The joy at Rome was unbounded. It inspired in the more sanguine splendid visions of maritime command and glory. The Mediterranean should speedily become a Roman lake, in which no vessel might float without the consent of Rome.

THE ROMANS CARRY THE WAR INTO AFRICA.—The results of the naval engagement at Mylae encouraged the Romans to push the war with redoubled energy. They resolved to carry it into Africa. An immense Carthaginian fleet that disputed the passage of the Roman squadron was almost annihilated, and the Romans disembarked near Carthage. Regulus, one of the consuls who led the army of invasion, sent word to Rome that he had sealed up the gates of Carthage with terror. Finally, however, Regulus suffered a crushing defeat, and was made prisoner. A fleet which was sent to bear away the remnants of the shattered army was wrecked in a terrific storm off the coast of Sicily, and the shores of the island were strewn with the wreckage of between two and three hundred ships and with the bodies of one hundred thousand men.

Undismayed at the terrible disaster that had overtaken the transport fleet, the Romans set to work to build another, and made a second descent upon the African coast. The expedition, however, accomplished nothing of importance; and the fleet on its return voyage was almost destroyed, just off the coast of Italy, by a tremendous storm.

REGULUS AND THE CARTHAGINIAN EMBASSY.—For a few years the Romans refrained from tempting again the hostile powers of the sea, and Sicily became once more the battle-ground of the contending rivals. At last, having lost a great battle (battle of Panormus, 251 B.C.), the Carthaginians became dispirited, and sent an embassy to Rome, to negotiate for peace, or, if that could not be reached, to effect an exchange of prisoners. Among the commissioners was Regulus, who since his capture, five years before, had been held a prisoner in Africa. Before setting out from Carthage he had promised to return if the embassy were unsuccessful. For the sake of his own release, the Carthaginians supposed he would counsel peace, or at least urge an exchange of prisoners. But it is related, that upon arrival at Rome, he counselled war instead of peace, at the same time revealing to the Senate the enfeebled condition of Carthage. As to the exchange of prisoners, he said, "Let those who have surrendered when they ought to have died, die in the land which has witnessed their disgrace."

The Roman Senate, following his counsel, rejected all the proposals of the embassy; and Regulus, in spite of the tears and entreaties of his wife and friends, turned away from Rome, and set out for Carthage to bear such fate as he well knew the Carthaginians, in their disappointment and anger, would be sure to visit upon him.

The tradition goes on to tell how, upon his arrival at Carthage, he was confined in a cask driven full of spikes, and then left to die of starvation and pain. This part of the tale has been discredited, and the finest touches of the other portions are supposed to have been added by the story-tellers.

LOSS OF TWO MORE ROMAN FLEETS.—After the failure of the Carthaginian embassy, the war went on for several years by land and sea with varying vicissitudes. At last, on the coast of Sicily, one of the consuls, Claudius, met with an overwhelming defeat. Almost a hundred vessels of his fleet were lost. The disaster caused the greatest alarm at Rome. Superstition increased the fears of the people. It was reported that just before the battle, when the auspices were being taken, and the sacred chickens would not eat, Claudius had given orders to have them thrown into the sea, irreverently remarking, "At any rate, they shall drink." Imagination was free to depict what further evils the offended gods might inflict upon the Roman state.

The gloomiest forebodings might have found justification in subsequent events. The other consul just now met with a great disaster. He was proceeding along the southern coast of Sicily with a squadron of eight hundred merchantmen and over one hundred war galleys, the former loaded with grain for the Roman army on the island. A severe storm arising, the squadron was beaten to pieces upon the rocks. Not a single ship escaped. The coast for miles was strewn with broken planks, and with bodies, and heaped with vast windrows of grain cast up by the waves.

CLOSE OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.—The war had now lasted for fifteen years. Four Roman fleets had been destroyed, three of which had been sunk or broken to pieces by storms. Of the fourteen hundred vessels which had been lost, seven hundred were war galleys,—all large and costly quinqueremes, that is, vessels with five banks of oars. Only one hundred of these had fallen into the hands of the enemy; the remainder were a sacrifice to the malign and hostile power of the waves. Such successive blows from an invisible hand were enough to blanch the faces even of the sturdy Romans. Neptune manifestly denied to the "Children of Mars" the realm of the sea.

It was impossible for the six years following the last disaster to infuse any spirit into the struggle. In 247 B.C., Hamilcar Barcas, the father of the great Hannibal, assumed the command of the Carthaginian forces, and for several years conducted the war with great ability on the island of Sicily, even making Rome tremble for the safety of her Italian possessions.

Once more the Romans determined to commit their cause to the element that had been so unfriendly to them. A fleet of two hundred vessels was built and equipped, but entirely by private subscription; for the Senate feared that public sentiment would not sustain them in levying a tax for fitting up another costly armament as an offering to the insatiable Neptune. This people's squadron, as we may call it, was intrusted to the command of the consul Catulus. He met the Carthaginian fleet under the command of the Admiral Hanno, near the AEgatian islands, and inflicted upon it a crushing defeat.

The Carthaginians now sued for peace. A treaty was at length arranged, the terms of which required that Carthage should give up all claims to the island of Sicily, surrender all her prisoners, and pay an indemnity of 3200 talents (about $4,000,000), one-third of which was to be paid down, and the balance in ten yearly payments. Thus ended (241 B.C.), after a continuance of twenty-four years, the first great struggle between Carthage and Rome.



CHAPTER XXV.

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. (2l8-201 B.C.)

ROME BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

THE FIRST ROMAN PROVINCE.—For the twenty-three years that followed the close of the first struggle between Rome and Carthage, the two rivals strained every power and taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal of the contest.

The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing all of it, save the lands belonging to Syracuse, as a province of the republic. This was the first territory beyond the limits of Italy that Rome had conquered, and the Sicilian the first of Roman provinces. But as the imperial city extended her conquests, her provincial possessions increased in number and size until they formed at last a perfect cordon about the Mediterranean. Each province was governed by a magistrate sent out from the capital, and paid an annual tribute, or tax, to Rome.

ROME ACQUIRES SARDINIA AND CORSICA.—The first acquisition by the Romans of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have created in them an insatiable ambition for foreign conquests. They soon found a pretext for seizing the island of Sardinia, the most ancient and, after Sicily, the most prized of the possessions of the Carthaginians. The island, in connection with Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman province. With her hands upon these islands, the authority of Rome in the Western, or Tuscan Sea, was supreme.

THE ILLYRIAN CORSAIRS ARE PUNISHED.—At about the same time, the Romans also extended their influence over the seas that wash the eastern shores of Italy. For a long time the Adriatic and Ionian waters had been infested with Illyrian pirates, who issued from the roadsteads of the northeastern coasts of the former sea. The Roman fleet chased these corsairs from the Adriatic, and captured several of their strongholds. Rome now assumed a sort of protectorate over the Greek cities of the Adriatic coasts. This was her first step towards final supremacy in Macedonia and Greece.

WAR WITH THE GAULS.—In the north, during this same period, Roman authority was extended from the Apennines and the Rubicon to the foot of the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of the Romans, who were pushing northward their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling with discharged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of that race, stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, besides their kinsmen who were yet beyond the mountains, for an assault upon Rome. Intelligence of this movement among the northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of excitement. At Rome the terror was great; for not yet had died out of memory what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors of these same barbarians that were now again gathering their hordes for sack and pillage. An ancient prediction, found in the Sibylline books, declared that a portion of Roman territory must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping sufficiently to fulfil the prophecy and satisfy Fate, the Roman Senate caused two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of the capital.

Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravaging the country as they moved southward. After gathering a large amount of booty, they were carrying this back to a place of safety, when they were surrounded by the Roman armies at Telamon, and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The Romans, taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of the Po, captured the city which is now known as Milan, and extended their authority to the foot-hills of the Alps.

CARTHAGE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

THE TRUCELESS WAR.—Scarcely had peace been concluded with Rome at the end of the First Punic War, before Carthage was plunged into a still deadlier struggle, which for a time threatened her very existence. The mercenary troops, upon their return from Sicily, revolted, on account of not receiving their pay. Their appeal to the native tribes of Africa was answered by a general uprising throughout the dependencies of Carthage. The extent of the revolt shows how hateful and hated was the rule of the great capital over her subject states.

The war was unspeakably bitter and cruel. It is known in history as "The Truceless War." At one time Carthage was the only city remaining in the hands of the government. But the genius of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barcas at last triumphed, and the authority of Carthage was everywhere restored.

THE CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN.—After the disastrous termination of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians determined to repair their losses by new conquests in Spain. Hamilcar Barcas was sent over into that country, and for nine years he devoted his commanding genius to organizing the different Iberian tribes into a compact state, and to developing the rich gold and silver mines of the southern part of the peninsula. He fell in battle 228 B.C.

Hamilcar Barcas was the greatest general that up to this time the Carthaginian race had produced. As a rule, genius is not heritable; but in the Barcine family the rule was broken, and the rare genius of Hamilcar reappeared in his sons, whom he himself, it is said, was fond of calling the "lion's brood." Hannibal, the oldest, was only nineteen at the time of his father's death, and being thus too young to assume command, Hasdrubal, [Footnote: Not to be confounded with Hannibal's own brother Hasdrubal.] the son-in-law of Hamilcar, was chosen to succeed him. He carried out the unfinished plans of Hamilcar, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian power in Spain, and upon the eastern coast founded New Carthage as the centre and capital of the newly acquired territory. The native tribes were conciliated rather than conquered. The Barcine family knew how to rule as well as how to fight.

HANNIBAL'S VOW.—Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which occurred 221 B.C., Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by the unanimous voice of the army called to be their leader. When a child of nine years he had been led by his father to the altar; and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice, the little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race. He was driven on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard fate, not only by the restless fires of his warlike genius, but, as he himself declared, by the sacred obligations of a vow that could not be broken.

HANNIBAL ATTACKS SAGUNTUM.—In two years Hannibal extended the Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a Greek city upon the east coast of Spain, alone remained unsubdued. The Romans, who were jealously watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and taken it, with other Greek cities in that quarter of the Mediterranean, under their protection. Hannibal, although he well knew that an attack upon this place would precipitate hostilities with Rome, laid siege to it in the spring of 219 B.C. He was eager for the renewal of the old contest. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding his making war upon a city which was a friend and ally of the Roman people; but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, continued the siege, and, after an investment of eight months, gained possession of the town.

The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to demand of the Senate that they should give up Hannibal to them, and by so doing repudiate the act of their general. The Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of the embassy, gathering up his toga, said: "I carry here peace and war; choose, men of Carthage, which ye will have." "Give us whichever ye will," was the reply. "War, then," said Fabius, dropping his toga. The "die was now cast; and the arena was cleared for the foremost man of his race and his time, perhaps the mightiest military genius of any race and of any time."

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

HANNIBAL'S PASSAGE OF THE ALPS.—The Carthaginian empire was now stirred with preparations for the impending struggle. Hannibal was the life and soul of every movement. His bold plan was to cross the Pyrenees and the Alps and descend upon Rome from the north.



With his preparations completed, Hannibal left New Carthage early in the spring of 218 B.C., with an army numbering about one hundred thousand men, and including thirty-seven war elephants. Crossing the Pyrenees and the Rhone, he reached the foot-hills of the Alps. Nature and man joined to oppose the passage. The season was already far advanced—it was October— and snow was falling upon the higher portions of the trail. Day after day the army toiled painfully up the dangerous path. In places the narrow way had to be cut wider for the monstrous bodies of the elephants. Often avalanches of stone were hurled upon the trains by the hostile bands that held possession of the heights above. At last the summit was gained, and the shivering army looked down into the warm haze of the Italian plains. The sight alone was enough to rouse the drooping spirits of the soldiers; but Hannibal stirred them to enthusiasm by addressing them with these words: "Ye are standing upon the Acropolis of Italy; yonder lies Rome." The army began its descent, and at length, after toils and losses equalled only by those of the ascent, its thinned battalions issued from the defiles of the mountains upon the plains of the Po. Of the fifty thousand men and more with which Hannibal had begun the passage, barely half that number had survived the march, and these "looked more like phantoms than men."

BATTLES OF THE TICINUS, THE TREBIA, AND LAKE TRASIMENUS.—The Romans had not the remotest idea of Hannibal's plans. With war determined upon, the Senate had sent one of the consuls, L. Sempronius Longus, with an army into Africa by the way of Sicily; while the other, Publius Cornelius Scipio, they had directed to lead another army into Spain.

While the Senate were watching the movements of these expeditions, they were startled with the intelligence that Hannibal, instead of being in Spain, had crossed the Pyrenees and was among the Gauls upon the Rhone. Sempronius was hastily recalled from his attempt upon Africa, to the defence of Italy. Scipio, on his way to Spain, had touched at Massilia, and there learned of the movements of Hannibal. He turned back, hurried into Northern Italy, and took command of the levies there. The cavalry of the two armies met upon the banks of the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po. The Romans were driven from the field by the fierce onset of the Numidian horsemen. Scipio now awaited the arrival of the other consular army, which was hurrying up through Italy by forced marches.

In the battle of the Trebia the united armies of the two consuls were almost annihilated. The Gauls, who had been waiting to see to which side fortune would incline, now flocked to the standard of Hannibal, and hailed him as their deliverer.

The spring following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led his army, now recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, and moved southward. At Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the Romans under Flaminius in a mountain defile, where, bewildered by a fog that filled the valley, the greater part of the army was slaughtered, and the consul himself was slain.

The way to Rome was now open. Believing that Hannibal would march directly upon the capital, the Senate caused the bridges that spanned the Tiber to be destroyed, and appointed Fabius Maximus dictator.

In one respect only had events disappointed Hannibal's expectations. He had thought that all the states of Italy were, like the Gauls, ready to revolt from Rome at the first opportunity that might offer itself. But not a single city had thus far proved unfaithful to her.

FABIUS "THE DELAYER."—The fate of Rome was now in the hands of Fabius. Should he risk a battle and lose it, the destiny of the capital would be sealed. He determined to adopt a more prudent policy—to follow and annoy the Carthaginian army, but to refuse all proffers of battle. Thus time might be gained for raising a new army and perfecting measures for the public defence. In every possible way Hannibal endeavored to draw his enemy into an engagement. He ravaged the fields far and wide and fired the homesteads of the Italians, in order to force Fabius to fight in their defence. The soldiers of the dictator began to murmur. They called him Cunctator, or "the Delayer." They even accused him of treachery to the cause of Rome. But nothing moved him from the steady pursuit of the policy which he clearly saw was the only prudent one to follow.

THE BATTLE OF CANNAE.—The time gained by Fabius enabled the Romans to raise and discipline an army that might hope successfully to combat the Carthaginian forces. Early in the summer of the year 216 B.C. these new levies, numbering 80,000 men, confronted the army of Hannibal, amounting to not more than half that number, at Cannae, in Apulia. It was the largest army the Romans had ever gathered on any battle-field. But it had been collected only to meet the most overwhelming defeat that ever befell the forces of the republic. Through the skilful manoeuvres of Hannibal, the Romans were completely surrounded, and huddled together in a helpless mass upon the field, and then for eight hours were cut down by the Numidian cavalry. From fifty to seventy thousand were slain; a few thousand were taken prisoners; only the merest handful escaped, including one of the consuls. The slaughter was so great that, according to Livy, when Mago, a brother of Hannibal, carried the news of the victory to Carthage, he, in confirmation of the intelligence, poured down in the porch of the Senate- house, nearly a peck of gold rings taken from the fingers of Roman knights.

EVENTS AFTER THE BATTLE OF CANNAE.—The awful news flew to Rome. Consternation and despair seized the people. The city would have been emptied of its population had not the Senate ordered the gates to be closed. Never did that body display greater calmness, wisdom, prudence, and resolution. By word and act they bade the people never to despair of the republic. Little by little the panic was allayed. Measures were concerted for the defence of the capital, as it was expected that Hannibal would immediately march upon Rome. Swift horsemen were sent out along the Appian Way to gather information of the conqueror's movements, and to learn, as Livy expresses it, "if the immortal gods, out of pity to the empire, had left any remnant of the Roman name."

The leader of the Numidian cavalry, Maharbal, urged Hannibal to follow up his victory closely, "Let me advance with the cavalry," said he, "and in five days thou shalt dine in the capital." But Hannibal refused to adopt the counsel of his impetuous general. Maharbal turned away, and, with mingled reproach and impatience, exclaimed, "Alas! thou knowest how to gain a victory, but not how to use one." The great commander, while he knew he was invincible in the open field, did not think it prudent to fight the Romans behind their walls.

Hannibal now sent an embassy to Rome to offer terms of peace. The Senate, true to the Appian policy never to treat with a victorious enemy (see p. 245), would not even permit the ambassadors to enter the gates. Not less disappointed was Hannibal in the temper of the Roman allies. For the most part they adhered to the cause of Rome with unshaken loyalty through all these trying times. Some tribes in the South of Italy, however, among which were the Lucanians, the Apulians, and the Bruttians, went over to the Carthaginians. Hannibal marched into Campania and quartered his army for the winter in the luxurious city of Capua, which had opened its gates to him. Here he rested and sent urgent messages to Carthage for re- inforcements, while Rome exhausted every resource in raising and equipping new levies, to take the place of the legions lost at Cannae. For several years there was an ominous lull in the war, while both parties were gathering strength for a renewal of the struggle.

THE FALL OF SYRACUSE AND OF CAPUA.—In the year 216 B.C., Hiero, King of Syracuse, who loved to call himself the friend and ally of the Roman people, died, and the government fell into the hands of a party unfriendly to the republic. An alliance was formed with Carthage, and a large part of Sicily was carried over to the side of the enemies of Rome. The distinguished Roman general, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, called "the Sword of Rome," was intrusted with the task of reconquering the island. After reducing many towns, he at last laid siege to Syracuse.

This noted capital was then one of the largest and richest cities of the Grecian world. For three years it held out against the Roman forces. It is said that Archimedes (see p. 213), the great mathematician, rendered valuable aid to the besieged with curious and powerful engines contrived by his genius. But the city fell at last, and was given over to sack and pillage. Rome was adorned with the rare works of Grecian art—paintings and sculptures—which for centuries had been accumulating in this the oldest and most renowned of the colonies of ancient Hellas. Syracuse never recovered from the blow inflicted upon her at this time by the relentless Romans.



Capua must next be punished for opening her gates and extending her hospitalities to the enemies of Rome. A line of circumvallation was drawn about the devoted city, and two Roman armies held it in close siege. Hannibal, ever faithful to his allies and friends, hastened to the relief of the Capuans. Unable to break the enemy's lines, he marched directly upon Rome, as if to make an attack upon that city, hoping thus to draw off the legions about Capua to the defence of the capital. The "dread Hannibal" himself rode alongside the walls of the hated city, and, tradition says, even hurled a defiant spear over the defences. The Romans certainly were trembling with fear; yet Livy tells how they manifested their confidence in their affairs by selling at public auction the land upon which Hannibal was encamped. He in turn, in the same manner, disposed of the shops fronting the Forum. The story is that there were eager purchasers in both cases.

Failing to draw the legions from Capua as he had hoped, Hannibal now retired from before Rome, and, retreating into the southern part of Italy, abandoned Capua to its fate. It soon fell, and paid the penalty that Rome never failed to inflict upon an unfaithful ally. The chief men in the city were put to death, and a large part of the inhabitants sold as slaves. Capua had aspired to the first place among the cities of Italy: scarcely more than the name of the ambitious capital now remained.

Hasdrubal attempts to carry Aid to his Brother.—During all the years Hannibal was waging war in Italy, his brother Hasdrubal was carrying on a desperate struggle with the Roman armies in Spain. At length he determined to leave the conduct of the war in that country to others, and go to the relief of his brother, who was sadly in need of aid. Like Pyrrhus, Hannibal had been brought to realize that even constant victories won at the cost of soldiers that could not be replaced, meant final defeat.

Hasdrubal followed the same route that had been taken by his brother Hannibal, and in the year 207 B.C. descended from the Alps upon the plains of Northern Italy. Thence he advanced southward, while Hannibal moved northward from Bruttium to meet him. Rome made a last great effort to prevent the junction of the armies of the two brothers. At the river Metaurus, Hasdrubal's march was withstood by a large Roman army. Here his forces were cut to pieces, and he himself was slain (207 B.C.). His head was severed from his body and sent to Hannibal. Upon recognizing the features of his brother, Hannibal exclaimed sadly, "Carthage, I see thy fate."

WAR IN AFRICA: BATTLE OF ZAMA.—The defeat and death of Hasdrubal gave a different aspect to the war. Hannibal now drew back into the rocky peninsula of Bruttium, the southernmost point of Italy. There he faced the Romans like a lion at bay. No one dared attack him. It was resolved to carry the war into Africa, in hopes that the Carthaginians would be forced to call their great commander out of Italy to the defence of Carthage. Publius Cornelius Scipio, who after the departure of Hasdrubal from Spain had quickly brought the peninsula under the power of Rome, led the army of invasion. He had not been long in Africa before the Carthaginian Senate sent for Hannibal to conduct the war. At Zama, not far from Carthage, the hostile armies came face to face. Fortune had deserted Hannibal; he was fighting [Footnote: Son of the consul mentioned on page 259.] against fate. He here met his first and final defeat. His army, in which were many of the veterans that had served through all the Italian campaigns, was almost annihilated (202 B.C.). Scipio was accorded a splendid triumph at Rome, and given the surname Africanus in honor of his achievements. [Footnote: Some time after the close of the Second Punic War, the Romans, persuading themselves that Hannibal was preparing Carthage for another war, demanded his surrender of the Carthaginians. He fled to Syria, and thence to Asia Minor, where, to avoid falling into the hands of his implacable foes, he committed suicide by means of poison (183 B.C.).]



THE CLOSE OF THE WAR.—Carthage was now completely exhausted, and sued for peace. Even Hannibal himself could no longer counsel war. The terms of the treaty were much severer than those imposed upon the city at the end of the First Punic War. She was required to give up all claims to Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean; to surrender her war elephants, and all her ships of war save ten galleys; to pay an indemnity of five thousand talents at once, and two hundred and fifty talents annually for fifty years; and not to engage in any war without the consent of Rome. Five hundred of the costly Phoenician war galleys were towed out of the harbor of Carthage and burned in the sight of the citizens.

Such was the end of the Second Punic, or Hannibalic War, as called by the Romans, the most desperate struggle ever maintained by rival powers for empire.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. (149-146 B.C.)

EVENTS BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.

The terms imposed upon Carthage at the end of the Second Punic War left Rome mistress of the Western Mediterranean. During the fifty eventful years that elapsed between the close of that struggle and the breaking-out of the last Punic war, her authority became supreme also in the Eastern seas. In a preceding chapter (see p. 170), while narrating the fortunes of the most important states into which the great empire of Alexander was broken at his death, we followed them until one after another they fell beneath the arms of Rome, and were successively absorbed into her growing kingdom. We shall therefore speak of them here only in the briefest manner, simply indicating the connection of their several histories with the series of events which mark the advance of Rome to universal empire.

THE BATTLE OF CYNOSCEPHALAE (197 B.C.).—During the Hannibalic War, Philip V. (III.) of Macedonia had aided the Carthaginians, or at least had entered into an alliance with them. He was now troubling the Greek cities which were under the protection of Rome. For these things the Roman Senate determined to punish him. An army under Flamininus was sent into Greece, and on the plains of Cynoscephalae, in Thessaly, the Roman legion demonstrated its superiority over the unwieldy Macedonian phalanx by subjecting Philip to a most disastrous defeat (197 B.C.). The king was forced to give up all his conquests, and Rome extended her protectorate over Greece.

THE BATTLE OF MAGNESIA (190 B.C.).—Antiochus the Great of Syria had at this time not only overrun all Asia Minor, but had crossed the Hellespont into Europe, and was intent upon the conquest of Thrace and Greece. Rome, that could not entertain the idea of a rival empire upon the southern shores of the Mediterranean, could much less tolerate the establishment in the East of such a colossal kingdom as the ambition of Antiochus proposed to itself. Just as soon as intelligence was carried to Italy that the Syrian king was leading his army into Greece, the legions of the republic were set in motion. Some reverses caused Antiochus to retreat in haste across the Hellespont into Asia, whither he was followed by the Romans, led by Scipio, a brother of Africanus.

At Magnesia, Antiochus was overthrown, and a large part of Asia Minor fell into the hands of the Romans. Not yet prepared to maintain provinces so distant from the Tiber, the Senate conferred the new territory, with the exception of Lycia and Caria, which were given to the Rhodians, upon their friend and ally Eumenes, King of Pergamus (see p. 171). This "Kingdom of Asia," as it was called, was really nothing more than a dependency of Rome, and its nominal ruler only a puppet-king in the hands of the Roman Senate.

Scipio enjoyed a magnificent triumph at Rome, and, in accordance with a custom that had now become popular with successful generals, erected a memorial of his deeds in his name by assuming the title of Asiaticus.



THE BATTLE OF PYDNA (168 B.C.).—In a few years Macedonia, under the leadership of Perseus, son of Philip V., was again in arms and offering defiance to Rome; but in the year 168 B.C. the Roman consul AEmilius Paulus crushed the Macedonian power forever upon the memorable field of Pydna. This was one of the decisive battles fought by the Romans in their struggle for the dominion of the world. The last great power in the East was here broken. The Roman Senate was henceforth recognized by the whole civilized world as the source and fountain of supreme political wisdom and power. We shall have yet to record many campaigns of the Roman legions; but these were efforts to suppress revolt among dependent or semi-vassal states, or were struggles with barbarian tribes that skirted the Roman dominions.

THE DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH (146 B.C.).—Barely twenty years had passed after the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy before the cities and states that formed the Achaean League (see p. 175) were goaded to revolt by the injustice of their Roman protectors. In the year 146 B.C. the consul Mummius signalized the suppression of the rebellion by the complete destruction of the brilliant city of Corinth, the "eye of Hellas," as the ancient poets were fond of calling it. This fair capital, the most beautiful and renowned of all the cities of Greece after the fall of Athens, was sacked, and razed to the ground. Much of the booty was sold on the spot at public auction. Numerous works of art,—rare paintings and sculptures,—with which the city was crowded, were carried off to Italy. "Never before or after," says Long, "was such a display of the wonders of Grecian art carried in triumphal procession through the streets of Rome."

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.

"CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED."—The same year that Rome destroyed Corinth (146 B.C.), she also blotted her great rival Carthage from the face of the earth. It will be recalled that one of the conditions imposed upon the last-named city at the close of the Second Punic War was that she should, under no circumstances, engage in any war without the permission of the Roman Senate. Taking advantage of the helpless condition of Carthage, Masinissa, King of Numidia, began to make depredations upon her territories. She appealed to Rome for protection. The envoys sent to Africa by the Senate to settle the dispute, unfairly adjudged every case in favor of the robber Masinissa. In this way Carthage was deprived of her lands and towns.

Chief of one of the embassies sent out was Marcus Cato the Censor. When he saw the prosperity of Carthage,—her immense trade, which crowded her harbor with ships, and the country for miles back of the city a beautiful landscape of gardens and villas,—he was amazed at the growing power and wealth of the city, and returned home convinced that the safety of Rome demanded the destruction of her rival. Never afterwards did he address the Romans, no matter upon what subject, but he always ended with the words, "Carthage must be destroyed" (delenda est Carthago).

ROMAN PERFIDY.—A pretext for the accomplishment of the hateful work was not long wanting. In 150 B.C. the Carthaginians, when Masinissa made another attack upon their territory, instead of calling upon Rome, from which source the past had convinced them they could hope for neither aid nor justice, gathered an army, and resolved to defend themselves. Their forces, however, were defeated by the Numidians, and sent beneath the yoke.

In entering upon this war without the consent of Rome, Carthage had broken the conditions of the last treaty. The Carthaginian Senate, in great anxiety, now sent an embassy to Italy to offer any reparation the Romans might demand. They were told that if they would give three hundred hostages, members of the noblest Carthaginian families, the independence of their city should be respected. They eagerly complied with this demand. But no sooner were these in the hands of the Romans than the consular armies, numbering eighty thousand men, secured against attack by the hostages so perfidiously drawn from the Carthaginians, crossed from Sicily into Africa, and disembarked at Utica, only ten miles from Carthage.

The Carthaginians were now commanded to give up all their arms; still hoping to win their enemy to clemency, they complied with this demand also. Then the consuls made known the final decree of the Roman Senate— "That Carthage must be destroyed, but that the inhabitants might build a new city, provided it were located ten miles from the coast."

When this resolution of the Senate was announced to the Carthaginians, and they realized the baseness and perfidy of their enemy, a cry of indignation and despair burst from the betrayed city.

THE CARTHAGINIANS PREPARE TO DEFEND THEIR CITY.—It was resolved to resist to the bitter end the execution of the cruel decree. The gates of the city were closed. Men, women, and children set to work and labored day and night manufacturing arms. The entire city was converted into one great workshop. The utensils of the home and the sacred vessels of the temples, statues, and vases were melted down for weapons. Material was torn from the buildings of the city for the construction of military engines. The women cut off their hair and braided it into strings for the catapults. By such labor, and through such means, the city was soon put in a state to withstand a siege.

When the Romans advanced to take possession of the place, they were astonished to find the people they had just treacherously disarmed, with weapons in their hands, manning the walls of their capital, and ready to bid them defiance.

THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE.—It is impossible for us here to give the circumstances of the siege of Carthage. For four years the city held out against the Roman army. At length the consul Scipio AEmilianus succeeded in taking it by storm. When resistance ceased, only 50,000 men, women, and children, out of a population of 700,000, remained to be made prisoners. The city was fired, and for seventeen days the space within the walls was a sea of flames. Every trace of building which the fire could not destroy was levelled, a plough was driven over the site, and a dreadful curse invoked upon any one who should dare attempt to rebuild the city.

Such was the hard fate of Carthage. It is said that Scipio, as he gazed upon the smouldering ruins, seemed to read in them the fate of Rome, and, bursting into tears, sadly repeated the lines of Homer:

"The day shall come in which our sacred Troy, And Priam, and the people over whom Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all."

The Carthaginian territory in Africa was made into a Roman province, with Utica as the leading city; and Roman civilization was spread rapidly, by means of traders and settlers, throughout the regions that lie between the ranges of the Atlas and the sea.

WAR IN SPAIN.

SIEGE OF NUMANTIA.—It is fitting that the same chapter which narrates the destruction of Corinth in Greece, and the blotting-out of Carthage in Africa, should tell the story of the destruction of Numantia in Spain.

The expulsion of the Carthaginians from the Spanish peninsula really gave Rome the control of only a small part of that country. The war-like native tribes—the Celtiberians and Lusitanians—of the North and the West were ready stubbornly to dispute with the new-comers the possession of the soil.

The war gathered about Numantia, the siege of which was brought to a close by Scipio AEmilianus, the conqueror of Carthage. Before the surrender of the place, almost all the inhabitants had met death, either in defence of the walls, or by deliberate suicide. The miserable remnant which the ravages of battle, famine, pestilence, and despair had left alive were sold into slavery, and the city was levelled to the ground (133 B.C.).

The capture of Numantia was considered quite as great an achievement as the taking of Carthage. Scipio celebrated another triumph at Rome, and to his surname Africanus, which he had received for his achievements in Africa, added that of Numantinus. Spain became a favorite resort of Roman merchants, and many colonies were established in different parts of the country. As a result of this great influx of Italians, the laws, manners, customs, language, and religion of the conquerors were introduced everywhere, and the peninsula became rapidly Romanized.



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. (133-31 B.C.)

We have now traced the growth of the power of republican Rome, as through two centuries and more of conquest she has extended her authority, first throughout Italy, and then over almost all the countries that border upon the Mediterranean. It must be our less pleasant task now to follow the declining fortunes of the republic through the last century of its existence. We shall here learn that wars waged for spoils and dominion are in the end more ruinous, if possible, to the conqueror than to the conquered.

THE SERVILE WAR IN SICILY (134-132 B.C.).—With the opening of this period we find a terrible struggle going on in Sicily between masters and slaves —or what is known as "The First Servile War." The condition of affairs in that island was the legitimate result of the Roman system of slavery. The captives taken in war were usually sold into servitude. The great number of prisoners furnished by the numerous conquests of the Romans caused slaves to become a drug in the slave-markets of the Roman world. They were so cheap that masters found it more profitable to wear their slaves out by a few years of unmercifully hard labor, and then to buy others, than to preserve their lives for a longer period by more humane treatment. In case of sickness, they were left to die without attention, as the expense of nursing exceeded the cost of new purchases. Some Sicilian estates were worked by as many as 20,000 slaves. That each owner might know his own, the poor creatures were branded like cattle. What makes all this the more revolting is the fact that many of these slaves were in every way the peers of their owners, and often were their superiors. The fortunes of war alone had made one servant and the other master.

The wretched condition of these slaves and the cruelty of their masters at last drove them to revolt. The insurrection spread throughout the island, until 200,000 slaves were in arms, and in possession of many of the strongholds of the country. They defeated four Roman armies sent against them, and for three years defied the power of Rome. Finally, however, in the year 132 B.C., the revolt was crushed, and peace was restored to the distracted island. [Footnote: In the year 102 B.C. another insurrection of the slaves broke out in the island, which it required three years to quell. This last revolt is known as "The Second Servile War."]

THE PUBLIC LANDS.—In Italy itself affairs were in a scarcely less wretched condition than in Sicily. When the different states of the peninsula were subjugated, large portions of the conquered territory had become public land (ager publicus); for upon the subjugation of a state Rome never left to the conquered people more than two-thirds of their lands, and often not so much as this. The land appropriated was disposed of at public sale, leased at low rentals, allotted to discharged soldiers, or allowed to lie unused. [Footnote: These land matters may be made plain by a reference to the public lands of the United States. The troubles in Ireland between the land-owners and their tenants will also serve to illustrate the agrarian disturbances in ancient Rome.]

Now, it had happened that, in various ways, the greater part of the public lands had fallen into the hands of the wealthy. They alone had the capital necessary to stock and work them to advantage; hence the possessions of the small proprietors were gradually absorbed by the large landholders. These great proprietors, also, disregarding a law which forbade any person to hold more than five hundred jugera of land, held many times that amount. Almost all the lands of Italy, about the beginning of the first century B.C., are said to have been held by not more than two thousand persons; for the large proprietors, besides the lands they had secured by purchase from the government, or had wrested from the smaller farmers, claimed enormous tracts to which they had only a squatter's title. So long had they been left in undisturbed possession of these government lands that they had come to look upon them as absolutely their own. In many cases, feeling secure through great lapse of time,—the lands having been handed down through many generations,—the owners had expended large sums in their improvement, and now resisted as very unjust every effort to dispossess them of their hereditary estates. Money-lenders, too, had, in many instances, made loans upon these lands, and they naturally sided with the owners in their opposition to all efforts to disturb the titles.

These wealthy "possessors" employed slave rather than free labor, as they found it more profitable; and so the poorer Romans, left without employment, crowded into the cities, especially congregating at Rome, where they lived in vicious indolence. The proprietors also found it to their interest to raise stock rather than to cultivate the soil. All Italy became a great sheep-pasture.

Thus, largely through the workings of the public land system, the Roman people had become divided into two great classes, which are variously designated as the Rich and the Poor, the Possessors and the Non- Possessors, the Optimates (the "Best"), and the Populares (the "People"). We hear nothing more of patricians and plebeians. As one expresses it, "Rome had become a commonwealth of millionaires and beggars."

For many years before and after the period at which we have now arrived, a bitter struggle was carried on between these two classes; just such a contest as we have seen waged between the nobility and the commonalty in the earlier history of Rome. The most instructive portion of the story of the Roman republic is found in the records of this later struggle. The misery of the great masses naturally led to constant agitation at the capital. Popular leaders introduced bill after bill into the Senate, and brought measure after measure before the assemblies of the people, all aiming at the redistribution of the public lands and the correction of existing abuses.

THE REFORMS OF THE GRACCHI.—The most noted champions of the cause of the poorer classes against the rich and powerful were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. These reformers are reckoned among the most popular orators that Rome ever produced. They eloquently voiced the wrongs of the people. Said Tiberius, "You are called 'lords of the earth' without possessing a single clod to call your own." The people made him tribune; and in that position he secured the passage of a law for the redistribution of the public lands, which gave some relief. It took away from Possessors without sons all the land they held over five hundred jugera; Possessors with one son might hold seven hundred and fifty jugera, and those with two sons one thousand.

At the end of his term of office, Tiberius stood a second time for the tribunate. The nobles combined to defeat him. Foreseeing that he would not be re-elected, Tiberius resolved to use force upon the day of voting. His partisans were overpowered, and he and three hundred of his followers were killed in the Forum, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber (133 B.C.). This was the first time that the Roman Forum had witnessed such a scene of violence and crime.

Caius Gracchus, the younger brother of Tiberius, now assumed the position made vacant by the death of Tiberius. It is related that Caius had a dream in which the spirit of his brother seemed to address him thus: "Caius, why do you linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one death in defence of the people, is our fate." The dream came true. Caius was chosen tribune in 123 B.C. He secured the passage of grain-laws which provided that grain should be sold to the poor from public granaries, at half its value or less. This was a very unwise and pernicious measure. It was not long before grain was distributed free to all applicants; and a considerable portion of the population of the capital were living in vicious indolence and feeding at the public crib.

Caius proposed other measures in the interest of the people, which were bitterly opposed by the Optimates; and the two orders at last came into collision. Caius sought death by a friendly sword (121 B.C.), and three thousand of his adherents were massacred. The consul offered for the head of Caius its weight in gold. "This is the first instance in Roman history of head-money being offered and paid, but it was not the last" (Long).

The people ever regarded the Gracchi as martyrs to their cause, and their memory was preserved by statues in the public square. To Cornelia, their mother, a monument was erected, simply bearing the inscription, "The Mother of the Gracchi."

THE WAR WITH JUGURTHA (111-106 B.C.).—After the death of the Gracchi there seemed no one left to resist the heartless oppressions and to denounce the scandalous extravagances of the aristocratic party. Many of the laws of the Gracchi respecting the public lands were annulled. Italy fell again into the hands of a few over-rich land-owners. The provinces were plundered by the Roman governors, who squandered their ill-gotten wealth at the capital. The votes of senators and the decisions of judges, the offices at Rome and the places in the provinces—everything pertaining to the government had its price, and was bought and sold like merchandise. Affairs in Africa at this time illustrate how Roman virtue and integrity had declined since Fabricius indignantly refused the gold of Pyrrhus.

Jugurtha, king of Numidia, had seized all that country, having put to death the rightful rulers of different provinces of the region, who had been confirmed in their possessions by the Romans at the close of the Punic wars. Commissioners sent from Rome to look into the matter were bribed by Jugurtha. Even the consul Bestia, who had been sent into Africa with an army to punish the insolent usurper, sold himself to the robber. An investigation was ordered; but many prominent officials at Rome were implicated in the offences, and the matter was hushed up with money. The venality of the Romans disgusted even Jugurtha, who exclaimed, "O venal city, thou wouldst sell thyself if thou couldst find a purchaser!"

In the year 106 B.C. the war against Jugurtha was brought to a close by Caius Marius, a man who had risen to the consulship from the lowest ranks of the people. Under him fought a young nobleman named Sulla, of whom we shall hear much hereafter. Marius celebrated a grand triumph at Rome. Jugurtha, after having graced the triumphal procession, was thrown into the Mamertine dungeon, beneath the Capitoline, where he died of starvation.

INVASION OF THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.—The war was not yet ended in Africa before terrible tidings came to Rome from the north. Two mighty nations of "horrible barbarians," three hundred thousand strong in fighting-men, coming whence no one could tell, had invaded, and were now desolating, the Roman provinces of Gaul, and might any moment cross the Alps and pour down into Italy.

The mysterious invaders proved to be two Germanic tribes, the Teutones and Cimbri, the vanguard of that great German migration which was destined to change the face and history of Europe. These intruders were seeking new homes. They carried with them, in rude wagons, all their property, their wives, and their children. The Celtic tribes of Gaul were no match for the newcomers, and fled before them as they advanced. Several Roman armies beyond the Alps were cut to pieces. The terror at Rome was only equalled by that occasioned by the invasion of the Gauls two centuries before. The Gauls were terrible enough; but now the conquerors of the Gauls were coming.

Marius, the conqueror of Jugurtha, was looked to by all as the only man who could save the state in this crisis. Accompanied by Sulla as one of his most skilful lieutenants, Marius hastened into Northern Italy. The barbarians had divided into two bands. The Cimbri were to cross the Eastern Alps, and join in the valley of the Po the Teutones, who were to force the defiles of the Western, or Maritime Alps. Marius determined to prevent the union of the barbarians, and to crush each band separately.

Anticipating the march of the Teutones, he hurried over the Alps into Gaul, and falling upon them at a favorable moment (at Aquae Sextae, not far from Marseilles, 102 B.C.), almost annihilated the entire host. Two hundred thousand barbarians are said to have been slain. Marius now recrossed the Alps, and, after visiting Rome, hastened to meet the Cimbri, who were entering the northeastern corner of Italy. He was not a day too soon. Already the barbarians had defeated the Roman army under the nobleman Catulus, and were ravaging the rich plains of the Po. The Cimbri, unconscious of the fate of the Teutones, sent an embassy to Marius, to demand that they and their kinsmen should be given lands in Italy. Marius sent back in reply, "The Teutones have got all the land they need on the other side of the Alps." The devoted Cimbri were soon to have all they needed on this side.

A terrible battle almost immediately followed at Vercellae (101 B.C.). The barbarians were drawn up in an enormous hollow square, the men forming the outer ranks being fastened together with chains, to prevent the lines being broken. This proved their ruin. More than 100,000 were killed and 60,000 taken prisoners to be sold as slaves in the Roman markets. Marius was hailed as the "Saviour of his Country."

"The forlorn-hope of the German migration had performed its duty; the homeless people of the Cimbri and their comrades were no more" (Mommsen). Their kinsmen yet behind the Danube and the Rhine were destined to exact a terrible revenge for their slaughter.

THE SOCIAL, OR MARSIC WAR (91-89 B.C.).—Scarcely was the danger of the barbarian invasion past, before Rome was threatened by another and greater evil arising within her own borders. At this time all the free inhabitants of Italy were embraced in three classes,—Roman citizens, Latins, and Italian allies. The Roman citizens included the inhabitants of the capital and of the various Roman colonies planted in different parts of the peninsula (see p. 246, note), besides the people of a number of towns called municipia; the Latins were the inhabitants of the Latin colonies (see p. 246, note); the Italian allies (socii) included the various subjugated races of Italy.

The Social, or Marsic War (as it is often called on account of the prominent part taken in the insurrection by the warlike Marsians) was a struggle that arose from the demands of the Italian allies for the privileges of Roman citizenship, from which they were wholly excluded. Their demands were stubbornly resisted by both the aristocratic and the popular party at Rome. Some, however, recognized the justice of these claims of the Italians. The tribune Livius Drusus championed their cause, but he was killed by an assassin. The Italians now flew to arms. They determined upon the establishment of a rival state. A town called Corfinium, among the Apennines, was chosen as the capital of the new republic, and its name changed to Italica. Thus, in a single day, almost all Italy south of the Rubicon was lost to Rome. The Etrurians, the Umbrians, the Campanians, the Latins, and some of the Greek cities were the only states that remained faithful.



The greatness of the danger aroused all the old Roman courage and patriotism. Aristocrats and democrats hushed their quarrels, and fought bravely side by side for the endangered life of the republic. The war lasted three years. Finally Rome prudently extended the right of suffrage to the Latins, Etruscans, and Umbrians, who had so far remained true to her, but now began to show signs of wavering in their loyalty. Shortly afterwards she offered the same to all Italians who should lay down their arms within sixty days. This tardy concession to the just demands of the Italians virtually ended the war. It had been extremely disastrous to the republic. Hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost, many towns had been depopulated, and vast tracts of the country made desolate by those ravages that never fail to characterize civil contentions.

In after-years, under the empire, the rights of Roman citizenship, which the most of the Italians had now so hardly won, were extended to all the free inhabitants of the various provinces, beyond the confines of Italy (see p. 327).

THE CIVIL WAR OF MARIUS AND SULLA.—The Social War was not yet ended when a formidable enemy appeared in the East. Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus (see p. 170, note), taking advantage of the distracted condition of the republic, had encroached upon the Roman provinces in Asia Minor, and had caused a general massacre of the Italian traders and residents in that country. The number of victims of this wholesale slaughter has been variously estimated at from 80,000 to 150,000. The Roman Senate instantly declared war.

A contest straightway arose between Marius and Sulla for the command of the forces. The sword settled the dispute. Sulla, at the head of the legions he commanded, marched upon Rome, entered the gates, and "for the first time in the annals of the city a Roman army encamped within the walls." The party of Marius was defeated, and he and ten of his companions were proscribed. Marius escaped and fled to Africa; Sulla embarked with the legions to meet Mithridates in the East (87 B.C.).



THE WANDERINGS OF MARIUS: HIS RETURN TO ITALY.—Leaving Sulla to carry on the Mithridatic War, we must first follow the fortunes of the outlawed Marius. The ship in which he embarked for Africa was driven back upon the Italian coast at Circeii, and he was captured. A Cimbrian slave was sent to despatch him in prison. The cell where Marius lay was dark, and the eyes of the old soldier "seemed to flash fire." As the slave advanced, Marius shouted, "Man, do you dare to kill Caius Marius?" The frightened slave dropped his sword, and fled from the chamber, half dead with fear.

A better feeling now took possession of the captors of Marius, and they resolved that the blood of the "Saviour of Italy" should not be upon their hands. They put him aboard a vessel, which bore him and his friends to an island just off the coast of Africa. When he attempted to set foot upon the mainland near Carthage, Sextius, the Roman governor of the province, sent a messenger to forbid him to land. The legend says that the old general, almost choking with indignation, only answered, "Go, tell your master, that you have seen Marius a fugitive sitting amidst the ruins of Carthage."

A successful move of his friends at Rome brought Marius back to the capital. He now took a terrible revenge upon his enemies. The consul Octavius was assassinated, and his head set up in front of the Rostrum. Never before had such a thing been seen at Rome—a consul's head exposed to the public gaze. The senators, equestrians, and leaders of the Optimate party fled from the capital. For five days and nights a merciless slaughter was kept up. The life of every man in the capital was in the hands of the revengeful Marius. If he refused to return the greeting of any citizen, that sealed his fate: he was instantly despatched by the soldiers who awaited the dictator's nod. The bodies of the victims lay unburied in the streets. Sulla's house was torn down, and he himself declared a public enemy.

Rumors were now spread that Sulla, having overthrown Mithridates, was about to set out on his return with his victorious legions. He would surely exact speedy and terrible vengeance. Marius, old and enfeebled by the hardships of many campaigns, seemed to shrink from again facing his hated rival. He plunged into dissipation to drown his remorse and gloomy forebodings, and died in his seventy-first year (86 B.C.).

SULLA AND THE MITHRIDATIC WAR.—When Sulla left Italy with his legions for the East, he knew very well that his enemies would have their own way in Italy during his absence; but he also knew that, if successful in his campaign against Mithridates, he could easily regain Italy, and wrest the government from the hands of the Marian party.

We can here take space to give simply the results of Sulla's campaigns in the East. After driving the army of Mithridates out of Greece, Sulla crossed the Hellespont, and forced the king to sue for peace. He gave up his conquered territory, surrendered his war ships, and paid a large indemnity to cover the expenses of the war.



With the Mithridatic War ended, Sulla wrote to the Senate, saying that he was now coming to take vengeance upon the Marian party,—his own and the republic's foes.

The terror and consternation produced at Rome by this letter were increased by the accidental burning of the Capitol. The Sibylline books, which held the secrets of the fate of Rome, were consumed. Such an event, it was believed, could only foreshadow the most direful calamities to the state.

THE PROSCRIPTIONS OF SULLA.—The returning army from the East landed in Italy. With his veteran legions at his back, Sulla marched into Rome with all the powers of a dictator. The leaders of the Marian party were proscribed, rewards were offered for their heads, and their property was confiscated. Sulla was implored to make out a list of those he designed to put to death, that those he intended to spare might be relieved of the terrible suspense in which all were now held. He made out a list of eighty, which was attached to the Rostrum. The people murmured at the length of the roll. In a few days it was extended to over three hundred, and grew rapidly, until it included the names of thousands of the best citizens of Italy. Hundreds were murdered, not for any offence, but because some favorites of Sulla coveted their estates. A wealthy noble coming into the Forum, and reading his own name in the list of the proscribed, exclaimed, "Alas! my villa has proved my ruin." The infamous Catiline, by having the name of a brother placed upon the fatal roll, secured his property. Julius Caesar, at this time a mere boy of eighteen, was proscribed on account of his relationship to Marius; but, upon the intercession of friends, Sulla spared him: as he did so, however, he said warningly, and, as the event proved, prophetically, "There is in that boy many a Marius."

Senators, knights, and wealthy land-owners fell by hundreds and by thousands; but the poor Italians who had sided with the Marian party were simply slaughtered by tens of thousands. Nor did the provinces escape. In Sicily, Spain, and Africa the enemies of the dictator were hunted and exterminated like noxious animals. It is estimated that the civil war of Marius and Sulla cost the republic over one hundred and fifty thousand lives.

When Sulla had sated his revenge, he celebrated a splendid triumph at Rome, and the Senate enacted a law declaring all that he had done legal and right, caused to be erected in the Forum a gilded equestrian statue of the dictator, which bore the legend, "To Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Commander Beloved by Fortune," and made him dictator for life. Sulla used his position and influence in recasting the constitution in the interest of the aristocratic party. After enjoying the unlimited power of an Asiatic despot for three years, he suddenly resigned the dictatorship, and retired to his villa at Puteoli, where he gave himself up to the grossest dissipations. He died the year following his abdication (78 B.C.).



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (concluded). (133-31 B.C.)

POMPEY THE GREAT IN SPAIN.—The fires of the Civil War, though quenched in Italy, were still smouldering in Spain. Sertorius, an adherent of Marius, had there stirred up the martial tribes of Lusitania, and incited a general revolt against the power of the aristocratic government at Rome. Cnaeus Pompey, a rising young leader of the oligarchy, upon whom the title of Great had already been conferred as a reward for crushing the Marian party in Sicily and Africa, was sent into Spain to perform a similar service there.

For several years the war was carried on with varying fortunes. At times the power of Rome in the peninsula seemed on the verge of utter extinction. Finally, the brave Sertorius was assassinated, and then the whole of Spain was quickly regained. Pompey boasted of having forced the gates of more than eight hundred cities in Spain and Southern Gaul. Throughout all the conquered regions he established military colonies, and reorganized the local governments, putting in power those who would be, not only friends and allies of the Roman state, but also his own personal adherents. How he used these men as instruments of his ambition, we shall learn a little later.

SPARTACUS: WAR OF THE GLADIATORS.—While Pompey was subduing the Marian faction in Spain, a new danger broke out in the midst of Italy. Gladiatorial combats had become, at this time, the favorite sport of the amphitheatre. At Capua was a sort of training-school, from which skilled fighters were hired out for public or private entertainments. In this seminary was a Thracian slave, known by the name of Spartacus, who incited his companions to revolt. The insurgents fled to the crater of Vesuvius, and made that their stronghold. There they were joined by gladiators from other schools, and by slaves and discontented men from every quarter. Some slight successes enabled them to arm themselves with the weapons of their enemies. Their number at length increased to one hundred thousand men. For three years they defied the power of Rome, and even gained control of the larger part of Southern Italy. Four Roman armies sent against them were cut to pieces. But at length Spartacus himself was slain, and the insurgents were crushed.

The rebellion was punished with Roman severity. The slaves that had taken part in the revolt were hunted through the mountains and forests, and exterminated like dangerous beasts. The Appian Way was lined with six thousand crosses, bearing aloft as many bodies—a terrible warning of the fate awaiting slaves that should dare to strike for freedom.

THE ABUSES OF VERRES.—Terrible as was the state of society in Italy, still worse was the condition of affairs outside the peninsula. At first the rule of the Roman governors in the provinces, though severe, was honest and prudent. But during the period of profligacy and corruption upon which we have now entered, the administration of these foreign possessions was shamefully dishonest and incredibly cruel and rapacious. The prosecution of Verres, the propraetor of Sicily, exposed the scandalous rule of the oligarchy, into whose hands the government had fallen. For three years Verres plundered and ravaged that island with impunity. He sold all the offices, and all his decisions as judge. He demanded of the farmers the greater part of their crops, which he sold, to swell his already enormous fortune. Agriculture was thus ruined, and the farms were abandoned. Verres had a taste for art, and when on his tours through the island confiscated gems, vases, statues, paintings, and other things that struck his fancy, whether in temples or private dwellings. He even caused a Roman trader, for a slight offence, to be crucified, "the cross being set on the beach within sight of Italy, that he might address to his native shores the ineffectual cry 'I am a Roman citizen.'"

Verres could not be called to account while in office; and it was doubtful whether, after the end of his term, he could be convicted, so corrupt and venal had become the members of the Senate, before whom all such offenders must be tried. Indeed, Verres himself openly boasted that he intended two thirds of his gains for his judges and lawyers, while the remaining one third would satisfy himself.

At length, after Sicily had come to look as though it had been ravaged by barbarian conquerors, the infamous robber was impeached. The prosecutor was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the brilliant orator, who was at this time just rising into prominence at Rome. The storm of indignation raised by the developments of the trial caused Verres to flee into exile to Massilia, whither he took with him much of his ill-gotten wealth.

WAR WITH THE MEDITERRANEAN PIRATES (66 B.C.).—The Roman republic was now threatened by a new danger from the sea. The Mediterranean was swarming with pirates. Roman conquests in Africa, Spain, and especially in Greece and Asia Minor, had caused thousands of adventurous spirits from those maritime countries to flee to their ships, and seek a livelihood by preying upon the commerce of the seas. The cruelty and extortions of the Roman governors had also driven large numbers to the same course of life. These corsairs had banded themselves into a sort of government, and held possession of numerous strongholds—four hundred, it is said—in Cilicia, Crete, and other countries. With a full thousand swift ships they scoured the waters of the Mediterranean, so that no merchantman could spread her sails in safety. They formed a floating empire, which Michelet calls "a wandering Carthage, which no one knew where to seize, and which floated from Spain to Asia."

These buccaneers, the Vikings of the South, made descents upon the coast everywhere, plundered villas and temples, attacked and captured cities, and sold the inhabitants as slaves in the various slave-markets of the Roman world. They carried off merchants and magistrates from the Appian Way itself, and held them for ransom. At last the grain-ships of Sicily and Africa were intercepted, and Rome was threatened with the alternative of starvation or the paying of an enormous ransom.

The Romans now bestirred themselves. Pompey was invested with dictatorial power for three years over the Mediterranean and all its coasts for fifty miles inland. An armament of five hundred ships and one hundred thousand men was intrusted to his command. The great general acted with his characteristic energy. Within forty days he had swept the pirates from the Western Mediterranean, and in forty-nine more hunted them from all the waters east of Italy, captured their strongholds in Cilicia, and settled the twenty thousand prisoners that fell into his hands in various colonies in Asia Minor and Greece. Pompey's vigorous and successful conduct of this campaign against the pirates gained him great honor and reputation.

POMPEY AND THE MITHRIDATIC WAR.—In the very year that Pompey suppressed the pirates (66 B.C.), he was called to undertake a more difficult task. Mithridates the Great, led on by his ambition and encouraged by the discontent created throughout the Eastern provinces by Roman rapacity and misrule, was again in arms against Rome. He had stirred almost all Asia Minor to revolt. The management of the war was eventually intrusted to Pompey, whose success in the war of the pirates had aroused unbounded enthusiasm for him.

In a great battle in Lesser Armenia, Pompey almost annihilated the army of Mithridates. The king fled from the field, and, after seeking in vain for a refuge in Asia Minor, sought an asylum beyond the Caucasus Mountains, whose bleak barriers interposed their friendly shield between him and his pursuers. Desisting from the pursuit, Pompey turned south and conquered Syria, Phoenicia, and Coele-Syria, which countries he erected into a Roman province. Still pushing southward, the conqueror entered Palestine, and after a short siege captured Jerusalem (63 B.C.).



While Pompey was thus engaged, Mithridates was straining every energy to raise an army among the Scythian tribes with which to carry out a most daring project. He proposed to cross Europe and fall upon Italy from the north. A revolt on the part of his son Pharnaces ruined all his plans and hopes; and the disappointed monarch, to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans, took his own life (63 B.C.). His death removed one of the most formidable enemies that Rome had ever encountered. Hamilcar, Hannibal, and Mithridates were the three great names that the Romans always pronounced with respect and dread.

POMPEY'S TRIUMPH.—After regulating the affairs of the different states and provinces in the East, Pompey set out on his return to Rome, where he enjoyed such a triumph as never before had been seen since Rome had become a city. The spoils of all the East were borne in the procession; 322 princes walked as captives before the triumphal chariot of the conqueror; legends upon the banners proclaimed that he had conquered 21 kings, captured 1000 strongholds, 900 towns, and 800 ships, and subjugated more than 12,000,000 people; and that he had put into the treasury more than $25,000,000, besides doubling the regular revenues of the state. He boasted that three times he had triumphed, and each time for the conquest of a continent—first for Africa, then for Europe, and now for Asia, which completed the conquest of the world.

THE CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE.—While the legions were absent from Italy with Pompey in the East, a most daring conspiracy against the government was formed at Rome. Catiline, a ruined spendthrift, had gathered a large company of profligate young nobles, weighed down with debt and desperate like himself, and had deliberately planned to murder the consuls and the chief men of the state, and to plunder and burn the capital. The offices of the new government were to be divided among the conspirators. They depended upon receiving aid from Africa and Spain, and proposed to invite to their standard the gladiators in the various schools of Italy, as well as slaves and criminals. The proscriptions of Sulla were to be renewed, and all debts were to be cancelled.

Fortunately, all the plans of the conspirators were revealed to the consul Cicero, the great orator. The Senate immediately clothed the consuls with dictatorial power with the usual formula, that they should take care that the republic received no harm. The gladiators were secured; the city walls were manned; and at every point the capital and state were armed against the "invisible foe." Then in the Senate-chamber, with Catiline himself present, Cicero exposed the whole conspiracy in a famous philippic, known as "The First Oration against Catiline." The senators shrank from the conspirator, and left the seats about him empty. After a feeble effort to reply to Cicero, overwhelmed by a sense of his guilt, and the cries of "traitor" and "parricide" from the senators, Catiline fled from the chamber, and hurried out of the city to the camp of his followers, in Etruria. In a desperate battle fought near Pistoria (62 B.C.), he was slain with many of his followers. His head was borne as a trophy to Rome. Cicero was hailed as the "Saviour of his Country."

CAESAR, CRASSUS, AND POMPEY.—Although the conspiracy of Catiline had failed, it was very easy to foresee that the downfall of the Roman republic was near at hand. Indeed, from this time on only the name remains. The basis of the institutions of the republic—the old Roman virtue, integrity, patriotism, and faith in the gods—was gone, having been swept away by the tide of luxury, selfishness, and immorality produced by the long series of foreign conquests and robberies in which the Roman people had been engaged. The days of liberty at Rome were over. From this time forward the government was really in the hands of ambitious and popular leaders, or of corrupt combinations and "rings." Events gather about a few great names, and the annals of the republic become biographical rather than historical.

There were now in the state three men—Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey—who were destined to shape affairs. Caius Julius Caesar was born in the year 100 B.C. Although descended from an old patrician family, still his sympathies, and an early marriage to the daughter of Cinna, one of the adherents of Marius, led him early to identify himself with the Marian, or democratic party. In every way Caesar courted public favor. He lavished enormous sums upon public games and tables. His debts are said to have amounted to 25,000,000 sesterces ($1,250,000). His popularity was unbounded. A successful campaign in Spain had already made known to himself, as well as to others, his genius as a commander.

Crassus belonged to the senatorial, or aristocratic party. He owed his influence to his enormous wealth, being one of the richest men in the Roman world. His property was estimated at 7100 talents (about $7,500,000).

With Pompey and his achievements we are already familiar. His influence throughout the Roman world was great; for, in settling and reorganizing the many countries he subdued, he had always taken care to reconstruct them in his own interest, as well as in that of the republic. The offices, as we have seen, were filled with his friends and adherents (see p. 285). This patronage had secured for him incalculable authority in the provinces. His veteran legionaries, too, were naturally devoted to the general who had led them so often to victory.

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE.—What is known as the First Triumvirate rested on the genius of Caesar, the wealth of Crassus, and the achievements of Pompey. It was a coalition or private arrangement entered into by these three men for the purpose of securing to themselves the control of public affairs. Each pledged himself to work for the interests of the others. Caesar was the manager of the "ring," and through the aid of his colleagues secured the consulship (59 B.C.).

CAESAR'S CONQUESTS IN GAUL AND BRITAIN.—At the end of his consulship, the administration of the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul was assigned to Caesar. Already he was revolving in his mind plans for seizing supreme power. Beyond the Alps the Gallic and Germanic tribes were in restless movement. He saw there a grand field for military exploits, which should gain for him such glory and prestige as, in other fields, had been won and were now enjoyed by Pompey. With this achieved, and with a veteran army devoted to his interests, he might hope easily to attain that position at the head of affairs towards which his ambition was urging him.

In the spring of 58 B.C. alarming intelligence from beyond the Alps caused Caesar to hasten from Rome into Transalpine Gaul. Now began a series of eight brilliant campaigns directed against the various tribes of Gaul, Germany, and Britain. In his Commentaries Caesar himself has left us a faithful and graphic account of all the memorable marches, battles, and sieges that filled the years between 58 and 50 B.C. The year 55 B.C. marked two great achievements. Early in the spring of this year Caesar constructed a bridge across the Rhine, and led his legions against the Germans in their native woods and swamps. In the autumn of the same year he crossed, by means of hastily constructed ships, the channel that separates the mainland from Britain, and after maintaining a foothold upon that island for two weeks withdrew his legions into Gaul for the winter. The following season he made another invasion of Britain; but, after some encounters with the fierce barbarians, recrossed to the mainland without having established any permanent garrisons in the island. Almost one hundred years passed away before the natives of Britain were again molested by the Romans (see p. 311).

In the year 52 B.C., while Caesar was absent in Italy, a general revolt occurred among the Gallic tribes. It was a last desperate struggle for the recovery of their lost independence. Vercingetorix, chief of the Arverni, was the leader of the insurrection. For a time it seemed as though the Romans would be driven from the country. But Caesar's despatch and military genius saved the province to the republic.

In his campaigns in Gaul, Caesar had subjugated three hundred tribes, captured eight hundred cities, and slain a million of barbarians—one third of the entire population of the country. Another third he had taken prisoners. Great enthusiasm was aroused at Rome by these victories. "Let the Alps now sink," exclaimed Cicero: "the gods raised them to shelter Italy from the barbarians: they are now no longer needed."

RESULTS OF THE GALLIC WARS.—The most important result of the Gallic wars of Caesar was the Romanizing of Gaul. The country was opened to Roman traders and settlers, who carried with them the language, customs, and arts of Italy.

Another result of the conquest was the checking of the migratory movements of the German tribes, which gave Graeco-Roman civilization time to become thoroughly rooted, not only in Gaul, but also in Spain and other lands.

RIVALRY BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY: CAESAR CROSSES THE RUBICON.—While Caesar was in the midst of his Transalpine wars, Crassus was leading an army against the Parthians, hoping to rival there the brilliant conquests of Caesar in Gaul. But his army was almost annihilated by the Parthian cavalry, and he himself was slain (54 B.C.). His captors, so it is said, poured molten gold down his throat, that he might be sated with the metal which he had so coveted during life. In the death of Crassus, Caesar lost his stanchest friend, one who had never failed him, and whose wealth had been freely used for his advancement.

The world now belonged to Caesar and Pompey. That the insatiable ambition of these two rivals should sooner or later bring them into collision was inevitable. Their alliance in the triumvirate was simply one of selfish convenience, not of friendship. While Caesar was carrying on his campaigns in Gaul, Pompey was at Rome watching jealously the growing reputation of his great rival. He strove, by a princely liberality, to win the affections of the common people. On the Field of Mars he erected an immense theatre with seats for forty thousand spectators. He gave magnificent games, and set public tables; and when the interest of the people in the sports of the Circus flagged, he entertained them with gladiatorial combats. In a similar manner Caesar strengthened himself with the people for the struggle which he plainly foresaw. He sought in every way to ingratiate himself with the Gauls; increased the pay of his soldiers; conferred the privileges of Roman citizenship upon the inhabitants of different cities in his province; and sent to Rome enormous sums of gold to be expended in the erection of temples, theatres, and other public structures, and in the celebration of games and shows that should rival in magnificence those given by Pompey.

The terrible condition of affairs at the capital favored the ambition of Pompey. So selfish and corrupt were the members of the Senate, so dead to all virtue and to every sentiment of patriotism were the people, that even such patriots as Cato and Cicero saw no hope for the maintenance of the republic. The former favored the appointment of Pompey as sole consul for one year, which was about the same thing as making him dictator. "It is better," said Cato, "to choose a master than to wait for the tyrant whom anarchy will impose upon us." The "tyrant" in his and everybody's mind was Caesar.

Pompey now broke with Caesar, and attached himself again to the old aristocratic party, which he had deserted for the alliance and promises of the triumvirate. The death at this time of his wife Julia, the daughter of Caesar, severed the bonds of relationship at the same moment that those of ostensible friendship were broken.

The Senate, hostile to Caesar, now issued a decree that he should resign his office, and disband his Gallic legions by a stated day. The crisis had now come. Caesar ordered his legions to hasten from Gaul into Italy. Without waiting for their arrival, at the head of a small body of veterans that he had with him at Ravenna, he crossed the Rubicon, a little stream that marked the boundary of his province. This was a declaration of war. As he plunged into the river, he exclaimed, "The die is cast."

THE CIVIL WAR OF CAESAR AND POMPEY (49-48 B.C.).—The bold movement of Caesar produced great consternation at Rome. Realizing the danger of delay, Caesar, without waiting for the Gallic legions to join him, marched southward. One city after another threw open its gates to him; legion after legion went over to his standard. Pompey and the Senate hastened from Rome to Brundisium, and thence, with about twenty-five thousand men, fled across the Adriatic into Greece. Within sixty days Caesar made himself undisputed master of all Italy.

Pompey and Caesar now controlled the Roman world. It was large, but not large enough for both these ambitious men. As to which was likely to become sole master, it were difficult for one watching events at that time to foresee. Caesar held Italy, Illyricum, and Gaul, with the resources of his own genius and the idolatrous attachment of his soldiers; Pompey controlled Spain, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Greece, and the provinces of Asia, with the prestige of his great name and the indefinite resources of the East.

Caesar's first care was to pacify Italy. His moderation and prudence won all classes to his side. Many had looked to see the terrible scenes of the days of Marius and Sulla re-enacted. Caesar, however, soon gave assurance that life and property should be held sacred. He needed money; but, to avoid laying a tax upon the people, he asked for the treasure kept beneath the Capitol. Legend declared that this gold was the actual ransom-money which Brennus had demanded of the Romans, and which Camillus had saved by his timely appearance (see p. 241). It was esteemed sacred, and was never to be used save in case of another Gallic invasion. When Caesar attempted to get possession of the treasure, the tribune Metellus prevented him; but Caesar impatiently brushed him aside, saying, "The fear of a Gallic invasion is over: I have subdued the Gauls."

With order restored in Italy, Caesar's next movement was to gain control of the wheat-fields of Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. A single legion brought over Sardinia without resistance to the side of Caesar. Cato, the lieutenant of Pompey, fled from before Curio out of Sicily. In Africa, however, the lieutenant of Caesar sustained a severe defeat, and the Pompeians held their ground there until the close of the war. Caesar, meanwhile, had subjugated Spain. In forty days the entire peninsula was brought under his authority. Massilia had ventured to close her gates against the conqueror; but a brief siege forced the city to capitulate. Caesar was now free to turn his forces against Pompey in the East.

THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS (48 B.C.).—From Brundisium Caesar embarked his legions for Epirus. The armies of the rivals met upon the plains of Pharsalia, in Thessaly. The adherents of Pompey were so confident of an easy victory that they were already disputing about the offices at Rome, and were renting the most eligible houses fronting the public squares of the capital. The battle was at length joined. It proved Pompey's Waterloo. His army was cut to pieces. He himself fled from the field, and escaped to Egypt. Just as he was landing there, he was assassinated.

The head of the great general was severed from his body; and when Caesar, who was pressing after Pompey in hot pursuit, landed in Egypt, the bloody trophy was brought to him. He turned from the sight with generous tears. It was no longer the head of his rival, but of his old associate and son- in-law. He ordered the assassins to be executed, and directed that fitting obsequies should be performed over the body.

CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.—Caesar was detained at Alexandria nine months in settling a dispute respecting the throne of Egypt. After a severe contest he overthrew the reigning Ptolemy, and secured the kingdom to the celebrated Cleopatra and a younger brother. Intelligence was now brought from Asia Minor that Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the Great, was inciting a revolt among the peoples of that region. Caesar met the Pontic king at Zela, defeated him, and in five days put an end to the war. His laconic message to the Senate, announcing his victory, is famous. It ran thus: Veni, vidi, vici,—"I came, I saw, I conquered."