Ancient States and Empires Part 27

(M897) Too late, the doomed city prepared to make a last stand against an inexorable enemy. The most violent feelings of hatred and rage, added to those of despair, at last animated the people of Carthage. It was the same pa.s.sion which arrayed Tyre against Alexander, and Jerusalem against t.i.tus.

It was a wild patriotic frenzy which knew no bounds, inspired by the instinct of self-preservation, and aside from all calculation of success or failure. As the fall of the city was inevitable, wisdom might have counseled an unreserved submission. Resistance should have been thought of before. In fact, Carthage should not have yielded to the first Africa.n.u.s.

And when she had again become rich and populous, she should have defied the Romans when their spirit was perceived-should have made a more gallant defense against Masinissa, and concentrated all her energies for a last stand upon her own territories. But why should we thus speculate? The doom of Carthage had been p.r.o.nounced by the decrees of fate. The fall has all the mystery and solemnity of a providential event, like the fall of all empires, like the defeat of Darius by Alexander, like the ruin of Jerusalem, like the melting away of North American Indians, like the final overthrow of the "Eternal City" itself.

(M898) The desperation of the city in her last conflict proves, however, that, with proper foresight and patriotism, her fall might have been delayed, for it took the Romans three years to subdue her. The disarmed city withstood the attack of the Romans for a period five times as long as it required Vespasian and t.i.tus to capture Jerusalem. The city resounded day and night with the labors of men and women on arms and catapults. One hundred and forty s.h.i.+elds, three hundred swords, five hundred spears, and one thousand missiles were manufactured daily, and even a fleet of one hundred and fifty s.h.i.+ps was built during the siege. The land side of the city was protected by a triple wall, and the rocks of Cape Camast and Cape Carthage sheltered it from all attacks by sea, except one side protected by fortified harbors and quays. Hasdrubal, with the remnant of his army, was still in the field, and took up his station at Nephesis, on the opposite side of the lake of Tunis, to hara.s.s the besiegers. Masinissa died at the age of ninety, soon after hostilities began.

(M899) The first attack on Carthage was a failure, and the army of the Consuls Censorinus and Manius Manilius would have been cut to pieces, had it not been for the the reserve led by Scipio aemilia.n.u.s, a grandson of Africa.n.u.s, who was then serving as military tribune. He also performed many gallant actions when Censorinus retired to Rome, leaving the army in the hands of his incompetent colleague.

(M900) The second campaign was equally unsuccessful, under L. Calpurnius Fiso and L. Mancinus. The slow progress of the war excited astonishment throughout the world. The suspense of the campaign was intolerable to the proud spirit of the Romans, who had never dreamed of such resistance. The eyes of the Romans were then turned to the young hero who alone had thus far distinguished himself. Although he had not reached the proper age, he was chosen consul, and the province of Africa was a.s.signed to him. He sailed with his friends Polybius and Laelius. He was by no means equal to the elder Scipio, although he was an able general and an accomplished man.

He was ostentatious, envious, and proud, and had cultivation rather than genius.

(M901) When he arrived at Utica, he found the campaign of B.C. 147 opened in such a way that his arrival saved a great disaster. The admiral Mancinus had attempted an attack on an undefended quarter, but a desperate sally of the besieged had exposed him to imminent danger, and he was only relieved by the timely arrival of Scipio.

(M902) The new general then continued the siege with new vigor. His headquarters were fixed on an isthmus uniting the peninsula of Carthage with the main-land, from which he attacked the suburb called Megara, and took it, and shut up the Carthaginians in the old town and ports. The garrison of the suburb and the army of Hasdrubal retreated within the fortifications of the city. The Carthaginian leader, to cut off all retreat, inflicted inhuman barbarities and tortures on all the Roman prisoners they took. Scipio, meanwhile, intrenched and fortified in the suburb, cut off all communication between the city and main-land by parallel trenches, three miles in length, drawn across the whole isthmus.

The communication with the sea being still open, from which the besieged received supplies, the port was blocked up by a mole of stone ninety-six feet wide. The besieged worked night and day, and cut a new channel to the sea, and, had they known how to improve their opportunity, might, with the new fleet they had constructed, have destroyed that of their enemies, unprepared for action.

(M903) Scipio now resolved to make himself master of the ports, which were separated from the sea by quays and a weak wall. His battering-rams were at once destroyed by the Carthaginians. He then built a wall or rampart upon the quay, to the height of the city wall, and placed upon it four thousand men to hara.s.s the besieged. As the winter rains then set in, making his camp unhealthy, and the city was now closely invested by sea and land, he turned his attention to the fortified camp of the enemy at Nephesis, which was taken by storm, and seventy thousand persons put to the sword. The Carthaginian army was annihilated.

(M904) Meanwhile famine pressed within the besieged city, and Hasdrubal would not surrender. An attack, led by Laelius, on the market-place, gave the Romans a foothold within the city, and a great quant.i.ty of spoil. One thousand talents were taken from the temple of Apollo. Preparations were then made for the attack of the citadel, and for six days there was a hand-to-hand fight between the combatants amid the narrow streets which led to the Byrsa. The tall Oriental houses were only taken one by one and burned, and the streets were c.u.mbered with the dead. The miserable people, crowded within the citadel, certain now of destruction, then sent a deputation to Scipio to beg the lives of those who had sought a retreat in the Byrsa. The request was granted to all but Roman deserters. But out of the great population of seven hundred thousand, only thirty thousand men and twenty-five thousand women marched from the burning ruins. Hasdrubal and the three hundred Roman deserters, certain of no mercy, retired to the temple of aesculapius, the heart of the citadel. But the Carthaginian, uniting pusillanimity with cruelty, no sooner found the temple on fire, than he rushed out in Scipio's presence, with an olive-branch in his hands, and abjectly begged for his life, which Scipio granted, after he had prostrated himself at his feet in sight of his followers, who loaded him with the bitterest execrations. The wife of Hasdrubal, deserted by the abject wretch, called down the curses of the G.o.ds on the man who had betrayed his country and deserted at last his family. She then cut the throats of her children and threw them into the flames, and then leaped into them herself. The Roman deserters in the same manner perished. The city was given up to plunder, the inhabitants whose lives were spared were sold as slaves, and the gold and works of art were carried to Rome and deposited in the temples.

(M905) Such was the fate of Carthage-a doom so awful, that we can not but feel that it was sent as a chastis.e.m.e.nt for crimes which had long cried to Heaven for vengeance. Carthage always was supremely a wicked city. All the luxurious and wealthy capitals of ancient times were wicked, especially Oriental cities, as Carthage properly, though not technically, was-founded by Phnicians, and a wors.h.i.+per of the G.o.ds of Tyre and Sidon. The Roman Senate decreed that not only the city, but even the villas of the n.o.bles in the suburb of Megara, should be leveled with the ground, and the plowshare driven over the soil devoted to perpetual desolation, and a curse to the man who should dare to cultivate it or build upon it. For fourteen days, the fires raged in this once populous and wealthy city, and the destruction was complete, B.C. 146. So deep-seated was the Roman hatred of rivals, or States that had been rivals; so dreadful was the punishment of a wicked city, of which Scipio was made the instrument, not merely of the Romans, but of Divine providence.

(M906) All the great cities of antiquity, which had been seats of luxury and pride, had now been utterly destroyed-Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, and Carthage. Corinth was already sacked by Mummius, and Jerusalem was to be by t.i.tus, and Rome herself was finally to receive a still direr chastis.e.m.e.nt at the hands of Goths and Vandals. So Providence moves on in his mysterious power to bring to naught the grandeur and power of rebellious nations-rebellious to those mighty moral laws which are as inexorable as the laws of nature.

The territory on the coast of Zeugitana and Byzantium, which formed the last possession of Carthage, was erected into the province of Africa, and the rich plain of that fertile province became more important to Rome for supplies of corn than even Sicily, which had been the granary of Rome.

(M907) Scipio returned to Rome, and enjoyed a triumph more gorgeous than the great Africa.n.u.s. He also lived to enjoy another triumph for brilliant successes in Spain, yet to be enumerated, but was also doomed to lose his popularity, and to perish by the dagger of a.s.sa.s.sins.

(M908) Rome had now acquired the undisputed dominion of the civilized world, and with it, the vices of the nations she subdued. A great decline in Roman morals succeeded these brilliant conquests. Great internal changes took place. The old distinction of patricians and plebeians had vanished, and a new n.o.bility had arisen, composed of rich men and of those whose ancestors had enjoyed curule magistracies. They possessed the Senate, and had control of the Comitia Centuriata, by the prerogative vote of the equestrian centuries. A base rabble had grown up, fed with corn and oil, by the government, and amused by games and spectacles. The old republican aristocracy was supplanted by a family oligarchy. The vast wealth which poured into Rome from the conquered countries created disproportionate fortunes. The votes of the people were bought by the rich candidates for popular favor. The superst.i.tions of the East were transferred to the capitol of the world, and the decay in faith was as marked as the decay in virtue. Chaldaean astrologers were scattered over Italy, and the G.o.ds of all the conquered peoples of the earth were wors.h.i.+ped at Rome. The bonds of society were loosed, and a state was prepared for the civil wars which proved even more destructive than the foreign.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

ROMAN CONQUESTS FROM THE FALL OF CARTHAGE TO THE TIMES OF THE GRACCHI.

Although the Roman domination now extended in some form or other over most of the countries around the Mediterranean, still several States remained to be subdued, in the East and in the West.

The subjugation of Spain first deserves attention, commenced before the close of the third Punic war, and which I have omitted to notice for the sake of clearness of connection.

After the Hannibalic war, we have seen how Rome planted her armies in Spain, and added two provinces to her empire. But the various tribes were far from being subdued, and Spain was inhabited by different races.

(M909) This great peninsula, bounded on the north by the ocean Cantabricus, now called the Bay of Biscay, and the Pyrenees, on the east and south by the Mediterranean, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, was called Iberia, by the Greeks, from the river Iberus, or Ebro. The term Hispania was derived from the Phnicians, who planted colonies on the southern sh.o.r.es. The Carthaginians invaded it next, and founded several cities, the chief of which was New Carthage. At the end of the second Punic war, it was wrested from them by the Romans, who divided it into two provinces, Citerior and Ulterior. In the time of Augustus, Ulterior Spain was divided into two provinces, called Lusitania and Baetica, while the Citerior province, by far the larger, occupying the whole northern country from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, was called Tanagona. It included three-fifths of the peninsula, or about one hundred and seven thousand three hundred square miles. It embraced the modern provinces of Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, Biscay, Asturias, Galicia, Northern Leon, old and new Castile, Murcia, and Valentia, and a part of Portugal. Baetica nearly corresponded with Andalusia, and embraced Granada, Jaen, Cordova, Seville, and half of Spanish Estremadura. Lusitania corresponds nearly with Portugal.

(M910) The Tanaconneusis was inhabited by numerous tribes, and the chief ancient cities were Barcelona, Tanagona the metropolis, Pampeluna, Oporto, Numantia, Saguntum, Saragossa, and Cartagena. In Baetica were Cordova, Castile, Gades, and Seville. In Lusitania were Olisipo (Lisbon), and Salamanca.

(M911) Among the inhabitants of these various provinces were Iberians, Celts, Phnicians, and h.e.l.lenes. In the year 154 B.C., the Lusitanians, under a chieftain called Punicus, invaded the Roman territory which the elder Scipio had conquered, and defeated two Roman governors. The Romans then sent a consular army, under Q. Fulvius n.o.bilior, which was ultimately defeated by the Lusitanians under Caesarus. This success kindled the flames of war far and near, and the Celtiberians joined in the warfare against the Roman invaders. Again the Romans were defeated with heavy loss. The Senate then sent considerable re-enforcements, under Claudius Marcellus, who soon changed the aspect of affairs. The nation of the Arevacae surrendered to the Romans-a people living on the branches of the Darius, near Numantia-and their western neighbors, the Vaccaei, were also subdued, and barbarously dealt with. On the outbreak of the third Punic war the affairs of Spain were left to the ordinary governors, and a new insurrection of the Lusitanians took place. Viriathus, a Spanish chieftain, signally defeated the Romans, and was recognized as king of all the Lusitanians. He was distinguished, not only for bravery, but for temperance and art, and was a sort of Homeric hero, whose name and exploits were sounded throughout the peninsula. He gained great victories over the Roman generals, and destroyed their armies. General after general was successively defeated. For five years this gallant Spaniard kept the whole Roman power at bay, and he was only destroyed by treachery.

(M912) While the Lusitanians at the South were thus prevailing over the Roman armies on the bunks of the Tagus, another war broke out in the North among the Celtiberian natives. Against these people Quintus Caecilius Metellus, the consul, was sent. He showed great ability, and in two years reduced the whole northern province, except the two cities of Termantia and Numantia. These cities, wearied at last with war, agreed to submit to the Romans, and delivered up hostages and deserters, with a sum of money.

But the Senate, with its usual policy, refused to confirm the treaty of its general, which perfectly aroused the Numantines to resentment and despair. These brave people obtained successes against the Roman general Laenas and his successors, Mancinus and M. aemilius Lepides, as well as Philus and Piso.

(M913) The Romans, aroused at last to this inglorious war, which had lasted nearly ten years, resolved to take the city of the Numantines at any cost, and intrusted the work to Scipio aemilia.n.u.s, their best general.

He spent the summer (B.C. 134) in extensive preparations, and it was not till winter that he drew his army round the walls of Numantia, defended by only eight thousand citizens. Scipio even declined a battle, and fought with mattock and spade. A double wall of circ.u.mvallation, surmounted with towers, was built around the city, and closed the access to it by the Douro, by which the besieged relied upon for provisions. The city sustained a memorable siege of nearly a year, and was only reduced by famine. The inhabitants were sold as slaves, and the city was leveled with the ground. The fall of this fortress struck at the root of opposition to Rome, and a senatorial commission was sent to Spain, in order to organize with Scipio the newly-won territories, and became henceforth the best-regulated country of all the provinces of Rome.

(M914) But a graver difficulty existed with the African, Greek, and Asiatic States that had been brought under the influence of the Roman hegemony, which was neither formal sovereignty nor actual subjection. The client States had neither independence nor peace. The Senate, nevertheless, perpetually interfered with the course of African, h.e.l.lenic, Asiatic, and Egyptian affairs. Commissioners were constantly going to Alexandria, to the Achaean diet, and to the courts of the Asiatic princes, and the government of Rome deprived the nations of the blessings of freedom and the blessings of order.

(M915) It was time to put a stop to this state of things, and the only way to do so was to convert the client States into Roman provinces. After the destruction of Carthage, the children of Masinissa retained in substance their former territories, but were not allowed to make Carthage their capital. Her territories became a Roman province, whose capital was Utica.

(M916) Macedonia also disappeared, like Carthage, from the ranks of nations. But the four small States into which the kingdom was parceled could not live in peace. Neither Roman commissioners nor foreign arbiters could restore order. At this crisis a young man appeared in Thrace, who called himself the son of Perseus. This pseudo-Philip, for such was his name, strikingly resembled the son of Perseus. Unable to obtain recognition in his native country, he went to Demetrius Sotor, king of Syria. By him he was sent to Rome. The Senate attached so little importance to the man, that he was left, imperfectly guarded, in an Italian town, and fled to Miletus. Again arrested, and again contriving to escape, he went to Thrace, and obtained a recognition from Teres, the chief of the Thracian barbarians. With his support he invaded Macedonia, and obtained several successes over the Macedonian militia. The Roman commissioner Nasica, without troops, was obliged to call to his aid the Achaean and Pergamene soldiers, until defended by a Roman legion under the praetor Juventius. Juventius was slain by the pretender, and his army cut to pieces. And it was not until a stronger Roman array, under Quintus Caecilius Metellus, appeared, that he was subdued. The four States into which Macedonia had been divided were now converted into a Roman province, B.C. 148, and Macedonia became, not a united kingdom, but a united province, with nearly the former limits.

The defense of the h.e.l.lenic civilization now devolved on the Romans, but was not conducted with adequate forces or befitting energy, and the petty States were therefore exposed to social disorganization, and the Greeks evidently sought to pick a quarrel with Rome.

(M917) Hence the Achaean war, B.C. 149. It is not of much historical importance. It was commenced under Metellus, and continued under Mummius, who reduced the noisy belligerents to terms, and entered Corinth, the seat of rebellion, and the first commercial city of Greece. By order of the Senate, the Corinthian citizens were sold into slavery, the fortifications of the city leveled with the ground, and the city itself was sacked. The mock sovereignty of leagues was abolished, and all remains of Grecian liberty fled.

(M918) In Asia Minor, after the Seleucidae were driven away, Pergamus became the first power. But even this State did not escape the jealousy of the Romans, and with Attalus III. the house of Attalids became extinct.

(M919) He, however, had bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans, and his testament kindled a civil war. Aristonicus, a natural son of Eumenes II., made his appearance at Lecuae, a small sea-port near Smyrna, as a pretender to the crown. He was defeated by the Ephesians, who saw the necessity of the protection and friends.h.i.+p of the Roman government. But he again appeared with new troops, and the struggle was serious, since there were no Roman troops in Asia. But, B.C. 131, a Roman army was sent under the consul Publius Licinius Cra.s.sus Mucia.n.u.s, one of the wealthiest men of Rome, distinguished as an orator and jurist. This distinguished general was about to lay siege to Leucae, when he was surprised and taken captive, and put to death. His successor, Marcus Perpenua, was fortunate in his warfare, and the pretender was taken prisoner, and executed at Rome. The remaining cities yielded to the conqueror, and Asia Minor became a Roman province.

(M920) In other States the Romans set up kings as they chose. In Syria, Antiochus Eupater was recognized over the claims of Demetrius Sotor, then a hostage in Rome. But he contrived to escape, and seized the government of his ancestral kingdom. But it would seem that the Romans, at this period, did not take a very lively interest in the affairs of remote Asiatic States, and the decrees of the Senate were often disregarded with impunity. A great reaction of the East took place against the West, and, under Mithridates, a renewed struggle again gave dignity to the Eastern kingdoms, which had not raised their heads since the conquests of Alexander. That memorable struggle will be alluded to in the proper place.

It was a difficult problem which Rome undertook when she undertook to govern the Asiatic world. It was easy to conquer; it was difficult to rule, when degeneracy and luxury became the vices of the Romans themselves. We are now to trace those domestic dissensions and civil wars which indicate the decline of the Roman republic. But before we describe those wars, we will take a brief survey of the social and political changes in Rome at this period.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

ROMAN CIVILIZATION AT THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PUNIC WAR, AND THE FALL OF GREECE.

(M921) Rome was now the unrivaled mistress of the world. She had conquered all the civilized States around the Mediterranean, or had established a protectorate over them. She had no fears of foreign enemies. Her empire was established.

Before we proceed to present subsequent conquests or domestic revolutions, it would be well to glance at the political and social structure of the State, as it was two hundred years before the Christian era, and also at the progress which had been made in literature and art.

(M922) One of the most noticeable features of the Roman State at this period was the rise of a new n.o.bility. The patricians, when they lost the exclusive control of the government, did not cease to be a powerful aristocracy. But another cla.s.s of n.o.bles arose in the fifth century of the city, and shared their power-those who had held curule offices and were members of the Senate. Their descendants, plebeian as well as patrician, had the privilege of placing the wax images of their ancestors in the family hall, and to have them carried in funeral processions. They also wore a stripe of purple on the tunic, and a gold ring on the finger. These were trifling insignia of rank, still they were emblems and signs by which the n.o.bility were distinguished. The plebeian families, enn.o.bled by their curule ancestors, were united into one body with the patrician families, and became a sort of hereditary n.o.bility. This body of exclusive families really possessed the political power of the State. The Senate was made up from their members, and was the mainstay of Roman n.o.bility. The equites, or equestrian order, was also composed of the patricians and wealthy plebeians. n.o.ble youths gradually withdrew from serving in the infantry, and the legionary cavalry became a closed aristocratic corps. Not only were the n.o.bles the possessors of senatorial privileges, and enrolled among the equites, but they had separate seats from the people at the games and at the theatres. The censors.h.i.+p also became a prop to the stability of the aristocratic cla.s.s.

(M923) We have some idea of the influence of the aristocracy from the families which furnished the higher offices of the State. For three centuries the consuls were chiefly chosen from powerful families. The Cornelii gentes furnished fifteen consuls in one hundred and twelve years, and the Valerii, ten. And, what is more remarkable, for the following one hundred and fifty years these two families furnished nearly the same number. In one hundred and twelve years fifteen families gave seventy consuls to the State: the Cornelii, fifteen; the Valerii, ten; the Claudii, four; the aemilii, nine; the Fabii, six; the Manilii, four; the Postumii, two; the Servilii, three; the Sulpicii, six; and also about the same number the following one hundred and fifty years, thereby showing that old families, whether patrician or plebeian, were long kept in sight, and monopolized political power. This was also seen in the elevation of young men of these ranks to high office before they had reached the lawful age. M. Valerius Corvus was consul at twenty-three, Scipio at thirty, and Flaminius at twenty-nine.

(M924) The control of Rome over conquered provinces introduced a new cla.s.s of magistrates, selected by the Senate, and chosen from the aristocratic circles. These were the provincial governors or praetors, who had great power, and who sometimes appeared in all the pomp of kings. They resided in the ancient palaces of the kings, and had great opportunities for acc.u.mulating fortunes. Nor could the governors be called to account, until after their term of office expired, which rarely happened. The governors were, virtually, sovereigns while they continued in office-were satraps, who conducted a legalized tyranny abroad, and returned home arrogant and accustomed to adulation-a cla.s.s of men who proved dangerous to the old inst.i.tutions, those which recognized equality within the aristocracy and the subordination of power to the senatorial college.

(M925) The burgesses, or citizens, before this period, were a very respectable body, patriotic and sagacious. They occupied chiefly Latium, a part of Campania, and the maritime colonies. But gradually, a rabble of clients grew up on footing equality with these independent burgesses.

These clients, as the aristocracy increased in wealth and power, became parasites and beggars, and undermined the burgess cla.s.s, and controlled the Comitia. This cla.s.s rapidly increased, and were clamorous for games, festivals, and cheap bread, for corn was distributed to them by those who wished to gain their favor at elections, at less than cost. Hence, festivals and popular amus.e.m.e.nts became rapidly a great feature of the times. For five hundred years the people had been contented with one festival in a year, and one circus. Flaminius added another festival, and another circus. In the year 550 of the city, there were five festivals.

The candidates for the consuls.h.i.+p spent large sums on these games, the splendor of which became the standard by which the electoral body measured the fitness of candidates. A gladiatorial show cost seven hundred and twenty thousand sesterces, or thirty-six thousand dollars.

(M926) And corruption extended to the army. The old burgess militia were contented to return home with some trifling gift as a memorial of victory, but the troops of Scipio, and the veterans of the Macedonian and Asiatic wars, came back enriched with spoils. A decay of a warlike spirit was observable from the time the burgesses converted war into a traffic in plunder. A great pa.s.sion also arose for t.i.tles and insignia, which appeared under different forms, especially for the honors of a triumph, originally granted only to the supreme magistrate who had signally augmented the power of the State. Statues and monuments were often erected at the expense of the person whom they purported to honor. And finally, the ring, the robe, and the amulet case distinguished not only the burgesses from the foreigners and slaves, but also the person who was born free from one who had been a slave, the son of the free-born from the son of the manumitted, the son of a knight from a common burgess, the descendant of a curule house from the common senators. These distinctions in rank kept pace with the extension of conquests, until, at last, there was as complete a net work of aristocratic distinctions as in England at the present day.

(M927) All these distinctions and changes were bitterly deplored by Marcus Portius Cato-the last great statesman of the older school-a genuine Roman of the antique stamp. He was also averse to schemes of universal empire.