men and 25,000 women, marched out through the burning ruins of their houses over the heaped-up corses of their fellow-citizens. There remained the 900 Roman deserters, with Hasdrubal, his wife, and his two sons. Hopeless of mercy, they retreated to the temple of Esculapius, the heart of the citadel. Its strength might long have defied assault; but the little garrison were exhausted with famine, watching, and despair; and some of them at least resolved to perish as a voluntary sacrifice. But no sooner was the temple set on fire, than Hasdrubal rushed forth, deserting wife, children, and followers, and came into Scipio's presence with an olive-branch in his hand. In utter scorn, the victor granted life to the abject wretch, but compelled him to prostrate himself at his feet in sight of the deserted garrison, who overwhelmed him with execrations. Above them all, the wife of Hasdrubal showed herself on the topmost story of the temple, holding a child in either hand:-"To thee, Roman," she exclaimed, "I wish nothing but prosperity; for thy acts are according to the laws of war. But I beseech thee, as well as the gods of Carthage, to punish that Hasdrubal as he deserves, for having betrayed his country, his gods, his wife and children." Then, having bitterly reviled her husband, she cut her children's throats, and threw them one after the other into the flames, into which she then leaped down herself. The like fate of the deserters completed this last and most hideous sacrifice to the Punic Moloch. The remaining captives were either sold as slaves or left to languish in prison, except some of the chief leaders. Hasdrubal and Bithyas were placed in honourable custody in Italian towns. The city was given up to pillage; only the gold, silver, votive gifts, and the works of art deposited in the temples being reserved for the state. Many of these works had been carried off as plunder from the Sicilian cities, which were now invited to reclaim their property; and, among the rest, the brazen bull of Phalaris was restored to the Agrigentines. The Roman Senate, in spite of the opposition of Scipio Nasica, decreed that Carthage, as well as the villas of her nobles in the suburb of Megara, should be levelled with the ground; and that the ploughshare should be driven over her soil-the accustomed token of devoting the site to perpetual desolationwith a curse upon the man who should dare to cultivate or build upon it. Scipio was made the unwilling executioner of this savage doom; and the flames raged through the city for fourteen days before all her edifices were destroyed. The conqueror him self was too prescient, as well as too generous, to share the exultation of Rome and the army over their fallen foe; and, with tearful eyes he gave vent to the presentiments that mingled with his regret in the words of Hector : "The day shall surely come, when sacred Troy will fall, And Priam, and the people of the ash-speared Priam all.”* Such forebodings, and the remembrance of the fearful scenes in which he had been a reluctant actor, must have made his triumph -which was far more magnificent even than his father's-as sad as that had been to the occupant of the triumphal car; but for his own conduct there was no self-reproach to embitter the universal applause. He was still reserved for another triumph over the country in which the family of his adoption had won their first laurels, and which was destined to confer upon him another name of honour. And, after all, he was doomed, like his adoptive grandfather, to lose all his popularity by his political conduct, and to perish amidst the strongest suspicion of assassination. A Carthaginian might have believed that Baal and Astarte, Ashmon and Melcarth, took vengeance on the destroyer of their temples. A Greek would say that the gods were envious of the prosperity of a mortal whose glory trenched too nearly on their own. A believer in the moral government of the world by its true Ruler can hardly refuse to acknowledge the lesson, that even those whom He has called to be His instruments, though they have not known Him, must feel His power and will to humble those who are exalted. The African territory, which now lay at the disposal of the Roman Senate and people, was that which had been left to Carthage, after all the encroachments of Masinissa. This was neither con * Homer, Iliad, vi. 448-9 :— Εσσεται ήμαρ ὅτ ̓ ἄν ποτ' ὀλώλῃ Ιλιος ἱρὴ, Καὶ Πρίαμος, καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμμελίω Πριάμοιο. Pope's translation is subjoined, though as it is even more than usually paraphrastic a literal version has been given in the text :— "Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates: (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!) The cognomen of Numantinus. It should be remembered that that of Africanus was already his by adoptive descent before he won it again by his exploits. The hereditary transmission of these surnames of honour formed among the Romans a nobility of merit, like that which is preserved among ourselves by such titles as Mahon, St. Vincent, Camperdown, and Douro. ferred upon their allies-as they had rewarded Attalus with the conquests from Antiochus in Asia, and Masinissa himself with the kingdom of Syphax and the Libyphoenician cities, nor, in disappointing the ambitious hopes of the Numidian princes, did the Romans reclaim from them any part of what they had won from Carthage.* The three sons of Masinissa were left in undisturbed possession of all the African shores and highlands and half-desert plains, between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, from the boundary of Mauretania to that of Cyrenaica, except the north-eastern angle around Carthage, and a portion only of the sea-coast of Byzacium. Scipio drew a trench to the sea at Thenæ, opposite the southern point of the islands in the mouth of the Lesser Syrtis, and this boundary line left to Numidia the rich district of Emporia, besides the inner table-land of Byzacena, and the "Great Plain" about the upper course of the Bagradas. This wide Numidian kingdom was soon reunited under Micipsa by the death of his two brothers. Of its subsequent fortunes we shall have to speak presently in relating the usurpation and all of Jugurtha. We have already had occasion to notice the compliment paid to the Numidian princes, by presenting them with the books found among the spoils of Carthage, except the treatise of Hanno on Agriculture; and the literary reputation of the later kings, Hiempsal and Juba, proves that the treasure, despised by the givers, was not unworthily bestowed. Nor must it be forgotten that Rome had already been indebted to Carthage for the chief poet of that age, and the most elegant writer in her literature, the comedian Terence.† The limited territory along the coasts of Zeugitana and Byzacium, which formed the latest possessions of Carthage, was erected into the province of AFRICA, a name borrowed from the Carthaginians, and capable of indefinite extension. The pro This is distinctly stated by Sallust:-"Igitur bello Jugurthino pleraque ex Punicis oppida, et finis Karthaginiensium quos novissume habuerant, populus Romanus per magistratus administrabat: Gætulorum magna pars et Numidæ usque ad flumen Mulucha sub Jugurtha erant."-(Jug. 19.) Of Mauretania the Romans knew nothing till the war with Jugurtha. + Born at Carthage in B.C. 195, he was either by birth or purchase the slave of the Roman senator P. Terentius Lucanus, from whom, on his manumission, he received the name of P. Terentius Afer. He became intimate with Scipio and Lælius. His plays are reproductions of the Greek comedies of Menander. The first of them, the Andria, was brought out in B.C. 166, and he died in B.C. 159. The name of Africa seems to have been unknown to the Greeks till they adopted it from the Romans, and it was long before even the latter used it to replace the Greek name of Libya for the whole continent. vince was placed under a prætor, whose seat of government was at Utica; and this most ancient Phoenician colony was rewarded for her early adhesion to Rome with part of the lands of her always envied rival. The other towns which had taken part with Rome, such as Hadrumetum, Leptis Parva, Thapsus, Acholla, and a few others, were made free cities; while of those that had adhered to Carthage, some were destroyed, and their lands added to the public domain of Rome (ager publicus) and let on lease to occupiers (possessores); while the rest, whose lands were equally forfeit in law, were allowed to retain them for the present, paying a fixed annual tribute (stipendium). The rich plains of Africa soon became even more important than Sicily for their supplies of corn to Rome, and the Roman merchants found themselves in possession, through the port of Utica, of the commerce of Carthage, both with the Mediterranean and Inner Africa. Within twenty-four years after the destruction of Carthage, the plantation of a new colony on its site, under the name of JUNONIA, was one of the measures for improving the condition of the people carried by Caius Gracchus in his first tribunate (B.c. 123). In the following year he led 6000 colonists to Africa, and it was this absence that gave the aristocratic party the opportunity to effect his ruin. His death, the year after, caused the colony to be abandoned. Julius Cæsar revived the project the year before his death (B.C. 46); and, in B.C. 19, Augustus sent out a body of 3000 colonists to found the Roman city of Carthage, which was now made the capital of Africa in place of Utica. Under the empire, it vied with Rome and Constantinople in wealth and magnitude, and as a Christian bishopric it became as conspicuous as it had been for the worship of Baal and Melcarth. Taken by Genseric in A.D. 439, it was made the capital of the Vandal kingdom of Africa. In A.D. 533 it was retaken by Belisarius, and named Justiniana. A little more than a century later, it fell a prey to the Arabs under Hassan, by whom it was finally destroyed (A.D. 647). Quidquid de Libycis verritur areis."-Horat. Carm. I. 1. CHAPTER XXX. CONQUESTS OF ROME IN THE WEST, AND CONDITION OF THE REPUBLIC.-FROM THE END OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR TO THE FORMATION OF THE PROVINCE OF ASIA, AND THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER SCIPIO. TO B.C. 129. B.C. 200 "Rome had its heroic age: the Romans knew that they had such an age, and we may believe them. Polybius saw the end of it: he saw the destruction of Carthage and the savage sack of Corinth, and the beginning of a worse time. But he has recorded his testimony that some honesty still remained."-LONG. THE ROMAN DOMINIONS IN THE WEST-WAR IN CISALPINE GAUL-CONQUEST OF THE INSUBRES AND BOII-LIGURIAN WARS-CONDITION OF SPAIN-CONSULSHIP OF CATOGOVERNMENT OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS HIS TRIUMPH OVER SARDINIA-FIRST CELTIBERIAN WAR-NUMANTIA-MARCELLUS AND LUCULLUS IN SPAIN-CRUELTIES OF GALBA -LUSITANIAN WAR-VIRIATHUS-Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS EMILIANUS AND Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS SERVILIANUS-MURDER OF VIRIATHUS-NUMANTINE WAR-MANCINUSBRUTUS SUBDUES LUSITANIA AND THE GALLECI-SCIPIO AFRICANUS IN SPAIN-SIEGE AND DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA-TRIUMPH OF SCIPIO-SERVILE WAR IN SICILYROMAN SLAVERY-LAWS AND OVATION OF RUPILIUS-ATTALUS III. BEQUEATHS PERGAMUS TO THE ROMANS-THE WAR WITH ARISTONICUS-CRASSUS IN ASIA-FORMATION OF THE PROVINCE OF ASIA-EXTENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE-CONDITION OF THE REPUBLIC-THE NEW NOBILITY AND THE CITY RABBLE-THE NOBLES IN POSSESSION OF THE SENATE AND THE CHIEF CIVIL AND MILITARY OFFICES-THE GOVERNMENT OF THE OLIGARCHY-SUCCESSFUL FOREIGN FOLICY-INTERNAL AFFAIRS-FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION-INCREASE OF CORRUPTION-PUBLIC WORKS-THE AQUEDUCTS OF ROME-PARTY OF OPPOSITION AND REFORM-M. PORCIUS CATO-HIS EARLY LIFE AND SERVICE IN THE SECOND PUNIC WAR-QUÆSTOR IN SICILY-OPPOSITION TO SCIPIOCATO AT THERMOPYLE-THE PROSECUTION OF L. SCIPIO ASIATICUS-VIOLENCE OF AFRICANUS-PROSECUTION AND TRIUMPH OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS-HIS RETIREMENT AND DEATH-SCIPIO AND WELLINGTON-CENSORSHIP OF CATO-HIS VAST INFLUENCE AND ITS SMALL RESULTS-THE YOUNGER AFRICANUS-VOTE BY BALLOT AT ROMELAWS AGAINST BRIBERY UNPOPULARITY AND DEATH OF SCIPIO RELIGION AND MANNERS-ROMAN LITERATURE. THE half century during which Rome was contending for empire with the Hellenic and Semitic races was occupied with an incessant conflict for the mastery of her newly-acquired dominion in the West; and the same period-or rather the first two-thirds of the century-was signalized at home by events of the deepest interest, in which such actors as Cato and the Scipios play their part. The grand result was the extension of the Roman empire over the European shores of the Mediterranean from the Pillars of Hercules to the Hellespont, the acquisition of provinces both in Africa and Asia, and the supremacy of Roman influence over the vassal kings and tribes of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Numidia; till only Mauretania remained to complete the circuit of the Mediterranean, on whose waters the ships of the Republic no longer en |