CHAPTER XXV. INTERVAL IN THE STRUGGLE WITH CARTHAGE. "As when two black clouds, With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on So frowned the mighty combatants."-MILTON. WAR OF CARTHAGE WITH HER MERCENARIES-THE ROMANS SEIZE SARDINIA—DEVOTION OF HANNIBAL TO AVENGE HIS COUNTRY-AFFAIRS OF ROME IN ITALY—WARS WITE THE BOII AND LIGURIANS-THE TEMPLE OF JANUS SHUT-AGRARIAN LAW OF FLAMINIUS-ILLYRIAN WARS-IMPRESSION MADE IN MACEDONIA AND GREECE-CELTIC WARS THE GAULS PASS THE ALPS-BATTLE OF TELAMON-CONQUEST OF THE EMI AND INSUBRES-ROMAN ITALY EXTENDED TO THE ALPS-COLONIES AND ROADSAFFAIRS OF CARTHAGE-THE HOUSE OF BARCA AND THE PARTY OF HANNO-HAMILCAR IN SPAIN KINGDOM OF THE BARCIDES-HASDRUBAL'S TREATY WITH ROME-HASNIBAL-HIS RUPTURE WITH ROME-CAPTURE OF SAGUNTUM-FRUITLESS EMBASSIES -ROME DECLARES WAR AGAINST CARTHAGE-PREPARATIONS OF HANNIBAL. THE twenty-four years of the First Punic War were succeeded by an interval almost of the same length before the Second. While those grounds of quarrel were accumulating, which led to the decisive contest, and while the great leader who was destined to shake the Roman empire to its foundation, before yielding to it the victory, was preparing for his brilliant but luckless career, Italy was extended to its natural boundaries by the conquest of the great Gallic province between the Apennines and the Alps. This conquest, however, was preceded by events which formed a sequel to the First Punic War, and secured advantages for Rome far exceeding those stipulated by the treaty. Since the Roman fleet had commanded the sea, Hamilcar had been unable to continue the payment of his mercenaries from his own resources; and on the conclusion of the peace he asked for remittances from Carthage to settle the arrears. The answer was that he might send the troops to Africa, to be there paid off and disbanded. It was in vain that, foreseeing the consequences of "Punic faith," he sent over the troops in small detachments: the bureaucracy of Carthage waited till they were all collected in one army, and drove that army into mutiny by chaffering about the amount of their pay. The whole body of Libyan mercenaries joined in the revolt, which spread from city to city, till Carthage stood alone amidst an insurgent population, her lands laid waste on every side, her chief citizens outraged and murdered, and the city itself besieged by the Libyans. Her own army, commanded by a blundering general, only marched out of the walls to be defeated. It seemed as if she had but survived the invasions of Agathocles and Regulus, to be overwhelmed by the surrounding barbarism which she had controlled for six hundred years, like a city buried by the drifting sands of the Sahara. In this emergency the government turned to Hamilcar, who succeeded after three years in putting an end to a contest, the character of which is denoted by its name of the "Inexpiable War" (B.C. 238). Rome seized the opportunity to perpetrate an act of perfidy scarcely paralleled in all history. In all that directly concerned the war, indeed, she took care to make an elaborate show of good faith, forbidding all dealings of Italian mariners with the insurgents,* and even relaxing the treaty so as to permit Carthage to raise recruits in Italy. Utica, hard pressed by Hamilcar, applied in vain to Rome for aid; but that the refusal was dictated by policy rather than good faith, was soon proved by the very different reception of an overture from the mercenaries in Sardinia. The conduct pursued towards the Mamertines of Messana was repeated in this still more flagrant case; and the long-coveted island was eagerly accepted (B.c. 238). The Carthaginians, then in the very crisis of the Libyan war, were helpless against the wrong; but the revolt was no sooner crushed than they sent an embassy to Rome to claim back the province. The recriminatory pleas of wrongs inflicted on Italian traders were not enough to form a decent veil for the naked assertion of might against right, which was enforced by a declaration of war. Carthage, unable to take up the challenge, found herself obliged to sue for peace, as if she had done the wrong, and finally to purchase it by the payment of 1200 talents for the expenses of Rome's warlike preparations. Corsica, on which the Etruscans had probably no longer a hold, went with Sardinia as its natural dependency, and both were erected into the second of the Roman provinces, and placed, like Sicily, under the government of a prætor (B.c. 237).† For a When Hamilcar, however, imprisoned some sea captains whom he caught trafficking with the rebels, the senate obtained their release from the Carthaginian government. The natural characteristics and previous history of these islands are scarcely important enough to demand a place in our narrative. All necessary information will be found in the standard classical dictionaries. The population of both islands VOL. II. E E transports along the south coast without support. Carthalo skilfully interposed between the two divisions of the fleet, and forced them to take shelter in the unsafe roadsteads of Gela and Camarina, where they were dashed to pieces by a great storm. The consul Claudius, recalled to Rome, and bidden to name a dictator, showed the untamed insolence of his race by nominating his freedman's son, M. Claudius Glicia; but the senate annulled the appointment, and chose M. Atilius Calatinus, the first dictator who ever waged war out of Italy (B.C. 249). The pause which now ensued in the great conflict of the West, permits us to cast a glance towards the distant regions of the East, in order to mark an event fraught with results in the history of the world. In B.C. 250 the Parthian chief Arsaces poured down with his hordes of horsemen from the south-eastern shores of the Caspian into the oriental provinces of the Hellenic kingdom of Syria, and founded the Parthian empire on the banks of the Tigris. We reserve its history till it comes into contact with the Romans. The war in Sicily now languished for the space of six years (B.C. 248-243). Its seventeenth year found the Romans in the same position that they had held in the third, but exhausted by the loss of four great fleets, three of them with armies on board, besides the army that had perished in Africa. The census of the year 247 B.C. showed a roll of 251,222 citizens, being a decrease of 40,000, or about 15 per cent., in five years. The Carthaginians, if less exhausted, seemed weary of the war, and made no efforts to finish it by calling out their reserves from their own dockyards and the teeming myriads of Africa. As soon as they saw the Roman fleet destroyed, they suffered their own to fall into decay, and both parties were content with a petty warfare. But this very interval of stagnation produced the two great men who were destined to throw a lustre upon the last period of Carthage as brilliant as that of the lightning from which they took their name.* In the year in which the census just quoted was taken at Rome, HAMILCAR BARCA was appointed the general of Carthage in Sicily, and in the same year his son HANNIBAL was born (B.c. 247). Though armed with no force adequate to take advantage of the crisis, he had the genius to make a new use of the resources at his disposal. "He knew well that his mercenaries were as indif Barca, the surname of Hamilcar and his descendants, the Barcide family, sig nifies lightning. The same appellation had long before been borne by Barak, the judge of Israel. ferent to Carthage as to Rome, and that he had to expect from his government not Phoenician or Libyan conscripts, but at the utmost permission to save his country with his troops in his own way, provided it cost nothing. But he knew himself also, and he knew men. His mercenaries cared nothing for Carthage; but a true general is able to substitute his own person for his country in the affections of his soldiers; and such an one was this young commander."* He established himself in a fortified position on Mount Hercta (M. Pellegrino), overlooking Panormus, permitting his soldiers to bring their wives and children within the fortress. Thence he perpetually annoyed the Roman garrison of that city and the forces blockading Lilybæum; while his cruisers, by ravaging the rich coasts of Italy as far as Cumæ, kept the enemy in alarm at home, and procured him supplies independently of Carthage. Having for three years repulsed all the assaults of the enemy upon the hill of Hercta, he transferred his garrison to the stronger position of Mount Eryx, which he wrested from the Romans, who had held it as a constant menace over the Punic port of Drepanum (B.c. 244). Here he maintained himself, in spite of a defeat he suffered from the consul Fundanius (B.c. 243); but while he was thus preserving Sicily, all was lost by the apathy of the government and the energy of a party among the Romans, The Senate, indeed, seemed to be paralysed by the want of progress in Sicily, and the insults inflicted on the coasts of Italy. Their continued inaction would soon have permitted Hamilcar to organize his forces for great offensive blows; but irregular patriotism supplied the failures of the state. The united efforts of wealthy citizens fitted out privateers, which retaliated insults on the coast of Africa, and even burnt the ancient city of Hippo. These successes encouraged fresh efforts; and history offers no parallel to the presentation to a government, by means of a private subscription, of a fleet of 200 ships of war, manned by 60,000 sailors (B.c. 242). The effort took Carthage completely by surprise. While the consul Lutatius Catulus swept Hamilcar's cruisers from the sea and blockaded Drepanum and Lilybæum more closely than ever, the Punic government only succeeded by the ensuing spring in sending to sea a fleet inadequately manned and encumbered with supplies for the threatened cities. Their hope of effecting a landing, and then putting their ships into a fit state for action, was doomed to disappointment. Amidst the group of Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. ii. p. 53. islands called the Egates,* they encountered the Roman fleet under the prætor P. Valerius, Catulus being disabled by a wound. The ability of the prætor and the enthusiasm of his sailors might easily have prevailed over an enemy far better equipped; but the Punic fleet was totally unprepared for the encounter; 50 ships were sunk, and 70 were carried by the victors into the port of Lilybæum; and the only resource of the Carthaginians for repairing the disaster was the crucifixion of the admiral whose defeat they had ensured. With far greater wisdom they gave Hamilcar the sad reward of his seven years' heroic efforts in full powers to treat for peace. That great man knew how to save the honour of his country, while submitting to inevitable necessity. Sicily, practically lost by the event of the last sea-fight, was finally surrendered; but Hamilcar resolutely resisted the demand of Catulus, that he should capitulate at discretion by laying down his arms, and generously refused to surrender the Roman deserters to certain death; so he was suf fered to ransom his followers at a moderate rate. The Roman prisoners were given up without ransom; and Carthage engaged to pay a war contribution, which was raised by subsequent negociation to 3200 talents, one-third at once, and the remainder in ten yearly instalments. The penalty of defeat-a penalty assuredly not excessive-being thus confessed, the two republics formed an alliance on equal terms of mutual respect for their independence, territories and sovereign rights, each engaging to form no separate league with the other's allies, nor to meddle with those allies by recruiting or by war. We shall soon see how shamefully these last stipulations-so vital for states constituted like these sovereign republics-were violated by the Romans. Meanwhile there were not wanting indications of the spirit which had prompted Regulus to demand the complete submission of Carthage, and which foresaw that the contest could only be ended by her political extinction. But the time was not yet come to renew the war with such an object against such a general as Hamilcar. The popular assembly, which at first refused to ratify the treaty, was persuaded to be content for the present with the great gain of Sicily; and a commission was sent to the island with power to settle all details. That the amendment which added the cession of all the islands between Sicily and Italy was a perfidious preparation for the attack soon made upon The battle sometimes takes its name from the chief island of the group, Egusa, modern Favignana. |