Chapter M: Livius Drusus, 340 (10)

Very soon after the end of the second Punic war, quarrels already began. Masinissa put forth impudent claims to the oldest Phœnician settlements, to the rich coast of Bysacene which the Carthaginians had possessed from the very first. Polybius says that those districts had belonged to Carthage as early as in the days of the Roman kings. This was so barefaced, that the Romans had not the hardihood to declare for him openly. Scipio Africanus went over as Roman commissioner and umpire. The facts were so glaring, that he could not possibly decide for Masinissa; yet he did not scruple with unjustifiable policy to refuse to give sentence, and thus Carthage and Masinissa remained at enmity with each other, and the Carthaginians must have felt convinced, that any active resistance would involve them in a war with the Romans: they were therefore obliged to confine themselves to the defensive. Their position was a most unhappy one; just like that of the states with which Napoleon had made peace in order to bring on their ruin, in which cases he set everything like truth at defiance. Unluckily for Carthage, Masinissa reigned upwards of fifty years after the peace of Scipio, and during the whole of his life played his game with Rome so cleverly, that her sad condition grew worse and worse. Already before the war with Perseus, soon after the death of Philip, they complained bitterly of Masinissa, who wrested from them one district after another. The Romans for the sake of appearances sent over arbitrators, who, however, allowed the affair to drag on and never decided anything. And the plot thickened so much, that at last it came to a war between Carthage and Masinissa, the date of which cannot be stated with chronological precision,--very likely, not quite so close upon the breaking out of the third Punic war.[56] The territory of Carthage at that time was about as much as modern Tunis, and the western part of Tripoli; Masinissa, by his continual conquests, was the lord of one of the mightiest kingdoms which the world then knew, and was much stronger than the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians had gathered together a considerable army under Hasdrubal, one of their generals; but their former disasters had not made them more warlike: they did not what Macchiavell had wished for his own native city, not having yet come to the conviction that they ought ever to rely on their own bravery, and likewise to lighten the lot of their own subjects: had it not been for this, the war might, after all, have taken quite a different turn. They had amended none of the faults of their military system, and they still carried on the war by means of mercenaries. Hasdrubal went out to meet Masinissa with an army of fifty thousand men; but he was quite an incapable general, and though the battle was not decisively lost, he looked upon himself as beaten, and retreated without securing his connexion with Carthage: he was, therefore, cut off, and now began to make offers of peace, which, however, Masinissa haughtily rejected. The latter would not consent to let go the army thus hemmed in, which hunger and distress had driven to extremity, until the Carthaginians gave hostages as pledges for the peace being kept, undertook to pay five thousand talents within fifty years, and recognised his encroachments upon them. When the defenceless and disarmed soldiers were now marching off, Gulussa, Masinissa’s youngest son, fell upon them, and cut most of them to pieces. Masinissa had the hostages, and so he still demanded that the peace should be kept, and even complained to the Romans of the Carthaginians not being disposed to abide by it. The Romans had already for some time turned their attention again to Carthage, very likely on account of the flourishing state of its trade, and because they had been told that stores of timber for building ships were heaped up in the arsenals: for though indeed this had been by no means forbidden in the treaties, the Carthaginians were thus able at a moment’s warning to build a fleet. Rome now called for the surrender or the destruction of this timber; and while the debates on the subject were going on, old Cato incessantly urged in the senate, that Carthage should be destroyed. The government of the world had given the senate an importance which made up for the loss of power at home from the growth of the democratic principle, and the senators felt more and more like kings. Now the senate, with regard to Carthage, was divided between two opinions,--the one of blind dogged hatred, that Carthage should be destroyed, at the bottom of which was the consciousness that Rome was the object of universal hatred; the other, that of P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, which held on the other hand that Carthage was a godsend, as nothing else could keep Rome well balanced. Nasica seems to have been fully aware of the actual condition of the state, and so were many others; but with regard to the remedy, opinions were divided. Some thought that there was no help for it, and that therefore one ought to go ahead, and make the most of a short life. Cato was one of these. Others, like Nasica, believed that the evil might at least be checked by superficial means, as a thorough reform could not perhaps be carried out. A small party, which afterwards came forward with Tib. Gracchus at its head, tried to root out the disease by desperate remedies. Whether this justice to Carthage in Nasica sprang indeed from a love of righteousness, is more than we can tell; yet it may be that the son of him who was called “the Best” wished to behave uprightly: certain it is that he was powerless, and the destruction of Carthage was decreed. When Masinissa had beaten the Carthaginians, and it was fancied that the end might be easily gained, the Romans began to reproach the Carthaginians for that war with Masinissa, as if it had been a breach of the treaty, when in fact it had only been a measure of self-defence. The Carthaginians in their alarm sent embassy after embassy, begging of the Romans to tell them what they were to do to preserve the peace. But they were put off with crooked answers, and assured that it was not meant to undertake anything against them, only they ought to do their best to give satisfaction to Rome. Resistance seemed so hopeless, that the utmost humiliation was a necessity for Carthage: there was peace in all the rest of the world, and Rome was fully at leisure.

In the year 603, two consular armies under L. Marcius Censorinus and M’. Manilius, amounting, it is said, to eighty thousand men, were sent in a large fleet to Sicily, and put on shore near Lilybæum. Thither also the last Carthaginian ambassadors were directed to repair, as the consuls were furnished with instructions. The Carthaginians saw that the Romans were bent upon their ruin, and that nothing was left to them, but to defend themselves to the last gasp; and yet the ambassadors still appeared before the consuls. These gave as their answer, that they could not then explain themselves; but that it was not the wish of the Romans to bereave them of their freedom, and that if they yielded to the commands which they would receive, they should retain their liberties: still, it was added, as they had too often already broken the peace, and as great preparations of theirs had been observed, and too many factions were at work among them, Rome was to have a guarantee; they should give three hundred children of the first families as hostages. These, to the despair of their parents, were sent to Sicily. Carthage had not a friend in the wide world: her very oldest allies became faithless; even Utica, which hitherto had always stood by her, now hopeless of her fate had thrown itself into the arms of the Romans, by whom it was received, although this was against the treaties. When the hostages were given, the Romans still sailed over to Africa, and landed, partly near Utica, and partly at the old camp of Scipio (_castra Cornelia_); here they took up a regular military position, and the consuls now summoned the magistrates of Carthage to receive their commands. They raised complaints that the Carthaginians had built ships beyond the number allowed by the treaty; that they had filled their arsenals with offensive weapons, which they meant to use against Rome only; and it was therefore required of them that they should surrender all their ships of war, and all the catapults, and that moreover they should deliver up all their arms and stores. Rome, it was also declared, would fully protect them, and the peace with Masinissa would be sanctioned. Hard as they felt this to be, the Carthaginians yielded to it; and the whole of the arms were brought on a thousand waggons, and under the eyes of the Roman commissioners, to the Roman camp. The Romans, on first landing, had demanded a supply of corn for their army, and received the grain from the magazines of the city, which was thus very nearly reduced to a state of famine. With this the Carthaginians thought to have done enough; but now the ambassadors received the last audience. They were led through the ranks of the whole army to the tribunal of the consuls, who now told them, that all that had been done betokened the good will of the Carthaginian government, yet that the latter was not even master of the town; that so long as this strong city was standing, Rome was not safe; and that Carthage therefore must be demolished, and its inhabitants were to build for themselves an open town in the inland country, two (German) miles away from the sea. When the ambassadors remonstrated, the consuls said that they had promised safety to the men, and not to the walls; that the people should not be harmed, and they might just as well live ten (Roman) miles from the sea as those who dwelt in Rome. The outbursts of rage and despair at this infamous deceit were of no avail; the last awful prayer was, that the consuls would, before the ambassadors returned, cause the Roman fleet to make its appearance before Carthage, to strike it with dismay. This was no treason in them; it was prompted by despair. Those among them who had advised their countrymen to yield, saw full well that, if they went home, they should fall victims to the rage of the people; and they therefore remained under the protection of the Romans. Those who came back, refused to answer the people, who had gone out to meet them, and they weeping brought the answer into the senate. It was resolved to die upon the ruins of the city; the gates were immediately shut, and all the Romans and Italians in the town were seized and tortured to death. This the consuls had not expected. They were indeed well informed men,--Manilius was even a highly distinguished jurist,--but they were unfit for war; it may be that the fate of the town appeared to themselves so dreadful, that their heart sickened, and they went to work without spirit. Had they at once advanced to the city, they would have taken it, and the misery been less; but they loitered in the camp, waiting till the Carthaginians should surrender. Things, however, took quite a different turn. The citizens made up their minds not to yield themselves up; they laid hold of everything that might serve as a weapon, and worked day and night with unexampled energy; the women gave their hair for the ropes of the catapults, the slaves were set free, the walls were manned, and the war declared. When the consuls saw that they had made a bad business of it, they wished to storm the town. But across that neck of land on which Carthage lay, it was fortified by a threefold wall, three miles long, forty-five feet (thirty πήχεις) high, and twenty-five feet thick, in which in former times there had been arsenals; and on the side towards the sea, there was one somewhat lower. Both of these the Romans tried to storm, but were beaten back. The country in the neighbourhood of the city was left to Hasdrubal, the general who had fought against Masinissa, and whom they had been obliged to sacrifice. This Hasdrubal, with an army of twenty thousand men, formed of outcasts and refugees, and acting independently, had ravaged the country, and at the same time had waged a war of pillage against Masinissa. He and all the rest who had been banished were reinstated, and Carthage appointed him as her general without the city.

This war is so dismal, that I can hardly bear to think of it, and still less to tell of it at any length. There is nothing more heartrending than this struggle of despair, which indeed could not end otherwise than in the destruction of the whole people, and that most miserably, but which yet must be gone through. At first, one is glad to see the discomfiture of the Romans, the whole might of the unskilful consuls being baffled by the despair of the besieged. The Carthaginians defended themselves bravely within the city: their commander is unknown; without, there were Hasdrubal and Himilco Phameas as partisans. The way in which the latter carried on the war, so as by means of diversions to give the town a free opening to provision itself, strongly reminds one of the achievements of Francesco Ferrucci at the siege of Florence by Charles V., in the years 1529 and 1530; who was at last taken prisoner and hanged by the Spaniards, whose behaviour there was like that of the French in Tyrol. But although Phameas distinguished himself very much as a military man, yet his end shows how great was the corruption of those times. After having done things which were so brilliant, that he ought to have felt called upon indeed to remain true, he entered into negotiations with the Roman consul; and he told his men that the fate of Carthage was decided, that every one must now take care of himself, and that he could pledge himself for the safety of all those who should join him. A few thousand men went over. The Roman senate did not blush to give this traitor splendid garments, money, landed estates, and other things of the same kind. This was a heavy blow for Carthage; and yet at this very time it seemed as if its fate was about to take a more propitious turn.

Masinissa again showed himself to be a base perfidious oriental. His faithfulness to Rome had hitherto been quite natural, as to this connexion he owed his greatness; but now he had rather see Carthage saved than destroyed, although still weakened. He could not shut his eyes to the fact that if Carthage was once a Roman province, he should no longer be able to fleece it; and that moreover, as the Romans held the maxim _bella ex bellis serendi_, they would soon find a handle for quarrels: for if Carthage was no more, they would then have no reason whatever for sparing him. And thus mistrust betrayed itself between him and the Romans: he sent no troops, but merely asked what they wanted? Offended at this, they told him that they would let him know it in time, and thereupon he answered that he would wait for it. Yet they afterwards called upon him for his help, and it was granted them. He even began to treat with Carthage, wishing that it would unconditionally throw itself into his arms. This is a thing which often happens in eastern history: the same bashaw, for instance, who had stirred up the Sultan against Ali Pacha, would at last, when he was weakened, have been glad to see him saved. After the death of Masinissa, his son Gulussa was very suspicious of the Romans. Had the Carthaginians thrown themselves into the arms of Masinissa or his son, these would have declared for them, and it is very possible that the Roman rule in Africa would then have been broken.

The attacks on Carthage were left off, the siege was raised, and the two consuls confined themselves to waging war against Hasdrubal and Himilco. But Hasdrubal defeated the consul Manilius, who was obliged to fall back with his army to Utica: on this occasion P. Scipio first distinguished himself. In the following year (604), the consuls L. Calpurnius Piso and L. Mancinus came over, and carried on the war in a very bungling manner. Hasdrubal posted himself at Nepheris, a fortified place a few days’ marches from the city, and every attempt to drive him out was unsuccessful; and what is really astonishing, the sea was open to the Carthaginians, although they had no fleet, and they continued to get supplies from thence. The bad progress of the war, in which the Romans took only single towns, was the amazement of the whole world, and it strengthened the belief that the Nemesis for Rome’s ambition would at length appear. At the same time happened the rising in Macedonia under the pseudo-Philip; the Spaniards also roused themselves to new hopes, and the Carthaginians tried to stir up commotions every where. This general agitation, which reached far into Asia, gave Carthage the courage to hold out, and not to enter into a league with the Numidians.

The Romans were so much the more ashamed, as such base conduct as theirs had been towards Carthage could not but rise up in judgment against them; and therefore their dissatisfaction with the generals was very great. In the year 605, P. Scipio was chosen consul. He is in the classical ages never called Æmilianus, although the analogy of this appellation is quite correct; but he is spoken of as _P. Scipio, Paulli filius_. Thus it is always in Cicero, there being no manuscript which has Æmilianus: in the _fasti_, this surname is always of modern interpolation.[57]

Scipio is one of those characters, which have a great name in history, but of which we may ask, do they deserve their fame? I do not gainsay his great qualities: he is a distinguished general, a very eminent man in his day, and he has done many praise-worthy and righteous deeds. But he made a display of this worthiness; even quite ordinary acts of his were to be cried up as great achievements: one really blushes for the age in which such things could have been given out as being above common. From what we are told by his teacher and friend Polybius himself, who loved him dearly, we may see that he also thought that there was much in him which was mere ostentation. He had received from Polybius a most varied education, and had been particularly instructed by him in the art of war. Besides this military ability, he was remarkable as a political character: he was one of those who were for upholding the existing state of things; he found himself comfortable in it; for him what was established was all right, and he did not trouble himself with asking whether it might not have been wrong in its origin. Perhaps he looked upon the condition of the republic as so hopeless, that he believed, that any change must have shaken it: such views are held by many otherwise true-hearted and honest men. In no respect is he to be compared to the elder Scipio, who was a man of real genius, and felt himself to be far above all his contemporaries, so that with great love for his countrymen, he had hatred against any one who wanted to put himself on a par with him. The latter was artless, even to rashness; whereas, on the contrary, his adopted grandson was a made up man, in whom genius was wanting. The education of the younger Scipio was much more finished than that of the elder one; for he had all the knowledge of a well instructed Greek, and he lived with the most distinguished men, such as Polybius and Panætius. He allowed himself to be employed by his nation for two terrible destructions, which were quite against his feelings; yet he did not all he could to prevent them: the elder Scipio would not have destroyed Carthage. Besides which, his behaviour towards his brother-in-law Tib. Gracchus is altogether blameable: for with all his influence and might he backed the thoroughly bad party; whence also he was so much hated by the people, as was seen at his death. The introduction to the _Somnium Scipionis_ is not to be considered as historical by any means: the very fact that he had first come to Africa as a military tribune under Manilius and Censorinus, is incorrect; it is one of Cicero’s historical blunders. Cicero has treated him with particular favour. Thus it often happens that we identify ourselves with some personage in history or in literature; we learn to feel like him, and to feel as his case were ours, and we then ascribe to him quite a different character from that which is really his. Scipio’s position was not altogether unlike that of Cicero.

Whilst still very young, Scipio stood for the ædileship, instead of which he was chosen to be consul, although the _lex Villia annalis_ was then rigorously observed. The provisions of this law we cannot state for certain: they were not the same as in aftertimes; the statutes which were in force in Cicero’s days, dated from the age of Sylla. Nevertheless Scipio was elected consul by the unanimous voice of public opinion.

_a._ triple wall.
_b._ Byrsa.
_c._ harbour.
_d._ newly dug canal.
_e._ Megara (Magalia).
_f._ Roman Carthage.
]

Carthage was built on a peninsula, of which, however, it did not take up the whole, as indeed has been supposed, but only the southern half: this mistake arose from its having been said that the city was twenty-three (Roman) miles in circumference. It seems to have been entirely surrounded by a sort of breastwork. This is now known from the excavations of Colonel Humbert, who was several years in the service of the Dey of Tunis; but the results of his researches have not yet found their way into books.[58] (His papers fell into the hands of a downright adventurer, Count Camillo Borgia, who copied his drawings, and passed them off as his own.) The old town of Carthage was so thoroughly destroyed, that no traces of it are found above ground;--the place on which it stood was laid under a curse, and therefore the later Roman Carthage was founded by the side of it;--yet there is still to be seen a quay built of great blocks of hewn stone, from which I had a piece broken off as a relic, which is, however, still lying at Leghorn. Where it faced the isthmus, the city, as has been remarked before, was fenced by a triple wall; next to this was the Bozra; on the south was the port, which was detached, as at Cadiz. The harbour (Cothon), which was dug out, had several basins with a narrow entrance, like the docks in London: from the offing one sailed into the harbour for merchant vessels, and from thence by a canal to the arsenal, which was situated on an island, and strongly fortified; round the basins, there were storehouses with the equipments for every ship. This port was of later origin; probably there was a third district also. In the course of time, there had likewise grown up a large suburb, Megara or Magalia, the situation of which cannot be exactly defined: it was quite covered with gardens, but was also surrounded by a wall. As the coast was very steep, it was difficult to land there. It is the present El Marsa. The Roman Carthage, founded again by C. Gracchus and Cæsar, was in this neighbourhood, as may be clearly made out from the antiquities, which are brought to light there. The only Carthaginian relics to be found in it, are tombs; which is easily accounted for, as it lay outside of the city.

Appian is the only source, which gives us the details of this war. Fortunately he has copied from Polybius; for otherwise he is below criticism. Yet even then, his account, like that of Zonaras, is very obscure and unconnected. We merely gather from thence that Scipio landed on the outer part of the peninsula, where he took up his position, and made himself master of the suburb; so that Carthage was confined to the old town and the harbours. About a year before his consulship already, a Roman officer had discovered the possibility of landing at Megara, and of taking possession of it; and by this means Carthage was brought to great distress, as a large part of the provisions used to come in that way. Nothing could be done against the walls on the landside; Scipio, therefore, directed his attack against the side from the bay with redoubled energy. In the meanwhile, the Carthaginians summoned Hasdrubal to the city, and he entrenched himself on the isthmus before it; but when the suburb was taken, he threw himself panic-struck into the town, and the Romans occupied his fortified camp; so that the Carthaginians were entirely hemmed in. Another Carthaginian general, Bithyas, had remained in the interior of the country; and he behaved admirably, always supplying the city with provisions, which he conveyed to it through the very midst of the unwieldy Roman ships. To cut off from Carthage this support, Scipio now chose as a last expedient, the gulf being shallow, to choke up the mouth of the harbour by running a dam across; and this was so much the easier, as the swell, when coming from the Syrtes, carries with it a good deal of mud. The harbour has ceased to exist; yet one may still very distinctly make out its site and shape from the silt which has been washed in. From the dam, Scipio tried to batter the wall of the harbour with his engines: the desperate struggles of the Carthaginians to hinder this, beggar all description. The greatest feat which they accomplished, was the building of a whole fleet of fifty triremes in the arsenal, and then,--as the latter was connected by a canal with the outer harbour, the entrance of which Scipio was endeavouring to block up,--digging from thence an outlet on the other side to the sea, by which they brought out their ships to attack the Roman fleet in the gulf. Polybius (in Appian) justly remarks, that, if at that moment they had fearlessly fallen upon the Roman fleet, they would undoubtedly have destroyed it, as the Romans had utterly neglected their naval concerns. Unhappily, they slackened after their more than human effort, and, lingering for some days, irretrievably lost time, and with it all the fruits of their labour: the Romans got their ships ready as well as they could, and thus the Carthaginians were driven back, particularly by the Græco-Asiatic ships of Sida, which fought quite in a way of their own. Four of these small vessels would cast anchor, on which they swung round as on a pivot, and thus defended themselves against the Carthaginians, an example which was followed by the others. The Carthaginians retreated. The next day, they wished to renew the attack: but they got foul of each other in the narrow entrance, the canal, which they had dug, being unfortunately not wide enough, and the Romans bore down upon them, and drove them against the wall of the harbour; so that this gigantic undertaking was again baffled. The Carthaginians now saw nothing but ruin before their eyes. Scipio first took the harbour for merchantmen, and from thence he advanced through the canal against the arsenal. Thus the city was conquered bit for bit, and the Romans made their way as far as the arsenal; as this could not have been held, the Carthaginians, perhaps too hastily, at once set fire to it, and then to the storehouses for the ships. The Romans were in possession of both harbours, and the fight was for the old city, Bozra (Byrsa), which had no walls on that side, but only leant upon the threefold wall on the isthmus: from the harbour, three large streets led up to the Byrsa, and in these the rich and the old families seem to have lived:--one may still trace in the description the gradual development of the city. The houses there were most of them seven or eight stories high, with flat roofs. (We must look upon Carthage as having been with regard to art and beauty like the fine towns of Greece, but with much more of Roman grandeur and massiveness: the building of stately streets is ascribed to them by the Romans as a thing peculiarly their own; the Greeks knew nothing of it.) There was now the same struggle as at Saragossa. House after house was defended and taken; the enemy broke through the party-walls, they fought from room to room, and when they had forced their way up the stairs, and driven the unfortunate inmates from the last stories, they tried to throw bridges from the roofs across the streets. The superior strength of the Romans assured them the victory, besides which, a most fearful famine was raging in the city where people were already feeding on dead bodies: and yet the besieged would not hear of surrender, though indeed such a thing could hardly have been mooted, as Hasdrubal had treated the Roman prisoners with the most horrible barbarity. When, after much bloodshed, part of the city was already taken, the Romans stopped short, and set fire to the buildings; on which the Carthaginians, fleeing before the flames, pulled up the houses, and thus raised up a huge mound of rubbish against the wall and the citadel: the harrowing description of this fire is evidently from Polybius, the unfortunate eye-witness of the horrors which now took place. The soldiers deliberately buried the wounded alive under the ruins! Thus the old town was reached, and now every one tried only to save himself; the priests went as suppliants with signs of truce, and begged for mercy: Scipio then caused it to be announced that the lives of those who would come out should be spared. On this, the people which still survived, fifty thousand in number, came forth; the Roman deserters only, with Hasdrubal and his family, retreated to the highest part of the citadel, a most hallowed place which was called Ἀσκληπιεῖον. Hasdrubal was base enough to sue for his life; but his wife slew her children, and cursing him, even from the pinnacle of the temple, threw herself into the flames, an example which was followed by the deserters. Thus Scipio became master of a heap of smouldering ruins drenched with blood. Much must, however, have been preserved, as he took from the temples many Sicilian trophies, which he sent back to that island. Neither Tarentum nor Capua had been destroyed by the senate; but Scipio had to raze Carthage to the ground at their command. He now completed the work already begun, and drove a plough-share across the site as a sign of its everlasting desolation: the army, when it went away, left only that utter wilderness in the midst of which Marius seated himself sixty years afterwards. The prisoners were treated with more or less humanity: most of them were sold for slaves, some also were slain; a few of those of higher rank met with a better fate, and were distributed among the Italian towns. Bithyas was one of these; their race and their name perished from the earth. The Romans, whose forefathers had put to death the great C. Pontius, spared the life of Hasdrubal: he was kept for the triumph.

Carthage had stood for seven hundred years. Part of its territory was given to the Numidian kings, the three sons of Masinissa; the rest became a Roman province, under the rule of a proconsul or prætor.

THE PSEUDO-PHILIP. THE ACHÆAN WAR. DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH.

When Carthage was overpowered, the Macedonian war was already ended, and Corinth near its downfall. The Macedonian war of Andriscus is a striking example of the way in which the whole of a people may be taken in. The false Demetrius, as he was called, was in the opinion of those who knew history well, by no means an impostor: but he had been brought up in Poland, had gone over to the Roman catholic religion, and had adopted European manners; whence the mistrust which he met with in Russia. There is a very strong likelihood that one of the Sebastians in Portugal, was the true king: (Lessing, in the “_Literatur briefe_,” has also written a masterly article on this subject, though it was one which was out of his beat.) But Andriscus was really an impostor, most likely a Thracian gladiator; heaven knows how he could have dreamed of the venturesome idea of giving himself out as the son of Perseus: perhaps he bore some likeness to him. Such personifications are not unseldom attempted in the East; in Europe, some instances of the kind are met with in the middle ages. The war had already broken out when Scipio became consul, perhaps even a year before: (the destruction of Carthage was in the time of his proconsulship.)

Perseus and his sons were, after the triumph of Æmilius Paullus, sent as prisoners to Alba on the lake Fucinus, where they were treated in a way which clearly showed that their extinction was determined on. The king did not outlive this cruel usage more than two years; he had so childishly clung to life, that he would not listen to the hints of Æmilius Paullus, to take it himself: they probably killed him by constantly disturbing his sleep. His eldest son died in the same manner; the youngest lived in the most abject degradation. Being clever, he learnt the Latin language, and earned his daily bread as clerk to the municipal council of Alba: beyond this, we have no further trace of him.

During the Carthaginian war, Andriscus now set forth that he was a son of Perseus, and he found a party in Macedonia; being, however, unable to stand his ground, he went to Demetrius in Syria, and was by him given up to the Romans. Such an act is just what one would have expected from Demetrius, who had every reason to do his best to regain his footing with the Romans, now that he had only just escaped being punished by them. He had fled indeed from Rome after the death of his brother Antiochus Epiphanes, to secure the throne; and the Romans had sent commissioners to Syria, on hearing that the Syrians, contrary to the existing treaties, were keeping elephants, and had moreover built a greater number of ships than they were allowed. One of these commissioners was slain in a riot at Laodicea, and Demetrius, with great difficulty, turned aside the vengeance of the Romans, by yielding up the murderers and killing the elephants. Under these circumstances, it was but natural that Andriscus was given up. At Rome, this man was, as an adventurer, held in such contempt, that he was not properly guarded; and he again made his escape. He came to Thrace, where the Romans were already feared and hated; all sorts of people flocked to him there, and he made an inroad into Macedon. A war in that country was very inconvenient to the Romans, who were engaged in their enterprise against Carthage, and had no troops in the north of Greece. To the amazement of every body, Andriscus routed the Macedonians on the eastern bank of the Strymon; he then crossed the river, and beat them once more, whereupon they all joined him. His success was quite wonderful; he put on the diadem under the name of Philip. Things must at that time have been in a very dismal state in Macedon. The Romans had brought in the wretched republican constitution, and the most eminent men had been led away to Italy; so that the people, who from the earliest times had been accustomed to kingly rule, eagerly caught at this hope of bettering its lot. In Thessaly also, he found partizans. Nasica, who happened to be there, got together the contingents of the Greeks, and with their aid repulsed Philip when he invaded it: at that time, therefore, the Greeks were still faithful. Andriscus was a tyrannical fellow at bottom: Polybius calls him στυγνὸς ἀνήρ. Yet he knew how to make himself respected: his armaments were on an extraordinary scale, and he ventured to wage war even against the Roman prætor, P. Juventius Thalna; after having beaten him, he marched once more into Thessaly. Matters looked serious enough: Q. Metellus, the prætor, was obliged to go with a large army to Greece, where he landed on the coast, which could not have been easily defended; in the meanwhile, the Achæans already showed themselves very mutinous, and the war, if it lasted, could not but lead to a rising. Metellus drove the king from Thessaly, who, like Perseus, fell back upon Pydna, followed by the Romans. The Macedonians, who were superior in numbers, divided their forces for a foray; and Metellus took advantage of this, and attacked and utterly routed them. The conquest of Macedonia in this insurrection was not, however, so easy as the former one had been; for many places held out, expecting a worse fate. On this occasion Pella must have been destroyed: Dio Chrysostom, in the first century after the birth of Christ, speaks of it as a ruined city; it now lies buried under mounds of earth, and is only to be traced by the row of hills which marked its site. Undoubtedly the most interesting antiquities might be found there, especially works of art; but unfortunately, the present condition of European affairs gives little hope of any thorough researches being made there so very soon. Andriscus was taken prisoner in Thrace, and put to death: Macedon became a regular province, and from henceforth a governor seems to have been constantly sent thither; its few remaining privileges were taken away.

Had the Achæans known what they wanted, the revolt of the pseudo-Philip would have been the moment for them to act: but they allowed themselves to be beguiled into folly and absurdity. Although we cannot disguise from ourselves, that the causes which hastened on the fall of Achaia, were disgraceful to the Achæans, yet it is a fact that its ruin made the condition of the survivors not better but worse; and this awakens our sympathy for them. And moreover, this degenerate people still had among them many excellent men. The Romans had for a long time been bent on the destruction of Achaia, and by means of traitors, such as Callicrates and Andronidas, they ruled there with unlimited sway; hence causes for grievances arose, and when these fellows had once gained a settled position, they too were no longer as ready to do the dirty work as before. The catastrophe was wholly brought on by one unhappy violent act of the otherwise excellent Philopœmen, a man who was justly called the last of the Greeks. He entertained from his very childhood a deadly hatred against Sparta, since Cleomenes had destroyed his native town of Megalopolis; and to bring down Sparta, was what he ever had most at heart. He took advantage of Rome’s being entangled in the war of Antiochus, to compel Sparta to join the Achæan league, and to adopt its customs and forms; for among the Achæans, unlike the other confederacies of the same kind in the ancient world, such a fusion existed. Achaia then comprised the whole of the Peloponnesus: that strange federal system was full as mischievous as that of our unfortunate German confederacy, in which the least of the petty princes has just as good a vote as he on whom the safety of the country hinges;--or as the state of things in America before the constitution of Washington, when Delaware with seventy thousand inhabitants, had an equal vote with Virginia, the population of which amounted to half a million; or as in the republics of the Netherlands, where Zeeland, which paid three per cent. of the taxes, had by its votes as much weight as Holland which paid fifty-eight per cent. This absurdity was the ruin of the Achæan league. Elis was a large town and country, while Lacedæmon, even after the sea-coast had been already severed from it, was yet greater than all Achaia; nevertheless, each of the twelve little Achæan townships, many of which were not larger than some of our German villages,[59] had just as many votes as Lacedæmon. But the second article was the most galling of all. Even as Sicyon had adopted the Achæan νόμιμα, which was all very well, so was Sparta likewise to do away with the laws of Lycurgus, to which it had clung with so much pride, and to put up with those of the Achæans: this was done some years before the war with Perseus. Spartiates, in the true sense of the word, there were none at that time, but only Lacedæmonians; the former had died away, and since the days of Cleomenes, the population of the town, which consisted of descendants of the Periœcians and Neodamodes, under the name of Lacedæmonians, stepped into the full rights of citizens. But as these Lacedæmonians had adopted the laws and the ἀγωγή of Lycurgus, and prided themselves in them, it was a great piece of cruelty in Philopœmen to force them to drop them again: for this was a change which was felt throughout the whole business of every day life. Moreover, there is not much to be said in praise of the Achæan forms, and however little good there may have been in the Spartan system, if it did nothing else, it made good soldiers. For these reasons, the Lacedæmonians strove to rid themselves of this hateful alliance, and there were long negotiations in consequence: yet it was still binding on them in the beginning of the seventh century, when even a Lacedæmonian, Menalcidas, was the general of the Achæan league.

About this time, some unlucky quarrels having arisen between the Oropians and Athenians, the former bribed Menalcidas with ten talents to help them. The assistance, however, came too late; notwithstanding which he exacted the money from them, and though he had previously promised part of it to Callicrates, he kept the whole for himself. From the charge which the latter brought against him, sprang all the woes which befell Achaia. Menalcidas did his utmost to sever Lacedæmon from the league, and he succeeded. At the time of the negotiations which took place about it at Rome, both Menalcidas and the Achæan ambassador deceived the people who had sent them: each of them carried home a false decision. It was just then the most unfortunate period of the third Punic war. Lacedæmon now severed itself, and a war broke out between the Achæans and Lacedæmonians, in which the latter had the worst of it: for Menalcidas was a wretched general, and they were so hard pressed that they had to consent to an agreement by which the Achæans got every thing that they wanted. Menalcidas laid hands upon his own life, and the Lacedæmonians again joined the Achæan league.

When the Romans, in the year 605, now saw that they were about to overthrow Carthage, they also took a different tone towards Achaia. The Achæans had acted in direct disobedience to them, and had thus drawn down their vengeance upon themselves, although they had remained faithful during the revolt of the pseudo-Philip, and had given them their aid. But the very prosperity of Achaia may have led the Romans to break it up. Its extent in those times cannot be stated with exactness: it very likely took in the whole of Peloponnesus and Megara, and although Attica, Phocis, and Locris did not belong to it, several places yet farther off, by having isopolity, were in the league; for instance, Heraclea, by mount Oeta, Pleuron, in Ætolia. The Roman commissioners, C. Aurelius Orestes and his colleagues, appeared at Corinth, and announced it to be the will of the Roman senate, that Lacedæmon should be declared independent; and that all the places, which, at the time of the alliance with Philip, had not belonged to Achaia, but had been under Philip’s sway, should be separated from it: these were Corinth, Orchomenus in Arcadia, Heraclea, Pleuron. (Whether Elis and Messene belonged to the same category, is more than we know, as Appian’s notices are so scanty: the _excerpta_ of Constantinus Porphyrogenitus will very likely still bring to light a great deal more of this period.) This was about the half of the Peloponnesus, and the most distinguished of their towns. The Achæan council, then assembled in Corinth, would not listen to the end of this message; they ordered the doors to be thrown open, and the people to be called together to hear the insolence of the Romans. The rage of the people was beyond all bounds: the Romans returned to their lodgings, without having gotten an answer; the citizens spread themselves about the town and fell upon the Lacedæmonians; everywhere the houses were searched to see whether any Lacedæmonian had hidden himself within, and not even that of the Roman ambassadors was spared. The first of these, Aurelius Orestes, was bent upon revenge; but the Roman senate was not yet inclined to inflict immediate punishment. We find it often stated that Corinth had been destroyed _ob pulsatos legatos_; this is not to be understood literally of personal violence, _pulsare_ being the technical expression for every violation of the law of nations. Even a derogatory _appellatio_ of the ambassador, by which his dignity was insulted, was termed _pulsatio_.

The Roman senate did not trust its allies, and again sent commissioners; so that the Achæans might have easily saved themselves by submission. The demand of the Romans was a most glaring injustice; but unhappily there is henceforward in all the dealings of the Roman people with foreign nations, nothing but insolence and unrighteousness. And yet, now that the moral interest of the Roman history is quite at an end, a new one begins: the history of Rome becomes neither more nor less than the general history of those ages, and the events in the latter which find no place in the former, are so insignificant that they cannot be made into an independent history. Now though the Achæans could hardly have succeeded in getting the Romans to desist from their demands, they ought at all events to have submitted to their will: it was madness to kick against it. But it was with them as with the ill-fated Jews, in that last struggle with the Romans of which we read the history in Josephus; those who had the language of freedom on their lips, were the fiercest tyrants of the nation. He who votes for yielding to necessity, is often held to be a vile traitor; the man, on the contrary, who is for risking everything, is looked up to as a lover of his country. The prophet Jeremy already had good reason to complain of the false prophets who beguiled the people to mad undertakings. Just so it was with the Achæans. Those among them who talked the most loudly of freedom, were by no means its best friends; the true patriots indeed were those who gave their advice for peace. The Romans were now still waiting for more favourable circumstances, as they were not in a condition to take the field, on account of the Macedonian and Punic wars: embassies therefore went backwards and forwards on both sides. Achaia had formerly been under the lead of Callicrates, one of its citizens, who had sold himself to the Romans; and it was now under the influence of a couple of madmen, Critolaus and Diæus, his most violent foes, who were for resistance, even to the last gasp. Critolaus amused the Roman ambassadors. As the Achæans only met twice a-year, he now sent to call one of these meetings, and promised to introduce the Roman ambassadors; but he secretly warned all the members not to come, and then declared that, according to the laws, a new assembly could not be held for six months.

The Achæans now armed themselves. Yet one can hardly conceive how so small and insignificant a people could have the madness even to dream of being able to stand against the Romans. During the fifty years which had elapsed since they had been under their protection, they had been quite inactive: they had only carried on petty and trifling wars, and as they had ceased to have a standing army, they had nothing but militia, which was still to be properly trained. They had spent their time, while they were well off, in sensual indulgence, and had neglected everything which they ought to have done for their armament; so that they were not prepared for the chance of a danger which might try their utmost strength, as may be seen from the newly discovered fragments of Polybius. A wanton luxury and moral degeneracy, the contemplation of which awakens most dismal thoughts, was now rife among them. They came, as we have said, to the resolution of waging war; and they were joined by the Bœotians and Chalcidians, the latter of whom may have feared for their newly recovered freedom. These transactions are, however, very obscure. The Ætolians did not take part with them, perhaps from revenge and a malignant joy at seeing the downfall of their rivals. Critolaus led a small army to Thessaly, in all likelihood with the hope that the false Philip would still be able to hold out, and that the Romans would thus be placed between two fires: for it was thought that the Macedonians would go on with the war, and that the Thessalians perhaps would rise in a body. But in Macedon all was over. Heraclea, which before had sided with the Achæans, was in fact separated from them by the Romans: an Achæan detachment, which had already penetrated through Thermopylæ, and was besieging Heraclea, quickly fled at the approach of Metellus and the Romans to the main army, and joined Critolaus, who had not yet reached Thermopylæ. Experience indeed had shown that this pass could be turned; yet the very place ought surely to have called upon the Greeks to die a glorious death: but they did the very worst thing that they could have done; for they made off in all haste for the Isthmus, and when near Scarphea,[60] Metellus came up with their rear-guard, being seized by a sudden panic, they were scattered like chaff before the wind. Critolaus disappeared: the most likely supposition is that he sank with his horse in the marshes on the sea-shore, though it is possible that they who told this, may also have meant by this mysterious account to designate him as the evil genius of Greece. The Romans now entered Bœotia, and fell in at Chæronea with the Arcadian contingent of one thousand men, which, at the tidings of the battle, was trying to retreat. The misery of Greece is described by Polybius, and we then see how unjust it was to this great man to have looked upon him as having no feeling for the fate of his native country. Metellus advanced towards the Isthmus. The whole population of Thebes had left it, and had fled for refuge to Cithæron and Helicon; Metellus took the town, and treated it with much forbearance: he wished to end the war, and to deal mildly with the Greeks. But that he could not do; for which the Greeks themselves, as well as their stars, are to be blamed. In almost all the towns it was the same as in Thebes; no one thought of making a stand. At the same time, a Roman fleet went to Peloponnesus, and, landing on the coast of Elis, barbarously ravaged the country, the Achæans not being able anywhere to protect their shores: the contingent belonging to those parts did not now go to the Isthmus; it tried to defend its own towns, but in vain. Diæus, who, on the death of Critolaus, had seized upon the office of _strategus_, and had posted himself near Megara, at the approach of Metellus, retreated to the Isthmus. Now indeed the Achæans might have made peace; for Metellus was a great soul, and had the safety of Greece at heart. He offered to negotiate; but Diæus, whose faction had the upperhand at Corinth, thought that he was able to maintain the Isthmus: reckless as he was, he scouted every proffer like a madman. How lucky it would have been if, like Papius Brutulus, he had thought of opening, by his own death, to his country, the prospect of tranquillity! It would then have been an easy thing for the Achæans to have gotten a peace, in which the existence of the single states would have been maintained.