Part 5

The war was ruinous to the Romans, whom it impoverished, and consequently to their morals also; for wounds like these do not always heal after the return of peace. During a struggle of this kind, contractors and the very dregs of the rabble grow rich, and the old citizens become poor: the first Punic war is therefore one of the first causes of the degeneracy of the Roman people. In the course of this war, there must have been many changes of which we have few or no records; we only know of some small matters. In the year of the city 506, as we have now been able to learn from Lydus _de Magistratibus_, a second prætor was appointed, who was to administer the laws to the _peregrini_. A great change had therefore taken place, that foreigners were to have a _persona_ in Rome, instead of being obliged to be represented by a citizen as formerly: in this we acknowledge an important diminution of the spirit of faction. Suetonius says of a Claudius, who without doubt belongs to the beginning of the first Punic war, that he had resolved upon ruling Italy by means of the clients: this is one of the proofs which show that the clientship had a dangerous character, and how beneficial it was to dissolve that connexion. Yet the prætor was not restricted to his civil jurisdiction; Q. Valerius commanded the fleet besides, and another prætor we meet with at a later period in Etruria. We also find in Livy by no means in every year a prætor for the _peregrini_. The phrase _prætor peregrinus_ is a barbarism; Livy, in the fourth decade, always uses a circumlocution instead of it.[9]

Another great change from an accidental cause, is little noticed. Dionysius says, that until the Φοινικὸς πόλεμος, the state had yearly given fifty thousand drachmas for the public festivals. This was now changed, and the Greek system of Liturgies was introduced, by which rich men had to defray the cost of the festivals as a public burthen. As the ædileship was the stepping-stone to higher offices, this measure gave rise to an important political revolution. Polybius has not remarked this. He finds fault with the Carthaginians for their practice of selling offices, and sets the custom of the Romans in direct contrast with theirs; yet it was then just the same at Rome. Fabricius, and men like him, could now no longer have worked their way to high office, without having to encounter the greatest difficulties.

In the nature of the senate, there was likewise a great change effected shortly before the first Punic war. The senate had at first been a representation of the people, and then of the curies; afterwards the will of the censors was paramount in its selection, and this was a blessing for the state. The composition of the Roman senate may perhaps have been best about this time: on the other hand, this power was in truth anomalous and dangerous, as the example of Ap. Claudius had shown. But now the senate was indirectly chosen by the people for life. The quæstors, of whom there had originally been two, then four, and now eight, became the _seminarium senatus_: he who had been quæstor had already the right _sententiam dicendi in senatu_, and might in case of a vacancy at the next census, if there was no particular charge brought against him, reckon with certainty upon getting into the senate. In this way, the senate was then changed into a sort of elective council; only the expulsion of unworthy members still belonged to the province of the censor. Still more completely was the senate chosen by the people in the seventh century, when the tribunes of the people also got into it.

As may be well imagined, it was with much difficulty that the Romans recovered from so exhausting a struggle. Their losses had been immense; besides other things, there were seven hundred ships of war: of the arrangements and measures which they adopted after the restoration of peace, we know but little. Soon afterwards, a war broke out against the Faliscans, which was ended in six days. It is almost incomprehensible, when the whole of Italy, with the exception of some little troubles in Samnium, had remained in obedience all the time of the Punic War, that after its conclusion such a dwarf could now have risen against the giant. This can only be accounted for in this way, that perhaps at that period a truce had expired, and the Romans did not wish to renew the former conditions. The town was destroyed, in order to strike terror into the Italians by the example.

Yet the Carthaginians were in a still worse plight than the Romans. Their distress was the same; they had also been beaten, and had every year to pay a portion of the heavy contribution; and the Romans moreover were no indulgent creditors. They had likewise to pay off their mercenaries who had returned from Sicily; but they had no money. Besides all this, the state was badly governed, and Hamilcar, the greatest man of his age, was thwarted by a whole faction. The friends of Hamilcar are likewise called _factio_; yet this means nothing else but people from all ranks, the best part of the nation, who sided with the distinguished man whom the majority attempted to cry down. Such was the condition of Carthage, that the great resources which Providence gave her in Hamilcar and Hannibal, led to nothing but her ruin; had she followed the advice of Hamilcar, and not spared her rich citizens, but made another mighty effort, she might have paid off the mercenaries, and have raised a new army. Instead of this, the Carthaginians foolishly tried to bargain with these barbarians, and with this view brought together the whole army. The consequence was, that it threw off its obedience to them, and a dreadful war broke out, which became a national one for Africa, as the Libyans, even with enthusiasm, rushed into the arms of the troops: the women gave their trinkets for the support of the war. Even old Phœnician colonies, such as Utica, Hippo, Clupea, rose against Carthage, so that the power of the city was often driven back almost within its own walls. The Roman deserters, who were afraid of being given up to their own government, placed themselves at the head of the insurrection, especially a slave from Campania of the name of Spendius: Carthage was brought to the brink of destruction. The Romans, during this war, at first behaved in a high-minded manner; and here we meet with the first traces of navigation laws, and of those claims on neutrals which have caused so many quarrels in modern history. The Romans in fact decreed, that no ships of the rebels should be allowed to come to Italy; and that, on the other hand, none should sail from thence to the harbours of the rebels in Africa. The Italian ship-masters did not observe this; but they went whithersoever their interest called them: the Carthaginians had therefore a right to seize all the Roman ships which were bound for such a harbour, to confiscate the cargo, and to detain the crews as prisoners; and for this they might appeal to the Roman proclamation. The Romans had even let the Carthaginians levy troops in Italy; they also negociated with them for the liberation of the prisoners: the Carthaginians gave them up, and the Romans, on their side, released those whom they had still kept since the war. They likewise facilitated the traffic with Carthage. The war lasted three years and four months; it was waged with a cruelty which is beyond all conception, very much like the thirty years’ war, which was a war of fiends. At last, owing to the generalship of the great Hamilcar Barcas, and the horrors committed by the mercenaries themselves, it was put down, and revenge was taken.

Then the envy of the Romans was aroused. The mercenaries in Sardinia had likewise risen against the Carthaginians, and had murdered many of those who were settlers there, though probably only the officers and magistrates; for as late as Cicero’s times, the population of the sea-port towns of Sardinia was Punic. Against the mercenaries, the Sards now rose in their turn, and drove them out of the island, renouncing also their allegiance to the Carthaginians. After the war in Africa was ended, Carthage wished to reconquer Sardinia; but the rebels placed themselves under the Romans, who, with shameful hypocrisy, declared themselves bound not to abandon those who had committed themselves to their protection, and, when the Carthaginians fitted out a fleet against Sardinia, asserted that this would be a war against themselves. It was therefore impossible for the Carthaginians to carry on this war; and Hamilcar, who like all men of sterling mind, was for letting go what could not be kept, without giving way to maudlin sorrow, advised them to yield in this matter until better times: on this, the Carthaginians swore to have their revenge, but for the present not to make war. They made a new peace, in which they gave up Corsica and Sardinia, and had besides to pay twelve hundred talents. This conduct is one of the most detestable misdeeds in the Roman history.

To the east of Italy, since the Peloponnesian war, an empire had arisen in a country where formerly there were only single tribes. This was the Illyrian kingdom. How it rose, we cannot exactly tell: it did not spring from the Taulantians. Since the days of Philip especially, larger states had formed themselves out of the small ones; and perhaps it was created by Bardylis, who in the times of that king founded an empire in those parts. Nor do we know anything for certain about the royal city: it was probably in the neighbourhood of Ragusa; the worst pirates must have dwelt in northern Dalmatia. For some time (about the year 520), in the then broken state of Greece, they, like the Albanians of the present day, roamed everywhere by land and by sea; and wasting the coasts, particularly the unfortunate Cyclades, they dragged away the full-grown inhabitants, and cut off all traffic. Perhaps only the Macedonians and Rhodians opposed to them any resistance; yet they were very likely not sorry to see piracy carried on against others, as is also the case with modern nations, which rule the seas. The Illyrians, however, meddled also with the Romans; and the more so as their boldness increased, when under Agron, their king, the gain from their piracy grew greater, and having a run of luck, they made prizes on the coast of Epirus and Acarnania. The Romans dispatched an embassy thither. Agron had died in the meanwhile, and his son Pinnes was under the guardianship of his mother, queen Teuta, who held the regency. She answered, that on the part of the state no wrong would be done to the Romans; but that it was an ancient right and custom of the Illyrians, for every single captain to take whatever fell in his way. One of the Roman envoys, probably a son of the great Ti. Coruncanius, now replied that it was the custom of the Romans to amend the bad customs of other nations. For this she had the ambassadors murdered, whereupon the Romans sent a fleet and army over to Illyria. The Illyrians, who now began to spread their rule, were just besieging Corcyra, which before the Peloponnesian war was a paradise guarded by a fleet of several hundred galleys, but owing to incessant wars, was now all but a desert. The island was obliged to surrender before the Romans arrived. These however landed from Brundusium before Dyrrhachium near Apollonia, and rescued it, as they also did Epidamnus and Dyrrhachium. The neighbouring tribes submitted; and the governor of Corcyra, Demetrius Pharius, a scoundrel, who in all likelihood was bribed, gave up to them the island. Issa also the Romans delivered, and they advanced through Upper Albania along the Dalmatian coast. They met with no resistance of any consequence: only one strong place held out, all the rest surrendered; so that the queen was obliged to come to terms and make peace. The Illyrians now renounced their dominion over part of the Dalmatian isles and over Upper Albania; and they bound themselves not to sail to the south beyond the Drin, a river which flows from the lake of Scutari, and with no more than two unarmed vessels. This was an immense benefit for the Greeks. What was the fate of the tribes between Epirus and Scutari, cannot be told with certainty; but most likely, they, as well as Epidamnus and Apollonia, remained absolutely dependent on the Romans, although these had no garrison and no prætor there. The latter may perhaps have levied a moderate tribute from them.

As benefactors of the Greeks, and attracted by the irresistible charm which the praises of that people had for so many nations, the Romans sent ambassadors to Greece, to make known there the conditions of the treaty with the Illyrians. At that time, the Ætolians and Achæans were united against Demetrius of Macedon, which gave a moment of relief to this unfortunate country: to both of these peoples the Romans dispatched the embassy on political grounds. But the one to Athens had no other object than to earn Greek praises; it was an homage paid to the intellectual power of that city. For though the poor Athenians had in those days fallen to the very lowest ebb, yet the memory of their ancestors was still alive, and honours bestowed by them were still of value.[10] The motive for a special embassy to Corinth, although it belonged to the Achæan league, is evident, as Corcyra, Apollonia, and Epidamnus, were Corinthian colonies. The Corinthians rewarded the Romans by giving them the right of taking part in the Isthmian games; the Athenians granted them isopolity, and admission to the Eleusinian mysteries.

Once before already,--soon after the Punic war, or even while it yet lasted,--the Romans had meddled in the affairs of Greece. The Acarnanians and Ætolians were then at war. The Ætolians and Alexander of Epirus had divided Acarnania between them; but the Acarnanians had recovered their freedom, and were defending it against the Ætolians. They now betook themselves to Rome, on the strength of their forefathers not having fought against Troy; in proof of which they referred to the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad. Patron too, who piloted the ships of Æneas, was an Acarnanian. The Romans also alleged this as the motive of their protection; but their embassy was treated by the Ætolians with utter scorn, and it led to nothing. Justin, not without a certain feeling of enjoyment, tells this from Trogus Pompeius; for Trogus was no Roman by birth, but was sprung from a Ligurian or Gallic tribe.[11] They now, in the year 524, had better success, and obtained from the Greeks the honours which have been mentioned.

It is by no means true that history has the effect of weakening one’s belief in an overruling Providence: in it we see realized what Herodotus so often says, ἔδεε γὰρ αὐτὸν ἀπολέσθαι; one may say just as often, ἔδεε γὰρ αὐτὸν σώζεσθαι. Had the Gauls, for instance, burst upon Italy during the first Punic war, they alone would have been sufficient to interrupt its course, and the Romans could not have thrown themselves with all their might on Sicily. If Alexander, son of Pyrrhus, had tried to avenge the misfortunes of his father in Italy, there can be no doubt but what he might at that time have still broken up the leagues in that country, and have destroyed the power of the Romans. Yet everything combined in their favour: the Carthaginians got a good general only at the end of the war; Alexander of Epirus contented himself with small conquests; the Gauls were quiet. The Romans indeed were in dread of an attack from the east; they seem to have been prepared for whatever might happen, and for this reason they still kept a garrison in Tarentum. Even before the first Punic war, they had made a friendly alliance with Ptolemy Philadelphus; after the peace they concluded another with Seleucus Callinicus. Thus far did they now already stretch out their arms.

The Gauls had lost the Romagna, and had not stirred for fifty years: they were perhaps themselves glad that the Romans seemed to have forgotten them. The Senonian territory had come into the hands of the Romans as a wilderness; but it is a fine country: here, according to the provisions of the agrarian law, a great number might settle and occupy land. About the year 522, the tribune C. Flaminius, in spite of the violent opposition of the senate, carried a bill in the assembly of the people for the division of this _ager Gallicus Picenus_. The _ager_ of the Senonians is part of the Romagna, of Urbino, and the March of Ancona; the colony of Ariminum was already established there. Polybius, in a most unaccountable manner, calls this motion of Flaminius an attempt at rebellion; an example of how even a sensible man may err in judging of some particular circumstance, or follow others, without thinking himself on the subject. As none of the other tribunes would interfere, those who were in power got the father of Flaminius to make his son desist; and the old man ascended the _rostra_, and led him off. Here we behold the change which had taken place in the state of things: the father, a plebeian like his son, opposes the division of the _ager_. And again, we see in this an instance in which, as might be done by virtue of the _Lex Hortensia_, a measure of this kind was carried against the wishes of the senate, by a _plebiscitum_ which emanated from a single body; and in this meaning perhaps is the expression of Polybius to be understood (ἀρχηγὸς τῆς ἐπὶ τὸ χεῖρον διαστροφῆς τῆς Ῥωμαίων πολιτείας). In this assignation of the _ager publicus_, the point in dispute was no longer whether the plebeians were to have any share in it. On the contrary, the leading men of both orders had divided the possession between them, and had thus enriched themselves; and now the population which had since grown up, laid claim to its assignation, so as to establish a new and free peasantry in the room of those who had died off, or had been bought up, and to give fresh life to what was left of the old yeomanry, which had thus dwindled away.

It is, however, quite a different question, whether an extensive settlement in those parts was prudent at such a time, when a war with the neighbouring Gauls was to be dreaded. Yet after all, this war must one day or other have broken out. The Gauls could not long dwell quietly in Lombardy, and it was all one, whether it came on a little sooner. Certain it is, that this settlement alarmed the Boians in what are now the districts of Modena and Bologna, probably also in that of Parma: the population in fact had recovered from its losses, and was thirsting for revenge. They were also afraid that the great men at Rome, who had lost their large estates in the Romagna, might seek for new ones in their own country. The Romans, however, did not yet think of war with the Gauls: they had cast their eyes on Spain, and they had no hope of being able to drive the Gauls out of Lombardy. It is said that at that time the Romans carried on wars against the Ligurians; but we should be sadly mistaken if we fancied that they had already invaded Liguria proper, the territory of Genoa. It was, on the contrary, the Ligurians who had spread in the Apennines as far as Casentino and Arezzo, after the might of the Etruscans and Gauls had been broken at the Vadimo; and it could have been none other than these. It was a hard struggle. The Ligurians defended every single mountain, and each of the small tribes was only mastered after having been almost entirely crushed.

Of the Gauls, there were in the north of Italy the Boians and Insubrians; the former, south of the Po in the Romagna; the latter, in the territory of Milan, and in the plain between Bergamo and Brescia; yet these two cantons were not Gallic, but probably Rhætian, of Etruscan extraction. Between the Insubrians and Venetians dwelt the Cenomanians, between Milan and Mantua; these had placed themselves under the protection of the Romans. On the other side of the Alps, there was a great movement, and the Boians could now induce Transalpine volunteers to come over: these negociations caused the Romans great alarm. Several years now passed away: at length, eight years after the Flaminian law, a countless horde made its appearance, and the war broke out in 527. This war is memorable in history for the immense preparations of the Romans; it was a swarm which they had to deal with, very much as in the time of the Cimbrians. Among the tribes which were in arms, there were also Tauriscans. These, on other occasions, we meet with only in Carniola: whether in those days they were also in Helvetia, we must leave undecided. The Romans called forth a general levy throughout all Italy: the allies obeyed very readily, as they looked forward with dismay to an invasion of the Gauls. The Romans opposed to the enemy an army on the common road of the Gauls near Rimini, which was under the consul L. Æmilius, and another, a prætorian one, in Etruria. At the same time, the consul C. Atilius had gone with a fleet and army to Sardinia, as the Sards had revolted. In the neighbourhood of Rome, there was a reserve: all the Italian nations were in marching order. Polybius here gives a list, from which we find that he had not a clear insight into the subject. The numbers are wrongly written, and all attempts to sum them up are fruitless: several peoples are not named at all. I believe that Fabius wrote in a hurry, when he stated the numbers at 800,000 foot and 80,000 horse. In short, this list is of no use; and at any rate, one ought never to draw from this census such conclusions with regard to the population of the ancient world, as was done in the dispute between Hume and Wallace; for although Hume keeps on the side of common sense, yet he takes the matter too lightly. Perhaps something has slipped out in Polybius.