The History of Rome, Book III - Theodor Mommsen
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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.
Superiority of the Romans
Tarentum Capitulates
Immense was the impression produced by the fall of Capua, and all the
more that it had not been brought about by surprise, but by a two
years' siege carried on in spite of all the exertions of Hannibal.
It was quite as much a token that the Romans had recovered their
ascendency in Italy, as its defection some years before to Hannibal
had been a token that that ascendency was lost. In vain Hannibal had
tried to counteract the impression of this news on his allies by the
capture of Rhegium or of the citadel of Tarentum. His forced march
to surprise Rhegium had yielded no result. The citadel of Tarentum
suffered greatly from famine, after the Tarentino-Carthaginian
squadron closed the harbour; but, as the Romans with their much more
powerful fleet were able to cut off the supplies from that squadron
itself, and the territory, which Hannibal commanded, scarce sufficed
to maintain his army, the besiegers on the side next the sea suffered
not much less than did the besieged in the citadel, and at length they
left the harbour. No enterprise was now successful; Fortune herself
seemed to have deserted the Carthaginians. These consequences of the
fall of Capua--the deep shock given to the respect and confidence
which Hannibal had hitherto enjoyed among the Italian allies, and the
endeavours made by every community that was not too deeply compromised
to gain readmission on tolerable terms into the Roman symmachy
--affected Hannibal much more keenly than the immediate loss. He had
to choose one of two courses; either to throw garrisons into the
wavering towns, in which case he would weaken still more his army
already too weak and would expose his trusty troops to destruction in
small divisions or to treachery--500 of his select Numidian horsemen
were put to death in this way in 544 on the defection of the town of
Salapia; or to pull down and burn the towns which could not be
depended on, so as to keep them out of the enemy's hands--a course,
which could not raise the spirits of his Italian clients. On the
fall of Capua the Romans felt themselves once more confident as to
the final issue of the war in Italy; they despatched considerable
reinforcements to Spain, where the existence of the Roman army was
placed in jeopardy by the fall of the two Scipios; and for the first
time since the beginning of the war they ventured on a diminution in
the total number of their troops, which had hitherto been annually
augmented notwithstanding the annually-increasing difficulty of
levying them, and had risen at last to 23 legions. Accordingly in
the next year (544) the Italian war was prosecuted more remissly than
hitherto by the Romans, although Marcus Marcellus had after the close
of the Sicilian war resumed the command of the main army; he applied
himself to the besieging of fortresses in the interior, and had
indecisive conflicts with the Carthaginians. The struggle for the
Acropolis of Tarentum also continued without decisive result. In
Apulia Hannibal succeeded in defeating the proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius
Centumalus at Herdoneae. In the following year (545) the Romans took
steps to regain possession of the second large city, which had passed
over to Hannibal, the city of Tarentum. While Marcus Marcellus
continued the struggle against Hannibal in person with his wonted
obstinacy and energy, and in a two days' battle, beaten on the first
day, achieved on the second a costly and bloody victory; while the
consul Quintus Fulvius induced the already wavering Lucanians and
Hirpinians to change sides and to deliver up their Phoenician
garrisons; while well-conducted razzias from Rhegium compelled
Hannibal to hasten to the aid of the hard-pressed Bruttians;
the veteran Quintus Fabius, who had once more--for the fifth
time--accepted the consulship and along with it the commission to
reconquer Tarentum, established himself firmly in the neighbouring
Messapian territory, and the treachery of a Bruttian division of
the garrison surrendered to him the city. Fearful excesses were
committed by the exasperated victors. They put to death all of
the garrison or of the citizens whom they could find, and pillaged
the houses. 30,000 Tarentines are said to have been sold as slaves,
and 3000 talents (730,000 pounds) are stated to have been sent to the
state treasury. It was the last feat in arms of the general of eighty
years; Hannibal arrived to the relief of the city when all was over,
and withdrew to Metapontum.
Hannibal Driven Back
Death of Marcellus
After Hannibal had thus lost his most important acquisitions and
found himself hemmed in by degrees to the south-western point of the
peninsula, Marcus Marcellus, who had been chosen consul for the next
year (546), hoped that, in connection with his capable colleague
Titus Quintius Crispinus, he should be able to terminate the war by a
decisive attack. The old soldier was not disturbed by the burden of
his sixty years; sleeping and waking he was haunted by the one thought
of defeating Hannibal and of liberating Italy. But fate reserved that
wreath of victory for a younger brow. While engaged in an unimportant
reconnaissance in the district of Venusia, both consuls were suddenly
attacked by a division of African cavalry. Marcellus maintained the
unequal struggle--as he had fought forty years before against Hamilcar
and fourteen years before at Clastidium--till he sank dying from
his horse; Crispinus escaped, but died of his wounds received
in the conflict (546).
Pressure of the War
It was now the eleventh year of the war. The danger which some years
before had threatened the very existence of the state seemed to have
vanished; but all the more the Romans felt the heavy burden--a burden
pressing more severely year after year--of the endless war. The
finances of the state suffered beyond measure. After the battle of
Cannae (538) a special bank-commission (-tres viri mensarii-) had
been appointed, composed of men held in the highest esteem, to form
a permanent and circumspect board of superintendence for the public
finances in these difficult times. It may have done what it could;
but the state of things was such as to baffle all financial sagacity.
At the very beginning of the war the Romans had debased the silver and
copper coin, raised the legal value of the silver piece more than a
third, and issued a gold coin far above the value of the metal. This
very soon proved insufficient; they were obliged to take supplies from
the contractors on credit, and connived at their conduct because they
needed them, till the scandalous malversation at last induced the
aediles to make an example of some of the worst by impeaching them
before the people. Appeals were often made, and not in vain, to the
patriotism of the wealthy, who were in fact the very persons that
suffered comparatively the most. The soldiers of the better classes
and the subaltern officers and equites in a body, either voluntarily
or constrained by the -esprit de corps-, declined to receive pay.
The owners of the slaves armed by the state and manumitted after the
engagement at Beneventum(3) replied to the bank-commission, which
offered them payment, that they would allow it to stand over to the
end of the war (540). When there was no longer money in the exchequer
for the celebration of the national festivals and the repairs of the
public buildings, the companies which had hitherto contracted for
these matters declared themselves ready to continue their services for
a time without remuneration (540). A fleet was even fitted out and
manned, just as in the first Punic war, by means of a voluntary loan
among the rich (544). They spent the moneys belonging to minors; and
at length, in the year of the conquest of Tarentum, they laid hands
on the last long-spared reserve fund (164,000 pounds). The state
nevertheless was unable to meet its most necessary payments; the pay
of the soldiers fell dangerously into arrear, particularly in the more
remote districts. But the embarrassment of the state was not the
worst part of the material distress. Everywhere the fields lay
fallow: even where the war did not make havoc, there was a want of
hands for the hoe and the sickle. The price of the -medimnus-
(a bushel and a half) had risen to 15 -denarii- (10s.), at least three
times the average price in the capital; and many would have died of
absolute want, if supplies had not arrived from Egypt, and if, above
all, the revival of agriculture in Sicily(4) had not prevented the
distress from coming to the worst. The effect which such a state of
things must have had in ruining the small farmers, in eating away
the savings which had been so laboriously acquired, and in
converting flourishing villages into nests of beggars and brigands,
is illustrated by similar wars of which fuller details have
been preserved.
The Allies
Still more ominous than this material distress was the increasing
aversion of the allies to the Roman war, which consumed their
substance and their blood. In regard to the non-Latin communities,
indeed, this was of less consequence. The war itself showed that they
could do nothing, so long as the Latin nation stood by Rome; their
greater or less measure of dislike was not of much moment. Now,
however, Latium also began to waver. Most of the Latin communes in
Etruria, Latium, the territory of the Marsians, and northern Campania
--and so in those very districts of Italy which directly had suffered
least from the war--announced to the Roman senate in 545 that
thenceforth they would send neither contingents nor contributions,
and would leave it to the Romans themselves to defray the costs of a
war waged in their interest. The consternation in Rome was great;
but for the moment there were no means of compelling the refractory.
Fortunately all the Latin communities did not act in this way. The
colonies in the land of the Gauls, in Picenum, and in southern Italy,
headed by the powerful and patriotic Fregellae, declared on the
contrary that they adhered the more closely and faithfully to Rome; in
fact, it was very clearly evident to all of these that in the present
war their existence was, if possible, still more at stake than that of
the capital, and that this war was really waged not for Rome merely,
but for the Latin hegemony in Italy, and in truth for the independence
of the Italian nation. That partial defection itself was certainly
not high treason, but merely the result of shortsightedness and
exhaustion; beyond doubt these same towns would have rejected with
horror an alliance with the Phoenicians. But still there was a
variance between Romans and Latins, which did not fail injuriously
to react on the subject population of these districts. A dangerous
ferment immediately showed itself in Arretium; a conspiracy organized
in the interest of Hannibal among the Etruscans was discovered, and
appeared so perilous that Roman troops were ordered to march thither.
The military and police suppressed this movement without difficulty;
but it was a significant token of what might happen in those
districts, if once the Latin strongholds ceased to inspire terror.