Romans in Spain had endangered Hannibal's chief base. Cheius Scipio, sent as we have seen by his brother Publius to Spain with the bulk of the consular army, had defeated Hanno both by land and sea, and made himself master of most of the country from the Pyrenees to the Ebro (B.C. 218). Publius himself had followed with an army of 8000 men, his imperium being prolonged at the expiration of his consulship (B.c. 217). The brothers had carried the war beyond the Ebro, and inflicted a severe defeat on Hasdrubal, when he attempted to cross the river and carry reinforcements to Hannibal, about the time of the battle of Cannæ. The Celtiberians the most powerful tribe in Central Spain, had declared in favour of the Romans; and, while the Scipios held the sea and the Pyrenees, their allies of Massilia commanded the way round the Gallic coast.

These events in Spain were of vital consequence to the ultimate issue of the war; but as yet their influence was remote, and Rome seemed likely to be crushed in the meantime. The disaster of Cannæ did not stand alone. The effort to make a diversion in Gaul had completely failed, and the legion sent into that country had perished in an ambush, with its general Postumius, the consul-elect. From the valley of the Po to the plains of Sicily, the empire of Rome seemed escaping from her grasp. It was then that the wondrous tenacity of an ancient aristocracy proved its power to become the nucleus of hope and effort; and the people, who had so lately shouted for Flaminius and Varro, looked up again to the aged senators, like Fabius. The families which had lost relatives in the fight-and scarcely one in Rome had not -submitted to the limitation of their mourning to thirty days, that the rites of the gods of joy might not be interrupted at the vintage-season. Every nerve was strained to raise another army. To exclude all appearance of negotiation, the Senate not only declined the offer of Hannibal to admit his prisoners to ransom, but his envoy was not admitted within the city. All the men of military age were called out; the serfs of their creditors, and even the prisoners for crime, were armed; and 8000 slaves were purchased by the state, and enrolled as soldiers. The whole city resounded with the manufacture of new arms; and to supply the present want, the spoils were taken down from the temples. The Latin cities were summoned to bring out their whole force; but the Senate, as the guardian of Rome's honour as well as safety, refused to compromise its dignity by supplying the places of its lost members from the Latin nobles; and the frightful gaps made

B.C. 216.]

HANNIBAL AFTER CANNÆ.

445

at Cannæ were filled up by Roman citizens. Such was the attitude in which Rome awaited the advance of Hannibal; while the two legions rallied from the wreck of Cannæ kept the field under a general who knew how to venture beyond the cautious delays of Fabius, without the rashness of a Flaminius or Varro,-Marcus Claudius Marcellus.

It was this revival of Roman energy, far more than the enervating influence of Capua on the Carthaginians, that made the winter of B.C. 216-5 the turning point of the Second Punic War. No contrast is more striking than that between the position of Carthage and of Rome towards a victorious invader; and if the Carthaginians, though at once shut up within their walls, had been able to repulse Agathocles and Regulus, Hannibal had the example of Pyrrhus before him to prove the folly of a sudden advance upon Rome through a hostile country. His very success in breaking up the Italian confederacy in the south, while the centre remained faithful to Rome, gave him interests to defend, a frontier to protect, and fortresses to take or mask, while the obstinate resistance, not only of the Greek cities, but of isolated towns, like Petelia among the Bruttii, taught him how far he was from being master even of his own half of Italy. His new allies were no longer those Sabellians who had shaken the power of Rome to its foundations. Unused to war, except as they furnished contingents to the Roman armies; kept down by the Roman fortresses, but prosperous under the Roman government; they had lost both national animosity and military ardour. The Punic general had still to depend mainly on his own army of about 40,000 men, a force far too small to hold his new acquisitions and to begin a vigorous attack on Roman Italy.

His military genius at once seized on the first step to be taken, the securing a stategic capital for his half of the peninsula, in a city only second to Rome itself, and, if possible, the obtaining of a port in Campania, to communicate with Carthage. So he hastened from the field of Cannæ to Capua, without even waiting to storm the camp at Canusium, and was received at that city with open gates, though not without conditions which proved that the Capuans had no intention of investing him with a military tyranny such as Pyrrhus had exercised over Tarentum, for he was not to call the citizens to arms without their consent. More than this, his designs upon the Campanian ports were frustrated by the energy of the commander who now handled the small Roman army. Marcellus at once proved his qualities as a captain by

breaking up from the camp at Canusium, and following Hannibal to Teanum Sidicinum, in Northern Campania, where he was joined by reinforcements hastily sent from Rome, while the dictator, M. Junius Pera, followed with the newly raised levies. Marcellus was thus separated from Hannibal by the Vulturnus; but it was not his object to remain on the defensive. Advancing to Casilinum, and learning that Capua had already fallen, he threw a garrison into Neapolis, which, with the other great port of Cumæ and the hill fortress of Nuceria, had remained faithful to the Romans; and then, keeping along the heights to avoid the superior forces of the enemy, he hastened to Nola, where the two parties were still debating on resistance or surrender. He not only secured the fortress, but repulsed an attack made by Hannibal in person, an omen of a greater success which was soon to follow. After this the Punic army went into winter quarters at Capua, the most luxurious city of Italy, after three years of incessant exposure in the field. Such a scene of repose after such exertions could not but be most injurious to discipline; but its effects have been enormously exaggerated by the rhetorical historians who wished to give at once an easy and striking account of Hannibal's subsequent reverses. The ensuing campaign proves that his army had lost little of its efficiency.

His

Nor was the capacity of Hannibal overclouded by the novelty of his position, any more than he was dazzled by success. genius, like Napoleon's in the campaign of 1814, shone with its greatest brilliancy in the defensive war to which the Romans had at last found the means of reducing him; but his temper began to show symptoms of yielding to the pressure of anxiety. He opened the new season by reducing some of the Campanian towns which had hitherto resisted him, and treated their senates with a severity not likely to aid his cause. Meanwhile, three Roman armies took the field, under the two consuls-Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, who had been master of the horse in the preceding year, and the veteran Q. Fabius Maximus-and under M. Claudius Marcellus as proconsul, with the design of enclosing Hannibal. Fabius watched the right bank of the Vulturnus; Marcellus occupied his old ground on the hills about Nola; and Gracchus, establishing himself on the coast, protected Cumæ from an attack of the Campanians, and repulsed a renewed attempt upon the town by Hannibal himself. A fourth army was posted at Luceria, under the prætor M. Valerius, at once to watch for any attempt from Macedonia upon the eastern coast, and to co-operate

B.C. 215.]

DISAPPOINTMENTS FROM ABROAD.

447

with Marcellus in chastising the revolted Samnites and Lucanians, whose complaints began to make Hannibal uneasy. To restore his communications with Apulia, he made a vehement attack on Marcellus, under the walls of Nola. The victory of the proconsul, following on his previous repulse of Hannibal from the same place, inflicted the first great blow on the prestige of Carthaginian invincibility. Hannibal was obliged to pass on into Apulia, whither he was closely followed by Marcellus.

All hopes of resuming his career of victory now depended upon reinforcements from Carthage and Spain, from Macedonia and Syracuse; and the interest of the war is for a time transferred to those countries. Had the impulse given by the news of Cannæ continued to work at Carthage, her resources would have sufficed for all the wants of Hannibal; but after the safe transport of 4000 Africans to Locri had proved that the way was open for the admission of any number of troops into Italy, the peace party regained its ascendancy in the Punic Senate, and Hannibal was mocked with the reply to his prayers for help, that his victories rendered it superfluous. Of Macedonia, which will claim attention at a later period, it is enough now to say that Philip's courage failed him, and he did only just enough to draw upon himself an offensive war. With equal vigour the Romans turned upon the Carthaginians in Spain and their new allies at Syracuse, effectually intercepting aid from those quarters, as will presently be related. Thus Hannibal was again left to his own resources. His head-quarters were at Arpi in Apulia, where he was confronted by Gracchus, now proconsul, while Marcellus and Fabius Maximus, who had been again elected to the consulship, still held Campania, and were preparing to recover Capua. Hastening to Campania, Hannibal arrived in time to protect the capital, but he was unable to save Casilinum. Tiberius Gracchus had successful encounters with the second Carthaginian army of Hanno, which held the country of the Bruttii; and in one of these near Beneventum he gave an earnest of his family's championship of liberty, by conferring freedom and the Roman franchise on the slaves who had mainly contributed to win the battle.

Meanwhile both parties were anxiously watching the movements in Sicily and Macedonia. All the ports of Bruttii were in Hannibal's possession, with the important exception of Rhegium. Established firmly in that fortress and in Messana, the Romans preserved the link between Italy and Sicily, and they had reinforced Tarentum and Brundisium in view of the expected attempt

from Macedonia. For the like reason, it became of vital consequence to Hannibal to obtain one of these ports. Foiled in an attack upon Tarentum (B.c. 214), he remained in its neighbourhood the whole of the following year, carrying on an irregular defensive warfare, and more and more losing his hold upon the Italians (B.C. 213). The resistance of Tarentum was at length overcome, not by the force of the Punic arms, but by the foolish passion of the authorities at Rome. The intrigues of Hannibal's agents were successful with the hostages who had been taken for the fidelity of the Greek cities, and those of Tarentum and Thurii attempted to escape. They were recaptured and put to death. The exasperated Tarentines formed a plot, which the negligence of the Roman governor gave them the opportunity to carry out. Hannibal was admitted into Tarentum; the citadel alone was saved, and the necessity of reinforcing its garrison entailed the loss of Metapontum, while Thurii and Heraclea followed the example of Tarentum (B.c. 212). Fortunately for the Romans, their decisive victory in Sicily enabled them to take new measures to prevent the Macedonian king from using the door thus opened into Italy; and the calamity which at the same time befell them in Spain was too remote to be at all of equal consequence. It is time to cast a look at the great events which had meanwhile occurred on those secondary theatres of the war.

SPAIN, as we have seen, had been entered by a Roman army shortly after Hannibal had left it, and it is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of Scipio's decision, not to withdraw for the defence of Italy the army destined to attack Hannibal's real base. We have seen how he followed his brother Cneius into Spain, and how the country within the Ebro was overrun, and the passes of the Pyrenees secured; how successes were gained beyond that river, and Hasdrubal himself defeated in the attempt to lead to Italy the succours so much needed by his brother. It is important to understand the relations of the natives to the combatants, and this first, of the many occasions on which Spain has been the theatre of the conflicts of mighty nations for empire, presents an opportunity for fixing the place of the peninsula in the history of the world. The character of the Spaniards has exhibited in every age a remarkable assemblage of qualities corresponding to the mixture of its population. The position of the peninsula has laid it open to the influx of various races, who entered partly across the chain of the Pyrenees, by which it is almost severed from Europe; partly across the narrow straits, which rather link than separate it