A	»	B	»	C	»	D	»	E
F	»	G	»	H	»	I	»	J
K	»	L	»	M	»	N	»	O
P	»		R	»	S	»		T
U	»		V	»	W	»		Z

Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull - "A Golden Book of Venice"

Annie E. Keeling - "Andrew Golding"

Charles Lever - "Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2)"

Frederich Schiller - "Poems of The Third Period"

Warning: file_get_contents(http://www.publishersnewswire.com/RSS/news2.xml) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found in /home/farmy/public_html/topbookz.com/inc/rss.php on line 8

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

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

Scipio Goes to Spain
Capture of New Carthage

Publius Scipio went to Spain in 544-5, accompanied by the propraetor
Marcus Silanus, who was to succeed Nero and to serve as assistant and
counsellor to the young commander-in-chief, and by his intimate friend
Gaius Laelius as admiral, and furnished with a legion exceeding the
usual strength and a well-filled chest. His appearance on the scene
was at once signalized by one of the boldest and most fortunate -coups
de main- that are known in history. Of the three Carthaginian
generals Hasdrubal Barcas was stationed at the sources, Hasdrubal
son of Gisgo at the mouth, of the Tagus, and Mago at the Pillars of
Hercules; the nearest of them was ten days' march from the Phoenician
capital New Carthage. Suddenly in the spring of 545, before the
enemy's armies began to move, Scipio set out with his whole army of
nearly 30,000 men and the fleet for this town, which he could reach
from the mouth of the Ebro by the coast route in a few days, and
surprised the Phoenician garrison, not above 1000 men strong, by a
combined attack by sea and land. The town, situated on a tongue of
land projecting into the harbour, found itself threatened at once on
three sides by the Roman fleet, and on the fourth by the legions; and
all help was far distant. Nevertheless the commandant Mago defended
himself with resolution and armed the citizens, as the soldiers did
not suffice to man the walls. A sortie was attempted; but the Romans
repelled it with ease and, without taking time to open a regular
siege, began the assault on the landward side. Eagerly the assailants
pushed their advance along the narrow land approach to the town;
new columns constantly relieved those that were fatigued; the weak
garrison was utterly exhausted; but the Romans had gained no
advantage. Scipio had not expected any; the assault was merely
designed to draw away the garrison from the side next to the harbour,
where, having been informed that part of the latter was left dry at
ebb-tide, he meditated a second attack. While the assault was raging
on the landward side, Scipio sent a division with ladders over the
shallow bank "where Neptune himself showed them the way," and they had
actually the good fortune to find the walls at that point undefended.
Thus the city was won on the first day; whereupon Mago in the citadel
capitulated. With the Carthaginian capital there fell into the hands
of the Romans 18 dismantled vessels of war and 63 transports, the
whole war-stores, considerable supplies of corn, the war-chest of 600
talents (more than; 40,000 pounds), ten thousand captives, among whom
were eighteen Carthaginian gerusiasts or judges, and the hostages of
all the Spanish allies of Carthage. Scipio promised the hostages
permission to return home so soon as their respective communities
should have entered into alliance with Rome, and employed the
resources which the city afforded to reinforce and improve the
condition of his army. He ordered the artisans of New Carthage,
2000 in number, to work for the Roman army, promising to them liberty
at the close of the war, and he selected the able-bodied men among
the remaining multitude to serve as rowers in the fleet. But the
burgesses of the city were spared, and allowed to retain their liberty
and former position. Scipio knew the Phoenicians, and was aware that
they would obey; and it was important that a city possessing the only
excellent harbour on the east coast and rich silver mines should be
secured by something more than a garrison.

Success thus crowned the bold enterprise--bold, because it was not
unknown to Scipio that Hasdrubal Barcas had received orders from his
government to advance towards Gaul and was engaged in fulfilling them,
and because the weak division left behind on the Ebro was not in a
position seriously to oppose that movement, should the return of
Scipio be delayed. But he was again at Tarraco, before Hasdrubal made
his appearance on the Ebro. The hazard of the game which the young
general played, when he abandoned his primary task in order to execute
a dashing stroke, was concealed by the fabulous success which Neptune
and Scipio had gained in concert. The marvellous capture of the
Phoenician capital so abundantly justified all the expectations
which had been formed at home regarding the wondrous youth, that
none could venture to utter any adverse opinion. Scipio's command was
indefinitely prolonged; he himself resolved no longer to confine his
efforts to the meagre task of guarding the passes of the Pyrenees.
Already, in consequence of the fall of New Carthage, not only had
the Spaniards on the north of the Ebro completely submitted, but
even beyond the Ebro the most powerful princes had exchanged
the Carthaginian for the Roman protectorate.

Scipio Goes to Andalusia
Hasdrubal Crosses the Pyrenees

Scipio employed the winter of 545-6 in breaking up his fleet and
increasing his land army with the men thus acquired, so that he
might at once guard the north and assume the offensive in the south
more energetically than before; and he marched in 546 to Andalusia.
There he: encountered Hasdrubal Barcas, who, in the execution of his
long-cherished plan, was moving northward to the help of his brother.
A battle took place at Baecula, in which the Romans claimed the
victory and professed to have made 10,000 captives; but Hasdrubal
substantially attained his end, although at the sacrifice of a portion
of his army. With his chest, his elephants, and the best portion of
his troops, he fought his way to the north coast of Spain; marching
along the shore, he reached the western passes of the Pyrenees which
appear to have been unoccupied, and before the bad season began he
was in Gaul, where he took up quarters for the winter. It was evident
that the resolve of Scipio to combine offensive operations with the
defensive which he had been instructed to maintain was inconsiderate
and unwise. The immediate task assigned to the Spanish army, which
not only Scipio's father and uncle, but even Gaius Marcius and Gaius
Nero had accomplished with much inferior means, was not enough for the
arrogance of the victorious general at the head of a numerous army;
and he was mainly to blame for the extremely critical position of Rome
in the summer of 547, when the plan of Hannibal for a combined attack
on the Romans was at length realized. But the gods covered the errors
of their favourite with laurels. In Italy the peril fortunately
passed over; the Romans were glad to accept the bulletin of the
ambiguous victory of Baecula, and, when fresh tidings of victory
arrived from Spain, they thought no more of the circumstance that
they had had to combat the ablest general and the flower of the
Hispano-Phoenician army in Italy.

Spain Conquered
Mago Goes to Italy
Gades Becomes Roman

After the removal of Hasdrubal Barcas the two generals who were
left in Spain determined for the time being to retire, Hasdrubal
son of Gisgo to Lusitania, Mago even to the Baleares; and, until new
reinforcements should arrive from Africa, they left the light cavalry
of Massinissa alone to wage a desultory warfare in Spain, as Muttines
had done so successfully in Sicily. The whole east coast thus fell
into the power of the Romans. In the following year (547) Hanno
actually made his appearance from Africa with a third army, whereupon
Mago and Hasdrubal returned to Andalusia. But Marcus Silanus defeated
the united armies of Mago and Hanno, and captured the latter in
person. Hasdrubal upon this abandoned the idea of keeping the open
field, and distributed his troops among the Andalusian cities, of
which Scipio was during this year able to storm only one, Oringis.
The Phoenicians seemed vanquished; but yet they were able in the
following year (548) once more to send into the field a powerful army,
32 elephants, 4000 horse, and 70,000 foot, far the greater part of
whom, it is true, were hastily-collected: Spanish militia. Again
a battle took place at Baecula. The Roman army numbered little
more than half that of the enemy, and was also to a considerable
extent composed of Spaniards. Scipio, like Wellington in similar
circumstances, disposed his Spaniards so that they should not partake
in the fight--the only possible mode of preventing their dispersion
--while on the other hand he threw his Roman troops in the first
instance on the Spaniards. The day was nevertheless obstinately
contested; but at length the Romans were the victors, and, as a matter
of course, the defeat of such an army was equivalent to its complete
dissolution--Hasdrubal and Mago singly made their escape to Gades.
The Romans were now without a rival in the peninsula; the few towns
that did not submit with good will were subdued one by one, and some
of them were punished with cruel severity. Scipio was even able to
visit Syphax on the African coast, and to enter into communications
with him and also with Massinissa with reference to an expedition
to Africa--a foolhardy venture, which was not warranted by any
corresponding advantage, however much the report of it might please
the curiosity of the citizens of the capital at home. Gades alone,
where Mago held command, was still Phoenician. For a moment it seemed
as if, after the Romans had entered upon the Carthaginian heritage and
had sufficiently undeceived the expectation cherished here and there
among the Spaniards that after the close of the Phoenician rule they
would get rid of their Roman guests also and regain their ancient
freedom, a general insurrection against the Romans would break forth
in Spain, in which the former allies of Rome would take the lead.
The sickness of the Roman general and the mutiny of one of his corps,
occasioned by their pay being in arrear for many years, favoured
the rising. But Scipio recovered sooner than was expected, and
dexterously suppressed the tumult among the soldiers; upon which
the communities that had taken the lead in the national rising were
subdued at once before the insurrection gained ground. Seeing that
nothing came of this movement and Gades could not be permanently held,
the Carthaginian government ordered Mago to gather together whatever
could be got in ships, troops, and money, and with these, if possible,
to give another turn to the war in Italy. Scipio could not prevent
this--his dismantling of the fleet now avenged itself--and he was a
second time obliged to leave in the hands of his gods the defence,
with which he had been entrusted, of his country against new
invasions. The last of Hamilcar's sons left the peninsula without
opposition. After his departure Gades, the oldest and last possession
of the Phoenicians on Spanish soil, submitted on favourable conditions
to the new masters. Spain was, after a thirteen years' struggle,
converted from a Carthaginian into a Roman province, in which the
conflict with the Romans was still continued for centuries by means of
insurrections always suppressed and yet never subdued, but in which at
the moment no enemy stood opposed to Rome. Scipio embraced the first
moment of apparent peace to resign his command (in the end of 548),
and to report at Rome in person the victories which he had achieved
and the provinces which he had won.

Italian War
Position of the Armies

While the war was thus terminated in Sicily by Marcellus, in Greece by
Publius Sulpicius, and in Spain by Scipio, the mighty struggle went on
without interruption in the Italian peninsula. There after the battle
of Cannae had been fought and its effects in loss or gain could by
degrees be discerned, at the commencement of 540, the fifth year of
the war, the dispositions of the opposing Romans and Phoenicians were
the following. North Italy had been reoccupied by the Romans after
the departure of Hannibal, and was protected by three legions, two of
which were stationed in the Celtic territory, the third as a reserve
in Picenum. Lower Italy, as far as Mount Garganus and the Volturnus,
was, with the exception of the fortresses and most of the ports, in
the hands of Hannibal. He lay with his main army at Arpi, while
Tiberius Gracchus with four legions confronted him in Apulia, resting
upon the fortresses of Luceria and Beneventum. In the land of the
Bruttians, where the inhabitants had thrown themselves entirely into
the arms of Hannibal, and where even the ports--excepting Rhegium,
which the Romans protected from Messana--had been occupied by the
Phoenicians, there was a second Carthaginian army under Hanno, which
in the meanwhile saw no enemy to face it. The Roman main army of four
legions under the two consuls, Quintus Fabius and Marcus Marcellus,
was on the point of attempting to recover Capua. To these there fell
to be added on the Roman side the reserve of two legions in the
capital, the garrisons placed in all the seaports--Tarentum and
Brundisium having been reinforced by a legion on account of the
Macedonian landing apprehended there--and lastly the strong fleet
which had undisputed command of the sea. If we add to these the Roman
armies in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, the whole number of the Roman
forces, even apart from the garrison service in the fortresses of
Lower Italy which was provided for by the colonists occupying them,
may be estimated at not less than 200,000 men, of whom one-third were
newly enrolled for this year, and about one-half were Roman citizens.
It may be assumed that all the men capable of service from the 17th
to the 46th year were under arms, and that the fields, where the war
permitted them to be tilled at all, were cultivated by the slaves
and the old men, women, and children. As may well be conceived,
under such circumstances the finances were in the most grievous
embarrassment; the land-tax, the main source of revenue, came in but
very irregularly. Yet notwithstanding these difficulties as to men
and money the Romans were able--slowly indeed and by exerting all
their energies, but still surely--to recover what they had so rapidly
lost; to increase their armies yearly, while those of the Phoenicians
were diminishing; to gain ground year by year on the Italian allies
of Hannibal, the Campanians, Apulians, Samnites, and Bruttians, who
neither sufficed, like the Roman fortresses in Lower Italy, for their
own protection nor could be adequately protected by the weak army of
Hannibal; and finally, by means of the method of warfare instituted by
Marcus Marcellus, to develop the talent of their officers and to bring
into full play the superiority of the Roman infantry. Hannibal might
doubtless still hope for victories, but no longer such victories as
those on the Trasimene lake and on the Aufidus; the times of the
citizen-generals were gone by. No course was left to him but to wait
till either Philip should execute his long-promised descent or his own
brothers should join him from Spain, and meanwhile to keep himself,
his army, and his clients as far as possible free from harm and in
good humour. We hardly recognize in the obstinate defensive system
which he now began the same general who had carried on the offensive
with almost unequalled impetuosity and boldness; it is marvellous in
a psychological as well as in a military point of view, that the same
man should have accomplished the two tasks set to him--tasks so
diametrically opposite in their character--with equal completeness.

Conflicts in the South of Italy

At first the war turned chiefly towards Campania. Hannibal appeared
in good time to protect its capital, which he prevented from being
invested; but he was unable either to wrest any of the Campanian towns
held by the Romans from their strong Roman garrisons, or to prevent
--in addition to a number of less important country towns--Casilinum,
which secured his passage over the Volturnus, from being taken by
the two consular armies after an obstinate defence. An attempt of
Hannibal to gain Tarentum, with the view especially of acquiring a
safe landing-place for the Macedonian army, proved unsuccessful.
Meanwhile the Bruttian army of the Carthaginians under Hanno had
various encounters in Lucania with the Roman army of Apulia; here
Tiberius Gracchus sustained the struggle with good results, and after
a successful combat not far from Beneventum, in which the slave
legions pressed into service had distinguished themselves, he
bestowed liberty and burgess-rights on his slave-soldiers in
the name of the people.

Arpi Acquired by the Romans

In the following year (541) the Romans recovered the rich and
important Arpi, whose citizens, after the Roman soldiers had stolen
into the town, made common cause with them against the Carthaginian
garrison. In general the bonds of the symmachy formed by Hannibal
were relaxing; a number of the leading Capuans and several of the
Bruttian towns passed over to Rome; even a Spanish division of the
Phoenician army, when informed by Spanish emissaries of the course
of events in their native land, passed from the Carthaginian into
the Roman service.

Tarentum Taken by Hannibal

The year 542 was more unfavourable for the Romans in consequence of
fresh political and military errors, of which Hannibal did not fail
to take advantage. The connections which Hannibal maintained in the
towns of Magna Graecia had led to no serious result; save that the
hostages from Tarentum and Thurii, who were kept at Rome, were induced
by his emissaries to make a foolhardy attempt at escape, in which they
were speedily recaptured by the Roman posts. But the injudicious
spirit of revenge displayed by the Romans was of more service to
Hannibal than his intrigues; the execution of all the hostages who
had sought to escape deprived them of a valuable pledge, and the
exasperated Greeks thenceforth meditated how they might open
their gates to Hannibal. Tarentum was actually occupied by the
Carthaginians in consequence of an understanding with the citizens and
of the negligence of the Roman commandant; with difficulty the Roman
garrison maintained itself in the citadel. The example of Tarentum
was followed by Heraclea, Thurii, and Metapontum, from which town the
garrison had to be withdrawn in order to save the Tarentine Acropolis.
These successes so greatly increased the risk of a Macedonian landing,
that Rome felt herself compelled to direct renewed attention and
renewed exertions to the Greek war, which had been almost totally
neglected; and fortunately the capture of Syracuse and the favourable
state of the Spanish war enabled her to do so.

Conflicts around Capua

At the chief seat of war, in Campania, the struggle went on with very
varying success. The legions posted in the neighbourhood of Capua had
not yet strictly invested the city, but had so greatly hindered the
cultivation of the soil and the ingathering of the harvest, that the
populous city was in urgent need of supplies from without. Hannibal
accordingly collected a considerable supply of grain, and directed
the Campanians to receive it at Beneventum; but their tardiness gave
the consuls Quintus Flaccus and Appius Claudius time to come up, to
inflict a severe defeat on Hanno who protected the grain, and to seize
his camp and all his stores. The two consuls then invested the town,
while Tiberius Gracchus stationed himself on the Appian Way to prevent
Hannibal from approaching to relieve it But that brave officer fell
in consequence of the shameful stratagem of a perfidious Lucanian;
and his death was equivalent to a complete defeat, for his army,
consisting mostly of those slaves whom he had manumitted, dispersed
after the fall of their beloved leader. So Hannibal found the road to
Capua open, and by his unexpected appearance compelled the two consuls
to raise the blockade which they had barely begun. Their cavalry had
already, before Hannibal's arrival, been thoroughly defeated by the
Phoenician cavalry, which lay as a garrison in Capua under Hanno and
Bostar, and by the equally excellent Campanian horse. The total
destruction of the regular troops and free bands in Lucania led by
Marcus Centenius, a man imprudently promoted from a subaltern to be
a general, and the not much less complete defeat of the negligent and
arrogant praetor Gnaeus Fulvius Flaccus in Apulia, closed the long
series of the misfortunes of this year. But the stubborn perseverance
of the Romans again neutralized the rapid success of Hannibal, at
least at the most decisive point. As soon as Hannibal turned his back
on Capua to proceed to Apulia, the Roman armies once more gathered
around that city, one at Puteoli and Volturnum under Appius Claudius,
another at Casilinum under Quintus Fulvius, and a third on the Nolan
road under the praetor Gaius Claudius Nero. The three camps, well
entrenched and connected with one another by fortified lines,
precluded all access to the place, and the large, inadequately
provisioned city could not but find itself compelled by the mere
investment to surrender at no distant time, should no relief arrive.
As the winter of 542-3 drew to an end, the provisions were almost
exhausted, and urgent messengers, who were barely able to steal
through the well-guarded Roman lines, requested speedy help from
Hannibal, who was at Tarentum, occupied with the siege of the
citadel. With 33 elephants and his best troops he departed by
forced marches from Tarentum for Campania, captured the Roman post at
Caiatia, and took up his camp on Mount Tifata close by Capua, in the
confident expectation that the Roman generals would, now raise the
siege as they had done the year before. But the Romans, who had had
time to entrench their camps and their lines like a fortress, did not
stir, and looked on unmoved from their ramparts, while on one side
the Campanian horsemen, on the other the Numidian squadrons, dashed
against their lines. A serious assault could not be thought of by
Hannibal; he could foresee that his advance would soon draw the other
Roman armies after him to Campania, if even before their arrival the
scarcity of supplies in a region so systematically foraged did not
drive him away. Nothing could be done in that quarter.

Hannibal Marches toward Rome

Hannibal tried a further expedient, the last which occurred to his
inventive genius, to save the important city. After giving the
Campanians information of his intention and exhorting them to hold
out, he started with the relieving army from Capua and took the road
for Rome. With the same dexterous boldness which he had shown in his
first Italian campaigns, he threw himself with a weak army between the
armies and fortresses of the enemy, and led his troops through Samnium
and along the Valerian Way past Tibur to the bridge over the Anio,
which he passed and encamped on the opposite bank, five miles from
the city. The children's children of the Romans still shuddered, when
they were told of "Hannibal at the gate"; real danger there was none.
The country houses and fields in the neighbourhood of the city were
laid waste by the enemy; the two legions in the city, who went forth
against them, prevented the investment of the walls. Besides,
Hannibal had never expected to surprise Rome by a -coup de main-,
such as Scipio soon afterwards executed against New Carthage, and
still less had he meditated a siege in earnest; his only hope was that
in the first alarm part of the besieging army of Capua would march to
Rome and thus give him an opportunity of breaking up the blockade.
Accordingly after a brief stay he departed. The Romans saw in his
withdrawal a miraculous intervention of the gods, who by portents and
visions had compelled the wicked man to depart, when in truth the
Roman legions were unable to compel him; at the spot where Hannibal
had approached nearest to the city, at the second milestone on the
Appian Way in front of the Capene gate, with grateful credulity the
Romans erected an altar to the god "who turned back and protected"
(-Rediculus Tutanus-), Hannibal in reality retreated, because this was
part of his plan, and directed his march towards Capua. But the Roman
generals had not committed the mistake on which their opponent had
reckoned; the legions remained unmoved in the lines round Capua, and
only a weak corps had been detached on the news of Hannibal's march
towards Rome. When Hannibal learned this, he suddenly turned against
the consul Publius Galba, who had imprudently followed him from Rome,
and with whom he had hitherto avoided an engagement, vanquished him,
and took his camp by storm.

Capua Capitulates

But this was a poor compensation for the now inevitable fall of Capua.
Long had its citizens, particularly the better passes, anticipated
with sorrowful forebodings what was coming; the senate-house and the
administration of the city were left almost exclusively to the leaders
of the popular party hostile to Rome. Now despair seized high and
low, Campanians and Phoenicians alike. Twenty-eight senators chose a
voluntary death; the remainder gave over the city to the discretion of
an implacably exasperated foe. Of course a bloody retribution had to
follow; the only discussion was as to whether the process should be
long or short: whether the wiser and more appropriate course was to
probe to the bottom the further ramifications of the treason even
beyond Capua, or to terminate the matter by rapid executions. Appius
Claudius and the Roman senate wished to take the former course; the
latter view, perhaps the less inhuman, prevailed. Fifty-three of the
officers and magistrates of Capua were scourged and beheaded in the
marketplaces of Cales and Teanum by the orders and before the eyes
of the proconsul Quintus Flaccus, the rest of the senators were
imprisoned, numbers of the citizens were sold into slavery, and the
estates of the more wealthy were confiscated. Similar penalties were
inflicted upon Atella and Caiatia. These punishments were severe;
but, when regard is had to the importance of the revolt of Capua
from Rome, and to what was the ordinary if not warrantable usage of
war in those times, they were not unnatural. And had not the citizens
themselves pronounced their own sentence, when immediately after their
defection they put to death all the Roman citizens present in Capua at
the time of the revolt? But it was unjustifiable in Rome to embrace
this opportunity of gratifying the secret rivalry that had long
subsisted between the two largest cities of Italy, and of wholly
annihilating, in a political point of view, her hated and envied
competitor by abolishing the constitution of the Campanian city.