the officers when given over to his vengeance! This base treatment of a brave foe has been called the greatest stain in the Roman annals. The war was ended with the complete submission of Samnium, and the Romans established a colony of 20,000 people at Venu´sia, to hold the conquered territory in awe, B. C. 290.
78.In the same year, the consul, Curius Denta´tus, began and ended another war against the Sabines, who had come to the aid of their Samnite kinsmen. They were subdued, and their extensive country, rich in oil, wine, and forests of oak, fell into the possession of the Romans. The commons at Rome suffered greatly, nevertheless, from the burdens of the war. Their farms had been neglected during their absence withthe army, and those who had the misfortune to have been taken prisoners, had to be ransomed at a cost ruinous to small fortunes.
Curius, the conqueror of the Sabines, proposed a new Agrarian law for the division of their lands among the poor of Rome. A political contest of several years ensued, during which the mass of the people seceded again to the Janiculum. A rumor of foreign invasion induced the Senate to yield and appoint Hortensius, a plebeian of ancient family, to be dictator. By his wise and conciliatory counsels, peace was restored. He convened all the people in a grove of oaks without the walls, and by the solemn oaths of the whole assembly passed the Hortensian laws, which ended the civil strife of Rome for 150 years. Every citizen received an allotment of land, and certain invidious marks of distinction between patricians and plebeians were effaced, B. C. 286.
RECAPITULATION.The Hellenized Samnites ask the aid of Rome against their highland countrymen. The First Samnite War, B. C. 343-341, opens with success to the Romans. Sedition of troops in Campania. The Latins revolt against Rome and join the Campanians and Volscians. The Romans make peace and alliance with the Samnites for the Latin War, B. C. 340-338. In the battle of Vesuvius, Decius, the consul, devotes himself to death, and the Romans are victorious. The Latin League suppressed, and the supremacy of Rome established. An invasion of Italy by Alexander of Epirus, is followed by the Second Samnite War, B. C. 326-304. The Romans defeated at the Caudine Forks, B. C. 321, but at last completely victorious. They conquer the Æqui, B. C. 304. Third Samnite War, and Italian League against Rome, B. C. 298-290. Great victory at Sentinum over Gauls, Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians. Capture of Pontius, B. C. 292, and end of the Samnite wars. Sabine territories conquered and divided among the people, by Hortensian laws.
The Hellenized Samnites ask the aid of Rome against their highland countrymen. The First Samnite War, B. C. 343-341, opens with success to the Romans. Sedition of troops in Campania. The Latins revolt against Rome and join the Campanians and Volscians. The Romans make peace and alliance with the Samnites for the Latin War, B. C. 340-338. In the battle of Vesuvius, Decius, the consul, devotes himself to death, and the Romans are victorious. The Latin League suppressed, and the supremacy of Rome established. An invasion of Italy by Alexander of Epirus, is followed by the Second Samnite War, B. C. 326-304. The Romans defeated at the Caudine Forks, B. C. 321, but at last completely victorious. They conquer the Æqui, B. C. 304. Third Samnite War, and Italian League against Rome, B. C. 298-290. Great victory at Sentinum over Gauls, Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians. Capture of Pontius, B. C. 292, and end of the Samnite wars. Sabine territories conquered and divided among the people, by Hortensian laws.
79.Within three years (B. C. 283), the Romans were menaced by a new danger, in a powerful coalition formed by the Tarentines, and including nearly all the nations of Italy. The storm gathered swiftly and burst from all quarters at once. In the south, the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians were in arms; in the north, the Etruscans and Umbrians, with hordes of Gallic mercenaries, were pouring into the field. Arre´tium alone stood firmly by the Roman alliance, and was besieged by an army of Etruscans and Gauls. The consul, Metel´lus, marching to its relief, was defeated with the total loss of his army. Embassadors, sent to remonstrate with the Seno´nian Gauls for the infringement of their treaty with Rome, were murdered, and their bodies hewed to pieces and cast out without burial. This outrage, which the laws of the rudest savages pronounced sacrilege, provoked a speedy vengeance. Dolabel´la, the consul, marched into the Gallic territory with his army, killed every man who was found, carried off the women and children as slaves, and reduced every village to a heap of ashes and rubbish.
80.The Boian Gauls took up arms to avenge their brethren, and, joining the Etruscans, met the Roman forces in the valley of the Tiber, near the little lake Vad´imon. They were defeated so thoroughly that very few escaped from the field. The consul Fabric´ius, the following year, defeated the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians in several great battles, broke up the coalition in the south, and collected an amount of spoils which enabled him to pay all the war expenses of the year, and, beside allowing a liberal share to every soldier, to leave half a million of dollars in the treasury. Tarentum, the prime mover of the war, had never drawn a sword, but had left all its burdens and losses to her allies. To punish this passive but mischievous policy, a Roman fleet was now sent to cruise around the eastern and southern coasts of Italy. It was defeated and sunk by the Tarentines in their own harbor. They then seized Thurii, expelled the Roman garrison, and, in the name of all the Italian Greeks, sent to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, for aid.
81.This accomplished and ambitious prince was glad of a new field of enterprise. He hastened into Italy with a well-appointed army of 25,500 men, drilled and equipped in the Macedonian fashion, and supplied with twenty elephants. The gay and self-indulgent Tarentines, quite willing that another should fight their battles for them, forgot their promises of service and subsidies; but Pyrrhus showed them that he was master by stopping the sports of the circus and theaters, and the banquets of the clubs, and keeping the citizens under arms from morning to night. Even with inferior forces he was able to defeat the Roman legions at Heracle´a, on the Siris. Seven times the Epirotes and Greeks were driven from the field, and seven times regained it; but when the last Italian reserve was engaged, Pyrrhus brought on his elephants, till then unknown in Italy, and they put to flight the Roman horse. The rout was complete; the Romans did not stay to defend their camp, but fled to Venu´sia, leaving Pyrrhus master of the field.
82.He was now joined by many allies, some of whom had even been subjects or friends of Rome; but the advantage of his victory was not sufficient to balance his loss in officers and men—losses the more serious as Greece was now overrun by the Gauls, and there was little hope of recruits. In these circumstances, Pyrrhus sent to Rome his embassador, Cin´eas, an orator of such brilliant talent, that he was said to have won more cities by his tongue than Pyrrhus by his sword. A large party was inclined to listen to his proposals of “peace, friendship, and alliance.” But Appius Claudius—thirty years ago censor, now a blind old man—heard in his house that Rome was making peace, with a victorious enemy still upon Italian soil. He caused himself to be carried in a litter through the Forum to the Senate-house. When he arrived, all his sons and sons-in-law went out to meet him and lead him to his ancient place. All the Senate listened in breathless silence as the old man rose to speak, protesting against the dishonor of his country. When he ceased, it was voted that no peace should be made while any foreign foe was in Italy, and that the orator who had so nearly persuaded them should leave the city that very day.
83.The war went on between the consummate genius of Pyrrhus and the unconquerable will of the Roman people. They were fighting for existence, while Pyrrhus fought for glory; and though in every pitched battle he was victorious, fresh armies were always ready to oppose him. Still hoping to make peace with Rome, he refused to ransom or exchange the multitude of prisoners whom he had taken, but he allowed them all to return to Rome for the winter holidays—the Saturna´lia—on their simple promise to return if the Senate refused a treaty. The Senate refused, and every man returned. In his second campaign, Pyrrhus gained another brilliant victory, at As´culum, over the Romans and their allies. But his restless ambition now turned to a new field, and he departed into Sicily, where the Greek cities had implored his aid against the Carthaginians. Once master of that fertile island, he believed that he could attempt the conquest of Italy with better resources, and he left troops to hold Tarentum and Locri for his base of future operations in the peninsula.
84.In Sicily his genius and valor for a time drove all before him. The strong town of Eryx was taken, Pyrrhus himself being the first to mount the scaling-ladders. The Carthaginians implored peace, offering ships and money as the conditions of an alliance. Pyrrhus haughtily refused; but a reverse which he afterward suffered at Lilybæ´um, encouraged his enemies and alienated his allies. After two years he returned into Italy, pursued by a Carthaginian fleet, which defeated him with a loss of seventy ships. On landing, he was met by a body of Mamertines,[70]who had crossed the straits from Sicily, and whom he defeated only by a sharp and costly battle. He arrived at Tarentum with an army equal in numbers, but far inferior in character, to that with which he had come from Epirus four years earlier. His faithful Epirotes were slain, and in their places were ill-trained Italian mercenaries, who would serve only as long as pay and plunder abounded.
85.Being in great want of money to satisfy these unruly followers, Pyrrhus yielded to the advice of his Epicure´an courtiers, and appropriated the treasures of the temple of Proser´pina, at Locri. The money was embarked by sea for Tarentum, but a storm drove the sacrilegious vessel back upon the coasts of Locri; and Pyrrhus was so affected by remorse, that he restored the gold and put to death the counselors. He believed that he was ever after haunted by the wrath of Proserpina, which dragged him down to ruin. The following year he was totally defeated near Beneventum, by Curius Dentatus, the consul. Toward the end of the year he passed over into Greece, still leaving a garrison at Tarentum, in token of his unconquered resolution to return.
During the first invasion by Pyrrhus, the Eighth Legion, stationed at Rhegium, and composed chiefly of Campanian mercenaries, had, like the Mamertines in Sicily, thrown off their allegiance, slaughtered the Greek inhabitants, and held the town as an independent military post. They were now reduced, and most of the garrison put to the sword; the rest, consisting of the original soldiers of the legion, were tried at Rome, scourged, and beheaded.
86.Roman supremacy was now speedily established both in northern and southern Italy. Picenum was conquered, and half her inhabitants were forcibly removed to the shores of the Gulf of Salerno. Umbria submitted B. C. 266, the chief cities of Etruria followed, and the entire peninsula south of the Macra and Rubicon became subject to Rome. Hitherto the Romans, like the Spartans, had prided themselves upon the homeliness of their manners. When the Samnites sent envoys to M. Curius to bespeak his kind offices with the Senate, and offer him a present of gold, they found the ex-consul seated by his fire and roasting turnips in the ashes, with a wooden platter before him. To their proffered gift he replied, “I count it my glory not to possess gold myself, but to have power over those who do.”
The eleven years following the departure of Pyrrhus were a period of the greatest prosperity ever enjoyed by the common people of Rome, and the wealth arising from the conquest of Italy materially changed their manner of living. Every freeman received a fresh grant of sevenjugeraof land or a portion of money. The property of the displaced governments went, of course, to the Roman state, and thus valuable possessions of mines, quarries, forests, fisheries, and public lands were added to its domains. The administration of the public revenues demanded a greatly increased number of officials, and the rich, as well as the poor, profited by the results of war.
87.The new territories were secured by that system of colonies which, in later times, served to establish the Roman power from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. The colonies were of two kinds. Most favored were those composed of “Roman citizens,” who retained all their rights as such, voting in the assembly, and being eligible to any office which they could have filled if remaining at Rome. Those who joined a “Latin colony,” on the other hand, lost their civil rights in Rome, but they had privileges which attached them both by interest and affection to the mother city. Ostia, and the maritime colonies generally, were of the former and higher class. The great system of Roman roads, which ultimately intersected all western Europe, and may be seen to-day in their massive remains, owed its origin to Appius Claudius “the Blind,” who when censor, in 312 B. C., constructed the Appian Way to connect Rome with her new dependency, Campania. He also built the first of the Roman aqueducts, to supply the poorer portion of the city with water.
88.The free-born plebeians of Rome now possessed half the high offices in the state, and even in the sacred colleges of pontiffs and augurs. They were admitted to the Senate when they had served as consuls, or had been appointed to be either prætors or ædiles. Appius Claudius, in his censorship, went still further, and placed upon the rolls of the Senate the names of some who had been born slaves, or who possessed no lands. He enrolled these two very numerous classes in the tribes as voters; and instead of assigning them to those of the city, where they almost exclusively belonged, he distributed them over all the districts, so that they might control all elections. To rescue Rome from the inevitable rule of the mob, his successors in the censorship confined these new votes to the city, thus giving them the control only of four tribes out of thirty-one, and so the danger was averted.
RECAPITULATION.Coalitions in the north and south against the Romans. Siege of Arretium, and defeat of Metellus. War with the Senonian and Boian Gauls. Victories of Fabricius in the south. Pyrrhus comes to the aid of the Tarentines; defeats the Romans at Heraclea, Asculum, etc.; sends Cineas to Rome, whose persuasions are thwarted by Appius Claudius the Blind; passes into Sicily, and after two years returns to Epirus. All Italy subject to Rome. Increased wealth and luxury of the people. Many new colonies upon the conquered lands. Roads and aqueducts are constructed. Freedmen and non-possessors of land admitted to the suffrage by Appius Claudius.
Coalitions in the north and south against the Romans. Siege of Arretium, and defeat of Metellus. War with the Senonian and Boian Gauls. Victories of Fabricius in the south. Pyrrhus comes to the aid of the Tarentines; defeats the Romans at Heraclea, Asculum, etc.; sends Cineas to Rome, whose persuasions are thwarted by Appius Claudius the Blind; passes into Sicily, and after two years returns to Epirus. All Italy subject to Rome. Increased wealth and luxury of the people. Many new colonies upon the conquered lands. Roads and aqueducts are constructed. Freedmen and non-possessors of land admitted to the suffrage by Appius Claudius.
89.The great commercial Republic of Carthage, though allied with Rome during the wars with Pyrrhus, had regarded with jealousy the steadily increasing power of the Italian state. The Roman people, on the other hand, had been so enriched by their recent wars, that they were eager for fresh plunder and a new allotment of conquered lands. A slight and doubtful pretext was, therefore, sufficient to plunge the two nations into war. The Carthaginians had seized the citadel of Messana, under pretense of aiding the Mamertines against Hi´ero of Syracuse. The Romans had recently punished the buccaneers of Rhegium for precisely the same crime which the “Sons of Mara” had committed at Messana, but when the latter sought their aid against both Syracusans and Carthaginians, the temptation was too great; they accepted the disreputable alliance, and invaded Sicily with 20,000 men.
90.Having gained possession of Messana, they kept it for their own. The combined forces of Syracuse and Carthage, besieging the place, were defeated by Claudius, the consul; and Hiero, being distrustful of his African allies, returned home. The next year he made peace with the Romans, and continued until his death, nearly half a century later, their faithful friend and ally. Most of the Greek cities in Sicily followed his example. Hannibal,[71]son of Gisco, the Carthaginian general, could no longer meet the Romans in the field, but shut himself up in Agrigentum and was besieged. Hanno, attempting to relieve him, was decisively defeated; the city was taken, and its people were sold as slaves.
Hannibal, who escaped to Panor´mus (Palermo) with most of his troops, now carried the war upon the sea, and ravaged the defenseless coasts of Italy with a fleet of sixty vessels. The next year his lieutenant, Boö´des, with a naval detachment, met the consul, Scipio, at Lip´ara, and captured his whole squadron. Hannibal then set out with fifty ships to ravage the coasts of Italy again. But the Romans, wisely learning from their enemies, were now prepared to meet them on their own element. A Carthaginian quin´quereme (a vessel with five rows of oars) had been cast ashore on the coast of Bruttium. It was used as a model, and the Romans, who previously had had nothing greater than triremes, possessed, within two months, one hundred first-class war vessels. While the ships were building, the crews were trained on shore to their peculiar and complicated motions. In the very first encounter, Hannibal was defeated; in the second, off Mylæ, he lost fifty vessels, among them his magnificent flag-ship, which had formerly belonged to Pyrrhus.
91.In 259 B. C., Sardinia and Corsica were attacked, and the town of Ale´ria taken by the Romans. The following year, another great naval victory was gained off Ec´nomus, in Sicily; and the consuls, Manlius and Regulus, invaded Africa. They captured and fortified the town of Cly´pea, which they made their headquarters, and then proceeded to lay waste the lands of Carthage with fire and sword. The beautiful villas of the nobles and merchants afforded inestimable spoils; and 20,000 persons, many ofwhom were of exalted rank, and accustomed to all the refinements of wealth, were dragged away as slaves.
In the winter, Manlius returned to Rome with half the army and all the plunder, while Regulus remained to prosecute the war. He defeated the Carthaginian generals, captured their camp, and overran the country at pleasure. More than three hundred walled villages or towns were taken. In vain the judges and nobles of Carthage cast their children into the brazen arms of Moloch, whence they rolled into the fiery furnace burning always before him. The hideous idol was not appeased, and the Roman general was equally implacable. To all embassies he refused peace, except on such intolerable terms that even disastrous war seemed better.
92.At the darkest moment, relief arrived in the person of a Spartan general, Xanthippus, who came with a body of Greek mercenaries. His military fame and the evident wisdom of his counsels inspired such confidence, that he was put in the place of the incompetent Punic commanders. With his 4,000 Greeks, added to the Carthaginian infantry and 100 elephants, he defeated and captured Regulus, and wholly destroyed the Roman army. A still more terrible disaster befell the fleet which had been sent to bring away the shattered remnants of the forces from Africa. A violent storm came on, and the southern coast of Sicily was strewn with the remains of 260 vessels and 100,000 men, B. C. 255.
The Romans, though nearly driven to despair of the republic, never relaxed their exertions, but equipped a new fleet, with which, the following year, they captured the important town of Panormus. This fleet was wrecked, B. C. 253, and the next two years were full of discouragements; but, in 250 B. C., a brilliant victory, won at Panormus by the proconsul Metellus, tended to restore the balance of the opposing forces. A hundred elephants, taken alive, were exhibited in the triumph of Metellus.
93.For the next eight years, the advantage was usually with the Carthaginians. Hamilcar Barca, the father of the great Hannibal, ravaged the coasts of Italy, and the Romans had no leader of equal genius to oppose to him. At last they rallied all their forces to put an end to the war. The wealthier citizens at their own expense fitted out a fleet of 200 ships, and the consul Luta´tius gained a decisive victory among the islands west of Sicily. This reverse, following twenty-three years of exhausting war, so disheartened the Carthaginians, that they agreed to abandon Sicily and all the neighboring islands, to pay 2,000 talents, and release all the Roman prisoners without ransom.
94.The First Punic War had lasted nearly twenty-four years, B. C. 264-241 inclusive. Rome emerged from it a great naval power, able to meet on equal terms the well-trained mariners who had hitherto ruledthe western Mediterranean. Foreseeing that the struggle must be renewed, both parties spent the twenty-three years which followed in strenuous preparations. Rome seized upon Sardinia and Corsica; and Carthage, absorbed and weakened by a revolt of her mercenary troops, was compelled to submit, and even to pay a heavy fine for having presumed to remonstrate.
These islands, with Sicily, were placed under proconsular government, the system by which Rome afterward managed all her vast foreign possessions. The two consuls, on completing their year of office, divided the “provinces” between them by lot or agreement, and each held in his own, both military and civil control, while the finances were managed by quæstors responsible only to the Senate. When the provinces became numerous, the greater number were governed by pro-prætors. One-tenth of the whole produce of these conquered countries was claimed by Rome, beside a duty of five per cent on all imports and exports.
95.By the request of the western Greeks, Rome exerted her new naval power in clearing the Adriatic of the Illyrian pirates, who were ravaging its coasts and destroying its commerce. Their queen, Teuta, seized the Roman embassadors who were first sent into her country, killed two and imprisoned the third. In the war which immediately followed, she lost the greater part of her dominions, and was compelled to keep her corsairs within stricter limits for the future, beside paying a yearly tribute to her conquerors. In gratitude for this important service, the Romans were admitted to equal rights with the Hellenic race in the Isthmian Games and the Eleusinian Mysteries, B. C. 228.
96.While thus asserting her power in the Greek peninsula, Rome desired to extend her Italian dominion to its natural limit in the Alpine range. The Gauls were not slow in taking the alarm. Obtaining fresh forces from their kinsmen beyond the mountains, they advanced into central Italy, and, overrunning Etruria, threatened Rome again as in the days of Brennus. Three armies were quickly in the field to oppose them; and though one was routed, another, under the consul Æmil´ius, aided by Regulus,[72]who had unexpectedly arrived from Sardinia, gained a decisive victory which nearly destroyed the Gallic host. Within three years all Cisalpine Gaul submitted to Rome, B. C. 222. Mediola´num and Comum (Milan and Como), as well as Placen´tia, Parma, Mode´na, Man´tua, Vero´na, and Brix´ia, were occupied by Roman colonies, connected with the capital by the great military road called the Flaminian Way, and its continuations.
97.Carthage, meanwhile, had yielded only from necessity, and for a time, to the superior power of Rome. A large majority of her citizens were for renewing the war at the earliest possible moment; and to recruit her power and wealth, Hamilcar had devoted all his energies to the conquest of the Spanish peninsula, B. C. 236-228. After his death, his son-in-law, Has´drubal, organized and developed the resources of the country by building towns, encouraging trade and tillage, training the native tribes into efficient soldiers, and working the newly discovered silver mines, which, beside paying all the expenses of the province, were rapidly filling up the home treasury. Rome, with her command of the sea, secured from fear of invasion, saw without uneasiness the prosperity of her rival. But an item which no one could have foreseen, the genius of Hannibal, was now to be added to the resources of Carthage.
98.At nine years of age he had accompanied his father into Spain, and before the altar of his country’s gods had taken a solemn oath of eternal and unrelenting enmity to Rome. The oath of the child had not been forgotten by the youth. At the age of eighteen he fought by his father’s side in the battle where Hamilcar was slain; and during the following eight years of Hasdrubal’s administration, that general intrusted his young brother-in-law with the command of most of his military enterprises. Upon the death of Hasdrubal, the army by acclamation placed Hannibal at its head, and the government at home neither could nor would annul the appointment.
Having confirmed his power in Spain by two years’ war against the native tribes, Hannibal deliberately sought the quarrel with Rome to which he had devoted his life. The Greek city of Saguntum had placed itself under the protection of Rome. It was attacked by Hannibal, and taken after an obstinate defense of eight months. The Romans sent to Carthage to demand the surrender of the young general for this breach of the treaty. The reply was a declaration of war.
99.Leaving his brother Hasdrubal in charge of Spain, Hannibal prepared for a bolder movement than the Romans had foreseen. He knew that the great mountain-barrier of the Alps had already often been traversed by the Gauls, and he relied upon finding able guides among this people, who were mostly friendly to Carthage. He resolved, therefore, on the hitherto unprecedented feat of leading an army from Spain into Italy by land. Having offered, during the winter, solemn sacrifices and prayers for success, at the distant shrine of the Tyrian Hercules at Gades, he set forth from Carthagena, in the spring of 218 B. C., with an army of 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and a considerable number of elephants. The Spanish tribes between the Ebro and the Pyrenees were yet to be overcome. They resisted bravely, but were subdued, and a force of 11,000 men was left to hold them in subjection.
100.Having passed the Pyrenees, Hannibal advanced through friendly tribes of Gauls to the Rhone, which he crossed near the modern town of Orange, gaining an advance of three days upon the army of Scipio, the consul, who had intended to stop him. The passage of the Alps, with such a force, was one of the greatest military achievements of ancient times. The higher mountains were already obstructed by the snows of early autumn; hostile tribes contested his passage in narrow and dangerous defiles; and in two fierce battles, the army of Hannibal narrowly escaped total destruction. When, after fifteen days of toilsome and dangerous marching, he emerged into the plain of the Po, it was with scarcely more than one-fourth of the great army which had accompanied him from Carthagena.
101.The Insubrian Gauls welcomed Hannibal as their deliverer from the hated power of Rome. After a short period of rest in their hospitable country, he sought Scipio, and totally routed his forces in a battle on the Tici´nus. By a still greater victory on the Tre´bia, over the forces of the two consuls (Dec., 218 B. C.), Hannibal became master of northern Italy. All the Gauls who had wavered now hastened to join his standard; but the gain from this quarter was balanced by the irreparable loss of his elephants, and the severe suffering of his African and Spanish troops from the unwonted coldness of the winter.
In the spring of 217 B. C., he crossed the Apennines, and traversed the marshes of the Arno, a passage of tremendous difficulty, in which many of his beasts of burden perished. Again seeking battle, Hannibal passed the army of Flaminius at Arretium, and laid waste the country toward Peru´sia, thus provoking the consul to follow. When he had drawn the Roman army into a most perilous position, between precipitous cliffs and the Lake Thrasymene, he let loose his Gauls and Numidians to the attack. The defeat of the Romans was overwhelming: thousands were forced into the lake; thousands fell by the sword, among whom was Flaminius himself; and 15,000 prisoners remained in the hands of the enemy.
102.A panic seized Rome; the conqueror was instantly expected at her gates, and Fabius was elected dictator with unlimited powers. But Hannibal had sought to detach the Italian allies from Rome, by releasing without ransom all their prisoners whom he had taken. Wishing to give time for the disunion to take effect, he turned aside into Apulia, where he rested and recruited his troops worn by so many hardships.
It was already proved in three battles that the Carthaginian was irresistible in the field. The policy of Fabius, therefore, was to avoid a general engagement, while he annoyed and weakened his enemy by cutting off his foraging parties, and otherwise harassing his march. In vain Hannibal crossed the Apennines into the rich Campanian fields, plundering and destroying the crops; he could neither capture a town nor entice Fabius into a battle. The latter fortified the Samnian mountain-passes, thinking to catch his enemy in a trap; but Hannibal eluded the snare and retired safe into Apulia, laden with abundant provision for the comfort of his winter-quarters.
103.Great discontent was felt at Rome with the cautious policy of the dictator, and, in the spring of 216 B. C., an army of nearly 90,000 men was led into Apulia by the two consuls Æmilius Paulus and Terentius Varro. They were met by Hannibal on the plain of the Aufidus, near the little town of Cannæ. The Carthaginians were inferior in numbers but superior in discipline, especially in the Numidian horsemen, who had always been victorious in an open field. Never had the Romans suffered so overwhelming a defeat. Their army was annihilated. From 40,000 to 50,000 men lay dead upon the plain, among whom were Æmilius the consul, eighty senators, and the flower of Roman knighthood. Varro, the other consul, with a small but resolute band, made his way in good order from the battle-field; the rest of the survivors were either dispersed or taken prisoners.
104.Southern Italy was now lost to Rome. Except the Roman colonies and the Greek cities held by Roman garrisons, all submitted to Hannibal. Capua opened her gates and became the winter-quarters of the African army. Philip of Macedon and Hieron´ymus of Syracuse made alliance with Carthage, and wars with these two powers divided the attention of the Romans. Still, beside keeping two armies in the foreign fields, they occupied every province of Italy with a separate force; and though too wise to meet Hannibal again in a general engagement, hemmed him in closely and cut off his supplies. The great general was now but faintly supported at home, and the ungenerous policy of Carthage probably deprived her of the conquest of Italy.
105.Three years, therefore, passed with no decisive events. In 212 B. C., Syracuse was taken by Marcellus after two years’ siege. The attacks of the Romans had been long foiled by the skill of Archimedes, the philosopher, who is said to have burnt their ships at the distance of a bow-shot from the walls, by means of a combination of mirrors which concentrated the sun’s rays. He constructed powerful engines, which, when attached to the walls, grappled the Roman ships and lifted them out of the water; and, in short, the brain of Archimedes was a better defense to Syracuse than the arms of all her soldiers. In the taking of the city, the philosopher was slain by some ignorant troopers; but Marcellus deeply regretted the event. He ordered him to be buried with high honors, and distinguished his family by many marks of friendship.
106.Hannibal had been long anxiously awaiting the arrival of his brother from Spain; but the generalship of the two Scipios, Cneius and Publius, who conducted the war in that country, and more especially the brilliant genius of the son of the latter, afterward known as Africanus, had detained Hasdrubal and involved him in many disasters, even the loss of his capital, Carthagena. At last, in 208 B. C., Hasdrubal left Spain to the care of two other generals, and striking out a new path, as his brother’s route of eleven years before was now guarded by the Romans, he crossed the Pyrenees at their western extremity and plunged into the heart of Gaul. Many of the restless people flocked to his standard, and he “descended from the Alps like a rolling snow-ball, far greater than he came over the Pyrenees.”
He found some of Hannibal’s roads uninjured; the mountaineers made no effort to dispute his passage, and he arrived in Italy before he was expected, so that no Roman army was ready to receive him. He might, perhaps, have settled once for all the supremacy of Carthage by marching directly on Rome, for the resources of the Republic, both in men and money, had been drained to the utmost, and another Thrasymene or Cannæ would have ended her existence.
107.Hasdrubal lost time in the siege of Placentia, and his letter, describing to Hannibal his plan of operations, fell into the hands of Nero, the consul, who, by a rapid and secret march, joined his colleague at Sena with 7,000 men, leaving the main part of his army still facing Hannibal in the south. Hasdrubal was uninformed of the reinforcement of his enemy, but his quick ear caught one more trumpet-note than usual, at sunrise, in the Roman camp; and as he rode forth to reconnoiter, he discovered that the horses appeared over-driven, and the armor of the men stained. He therefore delayed until night-fall, and then moved to cross the river Metau´rus in search of a stronger position. But his guides betrayed him, and when morning dawned his worn and weary troops were still on the nearer side of the river, where they were soon overtaken by the foe. He made the best arrangement of his men which the crisis would admit, placing the ten elephants in front “like a line of moving fortresses,” his veteran Spanish infantry on the right, the Ligurians in the center, and the Gauls on the left.
The battle was fiercely contested, for both armies felt that the decision of the day would be final, and that there was no hope for the vanquished. At last Nero, by a circuitous movement, fell upon the Spanish infantry, which had already borne the brunt of the fighting. Hasdrubal saw that the day was lost, and scorning to survive his men or to adorn a Roman triumph, he spurred his horse into the midst of a cohort, and died, sword in hand, B. C. 207.
108.The consul Nero returned to his camp before Hannibal had even discovered his absence. Hasdrubal’s arrival in Italy, the battle and its result were first made known to the great general by seeing the ghastly head of his brother, which Nero had brutally ordered to be thrown within his lines. Hannibal read the tale of disaster in the terrible message, and groaned aloud that he recognized the fate of Carthage. Though he remained four years strongly posted in the mountain fastnesses of Bruttium, the issue of the war was already decided. In 204 B. C., the younger Scipio crossed into Africa, and the Carthaginians were compelled to recall Hannibal.
The final battle was fought at Zama, B. C. 202. The great Carthaginian displayed again his perfect generalship, but he had no longer his invincible cavalry, and his elephants were rendered useless by the skillful tactics of Scipio. He was defeated with the loss of 20,000 men slain, and an equal number of prisoners. The peace, concluded in the following year, took from Carthage all her possessions beyond the limits of Africa, and all the lands conquered from Numidia, whose king, Mas´sinis´sa, had rendered important aid to Scipio in the recent war. She surrendered, also, her fleet and elephants, promised a yearly tribute of 200 talents, and engaged to make no war without permission from Rome.