Part 11

In the list of the peoples which fell off after the battle of Cannæ, as given by Livy and Polybius, no distinction is made between what took place at different times: the course of defection was but gradual, and there was no general rising,--so strong was the belief in the unshaken might of Rome. Immediately after the battle, a part only of the Apulians, Samnites, and Lucanians, fell away; so did afterwards the Bruttians, and at a much later period, the Sallentines; but none of the Greek towns as yet. It seems that the Ferentines, Hirpinians, and Caudines declared for Hannibal, whilst he was still on his march to Capua: Acerræ was taken after a long siege. Hannibal’s object, while he was abiding in Campania, was now to gain a sea-port; so that he might keep up a direct communication with Carthage. He found himself in the strangest position; for though the general of a first-rate power, which was mistress of the seas, he did not possess one single harbour. An attempt against Cumæ and Naples was repulsed. Near Nola, for the first time, the current of his victories was checked; Marcellus threw himself into this important town, put down the party which wanted to go over to the Carthaginians, and drove Hannibal back; which is described by the Romans as a victory, but was not so by any means, although it was now something great, even to have delayed the progress of Hannibal. Marcellus showed here considerable talent as a general, and once more inspired the Romans with confidence.

The Bruttians, after having themselves fallen off, now succeeded in gaining over Locri, the first Greek town, which declared for Hannibal. Croton was taken by force of arms; and this completed the ruin of that place, which, though once so great and prosperous, was still inhabited only about the centre, as Leyden is now, and still more so, Pisa; so that the deserted walls could easily be stormed. Every attempt on the part of the inhabitants to defend the town was impossible; for after the different devastations by Dionysius, Agathocles, and the Romans under Rufinus, in the war of Pyrrhus, their number had become very small. Thus Hannibal had now seaports; and he received by Locri that reinforcement of troops and elephants from Carthage, which was the only one which he ever had from thence in a large mass: its amount is unknown to us.

With the taking of Capua, ends the first period of the war of Hannibal, which here reaches its culminating point. From 537 to 541, five years elapse to the fall of Capua, which is the second period. The Romans make now already the most astonishing efforts. Their legions were continually increased. Allies we hear no more about: the bravest had most of them fallen away; Etruscans, Umbrians, &c., are not even spoken of. Perhaps they incorporated the allies for the time of that war with the legions, so as not to let them stand isolated. Instead of confining themselves to the lowest scale, the Romans conceived the grand idea, of redoubling their exertions everywhere, and of raising an entirely new army. They refused to ransom the prisoners, and therefore Hannibal sold these for slaves, and they were scattered all over the world: many of them may have been butchered. This conduct of the Romans must not be judged of too severely. One should bear in mind, that in the first moment of dismay, after the battle of Cannæ, they were completely stunned: in such moments, those who belong to a mass, will act quite without any will of their own. It may also be well imagined that Hannibal demanded ready money, and that the Romans were not able to pay it. This may have been a principal motive. Those also who had escaped from the battle of Cannæ, were treated with undeserved severity; just as the unfortunate Admiral Byng was shot by the English. The whole of the young men were enlisted; nevertheless there was a scarcity of freemen able to bear arms. Many, from utter despondency, tried to shun the service. All who had not been able to pay a _delictum_, and likewise all the _addicti_, were discharged on the bail of the state, that they might serve; eight thousand slaves were bought on credit from their masters, and two regiments formed of them; even gladiators and their weapons were taken, as there was also a want of arms. Of the warlike races, there still remained on the side of the Romans only the Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, Frentanians, Pelignians, and Picentines. Their greatest strength lay in the many Latin colonies, which extended from Bruttium to the Po. Such were the resources of Rome, and notwithstanding Livy’s account, there is no denying that the danger was very great. He describes the rich individuals who advanced money to the state, as excellent patriots, although we know for certain that they were guilty of the most infamous fraud: they had the supplies for Spain ensured against danger at sea, and had then caused ships laden with the worst articles, to be wrecked. The price of corn had risen to ten times its ordinary rate. The town of Petelia alone among the Lucanians kept true to the Romans, for which it was destroyed by the Carthaginians and the rest of the Lucanians; Bruttium, the greater part of Samnium, and many Greek towns went over to the enemy; the Romans had the ground shaking under their feet. It is surprising that, under these circumstances, not only had Hannibal no lasting success, but the Romans also raised their head more and more. Their troops gradually became well trained, as their foes did not fight any great battles, which of course gave them time for practice; and thus they got an army which was certainly better than the one they had before the battle of Cannæ. Hannibal left Capua, and stayed in Apulia and Lucania, where he marched backwards and forwards, and made little conquests, so as to keep the Romans in constant excitement: we cannot quite trace his designs. In the following year, he made two unsuccessful attempts upon the Roman camp near Nola. Marcellus and Fabius were here opposed to him; the operations of the latter were slow, but highly felicitous. Hannibal is stated to have said, that he considered Fabius as his tutor, and Marcellus as his rival; that Fabius was teaching him to guard against blunders, and Marcellus how to develope his good ideas. This saying is certainly authentic; it displays Hannibal’s great soul.

As early as in 539, the Romans again established themselves in Campania with a decided superiority. The Campanians showed themselves to be pitiful cowards. They appeared in the field but once, near Cumæ, and were beaten; then they allowed themselves to be pent up like sheep, and Hannibal made several attempts to relieve them. One Hanno is routed near Beneventum by Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, which is the first decisive victory of the Romans; it was chiefly gained by the slaves (_volones_), and these had their freedom given them for it. In the following year, Arpi returned to the side of the Romans, and in this way they gradually got many a little town. These small undertakings, which led to encounters of which the success was various, fill up the time until 540, when Tarentum delivered itself over to Hannibal; the secession of Metapontum and Thurii followed shortly afterwards, and it was perfectly justifiable in a moral point of view. When the hostages which these places had given to the Romans had made their escape, and had been retaken, the latter caused them to be indiscriminately put to death; and therefore, as so many had lost a son or a brother, and the very first families in these towns had been thus deeply wronged, they naturally sought for revenge, and gave themselves up to Hannibal. Yet the citadel of Tarentum remained to the Romans, and into it the garrison of Metapontum also threw itself. The negotiations with Philip of Macedon, which took place at this time, may have detained Hannibal in the east of Italy. Whilst he was waiting till matters improved, he reduced the Sallentine towns, and tried to keep the allies which he still had true to him; for the Lucanians and the neighbouring peoples changed, like weathercocks, with every wind. The Romans now set to work in good earnest to take Capua. Hanno was still carrying on operations in that neighbourhood; but they had already for two years established themselves near Suessula, and had been laying waste the whole country, so that famine had raged for a good while in Capua. I cannot understand, why Hannibal, who now had got reinforcements, did not make every exertion to relieve Capua which the Romans had invested with a double entrenchment. He ought to have attacked them in their entrenchments, and driven them out. At the urgent request of the Campanians, he made in 541 an attempt, the meaning of which, however, is not to be accounted for by our history, and there are many contradictions in this undertaking. If we follow the most unpretending account, Hannibal attacked the Romans, but was not able to break through their lines: a few Numidians only got through, and opened a communication with the town. But this could not be followed up, and so he determined to make a diversion.

Of the two conflicting statements as to which road he took, we are to consider that of Cœlius as the most improbable. The point in dispute is, whether he came before the Porta Collina from the north, through the country of the Pelignians, and on his retreat started from the Capena, or the reverse. The former account is the more worthy of belief; the other line would be too great a way round. This determination of his seems to have taken the Romans by surprise; so that there was hardly time enough for half of the troops from Capua to reach Rome by the Appian road before him,--he was some days march in advance,--although he moved along the arc of that chord by which they went, namely, across the Vulturnus, through the district of Cales towards Fregellæ, which was a very strong place. The people of Fregellæ, like brave men, had broken down the bridges over the Liris, and while he had to wait there till they were rebuilt, he wasted their country: he then marched by the Latin road, and through Tusculum, to the gates of Rome. But before his arrival, the consul Fulvius had come up by the Appian road, and was at the Porta Capena. Whilst Hannibal was already on the Esquiline, the former marched through the city by the Carinæ at the very nick of time, and by a sudden attack hindered the Carthaginian general from surprising the city on that spot. This was also what Hannibal had wished; but he had hoped that both the armies would be called away from Capua: the general, whom he had ordered either to relieve the place, or else carry off its population, must not have been able to do it. Hannibal encamped before the Porta Collina, on the Monte Pincio, beyond the low grounds of the gardens of Sallust. Here history again appears poetical. Twice did Hannibal march forth to offer battle to the Romans, who also went out against him; but both times a thunderstorm is said to have broken out just then, and when the two armies withdrew, the brightness of the sky returned. These _portenta_, we are told, convinced Hannibal that he could do nothing against Rome. Other stories sound very fine; but they likewise are idle tales. The Romans, it is said, at the very moment that Hannibal was encamped before their city, were sending out reinforcements to the army in Spain; and the field which was occupied by the enemy, was sold at just as good a price as in the height of peace. It was not advisable for Hannibal to accept a battle: he had no stronghold whatever in his rear, while the Romans had behind them the unscaleable walls of the city. When he had stayed eight days before the town, and the Roman allies far and wide had not stirred, he broke up again, and retired by Antrodoco and Sulmo to Samnium and Apulia, going through the midst of hostile countries in which all the towns were shut against him, like a lion chased by the hunters, but unhurt. The object of his undertaking had been baffled; he was in that dismal plight, that with great objects and great means, he still wanted the very thing, however trifling it might have been, which could have brought about the result of those objects and means.

In Capua, the distress had risen to the highest pitch, and the town wanted to capitulate; but the Romans demanded, that it should surrender unconditionally, on which the heads of the hostile party, Vibius Virrius and twenty-seven other senators, resolved to die. And indeed the result showed that they were right; for the Romans behaved with the most frightful cruelty. The whole senate of Capua, without any exception, were led in chains to Teanum, and the proconsul Q. Fulvius Flaccus wished not even to leave the decision to the Roman senate. But the proconsul Appius Claudius, to whom, as well as the other, the city had been yielded up, wished to save as many as he could, and he wrote to the senate, requesting them to institute a _causæ cognitio_. Flaccus however, foreseeing this, went to Teanum, and leaving unopened the letters received from the senate, ordered all the senators of Capua to be put to death. Jubellius Taurea, the bravest of the Campanians, whose heroism was acknowledged even by the Romans, killed his wife and children, and himself awaited his execution by the Romans. When the gates of Capua were opened, there is no doubt but that the inhabitants suffered all that the citizens of a town taken by storm have to suffer from the fury of the soldiers. Destroyed it was not; but all Campanians of rank were banished, most of them to Etruria; a great number of them were still executed as guilty, and even without any direct charge against them, they lost their property; the whole of the _ager Campanus_, all the houses and landed estates were confiscated; so that there remained nothing but the common, nameless rabble, and not a magistrate, besides foreigners and freedmen. The city was afterwards filled again with a new population of Roman citizens and others; a Roman præfect was sent thither to administer the law. Atella and Acerræ, the periœcians of Capua, had a like fate. From one of the Campanian towns, the whole of the population went over to Hannibal.

During this period, in the year of the battle of Cannæ, or in the following one, old Hiero died at the age of ninety. His son Gelon, who bore the same character for mildness as his father, but had been long dead, had two or three daughters, and a son, Hieronymus. Hiero’s authority was as well established as if his family had sat on the throne for centuries. Hieronymus, who succeeded his grandfather, was a contemptible, effeminate fellow; his father Gelon would have followed quite a different policy from his. That the Syracusans did not like to have the Romans as their real masters, was but natural; yet they were obliged to acknowledge either the Carthaginians or the Romans as such, and the latter, after all, had, on the whole, treated them well. But there was a general fatality, which made all the nations fall away from Rome. Hannibal had behaved in the same way towards Sicily, as he had done in Italy after the battle on the Trasimene lake: he had dismissed the Syracusan prisoners with presents, and after the battle of Cannæ, he sent envoys to Syracuse to entice the king into an alliance. Among these emissaries there were Hippocrates and Epicydes, two grandsons of a Syracusan, who, when banished from his native city, had settled in Carthage; a proof that such metics in Carthage did not cease to be Greeks, although they had even Carthaginian names, as we may see from monuments. These two were readily listened to by Hieronymus. Their first proposition was to divide Sicily between Carthage and Syracuse, with the Himera as a boundary, as in the days of Timoleon; but Hieronymus in his day-dreams was not yet content with this: he would not promise his alliance for anything less than the possession of the whole island. Hannibal, who was far from being much in earnest in this discussion, granted him his demand; for he hoped that afterwards indeed he would be able to put him down, if he could only get him for the present to declare himself against Rome. The Syracusans, who under Hiero’s rule had never thought of a revolution, were disgusted with his grandson’s ridiculous aping of eastern kings, and also with his outrages and those of his companions; so that a party was formed which wanted to restore the republic, and of course it was joined by all who were for the Romans, and likewise by all those men of sense who looked upon the rule of the Carthaginians as more ruinous than that of the Romans. The conspiracy was discovered, and one of the accomplices punished with death; yet those who had been found out would not betray the rest, and thus Hieronymus was off his guard when a great number of conspirators carried out their design, and he was murdered on the road from Syracuse to Leontini, one of the most considerable places of his petty kingdom. After his death, the republic was proclaimed, and a number of generals appointed, very likely, one for every tribe (φυλή). We find that a βουλά had always, even under the kings, a share in the administration, as in all the republics governed by tyrants: that council was allowed to continue. The question now was, who were to be generals? There were also the brothers-in-law of the king elected among them; so that the revolution cannot have been a root and branch one. Nor indeed did they yet know after all whether they ought to uphold the league with the Carthaginians. The Roman prætor Appius Claudius negotiated with them, wishing to keep up the Roman alliance, and the Syracusan citizens felt great hesitation to break it; but these two envoys of Hannibal managed to get themselves chosen generals, and they now did all they could to disturb the negotiation. The whole history of those events is exceedingly perplexed. Livy has it from Polybius; his account therefore is authentic. After there had been several times an appearance of peace being concluded, the Carthaginian party brought about a revolution with the help of the mercenaries, by which the chief power was placed in the grasp of Hippocrates and Epicydes, and the whole family of Hiero was murdered on the threshold of the altar. After this horrible event, all was wild confusion: there was a republic indeed in name; but these two fellows ruled by means of the mercenaries; the unfortunate Syracusans were mere tools in their hands. Yet it must not be forgotten, that it was also the unjustifiable cruelty of the Romans which had irritated men’s minds. The community of Enna, called together under a false pretext, was slaughtered for a sham insurrection; so that far and near, every one fell away to the Carthaginians. These now sent a considerable fleet under Himilco to Sicily, which was indeed quite right and welcome to Hannibal himself, for the purpose of maintaining the island, and dividing the Roman forces. The fleet, for some time, kept the communication open between Carthage and Syracuse; but the generals showed themselves to be most wretchedly incompetent. Marcellus, who had gained glory by his contest against Viridomarus, and near Nola, now got the command of a Roman army in Sicily, and invested Syracuse. The town was quite easy to blockade on the landside; but the sea remained nearly always open. The war lasted for two years (538-540). It is represented to us as the siege of Syracuse; but it rather consisted in the Romans carrying on war from two very strong camps against the surrounding country. Himilco had made himself master of Agrigentum, and from thence of a great part of the Sicilian cities. Only the western towns of Lilybæum and Panormus, and Messana and Catana in the north, remained always with the Romans; but the whole semicircle round Agrigentum, even beyond Heraclea, became subject to the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians tried to relieve Syracuse, and they encamped in its neighbourhood; but the unwholesome air, which had prevailed there ever since the foundation of the city, and had more than once proved its salvation, destroyed the whole of their army, and the general himself, and Hippocrates, who had joined him, died. Marcellus made several attempts against Syracuse; but when from the sea-side he attacked the Achradina, all his endeavours were baffled by the mechanical skill of Archimedes. As is well known, there are many accounts of this matter: the best authenticated confines itself to this, that Archimedes foiled all the attempts of the Romans to sap the walls; that he smashed the sheds which protected the assailants, and destroyed the battering engines on their ships by his superior machinery. It seems less true that he set fire to the Roman fleet with burning-glasses: the silence of Livy, and consequently of Polybius, from whom he borrowed his description, bears witness against it. Marcellus never could have taken the town, had he not by chance perceived that part of the wall, which adjoined the sea, was but badly fortified, and had he not heard at the same time from deserters that the citizens were quite heedlessly keeping a festival. This day he availed himself of to scale that weak place; and thus the Romans became masters of two parts of the town, Tycha and Neapolis, and soon afterwards of the Epipolæ, that is to say, the town on the heights: the greater portion was still to be taken, namely, the old town (Νᾶσος), and the most flourishing part, namely, the Achradina; for Tycha and Neapolis were only suburbs, which were not even connected with the city. The Syracusans now began to treat. They were much inclined to surrender, and Marcellus wished for nothing better; but the Roman deserters, in their rage and despair, wanted to hold out to the last gasp, and they managed to mislead the mercenaries, and to inspire them with their own fury. Thus in a massacre the most eminent citizens were butchered, and these barbarians usurped the government; so that there was now at Syracuse the same terrible state of things which we read of in Josephus of the besieged city of Jerusalem. If the Romans ever could have openly departed from their principles, and have allowed the deserters to go out free, Syracuse would not have been destroyed: but they would not deviate from them ostensibly, although they did so in other ways; for they had recourse in this war to bribery and corruption of every kind, means which they had formerly scouted. Marcellus bribed Mericus, a Spanish general among the mercenaries, to give up to him part of the Achradina; and this treachery was planned with such fiendish cleverness that it was completely successful. The garrison of the Νᾶσος was enticed out under the pretence of repelling the enemy, and the Νᾶσος as well as Achradina were taken. Syracuse was at that time the most magnificent of all the Greek cities, Athens having long since lost its splendour. Timæus, who had lived in the latter city, and must needs have had a distinct remembrance of it, acknowledged Syracuse as the first and greatest of all.