Part 26 (2/2)
(M884) Antiochus collected an army and started for Greece, hoping to be joined by Philip, who, however, placed all his forces at the disposal of the Romans. The Achaean League also was firm to the Roman cause. The Roman armies sent against him, commanded by Maninius Acilius Glabrio, numbered forty thousand men. Instead of retiring before this superior force, Antiochus intrenched himself in Thermopylae, but his army was dispersed, and he fled to Chalcis, and there embarked for Ephesus. The war was now to be carried to Asia.
(M885) Both parties, during the winter, vigorously prepared for the next campaign, and the conqueror of Zama was selected by Rome to conduct her armies in Asia. It was a long and weary march for the Roman armies to the h.e.l.lespont, which was crossed, however, without serious obstacles, from the mismanagement of Antiochus, who offered terms of peace when the army had safely landed in Asia. He offered to pay half the expenses of the war and the cession of his European possessions, as well as of the Greek cities of Asia Minor that had gone over to the Romans. But Scipio demanded the whole cost of the war and the cession of Asia Minor. These terms were rejected, and the Syrian king hastened to decide the fate of Asia by a pitched battle.
(M886) This fight was fought at Magnesia, B.C. 190, not far from Smyrna, in the valley of the Hermus. The forces of Antiochus were eighty thousand, including twelve thousand cavalry, but were undisciplined and unwieldy.
Those of Scipio were about half as numerous. The Romans were completely successful, losing only twenty-four hors.e.m.e.n and three hundred infantry, whereas the loss of Antiochus was fifty thousand-a victory as brilliant as that of Alexander at Issus. Asia Minor was surrendered to the Romans, and Antiochus was compelled to pay three thousand talents (little more than three million dollars) at once, and the same contribution for twelve years, so that he retained nothing but Cilicia. His power was broken utterly, and he was prohibited from making aggressive war against the States of the West, or from navigating the sea west of the mouth of the Calycadnus, in Cilicia, with armed s.h.i.+ps, or from taming elephants, or even receiving political fugitives. The province of Syria never again made a second appeal to the decision of arms-a proof of the feeble organization of the kingdom of the Seleucidae.
(M887) The king of Cappadocia escaped with a fine of six hundred talents.
All the Greek cities which had joined the Romans had their liberties confirmed. The aetolians lost all cities and territories which were in the hands of their adversaries. But Philip and the Achaeans were disgusted with the small share of the spoil granted to them.
(M888) Thus the protectorate of Rome now embraced all the States from the eastern to the western end of the Mediterranean. And Rome, about this time, was delivered of the last enemy whom she feared-the homeless and fugitive Carthaginian, who lived long enough to see the West subdued, as well as the armies of the East overpowered. At the age of seventy six he took poison, on seeing his house beset with a.s.sa.s.sins. For fifty years he kept the oath he had sworn as a boy. About the same time that he killed himself in Bithynia, Scipio, on whom fortune had lavished all her honors and successes-who had added Spain, Africa, and Asia to the empire, died in voluntary banishment, little over fifty years of age, leaving orders not to bury his remains in the city for which he had lived, and where his ancestors reposed. He died in bitter vexation from the false charges made against him of corruption and embezzlement, with hardly any other fault than that overweening arrogance which usually attends unprecedented success, and which corrodes the heart when the _eclat_ of prosperity is dimmed by time. The career and death of both these great men-the greatest of their age-shows impressively the vanity of all worldly greatness, and is an additional confirmation of the fact that the latter years of ill.u.s.trious men are generally sad and gloomy, and certain to be so when their lives are not animated by a greater sentiment than that of ambition.
(M889) Philip of Macedon died, B.C. 179, in the fifty-ninth year of his age and the forty-second of his reign, and his son Perseus succeeded to his throne at the age of thirty-one. Macedonia had been humbled rather than weakened by the Romans, and after eighteen years of peace, had renewed her resources. This kingdom chafed against the foreign power of Rome, as did the whole h.e.l.lenic world. A profound sentiment of discontent existed in both Asia and Europe. Perseus made alliances with the discontented cities-with the Byzantines, the aetolians, and the Botians.
But so prudently did he conduct his intrigues, that it was not till the seventh year of his reign that Rome declared war against him.
(M890) The resources of Macedonia were still considerable. The army consisted of thirty thousand men, without considering mercenaries or contingents, and great quant.i.ties of military stores had been collected in the magazines. And Perseus himself was a monarch of great ability, trained and disciplined to war. He collected an army of forty-three thousand men, while the whole Roman force in Greece was scarcely more. Cra.s.sus conducted the Roman army, and in the first engagement at Ossa, was decidedly beaten.
Perseus then sought peace, but the Romans never made peace after a defeat.
The war continued, but the military result of two campaigns was null, while the political result was a disgrace to the Romans. The third campaign, conducted by Quintus Marcius Philippus, was equally undecisive, and had Perseus been willing to part with his money, he could have obtained the aid of twenty thousand Celts who would have given much trouble. At last, in the fourth year of the war, the Romans sent to Macedonia Lucius aemilius Paulus, son of the consul that fell at Cannae-an excellent general and incorruptible; a man sixty years of age, cultivated in h.e.l.lenic literature and art. Soon after his arrival at the camp at Heracleum, he brought about the battle of Pydna, which settled the fate of Macedonia. The overthrow of the Macedonians was fearful. Twenty thousand were killed and eleven thousand made prisoners. All Macedonia submitted in two days, and the king fled with his gold, some six thousand talents he had h.o.a.rded, to Samothrace, accompanied with only a few followers. The Persian monarch might have presented a more effectual resistance to Alexander had he scattered his treasures among the mercenary Greeks. So Perseus could have prolonged his contest had he employed the Celts. When a man is struggling desperately for his life or his crown, his treasures are of secondary importance. Perseus was soon after taken prisoner by the Romans, with all his treasures, and died a few years later at Alba.
(M891) ”Thus perished the empire of Alexander, which had subdued and h.e.l.lenized the East, one hundred and forty-four years from his death.” The kingdom of Macedonia was stricken out of the list of States, and the whole land was disarmed, and the fortress of Demetrias was razed. Illyria was treated in a similar way, and became a Roman province. All the h.e.l.lenic States were reduced to dependence upon Rome. Pergamus was humiliated.
Rhodes was deprived of all possessions on the main land, although the Rhodians had not offended. Egypt voluntarily submitted to the Roman protectorate, and the whole empire of Alexander the Great fell to the Roman commonwealth. The universal empire of the Romans dates from the battle of Pydna-”the last battle in which a civilized State confronted Rome in the field on the footing of equality as a great power.” All subsequent struggles were with barbarians. Mithridates, of Pontus, made subsequently a desperate effort to rid the Oriental world of the dominion of Rome, but the battle of Pydna marks the real supremacy of the Romans in the civilized world. Mommsen a.s.serts that it is a superficial view which sees in the wars of the Romans with tribes, cities, and kings, an insatiable longing after dominion and riches, and that it was only a desire to secure the complete sovereignty of Italy, unmolested by enemies, which prompted, to this period, the Roman wars-that the Romans earnestly opposed the introduction of Africa, Greece, and Asia into the pale of protectors.h.i.+p, till circ.u.mstances compelled the extension of that pale-that, in fact, they were driven to all their great wars, with the exception of that concerning Sicily, even those with Hannibal and Antiochus, either by direct aggression or disturbance of settled political relations. ”The policy of Rome was that of a narrow-minded but very able deliberate a.s.sembly, which had far too little power of grand combination, and far too much instinctive desire for the preservation of its own commonwealth, to devise projects in the spirit of a Caesar or a Napoleon.”
Nor did the ancient world know of a balance of power among nations, and hence every nation strove to subdue its neighbors, or render them powerless, like the Grecian States. Had the Greeks combined for a great political unity, they might have defied even the Roman power, or had they been willing to see the growth of equal States without envy, like the modern nations of Europe, without destructive conflicts, the States of Sparta, Corinth, and Athens might have grown simultaneously, and united, would have been too powerful to be subdued. But they did not understand the balance of power, and they were inflamed with rival animosities, and thus destroyed each other.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.
The peace between Carthage and Rome, after the second Punic war, lasted fifty years, during which the Carthaginians gave the Romans no cause of complaint. Carthage, in the enjoyment of peace, devoted itself to commerce and industrial arts, and grew very rich and populous. The government alone was weak, from the anarchical ascendency of the people, who were lawless and extravagant.
(M892) Their renewed miseries can be traced to Masinissa, who was in close alliance with the Romans. The Carthaginians endured everything rather than provoke the hostility of Rome, which watched the first opportunity to effect their ruin. Having resigned themselves to political degradation, general cowardice and demoralization were the result.
(M893) Masinissa, king of Numidia, made insolent claims on those Phnician settlements on the coast of Byzacene, which the Carthaginians possessed from the earliest times. Scipio was sent to Carthage, to arrange the difficulty, as arbitrator, and the circ.u.mstances were so aggravated that he could not, with any justice, decide in favor of the king, but declined to p.r.o.nounce a verdict, so that Masinissa and Carthage should remain on terms of hostility. And as Masinissa reigned for fifty years after the peace, Carthage was subjected to continual vexations. At last a war broke out between them. Masinissa was stronger than Carthage, but the city raised a considerable army, and placed it under the conduct of Hasdrubal, who marched against the perfidious enemy with fifty thousand mercenaries.
The battle was not decisive, but Hasdrubal retreated without securing his communication with Carthage. His army was cut off, and he sought terms of peace, which were haughtily rejected, and he then gave hostages for keeping the peace, and agreed to pay five thousand talents within fifty years, and acknowledge Masinissa's usurpation. The Romans, instead of settling the difficulties, instigated secretly Masinissa. And the Roman commissioners sent to the Senate exaggerated accounts of the resources of Carthage. The Romans compelled the Carthaginians to destroy their timber and the materials they had in abundance for building a new fleet. Still the Senate, having the control of the foreign relations, and having become a mere a.s.sembly of kings, with the great power which the government of provinces gave to it, was filled with renewed jealousy. Cato never made a speech without closing with these words: ”_Carthago est delenda._” A blind hatred animated that vindictive and narrow old patrician, who headed a party with the avowed object of the destruction of Carthage. And it was finally determined to destroy the city.
(M894) The Romans took the Carthaginians to account for the war with Masinissa, and not contented with the humiliation of their old rival, aimed at her absolute ruin, though she had broken no treaties. The Carthaginians, broken-hearted, sent emba.s.sy after emba.s.sy, imploring the Senate to preserve peace, to whom the senators gave equivocal answers. The situation of Carthage was hopeless and miserable-stripped by Masinissa of the rich towns of Emporia, and on the eve of another conflict with the mistress of the world.
(M895) Had the city been animated by the spirit which Hannibal had sought to infuse, she was still capable of a n.o.ble defense. She ruled over three hundred Libyan cities, and had a population of seven hundred thousand. She had acc.u.mulated two hundred thousand stand of arms, and two thousand catapults. And she had the means to manufacture a still greater amount.
But she had, unfortunately, on the first demand of the Romans, surrendered these means of defense.
(M896) At last Rome declared war, B.C. 149-the wickedest war in which she ever engaged-and Cato had the satisfaction of seeing, at the age of eighty-five, his policy indorsed against every principle of justice and honor. A Roman army landed in Africa unopposed, and the Carthaginians were weak enough to surrender, not only three hundred hostages from the n.o.blest families, but the arms already enumerated. Nothing but infatuation can account for this miserable concession of weakness to strength, all from a blind confidence in the tender mercies of an unpitying and unscrupulous foe. Then, when the city was defenseless, the hostages in the hands of the Romans, and they almost at the gates, it was coolly announced that it was the will of the Senate that the city should be destroyed.
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