Chapter THE TENTH (3)

The Romans, having lost a considerable number of men, thought it better to recruit themselves by peace, as they were unable to find recruits for their army. It was accordingly determined to try the effect of an embassy upon the Tarentines, and some Feciales were employed to propose--what Rome considered--very moderate terms of arrangement. L. Postumius is said to have been one of the envoys, and it is added that upon his commencing a speech in bad Greek, there was a burst of laughter at his mistakes in grammar, orthography, and accent. He had been selected for the charm of his eloquence, but the spell was broken by the spelling, and in the confusion of his nominatives and datives, he was unable to make out a case of any kind. The Senators gave way to bursts of laughter--those bursts of nature which it is often difficult to control--and a buffoon, encouraged by the bad example of his betters, played some practical joke upon L. Postumius. The insulted emissary immediately held up his toga, which had been soiled by the jester, whose wit seems to have consisted in throwing dirt; but a shout of laughter was the only reply that the complaint of Postumius elicited. Desiring them to laugh on, he made an allusion to the possibility of the operation being transferred to the other side of the Roman mouth, and he added that a lavatory supplied by their blood was the only wash to which he would send his toga. Returning to Rome, he pointed out the stain that had been thrown upon him, and the Senate declared war on the spot the moment the spot was exhibited. An army was accordingly sent against Tarentum, but the leader, L. Aemilius Barbula,--so called probably from his being the little-bearded or the downy one--offered peace a second time. The Tarentines, thinking the Romans were afraid of fighting, refused to come to terms; but seeing that the latter did not retire, it became necessary to seek assistance in meeting them.

It appears that in these early days there were a set of persons willing to undertake butchery as a trade, by hiring themselves, or rather lowering themselves, to fight for any one who would pay them. Among these, one of the most respectable was Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whom we may almost regard as a professional spiller of blood, for he took care to turn his labours to a profitable account, by bleeding those on whose side he fought, as well as those he fought against. According to some writers, Pyrrhus was no mercenary, because in agreeing to lend his arms to the Tarentines, he had in view a kingdom, rather than cash, or, in other words, he did not propose to be paid by those whom he assisted, because he intended to appropriate to himself everything out of which they would have the means of paying him. Pyrrhus, in fact, can only be excluded from the order of mercenaries by transferring him to the catalogue of thieves, and of this arrangement we have no objection to give him the benefit.

Though he lived in an age when the education of sovereigns was sadly neglected, he possessed a fair amount of information, and he had the fortunate habit of listening to good advice, so that he got credit for being wise on the strength of the wisdom of his counsellors. His tongue was no less polished than his sword, and his manners would have fully justified their being charged as extras in the bill of any school in which they may have been acquired. He was only thirty-seven years old when he entered Italy with a stud, including no less than twenty elephants and two thousand horses, though he was, of course, the principal lion of his great travelling menagerie. He was accompanied by a vast number of slingers, whose arms were in their slings, and a large body of bowmen, who could draw the longest bow with a truthfulness quite astonishing. An incident connected with the invocation of the aid of Pyrrhus by the Tarentines has come down to us by tradition, that common carrier who lays much at the historian's door, that he is not always inclined to answer for. It is said that a respectable young nobleman, of the name of Meto, appeared one day in the Tarentine senate with a quantity of faded flowers in his hair, as if he had just come home late from a dinner party, and had passed on his way through one of the markets. Being attended by a female with a pipe, the Tarentines were seized with a sudden desire to cheer, a propensity still evinced by a modern mob in the presence of any absurdity.

The excitement at length broke out into a general demand for a dance, and a shout arose similar to the unmeaning cry of "Hornpipe!" that is heard in a modern theatre on the first performance of a pantomime. The young noble, feeling that he might be involved in an extraordinary caper, seems to have suddenly resumed his senses; for he exclaimed with a serious air, "Yes, we must dance and feast now, for Pyrrhus will soon put an end to all our merriment." The words of Meto seemed too prophetic; for Pyrrhus had no sooner arrived, than, on the principle, perhaps, that where there is a great deal of work, there should be no play, he shut up the theatre of the Tarentines. He stopped everything in the shape of amusement, and the young noble's prediction as to the city's dancing days being nearly over, was completely verified. It would certainly have been better for Pyrrhus in the end had he listened in the beginning to his counsellor, Cineas, who, according to Plutarch, talked the matter over with his royal master, in the most familiar manner possible. "Now, tell me," said Cineas, "supposing our expedition to be successful, what will be the next step?" a query which elicited from Pyrrhus a whole catalogue of arduous exploits, which he had in contemplation. "Very good," said the sage, "and when all is conquered, what then?"--"What then?" responded Pyrrhus, "why, then, of course, we can take our ease, drink, and be merry."--"True enough," rejoined Cineas, "but why not take your ease, drink, and be merry at once, without all the preliminary toils and dangers you propose to undergo, and by which you only postpone, instead of advancing, your ultimate object?" Unfortunately Pyrrhus, like many others, failed to see the force of this kind of reasoning, and he continued to encounter immediate peril and fatigue, with the remote prospect of future repose, which there was nothing to prevent his taking at once if he had really set his head on it.

Though he would not acknowledge himself to be convinced by the arguments of the philosopher, it is probable that Pyrrhus secretly felt the value of the advice that had been given him; for his first step was a proposal to treat; and he even offered a draft by way of preliminary, but the Roman Consul rejected the proffered measure. The armies accordingly met on the banks of the Siris, a small river near Heraclea, and Pyrrhus sent a spy with a spy-glass, to inspect the position of the enemy. The spy was immediately spied out on the other side, and arrested forthwith, so that the look-out of the spy appeared utterly deplorable. Having, however, been shown everything there was to be seen in the Roman camp, as if he had been a traveller in search of information, instead of a sneak traversing a hostile area, the spy was sent back with care--right side upwards, which he scarcely deserved--to his master. This incident elicited from Pyrrhus the remark, that "the barbarians had an exceedingly gentlemanly way of conducting a war;" and the next day being fixed for the battle, he felt that he should have the satisfaction of a gentleman in going out with them.

The attack was commenced by the Romans; and the Consul, resolving either to sink or swim, sent a body of cavalry across the river. Pyrrhus, putting himself at the head of his horse, proceeded to meet the charge, but he soon perceived that his brilliant armour was rendering him uncomfortably conspicuous, and he exchanged his dazzling coat of mail for an old rusty suit worn by his friend Megacles. The latter was perhaps proud to wear the trappings of royalty, but the emptiness of false glitter was speedily exemplified, for Megacles being mistaken for the king, was killed, and the shining armour was carried in triumph to the enemy's camp before the hollow mockery was discovered.

The battle was fought with determined bravery on both sides, but brute force decided it at last, for the elephants of Pyrrhus weighed immensely in the scale of victory. The creatures coming down _en masse_, were more effective than the heaviest of ordinary heavies, and advancing with all their might upon the horses, the latter, though resisting with all their mane, felt their animal spirits rapidly oozing out of them. The carnage committed upon the Romans would have been merciless and complete, had it not been for the humanity of one of the elephants, who, taking a benevolent turn, pulled himself short round, and prevented his own side from continuing the pursuit of the fugitives. Pyrrhus, having laid his hands on everything he could take, proceeded to take everything he could lay his hands upon. A rich harvest having been collected, he, on the day following, went to glean what he could on the field of battle. Perceiving that the Romans had all fallen with their eyes towards the foe, he could not but acknowledge, with so much bravery staring him in the face, the courage of his antagonists. "With such soldiers as these," he exclaimed, "the world would be mine, or, at all events, it would be theirs if I were their general." He had, however, lost half his own men; and as they lay prostrate before him, they seemed to offer a flat contradiction to the congratulations offered to him on his victory. "Another such a triumph," he replied, "and I should return to Epirus thoroughly unmanned, for there would not remain to me a single soldier." He offered to the prisoners employment in his own army, but they, without exception, refused; and, considering their conduct unexceptionable, he had their chains taken off, that they might feel themselves quite unfettered in their future movements. He burned the bodies of the dead, out of compliment to their remains, whose combustion, could they have acted for themselves, would no doubt have been spontaneous. He made a tolerably fair division of the spoil, giving some to his allies, and devoted a considerable slice to Zeus--a piece of devotion of which the priests of the temple got the chief benefit.

The policy of Pyrrhus was to turn old foes into new friends; and he sent his trusty counsellor, Cineas, to Rome, with a suggestion that all animosity should be buried in the graves of those who had fallen on both sides. The Senators were beginning to waver, when Appius Claudius the Blind--who had been carried down to the house by his four sons--an arrangement that suggests the picture of a veteran supported by a youth at each arm and at each leg--declared suddenly that he could see through the whole affair, and called upon the Romans to open their eyes to the designs of Pyrrhus. The veteran, who, from infirmity, was unable to stir without assistance, could still agitate with his tongue; he urged that the proposals of Cineas should be rejected; and the assembly having first carried the motion, carried home the mover in triumph.

Cineas, on returning to his master, described the city as a temple, and the Senate as an assembly of kings; for he could not get the temples out of his head; and the magnificent curule chairs kept reminding him of the dignified setting down he had received from the Senators.

Pyrrhus, finding his friendly advances repulsed, resolved on advancing upon Rome in a less amicable spirit. Proceeding towards Capua, he encountered Laevinius, the consul, whom he had on a previous occasion beaten; but he was now not quite so fortunate; for, after a severe contest, neither side could say exactly which had got the worst of it. Pyrrhus, however, marched upon Praeneste, which fell into his hands, in consequence of the Romans having let it slip through their fingers. From the acropolis of Praeneste he is said to have seen Rome, at a distance of eighteen miles; but he must have seen very little, if so far off, unless he was accustomed to magnify what he saw in a very remarkable manner. The sight was sufficiently imposing to cause him to retreat; and he went into winter quarters at Tarentum, where he spent his own time, and the money he had taken from the enemy.

While Pyrrhus was thus engaged, or rather disengaged, three ambassadors, named C. Fabricius, Q. A. Papus, and P. Dolabella, were sent to him from Rome, to negotiate for the release of prisoners. C. Fabricius was a very superior man; and Pyrrhus, thinking to gain over the superior man, employed means by which none but a very inferior individual was at all likely to be influenced. Bribery was the first expedient attempted by Pyrrhus; but C. Fabricius showed his contempt for money by pursing his eyebrows. Having failed in his coarse appeal to avarice, Pyrrhus tried what was to be done through fear; and one day a _tête-à-tête_ between the king and the ambassador was disturbed by the sudden introduction of a third _tête_, in the shape of the head of an elephant. The sagacious brute stood concealed behind a curtain, and, with a blow of the trunk on the cheek, he administered a smart box on the ear to the startled ambassador. The animal accompanied the act with a hideous roar, and threw his trunk over the head of C. Fabricius, who remained for a moment unable to see the clumsy joke that was being played upon him. He, nevertheless, retained his self-possession, remarking simply that neither by throwing gold dust in his eyes, nor by the still blacker job of the elephant's trunk, was he to be blinded to his duty.

Though Pyrrhus would not accede to the terms proposed for ransoming the Roman prisoners, he allowed them to go to Rome, for the season, to be present at the celebration of the _fêtes_ of the Saturnalia. These games appear to have included some rather melancholy mirth, the principal fun of the affair consisting in the practice of shouting out "Io!"--which is equivalent to "Go it!"--in the public thoroughfare. Presents were exchanged among friends; and servants were in the habit of offering wax candles to their masters,--a sort of composition, perhaps, which the former came to with their consciences, in memory of the enormities of the grease pot. The domestic was allowed to wear his employer's clothes; and this portion of the ceremonies of the Saturnalia is still privately observed by the gentleman's gentleman of the family. While the wardrobe of the master remained at the mercy of the valet, the synthesis, or dressing-gown, was the fashionable attire; and for a period of general relaxation, this loose wrapper was perfectly appropriate.

Having done at Rome as Rome was doing, during the Saturnalia, the prisoners returned to Pyrrhus, who opened the campaign in Apulia, and met the two Roman consuls--P. Sulpicius, and P. Decius Mus--at Asculum. This Mus is the third to which the labours of the historical muse have given birth; and he is said to have shared the fate of his grandfather and father--if at least that fate can be said to have been "shared," of which each had to bear the whole inconvenience. The battle fought at Asculum was severe, the Romans having lost 6000 men; for tradition delights in round numbers, with which probability often refuses to square; and no less than three thousand five hundred and five--for in this case exactness is carried to a degree of excess--are said to have fallen on the side of Pyrrhus.

War was found to be doing its usual work, the sword was cutting both ways at once; the candle was burning away at both ends, and the litigants were figuratively cutting their own throats, as well as those of their enemies. Each party would have backed out, if he could have seen his way, when an incident occurred that opened the door to a compromise. Pyrrhus had a medical attendant; who, perhaps, felt that doctor's work might as well be done at first as at last, and offered to poison by one dose, instead of by slow degrees, his illustrious patient. The medical traitor accordingly prepared a draft, which he knew he could persuade Pyrrhus to accept; but the Romans rejected the idea with scorn, and denounced the scoundrel, who when taken was severely shaken by his indignant countrymen. The wretch at first denied having written the prescription, and attempted to eat his own words; but they stuck in his throat, and he died from the physical impossibility of getting them either one way or the other.

Pyrrhus was so pleased with the treatment of the empiric who would have poisoned him, that he sent back all his prisoners to Rome without ransom, togged[38] out in new togas, and attended by pages, stitched in neat wrappers. After some negotiation, which was assisted by the returned prisoners, who urged their own new suits in support of that of Pyrrhus, now eager for peace, a truce for four years was agreed upon. It was stipulated that he should leave Italy, and he took the opportunity to cross to Sicily with the benevolent intention of freeing the people from the Carthaginian yoke; but, like most foreign liberators, if he took off an old yoke with one hand, he had in the other a new apparatus, which he was anxious to substitute. His object was to have made himself master of the place; but after remaining three years, he began to lament the faithlessness of friends, and helping himself to as much booty as he could lay his hands upon, he left the Sicilians to deplore the loss of himself and the treasure he took away with him. He had, in fact, been sent for by the Tarentines, and was on his way to see what he could do for them, when he was met by a Carthaginian fleet, which sank seventy of his ships--as we are told by the same authority that represents him to have started with only sixty,--a fact which leaves little doubt as to which party profited most by the friendship between Pyrrhus and the people of Sicily. He suffered a further loss in the mountain passes, where he had some very narrow escapes; but he nevertheless continued to keep a balance of 20,000 foot, and 3000 horse for the purpose of meeting any future engagements.

On his arrival at Tarentum, there was such a panic among the Romans that nobody would enlist, until Curius Dentatus announced his intention of confiscating the property of the first who refused to enter the rank that was open to him. Besides the panic caused by the name of Pyrrhus, an alarm had sprung up in consequence of the head of the god Summanus having been struck off his statue by lightning, and nobody could ascertain what had become of it. Accident led to its discovery in the bed of the Tiber, from which it had probably been fished by one of those extraordinary hooks which so many of our historical facts are found to hang upon. The augurs were consulted as a matter of course, and on a case being submitted to their opinion, they advised that the action against Pyrrhus should be carried on; for, according to the soothsayers, the loss and subsequent finding of the head, proved that after hair-breadth escapes victory would crown their labours.

Pyrrhus in the mean time marched to Beneventum to attack Curius, intending to surprise the latter by sending, through a mountain pass, some troops and elephants. The idea of a short cut for these massive brutes was absurd, and the unwieldy bulk of the elephants caused a succession of stoppages in the highways and byeways through which they were being driven. The Greek columns got occasionally into a fearful fix, and it was with difficulty they could lug through the mountain pass their extremely bulky luggage. Instead of completing their journey by night, it was daylight before they had commenced their descent on Curius, who saw them at a distance, and prepared a warm reception for the elephants. He attacked them with burning arrows, and lighted barrels of tar, which were pitched among the poor brutes, who fell back upon their own camp, and every tent was turned into a crush-room. Several elephants were killed, and four, being taken alive, were made to march as prisoners in the Consul's triumph. Pyrrhus reached Tarentum with a handful of horse, and a pocket-full of bread; but, being unable to pay the salaries of his adherents, they soon fell away in the absence of the usual golden rivets. He retired to Greece, where he engaged in all sorts of adventures, till the want of money prevented him from carrying on the war in any shape; and it is said that he had come down, at last, to such very petty disputes, that he died of a blow on the head, from a stone aimed at him in a street-row by an angry woman. On the death of Pyrrhus, those whom he had assisted relinquished all hope of maintaining themselves against such a formidable enemy as Rome, and the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Samnites proceeded to do homage to a power they had been in the habit of defying as long as they had any one on their side strong enough to assist them in fighting their battles. The Samnite ambassadors, who were entrusted with the humiliating duty of conveying the submission of their countrymen to Curius Dentatus, found him at his Sabine farm, engaged in the discussion of a large dish of turnips. He received the envoys with no other form than a wooden one, upon which he was seated, and he continued his vegetarian meal, as he listened to their overtures. They offered to bribe him with gold; but, taking up a spoonful of the mashed turnips, he declared that, as long as he could make sure of his daily bunch of his favourite luxury, wealth had no charms for him.

The Samnites made one more desperate effort against Rome, and Lollius, a runaway hostage, who had escaped to his native mountains, found life such thoroughly up-hill work, that he resolved to change it, or part with it. Having got round him a band of robbers, who were just the sort of persons to do everything by stealth, he secretly prepared to attack the Romans; but they, hearing of the approach of the marauders, were early in the field, and, securing the leaders of the insurrection, struck off their heads in order to break the neck of it.

Rome was now mistress of Italy, but her ambition, which, though always vaulting, knew no bounds, would not allow her to keep her empire within its natural limits. In the management of her conquered possessions she affected much generosity, in professing to admit the vanquished to a share of her own advantages,--an operation she effected by taking all the advantages to herself in the first instance, and then conveying a small moiety back to those from whom they had been wrested.

The Colonial system pursued by Rome was peculiar, for instead of selecting uninhabited places, she preferred a population ready made, possessing wealth already acquired, of which she usually helped herself to a full third in exchange for a Government, which she supplied from her own large stock of persons in want of places. The relationship between Rome and her colonies has been compared to that of parent and child; but considering the stripping process to which Rome had recourse, she seems to have acted less as a mother than a kidnapper. The Roman Constitution, like the Roman cement, was an excellent compound, of which it is impossible to describe the ingredients; and, indeed, it is found that the best Constitutions--like our own British--are those which cannot be defined by a written prescription, or made the subject of a perfect analysis. There was a judicious spreading of political power over a considerable surface, and thus--to use a figure from the chemist's shop--a plaster was always ready to be applied to the sores, or even the trifling eruptions that might make their appearance on any portion of the great body of the nation.

As in our own admirable form of government, there were three estates, comprising the people, the senate, and the executive; but the want of a permanent and universally recognised head of the state, kept the country continually exposed to agitation on the part of designing demagogues.

As the sword, unfortunately, cuts the most prominent figure in the early history of Rome, we must not omit to speak of its military organisation, which was very complete; for in early times there seemed to be an impression that neighbours ought to be approached with the arm of war, rather than with the hand of friendship. Every Roman citizen was a soldier, and was liable at any moment to be called upon to turn his ploughshare into a sword, though when his special service was over he was at liberty to turn his sword back again into a ploughshare. This transformation was not effected without damage to the instrument, and the ordinary operations of agriculture were frequently interrupted by calling the labourer from the garden to the field, and forcing him to drill when engaged in sowing broad-cast. We have in a single chapter of Livy[39] an account of what a Roman army consisted of during the great Latin war, and though learned writers[40] have snarled and quarrelled over the materials, like dogs over a dry and meatless bone, we quietly walk into the midst of them, and deliberately extract the marrow. An army may be described in half-a-dozen lines, though it consisted of five, which were termed respectively, _Hastati_, _Principes_, _Triarii_, _Rorarii_, and _Accensi_.

The _Hastati_, so called from their carrying the _hasta_ or spear, consisted of youth in the bloom of early manhood, and who went in front, that their early bloom might encounter the first blow of the enemy. The next row was formed of the _Principes_, or men in the vigour of life, distinguished by the abundance and splendour of their shields, arms, and accoutrements, and comprising what may be termed the heavy swells of the army. Next in order came the _Triarii_, a body of veterans, selected for their past experience--a quality which, however valuable in council, may be often useless in war; for though experience might have told a veteran that he ought to run for his life, his heels, being as old as his head, might have refused to do the latter's bidding. The fourth rank was composed of _Rorarii_, from the word _Rora_, dew, who sprinkled the enemy with various missiles, and who standing behind the _Triarii_, must occasionally, by aiming short of the foe, have given more than their due to the veterans immediately in front of them. Last in order came the _Accensi_, or supernumeraries, whose courage and fidelity were not of the highest class, and who either brought up the rear or left it behind, as their resolution urged them on, or their want of it kept them back, while there was always an opening left in case their fears should run away with them. It was frequently the practice of the _Accensi_ to reserve the vacant back-ground as a sort of race-course, in which races between their valour and their discretion were being continually run, and in the majority of cases the latter got by far the best of it.

The habits of the early Romans were extremely simple; agriculture was their most honoured employment; and it was thought high praise to say of any man, that he was a good husband, and a good husbandman. Their food was chiefly corn; and many a happy family afforded an illustration of the fact that love, notwithstanding the assertion of the song writer to the contrary, can sometimes live on flour. Wine was so precious, that, in libations to the gods, it was poured out drop by drop, to prevent their getting a drop too much; and, indeed, so scarce was it in the early days of Rome, that Romulus is said to have used milk in his sacrifices; while Papirius, at a later period, vowed, in the event of his victory over the Samnites, a small glass--or _petit verre_--to Jupiter.

Long beards were worn by the Romans until the arrival of a Greek barber from Sicily; and he is said to have plucked out, with a pair of tweezers, the beard which had grown for four centuries and a half into a rooted habit. On some he employed the razor, and he was able to reap an abundant harvest from the chins of a people who had never yet worn a smooth-faced aspect.

The invasion of Pyrrhus caused the adoption at Rome of many Grecian luxuries, and among others was the luxury of substituting a silver coinage for copper, which had been found so inconvenient that a rich man had been obliged to use a wagon instead of a purse, if he wished to take his money about with him. Silver was, however, so scarce, that one Cornelius Rufinus was turned out of the Senate for having on his sideboard more than ten pounds of plate; for it was believed that he could not have come honestly by so much of it, and he was regarded as either a thief, or at least as a receiver of stolen property.

So humble were the pretensions to display in those early days, that a silver cup and a salt-cellar formed, usually, the entire contents of a Roman noble's plate-basket. Music, among the early Romans, was at the lowest possible pitch, and the only professors were flute-players, of scarcely any note, from Etruria. Their strains were so dismal as to be employed only at a sacrifice or a funeral, when extreme melancholy was required. On one occasion the band is said to have struck, and retired to Tibur, when the musicians were only brought back by being made helplessly drunk,--a weakness to which some of those hirelings who assist at the performance of funerals are in our day liable.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Polybius.

[37] Polyb., ii. 20.

[38] The ignorantly squeamish, who may object to the word "togged," will please to observe that it is purely classical--the Latin _toga_ being the root of the participle "togged," as well as the substantive "toggery."

[39] Livy, viii.--8.

[40] Lipsius and others.

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.

All Italy now belonged to Rome, but the thirst for conquest was not quenched even by the sea itself, beyond which the Romans prepared to extend their power. Among those who made a business of bloodshed, by lending themselves out as soldiers to any one who paid them, the Campanians enjoyed--if there could have been any real enjoyment in the matter--a bad eminence. They had followed the trade of human butchers for about fifty years; and, among other sanguinary engagements, they had accepted a job from the tyrant[41] of Syracuse.

The Campanians had done their work of devastation; and there being no further use for them, they had received notice to quit; but instead of returning home, they resolved to stay, and perpetrate a little plunder for their own exclusive benefit. They accordingly surprised the town of Messana--if any enormity may be considered surprising, when committed by such a set--and calling themselves the Sons of Mamers, or Mars, they established themselves under the title of the Republic of the Mamertines. From this point they carried on their trade of robbery and murder, which they put in practice right and left, upon most of their neighbours. On the unerring principle, that wrong never comes right, the rulers of Syracuse, who had, for their own bad purposes, introduced the Campanians into the place, became, in turn, the victims of that lawless band of freebooters. At length, Hiero, a king of Syracuse, determined on getting rid of the nuisance which his predecessors had established, and fell upon the Mamertines with such effect, that they were on the point of being crushed, when they were saved by the interference of a Carthaginian Admiral. The Mamertines being themselves faithless, were suspicious of every one else, and were as false to each other as they were untrue to all besides; so that they looked distrustingly on the offer made, and were unable to agree as to the policy of accepting it. They were speedily in the position of a house divided, for some were ready to receive the protection of Carthage, while others sent for help to the Romans, who, to their utter disgrace, passed a decree, pledging themselves to an alliance with the Mamertine miscreants. It must be stated, to the honour of the Senate, that a majority of that body rejected the humiliating proposal with scorn; but the Consuls, desirous of giving _éclat_ to their term of office--an evil incidental to the system of having a temporary, instead of a permanent, head to the state--did all they could to plunge the country into a war, and brought the question before the assembly of the people.

The lower passions of pride and avarice are soon aroused among the mass by specious promises of glory and conquest; and though each man might, for himself, have spurned an alliance with the Mamertine mercenaries, the result proved the truth of the saying, that "a corporation will do what an individual will shrink from with shame;" for the Comitia Tributa voted that the disgraceful compact should be formed.

Appius Claudius, the son of the blind Consul, was sent to Messana with a fleet of TRIREMES, or vessels with three ranks of oars, which had been borrowed from the Greek towns of Italy; for the Roman Admiralty, in the true spirit of a board, though continually building ships, was unable to produce an effective navy. Appius Claudius was not seaman enough to carry his TRIREMES to Sicily, and his rowers were not so expert as they should have been in the management of the oars, which were placed in ranks, one above the other, to a considerable height, so that a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether was extremely difficult.

Having at last got near enough for a parley, he invited Hanno, the Carthaginian general, to a conference; and, finding him a weak and nervous person, he seized him by the neck, and fairly shook the whole of his resolution out of him.

Hanno was frightened into delivering up the citadel, and returning to Carthage, he was hurried off to speedy execution, for having failed in the execution of his duty. King Hiero, being deprived of his Carthaginian aid, was completely beaten, and was glad to offer peace, or rather he was glad to get it, on any conditions, for his own condition was truly deplorable. He paid down 200 talents in ready money, which was equivalent to about fifty thousand pounds of our modern coin, to prevent the sacking of Syracuse, and by sacrificing all his cash in hand, he was able to save his capital. From this period may be dated the commencement of the first Punic War; and as a feeble-minded reader may be dwelling on the word Punic, in the silly expectation of a pun, we, by explaining that it is derived from Phœnicia, whence Phœnic or Punic, at once check the morbid appetite. The city of Carthage is said to have been about one hundred years older than Rome; but cities, like ladies beyond a certain date, baffle all attempts to reduce their age to a matter of certainty. Tradition assigns the foundation of Carthage to Dido, who, having been converted into an unprotected female by the murder of her husband, fled from Tyre, and when completely tired out, sat down to rest on the coast of Africa. Here she agreed to take, on a building lease, as much land as could be covered with a bull's hide, when, to the astonishment of the lessor, she produced a skin cut up into thongs, and acting as her own surveyor, she claimed to be monarch of all she surveyed, by putting this new species of leathern girdle round as much earth as possible. There was certainly less of the princess than of the tradeswoman in this transaction, which, however, was characteristic of the future city, for it became famous for its business and its bargains, as well as infamous for its bad faith; the term _Punica fides_ having become a by-word to express the grossest dishonesty. Her devotion to commerce led to the establishment of a powerful navy, and her citizens having something more profitable to do than to fight, her army was always hired from abroad when occasion required. Rome, on the other hand, had made war her chief pursuit, and the consequence was, that she had plenty of soldiers, but no ships, except a few she had taken from her foes; and her occupations being mostly of a military or destructive kind, she had no resources but her valour to rely upon.

The Romans remained in Sicily, where several powers claimed their protection; but Hannibal Gisco, anxious to preserve Agrigentum, threw himself and sixty elephants into it. Here he was besieged for seven months with an army of 50,000 men, who, of course, consumed daily a large quantity of food; but there was something utterly irrational in providing daily rations for sixty elephants. It was arranged, therefore, that Hanno should proceed to the relief of Agrigentum, but he was defeated with the loss of thirty elephants, left dead on the field--a field which must have been necessarily a very wide one for conjecture. Hannibal Gisco's army consisted of a medley of mercenaries, including some Gauls, who, having much money owing to them, refused to strike, except for their pay, and who intimated that they would not draw their swords until they had drawn their salaries. Their general, unable to settle with them in cash, chose a more treacherous way of paying them off; for, getting them into an ambush, he caused a volley of missiles to be aimed at them, and the discharge was in full of all demands, for it effectually stopped all further clamour.

Agrigentum was plundered by the Romans, who sold 25,000 of the inhabitants for slaves--at least, according to tradition, who usually deals in round numbers, amounting often in value to the sum which a perfectly round number or figure indicates.

Though the Carthaginians had failed on land, their fleet gave them advantages at sea, for there the Romans were completely out of their element. The latter, however, resolved to have a navy of their own, and the Board of Admiralty set to work in good earnest, with the cooperation of the Woods and Forests, which supplied the requisite timber. The difficulty now felt, was to obtain a design upon which to build, and instead of trusting to official surveyors, who might have shown plenty of cunning, without producing any craft, the Romans took for a model a Carthaginian quinquereme that had come ashore on the coast of Bruttium. Being relieved from the supervision of the professional architects, the ship-building progressed rapidly, and within sixty days after the trees had been felled, one hundred and thirty ships were built; though the builders must have been as green as the wood, and as crazy as the craft, to have imagined that such a fleet could have any but the most fleeting existence. While the vessels were being got ready, it occurred to the authorities that crews would be required, and as the Romans had as yet neither ships nor sailors, a few scaffolds were erected on land, that the intended tars might try their hands at naval tactics.

Matters went smoothly enough on shore, till the would-be seamen, having ventured out to sea, found themselves as ignorant as babies, when rocked in the cradle of the deep; and as the waves washed over them, they perceived they had learnt nothing of their new art but its driest details. With seventeen of these queer quinqueremes, each with 300 rowers, who by their misunderstandings kept up a continual but useless row, the Consul, Cn. Cornelius Scipio, sailed for Messana, when the Punic Captain Bugud, a regular Carthaginian tar, sent him flying, with half his timbers shivered, into a port of the Lipari. The crews, most of them half dead with sea sickness, scrambled as well as they could on shore. Their commander, Cn. Scipio, was taken prisoner, and so ridiculous had been the figure he cut, that his countrymen conferred upon him the name of Asina--or the donkey--a character that might in these days have qualified him for an appointment to a jackass frigate.

After this ludicrous defeat, the command of the Roman navy was taken by the other Consul, C. Duilius, who determined to wash out in the ocean, as well as he could, the stain thrown upon his countrymen. He felt that naval tactics were out of the question among those who were, in one sense, sailors of the first water, for they had never been on the water before; and as to rowing, he knew it to be so impracticable that he resolved to throw the oars overboard. He hit on an expedient for making a naval engagement resemble as much as possible a fight on shore; and by overcoming in some respect the inequalities of the waves, he put his own men on nearly the same footing with the enemy. He constructed boarding bridges, capable of holding two or three persons abreast, and these bridges being thrown on to the enemy's ships, enabled the Romans to walk into them.

The Carthaginians who were not prepared for such close quarters, and had trusted rather to the roughness of the sea, to deprive their opponents of an even chance of success, were so thoroughly taken by surprise, that they suffered their ships to be taken one after the other. C. Duilius was handsomely rewarded for his victory; he was hailed as the first naval hero that Rome had introduced, and as if the festive propensities of a sailor on shore had been foreseen, he was allowed the curious privilege of being accompanied home at night from banquets by an attendant with a torch--in which we see a foreshadowing of the policeman and the bull's-eye. He was further honoured by a _columna rostrata_, a sort of Nelson Column, adorned with the beaks of ships--a short stumpy looking affair, of which the museum at Rome contains an imitation from the hand of Michael Angelo,[42]--who has afforded us a fair copy of one of the columns of the Times, in which the deeds of great men were advertised.

This nautical exploit of Rome was followed up by minor successes, and L. Scipio made an attack upon Corsica, where he was opposed by a Carthaginian fleet, under the command of Hannibal Gisco, who was killed by his own men, but honourably entombed by the Romans, who nobly buried their former animosity.

Carthage and Rome were mutually suffering by their hostilities, and each nation lost its thousands alternately, according to what is called the fortune of war; but which, like the fortune of the gaming-table, must end in the ruin of both sides, for the sole profit of the grim enemy. While the forces of Rome were being diminished nearly every day, her enemies were multiplying; and that inextinguishable race, the Samnites--the increase of whose population would present a most startling series of returns--appeared to the number of upwards of 4000, who had been enlisted into the Roman navy. Their intention was to set the city on fire, but their own leader threw cold water on it before it was even lighted, by making himself an engine of communication with the Roman Government.

In Sicily the Romans were continually in motion, but they took little by their motion beyond a few small towns. At length they determined on one grand naval effort, and they prepared 330 quinqueremes, which were placed under the Consuls, L. Manlius and M. Atilius Regulus, who were probably selected as the most likely to be able to command a fleet because they had never tried. The Carthaginians went to meet them with 350 quinqueremes, in which were--according to tradition--150,000 men; an instance of overcrowding which would have qualified the commander, Hamilcar, for the captainship of a Thames steam-boat. The collision between the two fleets was as destructive as might be anticipated. Thirty ships of the Carthaginians went to the bottom; and, considering their cargo, we can only wonder how they remained at the top. The Romans lost comparatively little, for with them matters went on pretty swimmingly. Regulus was so elated that he sailed for Africa, and, having taken Clupea, the neighbourhood of which was cultivated like a garden, he sat down to enjoy the fruits of success. He took the pick of everything he could lay his hands upon, and he pounced upon the cattle wherever a herd was to be seen. At the end of the year his colleague, L. Manlius, returned to Rome, with a portion of the fleet, and 27,000 prisoners--an arrangement that savours of an enormous cram--and left Regulus alone in his glory, which was destined to become his shame.

Early in the year of the city 498, Regulus, having the field to himself, went into it with great confidence. He laid siege to the town of Adis, which the Carthaginians tried to relieve; but getting among the mountains with their elephants, they were unable to turn round, and found themselves encumbered by the trunks as well as the bodies of these ponderous animals. Regulus took Tunis, and several other places, though in the course of the campaign he is said to have encountered an unexpected enemy in the form of a snake in the grass--a species of serpent one hundred and twenty feet long, which swallowed up his soldiers by hundreds--swords and all--though the reptile ran the risk of cutting its own throat by such extreme voracity.[43]

The Carthaginians were anxious for peace, and sent ambassadors to the Roman camp to negotiate, but Regulus, in his proposal of terms, exceeded all reasonable limits. He pretended to act on the principle of give and take, but the giving was to be all on one side, and the taking all on the other. The Carthaginians returned no answer to these insolent demands; but it is probable their silence must soon have been construed into consent, had it not been for the valour of a Spartan of the name of Xanthippus. This individual was a mere mercenary, who put other people to death for his own living; but he was, at all events, a working man, and infused his own spirit of energy into the Carthaginian army. He personally superintended the training, not only of the men, but of the elephants, and taught the soldiers how to wield as a power those hitherto unwieldy animals. Taking a hundred under his immediate tuition, he brought them into such a state of docility, that when turned out for exercise, they formed a stud worthy of the zoologist's attentive study.

With these sagacious brutes, and a large number of troops, he went forth against Regulus, whose army amounted to 30,000 men; but the soldiers of Xanthippus fought with the courage of lions, which, backed up as it was by the firmness of the elephants, gave them a decisive victory. More than 30,000 Romans perished, if the accounts handed down to us are to be believed, and 500 were taken prisoners, though, if the same accounts are to be believed, the Roman army was only 30,000 strong; so that the 500 captives must have been supplied from some of those exclusive sources which are open to none but the historian. 2000 more are alleged to have escaped, but we must leave the reader to solve the difficulty as he can; for as two into one will not go, so 33,500 out of 30,000 will not come by any process we are acquainted with. Xanthippus, the mercenary, had made it worth his while, for he was highly paid, and received rich presents, with which, as he dreaded the envy of the nobles, he thought he had better make himself absent as speedily as possible. He returned, therefore, to Sparta, to astonish the natives of his own city with the wealth he had acquired.

The Consuls of the year, Ser. Fulvius and M. Aemilius, were now despatched with the whole of the Roman fleet, amounting to about 300 ships, to Africa, where, after destroying the whole of the Carthaginian fleet, it went ashore on the southern coast; and this fleet of 300 ships lost, according to the authorities,[44] 340 vessels. The Carthaginians, whose army on land amounted to about 18,000, managed to lose about 30,000 at sea; but an abundant population was still left for the historian to deal, or rather to cut and shuffle, with. We must confess ourselves wholly incompetent to grapple with the arithmetical problems that continually present themselves to us in the course of our researches, and we therefore postpone all attempt at a solution of the difficulty until the universal solvent shall be discovered.

The Romans and Carthaginians, instead of being overwhelmed by their own misfortunes, were in high spirits at the disasters of each other, and both parties proceeded to repair the damage done to themselves, in order to qualify them for doing further injury. At Rome the Senate ordered a new fleet to be built, which took several Carthaginian towns, and Carthage ordered a fresh army to be levied, which took nearly all the Roman vessels.

Shortly afterwards another naval force was despatched under the Consuls, Cn. Serulius Cæpio and C. Sempronius Blaesus, who had got together 260 ships, with which sundry ravages had been committed on the African coast, when the sea, with its insatiable appetite, swallowed up at a few gulps the greater part of the squadron.

Rome was now thoroughly sea-sick, and determined to have nothing more to do with the water, but to wash her hands of it. She was, however, still powerful by land, and encountered the Carthaginians at Panormus, where the pro-consul, L. C. Metellus, gained a decisive victory, by turning the elephants against their owners, and fighting the latter as it were with their own weapons. This defeat led to a desire on the part of Carthage for peace, and an embassy was sent to Rome, accompanied by Regulus, who had been a prisoner five years, and who agreed to consider himself morally in pawn, pledging himself to return, if the terms proposed by Carthage should not be acceded to by his countrymen. The conduct of Regulus seems to have been dictated by a strong love of histrionic display, for he appears to have been acting a part in which he sought to make as many effective points as possible. In the first act we find him at the gates of Rome, refusing to come in, although he had left Carthage for the purpose of doing so. His wife and two children having gone to meet him, he looked at them as strangers; but this piece of dramatic effect may be accounted for as springing from various other motives than those affecting the patriot.

Having been invited to take his seat in the Senate, he at first refused, but he yielded after a considerable amount of pressing; a proof that his refusal was founded on no fixed principle. When asked for his opinion on the Carthaginian question, he spoke against the arrangement he had been sent home to further, and the noble Romans strongly urged him to stay behind, though he had pledged his honour to return, and the Pontifex Maximus, the head of the religion of the nation, devised a dodge by which Regulus might have evaded his promise. It must, however, be stated, to his credit, that he kept his word to the Carthaginians, and returned among them; but instead of being hailed as a hero, he was denounced as an impostor, and put to death in the most cruel manner. The stories told of his being corked up in a cask filled with nails and serpents, are altogether false; for, after carefully looking into the matter, we are glad to be enabled to knock the cask to pieces by the gentlest tap possible.