Chapter XXII: Part 22

M’. Curius was called upon to chastise the Sabines. These consisted of several peoples which were very loosely connected with each other: Amiternum had already leagued itself before with the Samnites, and had been taken in the third Samnite war. Hitherto, the fear which the Romans had of the Gauls, had protected the Sabines; but now the former no doubt required that they should accept the Cærite citizenship (sympolity): the Sabines refused, and war broke out. As nearly all their towns were open, the struggle was short and bloodless, and the conquest easy; the booty also was immense, owing to the length of time in which they had lived in peace.

This Sabine war led to a great division of land, as the Roman people by their many and mighty wars had been brought into great distress, like that which is described by Massillon in his funeral oration on Louis XIV. All these great victories appear to us brilliant in a political point of view; the whole period is grand, and we cannot but own in our hearts, that if we were Romans, we should have liked to live in those days, and with men like these: but all this splendour was but a fair outside which covered very grievous misery, and however much Augustine and his friend Orosius may exaggerate, they were not so far wrong at bottom. Before the battle of Sentinum, a miracle had taken place: the statue of the goddess of victory was found lowered from its pedestal and turned towards the north; from her altar, milk, blood, and honey were pouring forth. This was a hard task for the soothsayers: they interpreted it in this way, that the Romans were to go and meet the enemy; that the blood meant war; that the honey betokened the plague, inasmuch as it was wont to be given to those who were thus stricken; that milk was the sign of a bad harvest, as one had then to do without corn, and to make shift with whatever grew of itself. This interpretation is so far-fetched, that evidently it cannot be very old; yet it is a poetical embodying of what really happened. A pestilence spread far and wide, which may not even have begun in Rome, but in Umbria or Samnium: it may have been a sickness which had arisen from the wars; but perhaps it was connected with a deeper source. The age was on the whole a time of great physical changes; there are still traces which show that in Italy all nature was then in a state of convulsion. Earthquakes are felt, and become quite frightful, until towards the end of the century; the winters are most bitterly cold; an eruption of the volcano in the island of Ischia takes place. In the whole of Europe, epidemics must have reigned: according to Pausanias, a terrible plague was wasting Greece at the time of Antigonus Gonatas, which completed the work of depopulation there. At Rome, according to Livy, it raged for the third year already in 460. There certainly was also a famine in Latium, owing to the devastation of Campania, the granary of Rome. On this occasion, the Romans were directed by the Sibylline books to send an embassy to Epidaurus, and bring Æsculapius to Rome. It consisted of Q. Ogulnius and another. When the state trireme arrived, and they laid the request before the people of Epidaurus, the senate of that town referred them to the god himself: at the incubation, the god promised them that he would follow; a gigantic serpent came forth from the sanctuary, and remained on the deck. At the mouth of the Tiber, it crawled out, plunged into the water, and swam up the Tiber to the island near the city, where the temple of the god was then built. The embassy is not by any means to be doubted: in the temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, harmless snakes were kept, one of which had likewise formerly been carried in a waggon to Sicyon. The ground work of this legend is true, all the rest is added to it; we are here on quite different ground from what we were on before. The tale is also remarkable, as it shows how little the Greek ideas were at that time foreign to the Romans.

In this great distress, there now arose in Rome, on the one hand, a great burthen of debt, and on the other, the necessity for a better state of things. The booty from the Sabines, which was gained just then, was so considerable, that the historian Fabius, in Strabo, says that the Romans had first known by this victory what riches were. Besides money, a great part of it must have been land and cattle. Curius declared, that there was so much land, that it must have lain waste, if he had not taken so many prisoners.

This is the obscurest period of Roman history, as here the eleventh book of Livy is wanting. Certain it is, that Curius had a most fierce quarrel with the senate, no doubt about the division of the public land. Curius insisted upon a larger assignation being made to the people,--for so we must call it, and not commonalty any longer,--and likewise to the _libertini_, inasmuch as they were in the tribes. The quarrel was now also with the plebeian nobility; and so great was the exasperation, that a band of eight hundred youths united to defend the life of Curius, as the knights did that of Cicero. In this state of things, the triumvirs wanted to give Curius seven times seven _jugera_, a whole century at that period; but Curius rejected it, saying that he was a bad citizen, who was not content with his share. Of Agrippa Menenius, we may believe that he was poor; but hardly of Valerius Poplicola, as he was able to build himself a splendid house. As to M’. Curius, his poverty, and the cheerfulness with which he bore it, are well attested; and it is likewise well known how the Samnite ambassadors found him in his farm by his hearth, and how he spurned their gifts; and also that the senate provided for the maintenance of his family while he was consul.

Two years afterwards, he executed during his censorship one of the most magnificent works to be found in the world, the draining of the lake Velinus, by which the cascade of Terni, which is a hundred and forty feet high, was called into existence,--the finest fall of water known, and yet the work of man. Livy calls the Appian Way _monumentum gentis Appiæ_, this is _monumentum Curii_. The lake Velinus filled a great valley in the mountains, and had no outlet, a ridge of rocks of no very great height cutting it off from the Nar (the Nera). Here Curius cut through the rock; gave the lake _Pié de Luna_ and _Velino_ an outlet; and thus created several square leagues of the richest soils, the fields of la campagna Rieti, the _Rosea_ which Cicero calls another Tempe. It is owing to quite an accidental remark of Cicero’s, that we know this to have been done by Curius. The water is calcareous, as it is everywhere in the Apennines; and therefore stalactites are growing all about it, on which account it has more than once become necessary since the sixteenth century, the work having been neglected during the middle ages, to change the course of the stream. The lake has shifted its bed, so that a bridge built in those ages is now entirely covered with limestone, and has only been found again a few years ago. A noble Roman bridge across the canal is still to be seen; yet it is not visited by strangers, being rather difficult of access: undoubtedly it is likewise a work of Curius. It was shown to me by an intelligent peasant, and it is built of large blocks of stone fitted together into an arch without cement, in the old Etruscan manner. Although earth as high as a house, on which trees are growing, is lying upon it, yet there is not a stone moved from its place, even to the breadth of the back of a knife.

The interval between the third Samnite war and Pyrrhus’ being called into Italy, which is not quite ten years, is one of the most important in the whole of ancient history, and the want of a more accurate knowledge of it we feel most painfully. Were we able to conjure up some of the lost writings of antiquity, the eleventh book of Livy would be the most instructive; yet sooner or later, this history will certainly be one day discovered. I have collected much of it, but not enough to give a complete historical outline of the time. In the year 462 (according to Cato), the _Lex Mænia_ was passed. Only a few days ago, I have discovered a passage concerning it, which I had indeed read more than once before, but in a place where until now it has been overlooked by every one: otherwise, the law is merely known by a cursory remark of Cicero’s. It can have no other meaning, but that the _auctoritas_ of the _patres_ for the curule elections was now done away with, even as forty-six years before it had been by the _Lex Publilia_ for the laws made by the centuries. This _Lex Mænia_ was absolutely necessary, as the patricians had already voted once. From henceforth, the senate gave its _auctoritas_ beforehand; yet the curies were not abolished, as were at Augsburg the chambers (Stuben), the meetings of the houses. The _imperium_ was conferred by the mere _simulacrum_ of the curies, that is, by the lictors, who represented the curies, as the five witnesses did the classes of the centuries. The carrying of this law is one of the stormy events which happened during the consulship of M’. Curius.

Quite different from it was the _Lex Hortensia_, about which we should be so glad to learn something. From Zonaras we knew until now, that there was much debt, and that from thence arose disturbances; on this the tribunes moved, that the debts should be cancelled, and when all was of no avail, the _Plebes_ entrenched itself on the Janiculum, and was after a long sedition at last brought back by the dictator Q. Hortensius. From this dictatorship sprang the _Lex Hortensia_, which is known from Gaius and the _Institutiones_, and of which the purport is, _ut plebiscita omnes Quirites tenerent_. During the last year (1828), something more has been found in the _Excerpta de Sententiis_, edited by Mai, from Dio Cassius, but dreadfully mutilated. I have tried to restore its connection in the _Rheinische Museum_;[154] of the correctness of its general meaning, I do not entertain the slightest doubt. According to that passage, the tribunes moved the cancelling of the debts (_tabulæ novæ_) in consequence of the general suffering.[155] Distress and debt are most severely felt in the first years of peace. The tribunes made the motion on the strength of the _Lex Publilia_,[156] according to which, the resolution of the _Plebes_ was a bill which was to be confirmed by the curies, before whom nothing could be brought but what had passed through the senate, by whom it was to be introduced: the latter might throw out a bill; if it did not, it went on to the curies. The _Plebes_ was now highly delighted at the motion and adopted it; but it had to be brought before the senate, which threw it out. For in those days, we already find the state of things which is so strongly marked under the Gracchi, namely, the feud between the people and the nobles: the plebeian nobility shielded themselves behind the curies, and were very glad when these rejected the motion. The tribunes then brought in another proposition, that, if it thought too much to grant a complete cancelling of the debts, the creditors should fall back to the Licinian law; so that the interests already paid should be deducted from the capital, and the remainder be liquidated in three instalments. It was at that time forbidden to take interest, and money lenders were therefore obliged to screen themselves behind foreigners. When a loan on which interest was charged, was to be negotiated, they went to Præneste and Tibur; and the Tiburtine ostensibly furnished the money, and in his forum also were the litigations decided which might arise from the transaction. Thus the prohibition of usury may be reconciled with the fact that interests were paid after all.

The curies refused to pass the law, even with this modification, and therefore such a bill had every time to be brought in anew _in trinum nundinum_; the people would indeed have been quite satisfied with the proposition as it now stood, but the curies kept on saying no. The people now became maddened; they marched out of the city, and encamped on the Janiculum: it can scarcely be supposed that any magistrate headed the _Plebes_, as in the former secessions. The leaders of the democratical party thought to make use of these circumstances for their own ends, and allowed the people to go farther and farther; thus on the Janiculum it hardly could be said to have behaved as harmlessly as in the former secessions. And now, when the crowd there, instead of dispersing, went on strengthening, the rulers of the republic were frightened, and eagerly wished for a compromise. The insurgents, however, would have nothing of the sort; they were ever demanding more and more:--what they wanted, it is impossible for us to say, probably a new division of the land, and a much more considerable diminution of the debts. The popular leaders at last put forth the demand, that, as the opposition of the senate and the curies had shaken the peace, these should give up their _veto_; and they carried their point. For the last time, the curies met in the Æsculetum, and decreed their own dissolution. An analogous case is the _ordinanza della giustizia_ at Florence, by which a great part of the houses was wholly excluded from all civil offices; and that through their own fault, as they would commit any crime, and not appear before the courts of justice.

The Hortensian law comprehended other objects besides. There was but one dictator Hortensius, down to the time of Cicero, and likewise only one Hortensian law.

This resolution was an extraordinary event, the first step towards the fall and the breaking up of the Roman state. Yet the condition of Rome was so sound, that a hundred and fifty years passed away before the mischief displayed itself. It is one of the disadvantages of a free constitution, that what has once been neglected, cannot be so easily made up. The _Veto_ could not have continued as it was; but what ought to have been done, and was not done, because it was not done at the right time, was this: the curies should have been filled up from the plebeian nobles, and by a number of clans from the allies. The senate could not have the same weight as a strong aristocratical body; the _sincera plebes_, the good old country folk, gradually dwindled away, and the _factio forensis_ got the upperhand; the elements which had rendered the Roman commonalty so excellent, died off by degrees, and ought to have been replaced. This must have struck many a person at that time; for instance, that wise man Fabius, if he was still alive. Sp. Carvilius, a son or grandson of him who conquered the Samnites, brought forward a motion in the war of Hannibal, to receive two members from each senate of the allies into the Roman one; just like Scipio Maffei, who made a similar proposition in Venice. The former was all but torn to pieces in the senate; as for the latter, it is quite a wonder that he got off unpunished. Sallust says, that between the second and the third Punic war, there had been the strongest feeling of respect for the laws of Rome; yet this was merely the peaceful state just before the outbreak of a revolution. Single cases of evil consequences had not been wanting already; one was, that from henceforth the admission of the Italians to the full right of citizenship became more and more difficult, as this would lessen the influence of the ancient citizens. This afterwards gave rise to a coalition between the allies and the nobles; but unhappily the nobility did not form a corporation. The patrician body crumbled to pieces, and there was nothing to take its place.

Even as the French revolution was very much hastened by the absurd regulation of old Marshal Ségur, that only nobles were to hold commissions, which exasperated all the soldiers; thus in Rome also, a like provocation was given by L. Postumius, an odd character, who--what at that time was not common--had thrice been consul, and was also employed in the decisive embassy to Tarentum: he must therefore have been a man of consequence; but he behaved on this occasion like a madman. During his consulship, he insulted old Q. Fabius, who was with the army as proconsul, by driving him away. There is party hatred in this: Fabius was an aristocrat, but free from all oligarchical spirit. After the war, Postumius had possessed himself of immense tracts of land, and had set two thousand soldiers to work at clearing a forest. For this accumulated insolence, he was impeached by the tribunes, and condemned to pay a fine of five hundred thousand _asses_. Circumstances of this kind gave greater offence than anything else, and the more bitter it became as the oligarchical party fell off in numbers.

In this period is to be placed the appointment of the _triumviri capitales_. The form _triumviri_ is indeed a solecism, a proof that even so early as this the _casus obliqui_ were prevalent, as in the modern Romanesque languages. From _triumvirorum_, which was often heard, a nominative, _triumviri_, was made; and this form was already generally current in the times of Cicero.--The _triumviri capitales_ correspond to the Athenian ἕνδεκα; they had the superintendence of the gaols; beyond this, we are altogether in the dark as to what their office was. They entered upon the functions which had passed from the old _Quæstores parricidii_ to the _ædiles curules_. There were many cases in which there was no further investigation to be made, namely, those of _delicta manifesta_: but to inquire in every instance whether a person was _reus manifestus_, the prætor had not time, and there must have been an authority which informed him that there was a _delictum manifestum_: this must formerly have been the quæstors, and now the _tresviri capitales_. Besides this, they were judges in cases of which the prætor did not take cognisance, in those of foreigners, slaves, and so forth; and they likewise watched over their punishment, as these persons were not under the protection of the tribunes: when, however, there was a doubt, a _judex_ was to be granted. Thus this office had the mingled powers of a police and of a criminal jurisdiction.

DESTRUCTION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. C. FABRICIUS LUSCINUS. WAR WITH TARENTUM. PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. EVENTS IN SICILY DOWN TO THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.

According to Zonaras, it was the Tarentines who stirred up the peoples far and near against the Romans; first the Lucanians, then the Etruscans, and even the deeply humbled Samnites: the Greek towns were no longer the closest friends of the people of Tarentum; the latter looked to their own political advantage, and were ready to leave them to the mercy of the Lucanians and Bruttians. Either after the third, or even after the second Samnite war, a peace was concluded between the Romans and the Tarentines: in 451, or 452, they already seem to be friends; the Greek writers also speak of it as a treaty of long standing. They seem on both sides to have checked each other by sea; for the Romans bound themselves not to appear with any ship of war north of the Lacinian headland in the gulf of Tarentum, whilst the Tarentines may have made a similar promise.

An unprejudiced observer must have seen from the issue of the third Samnite war, that the fate of Italy was decided; and the Italian people ought to have hastened to unite themselves with Rome on the most favourable terms which they could get. But men’s passions have no such wisdom, and they are always looking for some _Deus ex machina_, who is to change everything. One people after another joined the ranks of the enemies of Rome. The Lucanians, who were allied with them during the third Samnite war, availed themselves of their independence to act according to their own liking, and to reduce the Greek towns to subjection. The Bruttians likewise became leagued with the enemies of the Romans; the Greek towns, on the other hand, having been abandoned by the Tarentines, sought their aid. The Etruscans, disunited among themselves, still continued to be ever alternating between peace and war: the Vulsinians alone seem to have carried on uninterrupted war. The strength of the Samnites was quite broken; yet they tried to rally, so as again to take up arms, as soon as it could be done with any hope of success: for the present, they kept aloof, and gave the Romans no occasion for hostilities. The Tarentines tried to stir up even the Gauls, doing every thing all the while by means of subsidies only: they themselves did nothing openly, and to all appearance the good understanding was kept up. The great distress at home must have obliged the Romans to dissemble; we merely know that, true to their system of supporting the weak against the strong, they gave to the Thurinians their help against the Lucanians. On this occasion, we meet with the first instance of a Greek town having raised a statue to a Roman.[157] Rome’s support saved the Thurinians.

In Etruria, the war now took a different turn. The Etruscans seem to have been so divided among themselves, that the war party called in the Gauls to join with them in fighting against their opponents. Arretium in the north-eastern corner of Tuscany, thus exposed to the Gauls, being governed by the Cilnii, and on friendly terms with Rome, was besieged by the barbarians. In 469 (according to Cato, in whose system the birth of Christ is to be placed in 752, not in 754), the Romans sent to the relief of Arretium the prætor L. Cæcilius Metellus and two legions with auxiliaries, in all, about 20,000 men. But the Senonian Gauls, though they dwelt on the other side of the Alps, over which there was no way, broke through, and defeated Metellus, who himself was left dead on the field of battle, and eleven thousand Romans with him: the whole of his force seems to have been utterly destroyed. Curius was now sent with an army into Etruria, and envoys were also despatched to the Senonians, to ransom the prisoners. The Senonians, however, still harboured vengeance on account of the battle of Sentinum, and Britomaris, a young chieftain whose father had been killed there, instigated them to murder the ambassadors. On this, the Romans determined at all hazards to take revenge; and the consul, P. Cornelius Dolabella, instead of attacking the army of the Gauls, who were perhaps already dreaming of a new conquest of Rome, adopted the plan of falling upon the deserted country of the Senonians, where he partly destroyed the population, and partly carried it away captive. The army of the Senonians, maddened at the tidings of this disaster, returned home, and was entirely routed: it is hardly an exaggeration to say, that the whole of the nation was exterminated. The Boians now crossed the mountains, joined the Etruscans, and met with a defeat near the lake Vadimo; yet the Romans did not set foot on their territory, which reached from the river Trebia to the Romagna. In the following year, all the fighting men of this tribe came forth again, but with no greater success; the nation, however, was not annihilated: the women and children had stayed behind, and so it regenerated itself. It was not until fifty years later, that the extermination took place. The Gallic migrations from henceforth were no more turned against Italy, but against Thrace and Macedon. How matters went on in Etruria, and what Etruscan towns made their submission, the wretched history of that period leaves quite untold.

All the time that these dreadful wars were waging on the northern frontier, at home in the city, everything was quiet in consequence of the peace of the Janiculum and Æsquiletum; but in Lucania, the Romans carried on their wars without interruption. In this war, C. Fabricius Luscinus is mentioned for the first time. The old heroes were still living: Valerius Corvus, who was now an old man, full of days, no longer plays any active part; Ap. Claudius was blind, but had very great influence still; Fabius in all likelihood was dead. Younger than Appius, but older than Fabricius, was the great warrior M’. Curius Dentatus, who in his politics was a staunch democrat, but yet no demagogue. Curius and Fabricius are remarkable men, and in some respects they are like each other. Of both of them it is certain that they were really poor; both were proud characters; both of them _novi homines_, risen by their greatness in war, and by their personal worth. Fabricius has in all ages been quoted as a pattern of public virtue. Besides these two men, there were on the other side also some eminent personages: L. Postumius, who indeed was also a man of energy, but not so noble as he; P. Cornelius Rufinus, as covetous as Fabricius was disinterested, whom moreover Fabricius and his colleague Q. Æmilius Papus removed from the senate for his luxuriousness. And without them, Rome seems to have abounded in remarkable people: it may likewise have already stood high in an intellectual proficiency of its own, far above that of the most celebrated times of the middle ages, and perhaps also in literature.

Another great man, great as a wise statesman, though he left behind him no distinct memorial in the state, was Ti. Coruncanius, the first plebeian _Pontifex maximus_, who enjoyed the reputation of profound wisdom and knowledge of law. He was always looked upon as the pattern of a pontiff.

The Romans now became more and more aware of how matters stood between them and the people of Tarentum. The peace only lasted because other countries separated them. The wealth of the Tarentines, their naval power, and the ease with which they were able to enlist Greek armies, made the Romans very unwilling to go to war with them. When, however, the troops engaged in Lucania were surrounded on all sides by guerillas, Rome was obliged to send them their supplies by sea, notwithstanding the treaty concluded about twenty years before, which had imposed mutual limits upon that element. The Romans must under actual circumstances have found it unnatural: they might plead that at that time Venusia was not yet theirs; and that by founding this colony, they had tacitly acquired the right of sailing beyond the Lacinian headland. It seems, however, that they also wished to try how long the Tarentines would wait before they made war. This is what is more likely; for according to a notice from a lost book of Livy, which Zonaras confirms, the Tarentines endeavoured to call into life a great coalition against the Romans, with which even the expedition of the Gauls against Arretium is said to have already been connected. Certain it is, that they wished for one; but each single people came but slowly into it. The Romans sent a squadron of ten triremes under the _duumvir navalis_,[158] L. Valerius, to the roadstead of Tarentum. All the Greek theatres had, if possible, a view of the sea, or at least they faced it; thus it is at Tusculum, and even at Fæsulæ: in these the people assembled, as at Rome in the forum. Among the Greeks, it was less customary to meet together in the ἀγορά, which was a mere place of business: they felt more comfortable in the theatres where they could sit down. These were open every day, and if any one had something to say to the people, he got up upon the stage and spoke from thence. Unhappily for Tarentum, the people was just assembled in the theatre, when the Roman ships steered towards the harbour: had it not been there, the history of the world would have taken another turn; the στρατηγοί would most likely have requested the Romans to go back, and nothing would have followed from the expedition. The people excited one another, and without even coming to any resolution, they all of them ran down to the harbour, pulled the galleys into the water, manned them, and fell upon the Romans without the least warning: two or three ships only saved themselves; most of them were sunk, Valerius himself was killed. Almost all the Tarentines, who had never before seen a Roman army, were now exulting in their victory.

In Rome, this event gave rise to great dismay. They knew there that the whole of Italy was fermenting, and they saw for certain that the Tarentines relied upon a general outbreak; we find distinct traces which show, that not even the Latin people was trusted; the Prænestines, especially, were again ripe for a rising. For this reason, it was a very critical affair for the Romans. Instead of declaring war, they sent an embassy to the Tarentines, to protest in the face of the whole world; so that every one might see that vengeance was only delayed, and not given up. Delegates were also sent to some of the allies north of Tarentum, partly to keep them in their faith, and partly to demand hostages. Among these was C. Fabricius, who, in violation of the law of nations, was arrested, as it seems, by the Samnites. At Rome the greatest exertions were now made: they wished to overawe the enemy, without having at once to begin the war. At the head of an embassy to Tarentum was L. Postumius. A reckless, excitable, giddy people, as the Tarentines were, must have felt their courage rising, when the hated Romans showed themselves frightened; L. Postumius did not gain any thing by his demand that the Tarentines should give up the guilty parties, and indeed the Romans could hardly have expected it. Unfortunately, it was the time of the Dionysia, the feast of the vintage. The ambassadors in democratical Tarentum were not brought before the senate, but before the people, in the orchestra; here they had to speak from below to those above them, instead of haranguing, as they were wont, from a raised platform: this was of itself quite enough to make them feel embarrassed and fidgetty. The whole town was intoxicated; drunken sots and impudent fellows laughed at every blunder which the ambassadors made in speaking Greek: one of them even went so far as to befoul the _toga prætexta_ of Postumius. He did not lose his self-command, but showed the Tarentines the abominable insult which had been done to him, and loudly complained of it. At this sight, the drunken populace broke out into a much more violent laughter. Then Postumius, shaking his garment, said, I prophesy, ye people of Tarentum, that ye shall wash out this stain with your heart’s best blood.

The ambassadors returned without the satisfaction which they had demanded, without even an answer; and they insisted in the Roman senate upon immediate vengeance. But many senators advised caution, and were for waiting until more favourable circumstances presented themselves; the people also, which was labouring under great distress, was at that time against the war, and thus, when it was first proposed, the measure was thrown out. Fresh negotiations, backed by an army, were to be set on foot. Afterwards, however, it was resolved notwithstanding, to send the army to the frontiers of Tarentum, the consul L. Æmilius Barbula having instructions, when on his march through Lucania, also to attack Tarentum. In that city likewise, there were two parties, one of them mad for war, and the other prudent; the former were aware that the only way of carrying on the war was by calling over into their country a foreign prince, and this could be no other than Pyrrhus of Epirus, who kept a standing army. But then it was to be foreseen, that Pyrrhus, if victorious, would make himself king of Italy, as he was much more powerful than Alexander of Epirus. The aristocracy at Tarentum wished for a union with Rome, that they might bridle the unruly populace; but those who were in power had so lost all common sense, that instead of protecting, as heretofore, the Italiote towns, they made common cause with the Lucanians, and, giving warning to Thurii, an open colony of the whole of Greece, that their protection was withdrawn, they left it to the mercy of its foes. This venerable town, distinguished for its great men, was now taken and sacked by the Lucanians: the Romans conquered it at a later period, but it never recovered. When Barbula appeared before Tarentum, peace would perhaps have been concluded, had not the Tarentines already entered into negotiations with Pyrrhus. These had not yet led to any definitive result, when the Romans, laying every thing waste before them, arrived before Tarentum. On this a _proxenus_ of the Romans, Agis, offered himself for the office of στρατηγός, that he might mediate; but just as he was about to undertake the task, the news came that Pyrrhus had accepted the terms proposed to him. Agis was dismissed, and the war began.

Pyrrhus was at that time in his thirty-seventh year, the very prime of life; none of his contemporaries in an age in which neither night nor property was sure, had seen so many vicissitudes as he. For an able man, the finest thing on earth is a career of activity and strife. That which he himself has won, a man may well call his own; to enter quietly into a settled possession, is what any one can do. But action may also be overstrained, so that a person may lose all power of calmly enjoying what he has. Such characters are Charles XII. and Pyrrhus, men who, when they happen to be on the throne, are disastrous to their subjects, and dangerous to their neighbours.

In the Peloponnesian war, the kingdom of the Molossians had been first raised from its insignificance by Tharyps, who had been brought up at Athens. The princely race of the Molossians branched from Philip into two lines, that of Arymbas, and that of Neoptolemus, the father of Olympias. This younger branch, by the influence of Macedon, came into the possession of the throne. By Philip the country had been enlarged in favour of the relations of his wife; Thesprotia and Chaonia seem already to have belonged to it. Afterwards Æacidas, the father of Pyrrhus, of the elder branch, obtained the crown. The lawful power of these Epirote kings, like that of the sovereigns in the middle ages, was very much bounded. Aristotle compares them to the kings of Lacedæmon; but the following of soldiers which they had, was by no means always inconsiderable: tempted by this power, Æacidas, contrary to the general wish of his subjects, meddled in a great many matters. He had attached himself to Olympias, although he had formerly been driven out of his kingdom by the usurpation of his cousin Alexander of Epirus, and he had with singular generosity identified himself with the fate of that fury: by this he incurred the enmity of Cassander, who co-operated in expelling him from Epirus. At that time, Pyrrhus was two years old. Cassander wanted to exterminate the whole family, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the child was saved by faithful servants. He was brought up by Glaucias, the prince of the Taulantians, although the latter had been on terms of enmity with Æacidas. Glaucias grew so fond of the boy, that he did every thing in his power to protect him against Cassander. Pyrrhus was hardly grown up, when he went to the court of Demetrius Poliorcetes, and of old Antigonus, the One-eyed: in this school his extraordinary talent as a general was developed. Demetrius was indeed a great genius spoiled. Here Pyrrhus preserved his moral dignity amidst a most infamous crew. He was, by Demetrius, nominally restored as king of the Molossians; but according to the fashion of the age, he was the vassal of the greater king, and had to serve in his army, like the other petty princes of Epirus. He was with Demetrius and Antigonus in the battle near Ipsus Ol. 119, 4, in which the empire of Antigonus was overthrown, and himself killed: Pyrrhus was at that time sixteen years old. After this battle had been won by the allies, these began to quarrel; and the crafty Demetrius soon found an opportunity of making up with Ptolemy Soter, who, in dividing the spoil, had fallen out with his old friend Seleucus, with Cassander, whom he had ever hated, and likewise with Lysimachus to boot. Pyrrhus was sent to Alexandria to treat with Ptolemy, and was given as a hostage for the fulfilment of the conditions. He had something peculiarly fascinating about him: his wonderful talents were of the most varied kind, and Heaven had endowed him with the most enchanting amiability and beauty. These qualities he now used for his patron’s best advantage, as well as for his own. The Epirote towns were lost in the meanwhile, and his dominions had to all appearance fallen into the hands of Neoptolemus, a son of Alexander the Molossian. But Pyrrhus gained the favour of Ptolemy and Berenice, and was married to Antigone a daughter of Berenice by her first marriage. With the help of Ægyptian money, he was again put in possession of his throne; the attachment of the people soon rid him of his rival Neoptolemus, though for this he employed, it is true, a certain unjustifiable means, the like of which was so much in vogue during the sixteenth century. He now tried to settle himself, for which Fortune soon gave him an opportunity. Cassander died, and left sons behind him, who were enemies to each other: one of these yielded to Pyrrhus, in return for his protection, Ambracia, Amphilochia, and the Epirote provinces which had until now been united with Macedon. This was of the greatest importance to Pyrrhus: now, for the first time, Epirus deserved to be called a state. Pyrrhus indeed did help his ally; but the latter fell by his own fault, and Pyrrhus remained master of the provinces. Demetrius Poliorcetes now also got again upon the throne of Macedon; and with him, Pyrrhus, at first, stood on the same friendly terms as of old. But Demetrius was an encroaching, grasping prince, and thus it was not long before war broke out between them. The oriental pride and haughtiness of Demetrius gave offence to the Macedonians: they fell off from him, and Pyrrhus leagued himself with Lysimachus. The people declared for them, and they divided the country between them. But this division again roused the spirit of the Macedonians: Lysimachus was a native, Pyrrhus a foreigner, for which reason he was cast off by the inhabitants of the district which had fallen to his share. The period of the loss of Macedon is generally dated several years too soon.

Pyrrhus was not stubborn against fortune: he carried on war as an art; if his stars were unkind, he would give way. War was his happiness and his life; he raised the science of generalship to its utmost height; in his method of battle array, he was a mighty master. A fragment of Livy in Servius, according to a safe emendation, says, _Pyrrhus, unicus bellandi artifex, magisque in prœlio quam in bello bonus_: the result of the campaign was what interested him least. Some generals have a talent for making the disposition of a battle; but they either do not know at all how to plan a campaign, or, when they have won a battle, they get tired of the thing; others show a remarkable turn for the arrangement of the whole campaign, but are less successful in battles. To the former class belongs the Archduke Charles of Austria, as he himself acknowledges in his strategical writings: Pyrrhus also cared so much for the pleasure of winning in the game of war, that he scarcely ever followed up a battle which he had gained. It may even have been painful to him, afterwards to annihilate a beaten foe, when there was no longer any skill in destroying him. This betokens a fine soul, but the object of the war is in this way lost sight of.

Pyrrhus now took up his residence in Ambracia, and embellished it as a real city of kings. When the Tarentine ambassadors now made their appearance, and concluded with him a treaty of subsidies, in which very likely much remained unsettled; Pyrrhus quickly sent over Cineas with three thousand men, that he might get a firm footing, and prevent any revulsion in the anger which had been aroused by the devastations of the Romans. Cineas, like his princely friend, was an extraordinary man; he stood by the side of Pyrrhus as one who was quite free, and had attached himself to him from inclination, and with all his heart. He was from a people which has produced no other distinguished man, being of Larissa in Thessaly, probably an Aleuad; and he is called a pupil of Demosthenes: this is only barely possible, as Demosthenes had now been dead forty years already. Perhaps this statement merely rests on a mistake; as he may indeed have been spoken of as a _sectator Demosthenis_. Few at that time might have still been able to appreciate Demosthenes; a man like Cineas understood him, and drew inspiration from his writings. How Cineas became the friend of Pyrrhus, we cannot tell.

The Tarentines delivered up their citadel to Cineas, who, with great adroitness, did every thing to keep them in good humour, so as to blind them with regard to the views of Pyrrhus; he allowed them to go on living merrily; they did not arm themselves, and he quite won their confidence. Pyrrhus had not much might of his own; but from several neighbouring princes he managed to get elephants, engines, ships, and other necessaries of war;--from Ptolemy Ceraunus, he had five thousand Macedonian soldiers:--he was a thorn in the side of every one of them, and they were all glad that he went so far away. He is said to have gone over with twenty thousand foot, four or five thousand horse, and a number of elephants: how many there were of these, we are not told. Early in the year, he was ready; but he had a very bad passage, owing partly to the imperfect navigation of the time, and still more to the circumstance that the Epirotes were even less skilled in steering a ship’s course than the Greeks. Moreover, the sea about the Ceraunian rocks had then, as it has to this very day, a bad name for sudden squalls; the swell from the Adriatic to the Syrtes, which is almost like the great Mexican gulf-stream, made the voyage across a hazardous one. Several ships of his fleet were lost, others were driven out of their course; he himself, with a great deal of trouble, reached the Sallentine coast, at which all who had escaped came together. He made all haste to get to Tarentum, which opened its gates to him; but he had hardly collected his scattered fleet, when he took very serious measures with the people there. He saw that his army alone was not strong enough for his designs, and yet an enlistment was too expensive; he therefore had the gates shut, and he raised a levy from among the Tarentines, whom he forced to serve in his phalanx. They were highly displeased at this, many tried to escape; but he redoubled the strictness of his measures, put a stop to the gymnasia and other public meetings, and soon showed himself to be a tyrannical master. The Tarentines had indeed been mistaken in their expectations. They would have treated Pyrrhus, as they did princes who had formerly been called over; they wanted to stay at home, while he carried on the war. But Pyrrhus could do no such thing; his territory was but small, and the war promised to be a bloody one: he therefore demanded the co-operation of the Tarentines. These began to grumble; but they were quite powerless against him, as he was in possession of the citadel. He was thus driven to have recourse to harsh police regulations. Only a consular army under P. Valerius Lævinus withstood him.--The history of the time, with the exception of Pyrrhus’ campaigns, is very little known to us: probably Rome employed a large force against Etruria, in order to bring it to a definite peace. The whole of Italy was thrown into a state of fermentation: the Romans took hostages from those allies who could not be relied on, trying however, nowhere to betray any fear; and they raised great armaments. But it is inconceivable how they could have ventured to send only a consular army against Pyrrhus, who moreover every where gained people over by his manners and address. He is, among all the barbarian kings, the only character fraught with all the brilliance of the old Hellenism; and, although not without faults, he was a being of a higher order, and able to achieve great things with small means. The Samnites and Lucanians had sent ambassadors to him already in Epirus; the Apulians, and several Italian peoples joined him immediately after his arrival; but this did not, for the moment, lead to any increase of his power. The proconsul L. Æmilius Barbula was stationed in Samnium, which he frightfully wasted, to prevent the Samnites from thinking of forming a junction with Pyrrhus against the army of Lævinus. A correspondence sprang up between Pyrrhus and Valerius Lævinus, in which the former offered to act as mediator between Rome and Tarentum. He may indeed have had a high opinion of the Romans, but he did not understand them after all; for the tone of his letters, as far as we know them, is entirely mistaken, so that no agreement took place. The Romans demanded satisfaction from him, for having, though a stranger, set his foot upon Italian ground. This seems to have been a national view of theirs. Valerius now went to Lucania. He wished for a battle, before a confederate army of Samnites and Lucanians could join the king; as most likely they were kept in check by the other consul. Pyrrhus had likewise marched against him, seeking to fight before the two armies formed a junction. He crossed the Siris in the neighbourhood of Heraclea, which is the finest country in this part of Italy, and may rank with Campania in fertility and wealth. He felt confident of victory, and he was bent on humbling the pride of the Italian allies, by beating the Romans without their help. The Romans seem to have gone on very slowly with their preparations; he distressed them very cleverly by cutting off their supply of food, and they were obliged to fight that they might not have to abandon that district, and to fall back upon Venusia, which was dangerous on account of the allies. The evening before the battle, Pyrrhus reconnoitred the Roman position, and was amazed at the order there. He was accustomed to fight against Macedonians and Greeks, or against Illyrians; now he saw the activity and the high state of training of the individual Roman soldier, and thus he became very serious at the thoughts of the impending battle. Here the contrary tactics of two excellent armies came into collision: on the side of the Macedonians, the system was then carried to the highest perfection, of acting in masses;[159] on the side of the Romans, that of a line which far outflanked the enemy. If the Epirote phalanx awaited the shock of the Romans unmoved, the latter could do nothing; but it was no easy work in cold blood to stand the furious charge of the Romans, the shower of their _pila_, and the fierce onset of their swords. Yet Pyrrhus had a great advantage in his Thessalian cavalry, that of the Romans being badly mounted and badly armed. The Roman army, to the astonishment of Pyrrhus, now forded the Siris, and fell upon him: on both sides, they fought with great fury. The Romans had never yet encountered any Macedonian phalanx. Seven attacks were repulsed: like madmen, they threw themselves on the _sarissæ_, in order to break through the phalanx, as did Arnold Von Winkelried. The day was not yet won; but the Roman cavalry was very successful in the beginning of the battle: the Epirotes were already wavering; another moment, and they would have been broken. At this crisis, Pyrrhus led forth his cavalry, which, contrary to all expectation, had before that been worsted by the Romans,[160] and also about twenty elephants with it: the Roman cavalry was terror stricken; the horses took fright and ran away. The Thessalian cavalry now dashed into the flanks of the legions, and cut them down with fearful bloodshed: many Romans were taken prisoners, especially horsemen. The overthrow was complete: the camp could not be held, and every one fled singly: had Pyrrhus pursued, the whole of the Roman army would have been annihilated, as were the French after the battle of Waterloo. But the Romans, and above all Lævinus, here again behaved admirably: they collected their forces, as Frederic the Great did after the battle of Kunersdorf, and retreated to Venusia. This alone could have been the place in Apulia of which Zonaras speaks; were it not for this stronghold, they would have had to go across the mountains as far as Luceria. It was now shown how excellent was the plan of making Venusia a colony; but for this, not a Roman could have escaped, as the Samnites and Lucanians would have destroyed them. The Italian allies reached Pyrrhus after the battle only. Hereupon Pyrrhus at first expected Roman ambassadors; but as he did not hear of any thing from the Romans, who, on the contrary, made new armaments, he put himself in motion. The direct road to Rome lay open before him; he therefore left the Roman armies on one side, and marched upon the capital, as he held that most sound principle of always trying to end the war soon. But as he advanced, he found himself dreadfully mistaken about the condition of the country: Rufinus had been joined by the remnants of Lævinus’ army; and probably they had either cut their way through Samnium, or had gone to Rome through the territory of the Marsians and Marrucinians. Pyrrhus expected every where to find provisions for his army; but he was struck with dismay, when he saw the state of Lucania, and especially of Samnium. According to a newly discovered fragment, he told the Samnites that they had deceived him, and that their country was a wilderness. He could therefore advance but slowly. He approached Capua, which, however, with praiseworthy fidelity shut its gates against him; near Casilinum, he must have crossed the Vulturnus; and he now tried to gain the Latin road, so as to reach the discontented towns, Præneste, Tibur, and others. He reckoned likewise on the Etruscans, perhaps also on the Gauls. Here we clearly see the hand of Providence. Had not the Boians been destroyed the year before by the Romans, the Etruscans would certainly have risen; but now they were confined to their own resources, and divided among themselves. On this occasion, the Romans must have shown great adroitness: they no doubt made with the Etruscans at this very moment συνθήκαι εὐδοκούμεναι, by which these were only bound to trifling services.