The History of Rome, Book III - Theodor Mommsen
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46
Attempted Coalition against Rome
Its external relations were not in so favourable a position. The
nature of the case required that Macedonia should now take up the
plans of Hannibal and Antiochus, and should try to place herself at
the head of a coalition of all oppressed states against the supremacy
of Rome; and certainly threads of intrigue ramified in all directions
from the court of Pydna. But their success was slight. It was indeed
asserted that the allegiance of the Italians was wavering; but neither
friend nor foe could fail to see that an immediate resumption of the
Samnite wars was not at all probable. The nocturnal conferences
likewise between Macedonian deputies and the Carthaginian senate,
which Massinissa denounced at Rome, could occasion no alarm to serious
and sagacious men, even if they were not, as is very possible, an
utter fiction. The Macedonian court sought to attach the kings of
Syria and Bithynia to its interests by intermarriages; but nothing
further came of it, except that the immortal simplicity of the
diplomacy which seeks to gain political ends by matrimonial means once
more exposed itself to derision. Eumenes, whom it would have been
ridiculous to attempt to gain, the agents of Perseus would have gladly
put out of the way: he was to have been murdered at Delphi on his way
homeward from Rome, where he had been active against Macedonia; but
the pretty project miscarried.
Bastarnae
Genthius
Of greater moment were the efforts made to stir up the northern
barbarians and the Hellenes to rebellion against Rome. Philip had
conceived the project of crushing the old enemies of Macedonia,
the Dardani in what is now Servia, by means of another still more
barbarous horde of Germanic descent brought from the left bank of the
Danube, the Bastarnae, and of then marching in person with these and
with the whole avalanche of peoples thus set in motion by the land-
route to Italy and invading Lombardy, the Alpine passes leading to
which he had already sent spies to reconnoitre--a grand project,
worthy of Hannibal, and doubtless immediately suggested by Hannibal's
passage of the Alps. It is more than probable that this gave occasion
to the founding of the Roman fortress of Aquileia,(2) which was formed
towards the end of the reign of Philip (573), and did not harmonize
with the system followed elsewhere by the Romans in the establishment
of fortresses in Italy. The plan, however, was thwarted by the
desperate resistance of the Dardani and of the adjoining tribes
concerned; the Bastarnae were obliged to retreat, and the whole horde
were drowned in returning home by the giving way of the ice on the
Danube. The king now sought at least to extend his clientship among
the chieftains of the Illyrian land, the modern Dalmatia and northern
Albania. One of these who faithfully adhered to Rome, Arthetaurus,
perished, not without the cognizance of Perseus, by the hand of an
assassin. The most considerable of the whole, Genthius the son and
heir of Pleuratus, was, like his father, nominally in alliance with
Rome; but the ambassadors of Issa, a Greek town on one of the
Dalmatian islands, informed the senate, that Perseus had a secret
understanding with the young, weak, and drunken prince, and that
the envoys of Genthius served as spies for Perseus in Rome.
Cotys
In the regions on the east of Macedonia towards the lower Danube the
most powerful of the Thracian chieftains, the brave and sagacious
Cotys, prince of the Odrysians and ruler of all eastern Thrace from
the Macedonian frontier on the Hebrus (Maritza) down to the fringe of
coast covered with Greek towns, was in the closest alliance with
Perseus. Of the other minor chiefs who in that quarter took part
with Rome, one, Abrupolis prince of the Sagaei, was, in consequence
of a predatory expedition directed against Amphipolis on the Strymon,
defeated by Perseus and driven out of the country. From these regions
Philip had drawn numerous colonists, and mercenaries were to be had
there at any time and in any number.
Greek National Party
Among the unhappy nation of the Hellenes Philip and Perseus had, long
before declaring war against Rome carried on a lively double system of
proselytizing, attempting to gain over to the side of Macedonia on the
one hand the national, and on the other--if we may be permitted the
expression--the communistic, party. As a matter of course, the whole
national party among the Asiatic as well as the European Greeks was
now at heart Macedonian; not on account of isolated unrighteous acts
on the part of the Roman deliverers, but because the restoration of
Hellenic nationality by a foreign power involved a contradiction in
terms, and now, when it was in truth too late, every one perceived
that the most detestable form of Macedonian rule was less fraught with
evil for Greece than a free constitution springing from the noblest
intentions of honourable foreigners. That the most able and upright
men throughout Greece should be opposed to Rome was to be expected;
the venal aristocracy alone was favourable to the Romans, and here
and there an isolated man of worth, who, unlike the great majority,
was under no delusion as to the circumstances and the future of the
nation. This was most painfully felt by Eumenes of Pergamus, the main
upholder of that extraneous freedom among the Greeks. In vain he
treated the cities subject to him with every sort of consideration;
in vain he sued for the favour of the communities and diets by fair-
sounding words and still better-sounding gold; he had to learn that
his presents were declined, and that all the statues that had formerly
been erected to him were broken in pieces and the honorary tablets
were melted down, in accordance with a decree of the diet,
simultaneously throughout the Peloponnesus (584). The name of Perseus
was on all lips; even the states that formerly were most decidedly
anti-Macedonian, such as the Achaeans, deliberated as to the
cancelling of the laws directed against Macedonia; Byzantium,
although situated within the kingdom of Pergamus, sought and obtained
protection and a garrison against the Thracians not from Eumenes, but
from Perseus, and in like manner Lampsacus on the Hellespont joined
the Macedonian: the powerful and prudent Rhodians escorted the Syrian
bride of king Perseus from Antioch with their whole magnificent war-
fleet--for the Syrian war-vessels were not allowed to appear in the
Aegean--and returned home highly honoured and furnished with rich
presents, more especially with wood for shipbuilding; commissioners
from the Asiatic cities, and consequently subjects of Eumenes, held
secret conferences with Macedonian deputies in Samothrace. That
sending of the Rhodian war-fleet had at least the aspect of a
demonstration; and such, certainly, was the object of king Perseus,
when he exhibited himself and all his army before the eyes of the
Hellenes under pretext of performing a religious ceremony at Delphi.
That the king should appeal to the support of this national
partisanship in the impending war, was only natural. But it was wrong
in him to take advantage of the fearful economic disorganization of
Greece for the purpose of attaching to Macedonia all those who desired
a revolution in matters of property and of debt. It is difficult to
form any adequate idea of the unparalleled extent to which the
commonwealths as well as individuals in European Greece--excepting the
Peloponnesus, which was in a somewhat better position in this respect
--were involved in debt. Instances occurred of one city attacking and
pillaging another merely to get money--the Athenians, for example,
thus attacked Oropus--and among the Aetolians, Perrhaebians, and
Thessalians formal battles took place between those that had property
and those that had none. Under such circumstances the worst outrages
were perpetrated as a matter of course; among the Aetolians, for
instance, a general amnesty was proclaimed and a new public peace was
made up solely for the purpose of entrapping and putting to death a
number of emigrants. The Romans attempted to mediate; but their
envoys returned without success, and announced that both parties were
equally bad and that their animosities were not to be restrained. In
this case there was, in fact, no longer other help than the officer
and the executioner; sentimental Hellenism began to be as repulsive as
from the first it had been ridiculous. Yet king Perseus sought to
gain the support of this party, if it deserve to be called such--of
people who had nothing, and least of all an honourable name, to lose
--and not only issued edicts in favour of Macedonian bankrupts, but
also caused placards to be put up at Larisa, Delphi, and Delos, which
summoned all Greeks that were exiled on account of political or other
offences or on account of their debts to come to Macedonia and to
look for full restitution of their former honours and estates. As may
easily be supposed, they came; the social revolution smouldering
throughout northern Greece now broke out into open flame, and the
national-social party there sent to Perseus for help. If Hellenic
nationality was to be saved only by such means, the question might
well be asked, with all respect for Sophocles and Phidias, whether
the object was worth the cost.
Rupture with Perseus
The senate saw that it had delayed too long already, and that it was
time to put an end to such proceedings. The expulsion of the Thracian
chieftain Abrupolis who was in alliance with the Romans, and the
alliances of Macedonia with the Byzantines, Aetolians, and part of the
Boeotian cities, were equally violations of the peace of 557, and
sufficed for the official war-manifesto: the real ground of war was
that Macedonia was seeking to convert her formal sovereignty into a
real one, and to supplant Rome in the protectorate of the Hellenes.
As early as 581 the Roman envoys at the Achaean diet stated pretty
plainly, that an alliance with Perseus was equivalent to casting off
the alliance of Rome. In 582 king Eumenes came in person to Rome with
a long list of grievances and laid open to the senate the whole
situation of affairs; upon which the senate unexpectedly in a secret
sitting resolved on an immediate declaration of war, and furnished the
landing-places in Epirus with garrisons. For the sake of form an
embassy was sent to Macedonia, but its message was of such a nature
that Perseus, perceiving that he could not recede, replied that he
was ready to conclude with Rome a new alliance on really equal terms,
but that he looked upon the treaty of 557 as cancelled; and he bade
the envoys leave the kingdom within three days. Thus war was
practically declared.
This was in the autumn of 582. Perseus, had he wished, might have
occupied all Greece and brought the Macedonian party everywhere to the
helm, and he might perhaps have crushed the Roman division of 5000 men
stationed under Gnaeus Sicinius at Apollonia and have disputed the
landing of the Romans. But the king, who already began to tremble at
the serious aspect of affairs, entered into discussions with his
guest-friend the consular Quintus Marcius Philippus, as to the
frivolousness of the Roman declaration of war, and allowed himself to
be thereby induced to postpone the attack and once more to make an
effort for peace with Rome: to which the senate, as might have been
expected, only replied by the dismissal of all Macedonians from Italy
and the embarkation of the legions. Senators of the older school no
doubt censured the "new wisdom" of their colleague, and his un-Roman
artifice; but the object was gained and the winter passed away without
any movement on the part of Perseus. The Romati diplomatists made all
the more zealous use of the interval to deprive Perseus of any support
in Greece. They were sure of the Achaeans. Even the patriotic party
among them--who had neither agreed with those social movements, nor
had soared higher than the longing after a prudent neutrality--had no
idea of throwing themselves into the arms of Perseus; and, besides,
the opposition party there had now been brought by Roman influence to
the helm, and attached itself absolutely to Rome. The Aetolian league
had doubtless asked aid from Perseus in its internal troubles; but
the new strategus, Lyciscus, chosen under the eyes of the Roman
ambassadors, was more of a Roman partisan than the Romans themselves.
Among the Thessalians also the Roman party retained the ascendency.
Even the Boeotians, old partisans as they were of Macedonia, and sunk
in the utmost financial disorder, had not in their collective capacity
declared openly for Perseus; nevertheless at least three of their
cities, Thisbae, Haliartus and Coronea, had of their own accord
entered into engagements with him. When on the complaint of the Roman
envoy the government of the Boeotian confederacy communicated to him
the position of things, he declared that it would best appear which
cities adhered to Rome, and which did not, if they would severally
pronounce their decision in his presence; and thereupon the Boeotian
confederacy fell at once to pieces. It is not true that the great
structure of Epaminondas was destroyed by the Romans; it actually
collapsed before they touched it, and thus indeed became the prelude
to the dissolution of the other still more firmly consolidated leagues
of Greek cities.(3) With the forces of the Boeotian towns friendly
to Rome the Roman envoy Publius Lentulus laid siege to Haliartus,
even before the Roman fleet appeared in the Aegean.
Preparations for War
Chalcis was occupied with Achaean, and the province of Orestis with
Epirot, forces: the fortresses of the Dassaretae and Illyrians on the
west frontier of Macedonia were occupied by the troops of Gnaeus
Sicinius; and as soon as the navigation was resumed, Larisa received a
garrison of 2000 men. Perseus during all this remained inactive and
had not a foot's breadth of land beyond his own territory, when in the
spring, or according to the official calendar in June, of 583, the
Roman legions landed on the west coast. It is doubtful whether
Perseus would have found allies of any mark, even had he shown as much
energy as he displayed remissness; but, as circumstances stood, he
remained of course completely isolated, and those prolonged attempts
at proselytism led, for the time at least, to no result. Carthage,
Genthius of Illyria, Rhodes and the free cities of Asia Minor, and
even Byzantium hitherto so very friendly with Perseus, offered to the
Romans vessels of war; which these, however, declined. Eumenes put
his land army and his ships on a war footing. Ariarathes king of
Cappadocia sent hostages, unsolicited, to Rome. The brother-in-law of
Perseus, Prusias II. king of Bithynia, remained neutral. No one
stirred in all Greece. Antiochus IV. king of Syria, designated
in court style "the god, the brilliant bringer of victory," to
distinguish him from his father the "Great," bestirred himself, but
only to wrest the Syrian coast during this war from the entirely
impotent Egypt.
Beginning of the War
But, though Perseus stood almost alone, he was no contemptible
antagonist. His army numbered 43,000 men; of these 21,000 were
phalangites, and 4000 Macedonian and Thracian cavalry; the rest were
chiefly mercenaries. The whole force of the Romans in Greece amounted
to between 30,000 and 40,000 Italian troops, besides more than 10,000
men belonging to Numidian, Ligurian, Greek, Cretan, and especially
Pergamene contingents. To these was added the fleet, which numbered
only 40 decked vessels, as there was no fleet of the enemy to oppose
it--Perseus, who had been prohibited from building ships of war by the
treaty with Rome, was only now erecting docks at Thessalonica--but it
had on board 10,000 troops, as it was destined chiefly to co-operate
in sieges. The fleet was commanded by Gaius Lucretius, the land army
by the consul Publius Licinius Crassus.
The Romans Invade Thessaly
The consul left a strong division in Illyria to harass Macedonia
from the west, while with the main force he started, as usual, from
Apollonia for Thessaly. Perseus did not think of disturbing their
arduous march, but contented himself with advancing into Perrhaebia
and occupying the nearest fortresses. He awaited the enemy at Ossa,
and not far from Larisa the first conflict took place between the
cavalry and light troops on both sides. The Romans were decidedly
beaten. Cotys with the Thracian horse had defeated and broken the
Italian, and Perseus with his Macedonian horse the Greek, cavalry; the
Romans had 2000 foot and 200 horsemen killed, and 600 horsemen made
prisoners, and had to deem themselves fortunate in being allowed to
cross the Peneius without hindrance. Perseus employed the victory to
ask peace on the same terms which Philip had obtained: he was ready
even to pay the same sum. The Romans refused his request: they never
concluded peace after a defeat, and in this case the conclusion
of peace would certainly have involved as a consequence the loss
of Greece.
Their Lax and Unsuccessful Management of the War
The wretched Roman commander, however, knew not how or where to
attack; the army marched to and fro in Thessaly, without accomplishing
anything of importance. Perseus might have assumed the offensive; he
saw that the Romans were badly led and dilatory; the news had passed
like wildfire through Greece, that the Greek army had been brilliantly
victorious in the first engagement; a second victory might lead to a
general rising of the patriot party, and, by commencing a guerilla
warfare, might produce incalculable results. But Perseus, while a
good soldier, was not a general like his father; he had made his
preparations for a defensive war, and, when things took a different
turn, he felt himself as it were paralyzed. He made an unimportant
success, which the Romans obtained in a second cavalry combai near
Phalanna, a pretext for reverting, as is the habit of narrow and
obstinate minds, to his first plan and evacuating Thessaly.
This was of course equivalent to renouncing all idea of a Hellenic
insurrection: what might have been attained by a different course was
shown by the fact that, notwithstanding what had occurred, the Epirots
changed sides. Thenceforth nothing serious was accomplished on either
side. Perseus subdued king Genthius, chastised the Dardani, and, by
means of Cotys, expelled from Thrace the Thracians friendly to Rome
and the Pergamene troops. On the other hand the western Roman army
took some Illyrian towns, and the consul busied himself in clearing
Thessaly of the Macedonian garrisons and making sure of the turbulent
Aetolians and Acarnanians by occupying Ambracia. But the heroic
courage of the Romans was most severely felt by the unfortunate
Boeotian towns which took part with Perseus; the inhabitants as well
of Thisbae, which surrendered without resistance as soon as the Roman
admiral Gaius Lucretius appeared before the city, as of Haliartus,
which closed its gates against him and had to be taken by storm, were
sold by him into slavery; Corcnea was treated in the same manner by
the consul Crassus in spite even of its capitulation. Never had a
Roman army exhibited such wretched discipline as the force under these
commanders. They had so disorganized the army that, even in the next
campaign of 584, the new consul Aulus Hostilius could not think of
undertaking anything serious, especially as the new admiral Lucius
Hortensius showed himself to be as incapable and unprincipled as his
predecessor. The fleet visited the towns on the Thracian coast
without result. The western army under Appius Claudius, whose
headquarters were at Lychnidus in the territory of the Dassaretae,
sustained one defeat after another: after an expedition to Macedonia
had been utterly unsuccessful, the king in turn towards the beginning
of winter assumed the aggressive with the troops which were no longer
needed on the south frontier in consequence of the deep snow blocking
up all the passes, took from Appius numerous townships and a multitude
of prisoners, and entered into connections with king Genthius; he was
able in fact to attempt an invasion of Aetolia, while Appius allowed
himself to be once more defeated in Epirus by the garrison of a
fortress which he had vainly besieged. The Roman main army made two
attempts to penetrate into Macedonia: first, ovei the Cambunian
mountains, and then through the Thessalian passes; but they were
negligently planned, and both were repulsed by Perseus.
Abuses in the Army
The consul employed himself chiefly in the reorganization of the army
--a work which was above all things needful, but which required a
sterner man and an officer of greater mark. Discharges and furloughs
might be bought, and therefore the divisions were never up to their
full numbers; the men were put into quarters in summer, and, as the
officers plundered on a large, the common soldiers plundered on a
small, scale. Friendly peoples were subjected to the most shameful
suspicions: for instance, the blame of the disgraceful defeat at
Larisa was imputed to the pretended treachery of the Aetolian cavalry,
and, what was hitherto unprecedented, its officers were sent to be
criminally tried at Rome; and the Molossians in Epirus were forced
by false suspicions into actual revolt. The allied states had war-
contributions imposed upon them as if they had been conquered, and if
they appealed to the Roman senate, their citizens were executed or
sold into slavery: this was done, for instance, at Abdera, and similar
outrages were committed at Chalcis. The senate interfered very
earnestly:(4) it enjoined the liberation of the unfortunate Coroneans
and Abderites, and forbade the Roman magistrates to ask contributions
from the allies without its leave. Gaius Lucretius was unanimously
condemned by the burgesses. But such steps could not alter the fact,
that the military result of these first two campaigns had been null,
while the political result had been a foul stain on the Romans, whose
extraordinary successes in the east were based in no small degree on
their reputation for moral purity and solidity as compared with the
scandals of Hellenic administration. Had Philip commanded instead of
Perseus, the war would presumably have begun with the destruction of
the Roman army and the defection of most of the Hellenes; but Rome
was fortunate enough to be constantly outstripped in blunders by her
antagonists. Perseus was content with entrenching himself in
Macedonia--which towards the south and west is a true mountain-
fortress--as in a beleaguered town.
Marcius Enters Macedonia through the Pass of Tempe
The Armies on the Elpius
The third commander-in-chief also, whom Rome sent to Macedonia in 585,
Quintus Marcius Philippus, that already-mentioned upright guest-friend
of the king, was not at all equal to his far from easy task. He was
ambitious and enterprising, but a bad officer. His hazardous venture
of crossing Olympus by the pass of Lapathus westward of Tempe, leaving
behind one division to face the garrison of the pass, and making his
way with his main force through impracticable denies to Heracleum, is
not excused by the fact of its success. Not only might a handful of
resolute men have blocked the route, in which case retreat was out of
the question; but even after the passage, when he stood with the
Macedonian main force in front and the strongly-fortified mountain-
fortresses of Tempe and Lapathus behind him, wedged into a narrow
plain on the shore and without supplies or the possibility of foraging
for them, his position was no less desperate than when, in his first
consulate, he had allowed himself to be similarly surrounded in the
Ligurian defiles which thenceforth bore his name. But as an accident
saved him then, so the incapacity of Perseus saved him now. As if he
could not comprehend the idea of defending himself against the Romans
otherwise than by blocking the passes, he strangely gave himself over
as lost as soon as he saw the Romans on the Macedonian side of them,
fled in all haste to Pydna, and ordered his ships to be burnt and
his treasures to be sunk. But even this voluntary retreat of the
Macedonian army did not rescue the consul from his painful position.
He advanced indeed without hindrance, but was obliged after four days'
march to turn back for want of provisions; and, when the king came to
his senses and returned in all haste to resume the position which he
had abandoned, the Roman army would have been in great danger, had not
the impregnable Tempe surrendered at the right moment and handed over
its rich stores to the enemy. The communication with the south was
by this means secured to the Roman army; but Perseus had strongly
barricaded himself in his former well-chosen position on the bank of
the little river Elpius, and there checked the farther advance of the
Romans. So the Roman army remained, during the rest of the summer and
the winter, hemmed in in the farthest corner of Thessaly; and, while
the crossing of the passes was certainly a success and the first
substantial one in the war, it was due not to the ability of the
Roman, but to the blundering of the Macedonian, general. The Roman
fleet in vain attempted the capture of Demetrias, and performed no
exploit whatever. The light ships of Perseus boldly cruised between
the Cyclades, protected the corn-vessels destined for Macedonia, and
attacked the transports of the enemy. With the western army matters
were still worse: Appius Claudius could do nothing with his weakened
division, and the contingent which he asked from Achaia was prevented
from coming to him by the jealousy of the consul. Moreover, Genthius
had allowed himself to be bribed by Perseus with the promise of a
great sum of money to break with Rome, and to imprison the Roman
envoys; whereupon the frugal king deemed it superfluous to pay the
money which he had promised, since Genthius was now forsooth
compelled, independently of it, to substitute an attitude of decided
hostility to Rome for the ambiguous position which he had hitherto
maintained. Accordingly the Romans had a further petty war by the
side of the great one, which had already lasted three years. In fact
had Perseus been able to part with his money, he might easily have
aroused enemies still more dangerous to the Romans. A Celtic host
under Clondicus--10,000 horsemen and as many infantry--offered to take
service with him in Macedonia itself; but they could not agree as to
the pay. In Hellas too there was such a ferment that a guerilla
warfare might easily have been kindled with a little dexterity and a
full exchequer; but, as Perseus had no desire to give and the Greeks
did nothing gratuitously, the land remained quiet.