Chapter XIX: Part 19

As for the relations of Rome to the Greeks, there had been hitherto no political connexion between them. There seems indeed to have been some intercourse with the inhabitants of Magna Græcia and the Siceliotes; and I believe that even the learning and science of Magna Græcia exercised a much greater influence than is generally supposed, and that the knowledge also of the Greek language may not at that time have been anything unusual at Rome. Even though Pythagoras should not have become a Roman citizen, as perhaps he is not even an historical personage, the Pythagorean philosophy was from an early period known and admired by the Romans. In the case of some neighbouring places, communications with Greece are more than once spoken of. Cumæ gave occasion for this; the Sibylline books were also indeed reputed to have been kept at Rome. The first missions to Delphi are fabulous, though in fact the Romans did consult the oracle. What we know besides, is limited to the transactions with Massilia at the time that the city was taken by the Gauls, and with the Lipariotes, the guardians of the Tyrrhenian sea against the pirates. All the rest is grounded on legends. But the first political relation, by which Rome as a state comes at length to be connected with the Greeks, dates from that time; for the treaty with Massilia was in all likelihood nothing more than a treaty of commerce, which I am strongly led to believe from the circumstance of Massilia and Carthage being at enmity, on account of the fisheries, as Justin informs us. By these we are to understand either the coral fisheries on the African, or the tunny fisheries on the Italian coast: the inhabitants of Provence were during the whole of the middle ages in possession of the coral fisheries of Africa. That first connexion was the treaty between Rome and Alexander, king of Epirus;--for, one may indeed call the Epirotes Greeks, although they were of Pelasgian origin, as they were hellenized. Alexander was called over to Italy by the people of Tarentum, in the year of Rome 420, Ol. 112.

About this time, the glory of Magna Græcia had already vanished; most of the places, Posidonia, Pyxus, Caulonia, Hipponium, Terina, and others, had been conquered by the Lucanians and the Bruttians, who had only been able to keep part of them, and had abandoned the rest: a few only still held out, but had to struggle for their existence. Rhegium, Locri, and Croton once so flourishing, had been laid waste by the Dionysii of Syracuse: these indeed had left them alone again; but they lay half in ruins, having only been wretchedly patched up, just as Delhi and Ispahan are now. Thurii and Metapontum had much trouble to defend themselves against the Lucanians; their territory was almost entirely lost, and they were like the Italian towns in the sixth and seventh centuries, when they made head against the Lombards. The only Greek city which, amid the general calamity, was in the full pride of its bloom, was Tarentum. It is true that soon after the expedition of Xerxes, this place had suffered a great defeat from the neighbouring Messapians; yet it had recovered from it, and when the tyrants of Syracuse and the Lucanians threatened the other towns, Tarentum began to flourish. It was undoubtedly increased by the immigration of many Greeks from the other cities, some of which were ruined, and the rest in danger. A parallel to this may be found in the growing prosperity of the Netherlands, and of Switzerland, at the time of the thirty years’ war: the flourishing condition of these countries was chiefly owing to the misery in Germany, as industry and commerce had sought a refuge there. In the same way did Tarentum wax great; and it had the advantage besides, which is always enjoyed by a neutral state between countries at war, to which we are to add the wisdom of its government.

The Tarentines were much enriched by industry and commerce, by wool manufactures, by their skill in dyeing, and also by their salt pastures; and with the exception of Syracuse, none of the Greek cities in those days, not even Rhodes itself, were perhaps so wealthy as Tarentum. This town from its position was perfectly peaceful: its population consisted of excellent seamen. Navigation and fishing in all likelihood was their element then, as it is now: this life of busy laziness is the delight of the Greek and the southern Italian; the Neapolitan is perfectly happy when rocking himself about in his fishing boat. Nature has given everything in plenty to the country of Tarentum. Probably the sea is nowhere in Europe so rich in shell and other fish, as in the bay of Tarentum: the poor Tarentine in his idleness is indeed as happy as a prince; he lives only on bread, salt, and olives, which he can always easily procure. Tarentum had no large tracts of land belonging to it, in which there was room for tillage. The Latin race, the Etruscans, Umbrians, Sabellians, and the rest, are born husbandmen. The Italian peasant is an excellent being as long as he is hereditary owner of the soil: he is honest and respectable, whilst the townspeople are good for nothing. The Italian, unless he be of Greek extraction, is quite unfit for a sea life: the Roman coast is supplied with fish by the southern towns, which were still Greek in the middle ages. The Greek is a bad husbandman, even as in ancient times, and not to be compared to the Italian. Although there is a great deal of agricultural knowledge to be found in Theophrastus’ book, the Greek did not feel happy in this pursuit: he likes to cultivate the olive-tree, the vine, but not corn. The Greek soil is also in many places almost wholly unfit for growing corn, and is far more suited for olives. The Greek is a cheerful, happy fisherman, and a capital sailor.

The Tarentines were a thoroughly democratic people, like the Athenians of the Piræeus, as Aristotle already remarks; owing to the revenue from customs and a variety of other sources, it was a very rich state. With these vast means they were enabled to keep standing armies, like the Dutch in the seventeenth century, as it was also then customary throughout the whole of Greece. General opinion is unfavourable to the Tarentines. At the time when they were engaged in war with the Romans, they were indeed a luxurious, unwarlike people; but the blame which is generally heaped upon them, is in the true spirit of human nature, which when some one, formerly mighty, has fallen, chooses rather to trace to the man himself the causes of his own ruin, than to pity him. I am convinced that in Tarentum, next to Athens, the wisest and most eminently intellectual men have been bred, and that the commonwealth made an excellent use of them. A state, which reared Archytas, the Leibnitz of his age, and which did not look upon him with jealousy, as the Ephesians did upon Hermodorus, but called him seven times to the office of general, cannot be lightly thought of; the Grecian mind in the whole of its fullness must have dwelt there. The wretched anecdotes which Athenæus, for instance, tells of the Tarentines, are refuted by that single fact. They do not deserve censure any more than those great characters reviled in Schiller’s Mary Stuart; a thing which I can never forgive in that fine poem. It is indeed possible, that Archytas and the other statesmen of Tarentum looked too much to the interest of their own town, and were not sufficiently imbued with the spirit of general Greek patriotism. To such a feeling the Athenians alone have raised themselves. Archytas may have kept up a good understanding with the tyrants of Syracuse, having regard rather to the advantage than to the honour of his city; yet this is a course from which, in unhappy times, the most worthy men of all countries, when they were at the helm of the state, have not kept altogether clear. The Tarentines are reproached with having employed foreign soldiers, and that in whole armies; first of all, Archidamus of Sparta; then Alexander of Epirus; then Cleonymus, Agathocles, and at last Pyrrhus. For this, Strabo taxes them with cowardice, charging them besides with having shown themselves unthankful to their protectors. Yet it was a general evil of the times after the Peloponnesian war, that militia soldiers were no longer brought into the field, but that standing armies came into use: this was owing to the circumstance, that wars were on a larger scale, and had become more bloody, so that the old stock of citizens was destroyed. The devastations which had attended them, had now made numbers of men homeless, who, especially in Greece, as in modern times in Switzerland, roved about by thousands, being the greatest of nuisances. There had indeed for a long time existed in Greece the fine custom, that the inhabitants of a town which had been conquered and destroyed, remained free, and were not sold for slaves; but all that they had was taken from them, and thus they were obliged to live by robbery. In the thirty years’ war, it also became more easy every year to find troops, πόλεμος πόλεμον τρέφει. These soldiers, who were always under arms, were far superior to the militia; and when once it was begun to employ them, the militia were soon no more able to stand against them at all. A town like Tarentum could raise no legions. This can only be done where there is a respectable and numerous peasantry; whence it happens that there are countries where no other choice is left but to enlist soldiers, as at Florence when the militia had got out of practice, whilst the same thing is ruinous for others. The people of Tarentum would thus have to employ mercenaries, and to keep a standing army would have been injurious to their freedom; if therefore they could do without troops, they were quite right in contenting themselves with their town militia. But if ever it became necessary to enlist troops, there was in Greece at Tænarus the gathering place of the men without a home (_latrones_, μισθοφόροι). These, however, were untrustworthy and faithless, as they followed him who paid the most, like the _condotti_ in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and a condottiere was very apt to be guilty of treachery, or he became a tyrant. It was therefore much better to take princes with their well-trained armies into their service, the honour of the prince being a pledge to them. Besides which, why should the Tarentines put themselves out of their way in their trade and business, if they could do otherwise? It might become dangerous; but they wisely took care of themselves, as long as they could. In their dealings with Alexander, they were gainers; with Pyrrhus, however, this was not the case. The English system of enlistment also has been blamed without any insight into the merits of it.

The Tarentines got into a quarrel with the Lucanians, by whom Heraclea and Metapontum, which were in a manner under their protection, had been attacked. The Lucanians had at that time already lost again that part of Calabria which was afterwards called Bruttium: the population there, which was made up of the Pelasgian serfs of the Greek towns, had collected into a people, and had renounced their allegiance; on which the former had wisely recognised them, and made them their friends. In order to indemnify themselves, the Lucanians turned their arms against Tarentum, and tried to conquer Heraclea. In this strait, the Tarentines had sent for Archidamus of Sparta, who, with the unfortunate Phocian refugees, had engaged himself in the service of Crete; but he was killed on the very day that the battle of Chæronea was lost. After some years, they called in Alexander the Molossian, of Epirus, brother to Olympias, the queen of Philip, who also had given him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage. He had been an appanaged prince, and his dominions were very small. At first, he had been presented by Philip with three little towns in Cassopia on the Thesprotian coast; afterwards the latter, who spread his rule in Epirus, and everywhere took the strong places, raised him to the throne of the Molossians; yet Alexander, as king of that people, found that he was hardly able to do any thing. Philip followed the same line of policy with his relations, which Napoleon did with his brothers; they were to be kings, but without power; for which reason, Philip kept a stronghold like Ambracia for himself. In the times of Alexander of Macedon, our Alexander had to obey the commands of that old, insolent Antipater; he was not on good terms with Alexander, and according to the account of the ancients, it was jealousy of the glory of his nephew which moved him to go to Italy: he is said to have bitterly complained, that it had been his fate to fight against men, whilst the other had only women to withstand him. He went to Italy with views quite different from those of the Tarentines when they called him in. These had engaged him as a petty prince with a well trained army, for their protection; but Alexander went over with the intention of conquering for himself a kingdom, and thus there could not of course be any good understanding long kept up between them. He was successful: he overcame the Sallentines; made a diversion to Posidonia; freed the Greek towns, and united them in a confederacy of which he naturally became the στρατηγός and ἡγεμών. He was of course never at a loss for subsidies from the Tarentines, any more than the belligerent nations of the last century, who had them from England under Walpole; but the memory of his achievements has almost entirely past away: we find but a few stray notices in Tzetzes. His success was brilliant as long as he was on good terms with the Tarentines; but he betrayed his ambitious views and wanted to assume the title of a king of Italy (no doubt in the strict sense of the word). This stirred up the Tarentines, and caused a breach between the two parties. Whether they concluded a separate peace with the Lucanians, is uncertain; but as the assembly of the Greek towns was now held at Heraclea, although Tarentum was the most powerful and distinguished among them, it would seem that this change was made by Alexander, which clearly shows a quarrel with the Tarentines. As, however, the power of Alexander was now too inconsiderable, he seems to have carried on the war as an adventurer, like Charles XII.: he made roving expeditions. Pandosia, in the heart of Lucania, where he was surrounded by Lucanians and Bruttians, became his Pultawa: his army was divided, both divisions of it annihilated, and he himself slain. He had before that concluded a treaty with the Romans, which Livy mentions cursorily, but certainly from Roman annals. This is a proof how the Romans calculated circumstances; they had nothing to fear from him, and wanted to unite with him for no other reason than to overawe the Samnites, who had made a treaty with Tarentum. Real alliance between Rome and Alexander, there was none; for the treaty with the Samnites was still in force. As far as we can get an insight into these matters, we must blame the Romans for having taken the part of foreigners against a native and kindred people. The Samnites are not mentioned among those who at last made war against Alexander; but he had come into collision with them by his excursions: at Posidonia they fought against each other.

What would have been the consequence, had Alexander founded a kingdom of Italy, is a very interesting speculation. Probably it would only have made the victories of the Romans more easy; and therefore, also, their treaty with him was an act of farsighted policy.

In the state of things which now existed between Rome and Samnium, it was not difficult for the ancient historians, to bring the circumstances most vividly before their minds; which we particularly find to be the case with Dionysius, in the _excerpta de Legationibus_. Both parties saw in each other’s doings arch-knavery and malignity, and on the whole they may not have been mistaken. The Romans had kept the peoples who dwelt on the side towards Campania, partly in a position of isopolity, as the Fundanians and Formians; partly in one of dependence, as the Privernates. These last tried to shake off their yoke, as the _civitas sine suffragio_ was only a burthen to them, the advantages which they enjoyed from it being trifling in proportion; that they could possess land in the Roman territory, was no great gain when their own town itself had a fruitful soil. The Romans beheld in this rebellion an instigation which came from Samnium; and without doubt, any one who was discontented with the Roman rule, met with fellow-feeling among the Samnites. The Privernates were joined by the Fundanians: Vitruvius Vaccus, a Fundanian of high rank, had led his countrymen into this undertaking; yet they did not follow it up, but drew out of it. On the Privernates the Romans passed a severe judgment, of which Livy and Valerius Maximus tell a very pretty story. The ambassadors were to answer on their conscience, what punishment they had deserved; and they said that they deserved that punishment which he ought to have, who has struggled for freedom. The consuls took this answer in good part, and then asked whether they would keep the peace? “If you give us a good peace,” they replied, “we will keep it; if you give us a bad one, we will break it.” The Romans then gave them the right of citizenship. Dionysius has the same story in the _excerpta de Legationibus_; but he dates it many years earlier, and it has perhaps no foundation whatever. Valerius Maximus is really no authority at all: he is nothing but the echo of Livy. The tale has perhaps originated with the Gens Æmilia, or the Plautia, who were the patrons of Privernum, and had the surname of Privernas; the annalists then foisted it in where it seemed best to tally.[139] A few years afterwards, the Privernates, according to an unimpeachable statement in a _plebiscitum_,[140] again revolted. This is, however, struck out, in order to maintain the old tradition with all its interest. At a later period, we find Privernum in possession of the right of citizenship, and that a much more ample one, than the bare Cærite franchise, as its people constituted the _Tribus Ufentina_. Fundi and Formiæ were likewise severely punished. This is the natural course of those events which Livy relates so pathetically; the magnanimity which is there ascribed to the senate, is quite incredible, and mere declamation.

There is no doubt that the Samnites secretly fomented the disturbances among the subjects of Rome: they openly demanded the evacuation of Fregellæ. Justice was undeniably on their side. The Romans had no right to found a colony on the territory which the Samnites had conquered, although these were not in possession of Fregellæ at the time that they took it: such indeed was the state of the case, as otherwise it is not likely that this would have happened. Yet in matters like these justice cannot always be done;--want of right and injustice are often very different things. I would not throw a stone at the leading men among the Romans for not having given up a place which they had occupied on a waste soil, although they had positively no business to do so. The Samnites were spreading rapidly in that neighbourhood; Fregellæ was a _tête-de-pont_ and a point of defence on the upper Liris against them, and the advantage which the Romans would have derived from its possession, was much less than the disadvantage of its being in the hands of the Samnites. The Latin road would have been laid open as soon as they gave it up; and their allies, the Hernicans, Latins, and without doubt, the Æquians also, would have been left at the mercy of the enemy. It was very like the case which occurred in the year 1803, after the peace of Amiens, when every one called for the evacuation of Malta by the English: they could not give it up, notwithstanding their promise to do so, which indeed they ought never to have made. The sluggishness of the Samnite senate might have perhaps afforded a guarantee against any ill use being made of Fregellæ.

The Romans were so prepared for the breaking out of the war, that as early as two years before, they had an army in cantonments on the frontier; because they dreaded an attack against Fregellæ. At that time, the Romans had not only secured a friend by the treaty with Alexander of Epirus, but they also tried to guard against the enemy by means of a peace with the Gauls. These had now had their abode in Italy for more than sixty years. The national migration had stopped; and as they had nowhere been quite a savage people, they had not failed to adopt a certain degree of civilization. They betook themselves to the tilling of land, and became a meek race of peasants; like the Goths under Vitigis, who were likewise a set of unwarlike husbandmen, so that the great Totila had to train them anew into soldiers. The Gauls had two roads to Southern Italy,--the marshes on the Arno; and the Apennine country, which was grown quite wild, being the bulwark of Etruria,--the one down the Tiber, through Umbria, to Latium and Campania; the other through Picenum, along the Adriatic, to Apulia. By the latter of these they must have advanced more than once; but there they were withstood by the northern Sabellian peoples in the Abruzzi; and it is also more difficult than the former. Now, in order not to be troubled by an attack of the Gauls, which the Samnites might easily have brought about, the Romans concluded a formal peace with them, which is passed over in silence by Livy, but is positively mentioned by Polybius, and which there is no doubt that they bought with a sum of money.

This carefulness of the Romans also makes it highly probable, in my opinion, that the old account of their having, in common with other Italian peoples, sent an embassy to Alexander at Babylon, is not a mere fiction. Alexander had put a limit to his conquests in the East; to go southwards against the Ethiopian nations would have been folly; that he would settle down to rest, no one could believe: it was therefore to be expected that he would turn to the West. People generally fancy the places in the west to have been much more isolated than they were; and they will suppose for instance, that the Romans had known nothing whatever of Alexander. But surely they must have had at Rome some knowledge of Alexander’s campaigns, just as Clapperton and Denham, in the interior of Soudan, heard of the insurrection in Greece, and of the part which individual Europeans took in it. When my father was at Sana, in the time of the seven years’ war, there they had quite positive news of what was going on, especially of the struggle between the English and French; an Arab showed him a map of Europe: and yet these modern Arabs are people quite lost to the world. The communication was also much easier in those days, than it was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though even then there was some intercourse with the interior of Asia. In Rome there must have been at that period, maps of the world, as in Greece; individuals among the Romans may also have been imbued with Greek learning, as the cognomen of P. Sempronius Sophus seems to prove. That the Samnites and Lucanians sent ambassadors to Alexander, is disputed by no one; that this was done by the Romans, the later writers have doubted. The Lucanians did it, to turn aside from themselves his anger at the death of his uncle; the Samnites, that they might be good friends with him should he come to Italy; the Romans, in like manner, so as at least not to offend him, even though they might not have hoped to gain him for their friend. Even the Iberians sent to him, when they heard of his warlike preparations against Carthage. Livy takes it in his head, that the Romans had perhaps never heard of him. Either they may have suppressed the above-mentioned notice from pride, or the Greeks have invented it from vanity; which, however, must have been done at a time when the Romans were already so powerful, that the homage of Rome heightened the glory of Alexander. But Clitarchus, by whom that statement has been handed down to us, was an elegant author who wrote immediately after the death of Alexander, when the Romans were still engaged in the doubtful struggle with the Samnites. Aristobulus and Ptolemy Lagus, who in historical truth stand far above him, speak of Tyrrhenians and Samnites: in this case, the Romans are comprehended under the former name, even as all the Sabellian peoples are meant by the term Samnites. If Alexander had lived, he would first have turned his arms against Sicily, and from thence have gone against Carthage, which would certainly have fallen; then to Italy, where the Greeks would have received him with the same enthusiasm as in Asia Minor; for he was δεινὸς παρέλκειν. He would have gained them over, have made leagues with them, and have so weakened those who opposed him, that the whole of the peninsula would have been his. Livy has on this subject a discussion which is very finely written, but quite a failure. Altogether blinded by national vanity, he is grievously mistaken in his estimate of the contending forces, and likewise, when he thinks that the whole of Italy would have united in withstanding Alexander. Had Alexander lived, Rome would have fallen: his death was a necessary dispensation of Providence in order that Rome might become great.

THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR.

The cause of this war is to be traced to Neapolis and Palæopolis, the old Parthenope. Palæopolis we find mentioned only in Livy; it was an old colony of Cumæ, the citizens of which had fled for refuge thither across the sea. Neapolis has its name from its being a much later settlement of different Greek peoples: it was probably first founded Ol. 91, about the time of the Athenian expedition against Sicily, as a bulwark of the Greeks against the Sabellian nations. The Athenians may have had a share in its foundation. Both of the towns were, however, of Chalcidian origin, and constituted a confederate state, which at that time may perhaps have been in possession of Ischia. About the site of Palæopolis, a great deal of worthless stuff has been written, most of all by the Italian antiquaries; we have nothing whatever to build upon besides the two statements in Livy, that Palæopolis was by the side of Neapolis, and that the Roman camp was pitched between the two towns. The old Neapolis undoubtedly lay in the centre of the present city, above the church of Sta. Rosa, the sea having now considerably receded. People, however, sought for Palæopolis likewise within the present city, without considering whether an army could have had room enough between the two towns. I should never have found out the site. A French diplomatist, my friend De Serre, who had been an officer in his youth, and thus had the quick eye of a soldier, discovered it when he was taking a walk with me. The town was on the outer side of the Posilipo, where the lazaretto now stands, a nice healthy place in the direction of Nisida and Limon: perhaps there was in old times a harbour there; both of the isles have very good harbours. This was also the natural communication with Ischia: the Posilipo with its prolongations lay between the two towns in an interval of less than half a German mile; here the Roman army could have encamped on the mountains, and thus the two towns have been cut off from each other. Monuments and coins of Palæopolis are, however, no more to be found. According to the usual supposition, the two towns would have been so near together, that the missiles from the walls of either might have reached the other.

The cause of the hostilities was piracy, or at least attacks by sea against the unprotected merchant-ships of the Romans; who at that time had no fleet, and, strange to say, wanted to disregard the sea, as if indeed it could be disregarded. Complaints about the division of the Falernian territory might likewise have had something to do with it. Many people, in such divisions, of course sold their lots, and so this became a running sore to Rome. Yet if the people of Palæopolis were on this ground at enmity with Rome, the reproach of piracy, which Dionysius puts forth in such a declamatory style, is quite uncalled for; as it is but natural that they should try to harass the trade of a hostile people. The Neapolitans, relying on their alliances with the Samnites and the people of Nola, refused the satisfaction which the Romans demanded from them. Nola had an Oscan population with Chalcidian immigrants: how much the inhabitants were hellenized, may be seen from the Greek stamp of the coins, which bear the inscription ΝΩΛΑΙΩΝ. On the whole, the friendliness between the Samnites and the Greeks is striking: Strabo calls them φιλέλληνες. The Samnites, having no literature of their own, were certainly open to the Greek one: they even tried to talk like the Greeks themselves. Romans and Greeks were always on bad terms with each other; Lucanians and Greeks also were enemies, although the Lucanians partook of Greek civilization: it is certainly no fable that the Pythagorean philosophy was homebred among them. The statement that Pythagoras was a Tyrrhenian of the isles, has no doubt this meaning, that the roots of the Pythagorean philosophy, so far as it is theological, are for the most part to be sought among the Pelasgians in the religion of Samothrace.

Samnite auxiliaries, amounting to four thousand men, together with two thousand Nolans, threw themselves into the towns of Palæopolis and Neapolis: the Tarentines also are mentioned as those who had stirred up Palæopolis. The Tarentines and Samnites were very closely allied; and the former spent their money in getting up a distant war against Rome. The Romans looked upon the occupation of Palæopolis by the Samnites as an act of hostility, and complained of it to the assembly at Samnium. The evacuation was a moral impossibility; and the answer was, that one must not quibble about single grievances, that war was what they wanted, and war they should have. The national assemblies confirmed this answer. In the meanwhile, the siege of Palæopolis had lasted a long time, and the Romans had no prospect of success; their own practice in sieges was still in its very infancy, and the Greeks opposed to them considerable technical skill: their assaults were therefore without effect, and the sea remained free. But what force could not do, treachery brought about. Neapolis had ships of war with which frequent attacks may have been made against the Roman coasts, which the Romans were not able to protect: the Samnite garrison, at least to all appearance, lay for the greater part in Palæopolis, the Greeks in Neapolis. Two Greeks, Charilaus and Nymphæus, now betrayed the Samnites to the Roman consul Publilius Philo. They proposed an expedition against the Roman coast, and the Samnites marched out of the town ready to embark. The towns were on the side of the harbour enclosed with walls, so the conspirators now shut the gates behind them, and let the Romans in by another gate; the ships had also in the mean time cast off from the shore, and the Samnites were obliged to save themselves as they best could. Palæopolis disappears, and without doubt was destroyed on this occasion. Neapolis (Naples) obtained a favourable alliance; so the conspirators must have been Neapolitans. This acquisition was of great importance to the Romans; for they thus got possession of the two harbours of Naples and Nisida, the only places from which inroads against their territory could possibly be made by sea. This conquest was achieved by Q. Publilius Philo _pro Consule_: he is the first whose consular power was on the motion of a tribune prolonged by a _Senatus consultum_ and a _Plebiscitum_ (429), his own law on the _plebiscita_ being now applied to him. This is a great change in the constitution: a magistracy was created, new in its nature, though not in its form. Until then, no one had triumphed out of his time of holding office; Publilius triumphed as proconsul.

Now begins the second Samnite war, by far the greatest, most interesting, and most wonderful, that of Hannibal excepted. On the whole, it is only with much trouble that we can arrive at somewhat satisfactory results concerning it. Where the battles were fought, is in most cases passed over in silence. Livy has described it, sometimes with a great deal of spirit, at other times with weariness, which comes from his manner of composing. He had set to work without preparation; and therefore he wrote indeed with much freshness, but in a way which was detrimental to anything like criticism or comprehensiveness of view. If he had made a better use of his annals, we might have a clearer insight. It is a pity that the books of Dionysius on this war have been lost: the few fragments in Appian, who copied from him, and in Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, throw a bright light on many points; for with regard to these times, Dionysius must have been excellent, as the annals were now already quite enough to make out real history from, if one searched as diligently through them as Dionysius did. Even in that age, there were some detached anonymous chronicles, dry and obscure as to details. That isochronistic historiography commences only a hundred years afterwards, does not prejudice this case. Unfortunately, Livy has made no use whatever of the old materials which formed the groundwork of the annals; whenever, therefore, their statements are conflicting, he chooses from among them just what he likes, and is in most instances quite wrong. Livy does not give us a comprehensive view of this war, which lasted for twenty-two years; I succeeded only very late in forming a clear outline of it: it is divided into several periods.

The first period is from 429 to 433. At its beginning, the behaviour of the Samnites seems to us quite strange. They had wished for war; and yet we find them unprepared, and conscious of not being able to carry it through. The instigators must have lost their popularity. It was the same with the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war; after the first and second campaigns, they wished for peace: so did the Venetians after the battle of Ghiera d’Adda. In England, during the year 1793, the war against France was quite popular (I was there myself part of the time); people had not forgotten the meddling conduct of France in the American war; much was still hoped from the colonies, and the national hatred on the whole was very great. But when the war was badly managed, and the power of France increased, it became thoroughly unpopular, and there was a general outcry for peace: the ministers very wisely yielded, and entered into negotiations. Then the nation saw that peace was not possible; new efforts were made, and in 1798 and 1799 the war again was highly popular; after that it was once more unpopular. Thus it happened also with the Samnites. The Romans carried the war in quite a different manner from what these had expected; they saw that their hopes had not been fulfilled, and wished now for peace. Afterwards, however, things completely changed. As the war went on, it became a passion like gambling, especially, of course, when it was not waged successfully. People will not then draw back; they will sooner perish than give themselves up to the mercy of the conqueror, and the war becomes a guerilla struggle. Towards the middle of it therefore, under much greater disasters, the feeling of the Samnites becomes evident, that peace was impossible.

The Samnites, as was mentioned before, consisted of four states, each of which had the _imperium_ in its turn. This was an immense disadvantage. Whenever a general was chosen, the hatred and the jealousy there then was among the different leaders may be imagined: if a great man, like Pontius, held the _imperium_, and if it luckily happened that the other prætors were honest men, great results might be arrived at; but all was changed again the year after. Confederate states always have a heartfelt hatred against each other: thus it is in America; thus it was in the army of the empire, where one general was exceedingly glad, if another, who was his confederate, was beaten. Had the Samnites been unanimous, they would have been more than a match for the Romans; but the latter got the better of them, owing to the perfection of the institutions: for the most varied, and even conflicting elements, were all concentrated by the mere power of the Roman mind. In the practice of warfare, the Samnites were certainly equal to the Romans: according to Sallust, the Romans had adopted from them their arms, and perhaps the whole of their military science; at least, we find in the battles both armies formed quite in the same way, and they fought against each other as equals, which is proved by the accounts of the battles. And here I must give a flat contradiction to general Vaudoncourt, who asserts that the Italian, Spanish, and African nations fought in phalanx: their strength was in the sword. The Italians had cohorts, and in all likelihood used the _pila_, like the Romans. The Samnites, as it seems, had belonging to them subject commonalties, or dependencies: the country from Frentum to Luceria was either thus dependent, or formed into a canton of its own; but the connexion was so slight, that the inhabitants of Frentum entirely separated themselves in the course of the war. North of the Samnites, was the confederacy of the Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, and Pelignians: of these, the Vestinians were friends to the Samnites; the others were quite neutral, or had even placed themselves under the protection of the Romans. Thus the Samnites were in a very bad plight; but if, as undoubtedly it was their plan, they had carried on the war along the Liris as far as Capua, they could certainly have kept the Romans at bay. The Romans, however, had a far bolder plan. Just as formerly in the Latin war, they described a semicircle round Samnium; but with much greater risk than at that time. The Samnites were intensely hated by the Apulians; the latter, the ruling tribes of whom were Oscan, may have partly overpowered, partly incorporated with themselves, and partly driven out the old Pelasgian inhabitants. The country of Apulia is a basin in the midst of mountains; it is like a theatre. The hills are ranged in the form of a horseshoe, and they likewise belong to Apulia; but the country directly below these mountains is a tableland, exceedingly hot, with a chalky soil, almost like Leon in Spain. They had two chief towns, Arpi and Canusium, both of which ruled over a large territory, and were very jealous of each other. At that time, the Samnites had conquered the eastern mountains of Luceria, and may also have harassed the plain. Tarentum was on their side; the Apulians therefore turned themselves to the Romans, and by their mediation may have gained much. It was a grand resolve, to transport the Roman army into Apulia. There were two roads; one, through the country of the Æquians (who were friendly with the Romans), from Tivoli upwards, by the lake of Celano, and by Sulmona, across the narrow district of Samnium; the other, through the country of the Sabines, in the direction of Reate, Civita Ducale, and through the terrible defiles of Antrodoco (the Interocrea of the ancients), the nature of which is such that a brave people may hold out there for an extraordinary length of time, although they were so disgracefully abandoned by the Neapolitans in 1821; then as far as Pescara on the eastern coast, and thus by an immense way round to Apulia. They may have taken both roads at different times; at first, the former one. Now, as long as the Romans were not sure of the Vestinians, and on the other hand were on friendly terms with the other nations, they might indeed have chosen the road first spoken of; as on the second, the Vestinians were the only one of the four northern Sabellian peoples whose country they were to cross, in order to get to Apulia, whilst they had besides to fight their way through the land of the Frentanians. But if they had chosen the first road, the Marsians and Pelignians would as certainly have withstood them, as the Vestinians on the other; for it was their interest, not to let the Romans advance into Apulia. As the Vestinians are now mentioned as being friendly, it is evident that the army marched by Antrodoco. If the Samnites had been united, they would indeed have made every exertion to support the Vestinians. This was not done, and therefore the Romans overthrew the Vestinians, and reduced them to subjection. They now got a firm footing in Apulia, and thus compelled the northern confederacy to keep on a good understanding with them. It was a great advantage, to be in possession of Apulia. The country of the four Sabellian peoples, and also the territories of the northern Samnites, Pentrians, Bovians, and even the Frentanians, are mountain districts and pasture lands on the Abruzzi; during winter, these tracts are covered with snow, and it is then impossible to keep the sheep there; they are therefore sent during that season into Apulia, which is then clothed with fine and excellent grass; in the spring, the shepherd again takes them to the mountains. These broad features, which belong to Nature herself, are necessarily lasting, and were the same in times of old as they are now. That in those days already there was much sheep-breeding, is proved by the wool-dying manufactories of Tarentum. When the Romans were now in possession of Apulia, they protected the pastures of their allies, and consequently obliged the Marsians, Pelignians, and others, to come to friendly terms with them: they also harassed the northern Samnites. This was therefore no blind undertaking, but one which was completely justified by the nature of the countries: the Romans for all that would not run the hazard, until they saw that it could not be avoided.

Another alliance, besides the Apulian, the Romans had with the Lucanians. These are called a Samnite colony, which is to be understood in a different meaning, from that in which a town-colony is so called: the Lucanians are most likely an offshoot of the Samnites, which had severed itself from the mainstock. They were dwelling amidst Œnotrians (the old Pelasgians), and Greeks; and even as the Samnites were Sabellians become Oscan, so were the Lucanians Œnotrians become Samnite. They had spread, from about Ol. 80, since the downfall of Sybaris, which opened these districts to the Italic peoples: in what relation the Lucanians and Samnites had formerly stood to each other, is uncertain. The territory of Lucania is larger than that of Samnium, yet there is never a corresponding proportion between the power of the two peoples; never, as we see from the rolls of the census, were the Lucanians strong, not even in later times, when the Samnites had been already considerably weakened; the number of their _capita_ did not amount to any thing like half that of the Samnites, not to so many as thirty thousand. This shows, that the greater part of the Lucanian population had no share in the sovereignty: in single places only, as, for instance, in Petelia, it was more concentrated; it was a country rent by factions. A portion of them resolved upon uniting with the Romans; this must, however, have been a small majority, as a revolution soon followed, in consequence of which this league was broken up, and the Samnites were called in to garrison their strongholds. This alliance of the Lucanians and Romans is known to us from Livy: we are, however, considerably to modify what he states besides, that the Tarentines, frightened at the power of the Romans, had persuaded the chief men among the Lucanians to tell the people, that their ambassadors had been cruelly treated by the Romans; and that the Lucanians, exasperated by it, had thrown themselves into the arms of the Samnites. This is the same tale as that which is told of Zopyrus and of Sextus Tarquin. Traitorous party spirit is in Greece also but too prevalent in the later ages. The Samnites are therefore masters of Lucania, and turn its resources in men and money to their own account.

These wars, as far as we are able to get a view of them, are from the very beginning exceedingly interesting, owing to the resolution, skill, and steadiness with which the combats were fought. On both sides, it was a struggle for life and death; they aimed at each other’s hearts, like two good swordsmen in a duel: if Hannibal, after the battle of Cannæ, had shown the same determination; if he had not been too cautious, but had pushed his thrusts against the heart of Rome, even as the Samnites did, he would have won. Both parties reckoned much on the discontent of each other’s dependents. The Samnites had their frontier above Sora in the Abruzzi, Casinum being their chief town: from that mountain-range they seem always to have chosen the direction of their operations; from thence they also acted on the offensive, and in fact with the express purpose of stirring up a rising of the Latin peoples, who had been still independent so late as fourteen years before, and were therefore ripe for revolt. The traces of this partial insurrection are slurred over in Livy, notwithstanding which they may still be found,--especially those of a rising at Tusculum in conjunction with Privernum and Velitræ: but the Romans always put down these outbreaks, and in consequence, many of these Latin towns were ruined. All this is only to be guessed from detached intimations; for instance, from the motion of a tribune utterly to destroy the Tusculans, which, however, was not carried. To this we must also refer the story which sounds so strange in Livy, of people suddenly flocking together at night, as if the enemy were in the city; for as the armies were far removed, it was quite natural, that a rising of the Latins should spread terror to the very walls of Rome.

The Samnites tried to advance immediately to Rome by the Apennines, at the sources of the Liris; at the same time, the Romans passed the Vulturnus, and endeavoured to make an inroad into Campania by Saticula, and from thence into Samnium. Both parties little heeded where the blows of the enemy might fall, if they could only successfully deal their own. They both of them found their advantage in this mode of warfare; the Romans, that while the Samnites only laid waste the territory of the allies, they for their part struck at the Samnites themselves; on the other hand, this could not have had any thing like the mischievous effect which the devastations of the Samnites had upon the feelings of the allies. We merely know by the greatest chance, that the seat of that war was in the neighbourhood of the present abbey of Subiaco, on the frontier of the Æquians and Hernicans, in the high mountain-ridges which divide the valleys of the Liris and the Anio. Livy says that they faced each other near Imbrinium in Samnium; but even the Italian commentators, as Sigonius and Hermolaus Barbarus, rightly take this to be Imbrivium, and recognise it as the place, in the country of the Æquians, near Subiaco, from which the emperor Claudius led his aqueducts. Livy shows such little proof of care and exactness, that we cannot but decide for this emendation, which is recommended not only by probability, but even by necessity. The Samnites took up a strong position here; and thus cut off the Romans from the road which leads by Sora to Apulia, so that they were obliged to keep up their communication by Antrodoco: the spot is marked out with all the accuracy of a military history. The state of things was so serious, that in the third year of the war the Romans made L. Papirius Cursor dictator. The consul L. Furius Camillus was ill. Papirius Cursor is still remembered as one of the greatest generals of his nation; by his side was M. Valerius Corvus, who was of the same age with him, and Q. Fabius Maximus, who was younger, but yet was in all likelihood outlived by Valerius Corvus.

M. Valerius Corvus was the most popular man of his day: in politics he stands quite aloof from all party strife. He loved the people, and was beloved by it; the soldiers had unbounded confidence in him, and when he was among them in his leisure hours, it was just as if he were in his own family; he shared with them their toils and their amusements: his popularity was the heir-loom of the Valerii. It was this character which enabled him to allay the insurrection in the year 413. L. Papirius Cursor was a rough man, a downright savage, who had something in him of the nature of Suwarow, except that the latter was certainly far more educated: he had huge bodily strength, and kept it in condition by eating and drinking by rule, like the athletes, as did the emperor Maximin. He teased and worried the soldiers by his terrible strictness, making their duty as irksome as he could, in the belief that by this means they were rendered more efficient. He was just as harsh towards the officers and commanders of the allies: it was his pleasure, to strike terror into all about him; he never pardoned the least neglect, and he was capable of inflicting corporal and even capital punishment for it. He was hated; yet at the same time he was regarded as quite an unearthly being, as an immense treasure for the republic, as a last refuge in time of need, Q. Fabius was of a different stamp from Valerius Corvus; he seems not to have had such a cheerful, loving, joyous soul: yet for all that, he was _comis_, being a kind master, a mild and wise man. His wisdom and good luck were much reckoned on; Papirius had not so much success. He was also most popular; yet not in the same way as M. Valerius, but rather, it would seem, from a feeling of respect than of love. He was looked upon as the first man of his age, and therefore the surname of Maximus was given him; he was no less a statesman than a general, being as it were a point of union for all parties. He was an aristocrat by birth and position; yet a most judicious one: he was able in many cases, when an umpire, to bend the stubbornness of the oligarchy. We see from his life, how earnest he was in every thing; how he could control his own feelings, and sacrifice them for the common good.