Part 25 (1/2)
The first Punic war began B.C. 264, and lasted twenty-four years. Before we present the leading events of that memorable struggle, let us glance at the power of Carthage-the formidable rival of Rome.
(M834) As has been narrated, Carthage was founded upon a peninsula, or rocky promontory, sixty-five years before the foundation of Rome. The inhabitants of Carthage, descendants of Phnicians, were therefore of Semitic origin. The African farmer was a Canaanite, and all the Canaanites lacked the instinct of political life. The Phnicians thought of commerce and wealth, and not political aggrandizement. With half their power, the h.e.l.lenic cities achieved their independence. Carthage was a colony of Phnicians, and had their ideas. It lived to traffic and get rich. It was washed on all sides, except the west, by the sea, and above the city, on the western heights, was the citadel Byrsa, called so from the word ??sa, a hide, according to the legend that Dido, when she came to Africa, bought of the inhabitants as much land as could be encompa.s.sed by a bull's hide, which she cut into thongs, and inclosed the territory on which she built the citadel. The city grew to be twenty-three miles in circuit, and contained seven hundred thousand people. It had two harbors, an outer and inner, the latter being surrounded by a lofty wall. A triple wall was erected across the peninsula, to protect it from the west, three miles long, and between the walls were stables for three hundred elephants, four thousand horses, and barracks for two thousand infantry, with magazines and stores. In the centre of the inner harbor was an island, called Cothon, the sh.o.r.es of which were lined with quays and docks for two hundred and twenty s.h.i.+ps. The citadel, Byrsa, was two miles in circuit, and when it finally surrendered to the Romans, fifty thousand people marched out of it. On its summit was the famous temple of aesculapius. At the northwestern angle of the city were twenty immense reservoirs, each four hundred feet by twenty-eight, filled with water, brought by an aqueduct at a distance of fifty-two miles. The suburb Megara, beyond the city walls, but within those that defended the peninsula, was the site of magnificent gardens and villas, which were adorned with every kind of Grecian art, for the Carthaginians were rich before Rome had conquered even Latium. This great city controlled the other Phnician cities, part of Sicily, Numidia, Mauritania, Lybia-in short, the northern part of Africa, and colonies in Spain and the islands of the western part of the Mediterranean. The city alone could furnish in an exigency forty thousand heavy infantry, one thousand cavalry, and twenty thousand war chariots.
The garrison of the city amounted to twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse, and the total force which the city could command was more than one hundred thousand men. The navy was the largest in the world, for, in the sea-fight with Regulus, it numbered three hundred and fifty s.h.i.+ps, carrying one hundred and fifty thousand men.
Such was this great power against which the Romans were resolved to contend. It would seem that Carthage was willing that Rome should have the sovereignty of Italy, provided it had itself the possession of Sicily. But this was what the Romans were determined to prevent. The object of contention, then, between these two rivals, the one all-powerful by land and the other by sea, was the possession of Sicily.
(M835) During the first three years of the war, the Romans made themselves masters of all the island, except the maritime fortresses at its western extremity, Eryx and Panormus. Meanwhile the Carthaginians ravaged the coasts of Italy, and destroyed its commerce. The Romans then saw that Sicily could not be held without a navy as powerful as that of their rivals, and it was resolved to build at once one hundred and twenty s.h.i.+ps.
A Carthaginian quinquereme, wrecked on the Bruttian sh.o.r.e, furnished the model, the forests of Silo the timber, and the maritime cities of Italy and Greece, the sailors. In sixty days a fleet of one hundred and twenty s.h.i.+ps was built and ready for sea. The superior seamans.h.i.+p of the Carthaginians was neutralized by converting the decks into a battle-field for soldiers. Each s.h.i.+p was provided with a long boarding-bridge, hinged up against the mast, to be let down on the prow, and fixed to the hostile deck by a long spike, which projected from its end. The bridge was wide enough for two soldiers to pa.s.s abreast, and its sides were protected by bulwarks.
(M836) The first encounter of the Romans with the Carthaginians resulted in the capture of the whole force, a squadron of seventeen s.h.i.+ps. The second encounter ended in the capture of more s.h.i.+ps than the Roman admiral, Cn. Scipio, had lost. The next battle, that of Mylae, in which the whole Roman fleet was engaged, again turned in favor of the Romans, whose bad seamans.h.i.+p provoked the contempt of their foes, and led to self-confidence. The battle was gained by grappling the enemy's s.h.i.+ps one by one. The Carthaginians lost fourteen s.h.i.+ps, and only saved the rest by inglorious flight.
(M837) For six years no decided victories were won by either side, but in the year B.C. 256, nine years from the commencement of hostilities, M.
Atilius Regulus, a n.o.ble of the same cla.s.s and habits as Cincinnatus and Fabricius, with a fleet of three hundred and thirty s.h.i.+ps, manned by one hundred thousand sailors, encountered the Carthaginian fleet of three hundred and fifty s.h.i.+ps on the southern coast of Sicily, and gained a memorable victory. It was gained on the same principle as Epaminondas and Alexander won their battles, by concentrating all the forces upon a single point, and breaking the line. The Romans advanced in the shape of a wedge, with the two consuls' s.h.i.+ps at the apex. The Carthaginian admirals allowed the centre to give way before the advancing squadron. The right wing made a circuit out in the open sea, and took the Roman reserve in the rear, while the left wing attacked the vessels that were towing the horse transports, and forced them to the sh.o.r.e. But the Carthaginian centre, being thus left weak, was no match for the best s.h.i.+ps of the Romans, and the consuls, victorious in the centre, turned to the relief of the two rear divisions. The Carthaginians lost sixty-four s.h.i.+ps, which were taken, besides twenty-four which were sunk, and retreated with the remainder to the Gulf of Carthage, to defend the sh.o.r.es against the antic.i.p.ated attack.
(M838) The Romans, however, made for another point, and landed in the harbor of Aspis, intrenched a camp to protect their s.h.i.+ps, and ravaged the country. Twenty thousand captives were sent to Rome and sold as slaves, besides an immense booty-a number equal to a fifth part of the free population of the city. A footing in Africa was thus made, and so secure were the Romans, that a large part of the army was recalled, leaving Regulus with only forty s.h.i.+ps, fifteen thousand infantry, and five hundred cavalry. Yet with this small army he defeated the Carthaginians, and became master of the country to within ten miles of Carthage. The Carthaginians, shut up in the city, sued for peace; but it was granted only on condition of the cession of Sicily and Sardinia, the surrender of the fleet, and the reduction of Carthage to the condition of a dependent city. Such a proposal was rejected, and despair gave courage to the defeated Carthaginians.
(M839) They made one grand effort while Regulus lay inactive in winter quarters. The return of Hamilcar from Sicily with veteran troops, which furnished a nucleus for a new army, inspired the Carthaginians with hope, and a.s.sisted by a Lacedaemonian general, Xanthippus, with a band of Greek mercenaries, the Carthaginians marched unexpectedly upon Regulus, and so signally defeated him at Tunis, that only two thousand Romans escaped.
Regulus, with five hundred of the legionary force, was taken captive and carried to Carthage.
(M840) The Carthaginians now a.s.sumed the offensive, and Sicily became the battle-field. Hasdrubal, son of Hanno, landed on the island with one hundred and forty elephants, while the Roman fleet of three hundred s.h.i.+ps suffered a great disaster off the Lucanian promontory. A storm arose, which wrecked one hundred and fifty s.h.i.+ps-a disaster equal to the one which it suffered two years before, when two-thirds of the large fleet which was sent to relieve the two thousand troops at Clupea was destroyed by a similar storm. In spite of these calamities, the Romans took Panormus and Thermae, and gained a victory under the walls of the former city which cost the Carthaginians twenty thousand men and the capture of one hundred and twenty elephants. This success, gained by Metellus, was the greatest yet obtained in Sicily, and the victorious general adorned his triumph with thirteen captured generals and one hundred and four elephants.
(M841) The two maritime fortresses which still held out at the west of the island, Drepanum and Lilybaeum, were now invested, and the Carthaginians, shut up in these fortresses, sent an emba.s.sy to Rome to ask an exchange of prisoners, and sue for peace. Regulus, now five years a prisoner, was allowed to accompany the emba.s.sy, on his promise to return if the mission was unsuccessful. As his condition was now that of a Carthaginian slave, he was reluctant to enter the city, and still more the Senate, of which he was no longer a member. But when this reluctance was overcome, he denounced both the peace and the exchange of prisoners. The Romans wished to retain this n.o.ble patriot, but he was true to his oath, and returned voluntarily to Carthage, after having defeated the object of the amba.s.sadors, knowing that a cruel death awaited him. The Carthaginians, indignant and filled with revenge, it is said, exposed the hero to a burning sun, with his eyelids cut off, and rolled him in a barrel lined with iron spikes.
(M842) The emba.s.sy having thus failed, the attack on the fortresses, which alone linked Africa with Sicily, was renewed. The siege of Lilybaeum lasted till the end of the war, which, from the mutual exhaustion of the parties, now languished for six years. The Romans had lost four great fleets, three of which had arms on board, and the census of the city, in the seventeenth year, showed a decrease of forty thousand citizens. During this interval of stagnation, when petty warfare alone existed, Hamilcar Burca was appointed general of Carthage, and in the same year his son Hannibal was born, B.C. 247.
(M843) The Romans, disgusted with the apathy of the government, fitted out a fleet of privateers of two hundred s.h.i.+ps, manned by sixty thousand sailors, and this fleet gained a victory over the Carthaginians, unprepared for such a force, so that fifty s.h.i.+ps were sunk, and seventy more were carried by the victors into port. This victory gave Sicily to the Romans, and ended the war. The Roman prisoners were surrendered by Hamilcar, who had full powers for peace, and Carthage engaged to pay three thousand two hundred talents for the expenses of the war.
(M844) The Romans were gainers by this war. They acquired the richest island in the world, fertile in all the fruits of the earth, with splendid harbors, cities, and a great acc.u.mulation of wealth. The long war of twenty-four years, nearly a whole generation, was not conducted on such a scale as essentially to impoverish the contending parties. There were no debts contracted for future generations to pay. It was the most absorbing object of public interest, indeed; but many other events and subjects must also have occupied the Roman mind. It was a foreign war, the first that Rome had waged. It was a war of ambition, the commencement of those unscrupulous and aggressive measures that finally resulted in the political annihilation of all the other great powers of the world.
But this war, compared with those foreign wars which Rome subsequently conducted, was carried on without science and skill. It was carried on in the transition period of Roman warfare, when tactics were more highly prized than strategy. It was by a militia, and agricultural generals, and tactics, and personal bravery, that the various Italian nations were subdued, when war had not ripened into a science, such as was conducted even by the Greeks. There was no skill or experience in the conduct of sieges. The navy was managed by Greek mercenaries.
(M845) The great improvement in the science of war which this first contest with a foreign power led to, was the creation of a navy, and the necessity of employing veteran troops, led by experienced generals. A deliberative a.s.sembly, like the Senate, it was found could not conduct a foreign war. It was left to generals, who were to learn marches and countermarches, sieges, and a strategical system. The withdrawal of half the army of Regulus by the Senate proved nearly fatal. Carthage could not be subdued by that rustic warfare which had sufficed for the conquest of Etruria or Samnium. The new system of war demanded generals who had military training and a military eye, and not citizen admirals. The final success was owing to the errors of the Carthaginians rather than military science.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
THE SECOND PUNIC OR HANNIBALIC WAR.
The peace between the Carthaginians and Romans was a mere truce. Though it lasted twenty-one years, new sources of quarrel were acc.u.mulating, and forces were being prepared for a more decisive encounter.
Before we trace the progress of this still more memorable war, let us glance at the events which transpired in the interval between it and the first contest.
(M846) That interval is memorable for the military career of Hamilcar, and his great ascendency at Carthage. That city paid dearly for the peace it had secured, for the tribute of Sicily flowed into the treasury of the Romans. Its commercial policy was broken up, and the commerce of Italy flowed in new channels. This change was bitterly felt by the Phnician city, and a party was soon organized for the further prosecution of hostilities. There was also a strong peace party, made up of the indolent and cowardly money-wors.h.i.+pers of that mercantile State. The war party was headed by Hamilcar, the peace party by Hanno, which at first had the ascendency. It drove the army into mutiny by haggling about pay. The Libyan mercenaries joined the revolt, and Carthage found herself alone in the midst of anarchies. In this emergency the government solicited Hamilcar to save it from the effect of its blunders and selfishness.
(M847) This government, as at Rome, was oligarchic, but the n.o.bles were merely mercantile grandees, without ability-jealous, exclusive, and selfish. The great body of the people whom they ruled were poor and dependent. In intrusting power to Hamilcar, the government of wealthy citizens only gave him military control. The army which he commanded was not a citizen militia, it was made up of mercenaries. Hamilcar was obliged to construct a force from these, to whom the State looked for its salvation.
He was a young man, a little over thirty, and foreboding that he would not live to complete his plans, enjoined his son Hannibal, nine years of age, when he was about to leave Carthage, to swear at the altar of the Eternal G.o.d hatred of the Roman name.
(M848) He left Carthage for Spain, taking with him his sons, to be reared in the camp. He marched along the coast, accompanied by the fleet, which was commanded by Hasdrubal. He crossed the sea at the Pillars of Hercules, with the view of organizing a Spanish kingdom to a.s.sist the Carthaginians in their future warfare. But he died prematurely, B.C. 229, leaving his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, to carry out his designs, and the southern and eastern provinces of Spain became Carthaginian provinces. Carthagena arose as the capital of this new Spanish kingdom, in the territory of the Contestana. Here agriculture flourished, and still more, mining, from the silver mines, which produced, a century afterward, thirty-six millions of sesterces-nearly two million dollars-yearly. Carthage thus acquired in Spain a market for its commerce and manufactures, and the New Carthage ruled as far as the Ebro. But the greatest advantage of this new acquisition to Carthage was the new cla.s.s of mercenary soldiers which were incorporated with the army. At first, the Romans were not alarmed by the rise of this new Spanish power, and saw only a compensation for the tribute and traffic which Carthage had lost in Sicily. And while the Carthaginians were creating armies in Spain, the Romans were engaged in conquering Cisalpine Gaul, and consolidating the Italian conquests.