Chapter M: Livius Drusus, 340 (1)

Split between the different orders, 341

Position of the allies, 342

M. Livius tries to reform the courts of law, 344

He tries to procure the franchise for the Italians, 346

Opposition to his plans, 347

Murder of Livius Drusus, 348

His laws repealed, 349

THE SOCIAL WAR. MITHRIDATES. CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE PARTIES OF
MARIUS AND SYLLA. L. CORNELIUS CINNA, 350

The Roman proconsul in Ascalum murdered, 351

The Italians establish an independent state, 352

_Lex Julia_, 354

General view of the war, 355

Victory of C. Pompeius Strabo, 356

Single Italian peoples receive the Roman franchise, 357

New tribes, 357

The Umbrians and Etruscans participate in the war,
but soon receive the Roman franchise, 358

L. Cornelius Sylla, 359

Earlier history of Pontus, 361

Mithridates, 361

Massacre of the Roman citizens in Asia Minor, 363

Sylla is appointed general against Mithridates, 364

P. Sulpicius, 366

Sylla marches with his army against Rome, 367

Marius’ flight, 368

Q. Pompeius murdered, 369

L. Cornelius Cinna, 370

Civil war, 370

Cinna deposed from the consulate, 370

Q. Sertorius, 371

Cinna marches against Rome, 372

Marius consul for the seventh time, 373

The Samnites receive the franchise, 374

Cinna murdered, 375

THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR. SYLLA RETURNS TO ROME. HIS
DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH, 375

Taking of Athens, 376

Peace with Mithridates, 376

Sylla returns to Italy, 378

Civil war, 379

Battle of Sacriportus, 381

Pontius Telesinus marches against Rome; battle at the
Colline gate, 382

Sylla’s cruelty, 383

Proscriptions, 384

Military colonies, 384

Sylla’s laws, 384

The senate remodelled, 384

Limitation of the tribuneship, 387

The senate recovers the jurisdiction, 388

Increase of the sacerdotal offices, 388

Increase of the number of prætors and quæstors, 389

The Cornelians, 390

Sylla resigns the dictatorship, 390

His death, 391

LITERATURE. MANNERS AND MODE OF LIVING, 391

Sallust’s histories. Sisenna, 391

Claudius Quadrigarius, 392

Pacuvius, Terentius, Cæcilius Statius, 392

Attius Lucilius, Lævius, 393

Prose. Manners and mode of living, 394

Cicero. Hortensius, 394

COUNTER-REVOLUTION. LEPIDUS. SERTORIUS. POMPEY, 395

Designs of M. Æmilius Lepidus, 395

Catulus, 396

Elements for a commotion, 396

Lepidus’ undertaking against Rome miscarries. He
and M. Brutus die, 397

The war of Sertorius, 397

Sallust’s histories, 397

Sertorius. Character of the people of the Val di Norcia, 397

Sertorius, abandoned in Spain by his troops, wanders
about, 399

He is recalled to Spain. His measures, 400

Cn. Pompey, 401

His character, 402

Sertorius conquers, 403

His murder, 404

M. Peperna executed, 404

SERVILE WAR. SPARTACUS. M. LICINIUS CRASSUS, 404

Pompey and Crassus consuls, 404

Spartacus assembles about him the gladiators and
slaves, 405

Germans. Crixus, Oenomaus, 406

Victory of Crassus, 406

Atrocities of the war, 406

SECOND AND THIRD WAR AGAINST MITHRIDATES, 407

Mithridates fulfils the stipulations of the peace, 407

L. Murena, 407

Sertorius concludes an alliance with Mithridates, 408

LECTURES ON ROMAN HISTORY.

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.

Every body knows that Carthage is a colony of Tyre, founded seventy-two years before the received date of the building of Rome. This statement is quite historical. It rests upon those highly important notices in Josephus’ work against Apion, from Phœnician chronicles which he read in a Greek version of Menander of Ephesus. They are fully as genuine as Berosus and Sanchoniathon, and closely tally with the history of the Jewish kings: fraud on the part of Josephus is not to be thought of. The Romans knew of the historical books of the Phœnicians: after the destruction of Carthage, they presented them to the library of the Numidian kings. If we wish for a true and authentic account of the earliest history, we should be very thankful to have such dates as these. The assertion also of Timæus that Rome was built about the same time as Carthage, is not wide of the mark; that is to say, if we reckon the Sæcula at a hundred and ten years. Utica (Athika עֲתִיקָא) is an older colony of Tyre than Carthage: its foundation belongs to the age in which the power of the Phœnicians was at its height, and they had settlements in Cyprus, and were establishing themselves in every quarter. Those of Cythera, Thasos, and elsewhere, are of much later date; but it is likely that Cadiz (Gades) already existed when Carthage was built.

Carthage was originally founded under the name of Bozra (in Greek Βύρσα, whence the legend of the bullock’s hide). By the side of this Bozra, that is to say, city, there arose, even as Naples did at the side of Parthenope, a new town, קַרִתָּה חַדְתָּא _Kartha chadtha_, (by contraction Karchadta, from which the Greeks made out Καρχηδών). The town, for perhaps two hundred years, increased but slowly; it paid tribute to the Libyan peoples, and was for a long time in a state of dependence upon Tyre. Towards this, her mother-city, Carthage was never wanting in filial piety, not even when its relations to her had completely changed, which is one of the fine traits in her history. Of the time when Carthage began to extend its sway, we know nothing: placed as it was in the midst of barbarous nations, which were not able to amalgamate with it, it could not have risen into prosperity as quickly as the Greek colonies on the Asiatic coasts, where races of men were dwelling between which and the Pelasgian stock there was affinity, although not in language, yet in that spirit of refined humanity which distinguished them; as, for instance, the Lycians, and Carians, who, even before they were hellenized, had already attained to a considerable degree of civilization, as we see from their monuments and institutions. The Carthaginians did not betake themselves to husbandry, and therefore they could not multiply as fast as families which spread out; the Libyans were hard, oppressive neighbours, barbarians (_Berbers_ as they are called to this very day) who only gradually mingled with the Phœnician settlers. It was not until the middle of the third century of Rome, more than three hundred years after her own foundation, that Carthage made her appearance as a power. The earlier times are shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Justin gives some notices from Trogus, but most carelessly; so does also Diodorus, who in all likelihood borrowed from Timæus: the former has an account of a civil war, and of a conquest of Carthage by Malcus, one of its generals. Certain it is, that Carthage for a long time paid tribute to the Libyans; and the first sign of its vigour, is the throwing off of this yoke in a hard-fought struggle. Particularly favourable to Carthage seem to have been the fortunes of the mother country Phœnicia, which, after having long and painfully striven against Egypt, yielded itself to Persian protection; for though indeed its condition was thus tolerable enough, yet at times a foreign yoke was felt to be galling, and many may have then emigrated to the free colony, which was made to thrive the more, as Tyre, owing to its connexion with Persia, now became the port for the whole of Asia, even as far as India. The treaty with Rome in the year of the city 245, shows that the Carthaginians were then already masters of part of Sicily, of Sardinia, and of Libya, so that they were a great people for that age. About the year 272, they are said to have come over with an army of 300,000 men into Sicily, against Gelon of Syracuse and Theron of Agrigentum: this, however, is not real history. Pindar and Simonides sang the achievements of Gelon and Theron; but history was not yet written. It is not that such an expedition has never taken place; what is doubtful, is the assertion that it happened at the same time as the invasion of Xerxes. The battle of Himera is said to have been fought on the very day that he was defeated at Salamis; but, on the other hand, the better chronological statements which rest upon the authority of Timæus, show that Gelon, who is supposed to have conquered at Himera, came to the throne at a later date than that of the battle of Salamis. The expedition of the Carthaginians must have happened in the 76th, or 77th Olympiad, and it must have been insignificant. They were beaten, and did not for a long time think again of undertaking anything against Sicily: they now strengthened themselves in other quarters. When the Athenians engaged in their enterprise against Sicily, we hear little or nothing of the Carthaginians; they were confined to Motye, Panormus, and Solois, the first of which three places is a Phœnician settlement. Yet when the expedition had come to such an unhappy end, the implacable revenge wreaked against Segesta and the other cities which had welcomed the Athenians, now brought on the ruin of Sicily. These cities applied to Carthage, which sent a considerable army over (350): all the Greek towns were involved in the greatest danger; Selinus, Agrigentum, Camarina, Gela, and other places were destroyed. Dionysius the elder concluded a disadvantageous peace, but was afterwards more successful. In the reign of Dionysius the second, the Carthaginians renewed the contest. Timoleon defeated them, and drove them back to Motye and Lilybæum; yet in the peace the old _status quo_ was re-established, and the western part of Sicily remained in their hands: the rivers Nimera and Halycus continued to be the boundaries which thenceforth were looked upon as the normal ones, and were generally restored when a peace was made. In the days of Agathocles, the Carthaginians besieged Syracuse; but in a second campaign, during which Motye was destroyed, and they were for some time confined to Lilybæum, they were compelled to restore the boundary of the Himera. Then followed the events of the times of Pyrrhus, who carried out the plans of Agathocles still further. After his departure, the Carthaginians spread themselves again, and afterwards got possession once more of Agrigentum.

At the beginning of the first Punic war, Carthage was mistress of the whole of the western half of Sicily, and of the northern coast as far as Messana. In Africa, her rule extended to the corner of the great Syrtis; nearly the whole of the territory of Tunis was subject to her. Along a great part of the African coast, there was a number of Carthaginian colonial towns. There were likewise several of them in the interior; for the Libyans had adopted Punic civilization: even St. Augustine says that the Punic language was his mother tongue. When two hundred years afterwards the Arabs conquered these regions, they were able in some degree to converse with the inhabitants; and the present Tunisian dialect, as well as the Maltese, without doubt has still retained some Punic elements. The coast of Algiers, as far as the straits of Gibraltar, was occupied by their factories only, the mountains there approaching too near the sea to leave room for colonies. In Sardinia, the Carthaginians ruled over the whole of that gloomy but fruitful isle, with the exception of the inner highlands; and these were inhabited by savage tribes, which to this day have not changed their way of living, but, for instance, even now wear those sheep skins which Cicero calls _mastrucæ_. In Corsica, they had a few settlements, probably the excellent harbours there: the Balearic isles were also subject to them. The coasts of Granada and Murcia were likewise in their possession; and Cadiz, although a sister town, was treated as a dependent.

As to the constitution of Carthage, we are utterly in the dark. What has been written on it, is but insignificant; nor have my researches led me to any important results. They had, according to Aristotle, a δῆμος, that is to say, a mixed commonalty which had come together (συνήλυδες) of colonial citizens and Libyans (Amazirgh, Schilha’s, Maxyes, Massesyles). The Libyans, in their whole physical constitution, do not in the least differ from the nations of Southern Europe; and thus likewise ancient Egypt, before it was conquered by the Æthiopians, had a white population: the whole of the Mediterranean therefore was inhabited around by whites. These Libyans could very easily have amalgamated with the _Pœni_ in a δῆμος, even as at Rome the plebeians did with the patricians; yet there would be this distinction, that these last were of the same stock, whereas the Libyans and the _Pœni_ were altogether different, and particularly so in their language. The relation between the Libyans and the _Pœni_ is analogous to that of the Lettish and Lithuanian tribes to the German settlers, or of the Slavonic population near Lübeck and the Germans, the former of whom also became completely Germanized. We know moreover that Carthage had a senate; this is still the governing body in the first Punic war. According to Aristotle, the δῆμος at Carthage had but little to say, not much more than at Sparta, where only those who were in authority might speak in the assembly, and not the people, who were merely to assent or to reject; at Carthage, any one of the people was at least free to stand up and make a speech. Those whom Aristotle calls the βασιλεῖς, even the Suffetes or _Schofetim_, were no doubt in earlier times the commanders of the army likewise: afterwards, when the civil and military power were jealously kept distinct, their office was merely an administrative one. We also find that there was a powerful corporation called the Hundred, which cannot but be the same as the Hundred and Four in Aristotle: these I have long ago referred to the fifty weeks of the year. Moreover, he speaks of another kind of magistracy, of which we merely know that it was a πενταρχία (if the reading be correct, as the text of Aristotle’s Politics is derived from a single Parisian MS. of the fourteenth century), and that its members were chosen by the Hundred and Four. Of what nature it was, we do not know.

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.

As the most important points on the northern coast of Sicily were still in the possession of the Carthaginians, and provisions had to be taken in at Syracuse, the Romans did not venture to sail round Lilybæum; but they preferred the way round Pachynus. Between that headland and Agrigentum, the Carthaginians met them with the whole of their fleet. The Roman ships being still unwieldy, the result depended, as before, on the use of the boarding-bridges. They had hit upon a strange disposition: their ships were divided into four squadrons, each of which had one legion with its brigade of allies, and a number of transports. The two first squadrons sailed so as to form two sides of a triangle, or an angle, the two admirals being placed side by side, and therefore with their _rostra_ standing out towards the sea. The base of the triangle was formed by the third squadron, which advanced straight forwards, and had the transports in tow. Behind these sailed the fourth squadron, which was to cover the rear. The two first were each commanded by a consul, the third and fourth by other leaders, of whom we do not know any thing further. They therefore formed an ἔμβολον, in which the attack of the enemy is a manœuvre for the execution of which a great many favourable circumstances are requisite; and the ships which at other times used to sail on in a straight line, diverged and made a wedge.

5, the transports.

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The Carthaginians, who fell in with them near Ecnomus, had a more judicious arrangement. Their left wing, being about the fourth part of the whole of their fleet, sailed in a long line along the coast; and joining it at a right angle was the main body of their large armament, which, ship by ship, stood out far into the sea. The Romans passed by the line along the coast, and attacked the salient line. It was not the plan of the Carthaginian admiral, that this should withstand the end of the wedge which was forcing itself in; they therefore set sail, and seemed to flee, so as to separate the Romans from their third and fourth lines, and the Romans pursued them. But two parts of the long line formed again, and fell upon the Romans, who had detached themselves from the third squadron; the third part, which was sailing in the open sea, returned and attacked the fourth Roman squadron; and in the meanwhile, the line which was off the coast, came up and engaged the third squadron, which now abandoned the transports to their fate. Thus arose three distinct sea-fights: the first and second Roman squadrons conquered easily; the fourth had a doubtful victory; and the third was hard pressed, but the centre turned back to defend it. The boarding-bridges were also employed in this action with great effect. The result was the complete rout of the Carthaginians: thirty ships were sunk, part of them being driven ashore and wrecked, and sixty-four taken; from thirty to forty thousand men fell into the power of the Romans.

After this defeat, the beaten fleet made its escape to Africa, and went to protect Carthage against an attack; the men had lost all strength and spirit. The Romans had the sea clear before them to carry their plan into execution, and the two consular armies, that of Manlius and that of Regulus, proceeded to Africa. They landed on the south side of the headland of Hermæum, over-against Carthage, at the mouth of the gulf of Tunis, near a town which the Romans call Clupea, the Greeks Aspis, (the Punic name we do not know,) a place, which they took after a creditable defence. They now made it their arsenal, and spread from thence into the heart of the country. The really efficient armies of the enemy were stationed in Sicily; the Carthaginians had made sure of baffling the undertaking, and were therefore quite unprepared in Africa. They had fortified colonies on the coast only; as for the interior, with the exception of a few _municipia_, they had the same policy as the Vandals, who, fearing rebellions, pulled down all the walls of the towns, just as the Lombards did afterwards in Italy. Wherever therefore the Romans came, they marched in: a foreign conqueror was looked upon by the Libyans as a deliverer; for, although the Carthaginians were no barbarians, yet they were very hard masters. For they followed the system, which is found throughout the East, that the sovereign is the owner of the soil, and the possessor has the enjoyment of it only so long as it pleases the lord and master. They also wanted immense sums of money for their Celtic and Iberian mercenaries, and were therefore obliged to squeeze them out of their subjects. In the war of Agathocles, the consequences of this system had already been seen. Indeed the spirit of the Africans had been crushed, so that they did not break out in open rebellion, as they did in his time; for the Carthaginians had taken a fell revenge after his departure. Yet they did not aid Carthage in any way. A most inconceivable order now came from Rome, that one of the consuls, L. Manlius, should return home, it being perhaps believed, that the force of Regulus was sufficient by itself: Manlius therefore sailed back with almost the whole of the fleet, and brought over the booty. The Carthaginians retreated into inaccessible parts of the country: Regulus nevertheless defeated them near Adis. Their militia troops were exceedingly timid; it was easy for the Romans to drive them out of their strongholds. Regulus stationed himself not far from Carthage: he took the fortified town of Tunes, and encamped near the river Bagradas: the Carthaginians were pressed most closely. In this camp, as the ancients generally relate, (Livy also has it,) a serpent, which was a hundred and twenty ells in length, is said to have made its appearance, and to have torn to pieces a great many Romans, until the soldiers battered it with catapults and _ballistæ_. This tale, in the midst of an account which is quite historical, is most surprising. That earth and sea may contain creatures which occur so rarely, that one is inclined to take them for fabulous, cannot indeed be positively denied; it may have been a giant serpent. But in all likelihood, this story, like so many others, has its origin in Nævius’ _Bellum Punicum_, which poet himself served as a soldier in that war. At all events, it would be wonderful if the size of the dragon had amounted in ells to exactly that number which is so often met with in Roman measurements, namely, 12 × 10.

The Carthaginians had utterly lost courage, and they could not withdraw their army from Sicily without giving up that island altogether: they therefore sent an embassy to Regulus, and sued for peace. Regulus’ fame has been very much exaggerated by apophthegmatical histories; he is undeservedly represented as a martyr: in the heyday of his good fortune, he showed himself ruthless, intoxicated with victory, and ungenerous. We have a story of him, that he had then asked the senate for his recall, that he might attend to his farm; but we know on the contrary from Polybius, that he had particularly set his heart upon bringing the war to a brilliant end, before a successor arrived. So much the more senseless was it in him to ask of the Carthaginians impossibilities, and to offer them much worse terms than they really obtained at the conclusion of the war, just as if he had meant to drive them to despair. Had he stipulated for the evacuation of Sicily and the payment of a contribution, the Carthaginians would have been quite willing; but he had the preposterous idea of crushing Carthage with one blow. His conditions were quite insane: even had they been besieged, the Carthaginians could not have fared worse. They were to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome; to make an offensive and defensive alliance with the Romans; to enter into no treaty without the permission of the Romans; to yield up all their ships of war but one, and to have nothing but triremes; to give up Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Lipari isles; to abandon their Italian allies; to deliver up the prisoners and deserters; to ransom their own captives; to pay all the expenses of the war, and a contribution besides. The Carthaginians declared that they would rather perish; and luckily for them the Romans carried on the war badly. Instead of establishing themselves within the gulf of Tunis, opposite Carthage, as they ought to have done, they had now sent off their fleet; the Carthaginians therefore could make use of their ships to hire troops everywhere. Among these, there were also many from Greece; one of them, the celebrated Xanthippus, who was not, as Diodorus says, a Spartan, but as we learn from Polybius, a Neodamode who in his education had been subjected to the laws of the Spartans (τῆς Λακωνικῆς ἀγωγῆς μετεσχηκώς), and had thereby acquired an inferior right of citizenship. In the case of a Spartan, this would have been quite a matter of course; but, besides these, Lacedæmonians also (περίοικοι), and Neodamodes, even the children of foreign πρόξενοι, might subject themselves to the laws of Lycurgus, which is a position not yet clearly explained. Xanthippus was one of the greatest men of his age; and he furnishes us with a case in point, which shows how much Sparta must have been stunted, owing to her not making the Lacedæmonians equal to the Spartans. He came to Carthage as a mercenary, but as an officer: he had certainly been recruiting at Tænarus. When he saw the preparations of the Carthaginians, he openly declared that it was no wonder that Carthage was going to ruin; and on this he was called before the senate,--in this case, it was an advantage that the military and the civil administrations were distinct,--and he was asked for his opinion. He explained to them, that as indeed they had plenty of elephants[4] and Numidian cavalry, which was a formidable force against such a small army as that of the Romans in the midst of an enemy’s country, (about 16,000 men, according to Polybius; with all the reinforcements, perhaps 20,000, among whom there were 15 or 1,600 cavalry) they ought to seek the plains, whilst the advantage of the Romans was in the mountains. The elephants had hardly been employed in any battle by land at all, unless perhaps in the little skirmish near Tunis. Xanthippus was listened to: he was intrusted with the charge of the mercenaries. His arrangements excited astonishment: the soldiers believed that under his guidance they were sure to conquer; the whole of the camp demanded him for their leader, and the Carthaginian general, who very likely had got his instructions in this matter from the city, yielded the command to him. This is a great resolve. When Xanthippus had now well drilled the Carthaginians, he went out against the Romans into the open field, and thereby filled them with great wonder and dismay. He compelled them to fight, and made a masterly disposition: the Roman army had no centre; but the Greeks had three divisions, and he drew up his army in the following manner. The Carthaginians occupied the centre as a phalanx; for being townsmen, they could only be usefully employed in masses:[5] on the two wings, he placed the mercenaries, and joined to them the cavalry on the flanks. The Romans likewise put their cavalry on the flanks; but in placing the infantry they departed from their general custom, as before the centre of the Carthaginians a hundred elephants had been stationed: they formed themselves against these in an order of battle of great depth. Yet the shock was irresistible: the left wing of the Romans indeed conquered the mercenaries; but in the meanwhile, the cavalry of the Carthaginians had thrown itself upon the right wing, and the elephants trampled down everything before them: then the phalanx rushed on, and the whole of the Roman army was annihilated. Only two thousand men of the left wing made their escape in the rear of the Carthaginians to Clupea. Regulus retreated with five hundred Romans to a hill, and was obliged to surrender. Xanthippus was now the universal hero: they wished him to stay at Carthage; but he was wise enough to return home with the rich presents which he received, lest he should become an eyesore to an envious and heartless people, as the Carthaginians were. Polybius tells us that there was also another account, even that the Carthaginians had given him a bad ship, that he might perish on the passage; and that according to some, he had really become a victim, and according to others, he had saved himself by getting into another vessel. The Romans sent out the fleet, which had been still preserved, to take up the garrison of the besieged town of Clupea; the Carthaginians went against them, and were defeated. The number of ships which, according to Polybius, were captured on this occasion, is very likely to have been changed from 114 to 14.