Part 26 (1/2)

(M867) It has been mentioned that on the death of Hiero, who had been the long-tried friend of Rome, Syracuse threw her influence in favor of Carthage, being ruled by factions. Against this revolted city the consul Marcellus now advanced, and invested the city by land and sea. He was foiled by the celebrated mathematician Archimedes, who constructed engines which destroyed the Roman s.h.i.+ps. This very great man advanced the science of geometry, and made discoveries which rank him among the lights of the ancient world. His theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the time of Newton. His discovery of the method of determining specific gravities by immersion in a fluid was equally memorable. He was not only the greatest mathematician of the old world, but he applied science to practical affairs, and compelled Marcellus to convert the siege of Syracuse into a blockade. He is said to have launched a s.h.i.+p by the pressure of the screw, which, reversed in its operation, has revolutionized naval and commercial marines.

(M868) The time gained by this eminent engineer, as well as geometer, enabled the Carthaginians to send an army to relieve Syracuse. The situation of Marcellus was critical, when, by a fortunate escalade of the walls, left unguarded at a festival, the Romans were enabled to take possession of a strong position within the walls. A pestilence carried off most of the African army encamped in the valley of Anapus, with the general Himilco. Bomilcar, the Carthaginian admiral, retreated, rather than fight the Roman fleet. Marcellus obtained, by the treachery of a Sicilian captain, possession of the island of Ortygia, where Dionysius had once intrenched himself, the key to the port and the city, and Syracuse fell. The city was given up to plunder and ma.s.sacre, and Archimedes was one of the victims. Marcellus honored the ill.u.s.trious defender with a stately funeral, and he was buried outside the gate of Aeradina. One hundred and fifty years later, the Syracusans had forgotten even where he was buried, and his tomb was discovered by Cicero.

(M869) While these events took place in Spain and Sicily, Hannibal bent his efforts to capture Tarentum, and the Romans were equally resolved to recover Capua. The fall of Tarentum enabled Hannibal to break up the siege of Capua, and foiled in his attempts to bring on a decisive battle before that city, he advanced to Rome, and encamped within five miles of the city, after having led his troops with consummate skill between the armies and fortresses of the enemy. But Rome was well defended by two legions, under Fabius, who refused to fight a pitched battle. Hannibal was, therefore, compelled to retreat in order to save Capua, which, however, in his absence, had surrendered to the Romans, after a two years' siege, and was savagely punished for its defection from the Roman cause. The fall of Capua gave a renewed confidence to the Roman government, which sent re-enforcements to Spain. But it imprudently reduced its other forces, so that Marcellus was left to face Hannibal with an inadequate army. The war was now carried on with alternate successes, in the course of which Tarentum again fell into Roman hands. Thirty thousand Tarentines were sold as slaves, B.C. 209.

(M870) This great war had now lasted ten years, and both parties were sinking from exhaustion. In this posture of affairs the Romans were startled with the intelligence that Hasdrubal had crossed the Pyrenees, and was advancing to join his brother in Italy. The Romans, in this exigency, made prodigious exertions. Twenty-three legions were enrolled; but before preparations were completed, Hasdrubal crossed the Alps, re-enforced by eight thousand Ligurian mercenaries. It was the aim of the two Carthaginian generals to form a juncture of their forces, and of the Romans to prevent it. Gaining intelligence of the intended movements of Hannibal and Hasdrubal by an intercepted dispatch, the Roman consul, Nero, advanced to meet Hasdrubal, and encountered him on the banks of the Metaurus. Here a battle ensued, in which the Carthaginians were defeated and Hasdrubal slain. Hannibal was waiting in suspense for the dispatch of his brother in his Apulian camp, when the victor returned from his march of five hundred miles, and threw the head of Hasdrubal within his outposts, On the sight of his brothers head, he exclaimed; ”I recognize the doom of Carthage.” Abandoning Apulia and Lucania, he retired to the Bruttian peninsula, and the victor of Cannae retained only a few posts to re-embark for Africa.

And yet this great general was able to keep the field four years longer, nor could the superiority of his opponents compel him to shut himself up in a fortress or re-embark, a proof of his strategic talents.

(M871) In the mean time a brilliant career was opened in Spain to the young Publius Scipio, known as the elder Africa.n.u.s. He was only twenty-four when selected to lead the armies of Rome in Spain; for it was necessary to subdue that country in order to foil the Carthaginians in Italy. Publius Scipio was an enthusiast, who won the hearts of soldiers and women. He was kingly in his bearing, confident of his greatness, graceful in his manners, and eloquent in his speech-popular with all cla.s.ses, and inspiring the enthusiasm which he felt.

(M872) He landed in Spain with an army of thirty thousand, and at once marched to New Carthage, before the distant armies of the Carthaginians could come to its relief. In a single day the schemes of Hamilcar and his sons were dissolved, and this great capital fell into the hands of the youthful general, not yet eligible for a single curule magistracy. Ten thousand captives were taken and six hundred talents, with great stores of corn and munitions of war. Spain seemed to be an easy conquest; but the following year the Carthaginians made a desperate effort, and sent to Spain a new army of seventy thousand infantry, four thousand horse, and thirty-two elephants. Yet this great force, united with that which remained under Hasdrubal and Mago, was signally defeated by Scipio. This grand victory, which made Scipio master of Spain, left him free to carry the war into Africa itself, a.s.sisted by his ally Masina.s.sa. Gades alone remained to the Carthaginians, the original colony of the Phnicians, and even this last tie was severed when Mago was recalled to a.s.sist Hannibal.

(M873) Scipio, ambitious to finish the war, and seeking to employ the whole resources of the empire, returned to Italy and offered himself for the consuls.h.i.+p, B.C. 205, and was unanimously chosen by the centuries, though not of legal age. His colleague was the chief pontiff P. Licinius Cra.s.sus, whose office prevented him from leaving Italy, and he was thus left un.o.bstructed in the sole conduct of the war. Sicily was a.s.signed to him as his province, where he was to build a fleet and make preparations for pa.s.sing over to Africa, although a party, headed by old Fabius Maximus, wished him to remain in Italy to drive away Hannibal. The Senate withheld the usual power of the consul to make a new levy, but permitted Scipio to enroll volunteers throughout Italy. In the state of disorganization and demoralization which ever attend a long war, this enrollment was easily effected, and money was raised by contributions on disaffected States.

(M874) Hannibal was still pent up among the Bruttii, unwilling to let go his last hold on Italy. Mago, in cisalpine Gaul, was too far off to render aid. The defense of Africa depended on him alone, and he was recalled. He would probably have antic.i.p.ated the order. Rome breathed more freely when the ”Libyan Lion” had departed. For fifteen years he had been an incubus or a terror, and the Romans, in various conflicts, had lost three hundred thousand men. Two of the Scipios, Paulus Gracchus and Marcellus, had yielded up their lives in battle. Only Fabius, among the experienced generals at the beginning of the war, was alive, and he, at the age of ninety, was now crowned with a chaplet of the gra.s.s of Italy, as the most honorable reward which could be given him.

(M875) Hannibal now sought a conference with Scipio, for both parties were anxious for peace, but was unable to obtain any better terms than the cession of Spain, as well as the Mediterranean islands, the surrender of the Carthaginian fleet, the payment of four thousand talents, and the confirmation of Masinissa in the kingdom of Syphax. Such terms could not be accepted, and both parties prepared for one more decisive conflict.

(M876) The battle was fought at Zama. ”Hannibal arranged his infantry in three lines. The first division contained the Carthaginian mercenaries; the second, the African allies, and the militia of Carriage; the third, the veterans who followed him from Italy. In the front of the lines were stationed eighty elephants; the cavalry was placed on the wings. Scipio likewise disposed the legions in three divisions. The infantry fought hand to hand in the first division, and both parties falling into confusion, sought aid in the second division. The Romans were supported, but the Carthaginian militia was wavering. Upon seeing this, Hannibal hastily withdrew what remained of the two first lines to the flanks, and pushed forward his choice Italian troops along the whole line. Scipio gathered together in the centre all that were able to fight of the first line, and made the second and third divisions close up on the right and left of the first. Once again the conflict was renewed with more desperate fighting, till the cavalry of the Romans and of Masina.s.sa, returning from pursuit of the beaten cavalry of the enemy, surrounded them on all sides. This movement annihilated the Punic army. All was lost, and Hannibal was only able to escape with a handful of men.”

(M877) It was now in the power of Scipio to march upon Carthage and lay siege to the city, neither protected nor provisioned. But he made no extravagant use of his victory. He granted peace on the terms previously rejected, with the addition of an annual tribute of two hundred talents for fifty years. He had no object to destroy a city after its political power was annihilated, and wickedly overthrow the primitive seat of commerce, which was still one of the main pillars of civilization. He was too great and wise a statesman to take such a revenge as the Romans sought fifty years afterward. He was contented to end the war gloriously, and see Carthage, the old rival, a tributary and broken power, with no possibility of reviving its former schemes, B.C. 201.

(M878) This ended the Hannibalic war, which had lasted seventeen years, and which gave to Rome the undisputed sovereignty of Italy, the conversion of Spain into two Roman provinces, the union of Syracuse with the Roman province of Sicily, the establishment of a Roman protectorate over the Numidian chiefs, and the reduction of Carthage to a defenseless mercantile city. The hegemony of Rome was established over the western region of the Mediterranean. These results were great, but were obtained by the loss of one quarter of the burgesses of Rome, the ruin of four hundred towns, the waste of the acc.u.mulated capital of years, and the general demoralization of the people. It might seem that the Romans could have lived side by side with other nations in amity, as modern nations do. But, in ancient times, ”it was necessary to be either anvil or hammer.” Either Rome or Carthage was to become the great power of the world.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE MACEDONIAN AND ASIATIC WARS.

Scarcely was Rome left to recover from the exhaustion of the long and desperate war with Hannibal, before she was involved in a new war with Macedonia, which led to very important consequences.

The Greeks had retained the sovereignty which Alexander had won, and their civilization extended rapidly into the East. There were three great monarchies which arose, however, from the dismemberment of the empire which Alexander had founded-Macedonia, Asia, and Egypt-and each of them, in turn, was destined to become provinces of Rome.

(M879) Macedonia was then ruled by Philip V., and was much such a monarchy as the first Philip had consolidated. The Macedonian rule embraced Greece and Thessaly, and strong garrisons were maintained at Demetrias in Maguesia, Calchis in the island of Euba, and in Corinth, ”the three fetters of the h.e.l.lenes.” But the strength of the kingdom lay in Macedonia. In Greece proper all moral and political energy had fled, and the degenerate, but still intellectual inhabitants spent their time in baccha.n.a.lian pleasures, in fencing, and in study of the midnight lamp. The Greeks, diffused over the East, disseminated their culture, but were only in sufficient numbers to supply officers, statesmen, and schoolmasters.

All the real warlike vigor remained among the nations of the North, where Philip reigned, a genuine king, proud of his purple, and proud of his accomplishments, lawless and unG.o.dly, indifferent to the lives and sufferings of others, stubborn and tyrannical. He saw with regret the subjugation of Carthage, but did not come to her relief when his aid might have turned the scale, ten years before. His eyes were turned to another quarter, to possess himself of part of the territories of Egypt, a.s.sisted by Antiochus of Asia. In this attempt he arrayed against himself all the Greek mercantile cities whose interests were identified with Alexandria, now, on the fall of Carthage, the greatest commercial city of the world.

He was opposed by Pergamus and the Rhodian league, while the Romans gave serious attention to their Eastern complications, not so much with a view of conquering the East, as to protect their newly-acquired possessions. A Macedonian war, then, became inevitable, but was entered into reluctantly, and was one of the most righteous, according to Mommsen, which Rome ever waged.

(M880) The pretext for war-the _casus belli_-was furnished by an attack on Athens by the Macedonian general, to avenge the murder of two Arcanians for intruding upon the Eleusinan Mysteries, B.C. 201. Athens was an ally of Rome. Two legions, under Publius Sulpicius Galba, embarked at Brundusium for Macedonia, with one thousand Numidian cavalry and a number of elephants. Nothing was accomplished this year of any historical importance. The next spring Galba led his troops into Macedonia, and encountered the enemy, under Philip, on a marshy plain on the northwest frontier. But the Macedonians avoided battle, and after repeated skirmishes and marches the Romans returned to Apollonia. Philip did not disturb the army in its retreat, but turned against the aetolians, who had joined the league against him. At the end of the campaign the Romans stood as they were in the spring, but would have been routed had not the aetolians interposed. The successes of Philip filled him with arrogance and self-confidence, and the following spring he a.s.sumed the offensive. The Romans, meantime, had been re-enforced by new troops, under the command of Flaminius, who attacked Philip in his intrenched camp. The Macedonian king lost his camp and two thousand men, and retreated to the Pa.s.s of Tempe, the gate of Macedonia proper, deserted by many of his allies. The Achaeans entered into alliance with Rome. The winter came on, and Philip sought terms of peace. All he could obtain from Flaminius was an armistice of two months. The Roman Senate refused all terms unless Philip would renounce all Greece, especially Corinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias. These were rejected, and Philip strained all his energies to meet his enemy in a pitched battle. He brought into the field twenty-six thousand men, an equal force to the Romans, and encountered them at Cynocephalae. The Romans were victorious, and a great number of prisoners fell into their hands.

Philip escaped to Larissa, burned his papers, evacuated Thessaly, and returned home. He was completely vanquished, and was obliged to accept such a peace as the Romans were disposed to grant. But the Romans did not abuse their power, but treated Philip with respect, and granted to him such terms as had been given to Carthage. He lost all his foreign possessions in Asia Minor, Thrace, Greece, and the islands of the aegean, but retained Macedonia. He was also bound not to conclude foreign alliances without the consent of the Romans, nor send garrisons abroad, nor maintain an army of over five thousand men, nor possess a navy beyond five s.h.i.+ps of war. He was also required to pay a contribution of one thousand talents. He was thus left in possession only of as much power as was necessary to guard the frontiers of h.e.l.las against the barbarians. All the States of Greece were declared free, and most of them were incorporated with the Achaean League, a confederation of the old cities, which were famous before the Dorian migration, to resist the Macedonian domination. This famous league was the last struggle of Greece for federation to resist overpowering foes. As the Achaean cities were the dominant States of Greece at the Trojan war, so the expiring fires of Grecian liberty went out the last among that ancient race.

(M881) The liberator of Greece, as Flaminius may be called, a.s.sembled the deputies of all the Greek communities at Corinth, exhorted them to use the freedom which he had conferred upon them with moderation, and requested, as the sole return for the kindness which the Romans had shown, that they would send back all the Italian captives sold in Greece during the war with Hannibal, and then he evacuated the last fortresses which he held, and returned to Rome with his troops and liberated captives. Rome really desired the liberation and independence of Greece, now that all fears of her political power were removed, and that glorious liberty which is a.s.sociated with the struggles of the Greeks with the Persians might have been secured, had not the h.e.l.lenic nations been completely demoralized.

There was left among them no foundation and no material for liberty, and nothing but the magic charm of the h.e.l.lenic name could have prevented Flaminius from establis.h.i.+ng a Roman government in that degenerate land. It was an injudicious generosity which animated the Romans, but for which the war with Antiochus might not have arisen.

(M882) Antiochus III., the great-great-grandson of the general of Alexander who founded the dynasty of the Seleucidae, then reigned in Asia.

On the fall of Philip, who was his ally, he took possession of those districts in Asia Minor that formerly belonged to Egypt, but had fallen to Philip. He also sought to recover the Greek cities of Asia Minor as a part of his empire. This enterprise embroiled him with the Romans, who claimed a protectorate over all the h.e.l.lenic cities. And he was further complicated by the arrival at Ephesus, his capital, of Hannibal, to whom he gave an honorable reception. A rupture with Rome could not be avoided.

(M883) To strengthen himself in Asia for the approaching conflict, Antiochus married one of his daughters to Ptolemy, king of Egypt, another to the king of Cappadocia, a third to the king of Pergamus, while the Grecian cities were amused by promises and presents. He was also a.s.sured of the aid of the aetolians, who intrigued against the Romans as soon as Flaminius had left. Then was seen the error of that general for withdrawing garrisons from Greece, which was to be the theatre of the war.