The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty Six - Titus Livius
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BOOK XVIII.--[Y.R. 496. B.C. 256.] Attilius Regulus, consul, having
overcome the Carthaginians in a sea-fight, passes over into Africa:
kills a serpent of prodigious magnitude, with great loss of his own
men. [Y.R. 497. B.C. 255.] The senate, on account of his successful
conduct of the war, not appointing him a successor, he writes to them,
complaining; and, among other reasons for desiring to be recalled,
alledges, that his little farm, being all his subsistence, was going
to ruin, owing to the mismanagement of hired stewards. [Y.R. 498. B.C.
254.] A memorable instance of the instability of fortune exhibited in
the person of Regulus, who is overcome in battle, and taken prisoner
by Xanthippus, a Lacedaemonian general. [Y. R. 499. B. C. 253.] The
Roman fleet shipwrecked; which disaster entirely reverses the good
fortune which had hitherto attended their affairs. Titus Corucanius,
the first high priest chosen from among the commons. [Y. R. 500. B. C.
252.] P. Sempronius Sophus and M. Yalerius Maximus, censors, examine
into the state of the senate, and expel thirteen of the members of
that body. [Y. R. 501. B. C. 251.] They hold a lustrum, and find the
number of citizens to be two hundred and ninety-seven thousand seven
hundred and ninety-seven. [Y. R. 502. B. C. 250.] Regulus being sent
by the Carthaginians to Rome to treat for peace, and an exchange of
prisoners, binds himself by oath to return if these objects be not
attained; dissuades the senate from agreeing to the propositions: and
then, in observance of his oath, returning to Carthage, is put to
death by torture.
BOOK XIX.--[Y. R. 502. B. C. 250.] C. Caecilius Metellus, having been
successful in several engagements with the Carthaginians, triumphs
with more splendour than had ever yet been seen; thirteen generals of
the enemy, and one hundred and twenty elephants, being exhibited in
the procession, [Y. R. 503. B. C. 249.] Claudius Pulcher, consul,
obstinately persisting, notwithstanding the omens were inauspicious,
engages the enemy's fleet, and is beaten; drowns the sacred chickens
which would not feed: recalled by the senate, and ordered to nominate
a dictator; he appoints Claudius Glicia, one of the lowest of the
people, who, notwithstanding his being ordered to abdicate the office,
yet attends the celebration of the public games in his dictator's
robe. [Y. R. 504. B. C. 248.] Atilius Calatinus, the first dictator
who marches with an army out of Italy. An exchange of prisoners with
the Carthaginians. Two colonies established at Fregenae and Brundusium
in the Sallentine territories. [Y. R. 505. B. C. 247.] A lustrum; the
citizens numbered amount to two hundred and fifty-one thousand two
hundred and twenty-two. [Y. R. 506. B. C. 246.] Claudia, the sister of
Claudius, who had fought unsuccessfully, in contempt of the auspices,
being pressed by the crowd, as she was returning from the game, cries
out, _I wish my brother were alive and had again the command of the
fleet_: for which offence she is tried and fined. [Y. R. 507. B. C.
245.] Two praetors now first created. Aulus Postumius, consul, being
priest of Mars, forcibly detained in the city by Caecilius Metellus,
the high priest, and not suffered to go forth to war, being obliged by
law to attend to the sacred duties of his office. [Y.R. 508. B.C.
244.] After several successful engagements with the Carthaginians,
Caius Lutatius, consul, puts an end to the war, [Y.R. 509. B.C. 243.]
by gaining a complete victory over their fleet, at the island of
Aegate. The Carthaginians sue for peace, which is granted to them.
[Y.R. 510. B.C. 242.] The temple of Vesta being on fire, the high
priest, Caecilius Metellus, saves the sacred utensils from the flames.
[Y.R. 511. B.C. 241.] Two new tribes added, the Veline and Quirine.
The Falisci rebel; are subdued in six days.
BOOK XX.--A colony settled at Spoletum. [Y.R. 512. B.C. 240.] An army
sent against the Ligurians; being the first war with that state. The
Sardinians and Corsicans rebel, and are subdued. [Y.R. 514. B.C. 238.]
Tuccia, a vestal, found guilty of incest. War declared against the
Illyrians, who had slain an ambassador; they are subdued and brought
to submission. [Y.R. 515. B.C. 237.] The number of praetors increased
to four. The Transalpine Gauls make an irruption into Italy: are
conquered and put to the sword. [Y.R. 516. B.C. 236.] The Roman army,
in conjunction with the Latins, is said to have amounted to no less
than three hundred thousand men. [Y.R. 517. B.C. 235.] The Roman army
for the first time crosses the Po; fights with and subdues the
Insubrian Gauls. [Y.R. 530. B.C. 222.] Claudius Marcellus, consul,
having slain Viridomarus, the general of the Insubrian Gauls, carries
off the _spolia opima_. [Y.R. 531. B.C. 221.] The Istrians
subdued; also the Illyrians, who had rebelled. [Y.R. 532. B.C. 220.]
The censors hold a lustrum, in which the number of the citizens is
found to be two hundred and seventy thousand two hundred and thirteen.
The sons of freed-men formed into four tribes; the Esquiline,
Palatine, Suburran, and Colline. [Y.R. 533. B.C. 219.] Caius
Flaminius, censor, constructs the Flaminian road, and builds the
Flaminian circus.
BOOK XXI.
_Origin of the second Punic war. Hannibal's character. In violation
of a treaty, he passes the Iberus. Besieges Saguntum, and at length
takes it. The Romans send ambassadors to Carthage; declare war.
Hannibal crosses the Pyrenees: makes his way through Gaul; then
crosses the Alps; defeats the Romans at the Ticinus. The Romans again
defeated at the Trebia. Cneius Cornelius Scipio defeats the
Carthaginians in Spain, and takes Hanno, their general, prisoner._
1. I may be permitted to premise at this division of my work, what
most historians [Footnote: Thucydides seems to be specially referred
to.] have professed at the beginning of their whole undertaking; that
I am about to relate the most memorable of all wars that were ever
waged: the war which the Carthaginians, under the conduct of Hannibal,
maintained with the Roman people. For never did any states and nations
more efficient in their resources engage in contest; nor had they
themselves at any other period so great a degree of power and energy.
They brought into action too no arts of war unknown to each other, but
those which had been tried in the first Punic war; and so various was
the fortune of the conflict, and so doubtful the victory, that they
who conquered were more exposed to danger. The hatred with which they
fought also was almost greater than their resources; the Romans being
indignant that the conquered aggressively took up arms against their
victors; the Carthaginians, because they considered that in their
subjection it had been lorded over them with haughtiness and avarice.
There is besides a story, that Hannibal, when about nine years old,
while he boyishly coaxed his father Hamilcar that he might be taken to
Spain, (at the time when the African war was completed, and he was
employed in sacrificing previously to transporting his army thither,)
was conducted to the altar; and, having laid his hand on the
offerings, was bound by an oath to prove himself, as soon as he could,
an enemy to the Roman people. The loss of Sicily and Sardinia grieved
the high spirit of Hamilcar: for he deemed that Sicily had been given
up through a premature despair of their affairs; and that Sardinia,
during the disturbances in Africa, had been treacherously taken by the
Romans, while, in addition, the payment of a tribute had been imposed.
2. Being disturbed with these anxieties, he so conducted himself for
five years in the African war, which commenced shortly after the peace
with Rome, and then through nine years employed in augmenting the
Carthaginian empire in Spain, that it was obvious that he was
revolving in his mind a greater war than he was then engaged in; and
that if he had lived longer, the Carthaginians under Hamilcar would
have carried the war into Italy, which, under the command of Hannibal,
they afterwards did. The timely death of Hamilcar and the youth of
Hannibal occasioned its delay. Hasdrubal, intervening between the
father and the son, held the command for about eight years. He was
first endeared to Hamilcar, as they say, on account of his youthful
beauty, and then adopted by him, when advanced in age, as his
son-in-law, on account of his eminent abilities; and, because he was
his son-in-law, he obtained the supreme authority, against the wishes
of the nobles, by the influence of the Barcine faction, [Footnote:
The Barcine faction derived its name from Hamilcar, who was surnamed
Barca. Hanno appears to have been at the head of the opposite party.]
which was very powerful with the military and the populace.
Prosecuting his designs rather by stratagem than force, by
entertaining the princes, and by means of the friendship of their
leaders, gaining the favour of unknown nations, he aggrandized the
Carthaginian power, more than by arms and battles. Yet peace proved no
greater security to himself. A barbarian, in resentment of his
master's having been put to death by him, publicly murdered him; and,
having been seized by the bystanders, he exhibited the same
countenance as if he had escaped; nay, even when he was lacerated by
tortures, he preserved such an expression of face, that he presented
the appearance of one who smiled, his joy getting the better of his
pains. With this Hasdrubal, because he possessed such wonderful skill
in gaining over the nations and adding them to his empire, the Roman
people had renewed the treaty, [Footnote: A. U. C. 526, thirteen
years after the conclusion of the first Punic war, being the sixth
treaty between the Carthaginians and Romans. The first was a
commercial agreement made during the first consulate, in the year that
the Tarquins were expelled from Rome; but is not mentioned by Livy.
The second is noted by him, lib. vii. 27, and the third, lib. ix. 43.
The fourth was concluded during the war with Pyrrhus and the
Tarentines, Polyb. V. iii. 25: and the fifth was the memorable treaty
at the close of the first war] on the terms, that the river Iberus
should be the boundary of both empires; and that to the Saguntines,
who lay between the territories of the two states, their liberty
should be preserved.
3. There was no doubt that in appointing a successor to Hasdrubal, the
approbation of the commons would follow the military prerogative, by
which the young Hannibal had been immediately carried to the
praetorium, and hailed as general, amid the loud shouts and
acquiescence of all. Hasdrubal had sent for him by letter, when scarce
yet arrived at manhood; and the matter had even been discussed in the
senate, the Barcine faction using all their efforts, that Hannibal
might be trained to military service and succeed to his father's
command. Hanno, the leader of the opposite faction, said, "Hasdrubal
seems indeed to ask what is reasonable, but I, nevertheless, do not
think his request ought to be granted." When he had attracted to
himself the attention of all, through surprise at this ambiguous
opinion, he proceeded: "Hasdrubal thinks that the flower of youth
which he gave to the enjoyment of Hannibal's father, may justly be
expected by himself in return from the son: but it would little become
us to accustom our youth, in place of a military education, to the
lustful ambition of the generals. Are we afraid that the son of
Hamilcar should be too late in seeing the immoderate power and
splendour of his father's sovereignty? or that we shall not soon
enough become slaves to the son of him, to whose son-in-law our armies
were bequeathed as an hereditary right? I am of opinion, that this
youth should be kept at home, and taught, under the restraint of the
laws and the authority of magistrates, to live on an equal footing
with the rest of the citizens, lest at some time or other this small
fire should kindle a vast conflagration."
4. A few, and nearly every one of the highest merit, concurred with
Hanno; but, as usually happens, the more numerous party prevailed over
the better. Hannibal, having been sent into Spain, from his very first
arrival drew the eyes of the whole army upon him. The veteran soldiers
imagined that Hamilcar, in his youth, was restored to them; they
remarked the same vigour in his looks and animation in his eye the
same features and expression of countenance; and then, in a short
time, he took care that his father should be of the least powerful
consideration in conciliating their esteem. There never was a genius
more fitted for the two most opposite duties of obeying and
commanding; so that you could not easily decide whether he were dearer
to the general or the army: and neither did Hasdrubal prefer giving
the command to any other, when any thing was to be done with courage
and activity; nor did the soldiers feel more confidence and boldness
under any other leader. His fearlessness in encountering dangers, and
his prudence when in the midst of them, were extreme. His body could
not be exhausted, nor his mind subdued, by any toil. He could alike
endure either heat or cold. The quantity of his food and drink was
determined by the wants of nature, and not by pleasure. The seasons of
his sleeping and waking were distinguished neither by day nor night.
The time that remained after the transaction of business was given to
repose; but that repose was neither invited by a soft bed nor by
quiet. Many have seen him wrapped in a military cloak, lying on the
ground amid the watches and outposts of the soldiers. His dress was
not at all superior to that of his equals: his arms and his horses
were conspicuous. He was at once by far the first of the cavalry and
infantry; and, foremost to advance to the charge, was last to leave
the engagement. Excessive vices counterbalanced these high virtues of
the hero; inhuman cruelty, more than Punic perfidy, no truth, no
reverence for things sacred, no fear of the gods, no respect for
oaths, no sense of religion. With a character thus made up of virtue
and vices, he served for three years under the command of Hasdrubal,
without neglecting any thing which ought to be done or seen by one who
was to become a great general.
5. But from the day on which he was declared general, as if Italy had
been decreed to him as his province, and the war with Rome committed
to him, thinking there should be no delay, lest, while he
procrastinated, some unexpected accident might defeat him, as had
happened to his father, Hamilcar, and afterwards to Hasdrubal, he
resolved to make war the Saguntines. As there could be no doubt that
by attacking them the Romans would be excited to arms, he first led
his army into the territory of the Olcades, a people beyond the
Iberus, rather within the boundaries than under the dominion of the
Carthaginians, so that he might not seem to have had the Saguntines
for his object, but to have been drawn on to the war by the course of
events; after the adjoining nations had been subdued, and by the
progressive annexation of conquered territory. He storms and plunders
Carteia, a wealthy city, the capital of that nation; at which the
smaller states being dismayed, submitted to his command and to the
imposition of a tribute. His army, triumphant and enriched with booty,
was led into winter-quarters to New Carthage. Having there confirmed
the attachment of all his countrymen and allies by a liberal division
of the plunder, and by faithfully discharging the arrears of pay, the
war was extended, in the beginning of spring, to the Vaccaei. The
cities Hermandica and Arbocala were taken by storm. Arbocala was
defended for a long time by the valour and number of its inhabitants.
Those who escaped from Hermandica joining themselves to the exiles of
the Olcades, a nation subdued the preceding summer, excite the
Carpetani to arms; and having attacked Hannibal near the river Tagus,
on his return from the Vaccaei, they threw into disorder his army
encumbered with spoil. Hannibal avoided an engagement, and having
pitched his camp on the bank, as soon as quiet and silence prevailed
among the enemy, forded the river; and having removed his rampart so
far that the enemy might have room to pass over, resolved to attack
them in their passage. He commanded the cavalry to charge as soon as
they should see them advanced into the water. He drew up the line of
his infantry on the bank with forty elephants in front. The Carpetani,
with the addition of the Olcades and Vaccaei amounted to a hundred
thousand, an invincible army, were the fight to take place in the open
plain. Being therefore both naturally ferocious and confiding in their
numbers; and since they believed that the enemy had retired through
fear thinking that victory was only delayed by the intervention of the
river, they raise a shout, and in every direction, without the command
of any one, dash into the stream, each where it nearest to him. At the
same time, a heavy force of cavalry poured into the river from its
opposite bank, and the engagement commenced in the middle of the
channel on very unequal terms; for there the foot-soldier, having no
secure footing, and scarcely trusting to the ford, could be borne down
even by an unarmed horseman, by the mere shock of his horse urged at
random; while the horseman, with the command of his body and his
weapons, his horse moving steadily even through the middle of the
eddies, could maintain the fight either at close quarters or at a
distance. A great number were swallowed up by the current; some being
carried by the whirlpools of the stream to the side of the enemy, were
trodden down by the elephants; and whilst the last, for whom it was
more safe to retreat to their own bank, were collecting together after
their various alarms, Hannibal, before they could regain courage after
such excessive consternation, having entered the river with his army
in a close square, forced them to fly from the bank. Having then laid
waste their territory, he received the submission of the Carpetani
also within a few days. And now all the country beyond the Iberus,
excepting that of the Saguntines, was under the power of the
Carthaginians.
6. As yet there was no war with the Saguntines, but already, in order
to a war, the seeds of dissension were sown between them and their
neighbours, particularly the Turetani, with whom when the same person
sided who had originated the quarrel, and it was evident, not that a
trial of the question of right, but violence, was his object,
ambassadors were sent by the Saguntines to Rome to implore assistance
in the war which now evidently threatened them. The consuls then at
Rome were Publius Cornelius Scipio and Tiberius Sempronius Longus,
who, after the ambassadors were introduced into the senate, having
made a motion on the state of public affairs, it was resolved that
envoys should be sent into Spain to inspect the circumstances of the
allies; and if they saw good reason, both to warn Hannibal that he
should refrain from the Saguntines, the allies of the Roman people,
and to pass over into Africa to Carthage, and report the complaints of
the allies of the Roman people. This embassy having been decreed but
not yet despatched, the news arrived, more quickly than any one
expected, that Saguntum was besieged. The business was then referred
anew to the senate. And some, decreeing Spain and Africa as provinces
for the consuls, thought the war should be maintained both by sea and
land, while others wished to direct the whole hostilities against
Spain and Hannibal. There were others again who thought that an affair
of such importance should not be entered on rashly; and that the
return of the ambassadors from Spain ought to be awaited. This
opinion, which seemed the safest, prevailed; and Publius Valerius
Flaccus, and Quintus Baebius Tamphilus, were, on that account, the
more quickly despatched as ambassadors to Hannibal at Saguntum, and
from thence to Carthage, if he did not desist from the war, to demand
the general himself in atonement for the violation of the treaty.
7. While the Romans thus prepare and deliberate, Saguntum was already
besieged with the utmost vigour. That city, situated about a mile from
the sea, was by far the most opulent beyond the Iberus. Its
inhabitants are said to have been sprung from the island Zacynthus,
and some of the Rutulian race from Ardea to have been also mixed with
them; but they had risen in a short time to great wealth, either by
their gains from the sea or the land, or by the increase of their
numbers, or the integrity of their principles, by which they
maintained their faith with their allies, even to their own
destruction. Hannibal having entered their territory with a hostile
army, and laid waste the country in every direction, attacks the city
in three different quarters. There was an angle of the wall sloping
down into a more level and open valley than the other space around;
against this he resolved to move the vineae, by means of which the
battering-ram might be brought up to the wall. But though the ground
at a distance from the wall was sufficiently level for working the
vineae, yet their undertakings by no means favourably succeeded, when
they came to effect their object. Both a huge tower overlooked it, and
the wall, as in a suspected place, was raised higher than in any other
part; and a chosen band of youths presented a more vigorous
resistance, where the greatest danger and labour were indicated. At
first they repelled the enemy with missile weapons, and suffered no
place to be sufficiently secure for those engaged in the works;
afterwards, not only did they brandish their weapons in defence of the
walls and tower, but they had courage to make sallies on the posts and
works of the enemy; in which tumultuary engagements, scarcely more
Saguntines than Carthaginians were slain. But when Hannibal himself,
while he too incautiously approached the wall, fell severely wounded
in the thigh by a javelin, such flight and dismay spread around, that
the works and vineae had nearly been abandoned.
8. For a few days after, while the general's wound was being cured,
there was rather a blockade than a siege: during which time, though
there was a respite from fighting, yet there was no intermission in
the preparation of works and fortifications. Hostilities, therefore,
broke out afresh with greater fury, and in more places, in some even
where the ground scarcely admitted of the works, the vineae began to
be moved forward, and the battering-ram to be advanced to the walls.
The Carthaginian abounded in the numbers of his troops; for there is
sufficient reason to believe that he had as many as a hundred and
fifty thousand in arms. The townsmen began to be embarrassed, by
having their attention multifariously divided, in order to maintain
their several defences, and look to every thing; nor were they equal
to the task, for the walls were now battered by the rams, and many
parts of them were shattered. One part by continuous ruins left the
city exposed; three successive towers and all the wall between them
had fallen down with an immense crash, and the Carthaginians believed
the town taken by that breach; through which, as if the wall had alike
protected both, there was a rush from each side to the battle. There
was nothing resembling the disorderly fighting which, in the storming
of towns, is wont to be engaged in, on the opportunities of either
party; but regular lines, as in an open plain, stood arrayed between
the ruins of the walls and the buildings of the city, which lay but a
slight distance from the walls. On the one side hope, on the other
despair, inflamed their courage; the Carthaginian believing that, if a
little additional effort were used, the city was his; the Saguntines
opposing their bodies in defence of their native city deprived of its
walls, and not a man retiring a step, lest he might admit the enemy
into the place he deserted. The more keenly and closely, therefore,
they fought on both sides, the more, on that account, were wounded, no
weapon falling without effect amidst their arms and persons. There was
used by the Saguntines a missile weapon, called falarica, with the
shaft of fir, and round in other parts except towards the point,
whence the iron projected: this part, which was square, as in the
pilum, they bound around with tow, and besmeared with pitch. It had an
iron head three feet in length, so that it could pierce through the
body with the armour. But what caused the greatest fear was, that this
weapon, even though it stuck in the shield and did not penetrate into
the body, when it was discharged with the middle part on fire, and
bore along a much greater flame, produced by the mere motion, obliged
the armour to be thrown down, and exposed the soldier to succeeding
blows.
9. When the contest had for a long time continued doubtful, and the
courage of the Saguntines had increased, because they had succeeded in
their resistance beyond their hopes, while the Carthaginian, because
he had not conquered, felt as vanquished, the townsmen suddenly set up
a shout, and drive their enemies to the ruins of the wall; thence they
force them, while embarrassed and disordered; and lastly, drove them
back, routed and put to flight, to their camp. In the mean time it was
announced that ambassadors had arrived from Rome; to meet whom
messengers were sent to the sea-side by Hannibal, to tell them that
they could not safely come to him through so many armed bands of
savage tribes, and that Hannibal at such an important conjuncture had
not leisure to listen to embassies. It was obvious that, if not
admitted, they would immediately repair to Carthage: he therefore
sends letters and messengers beforehand to the leaders of the Barcine
faction, to prepare the minds of their partisans, so that the other
party might not be able in any thing to give an advantage to the
Romans.