Part 12

The humanity of Marcellus after the conquest of the town, is by the ancients generally set forth as quite exemplary; but the Ἐκλογαὶ περὶ γνωμῶν now show us what a sort of forbearance it was. The town was not burned, but completely sacked; and the inhabitants were driven out, and had to tear up the grass from the earth, to appease their hunger. The slaves were sold, a fate, which was so much envied by those who were free, that many gave themselves out to be slaves, and let themselves be sold, only to keep soul and body together. All that was in the town, became the prize of the soldiers or of the state; Marcellus carried away the highest works of Grecian art in a mass to Rome. Livy’s remark is a true one, that this melancholy gain was avenged upon him, inasmuch as the temple of _Virtus_ and _Honor_, which he thus bedecked, was already thoroughly stripped by others in his (Livy’s) times. After the fall of Syracuse, the war in Sicily lasted yet two years, and it ended with the taking of Agrigentum, which was still more terribly dealt with, as the Romans sold all the freemen as slaves. Thus Agrigentum was thrice laid waste:--once under Dionysius; then, a hundred and fifty years later, in the first Punic war; and now once more, after another fifty years. It was the most splendid town in the island next to Syracuse, and it became at that time the insignificant place which it is still to this day. M. Valerius Lævinus, a Roman of humane disposition, afterwards gathered together a new community therein (549). This victory over the Carthaginian army was also brought about by treachery; for a Numidian captain named Mutines went over with his soldiers to the Romans, and, like Mericus, was liberally rewarded by them. Thus, in the sixth year after the defection of Hieronymus, Sicily was again quite under the rule of the Romans.

The taking of Syracuse is of the same date as that of Capua (541), and both of these events may show us, how little the wars of the ancients are to be deemed like those of our own days. Since the end of the seventeenth century especially, quite a different notion of waging war has come into vogue. The last war of horrors, was the devastation of the Palatinate under Louis XIV.

The period from 541 to 545 is enlivened by a number of battles, in which Hannibal almost always had the best of it. From the tenth year of the struggle, he was in possession of the greatest part of Apulia, Samnium, and Lucania, and of the whole of Bruttium: here was the seat of the war in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth years. He defeated the proconsul Cn. Fulvius near Herdonia with considerable slaughter; from an ambush, he surprised the consuls, M. Claudius Marcellus, and T. Quinctius Crispinus: both of them died; the first, in the fight; the second afterwards, of his wounds. He took Arpi and Salapia (likewise an Apulian town); but the Romans recovered them again. Tarentum he gained after a three years’ siege, in which he displayed all the superiority of his genius. Every one of the Greek towns of Lower Italy had now gone over to him. Tarentum, which had fallen into his hands owing to the treachery of the inhabitants, was afterwards again betrayed to the Romans by the commander of the Bruttian garrison. The city was treated like one which had been taken by the sword: all its treasures were carried to Rome, and thenceforward Tarentum appears desolate, until C. Gracchus sent a colony thither.

The Romans might have expected from the very beginning, that the Carthaginians, after the great successes of Hannibal, would send from Spain army upon army. It was not therefore on account of their small settlements there, but to prevent these from sending out new troops, that with incredible exertions they dispatched an army to Spain under the command of P. and Cn. Scipio (in the second year of the war, 535). These at first established themselves in Tarragona, and from thence they harassed the Carthaginians. After the battle of Cannæ already, it was intended that Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother, should set out for Italy with an army to support him; but the Scipios hindered this, and although in the beginning the rule of Carthage had been really popular, the fickleness of the Spaniards led them to join the Romans, when they saw that they were only used by the Carthaginians as tools to furnish numbers of men and supplies of money for the war. How these wars were conducted, is not to be clearly made out from Livy’s narration. It is surprising, but there seems to be no doubt of it, that the Romans advanced as far as Cordova; (for Illiturgis is surely the place of that name near Cordova, and not the other). This war is not worth a detailed description, as from the great distance of the scene of operations, according to Livy’s own opinion, who is here our only authority, all the accounts of it are anything but trustworthy.[27] We cannot even say for certain how long the two Scipios (_duo fulmina belli_ in Lucretius and others) carried it on. Livy mentions the eighth year; but if this were reckoned from the arrival of the Scipios in Spain, it would not tally with the one in which he places their death. But I am very much inclined to believe that they were not killed before 542: otherwise there is a gap, and the date of Hasdrubal’s departure from Spain is too early.

The Carthaginians had increased the number of their troops, and had raised a considerable host, which was to march under Hasdrubal to Italy. They had divided it into three bodies, which by skilful movements separated the armies of the two Scipios, and won two battles against them. In the first of these, P. Scipio was slain, owing to the faithlessness of the Celtiberians, a plain proof of the barbarous condition of that people. Faithlessness is a leading feature in the character of barbarians: good-faith is not the growth of the savage state, but of a higher civilization; the savage follows the impulse of his passions. The ancient Goths, and still more so the Vandals, were just as faithless as the Albanians of the present day. Thirty days after his brother, Cn. Scipio also fell: the Romans lost all the country beyond the Ebro, and their rule in Spain was almost wholly destroyed. Yet, if we trust the accounts which Livy repeats without quite believing in them, they soon retrieved all their losses; a Roman knight, L. Marcius, gathered together all that had been left of his countrymen, and with these, in his turn, he utterly routed the Carthaginians. The senator Acilius, who described this victory in Greek, has said that the Carthaginians lost by it thirty-eight thousand men, and the whole of their camp; but Livy himself seems rather to agree with Piso, that Marcius had only collected what remained of the Romans, and beaten off the attacks of the Carthaginians upon their entrenchments. The difficulty at Rome was now what to do, as the army was nearly destroyed, all but the remnant at Taraco. A reinforcement was sent out under C. Claudius Nero; but he did not succeed in doing anything beyond occupying a somewhat larger space along the sea coast on this side of the Ebro, and hindering the march of Hasdrubal. It was determined therefore, as both the consuls were engaged in Italy, that the people should elect a general with proconsular power to go to Spain. _Comitia centuriata_ were held, as at the election of a consul; but no one offered himself as a candidate. On this, P. Scipio, the son of the Publius Scipio who had lately fallen, a young man in his twenty-fourth year, stepped forth, and proposed himself for that dignity. To him the Roman people had, even at an early period, directed its attention. He is said to have saved his father from a deadly stroke at the battle on the Ticinus already; and after the rout at Cannæ, to have compelled the young Roman nobles who in their despair would have left the city to its fate, and have emigrated to Macedon, to take an oath on his sword not to go away. But if he was really not more than twenty-four years old when he went to Spain, he could hardly have saved his father at the Ticinus. As no one else applied for it, the place was given to him in spite of the opposition, made by many on the ground of his being still so young, and _ex domo funestata_, in which even the year of mourning was not yet over.

Scipio was called among his contemporaries the Great, a surname which has unjustly fallen into disuse; for no man in the Roman history ought to be set above him. His personal qualities everywhere turned the scales. He was not only a great general, but also a well educated man; he possessed Greek learning, and understood the Greek language, so that he composed his memoirs in it. It was the opinion of the people that there was some mysterious influence upon him, and he fostered it by his own belief that he was leagued with the powers above. If he gave advice in the assembly or in the army, he always gave it as if it had been inspired by the gods, and all his counsels succeeded. He also went every morning to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, and would stay there for a while by himself. At one time, he gave out that he had heard a voice which prophesied victory to him; at another, he told his soldiers that in three days he would take the enemy’s camp with its rich stores; and it turned out as he had said. This wonderfully strengthened the confidence which the soldiers had in him. We must therefore either deem him to have been an inspired enthusiast, or a crafty impostor, just like Mohammed. The latter hypothesis is not to be thought of. It is a great question to this day, whether Cromwell until his last years was an honest fanatic or an impostor. There is in such characters a remarkable mixture, which is scarcely to be distinguished.

Scipio was at that time highly popular in Rome, even in the senate, and he was furnished with all the means for carrying on the war. The first period which he passed in Spain, was taken up by preparations at Tarragona; it very likely lasted longer than what Livy states. The latter himself tells us that some writers dated the taking of Carthago Nova later than he did; and this is probably correct, as it surely is to be placed one year later, in 546; for otherwise the conduct of the Carthaginians would be unaccountable, nor could it be understood how Scipio could have marched from Tarragona to Carthagena in spite of three hostile armies. Very likely the writers thought that it had been inglorious for Scipio to have rested for so long a time. Hasdrubal had gained over the Celtiberians as free allies, and had raised among them an army which he was to lead to Italy. Besides Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother, there were also Hasdrubal, Gisgo’s son, and Mago, another brother of Hannibal, in Spain. But Scipio led his army to New Carthage, without the Carthaginians having expected it. With regard to the details of this campaign, and the time which it lasted, it is impossible to arrive at any positive result. New Carthage, for a city, was but small, as indeed most of the towns in southern France, Italy, and even in Spain, were smaller in the days of old than they are now. It was scarcely more than a military station; but during the short time since it had been founded, it had already become of great consequence: it was well-peopled with a numerous Punic community; it was an important place of arms; there were arsenals and dockyards in it; and it was strongly fortified with high and new built walls. To take this place, was one of those all but impracticable undertakings, which are only possible from their being quite unlooked for. The town lay on a peninsula. Scipio, who must have had intelligence of its weakness, first made an attack on the wall which was on the peninsula; but his men were repulsed with great loss. That part of the bay which washes the north side of the town, is a shallow pool, and does not belong to the harbour; there is still a tide there, though not so strong a one as on the open sea, and it may be forded at low water, as a firm bed of gravel runs along the wall: these shallows Scipio had caused to be examined by fishing boats. He renewed the attack from the land side, and whilst the ebb was at its lowest, he had soldiers brought to the shore, who scaled the low wall by means of ladders, and made themselves masters of a gate; and thus the town was taken by storm. This loss was a death-blow to the Carthaginians. Hasdrubal must at that time have already been in the country near the Pyrenees, and he must have reckoned on the place being able to defend itself.

How many troops Hasdrubal carried over to Italy, is not exactly known to us, as we are left here without Polybius.[28] He did not march with a large army from Spain; but, with the skill of his father and brother, he increased it in Gaul. Many a messenger, as Livy expressly tells us, had in those days stolen across the Alps over to Hannibal in Apulia; so that the Alpine tribes had already become acquainted with the Carthaginians. Moreover, by a twelve years’ intercourse the people there were convinced, that the passage through their country was only a secondary object, and that therefore it was their interest to grant it under fair conditions. Hasdrubal avoided the blunder made by his brother in starting too late; in the autumn his preparations were ended, and he now set out, going a great way round. It is evident, on a careful collation of the different statements, that after a short engagement with Scipio, he marched from the country of the Celtiberians, not through Catalonia, but through Biscay, by what is now Bayonne, along the north side of the Pyrenees; so as to elude the Romans, and not be stopped by them. In the south of Gaul, he took up his winter-quarters somewhere in modern Roussillon, and was able to start from thence by the first beginning of spring. We learn from Livy, that at that time the Arvernians had the _principatus Galliæ_, and that they allowed him a free passage. He now reached Italy without any mischance, because he had started early enough. When it is said that he had gone over the ground which had taken Hannibal five months, in two, this applies only to his march from the Pyrenees to Placentia, whereas Hannibal had set out from New Carthage.

The Romans heard with great dismay of Hasdrubal’s departure, and they made immense exertions. Hannibal was well apprised of everything; but he expected his brother later. There is no doubt but that in the course of the preceding years he had received more reinforcements than Livy tells us; yet his old troops were indeed almost gone, and he had nothing but Italians, whom, however, he had completely under his control and command: he was therefore now obliged to carry on the war according to the Roman system. It was his endeavour, by continual marchings and counter-marchings in Apulia, Lucania, and Bruttium, to move the Romans from one place to the other, like a clever chess-player; and in this he was perfectly successful. Had Hasdrubal been like Hannibal, he would not have loitered. But he wished first to take Piacenza, which, wonderful to say, had held out until then in the midst of the Gallic tribes; for thus he would remove this thorn from the side of those Gauls, and at the same time gain a safe place of arms. In this he wasted a good deal of time in vain, which perhaps was one of the causes of his bad success. His messengers to Hannibal were intercepted, and his letters read. The Romans kept Hannibal hemmed in within three armies, none of which, however, had the courage to give battle: their main force they had sent against Gaul. Hasdrubal’s plan was to march, not through Tuscany, but along the Adriatic to the frontier of Apulia, where Hannibal was stationed. He was opposed by C. Claudius Nero as commander-in-chief; to Ariminum, M. Livius Salinator had been sent with the _volones_ and two legions of allies, six legions altogether. But Livius fell back before Hasdrubal as far as Sena Gallica, and would have retreated even to the Aternus in Picenum, had not Nero risked an expedition which is one of the boldest and most romantic ever made, but which was nevertheless successful. Hannibal was certainly not informed of the approach of his brother; this is proved beyond dispute by his march to Larinum: yet as he was not in a condition to take the Roman camp by storm, Claudius picked out the flower of his troops, and went with these by forced marches to the aid of his colleague. Hasdrubal, who had got ready to attack Livius, perceived from a careful observation of the Romans as they were turning out, that the state of their horses, arms, and accoutrements, which was quite different from what had been seen in Livius’ troops hitherto, betrayed their having made a long march; from this he concluded that the latter had received reinforcements. In the night his attention was still more aroused: he heard the trumpets and bugles blow twice, from which he inferred that there were two consuls, although the Romans had in other respects taken every care to deceive him, and had not enlarged their camps. When Hasdrubal was sure of this, he wished to go a long way round, whereas until then he had evidently advanced by the straight road along the Adriatic. He had crossed the Metaurus, but now he wished to recross the river; and he marched higher up on its opposite bank, so as to approach the Apennines, and thus turn the Romans, or else to keep himself on the defensive behind the Metaurus. Here he had the misfortune of his guide deserting him; and he went along the river, under the very eyes of the Romans, without being able to find the ford. It is not unlikely that heavy rains had lately fallen; for otherwise the Metaurus may be forded anywhere. When he had been wearing himself out during the greatest part of the day, and he was now wavering, now trying to cross over, the Romans fell upon him. The battle was set in array in a manner worthy of a son of Hamilcar and brother of Hannibal; the Iberians and Libyans fought like lions: but the star of Rome decreed a requital for the day of Cannæ, and almost all the army, though not the whole of it, as Livy says, together with the general himself, was destroyed. Those who escaped, only got off because the Romans were too tired to follow after them any farther. According to Appian (whose account is from Polybius or Fabius), part of the Celtiberians cut their way through, and reached Hannibal; and in this there is an air of truth, as it does not redound to the glory of the Romans, and is not therefore likely to have been invented by them: the Gauls who were not slain, retired into their own land. Thus the whole undertaking ended in discomfiture. The Roman army now quickly returned, without Hannibal’s having ventured in the meanwhile to strike a blow. Claudius caused the head of the hero-warrior of the house of Barcas to be taken to the outposts of Hannibal, who in this way received the first tidings of his brother’s overthrow. Here ends the third period of the war.

After Hasdrubal had led his troops into Italy, there still remained in Spain the two armies of Hasdrubal Gisgo and of Mago, which had been driven back to the Atlantic. Against these, Scipio carried on the war the rest of that year, and in the following one; but all the spirit of it had fled with the Barcine Hasdrubal. Mago tried only to keep Gades; Hasdrubal after a series of battles went over to Africa. In Gades, a city which wanted to be equal with Carthage, and yet was subject to her, treachery was brewing; they were engaged in a plan to give up Mago to the Romans. It was discovered and defeated: the magistrates were enticed out, and put to death. Mago, however, now received orders to withdraw from the place. He was to go to the Balearic isles, which seem to have revolted against Carthage; and from thence to Liguria, there to collect a force with which he was to support Hannibal in Italy, and also, at the same time, to raise troubles in Etruria. When the Spanish peoples saw that the Carthaginians had given them up, and that they were employing the last means in their power to squeeze out of them supplies for other wars, they refused to obey them any longer. To the inhabitants of Gades also, the severity which had been shown towards them, was only an additional motive for an everlasting separation; and they made an alliance with the Romans, to which some writers give an earlier date than we can possibly assume from the very connected account of Livy. This is a political falsification of history; the Gaditanians in fact pretended out of vanity to have concluded it immediately after Scipio’s arrival in the country. Scipio was still remaining in Spain in 545 and 546; the Carthaginians were quite driven out of it.

Yet the Romans had no firm footing in that country; for they only offered to its people, who had reckoned upon having freedom, a rule which perhaps was still more oppressive than that of the Carthaginians, with whom they had an opportunity of getting pay, as these employed mercenaries, whilst the Romans only occasionally took small bodies of Celtiberian troops into their service. The Romans also now revenged themselves on some towns which had behaved with particular fury against them. There happened at this period some horrible events, the outbursts of a fanaticism of bravery which is turned into madness. Such was the defence of Illiturgis and of Astapa. From the latter of these, all who were able to bear arms sallied forth, and fought to the last man; and at the same time, those who remained behind killed the women and children, and set fire to the town, laying hands on themselves also while it was burning.