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Charles James Lever - "Quotes and Images From The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer"

Edward Stratemeyer - "The Rover Boys at College"

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. - "The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 5"

W.W. Jacobs - "The Head of The Family"

Publishers Newswire Announced Today its Latest List of Books to Bookmark, for Q4/2008
REDONDO BEACH, Calif. -- Publishers Newswire, an online resource for small publishers, as well as lesser known and first-time book authors, has announced its latest quarterly 'Books to Bookmark' list, for Q4/2008. This list is a round-up of new and interesting books which are often missed due to not originating from big name authors, or major New York book publishing houses.

Book, 'Letters From Heroes', captures triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and II
GILROY, Calif. -- The hardships, struggles, hopes and triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and World War II is wonderfully captured in 'Letters From Heroes' (ISBN: 978-1-58909-570-0), by Edward T. Cook, a new book just published by Bookstand Publishing. This poignant collection of real letters from real servicemen allow the reader to see things through the eyes of these soldiers and understand their thoughts about war, training, sickness, the enemy and even their food.

In New Book, Mystery of the 6,000 Year Old Science and Art of Astrology Has Been Solved
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Author of the new book, ASTROMASKS (ISBN: 978-0-615-23386-4), Vijay Rishii Ph.D., announced today that his book reveals the secret code behind the ancient and controversial science of astrology. The author decodes astrology using a new concept of complementary pairs, and gives new meanings to the zodiac signs and their real connection to humans on earth, which has never been done before in the entire history of astrology.

The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5) - Theodor Mommsen

T >> Theodor Mommsen >> The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5)

Guerilla War in Sicily
Agrigentum Occupied by the Romans
Sicily Tranquillized

Sicily thus appeared lost to the Carthaginians; but the genius of
Hannibal exercised even from a distance its influence there. He
despatched to the Carthaginian army, which remained at. Agrigentum
in perplexity and inaction under Hanno and Epicydes, a Libyan cavalry
officer Muttines, who took the command of the Numidian cavalry, and
with his flying squadrons, fanning into an open flame the bitter
hatred which the despotic rule of the Romans had excited over all the
island, commenced a guerilla warfare on the most extensive scale and
with the happiest results; so that he even, when the Carthaginian and
Roman armies met on the river Himera, sustained some conflicts with
Marcellus himself successfully. The relations, however, which
prevailed between Hannibal and the Carthaginian council, were here
repeated on a small scale. The general appointed by the council
pursued with jealous envy the officer sent by Hannibal, and insisted
upon giving battle to the proconsul without Muttines and the
Numidians. The wish of Hanno was carried out, and he was completely
beaten. Muttines was not induced to deviate from his course; he
maintained himself in the interior of the country, occupied several
small towns, and was enabled by the not inconsiderable reinforcements
which joined him from Carthage gradually to extend his operations.
His successes were so brilliant, that at length the commander-in-
chief, who could not otherwise prevent the cavalry officer from
eclipsing him, deprived him summarily of the command of the light
cavalry, and entrusted it to his own son. The Numidian, who had
now for two years preserved the island for his Phoenician masters,
had the measure of his patience exhausted by this treatment. He and
his horsemen who refused to follow the younger Hanno entered into
negotiations with the Roman general Marcus Valerius Laevinus and
delivered to him Agrigentum. Hanno escaped in a boat, and went to
Carthage to report to his superiors the disgraceful high treason of
Hannibal's officer; the Phoenician garrison in the town was put to
death by the Romans, and the citizens were sold into slavery (544).
To secure the island from such surprises as the landing of 540, the
city received a new body of inhabitants selected from Sicilians well
disposed towards Rome; the old glorious Akragas was no more. After
the whole of Sicily was thus subdued, the Romans exerted themselves to
restore some sort of tranquillity and order to the distracted island.
The pack of banditti that haunted the interior were driven together
en masse and conveyed to Italy, that from their head-quarters at
Rhegium they might burn and destroy in the territories of Hannibal's
allies. The government did its utmost to promote the restoration
of agriculture which had been totally neglected in the island.
The Carthaginian council more than once talked of sending a fleet
to Sicily and renewing the war there; but the project went no further.

Philip of Macedonia and His Delay

Macedonia might have exercised an influence over the course of
events more decisive than that of Syracuse. From the Eastern powers
neither furtherance nor hindrance was for the moment to be expected.
Antiochus the Great, the natural ally of Philip, had, after the
decisive victory of the Egyptians at Raphia in 537, to deem himself
fortunate in obtaining peace from the indolent Philopator on the basis
of the -status quo ante-. The rivalry of the Lagidae and the constant
apprehension of a renewed outbreak of the war on the one hand, and
insurrections of pretenders in the interior and enterprises of all
sorts in Asia Minor, Bactria, and the eastern satrapies on the other,
prevented him from joining that great anti-Roman alliance which
Hannibal had in view. The Egyptian court was decidedly on the side
of Rome, with which it renewed alliance in 544; but it was not to be
expected of Ptolemy Philopator, that he would support otherwise than
by corn-ships. Accordingly there was nothing to prevent Greece and
Macedonia from throwing a decisive weight into the great Italian
struggle except their own discord; they might save the Hellenic name,
if they had the self-control to stand by each other for but a few
years against the common foe. Such sentiments doubtless were current
in Greece. The prophetic saying of Agelaus of Naupactus, that he was
afraid that the prize-fights in which the Hellenes now indulged at
home might soon be over; his earnest warning to direct their eyes to
the west, and not to allow a stronger power to impose on all the
parties now contending a peace of equal servitude--such sayings had
essentially contributed to bring about the peace between Philip and
the Aetolians (537), and it was a significant proof of the tendency
of that peace that the Aetolian league immediately nominated Agelaus
as its -strategus-.

National patriotism was bestirring itself in Greece as in Carthage:
for a moment it seemed possible to kindle a Hellenic national war
against Rome. But the general in such a crusade could only be Philip
of Macedonia; and he lacked the enthusiasm and the faith in the
nation, without which such a war could not be waged. He knew not
how to solve the arduous problem of transforming himself from the
oppressor into the champion of Greece. His very delay in the
conclusion of the alliance with Hannibal damped the first and best
zeal of the Greek patriots; and when he did enter into the conflict
with Rome, his mode of conducting war was still less fitted to awaken
sympathy and confidence. His first attempt, which was made in the
very year of the battle of Cannae (538), to obtain possession of the
city of Apollonia, failed in a way almost ridiculous, for Philip
turned back in all haste on receiving the totally groundless report
that a Roman fleet was steering for the Adriatic. This took place
before there was a formal breach with Rome; when the breach at length
ensued, friend and foe expected a Macedonian landing in Lower Italy.
Since 539 a Roman fleet and army had been stationed at Brundisium to
meet it; Philip, who was without vessels of war, was constructing a
flotilla of light Illyrian barks to convey his army across. But when
the endeavour had to be made in earnest, his courage failed to
encounter the dreaded quinqueremes at sea; he broke the promise which
he had given to his ally Hannibal to attempt a landing, and with the
view of still doing something he resolved to make an attack on his own
share of the spoil, the Roman possessions in Epirus (540). Nothing
would have come of this even at the best; but the Romans, who well
knew that offensive was preferable to defensive protection, were by no
means content to remain--as Philip may have hoped--spectators of the
attack from the opposite shore. The Roman fleet conveyed a division
of the army from Brundisium to Epirus; Oricum was recaptured from the
king, a garrison was thrown into Apollonia, and the Macedonian camp
was stormed. Thereupon Philip passed from partial action to total
inaction, and notwithstanding all the complaints of Hannibal, who
vainly tried to breathe into such a halting and shortsighted policy
his own fire and clearness of decision, he allowed some years to
elapse in armed inactivity.

Rome Heads a Greek Coalition against Macedonia

Nor was Philip the first to renew the hostilities. The fall of
Tarentum (542), by which Hannibal acquired an excellent port on the
coast which was the most convenient for the landing of a Macedonian
army, induced the Romans to parry the blow from a distance and to give
the Macedonians so much employment at home that they could not think
of an attempt on Italy. The national enthusiasm in Greece had of
course evaporated long ago. With the help of the old antagonism to
Macedonia, and of the fresh acts of imprudence and injustice of which
Philip had been guilty, the Roman admiral Laevinus found no difficulty
in organizing against Macedonia a coalition of the intermediate and
minor powers under the protectorate of Rome. It was headed by the
Aetolians, at whose diet Laevinus had personally appeared and had
gained its support by a promise of the Acarnanian territory which
the Aetolians had long coveted. They concluded with Rome a modest
agreement to rob the other Greeks of men and land on the joint
account, so that the land should belong to the Aetolians, the men
and moveables to the Romans. They were joined by the states of anti-
Macedonian, or rather primarily of anti-Achaean, tendencies in Greece
proper; in Attica by Athens, in the Peloponnesus by Elis and Messene
and especially by Sparta, the antiquated constitution of which had
been just about this time overthrown by a daring soldier Machanidas,
in order that he might himself exercise despotic power under the
name of king Pelops, a minor, and might establish a government of
adventurers sustained by bands of mercenaries. The coalition was
joined moreover by those constant antagonists of Macedonia, the
chieftains of the half-barbarous Thracian and Illyrian tribes, and
lastly by Attalus king of Pergamus, who followed out his own interest
with sagacity and energy amidst the ruin of the two great Greek states
which surrounded him, and had the acuteness even now to attach himself
as a client to Rome when his assistance was still of some value.

Resultless Warfare
Peace between Philip and the Greeks
Peace between Philip and Rome

It is neither agreeable nor necessary to follow the vicissitudes of
this aimless struggle. Philip, although he was superior to each one
of his opponents and repelled their attacks on all sides with energy
and personal valour, yet consumed his time and strength in that
profitless defensive. Now he had to turn against the Aetolians,
who in concert with the Roman fleet annihilated the unfortunate
Acarnanians and threatened Locris and Thessaly; now an invasion of
barbarians summoned him to the northern provinces; now the Achaeans
solicited his help against the predatory expeditions of Aetolians and
Spartans; now king Attalus of Pergamus and the Roman admiral Publius
Sulpicius with their combined fleets threatened the east coast or
landed troops in Euboea. The want of a war fleet paralyzed Philip in
all his movements; he even went so far as to beg vessels of war from
his ally Prusias of Bithynia, and even from Hannibal. It was only
towards the close of the war that he resolved--as he should have done
at first--to order the construction of 100 ships of war; of these
however no use was made, if the order was executed at all. All who
understood the position of Greece and sympathized with it lamented
the unhappy war, in which the last energies of Greece preyed upon
themselves and the prosperity of the land was destroyed; repeatedly
the commercial states, Rhodes, Chios, Mitylene, Byzantium, Athens, and
even Egypt itself had attempted a mediation. In fact both parties had
an interest in coming to terms. The Aetolians, to whom their Roman
allies attached the chief importance, had, like the Macedonians,
much to suffer from the war; especially after the petty king of the
Athamanes had been gained by Philip, and the interior of Aetolia had
thus been laid open to Macedonian incursions. Many Aetolians too had
their eyes gradually opened to the dishonourable and pernicious part
which the Roman alliance condemned them to play; a cry of horror
pervaded the whole Greek nation when the Aetolians in concert with
the Romans sold whole bodies of Hellenic citizens, such as those of
Anticyra, Oreus, Dyme, and Aegina, into slavery. But the Aetolians
were no longer free; they ran a great risk if of their own accord they
concluded peace with Philip, and they found the Romans by no means
disposed, especially after the favourable turn which matters were
taking in Spain and in Italy, to desist from a war, which on their
part was carried on with merely a few ships, and the burden and
injury of which fell mainly on the Aetolians. At length however
the Aetolians resolved to listen to the mediating cities: and,
notwithstanding the counter-efforts of the Romans, a peace was
arranged in the winter of 548-9 between the Greek powers. Aetolia had
converted an over-powerful ally into a dangerous enemy; but the Roman
senate, which just at that time was summoning all the resources of the
exhausted state for the decisive expedition to Africa, did not deem it
a fitting moment to resent the breach of the alliance. The war with
Philip could not, after the withdrawal of the Aetolians, have been
carried on by the Romans without considerable exertions of their own;
and it appeared to them more convenient to terminate it also by a
peace, whereby the state of things before the war was substantially
restored and Rome in particular retained all her possessions on the
coast of Epirus except the worthless territory of the Atintanes.
Under the circumstances Philip had to deem himself fortunate in
obtaining such terms; but the fact proclaimed--what could not indeed
be longer concealed--that all the unspeakable misery which ten years
of a warfare waged with revolting inhumanity had brought upon Greece
had been endured in vain, and that the grand and just combination,
which Hannibal had projected and all Greece had for a moment joined,
was shattered irretrievably.

Spanish War

In Spain, where the spirit of Hamilcar and Hannibal was powerful, the
struggle was more earnest. Its progress was marked by the singular
vicissitudes incidental to the peculiar nature of the country and the
habits of the people. The farmers and shepherds, who inhabited the
beautiful valley of the Ebro and the luxuriantly fertile Andalusia as
well as the rough intervening highland region traversed by numerous
wooded mountain ranges, could easily be assembled in arms as a general
levy; but it was difficult to lead them against the enemy or even to
keep them together at all. The towns could just as little be combined
for steady and united action, obstinately as in each case they bade
defiance to the oppressor behind their walls. They all appear to have
made little distinction between the Romans and the Carthaginians;
whether the troublesome guests who had established themselves in the
valley of the Ebro, or those who had established themselves on the
Guadalquivir, possessed a larger or smaller portion of the peninsula,
was probably to the natives very much a matter of indifference; and
for that reason the tenacity of partisanship so characteristic of
Spain was but little prominent in this war, with isolated exceptions
such as Saguntum on the Roman and Astapa on the Carthaginian side.
But, as neither the Romans nor the Africans had brought with them
sufficient forces of their own, the war necessarily became on both
sides a struggle to gain partisans, which was decided rarely by solid
attachment, more usually by fear, money, or accident, and which, when
it seemed about to end, resolved itself into an endless series of
fortress-sieges and guerilla conflicts, whence it soon revived with
fresh fury. Armies appeared and disappeared like sandhills on the
seashore; on the spot where a hill stood yesterday, not a trace of
it remains today. In general the superiority was on the side of
the Romans, partly because they at first appeared in Spain as the
deliverers of the land from Phoenician despotism, partly because of
the fortunate selection of their leaders and of the stronger nucleus
of trustworthy troops which these brought along with them. It is
hardly possible, however, with the very imperfect and--in point of
chronology especially--very confused accounts which have been handed
down to us, to give a satisfactory view of a war so conducted.

Successes of the Scipios
Syphax against Carthage

The two lieutenant-governors of the Romans in the peninsula, Gnaeus
and Publius Scipio--both of them, but especially Gnaeus, good
generals and excellent administrators--accomplished their task with
the most brilliant success. Not only was the barrier of the Pyrenees
steadfastly maintained, and the attempt to re-establish the
interrupted communication by land between the commander-in-chief of
the enemy and his head-quarters sternly repulsed; not only had a
Spanish New Rome been created, after the model of the Spanish New
Carthage, by means of the comprehensive fortifications and harbour
works of Tarraco, but the Roman armies had already in 539 fought with
success in Andalusia.(2) Their expedition thither was repeated in
the following year (540) with still greater success. The Romans
carried their arms almost to the Pillars of Hercules, extended their
protectorate in South Spain, and lastly by regaining and restoring
Saguntum secured for themselves an important station on the line from
the Ebro to Cartagena, repaying at the same time as far as possible
an old debt which the nation owed. While the Scipios thus almost
dislodged the Carthaginians from Spain, they knew how to raise up a
dangerous enemy to them in western Africa itself in the person of the
powerful west African prince Syphax, ruling in the modern provinces of
Oran and Algiers, who entered into connections with the Romans (about
541). Had it been possible to supply him with a Roman army, great
results might have been expected; but at that time not a man could be
spared from Italy, and the Spanish army was too weak to be divided.
Nevertheless the troops belonging to Syphax himself, trained and led
by Roman officers, excited so serious a ferment among the Libyan
subjects of Carthage that the lieutenant-commander of Spain and
Africa, Hasdrubal Barcas, went in person to Africa with the flower
of his Spanish troops. His arrival in all likelihood gave another
turn to the matter; the king Gala--in what is now the province of
Constantine--who had long been the rival of Syphax, declared for
Carthage, and his brave son Massinissa defeated Syphax, and compelled
him to make peace. Little more is related of this Libyan war than the
story of the cruel vengeance which Carthage, according to her wont,
inflicted on the rebels after the victory of Massinissa.

The Scipios Defeated and Killed
Spain South of the Ebro Lost to the Romans
Nero Sent to Spain

This turn of affairs in Africa had an important effect on the war in
Spain. Hasdrubal was able once more to turn to that country (543),
whither he was soon followed by considerable reinforcements and by
Massinissa himself. The Scipios, who during the absence of the
enemy's general (541, 542) had continued to plunder and to gain
partisans in the Carthaginian territory, found themselves unexpectedly
assailed by forces so superior that they were under the necessity of
either retreating behind the Ebro or calling out the Spaniards. They
chose the latter course, and took into their pay 20,000 Celtiberians;
and then, in order the better to encounter the three armies of the
enemy under Hasdrubal Barcas, Hasdrubal the son of Gisgo, and Mago,
they divided their army and did not even keep their Roman troops
together. They thus prepared the way for their own destruction.
While Gnaeus with his corps, containing a third of the Roman and all
the Spanish troops, lay encamped opposite to Hasdrubal Barcas, the
latter had no difficulty in inducing the Spaniards in the Roman army
by means of a sum of money to withdraw--which perhaps to their free-
lance ideas of morals did not even seem a breach of fidelity, seeing
that they did not pass over to the enemies of their paymaster.
Nothing was left to the Roman general but hastily to begin his
retreat, in which the enemy closely followed him. Meanwhile the
second Roman corps under Publius found itself vigorously assailed
by the two other Phoenician armies under Hasdrubal son of Gisgo
and Mago, and the daring squadrons of Massinissa's horse gave to
the Carthaginians a decided advantage. The Roman camp was almost
surrounded; when the Spanish auxiliaries already on the way should
arrive, the Romans would be completely hemmed in. The bold resolve
of the proconsul to encounter with his best troops the advancing
Spaniards, before their appearance should fill up the gap in the
blockade, ended unfortunately. The Romans indeed had at first the
advantage; but the Numidian horse, who were rapidly despatched in
pursuit, soon overtook them and prevented them both from following up
the victory which they had already half gained, and from marching
back, until the Phoenician infantry came up and at length the fall of
the general converted the lost battle into a defeat. After Publius
had thus fallen, Gnaeus, who slowly retreating had with difficulty
defended himself against the one Carthaginian army, found himself
suddenly assailed at once by three, and all retreat cut off by the
Numidian cavalry. Hemmed in upon a bare hill, which did not even
afford the possibility of pitching a camp, the whole corps were cut
down or taken prisoners. As to the fate of the general himself no
certain information was ever obtained. A small division alone was
conducted by Gaius Marcius, an excellent officer of the school of
Gnaeus, in safety to the other bank of the Ebro; and thither the
legate Titus Fonteius also succeeded in bringing safely the portion
of the corps of Publius that had been left in the camp; most even of
the Roman garrisons scattered in the south of Spain were enabled to
flee thither. In all Spain south of the Ebro the Phoenicians ruled
undisturbed; and the moment seemed not far distant, when the river
would be crossed, the Pyrenees would be open, and the communication
with Italy would be restored. But the emergency in the Roman camp
called the right man to the command. The choice of the soldiers,
passing over older and not incapable officers, summoned that Gaius
Marcius to become leader of the army; and his dexterous management
and quite as much perhaps, the envy and discord among the three
Carthaginian generals, wrested from these the further fruits of their
important victory. Such of the Carthaginians as had crossed the river
were driven back, and the line of the Ebro was held in the meanwhile,
till Rome gained time to send a new army and a new general.
Fortunately the turn of the war in Italy, where Capua had just fallen,
allowed this to be done. A strong legion--12,000 men--arriving under
the propraetor Gaius Claudius Nero, restored the balance of arms.
An expedition to Andalusia in the following year (544) was most
successful; Hasdrubal Barcas was beset and surrounded, and escaped a
capitulation only by ignoble stratagem and open perfidy. But Nero was
not the right general for the Spanish war. He was an able officer,
but a harsh, irritable, unpopular man, who had little skill in the
art of renewing old connections or of forming new ones, or in taking
advantage of the injustice and arrogance with which the Carthaginians
after the death of the Scipios had treated friend and foe in Further
Spain, and had exasperated all against them.

Publius Scipio

The senate, which formed a correct judgment as to the importance
and the peculiar character of the Spanish war, and had learned from
the Uticenses brought in as prisoners by the Roman fleet the great
exertions which were making in Carthage to send Hasdrubal and
Massinissa with a numerous army over the Pyrenees, resolved to
despatch to Spain new reinforcements and an extraordinary general of
higher rank, the nomination of whom they deemed it expedient to leave
to the people. For long--so runs the story--nobody announced himself
as ready to take in hand the complicated and perilous business; but
at last a young officer of twenty-seven, Publius Scipio (son of the
general of the same name that had fallen in Spain), who had held the
offices of military tribune and aedile, came forward to solicit it.
It is incredible that the Roman senate should have left to accident
an election of such importance in this meeting of the Comitia which
it had itself suggested, and equally incredible that ambition and
patriotism should have so died out in Rome that no tried officer
presented himself for the important post. If on the other hand the
eyes of the senate turned to the young, talented, and experienced
officer, who had brilliantly distinguished himself in the hotly-
contested days on the Ticinus and at Cannae, but who still had not the
rank requisite for his coming forward as the successor of men who had
been praetors and consuls, it was very natural to adopt this course,
which compelled the people out of good nature to admit the only
candidate notwithstanding his defective qualification, and which could
not but bring both him and the Spanish expedition, which was doubtless
very unpopular, into favour with the multitude. If the effect of this
ostensibly unpremeditated candidature was thus calculated, it was
perfectly successful. The son, who went to avenge the death of a
father whose life he had saved nine years before on the Ticinus;
the young man of manly beauty and long locks, who with modest blushes
offered himself in the absence of a better for the post of danger;
the mere military tribune, whom the votes of the centuries now raised
at once to the roll of the highest magistracies--all this made a
wonderful and indelible impression on the citizens and farmers of
Rome. And in truth Publius Scipio was one, who was himself
enthusiastic, and who inspired enthusiasm. He was not one of the few
who by their energy and iron will constrain the world to adopt and to
move in new paths for centuries, or who at any rate grasp the reins of
destiny for years till its wheels roll over them. Publius Scipio
gained battles and conquered countries under the instructions of the
senate; with the aid of his military laurels he took also a prominent
position in Rome as a statesman; but a wide interval separates such a
man from an Alexander or a Caesar. As an officer he rendered at least
no greater service to his country than Marcus Marcellus; and as a
politician, although not perhaps himself fully conscious of the
unpatriotic and personal character of his policy, he injured his
country at least as much, as he benefited it by his military skill.
Yet a special charm lingers around the form of that graceful hero;
it is surrounded, as with a dazzling halo, by the atmosphere of serene
and confident inspiration, in which Scipio with mingled credulity and
adroitness always moved. With quite enough of enthusiasm to warm
men's hearts, and enough of calculation to follow in every case the
dictates of intelligence, while not leaving out of account the vulgar;
not naive enough to share the belief of the multitude in his divine
inspirations, nor straightforward enough to set it aside, and yet in
secret thoroughly persuaded that he was a man specially favoured of
the gods--in a word, a genuine prophetic nature; raised above the
people, and not less aloof from them; a man of steadfast word and
kingly spirit, who thought that he would humble himself by adopting
the ordinary title of a king, but could never understand how the
constitution of the republic should in his case be binding;
so confident in his own greatness that he knew nothing of envy
or of hatred, courteously acknowledged other men's merits, and
compassionately forgave other men's faults; an excellent officer and
a refined diplomatist without the repellent special impress of either
calling, uniting Hellenic culture with the fullest national feeling of
a Roman, an accomplished speaker and of graceful manners--Publius
Scipio won the hearts of soldiers and of women, of his countrymen
and of the Spaniards, of his rivals in the senate and of his greater
Carthaginian antagonist. His name was soon on every one's lips, and
his was the star which seemed destined to bring victory and peace
to his country.