The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty Six - Titus Livius
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17. The Roman senate having gone through every thing which required
their attention relative to Capua, decreed to Caius Nero six thousand
foot and three hundred horse, whichever he should himself choose out
of those two legions which he had commanded at Capua, with an equal
number of infantry, and eight hundred horse of the Latin confederacy.
This army Nero embarked at Puteoli, and conveyed over into Spain.
Having arrived at Tarraco with his ships, landed his troops, hauled
his ships ashore, and armed his mariners to augment his numbers, he
proceeded to the river Iberus, and received the army from Titus
Fonteius and Lucius Marcius. He then marched towards the enemy.
Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, was encamped at the black stones in
Ausetania, a place situated between the towns Illiturgi and Mentissa.
The entrance of this defile Nero seized, and Hasdrubal, to prevent his
being shut up in it, sent a herald to engage that, if he were allowed
to depart thence, he would convey the whole of his army out of Spain.
The Roman general having received this proposition gladly, Hasdrubal
requested the next day for a conference, when the Romans might draw up
conditions relative to the surrender of the citadels of the towns, and
the appointment of a day on which the garrisons might be withdrawn,
and the Carthaginians might remove every thing belonging to them
without imposition. Having obtained his point in this respect,
Hasdrubal gave orders that as soon as it was dark, and during the
whole of the night afterwards, the heaviest part of his force should
get out of the defile by whatever way they could. The strictest care
was taken that many should not go out that night, that the very
fewness of their numbers might both be more adapted to elude the
notice of the enemy from their silence, and to an escape through
confined and rugged paths. Next day they met for the conference; but
that day having been spent, on purpose, in speaking and writing about
a variety of subjects, which were not to this point, the conference
was put off to the next day. The addition of the following night gave
him time to send still more out; nor was the business concluded the
next day. Thus several days were spent in openly discussing
conditions, and as many nights in privately sending the Carthaginian
troops out of their camp; and after the greater part of the army had
been sent out, he did not even keep to those terms which he had
himself proposed; and his sincerity decreasing with his fears, they
became less and less agreed. By this time nearly all the infantry had
cleared the defile, when at daybreak a dense mist enveloped the whole
defile and the neighbouring plains; which Hasdrubal perceiving, sent
to Nero to put off the conference to the following day, as the
Carthaginians held that day sacred from the transaction of any serious
business. Not even then was the cheat suspected. Hasdrubal having
gained the indulgence he sought for that day also, immediately quitted
his camp with his cavalry and elephants, and without creating any
alarm escaped to a place of safety. About the fourth hour the mist,
being dispelled by the sun, left the atmosphere clear, when the Romans
saw that the camp of the enemy was deserted. Then at length Claudius,
recognising the Carthaginian perfidy, and perceiving that he had been
caught by trickery, immediately began to pursue the enemy as they
moved off, prepared to give battle; but they declined fighting. Some
skirmishes, however, took place between the rear of the Carthaginians
and the advanced guard of the Romans.
18. During the time in which these events occurred, neither did those
states of Spain which had revolted after the defeat that was
sustained, return to the Romans, nor did any others desert them. At
Rome, the attention of the senate and people, after the recovery of
Capua, was not fixed in a greater degree upon Italy than upon Spain.
They resolved that the army there should be augmented and a general
sent. They were not, however, so clear as to the person whom they
should send, as that, where two generals had fallen within the space
of thirty days, he who was to supply the place of them should be
selected with unusual care. Some naming one person, and others
another, they at length came to the resolution that the people should
assemble for the purpose of electing a proconsul for Spain, and the
consuls fixed a day for the election. At first they waited in
expectation that those persons who might think themselves qualified
for so momentous a command would give in their names, but this
expectation being disappointed, their grief was renewed for the
calamity they had suffered, and then regret for the generals they had
lost. The people thus afflicted, and almost at their wits' end, came
down, however, to the Campus Martius on the day of the election,
where, turning towards the magistrates, they looked round at the
countenances of their most eminent men, who were earnestly gazing at
each other, and murmured bitterly, that their affairs were in so
ruinous a state, and the condition of the commonwealth so desperate,
that no one dared undertake the command in Spain. When suddenly
Publius Cornelius, son of Publius who had fallen in Spain, who was
about twenty-four years of age, declaring himself a candidate, took
his station on an eminence from which he could be seen by all. The
eyes of the whole assembly were directed towards him, and by
acclamations and expressions of approbation, a prosperous and happy
command were at once augured to him. Orders were then given that they
should proceed to vote, when not only every century, but every
individual to a man, decided that Publius Scipio should be invested
with the command in Spain. But after the business had been concluded,
and the ardour and impetuosity of their zeal had subsided, a sudden
silence ensued, and a secret reflection on what they had done, whether
their partiality had not got the better of their judgment? They
chiefly regretted his youth, but some were terrified at the fortune
which attended his house and his name, for while the two families to
which he belonged were in mourning, he was going into a province where
he must carry on his operations between the tombs of his father and
his uncle.
19. Perceiving the solicitude and anxiety which people felt, after
performing the business with so much ardour, he summoned an assembly,
in which he discoursed in so noble and high minded a manner, on his
years, the command intrusted to him, and the war which he had to carry
on, as to rekindle and renew the ardour which had subsided, and
inspire the people with more confident hopes than the reliance placed
on human professions, or reasoning on the promising appearance of
affairs, usually engenders. For Scipio was not only deserving of
admiration for his real virtues, but also for his peculiar address in
displaying them, to which he had been formed from his earliest
years;--effecting many things with the multitude, either by feigning
nocturnal visions or as with a mind divinely inspired; whether it was
that he was himself, too, endued with a superstitious turn of mind, or
that they might execute his commands and adopt his plans without
hesitation, as if they proceeded from the responses of an oracle. With
the intention of preparing men's minds for this from the beginning, he
never at any time from his first assumption of the manly gown
transacted any business, public or private, without first going to the
Capitol, entering the temple, and taking his seat there; where he
generally passed a considerable time in secret and alone. This
practice, which was adhered to through the whole of his life,
occasioned in some persons a belief in a notion which generally
prevailed, whether designedly or undesignedly propagated, that he was
a man of divine extraction; and revived a report equally absurd and
fabulous with that formerly spread respecting Alexander the Great,
that he was begotten by a huge serpent, whose monstrous form was
frequently observed in the bedchamber of his mother, but which, on any
one's coming in, suddenly unfolding his coils, glided out of sight.
The belief in these miraculous accounts was never ridiculed by him,
but rather increased by his address; neither positively denying any
such thing nor openly affirming it. There were also many other things,
some real and others counterfeit, which exceeded in the case of this
young man the usual measure of human admiration, in reliance on which
the state intrusted him with an affair of so much difficulty, and with
so important a command, at an age by no means ripe for it. To the
forces in Spain, consisting of the remains of the old army, and those
which had been conveyed over from Puteoli by Claudius Nero, ten
thousand infantry and a thousand horse were added; and Marcus Junius
Silanus, the propraetor, was sent to assist in the management of
affairs. Thus with a fleet of thirty ships, all of which were
quinqueremes, he set sail from the mouth of the Tiber, and coasting
along the shore of the Tuscan Sea, the Alps, and the Gallic Gulf, and
then doubling the promontory of the Pyrenees, landed his troops at
Emporiae, a Greek city, which also derived its origin from Phocaea.
Ordering his ships to attend him, he marched by land to Tarraco; where
he held a congress of deputies from all the allies; for embassies had
poured forth from every province on the news of his arrival. Here he
ordered his ships to be hauled on shore, having sent back the four
triremes of the Massilians which had, in compliment to him, attended
him from their home. After that, he began to give answers to the
embassies of the several states, which had been in suspense on account
of the many vicissitudes of the war; and this with so great dignity,
arising from the great confidence he had in his own talents, that no
presumptuous expression ever escaped him; and in every thing he said
there appeared at once the greatest majesty and sincerity.
20. Setting out from Tarraco, he visited the states of his allies and
the winter quarters of his army; and bestowed the highest
commendations upon the soldiers, because, though they had received two
such disastrous blows in succession, they had retained possession of
the province, and not allowing the enemy to reap any advantage from
their successes, had excluded them entirely from the territory on this
side of the Iberus, and honourably protected their allies. Marcius he
kept with him, and treated him with such respect, that it was
perfectly evident there was nothing he feared less than lest any one
should stand in the way of his own glory. Silanus then took the place
of Nero, and the fresh troops were led into winter quarters. Scipio
having in good time visited every place where his presence was
necessary, and completed every thing which was to be done, returned to
Tarraco. The reputation of Scipio among his enemies was not inferior
to that which he enjoyed among his allies and countrymen. They felt
also a kind of presentiment of what was to come, which occasioned the
greater apprehension, the less they could account for their fears,
which had arisen without any cause. They had retired to their winter
quarters in different directions. Hasdrubal, son of Gisgo, had gone
quite to the ocean and Gades; Mago into the midland parts chiefly
above the forest of Castulo; Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, wintered in
the neighbourhood of Saguntum, close upon the Iberus. At the close of
the summer in which Capua was recovered and Scipio entered Spain, a
Carthaginian fleet, which had been fetched from Sicily to Tarentum, to
cut off the supplies of the Roman garrison in the citadel of that
place, had blocked up all the approaches to the citadel from the sea;
but by lying there too long, they caused a greater scarcity of
provisions to their friends than to their enemies. For so much corn
could not be brought in for the townsmen, along the coasts which were
friendly to them, and through the ports which were kept open through
the protection afforded by the Carthaginian fleet, as the fleet itself
consumed, which had on board a crowd made up of every description of
persons. So that the garrison of the citadel, which was small in
number, could be supported from the stock they had previously laid in
without importing any, while that which they imported was not
sufficient for the supply of the Tarentines and the fleet. At length
the fleet was sent away with greater satisfaction than it was
received. The scarcity of provisions, however, was not much relieved
by it; because when the protection by sea was removed corn could not
be brought in.
21. At the close of the same summer, Marcus Marcellus arriving at the
city from his province of Sicily, an audience of the senate was given
him by Caius Calpurnius, the praetor, in the temple of Bellona. Here,
after discoursing on the services he had performed, and complaining in
gentle terms, not on his own account more than that of his soldiers,
that after having completely reduced the province, he had not been
allowed to bring home his army, he requested that he might be allowed
to enter the city in triumph; this he did not obtain. A long debate
took place on the question, whether it was less consistent to deny a
triumph on his return to him, in whose name, when absent, a
supplication had been decreed and honours paid to the immortal gods,
for successes obtained under his conduct; or, when they had ordered
him to deliver over his army to a successor, which would not have been
decreed unless there were still war in the province, to allow him to
triumph, as if the war had been terminated, when the army, the
evidence of the triumph being deserved or undeserved, were absent. As
a middle course between the two opinions, it was resolved that he
should enter the city in ovation. The plebeian tribunes, by direction
of the senate, proposed to the people, that Marcus Marcellus should be
invested with command during the day on which he should enter the city
in ovation. The day before he entered the city he triumphed on the
Alban mount; after which he entered the city in ovation, having a
great quantity of spoils carried before him, together with a model of
the capture of Syracuse. The catapultas and ballistas, and every other
instrument of war were carried; likewise the rich ornaments laid up by
its kings during a long continuance of peace; a quantity of wrought
silver and brass, and other articles, with precious garments, and a
number of celebrated statues, with which Syracuse had been adorned in
such a manner as to rank among the chief Grecian cities in that
respect. Eight elephants were also led as an emblem of victory over
the Carthaginians. Sosis, the Syracusan, and Mericus, the Spaniard,
who preceded him with golden crowns, formed not the least interesting
part of the spectacle; under the guidance of one of whom the Romans
had entered Syracuse by night, while the other had betrayed to them
the island and the garrison in it. To both of them the freedom of the
city was given, and five hundred acres of land each. Sosis was to have
his portion in the Syracusan territory, out of the lands which had
belonged either to the kings or the enemies of the Roman people,
together with a house at Syracuse, which had belonged to any one of
those persons who had been punished according to the laws of war.
Mericus and the Spaniards who had come over with him were ordered to
have a city and lands assigned to them in Sicily, which had belonged
to some of those who had revolted from the Romans. It was given in
charge to Marcus Cornelius to assign them the city and lands wherever
he thought proper. In the same country, four hundred acres of land
were decreed to Belligenes, by whose means Mericus had been persuaded
to come over. After the departure of Marcellus from Sicily, a
Carthaginian fleet landed eight thousand infantry and three thousand
Numidian cavalry. To these the Murgantian territories revolted; Hybla,
Macella, and certain other towns of less note followed their
defection. The Numidians also, headed by Mutines, ranging without
restraint through the whole of Sicily, ravaged with fire the lands of
the allies of the Romans. In addition to these unfortunate
circumstances, the Roman soldiers, incensed partly because they had
not been taken from the province with their general, and partly
because they had been forbidden to winter in towns, discharged their
duties negligently, and wanted a a leader more than inclination for a
mutiny. Amid these difficulties Marcus Cornelius, the praetor,
sometimes by soothing, at other times by reproving them, pacified the
minds of the soldiers; and reduced to obedience all the states which
had revolted; out of which he gave Murgantia to those Spaniards who
were entitled to a city and land, in conformity with the decree of the
senate.
22. As both the consuls had Apulia for their province, and as there
was now less to be apprehended from Hannibal and the Carthaginians,
they were directed to draw lots for the provinces of Apulia and
Macedonia. Macedonia fell to the lot of Sulpicius, who succeeded
Laevinus. Fulvius having been called to Rome on account of the
election, held an assembly to elect new consuls; when the junior
Veturian century, which had the right of voting first, named Titus
Manlius Torquatus and Titus Otacilius. A crowd collecting round
Manlius, who was present, to congratulate him, and it being certain
that the people would concur in his election, he went, surrounded as
he was with a multitude of persons, to the tribunal of the consul, and
requested that he would listen to a few words from him; and that he
would order the century which had voted to be recalled. While all
present were waiting impatiently to hear what it was he was going to
ask, he alleged as an excuse the weakness of his eyes; observing, that
"a pilot or a general might fairly be charged with presumption who
should request that the lives and fortunes of others might be
intrusted to him, when in every thing which was to be done he must
make use of other people's eyes. Therefore he requested, that, if it
seemed good to him, he would order the junior Veturian century to come
and vote again; and to recollect, while electing consuls, the war
which they had in Italy, and the present exigencies of the state. That
their ears had scarcely yet ceased to ring with the noise and tumult
raised by the enemy, when but a few months ago they nearly scaled the
walls of Rome." This speech was followed by the century's shouting
out, one and all, that "they would not in the least alter their vote,
but would name the same persons for consuls;" when Torquatus replied,
"neither shall I as consul be able to put up with your conduct, nor
will you be satisfied with my government. Go back and vote again, and
consider that you have a Punic war in Italy, and that the leader of
your enemies is Hannibal." Upon this the century, moved by the
authority of the man and the shouts of admirers around, besought the
consul to summon the elder Veturian century; for they were desirous of
conferring with persons older than themselves, and to name the consuls
in accordance with their advice. The elder Veturian century having
been summoned, time was allowed them to confer with the others by
themselves in the _ovile_. The elders said that there were three
persons whom they ought to deliberate about electing, two of them
having already served all the offices of honour, namely, Quintus
Fabius and Marcus Marcellus; and if they wished so particularly to
elect some fresh person as consul to act against the Carthaginians,
that Marcus Valerius Laevinus had carried on operations against king
Philip by sea and land with signal success. Thus, three persons having
been proposed to them to deliberate about, the seniors were dismissed,
and the juniors proceeded to vote. They named as consuls, Marcus
Claudius Marcellus, then glorious with the conquest of Sicily, and
Marcus Valerius, both in their absence. All the centuries followed the
recommendation of that which voted first. Let men now ridicule the
admirers of antiquity. Even if there existed a republic of wise men,
which the learned rather imagine than know of; for my own part I
cannot persuade myself that there could possibly be a nobility of
sounder judgment, and more moderate in their desire of power, or a
people better moralled. Indeed that a century of juniors should have
been willing to consult their elders, as to the persons to whom they
should intrust a command by their vote, is rendered scarcely probable
by the contempt and levity with which the parental authority is
treated by children in the present age.
23. The assembly for the election of praetors was then held, at which
Publius Manlius Vulso, Lucius Manlius Acidinus, Caius Laetorius, and
Lucius Cincius Alimentus were elected. It happened that just as the
elections were concluded, news was brought that Titus Otacilius, whom
it seemed the people would have made consul in his absence, with Titus
Manlius, had not the course of the elections been interrupted, had
died in Sicily. The games in honour of Apollo had been performed the
preceding year, and on the motion of Calpurnius, the praetor, that
they should be performed this year also, the senate decreed that they
should be vowed every year for the time to come. The same year several
prodigies were seen and reported. At the temple of Concord, a statue
of Victory, which stood on the roof, having been struck by lightning
and thrown down, stuck among the figures of Victory, which were among
the ornaments under the eaves, and did not fall to the ground from
thence. Both from Anagnia and Fregellae it was reported that a wall
and some gates had been struck by lightning. That in the forum of
Sudertum streams of blood had continued flowing through a whole day;
at Eretum, that there had been a shower of stones; and at Reate, that
a mule had brought forth. These prodigies were expiated with victims
of the larger sort, the people were commanded to offer up prayers for
one day, and perform the nine days' sacred rite. Several of the public
priests died off this year, and fresh ones were appointed. In the room
of Manius Aemilius Numida, decemvir for sacred rites, Marcus Aemilius
Lepidus was appointed; in the room of Manius Pomponius Matho, the
pontiff, Caius Livius; in the room of Spurius Carvilius Maximus, the
augur, Marcus Servilius. As Titus Otacilius Crassus, a pontiff, died
after the year was concluded, no person was nominated to succeed him.
Caius Claudius, flamen of Jupiter, retired from his office, because he
had distributed the entrails improperly.
24. During the same time Marcus Valerius Laevinus, having first
sounded the intentions of the leading men by means of secret
conferences, came with some light ships to a council of the Aetolians,
which had been previously appointed to meet for this very purpose.
Here having proudly pointed to the capture of Syracuse and Capua, as
proofs of the success of the Roman arms in Sicily and Italy, he added,
that "it was a custom with the Romans, handed down to them from their
ancestors, to respect their allies; some of whom they had received
into their state, and had admitted to the same privileges they enjoyed
themselves, while others they treated so favourably that they chose
rather to be allies than citizens. That the Aetolians would be
honoured by them so much the more, because they were the first of the
nations across the sea which had entered into friendship with them.
That Philip and the Macedonians were troublesome neighbours to them,
but that he had broken their strength and spirits already, and would
still further reduce them to that degree, that they should not only
evacuate the cities which they had violently taken from the Aetolians,
but have Macedonia itself disturbed with war. And that as to the
Acarnanians, whose separation from their body was a source of grief to
the Aetolians, he would place them again under their ancient system of
jurisdiction and dominion." These assertions and promises of the Roman
general, Scopas, who was at that time praetor of the nation, and
Dorymachus, a leading man among the Aetolians, confirmed on their own
authority, extolling the power and greatness of the Roman people with
less reserve, and with greater force of conviction. However, the hope
of recovering Acarnania principally moved them. The terms, therefore,
were reduced to writing, on which they should enter into alliance and
friendship with the Roman people, and it was added, that "if it were
agreeable to them and they wished it, the Eleans and Lacedaemonians,
with Attalus, Pleuratus, and Scerdilaedas, should be included on the
same conditions." Attalus was king of Asia; the latter, kings of the
Thracians and Illyrians. The conditions were, that "the Aetolians
should immediately make war on Philip by land, in which the Romans
should assist, with not less than twenty quinqueremes. That the site
and buildings, together with the walls and lands, of all the cities as
far as Corcyra, should become the property of the Aetolians, every
other kind of booty, of the Romans. That the Romans should endeavour
to put the Aetolians in possession of Acarnania. If the Aetolians
should make peace with Philip, they should insert a stipulation that
the peace should stand good only on condition that they abstained from
hostilities against the Romans, their allies, and the states subject
to them. In like manner, if the Romans should form an alliance with
the king, that they should provide that he should not have liberty to
make war upon the Aetolians and their allies." Such were the terms
agreed upon; and copies of them having been made, they were laid up
two years afterwards by the Aetolians at Olympia, and by the Romans in
the Capitol, that they might be attested by these consecrated records.
The delay had been occasioned by the Aetolian ambassadors' having been
detained at Rome. This, however, did not form an impediment to the
war's proceeding. Both the Aetolians immediately commenced war against
Philip, and Laevinus taking, all but the citadel, Zacynthus, a small
island near to Aetolia, and having one city of the same name with the
island; and also taking Aeniadae and Nasus from the Acarnanians,
annexed them to the Aetolians; and also considering that Philip was
sufficiently engaged in war with his neighbours to prevent his
thinking of Italy, the Carthaginians, and his compact with Hannibal,
he retired to Corcyra.