Part 2

The Hundred and Four are no doubt the _centum senatores_, before whom, says Justin, the kings and generals had to undergo their εὐθύναι; they may have been a court of control to check the administration of the senate, very much like the Ephors in Sparta (παραπλήσιοι ἐφόροις). Aristotle points out, that, properly speaking, the power of government lay with the senate; single cases only were brought before the people: there was therefore no magistracy which could agitate the δῆμος, like the tribunes at Rome. The chief offices were given ἀριστίνδην and πλουτίνδην: in a later passage, Aristotle says positively that the highest places were ὠνηταί, and Polybius confirms it. People were not in the least ashamed to take money from the candidates: things were managed as in the small cantons in Switzerland, where the office of bailiff (_Landvogt_) was sold in the most shameless manner, or as in Venice. There the places were not quite bought in due form; but it was well understood, that one had to pay for them: the great offices of state were sought after as a _provvigione_, as a means of restoring embarrassed fortunes. The rich were never punished, not even for murder; but they paid damages, and there was a regular sale of _cartes blanches_ for manslaughter. This was also the case with the Carthaginians. They were a commercial people, but this should by no means have bereft them of the feeling of honour: we do not find it to be so in England, for instance. Among the trading communities of the United States, similar sentiments are said to prevail as in Carthage. Such a disposition as this cannot but lead to utter ruin. The Carthaginians, owing to their rapacity, were grievously hateful to their subjects: the Libyans had to pay a fourth part of their produce, and in some extraordinary cases even half; besides which, there was whatever the governors might squeeze out of them on their own account; and these, as Aristotle already tells us, were positively sent down to suck the blood of those who were under their rule. This plan was adopted to keep individuals among the citizens in good humour. The contrast between the Carthaginians and the Romans in their better times, is very striking. Some great men, of course, were exceptions, as they were able to act freely, like kings: when Hamilcar commanded in Spain, the Carthaginians were quite popular there. The nation was unwarlike; they kept mercenaries, and had only a cavalry of their own: the mercenaries were faithless in a countless number of instances. The Carthaginians not unseldom left the same generals for many years in possession of their command; but the separation of it from the civil magistracy had this disadvantage, that they often rebelled. The generals, however, became very familiarly acquainted with their armies, and a good captain was thus enabled to achieve quite incredible things, whilst a bad one might also do great mischief. Among the Romans, it was, of course, quite different. With them, there was a constant change; men were in office for one year, and then, at most, one more as proconsuls.

If we would understand the first Punic war, we ought to have in our mind’s eye an outline of the natural features of Sicily. As every body knows, the core and frame-work of the whole island is Ætna, from which a chain of mountains stretches close along the sea, and is continued on the opposite shore as far as Hipponium in Bruttium. For the mountain ranges in the South of Italy belong geologically to Sicily, whilst the hills of the Northern Apennines are a different ridge. The _Apenninus_ so ends that the two sets of mountains are connected together by low hills, on the spot where the Greeks had more than once the intention of making a canal. The mountain ridge, therefore, runs north from Ætna as far as Messina on the eastern coast; to the south, it leaves a considerable plain near Leontini towards the sea; between Syracuse and the western country, there is only a low range of hills. West of Ætna, it continues under the names of the Heræan and Nebrodian mountains. From Pelorus to Himera, it is quite close to the sea, which washes its foot; so that sometimes there is not even a road between. From Himera onward, there is a small strip of coast, and the mountains fall off in height: at some distance from Palermo, the country becomes quite flat; the only eminence is the hill in which is the cavern of St. Rosalia (the ancient Hercta).[1] The range of mountains then goes further to the west, and rises again: Eryx (Monte San Giuliano) is the largest mountain after Ætna; it towers in a quite extraordinary way from among the lower groups. The country round Enna is flat. The southern coast to Agrigentum is a large plain, by Gela and Camarina also it is flat; south of a line drawn from Agrigentum to Catana, there is either nothing but hillocks, or a dead level.--According therefore to this nature of the ground, campaigns had to be managed. Otherwise it would be incomprehensible why the Romans did not march from Messina to Palermo by the northern coast, but went to the southern part, where they could have had no other base but Syracuse to rest upon. To this, my attention was directed by the campaigns of the English in 1812, in which likewise the troops could not go by land from Messina to Palermo.

The first Punic war may be divided into five periods:--

1. From 488 to 491, when the Romans carry on the war without a fleet. The Carthaginians are masters of the sea; the Romans have the greatest difficulty in crossing, and can only get at them in Sicily by land.

2. From 492 to 496, to the landing of Regulus in Africa.

3. From 496 to 497, the campaign of Regulus in Africa.

4. From the destruction of the army of Regulus to the victory of L. Cæcilius Metellus near Panormus. Fortune is nearly equally balanced; the Romans lose two fleets by storms, the Carthaginians have the upperhand in Sicily: nevertheless the Romans are victorious at last.

5. From the beginning of the year 502 to 511; from the contest for Lilibæum and Drepana, to the victory near the Ægatian isles. The ten years’ struggle is confined to an exceedingly narrow space, being important rather in a military than in an historical point of view. The diversion of Hamilcar Barcas, of which, unfortunately, we know so little, is, owing to the taking of Hercta and Eryx, one of the most remarkable in the military history of any age; it shows a great man, who creates new resources for himself, and avails himself of them. Yet for the history of nations this period is not so important.

The Carthaginian system of warfare is quite unknown to us; we can only say, that, where the Carthaginians themselves were in arms, they were drawn up in a phalanx just like the Greeks. The Spaniards very likely stood in _catervæ_, and fought with small swords, and _in cetris_, that is to say, linen coats of mail. The Gauls, no doubt, fought in great masses.

In the year 490, the third of the war, the Romans undertook to besiege Agrigentum with two armies. This town was of great extent; yet, as a city it was but a mere shadow of what it had been a hundred and forty years earlier, before its first destruction by the Carthaginians. Within its high and strong walls, a considerable army of the enemy had now thrown itself. The name of the Punic general was Hannibal. The Carthaginians were called by their first-names only, and one might be easily led to think that they were all related to each other, as there were so few of these names, Hannibal, Hanno, Hamilcar, and some others. These correspond to our christian names, to the Roman _prænomina_, as Gaius, &c. They certainly had, all of them, family names also, which, however, at that time were not yet made use of to designate individuals: they had even bye-names, but these have been partly lost to us. The generals who bear the name of Hannibal, are in the whole of Carthaginian history so insignificant, when set beside that great man who gave the name its renown, that little mention only is made of them. Hannibal had posted himself with fifty thousand men within the wide and waste precincts of Agrigentum; the two consular armies advanced on the south against the town, entrenched themselves in two camps, and constructed two lines against the city, and against any one who might attempt to relieve it. The Carthaginian generals were very bad in the beginning of the war; they either made no use at all of the elephants, or only a limited one, and they were very loth to give battle to the Romans. Hannibal had now imprudently allowed himself to be thus hemmed in, and as Agrigentum does not lie close to the sea, he could not get any succours from thence: yet he succeeded in conveying to the Carthaginians, by single messengers and letters, his entreaties for relief. They indeed, when he had been besieged five months, sent Hanno with a large army and fifty elephants. This general pitched a strong camp near Heraclea; took Erbessus, the arsenal of the Romans; and by means of barricades of felled trees, &c., so shut them in, that they were much distressed for want of supplies, and on account of the state of health of their troops: for the Carthaginians were masters of the sea, and the Numidian horsemen, the Cossacks of the ancients, made it exceedingly difficult for them to forage. It seemed as if they would be obliged to give up the siege, and to retreat; yet they could not bring themselves to do so, showing in this instance also their perseverance, and on the contrary, they kept up the blockade so strictly, that Hannibal found no means of bettering the condition of his troops. When under these circumstances two months had gone by, Hanno may have had reasons to attack; yet the Romans gained a complete victory, and set themselves up again by the booty which they got in his camp. All this time, Hiero had given them every possible help: without him they would have perished. Hannibal, who had been brought to extremities, took advantage of the moment when the Romans were enjoying themselves the night after their victory, to make preparations for a sally. The soldiers filled the ditches of the Roman lines with fascines and sacks of straw, climbed over the ramparts, drove back the outposts, and thus fought their way through: all that the Romans could do, was to annoy them in the rear. Whoever was able to bear arms, got off in this way; but the inhabitants of the town were for the most part left behind, as well as the sick and the weak. Agrigentum was, on the following morning, sacked and pillaged, like a town taken by storm. Here the Romans made up for all their privations: the whole of the unfortunate population was swept away.

After this frightful event, a year passed by without any remarkable occurrence. The Carthaginians strongly provisioned and fortified their other stations in the west; yet they also acted on the offensive. Their fleet cruised off the coasts of Italy, which it laid waste; the northern coasts of Sicily likewise surrendered to their power from fear, whilst the Romans kept the inner island and the eastern coast. The conquest of Agrigentum gave the latter quite different ideas with regard to the war. Formerly, they merely wanted to have Messana and Syracuse as dependent allies; but now their object was to drive the Carthaginians altogether from the island, as Dionysius, Agathocles, and Pyrrhus had done: they saw, however, that this could not be done without a fleet. It was the same difficulty as at Athens, where, in the Peloponnesian war, and in the times immediately following it, they had no other ships but penteconters, _lembi_, and triremes (with from 200 to 220 men, who were partly rowers and partly marines, and with a deck; the penteconters, which had 50 men,[2] were open, and the benches for the rowers in both were placed across, before and above each other); these vessels had been outdone long since, and larger ones were needed. In Syracuse, the cradle of mechanical art, quadriremes, and soon afterwards quinqueremes, were first mounted, ships of a larger class, which were not round, and which might properly be called ships of the line; for, the difference of the triremes and quinqueremes cannot have consisted merely in the number of the benches and the rowers, but it must really have been in the build itself, otherwise no great skill would have been required to construct them. These quinqueremes had already for a long time been in use, especially in the Macedonian, Sicelian, and Punic fleets; but neither the Romans, nor the Antiates had them. The Romans had also triremes, and wherever the Antiate vessels are mentioned, they are triremes.--The oars had the same effect as our steam boats, being independent of wind and tide: the ancients could, however, sail very well besides.

A quinquereme had three hundred rowers and a hundred and twenty marines; to these rowers the triremes could oppose but a hundred and twenty, who therefore were able to do as little against them, as a frigate or a brigantine would against a ship of the line. This accounts for the statement, that the Romans had had no fleet at all; and yet they had built triremes for the passage to Sicily. They wanted therefore a model, from which the ships might be built on correct principles, so that they could be worked with ease; and they might certainly have sent for a shipbuilder to Greece, or to Egypt, to Ptolemy Philadelphus, with whom they were already allied, and have fetched a model thence; for the ancients indeed built from models. But it so happened that a Carthaginian ship of war was driven ashore, and from it they built a hundred and twenty quinqueremes.[3] These were indeed very unwieldy, and the Romans had not the number of sailors which they wanted, that is to say, more than 30,000. They were therefore obliged to man them with levies from the inland districts, and with slaves, as the Russian ships are by conscription in the interior of the empire;--for, the seamen from Etruria and the Greek towns were by no means sufficient (Polybius goes too far, in stating that they had had no able seamen at all): these were trained to ply the oars upon scaffoldings on dry ground. This drilling, as it is told to us, seems to be utterly ridiculous; and the Carthaginians must have been altogether unlike our nations, if on this occasion a whole crowd of caricatures were not published among them. There was in those times the same contrast between a Roman and a Carthaginian ship, which there is now-a-days between a Russian and an English or American man of war. But the Romans, being great in this as they were in all things, devised the means of overcoming this disadvantage. Their fleet was unable to make head against the Carthaginians in the ordinary tactics; and it was very likely at that very time, and not at a later one, that the idea was conceived of ridding the sea-fight of all artificial evolutions, and rather making ship fight against ship. For it required the greatest skill to manage and steer the ships against wind and tide in the same way as a rider manages his horse, so as to shatter the enemy’s vessel by means of the _rostrum_, and to tear off the benches of the rowers; this was more than the Romans dared to think of. Wherever an enemy is to be met who is greatly superior in skill, the only way of conquering is by employing masses, or some unexpected invention. Thus Carnot gained the victory for the French, by opposing masses to the thin lines of the enemy; the battle of Wattignies (15, 16 Oct. 1793) is the turning point of the modern history of warfare, the end of the old, and the beginning of the new tactics. General Hoche had recourse to the same system in Lorraine; by masses the Americans also beat the English ships, which, otherwise, they would have never succeeded in doing. The Romans invented boarding-bridges made of wood, which were wide enough for two men to run upon abreast, and protected on both sides by railings; on the prow of every ship a large mast was set up, resting on which the bridge was drawn up aloft, the upturned end having an iron ring through which a hawser was passed: the bridge was raised or lowered by a windlass, and it fastened itself to the hostile vessel by means of a grappling-iron. Thus the advantage of superior skill which the Carthaginian rowers possessed, was done away with. The Romans, moreover, had their best legions on board, and in all likelihood the Carthaginians had only middling or bad marine soldiers, as these were not picked. This was in the year 492, according to Cato; in 494, according to Varro. The first attempt was not, however, successful, or in the beginning all the ships were not yet armed in this manner. A squadron was caught at a great disadvantage near the Liparian isles, owing to the bad look-out of the Roman commander Cn. Cornelius, and many ships were lost; but the Carthaginians also, some time afterwards, got right into the midst of the Roman squadron, and several of their ships were taken. But the decisive affair was the naval victory of the consul C. Duilius off Mylæ. The Carthaginians engaged in the battle with a feeling of great contempt for their enemy, having 130 vessels against 100 Roman ones; but they soon found how much they were mistaken, when the Romans began to board, and the sea-fight was changed into the nature of a land one. Fifty Carthaginian ships were taken; then the Romans, quite intoxicated with their victory, landed in Sicily, and relieved Segesta (which, like Rome, boasted of its descent from Troy). Duilius was the first who led forth a naval triumph at Rome. He got the right of being lighted by a torch carried before him, when returning home of an evening from a feast, and of being accompanied by a flute player; moreover, as is generally known, the _columna rostrata_ was erected to him. What this really was, we do not exactly know; perhaps it was a brazen pillar, cast from the beaks of the ships which had been taken: a pillar from which brazen beaks stick out, as it is generally represented, is quite a modern, and altogether ungrounded conceit. On the column there was an inscription, in which the victory and the booty won by Duilius were set forth. A small remnant of it is still in existence; yet the present tablet has not been put up in the time of Duilius himself, as some of the Roman antiquaries have also perceived. It is built of Greek marble, which in those days was not yet known in Rome. According to Tacitus, it was struck by lightning in the reign of the emperor Tiberius, and restored by Germanicus; but the old language and spelling were still faithfully kept. With that age, the form of the letters also agrees: those on the tombs of the Scipios are altogether different.

After this victory, the hopes of the Romans were unbounded: the war in Sicily was pursued with redoubled vigour. In the following year, the Roman fleet went to Sardinia. The conquest of this island was difficult, as on the coasts the Punic language and manners had spread; yet as all the subjects there had been kept in an unwarlike condition owing to the jealousy of the mother state, the attack was somewhat facilitated. But for all that, it had no important result.

The two following years were spent in making conquests in Sicily, besides this expedition to Sardinia. In this war, A. Atilius Calatinus got into an impassable part of the country; and a tribune, whose name is stated differently, M. Calpurnius Flamma, or Q. Cæditius Laberius, sacrificed himself with a small band for the sake of the army, as Decius did in Samnium. According to Cato, in the _Origines_, he was found after the battle, dangerously wounded and still scarcely breathing, among the dead; but he afterwards recovered.

In the third year after the victory of Duilius, the Romans appeared with a considerable naval force before Sicily; and a drawn battle was fought off Tyndaris on the northern coast, of which the Carthaginians were masters, from Lilybæum nearly to Mylæ. But as the war in Sicily was not decided, and year by year a few small places only were taken, while the Carthaginians still held all the important possessions in their province, the Romans in 496 resolved upon transporting the war to Africa, as there was no hope of its being ended without some great blow being struck. The example of Agathocles had shown how vulnerable the Carthaginians were in Africa. They therefore intended to force the Carthaginians to make peace; at that time they would indeed have contented themselves with Sicily. They now doubled their armaments, and built an immense fleet; the Carthaginians likewise, when they heard of it, built a very great number of ships. Such huge masses do not give one much pleasure in history, as even barbarians are able to get them up: the superiority of talent and skill over physical force has no chance on such occasions. The victory also of Duilius by means of boarding-bridges, is, when closely looked at, only the result of a clumsy device by which the true science of the Carthaginian navy was baffled. In the seven years’ war, when line-tactics were in vogue, the art of war, as an art, was of a far higher order than it is, now that armies fight in masses: the masses likewise of artillery mark the evident decline of the intellectual spirit and of humanity in warfare. The Romans put to sea with three hundred and thirty ships, most of which were quinqueremes, and the Carthaginians with three hundred and fifty. Polybius himself is amazed at these huge masses, and remarks in his preface, how even the great battles of the Macedonian kings, of Demetrius, Ptolemy, and others, and in later times, those of the Rhodians, shrink to nothing in comparison. They also outvied each other from henceforth in the size of their ships, some of which had even as many as nine banks of oars, like the one which was built by Archimedes for Hiero, who sent it to Alexandria. These preposterous monsters surpassed in bulk our ships of the line. Men afterwards came back to the use of the very lightest vessels, such as _liburnæ_ and _lembi_; of these we are unable to give a clear idea. In the most brilliant days of the Byzantines and Venetians, battles were fought with very small ships. The Romans were 140,000 rowers and marines, the land forces alone amounting to 40,000: they had also a number of transports, especially for the cavalry (ἱππηγοί). It is not unlikely that the Romans built so many ships, merely to carry over their large army to Africa in one voyage; and that the Carthaginians did so, on the other hand, in order to resist them. The expectations of every one were riveted upon this undertaking, just as in the times of the Spanish Armada.