Chapter M: Livius Drusus, 340 (6)

After Hasdrubal had led his troops into Italy, there still remained in Spain the two armies of Hasdrubal Gisgo and of Mago, which had been driven back to the Atlantic. Against these, Scipio carried on the war the rest of that year, and in the following one; but all the spirit of it had fled with the Barcine Hasdrubal. Mago tried only to keep Gades; Hasdrubal after a series of battles went over to Africa. In Gades, a city which wanted to be equal with Carthage, and yet was subject to her, treachery was brewing; they were engaged in a plan to give up Mago to the Romans. It was discovered and defeated: the magistrates were enticed out, and put to death. Mago, however, now received orders to withdraw from the place. He was to go to the Balearic isles, which seem to have revolted against Carthage; and from thence to Liguria, there to collect a force with which he was to support Hannibal in Italy, and also, at the same time, to raise troubles in Etruria. When the Spanish peoples saw that the Carthaginians had given them up, and that they were employing the last means in their power to squeeze out of them supplies for other wars, they refused to obey them any longer. To the inhabitants of Gades also, the severity which had been shown towards them, was only an additional motive for an everlasting separation; and they made an alliance with the Romans, to which some writers give an earlier date than we can possibly assume from the very connected account of Livy. This is a political falsification of history; the Gaditanians in fact pretended out of vanity to have concluded it immediately after Scipio’s arrival in the country. Scipio was still remaining in Spain in 545 and 546; the Carthaginians were quite driven out of it.

Yet the Romans had no firm footing in that country; for they only offered to its people, who had reckoned upon having freedom, a rule which perhaps was still more oppressive than that of the Carthaginians, with whom they had an opportunity of getting pay, as these employed mercenaries, whilst the Romans only occasionally took small bodies of Celtiberian troops into their service. The Romans also now revenged themselves on some towns which had behaved with particular fury against them. There happened at this period some horrible events, the outbursts of a fanaticism of bravery which is turned into madness. Such was the defence of Illiturgis and of Astapa. From the latter of these, all who were able to bear arms sallied forth, and fought to the last man; and at the same time, those who remained behind killed the women and children, and set fire to the town, laying hands on themselves also while it was burning.

While Scipio was now putting the province in order, which was still limited to Catalonia, Valencia, and Andalusia, an insurrection was planned among the Spaniards. Few of the Spanish states were republics; most of them were governed by princes, two of whom, Mandonius and Indibilis, after a long alliance with the Romans, had imbibed a furious hatred against them. Here also that nationality of the Spaniards which one meets with in all ages, displays itself in the wrath which all at once breaks out against the foreigners, whom they had wished from the beginning only to use as tools. These events are also remarkable for another reason, being the first traces of a state of things which long afterwards showed itself in a more decided shape, the tendency of the Italian allies towards equality with the Romans. Yet our accounts of them are incomplete, and do not hit the main point. Scipio was very ill; and a report got abroad of his death, at a time when there was stationed near Sucro an army of eight thousand men, consisting of Italian allies, and not, as Livy says, of Romans. These resolved to make themselves masters of Spain, and to found an independent state. The first pretext of this insurrection was the arrears of their pay, which, although it was taken from their own treasuries, they received much more irregularly than the Romans: on the whole, they felt that they were neglected, and yet they well knew, that there was no doing without them. They chose two from among themselves, an Umbrian, and a Latin from Cales, to be their generals, and even invested them with the consular insignia, which Zonaras mentions, though Livy says nothing about it: these took the command, and were entering into an understanding with the two Spanish princes. The crisis seemed most highly dangerous; but when the tidings of Scipio’s recovery reached the camp, they at once lost courage, and his personal character had such influence, that they abandoned every idea of an insurrection, and thought of nothing but making their peace. Scipio came down to Carthagena; he behaved as if he deemed them to be in the right, and intimated to them, that they might atone for their offence by serving against the Spanish princes; and that they were to go to Carthagena to receive their pay, either singly, or in a body. They determined upon coming in a body, as this seemed to be the safer plan, and they believed that everything had been forgiven them. And their minds were set quite at ease, when on the day before their entry into Carthagena, they met with a quartermaster, who told them that the Roman army was to march to Catalonia: thus they arrived in the evening, and were quartered in the suburbs, the officers in the town itself. The latter were invited to the houses of the most respectable Romans, and arrested during the night. The next morning, the Roman army, on which he could implicitly rely, made a show of marching out of the gates, and the mutineers were summoned to the _forum_ to get their pay: these had their suspicions completely lulled, and they came unarmed. But at the gates, the columns were ordered to halt; they occupied all the streets, and hemmed in the mutineers. Scipio now addressed these last, and told them what punishment they had deserved; yet he contented himself with having only the ringleaders, thirty-five in number, seized and put to death: the rest received their pay, and were let off. After this, the war against the Spaniards was easy. The two princes were pardoned on their oath to keep quiet.

Before Scipio had yet left Spain, he achieved a feat of romantic daring in going over to Africa to visit Syphax, the king of the Massæsylians, who lived in eastern and part of western Algeria, and whose capital was Cirta: the geography of those countries at the time of the Carthaginian rule, is one of the most obscure. Syphax was not tributary to the Carthaginians, but in that sort of dependence in which the prince of a barbarous people must be upon a very powerful and civilized state: he served them for pay, and felt altogether subordinate; sometimes he was quite at their disposition, at others, he fell away from them, after which, he would make peace again. Just then, he was at peace with them; but he had previously, when at war, made overtures to the Romans, and on his demand for Roman officers to train his troops, Scipio had sent over envoys with full powers. This, however, led to no results; for in the meanwhile peace had been concluded, and Syphax kept neutral. Scipio now ventured to cross over at his invitation, in the hope of forming an alliance with him, as he had, from the very first, entertained the just notion of attacking Carthage on her own ground. Here he actually met with Hasdrubal, son of Gisgo, at the same banquet. The object of the conduct of Syphax towards the Romans, was not to allow the Carthaginians to become too powerful, and to draw money out of them: that he let Scipio escape, is really to be wondered at.

In Spain, all was now ended, and Scipio returned to Italy, where, however, he was not granted a triumph, because while conducting this war, he had not held any curule office: every other mark of honour was shown him. He was still proconsul; before that, he had been ædile; he had not yet been prætor; nevertheless he now stood for the consulship, though he had not yet reached the age prescribed by law: the _leges annales_, by a very wise enactment, had been set aside for so long as the war should last. He was unanimously chosen by all the centuries; the nation longed to see the end of the war, and every one expected it from him. As far as we can see, this was nothing but one of those silly notions, by which the public are so easily taken in; the great men, it was said, were right glad that the war with Hannibal should drag on, as thus they could so much the oftener get for themselves the highest dignities. Scipio, who was the idol of the people, was withstood by the party of the grandees, of which Fabius is to be deemed the mainspring,--a party just like the one which Livy describes as having existed in Carthage against Hannibal. Yet one ought to be fair, even to that party. Old Fabius Maximus, perhaps already in his eightieth year, was at its head for more reasons than one; perhaps, even because, like every old man who sees his own brightness fading away, he was inclined to look upon the rising young men with unfavourable eyes. Scipio also, from the very circumstance of his being no common man, may have seemed to the Romans a very incomprehensible character; many may have been afraid that his good luck would make him reckless, as it did Regulus; others, that it might tempt him to overthrow the constitution. That this suspicion was utterly groundless, as far as it was founded upon Scipio’s personal disposition, may safely be asserted; yet we find it mentioned here and there,[29] that it was intended to make him consul or censor for life: had this been done, he would have been king, although, as things then were, this could not possibly have been brought about without bloodshed: yet it shows, that the mistrust, after all, was not without reason. Hence it was that a determined opposition manifested itself in the senate, to whose department belonged grants of men and money. Scipio tried to get Africa for his province; but they gave him Sicily, without allowing him any other troops but those which were there already: he, however, got leave to try his chance in an expedition with those who might voluntarily offer themselves. This conduct of the senate towards Scipio is an acknowledged fact, and by it Rome was very nearly on the point of losing again all the advantages of the war. This behaviour of the senate ought to be borne in mind, when its stedfastness in the war with Hannibal is spoken of.

The influence of Scipio’s personal qualities was now seen. In Italy there was famine and disease, and yet part of the Etruscan and Umbrian states, which were not obliged to bear any burthens whatever, and therefore, owing to the regard which the Romans then had for every sort of privilege, had remained in full vigour, whilst Rome had worn herself out, exerted themselves for Scipio, as much as if they had themselves to undertake a war. They built a fleet for him, and equipped it; Arretium gave him arms for thirty thousand men, and likewise money and provisions; from the Sabines, Picentines, Marsians, and other neighbouring peoples, a great number of veterans and young discharged soldiers volunteered to serve under him. Thus he got a considerable fleet and a large army, quite against the wishes of the senate. He crossed over to Sicily, made from thence an attempt upon Locri, and took that town from Hannibal; yet, on the whole, the year of his consulship passed off without any thing remarkable. Why he waited so long in Sicily, has not been fully accounted for; it seems that he took matters easy, and willingly lingered in these Sicilian regions, being particularly delighted with Syracuse. Men’s expectations were most signally disappointed: it had been believed, that as soon as his preparations were at all complete, he would pass over to Africa; and now it was understood that he was living quite in the Greek style at Syracuse. Commissioners thereupon were sent to inquire into the matter, and if the charge were true, to depose him; but he so overawed them, that they reported that he was by no means wasting his time, but was finishing his preparations.

Hannibal, after the battle of Sena, had already foreseen the issue of the war; but he did not yet lose courage. On the contrary, he deemed it his duty to struggle to the last moment, that the Romans might not be sure of their own country; yet, as he could not defend such extensive provinces, he evacuated Apulia, Messapia, the country of the Hirpinians, and the greater part of Lucania, so that he only kept the south-eastern part of it, and Bruttium. Here he remained for three campaigns, with a perseverance which Livy himself admires; like a lion, he made whoever dared to touch him, pay heavily for it. Within this narrow tract of country, he had to recruit and provision his army, and to detain the Romans, so as to keep them away from Africa, living the whole time in the midst of peoples whom he drove to despair by the most exorbitant demands. And he succeeded in all this, without a thought either of rebellion or of violence being awakened against him; yet he was neither able to pay nor to feed his army, and he suffered from plague and hunger. His headquarters and arsenal was Croton. Thus the war went on, until the Carthaginians called him to Africa, the Romans narrowing his district more and more by wresting from him one place after the other.

It was not till the year after his consulship, 548, when his proconsular _imperium_ was prolonged, that Scipio with four hundred transports, protected by forty quinqueremes, crossed over to Africa. If the Carthaginians had had their ships of war assembled, they must have baffled Scipio’s undertaking; but this could hardly have been the case, or else their inactivity would have been quite unaccountable. How many troops he carried over, was unknown, even to the ancients themselves; as an average number, we may assume sixteen thousand men foot, several thousand horse, and a considerable fleet: when these departed, there were great tremblings of heart in the timid party among the Romans, who thought of nothing but the fate of Regulus. Scipio’s arrangements were admirable. In three days he made the passage, and landed north of Carthage, not far from Utica, near a headland at the mouth of the river Bagradas, which, like almost all the rivers which fall into the Mediterranean, has formed another mouth farther on, its old one having been choked up with sand; Shaw, however, in his travels, fixes the point with admirable precision. Its memory was kept up as long as the Roman empire lasted, by the name of _Castra Cornelia_; it was a headland with an offing, a gradually sloping beach of gravel, on which the ships had to be drawn up. Here Scipio entrenched himself, and from thence made excursions. In the meanwhile, Syphax had been entirely gained over to the Carthaginians, having married Sophonis (in Hebrew Zephaniah), or, as Livy has it, Sophonisbe, the daughter of Hasdrubal, the son of Gisgo. When Scipio had landed, a Carthaginian army under Hasdrubal, a great Numidian one under Syphax, and a smaller Numidian one under Masinissa, went out to meet him. Masinissa was hereditary prince of the Massylians, a people on the frontier of what is now Tunis, which dwelt at the foot of the mountains. He was a vassal of the Carthaginians, had served under their standards in Spain, and in that country already had entered into some correspondence with the Romans. He is known to have been the guest-friend of Scipio; in the _Somnium Scipionis_, he makes his appearance as a venerable old man; he was brought up in Carthage, and, at least in his later years, understood Greek or Latin. These African princes were all of them thoroughly faithless. That his truth to the Romans ever became so renowned, was merely owing to the fact that it was his object to enrich himself at the expense of Carthage, in which he was aided by the Romans; but his son, who already stood in a different relation to them, in the third Punic war certainly did them a great deal of mischief. A romance has been got up, in which Masinissa is in love with Sophonisbe, and therefore jealous of Syphax; with the latter, he is said to have been involved in a war, and afterwards reconciled. He now came, it would seem, as an ally of the Carthaginians against Scipio, who enticed him to go over. He had lost his hereditary right, owing to the Carthaginians having favoured a rival of his; for some time, he had roved in the desert: he now wished to try his luck with the Romans, and he showed himself useful to them as a centre, round which a host of Africans gathered. He imparted to Scipio his plan by which he had beguiled the Carthaginians, and Scipio fell upon them from an ambush: the loss was considerable for Carthage, as it comprised a number of her citizens. The Carthaginian general Hanno was taken prisoner, and afterwards exchanged for Masinissa’s mother. In the meanwhile, Syphax had had the presumption to act as mediator between the Romans and Carthaginians; which, of course, came to nothing, as everything was then to remain as before, and Hannibal and Scipio were each of them to withdraw from Italy and Africa. But the attempt was of use to Scipio; for while this was going on, he was able to establish himself in Africa.

Scipio besieged Utica with ill success; Hasdrubal and Syphax kept him in check, very likely in open camps. On this, Scipio undertook a sudden night-attack, which shows what wretched discipline there was in their armies. He managed to get in, and to set fire to both the camps, which were of straw-built huts; the enemy, taken by surprise, tried to make their escape, but were pent in like sheep, and slaughtered by the Romans. The two armies were scattered; Syphax left the Carthaginians, and returned to his own country. Masinissa now set himself up as a competitor for his throne, and marched against him: the subjects of Syphax joined him in great masses, and Lælius accomplished the undertaking. Syphax was taken prisoner. Masinissa followed up his advantage, and made himself master of Cirta, the chief town, afterwards called Constantineh, a name which it still bears. There the wife of Syphax was found, and Masinissa immediately married her, without asking the consent of the Romans. But Scipio was positive in his demand, that Sophonis, as a Carthaginian woman and an enemy of the Romans, should be given up; Masinissa, not wishing to let her suffer such a fate, sent her poison, and she killed herself. Part of the kingdom of Syphax was given to his son; he himself was sent as a prisoner to Italy, and led in the triumph of Scipio: he died an old man at Alba in the country of the Marsians. His statues must have been common: there are still several pedestals which have his name and a summary of his history.

The Carthaginians became convinced that their force was not sufficient; they had indeed succeeded in an attempt against the Roman ships, but this was also the only time during the three years of the war in Africa. They sent word to Hannibal and Mago that both of them were to come, which was good news for Italy; yet as it was uncertain, whether the transport of the armies was possible, the Carthaginians also made Scipio proposals of peace, to which he listened the more readily, as he had now for three years been proconsul in Africa, and had always to expect his dismissal, in which case the consul of the following year, Ti. Claudius Nero, would have carried away the glory of having ended the war. Moreover, the issue of the contest with Hannibal was still very doubtful; and therefore the conditions of Scipio, hard as they were, were yet tolerable in comparison with what happened afterwards. The independence of the Carthaginians was acknowledged; they were to be masters of the whole tract of country within the Punic canal, (what its extent was, is uncertain;) to give up Italy, Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia, and likewise all their ships but thirty, probably triremes, and to deliver up the prisoners of war: how much was asked by way of payment for the expenses of the war, is uncertain. Livy says that the annalists stated the numbers very differently: the exact numbers which we meet with in the later Greek writers (fifteen hundred talents in Appian), are taken from these statements, between which Livy does not venture to decide. The latter mentions also a great quantity of corn. On these conditions, the rulers of Carthage were resolved to make peace; but quite different was the feeling of the restless, unruly populace, who fiercely raved against the peace, without, however, being willing to shed a drop of their own blood. These were in despair. After having gloriously fought for so long, were they, it was said, to declare themselves vanquished, while Hannibal was still alive? for the great mass of the people certainly looked upon him as an idol. In the meanwhile, the government carried its point, and a truce was concluded, and ambassadors sent to Rome. There the peace was accepted on condition that Hannibal should leave Italy. But the Carthaginians now heard that Hannibal was really going to evacuate Italy, and they thought that they might try a different tack. The peace was all but sworn to, when a large Roman fleet, which had arrived with provisions, but had not yet landed them, was driven from its moorings by a storm. Carthage had for a long time been in want of food, and the people murmured at this supply being allowed to go to the enemy, when the gods themselves were against them, and they could take it if they liked; so they embarked in a riotous manner, and cut out the Roman ships, which, relying on the truce, had cast anchor there. Scipio on this sent envoys to remonstrate, and to demand satisfaction. This, however, was not to be had, such was the general fermentation, and the Roman emissaries got away with great difficulty; it was only under the protection of a guard, that they managed to return to their ship, which--contrary, it is true, to the wish of the government--was chased by a Carthaginian vessel, and had to save itself, by running ashore. This story reminds one of the murder of the French ambassadors at Rastadt. All hope of peace was now utterly gone, and the Carthaginian ambassadors were commanded to withdraw from Rome.

Mago had landed from Spain at Genua, had taken it, and was trying to change Liguria into a Carthaginian province; just as the Romans had spread in Spain from one single place. Yet he made but little progress in the Apennines and in the Alps, as he had to deal with a host of unmanageable petty tribes. Although indeed he got reinforcements and money, his means at first were inconsiderable; yet he always obliged the Romans to employ some forces against him. Once he defeated them in the country of the Insubrians: so that, if he had not now been recalled, he would certainly have given them a great deal of trouble. He embarked, but died of the wounds which he had received in that engagement.

Hannibal had likewise had positive orders to embark, and one cannot understand why the Romans did not do their utmost to destroy his fleet: he reached Africa without an accident. Against Carthage itself, the Romans were not able to undertake anything: it was too strong a town. Nor had Scipio as yet taken any other city that was fortified, though he was master of many open places. Hannibal landed near Adrumetum; he had taken with him all those whom he could find in Bruttium able to bear arms, and he had embodied among his troops all the Roman and Italian deserters, whose only chance of life depended on the war with Rome. His army consisted of about forty thousand men. Yet when he beheld the state of things at Carthage, he made an attempt to negotiate; for he saw how unlikely it was that the war would be successfully carried on, and he knew well that, if a battle were lost, the city would obtain a peace from which it might never recover. Scipio likewise was very anxious for peace; for he was always afraid that they would not prolong his _imperium_. The conditions which Hannibal offered, were too low, as he demanded for the Carthaginians the sovereignty over Africa, leaving indeed to the Romans the countries which they had conquered, but refusing everything else; Scipio still wished to keep to the former conditions, with a trifling compensation for the wrong which had been done. All was spoilt at last by the folly of the Carthaginian people, who, now that Hannibal was come, thought that Scipio’s army would be destroyed like that of Regulus; and thus the famous battle of Zama was brought on (550). Hannibal, according to the testimony of Polybius, here also displayed the qualities of a great general. He drew up his army in three lines. The foremost was formed of a medley of foreign troops enlisted from among the most opposite races; behind these were placed the Carthaginian citizens, who only took up arms in times of the utmost need, but were forced by these very circumstances to be brave; behind these again, as a reserve, were the Italians whom he had brought over, and they were a considerable body: in front of the whole were eighty elephants, and on the wings were the cavalry. This is the only battle in which Hannibal made use of elephants. The Romans were set in their usual array of _hastati_, _principes_, and _triarii_, save only that Scipio left large spaces between each of these three divisions, whereas otherwise they were so placed behind each other, that the maniples of the one always covered the intervals between two maniples of the others. In these wide spaces, as well as in front of the lines, he put the light troops, that when the elephants approached, they might hurl their missiles at them, and then, should they enter these open lanes, assail them with javelins. On the wings, he set the Numidian and Roman horse. The result of the battle shows that this cavalry was now superior, in quality at least, to that of the Carthaginians; for the latter was soon put to flight. The object with regard to the elephants was partly attained, as most of them ran right through these lanes, although there were some, who turned themselves sideways upon the men who were armed with javelins. Now began the shock between the _hastati_ and the Carthaginian mercenaries, who, after a gallant fight, were forced to throw themselves upon the Carthaginian phalanx behind them, but were driven back again by these upon the Romans; so that they were trampled down between the two. The _hastati_, however, had to give way before the Carthaginians; Scipio then made them fall back, and the _principes_ and the _triarii_ move sideways towards the wings, so as to attack the Carthaginians in the flank: this had the fullest success. The Italians alone fought with desperate courage; but the Carthaginian cavalry had been all destroyed, and the Romans burst upon the Carthaginian rear, on which the rout became such, that nearly the whole of the army was cut to pieces. Hannibal himself escaped with a small handful of men to Adrumetum.

Nothing else was now thought of in Carthage, but peace. It was the great Hannibal who principally negociated it, and accepted the conditions, which of course were much harder than the former ones; the eagerness, however, of Scipio to hurry on the peace, was the saving of Carthage. Her independence was acknowledged; the towns and provinces which had belonged to the Carthaginians in Africa before the war, they were indeed still to keep as subjects; but in this there was trickery, as they were to prove, what they had possessed. Instead of thirty triremes being left to them, as at first, only ten were now allowed them; they had to deliver over their elephants, and were no more to tame any; they were to pay ten thousand Euboïc talents (15,000,000 dollars) within fifty years; to give a hundred and fifty hostages to be chosen by the Romans themselves, (which was very hard, as hostages were so badly treated among the ancients;) and to yield up all the Roman prisoners and deserters, and likewise the unfortunate Italians who had come over with Hannibal. Whether these were all put to death as rebels, or sold for slaves, is not told us by Livy, who indeed says not a word about the whole of this article: Appian has given the account of it, and therefore so did Polybius likewise. They were moreover to acknowledge Masinissa as king of the Numidians within the boundaries prescribed by the Romans; to conclude a passive alliance offensive and defensive, with the Romans, on whom, however, it was not to be binding; and to feed and keep the Roman soldiers for six months longer. In Africa, they might wage war only with the consent of the Romans; out of Africa, not at all; and they were not to enlist mercenaries anywhere in Europe.

Some fools in Carthage wanted to speak against these conditions; but Hannibal seized hold of one Gisgo, and dragged him down from the platform on which he was haranguing. An outcry was raised about the violation of the liberty of the citizen; Hannibal, however, justified himself, saying that ever since his ninth year, he had been for six and thirty years away from his country, and therefore was not so accurately acquainted with the law; that, moreover, he deemed the peace to be necessary. All men of sense had become aware that the peace was now unavoidable, and that matters would have taken a different turn, if Hannibal had been supported at the right time.

Scipio now evacuated Africa; all the Carthaginian ships of war were brought to sea, and there set fire to. Thus ended, after sixteen years, the second Punic war and the rivalry of Carthage. Rome had made an immense booty.[30]

THE MACEDONIAN WAR.[31]

Immediately after the battle of Cannæ, Philip III. of Macedon had sent ambassadors to Hannibal, and had concluded a treaty, which fell, by chance, into the hands of the Romans. Even without this accident, it could not have been kept secret, not at least for any length of time. By this treaty, of which we certainly read in Polybius a genuine text, and of which the form is not at all Greek, but quite foreign, undoubtedly Carthaginian, the two states had not after all bound themselves to much. Hannibal secured to Philip in case of victory, that the Romans were to give up their possessions beyond the Adriatic, Corcyra, Apollonia, Epidamnus, the colony of Pharus, the Atintanians (an Epirote people), Dimalus, and the Parthinian Illyrians; and in return for this, Philip was to let the Carthaginians have the supremacy over Italy. Had Philip then been what he became in his riper years, this alliance would have proved dangerous to the Romans. But they, with that perseverance and heroic courage which distinguished them in the whole war, sent out a fleet under the prætor M. Valerius Lævinus, to protect Illyria, and to raise a party against him in Greece. Hostilities began in the year 537, or 538 (Lævinus not being a consul, the commencement is not quite certain), and the war lasted until the peace of P. Sempronius 548. This war was carried on very sluggishly on the side of the Romans, and Philip, who had to limit his exertions only to the few points on the mainland of Illyria, could have made himself master of these, had he not managed his affairs quite as feebly. His conduct then gives us quite a different idea of his powers from that which we are led to form afterwards. Had he given to Hannibal but ten thousand Macedonians as auxiliaries, Rome would have been in a sad plight; but he was too vain to do so.

Philip was at that time very young, hardly in his twenty-first or second year. His father Demetrius II. had left him at his death yet a child, and had given him for guardian an uncle, or elder cousin, Antigonus Epitropus (likewise called Doson). This Antigonus showed a conscientiousness which, considering the time in which he lived, really awakens our wonder; he seems to have taken as much care of the education of his ward, as of his rights: of this we see the traces in Philip, especially in the first years of his reign, in which he is said to have been very amiable. But there was something bad-hearted in him, which soon shook off that influence: like an eastern youth, he then wallowed in lust. Yet he was endowed with remarkable talents; he was highly gifted as a general, and he had courage and skill, to employ and to increase the resources of his empire. In the war against the Romans under Flamininus, he displayed much ability; and when in the peace he had lost part of his kingdom, he cleverly took advantage of circumstances to be set up again by Rome herself. Thus he managed to leave behind to his son a power, such as he himself had never possessed before.

The empire of Macedon, during the latter days of Antigonus Gonatas, had fallen into decay: the Ætolians had risen, the Achæans had made themselves free. Under Demetrius, it was going down hill still faster. From this condition, it only recovered in the last years of the guardianship of Antigonus, and that by the treason of old Aratus, who sacrificed the whole glory of a well-spent life; for he chose, rather to yield up Corinth and the liberty of Greece, and to make the Achæans sink into utter insignificance, than to let Cleomenes have that authority in the state, which was due to him, and without which the Lacedæmonians could not have joined the Achæan league. Philip, in the beginning of his reign, had, in conjunction with the Achæans, undertaken a war against the Ætolians, by which the latter were considerably humbled, important fortresses in Thessaly having been taken from them and their estimation in Greece lowered. They were obliged to agree to a disadvantageous peace, yet they still kept their independence. When Philip leagued himself with Hannibal, and began the war with the Romans, Greece was at peace. Thessaly, with the exception of that part which was Ætolian, Phocis, Locris, Eubœa with Chalcis, Corinth, Heræa, and Aliphera were well affected to Macedon, and had Macedonian garrisons. The Achæans were nominally free and united, but in reality dependent on their allies the Macedonians; so were likewise the Bœotians and Acarnanians. The Ætolians, who were hostile, were free, and had a territory of considerable extent. In Lacedæmon, at that time one revolution followed upon another: it was subjected to a nominal king, probably a son of Eudamidas; but soon afterwards Machanidas seized upon the government. The Syrian kings ruled over Western Asia, with the exception of Caria and Samos, which, as well as the Hellespont, Chersonesus, and the towns on the southern coast of Thrace, belonged to Egypt. Chios, Lesbos, and Byzantium formed together a confederacy of free cities. Rhodes was free, the mistress of the sea, and powerful; she was a friend of the Romans, without being actually allied with them. Egypt and Syria were at war with each other. The former retained Cœlesyria when the peace was made; but she lost the northern fortresses of Phœnicia to Syria. The Athenians were on friendly terms with the Romans; in their enfeebled state they kept aloof from all political activity. There was peace everywhere; the eyes of Greece were already very much turned towards Rome.

One would have thought that under these circumstances Philip might have undertaken something of importance against Rome; yet he did not exert himself. In the beginning of the contest, there were only little skirmishes going on, and he had some success; he overcame the Atintanians, and also the Ardyæans in the north of Illyricum, who were under the protection of Rome. About the fourth year of the war, the Romans made an alliance with the Ætolians, and from that time, unhappily for Greece, they became enterprising in those parts. They sent over indeed but one legion, in fact, only marines; but they also had a fleet in those seas, which was of some consequence, as the Macedonians had scarcely any at all. Through the Ætolians, the Romans also became connected with Attalus, who having begun with the small realm of Pergamus, had conquered Lydia, and created a rich principality. The Roman fleets of Lævinus, and after him of Sulpicius, were a real curse for ill-fated Greece. The treaty with the Ætolians stipulated, that of all the places beyond Corcyra which they should conquer together, the soil should belong to the Ætolians, the inhabitants with their goods and chattels to the Romans. Such a stipulation is indeed not unheard of; yet it shows what the Ætolians really were. After the Lamian war, they deserve praise; but all that happened afterwards, shows them to have been morally barbarians: their language may indeed have been partly Greek. This treaty had the saddest consequences. The Roman fleet made its appearance off the Greek coast; Ægina, Dyme, Oreus, were taken, and the whole population swept away by the Romans. These two last places the Ætolians were not able to keep; but Ægina with its harbour they sold to Attalus for thirty talents,--that noble Greek island to a prince of Pergamus! These atrocities drew upon the Ætolians and Romans the abhorrence of the whole of Greece. Philip, who thereby became popular, penetrated with the Greeks, for the first time, into Ætolia, and requited them in their own country for their devastations. The Ætolians, abandoned by the Romans, concluded a very disadvantageous peace. Philip made considerable conquests. Two or three years afterwards, (Livy’s chronology here is very little to be relied on,) about 548, the Romans also by means of Tib. Sempronius concluded a peace with Philip, beneath the conditions of which some great disadvantage again is veiled. Not only the country of the Atintanians, which had become subject to them,--a district not unimportant of itself, but of very great consequence on account of the pass of Argyrocastro, through which Philip had now a free passage between the Roman territory and the then republic of Epirus,--was by it expressly ceded to Philip, but also the country of the Ardyæans. The Romans, of course, had this mental reservation, that the time would not be long before they would break this peace, and gain back what they had lost. This is one of the few instances in which the Romans renounced part of their possessions. One ought to have remembered this, when such violent reproaches were made against Jovian, who, to save his army, ceded a tract of country to the Persians: there was an outcry at the time, as if such a thing had never happened before in the history of Rome. Aurelian had yielded Dacia to the Goths; Hadrian had given up the conquests of Trajan in the east; not to mention the peace with the Volscians in the earliest times.

Philip, after having concluded peace with the Romans, allied himself with Antiochus the Great against the infant Ptolemy Epiphanes, the child of the unworthy Ptolemy Philopator. The Egyptian kings since Philadelphus and Euergetes, were in possession of extensive districts and strongholds on the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor, as far as the coast of Thrace: Lycia at least was subject to their supremacy. As under Ptolemy Philopator the empire had already fallen into utter decay, and his infant successor was growing up under the charge of an unworthy guardian, Antiochus and Philip took advantage of the moment. Egypt had since the rise of the Alexandrine empire been on friendly terms with Rhodes, and the Rhodians had a strong interest in being friends with Alexandria, as they had much more to fear from Macedon than from Egypt; they therefore defended Epiphanes. Yet their power was no match for that of Macedon and Syria; especially as the wretched Egyptian government hardly did anything, but on the contrary let the allies, among whom, besides Rhodes, there were also Byzantium, Chios, and Attalus of Pergamus, bear the whole brunt of the war. The two kings were therefore most successful. Philip conquered for himself the whole of the Thracian coast; Perinthus, Ephesus, and Lycia, fell to the lot of Syria, although the allies of the Egyptians had shortly before had some success in a sea-fight near Chios.

Philip had now reached the pinnacle of his greatness. Even from Crete, where Macedon had never before exercised any influence, he was applied to for his mediation.

The immediate cause, or at least the pretext for the second Macedonian war, was afforded to the Romans by the distress of Athens. That city was utterly impoverished and decayed; but it kept up a sort of independence, and as early as about twenty-five years after the first Illyrian war, it had made an alliance with the Romans, and had granted them isopolity.[32] Perhaps the Romans received the gift with a smile; yet such bright rays of her old departed glory still lingered upon Athens, that on her side at least, there was nothing ridiculous in the proffer. Pausanias tells us, that among the cenotaphs for those who had been slain, there were also some for the men belonging to three triremes, who had fallen in battle abroad as allies of the Romans; but he does not give the date. It is not likely that this was a figment of the Athenians; the time may have been that of the second Illyrian war, as they were keen enough to see that they might gain the Romans by sending them a few ships. During the first Macedonian war, they very wisely kept neutral; but in the last years of the war of Hannibal they got involved in hostilities with Philip. The murder of two young Acarnanians who had intruded when the Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated, led their countrymen to call upon Philip for help. He had long wished to get possession of Athens, and he now savagely devastated the whole of Attica to the very walls of the city: all the temples in the Athenian territory were pulled down, and even the tombs were demolished. The Athenians betook themselves to the Rhodians, to Attalus, and in general to all the allies of that suddenly decayed Alexandrine empire, which had once been so highly blooming under Euergetes; yet their hopes were chiefly bent upon the Romans. In Rome there was much consultation what to do. The senate and the leading men, who already had unbounded views of extending the Roman power, would not have hesitated for a moment to declare war, and the more so, as they were likewise eager to make up for what they had lost by the unfortunate issue of the former one: but the people, who were most wretchedly off, and longed for rest, threw out the first motion for a war.

It is a most erroneous thing, for one to believe that a constitution remains the same, so long as its outward forms still last. When alterations have taken place in the distribution of property, in public opinion, and in the way in which people live, the constitution, even without any outward change, may become quite different from what it was, and the self-same form may at one time be democratical, and at another aristocratical. This internal revolution is hardly ever traced by modern writers of history, and yet it is one of those very things which in history ought to be particularly searched into. That strange and wonderful preponderance of the oligarchy of wealth existed already at that time in Rome, and the many--who generally speaking have neither judgment nor a will of their own--now decree the very things which they did not wish. Here indeed we have one of the first and most remarkable symptoms of this: the people, contrary to their own wishes, vote for the war with Philip. It was the great misfortune of Rome, that after the war of Hannibal, there was no great man who had the genius to restore the constitution in accordance with its spirit. For great states always decline and fall, because, after great exertions, everything is left to the blind spirit of the age, and no healing of what is diseased is attempted.

The Romans now, with great zeal, sent ambassadors to Philip to demand indemnification for the Athenians, and cessation of all hostilities against the allies of Rome, to the number of whom Ptolemy also belonged. Philip clearly saw that this was but a pretext to raise a quarrel, and he had bitterly to repent of not having taken better advantage of the war with Hannibal. In the year 552, the war was decreed, and the command was given to the consul P. Sulpicius Galba, who had already made a campaign before in those parts, though not of the most glorious kind, as he devastated Dyme, Oreus, and Ægina. It must have been resolved upon late in the season, and as the consul besides fell ill, nothing more could be undertaken that year: Galba’s expedition therefore entirely belongs to the year which followed his consulship, a fact which is overlooked by Livy. Villius, the next consul, was only present at the seat of war for a very short period, towards the end of his time of office.

In Greece, the Ætolians just then were very much weakened, but independent, and hostile to Macedon. They possessed Ætolia, part of Acarnania, the country of the Ænianians, that of the Ozolian Locrians, most of Phthiotis, the land of the Dolopians, part of southern Thessaly, and Thermopylæ; and they had isopolity with Lacedæmon, and with a number of distant places in Elis and Messene: yet for the last thirty years they had been going down hill. In the Peloponnesus, the Achæans held Achaia, Sicyon, Phlius, and Argolis, and Arcadia; but in reality they were entirely dependent on the Macedonians, and were protected by them against Ætolia and Lacedæmon. The Lacedæmonians were confined within very narrow limits in their old country, and they had lost their ancient constitution; they had no ephors, perhaps not even a senate, but they were ruled by a tyrant, Nabis, one of the worst of monsters. The Messenians stood apart from the Ætolians and Achæans, and were become sworn foes to the latter; the Eleans were independent, and leagued with the Ætolians; the Bœotians remained independent in appearance only, under the supremacy of Macedon; Corinth, Eubœa, Phocis, Locris, were nominally allies of the Macedonians, but in fact were subject to their rule. Thessaly was held to be a state which had become blended with Macedon. In Epirus, the house of the Æacidæ was extirpated, and the remainder of the people hemmed in by the Ætolians, formed a republic, sometimes under Ætolian, and at other times under Macedonian influence. On the Greek mainland, Athens survived as a mere name, without a connexion belonging to her, an object of Philip’s hate. The Acarnanians were, properly speaking, none of the subjects of the Macedonians, but were only united with them by their common enmity against the Ætolians. The Cyclades had formerly belonged to Egypt, and they were now in an unsettled state. Crete was independent, but torn by factions, owing to which Philip had been called upon to mediate. Chios and Mitylene were free; Rhodes was great and powerful; Byzantium also was free, and allied with Chios and Mitylene: they had taken as little part as possible in all the quarrels; but now they were drawn into them, particularly Chios, and in a league with Attalus. As to their intellectual life, the Greeks were utterly fallen. There were indeed still some schools at Athens; but poesy was dead, and even the art of speech, that last blossom of the Greek spirit, had vanished away, and had sought a new home among the Asiatic peoples which had been hellenized, but without imbibing any of the excellencies of the Greek nation. Most places were mere shadows of what they had been; there were but few indeed which had not been destroyed more than once: of the number of those spared was Corinth, which therefore was the most flourishing of all Greek towns. The Achæans, ever since Aratus, out of spite to the Lacedæmonians, had given over his country into the hands of the Macedonians, were mere clients to their new patrons. Owing to this connexion, which had lasted nearly twenty years, they had many a time received the deepest cause for provocation; but they were on bad terms with their neighbours, and if their patriots had any wish, it was to have their dependence upon Macedon changed into a freer form of clientship; none, however, dreamed of independence. But then many were filled with bitter indignation at the cruelty with which several towns had been laid waste by the Romans. The Ætolians felt inclined to undertake the war; but they did not come to any decision, a misunderstanding having arisen between them and the Romans, whom they reproached with having given them unfounded hopes, whilst, on the other hand, the Romans complained of not having been supported by them in the Illyrian war.

In the first campaign of Sulpicius (553), the Romans could do nothing: they took the bull by the horns, and attacked Macedon from Illyria. Philip kept on the defensive. That part of Illyria, as far as Scutari, is a country of rather low hills, very much like Franconia; in many places it is flat. On the eastern frontier, near Macedon, a ridge of high mountains runs down, which takes in western Macedon, and from Scodrus, or Scardus, reaches southwards to Pindus and Parnassus. This range of mountains, lofty and broad, cold, barren, and naturally poor, is now hardly inhabited any longer; even the valleys are inhospitable. Here are the highlands of Macedon, the true home of the earliest Macedonians, who had formerly held under their own liege-lords, being dependent upon Philip, but at that time were entirely united with Macedon. The Romans found every thing here against them: nearly the whole of the population, consisting as it did of Macedonians, was hostile with the exception of the Epirote Orestians, and provisions were scarce everywhere. Sulpicius therefore retreated, and passed the winter in the fertile country of lower Illyria, near Apollonia and Epidamnus. However carefully historians may disguise the fact, certain it is that his undertaking was a complete failure.

T. Quinctius Flamininus, immediately after his being made consul, in the year 554, led reinforcements across the Adriatic, and changed the whole plan. This time also, the Macedonians had fortified their frontiers, and they kept on the defensive. The principal camp of the king was near what is now Argyrocastro, the old Antigonea, founded by Pyrrhus, where the Aous--so we must read instead of Apsus, in Plutarch’s life of Flamininus--has worn its way between two high ridges of limestone: both these mountain ranges are wild and impassable; they stretch out on one side as far as the Acroceraunian heights, on the other towards Pindus. The place cannot be mistaken from its very nature (_fauces Antigoneæ_); even to this day, the true road from Illyria into the interior of Epirus passes through it, part of which, on the brink of the river, is cut in the mountains. The Romans had renewed their alliance with the Ætolians, who took up arms and threatened the frontier of Thessaly, but undertook nothing of consequence. Philip was much bent on hindering the Ætolians, now that they were the allies of the Romans, from attacking the Thessalian frontiers in right earnest, and uniting with them; and this he effected by taking up his position near Antigonea. Before this defile, Villius also who, when Flamininus arrived, was still in Greece, had during his proconsulship stood his ground against Philip; yet it was hopeless to attack him in front, and several attempts had miscarried. Perhaps the Romans expected that the Ætolians would compel the Macedonian army to change their position, as otherwise it would be incomprehensible why they should have encamped in that place.