Chapter XVI: Conclusion: Of the Second Punic War (1)

Hannibal was now strongly urged by one Maharbal, the commander of the cavalry, to march against Rome, and the gallant general went so far as to promise that if he had permission, he would go and take it so easy, that in five days they might sleep in the Capitol. "The idea is indeed a good one," said Hannibal, with an incredulous smile, "but the only objection to its being carried out, is that it's utterly impossible." Maharbal persevered in his recommendation; but finding his advice rejected, he grew sententious and sentimental, which is often the effect of a snubbing. "Alas!" he exclaimed, with that anti-colloquial style of expression, which characters in history--but not in real life--are so fond of assuming,--"Alas! thou knowest how to gain a victory, but thou knowest not how thou oughtest to use thy victory when thou hast gained it." If this was the ordinary mode in which Maharbal expressed himself, it is not surprising that Hannibal preferred his deeds to his words, the use of his sword to the abuse of his tongue, and his hand in war to his advice in council.

The object of Hannibal had been to attach to himself the Italian towns, but they naturally repudiated an attachment, which consisted in his fastening himself on to them with an army which they were made to support at a ruinous sacrifice. He had, however, succeeded in winning over Capua to his designs, for it was inhabited by a contemptible race, who lay continually in the lap of luxury, where the lapse of all the better qualities would seem to be unavoidable. Not satisfied with treachery to the parent state, the Capuans added cruelty to their other vices, and stifled in their hot baths all the Romans who were living among them--an enormity which sends the blood immediately to boiling heat, to contemplate. The faithless inhabitants stipulated that they should be allowed to break all their engagements with Rome, on entering into new engagements with Carthage,--an arrangement like that of a dishonest servant, who, having robbed a former master, stipulates for impunity for past roguery as the condition of future fidelity. Hannibal was weak or politic enough to enter into terms with this contemptible set; but he incurred the unfailing penalty of wrong, for his own army became corrupted by contact with the Capuan crew, and his fortunes began to decline from the time of his alliance with this degraded people.

The exertions of Rome to repair her reverses were extreme after the battle of Cannæ; and though nearly every family had lost a relative, the period of mourning was limited to thirty days, while a law was passed prohibiting all women from weeping in the streets, for they had been found a crying evil. Sparing no expense, the state performed an operation of a rather curious kind, for 8000 slaves were bought on credit--the Government thus making a large purchase without any money at all--and freeing these slaves, made them fight; thus retaining them actually in bondage, while nominally giving them their liberty. Even gladiators were allowed the valuable privilege of fighting the foe instead of each other, and of falling in the field instead of falling in the circus.

Hannibal having used up nearly all his men and materials, was compelled to send to Carthage for fresh supplies, when his old rival Hanno exclaimed in the senate, that if the Carthaginian general had been unsuccessful, he deserved no help, and if he had been victorious, he could not possibly need any. The speech of Hanno on this occasion would have done credit--or discredit--to a political partisan of the present day; for it was essentially the language of a disappointed leader of the opposition. "If," said the honourable--or dis-honourable--member (for in mere party dissensions it is difficult to distinguish one from the other), "if Hannibal has conquered all our enemies, why does he send to us for soldiers? If he has reduced Italy--the most fertile country in Europe--why does he ask us for corn? And if he has obtained such rich booty, what on earth can he want with money? The truth, I suspect, to be, that his victories are sham--his territorial acquisitions sham--the riches (of which he has sent us specimens, in the shape of a few rings,) sham,--while his necessities, and the burden thrown upon us in supplying them, are the only things that are real."

This argument, though specious, did not altogether prevail, for the senate decreed him four thousand Numidians and forty elephants, the men and the brutes being looked upon as equally articles of consumption in the game of war that had been so long playing. The Romans began to act with increased determination, and blockaded Capua, which was left to its fate by Hannibal, though an attempt to relieve it was made by a detachment which received a severe beating at the hands of Tib. S. Gracchus.

This period is rendered additionally remarkable by the siege of Syracuse, which eventually fell into the hands of M. Claudius Marcellus, whose efforts had long been thwarted by the genius of Archimedes. This illustrious inventor lived to the good old age of seventy-five; but how he lived so long is a matter of almost as much wonder as some of his inventions, for his biographers tell us that he always forgot to eat and drink; nor could he ever be persuaded to take a bath, except when his friends pushed him into one. Even when this was accomplished, he was sure to be found under the ashes of the fire-places, writing problems among the cinders, and endeavouring to sift some important point; so that a bath was really thrown away upon the great philosopher. In a visit to Egypt, he became anxious to elevate the Nile to a certain point; but he remained in Egypt until all his money was spent, for the philosopher had never thought of raising the wind while intent on raising the water. He invented a screw, which still bears his name; but he is said to have amused himself, during the siege of Syracuse, by sitting at the window and inventing all sorts of missiles to hurl at the ships of the enemy. One day he might be seen throwing stones from a newly-invented sling, and a few days after he was found casting out chains, to pull--with a tremendous hook--the ships of the foe completely out of the water. He was so intent upon everything he came near, that he gave a lift to enemies occasionally as well as to friends, as in the instance just recorded, and he declared his ability to give the whole world a lift if he could only find a convenient spot in the neighbourhood for himself and his lever to rest upon. That in one sense he carried out his boast, we are willing to admit; for he undoubtedly elevated the world by raising the standard of science, and he exalted the whole of civilised humanity by his great discoveries. The part he took in the siege of Syracuse has been underrated by some, and exaggerated by others; for though the story of his pulling the ships out of the sea requires a length of rope, and other apparatus, which none but the greatest stretch of imagination can supply, his destroying the vessels by burning-glasses is perfectly credible. He is supposed to have used very powerful reflectors, capable of taking effect within the distance of bow-shot; and though for some time the moderns insisted that the long-bow had been pulled for the purpose of increasing the space, the powers of the burning-glass are now familiar to every schoolboy.

On the fall of Syracuse, orders were given by Marcellus, the Roman general, that the philosopher should be respected; but he was so absorbed in a problem, that the soldier who was sent after him not being able to solve the problem of who he was, or what he was about, fell upon and slew him.

It is of the great man we have been noticing that a story is told, which proves that the pursuit of the laws of gravity may sometimes be associated with the ludicrous. King Hiero, of Syracuse, had handed over a good lump of pure gold to a working jeweller to be converted into a crown, with the distinct understanding that the true metal only should be used, and that there might be no alloy to the pleasure his Majesty would feel in wearing it. The goldsmith brought back an article of the proper weight; but the king, after trying it on his head, turning it over in his mind, and revolving it beneath his eyes in the sun, declared his suspicion that the metal had been tampered with, and a base imposition had been practised. He consulted Archimedes as to the means of detecting the imposture; and on one of those days when the friends of the philosopher had forced him to take a bath, he became immersed as deeply in speculation as in the water.

The bath into which he plunged having been full to the brim, the apartment was soon flooded by the water he displaced; and looking at the wet floor, he thought only of the dry facts of science. It occurred to him that any body of equal bulk would have done exactly the same thing; and he immediately thought of his royal master's crown, which, if all the gold sent for its construction had been fairly used up, should displace as much water as a piece of pure metal equal in weight to that which the crown ought to contain. The moment the idea struck him he jumped out of the bath, and thinking of nothing but the bare facts, he ran through the streets, perfectly unconscious of the naked truth of his own condition. His shout was εὕρηκα[52]--I have found it; but everybody thought, when they saw him, that whatever he might have found, he had certainly lost his senses.

There is, no doubt, much exaggeration in the absurd stories told of Archimedes; but we may excuse a little oddness in a great man whom none was even with. He ran so far in advance of his age, that eighteen centuries had nearly elapsed before any one came up to him, and then it was chiefly by following the track marked out by his footsteps.[53]

We must now leave the nobler instruments of science, to return to the engines of war, which were as usual in full play, and had been employed in the total dissolution of the already too dissolute city of Capua. The dissipated nobles, palsied by their excesses, and paralysed by their fears, fell by their own hands; for they had neither the courage to fight for the chance of success, nor the nerve to meet the consequences of failure.

It is stated that one Vibius Virrius, the chief of the Senate, on the eve of the opening of the gates, gave a sort of legislative supper to twenty-eight of the members, and, at the conclusion of a hearty meal, he produced a cup, with the contents of which he proposed that every one present should poison the remainder of his own existence. The deadly potion was poured out into twenty-nine different vessels, and, with faces more or less wry, the Senators swallowed the fatal mixture. On the surrender of the place, the citizens were sold for slaves; and it must be admitted that they had shown themselves fit for little better than the fate assigned to them.

In the year previous to the fall of Capua, Hannibal had taken Tarentum; but, three years later, the stupidity or treachery of the general in charge, or man in possession, had allowed Q. Fabius Maximus to take it back again. Hannibal was thus daily losing territory, and his cause was consequently losing ground. Many small states which had adhered to him because they believed him to be strong enough to assist them, withdrew from him directly he appeared as if he could not help himself.

Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, had been harassed in Spain by the two Scipios--Cn. C. and P.--when fortune cleared the stage for him, by killing both within a month, and annihilating both their armies. The fate of the two leaders had such an effect in Rome, that when those eligible to command had heard the particulars, they had no inclination to act as generals. Every one seemed to fear that if he went to head the army in Spain, he should be simply going to his own funeral, and every one naturally shrunk from such an undertaking. At length young P. C. S. A. M.--or, to give his name at full length, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major--who was only twenty-four years of age, though he had entered the army at seventeen, and had been present, or rather absent, at the battle of Cannæ, where the only survivors were those who ran away--volunteered to supply the places of his deceased relatives. An objection was, at first, made to his age--or rather to his want of age--but, as there was no older candidate for the post of honour and of danger, he was permitted to step into it. His popularity was, in some measure, owing to his having acquired the character of a serious young man; for ever since he had assumed the toga virilis--an assumption something like the modern practice of going into stick-ups--he had been in the habit of passing his mornings in the Temple of Jupiter. He proceeded to Spain, with the title of Pro-consul, and an army of about 11,000 men, at the head of whom he proceeded to Carthagena; where he knew the enemy kept the greater portion of their cash, their corn, and their captives. He was accompanied by his friend Lælius, who commanded the fleet, and who was sent to make an unexpected attack from the sea; for Scipio, who was very deep, had ascertained that the water was very shallow. The defenders of New Carthage had relied upon the ocean as a defence; but they had, in reality, built their hopes on sand, which, during the prevalence of a particular wind and tide, afforded easy access to the city. The place speedily fell into his hands; and his gallantry--in a double sense--made him with the brave and the fair an equal favourite. Towards the ladies he was particularly amiable; and he not only sent back to her lover an interesting young girl, but he returned to her husband a maudlin old woman. The latter was the aged wife of the chief Mardonius, who weepingly implored that her sex might be treated with respect; when the young soldier, hiding his face in his sleeve, either cried or laughed in it.

Hasdrubal now turned his attention to Italy, while Scipio continued his conquests in Spain, and, among other places, took Astapa, which, if tradition tells the truth, he must have found without a single inhabitant. It is said that the place was defended with such valour that only fifty men remained alive, and these became impressed with the feeling that when a thing must be done, it is better to do it oneself than to leave it to be done by others. They came to the resolution that they were sure not to be spared, and they had, therefore, better get rid of one another. They accordingly proceeded to the sanguinary task of mutual destruction; though, as one must have remained to the last, and there would have been some difficulty in disposing of him, it is probable that he survived for the purpose of acting as his own reporter of the dreadful incident. The graver historians insist that not one was left alive in the city; that the last fifty soldiers, having first killed all their women, and all their children, made away with all of themselves; a state of things which induces us to ask how the particulars have come down to us. If, however, we were to indulge this spirit of inquiry to any extent, we should, we fear, be compelled to throw a doubt upon many of those interesting particulars which form the most agreeable portions of history.

Hasdrubal resolved to make a grand effort, and assembled an army, which including some Iberians, under his brother Mago, as well as some Numidians, headed by Masinissa, their king, numbered 75,000 men, and six-and-thirty elephants. Scipio, though objecting to attack a power more than twice his size, was compelled to do so, by a want of provisions, for he had so little food that his army could not even have grubbed on for a month or two. He was again victorious, and Hasdrubal proceeded to join his brother Hannibal; but the letters written by the former to apprise the latter of his coming, instead of going regularly through all the military posts, fell, by some misdirection or indirection, into the hands of the enemy. The Consul Livius Salinator went into the neighbourhood of Sena Gallica--now Senigaglia--and was joined by his colleague, C. Claudius Nero, who came, under cover of the night, with a large army; and it would appear that the forces of Hasdrubal kept such very early hours, that they had all gone to bed, and knew nothing of the reinforcements that had been sent against them. Hasdrubal, however, saw among the Romans, on the following morning, some soldiers, whose faces were so sun-burnt, as to give a strange complexion to a part of the troops, and he concluded that they had recently been on a journey. After having indulged in an inquiring look, he commenced a patient listen, and he fancied he heard two trumpet calls in the hostile camp, when, without considering whether the second might have been the mere echo of the first, he resolved, in his own mind, that the armies of the two Consuls had joined together. He accordingly determined to fly, and began by trying to swim across the river Metaurus, which is usually shallow enough; but the rains had swelled it to such a torrent that he was soon plunged into the depths of misery. His guides, following the impulse of their own cowardice, ran away as fast as they could, and he, in perfect ignorance of the country, found the river rising and his spirits sinking in about an equal ratio. The Romans came up with him in time to find his army completely damped, and his troops were, according to the military practice of the period, cut, at once, to pieces.

Hasdrubal, who had lost heart early in the battle, seems ultimately to have lost his head, for rushing into the midst of a cohort, he was decapitated by a Roman soldier. It is said that the head of Hasdrubal was afterwards brutally thrown into the camp of his brother Hannibal; but happily for the credit of humanity, this story of the head is absurd on the very face of it.

Spain was now subject to Rome; and Scipio, after quelling an insurrection in his army, paid a visit to Syphax, who was king of a portion of Numidia, and who was desperately in love with a young lady, named Sophonisba, the daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco, a Carthaginian general. Sophonisba was one of those troublesome persons, known as fascinating creatures, who, by attracting the eyes of mankind, set them very often by the ears, and lead to much calamity. This too interesting individual had also won the admiration of Masinissa, another king of another part of Numidia, when her father, irrespective of any attachment she might have formed, gave her hand to Syphax, by way of attaching the latter to his interests. Masinissa, in a fit of jealousy, went over to Rome, leaving Syphax and Hasdrubal to fight it out with Scipio.

The Africans and Carthaginians were, to a certain extent, people of straw, which was the material they used in constructing their tents, and Scipio, basely pretending that he desired to negotiate a peace, sent a set of firebrands, under the garb of envoys, into the camp of the enemy. These hypocritical incendiaries carried fire among the foe; and, though the elephants fought like lions, the Carthaginians behaved like lambs, for the poor creatures, thinking the burning of their tents was accidental, looked on with simple bewilderment. 40,000 Africans were cut to pieces on the spot; and Syphax, who had managed to escape, was ready immediately with 30,000 more, to engage Scipio in the neighbourhood of Utica. Syphax was urged on by his wife, who is described as a woman of remarkable spirit--a character equivalent to that of a very troublesome body. Poor Syphax did all he could against a very superior force, but he was ultimately taken prisoner, and sent to Scipio, while Sophonisba remained at home to receive Masinissa--like a woman of spirit--at the gates of her husband's palace.

The lovely creature, admitting that she was vanquished, and declaring that further opposition would be vain, appealed, in the character of an unprotected female, to the generosity of Masinissa. Expressing the utmost horror at being placed as a captive behind the car of Scipio, she entreated the protection of her husband's conqueror; and Masinissa, not knowing exactly what to do, politely offered to marry her. She at once consented; and, after a widowhood of a few hours, she was presented to Lælius, the Roman Consul, in her new character.

Syphax, not being dead, was of course rather painfully alive to the conduct of his wife, and having hinted to Scipio that she might be the cause of further mischief, an order was immediately sent to Masinissa to send her back by the bearer. This her new husband was unwilling to do, but he forwarded her a cup of poison, which she drank off with the air of a tragedy queen, and died with a clap-trap in her mouth, which was almost as nauseous as the stuff that she was called upon to swallow.

The Carthaginians now began to feel that every thing went wrong in the absence of Hannibal, whom they invited home, and on his arrival he was really anxious for peace and quietness. Scipio felt much the same, and the two generals, having met, looked at each other for some time in silent admiration. It may be doubted whether they got any further than this point, for even if they had a few words, it did not prevent them from ultimately coming to blows at the great and decisive battle of Zama. Hannibal brought into the field 50,000 men, and about 80 real elephants; but his soldiers were most of them raw, and liable to be roasted on the ground of extreme awkwardness. He put the Moors, the Gauls, and Libyans in front, the Carthaginian cowards in the centre, for they were but a middling set, and he brought up the rear, with a few of his best soldiers. Scipio exhibited some very skillful generalship on this momentous occasion, and by a clever arrangement of his forces, he left room for the elephants to run through the ranks without coming into contact with any of his soldiers.

The success of Scipio was complete; and Hannibal returned to Carthage after an absence of thirty-six years; having so far forgotten the manners and customs of his country, that, during a debate in the Senate, he dragged a noble--whose sentiments did not exactly coincide with his own--by force from the tribune. On being called to order, he explained that he had forgotten the forms of the house; and the discussion proceeded as if nothing particular had happened. Carthage made peace with Rome, on very advantageous terms to the latter; and Scipio, who took the name of Africanus, enjoyed the honours of a triumph, at which poor Syphax--who appears to have been everybody's victim--was obliged to figure in fetters.

The terms imposed upon Carthage were very severe; for she was to deliver up, without ransom, all the Roman prisoners: to surrender nearly all her ships; and to part with all her elephants. She was also to pay over a considerable sum in cash,--a stipulation which set the Senate off into a roar of anguish, and caused Hannibal sneeringly to exclaim that "the only thing to draw tears from their eyes was to draw money from their pockets."[54]

Though Rome had been victorious, so fatal is war to all who engage in it, that her successes had brought her almost to the verge of ruin. Scenes of cruelty had dyed the country with blood, and left a stain upon it which could not easily be effaced; and wherever the sword of war had been brandished, nothing else had flourished. Troops had been raised merely to be cut down; the country had been wasted on all sides; and there had been a still more terrible waste of human existence. While life was being made so cheap, the means of supporting it were getting dearer every day; for provisions rose to an enormous price under the influence of a system which converted the ploughshare into the sword, and turned what should have been fields of corn into fields of battle. To meet the expenses of the war, the public had been obliged to run into debt; and there is no process to which the term running is more properly applied, though the opposite movement is always slow, and often impossible.

The Carthaginian fleet having been destroyed, Rome became nominally mistress of the seas; but, for want of means, she made a very bad mistress, and the sea might be said to maintain a mastery over her.

War, however, had been in some degree productive of good; for it had led to the recognition of the great principle that the public service was not to be monopolised by the privileged few, inasmuch as where there is real work to be done, there is scope for the talents and energies to be met with among the many. Wealth, however, had become a passport to public employment; and the door could be opened by a golden key, which has, in modern times, served most appropriately as the emblem of office.

The drain upon the resources of the nation was so considerable, in consequence of the frequent wars, that the Senators sent their plate to the treasury, and received bank bills instead,--an arrangement as satisfactory as exchanging silver dishes for silver paper. The merchants supplied dresses for the troops on the same terms, and accepted printed rags for comfortable clothing.

Superstition also sensibly--or rather foolishly--increased during the wars against Carthage; and the Sibylline books were consulted from time to time, though usually with no other result than the recommendation of a job, to be performed by Government Commissioners. On one occasion the books were declared to require that Cybele should be brought to Rome; and ambassadors were appointed, at a considerable expense, to go to Phrygia, for the purpose of fetching her. They professed to find her, and bring her home; but upon their arrival, they produced nothing but a large black stone, which the people welcomed as a most precious stone, and which they were contented to receive as the goddess they required.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] The term εὕρηκα has lately been applied to a newly-invented shirt; but the term is extremely inappropriate, for the philosopher had no shirt on when he proclaimed his great discovery.

[53] Stevinus, the Flemish mathematician, and Galileo, both of whom were born about the middle of the sixteenth century, were the first who came after Archimedes in any great mechanical discoveries.

[54] Livy, xxx. 44.

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.

WAR WITH THE MACEDONIANS. PROCLAMATION OF THE FREEDOM OF GREECE BY FLAMINIUS. WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS. DEATH OF HANNIBAL, AND OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS.

War being still the theme of our history, we are obliged to ask the reader to accompany us into the field, though we are aware that battles, and their deadly details, cannot inspire a very lively interest.

Philip of Macedonia had become jealous of the power of Rome, which had now got a footing in the boot of Italy; and, as Greece lay nearly under the heel, it was natural that the Grecians should prepare to resist being trampled on. Philip, therefore, concluded a treaty with Hannibal, and sent ambassadors with the document; but, instead of delivering it into the hands for which it was designed, they themselves fell into the hands of the Romans.

Rome at once despatched to Illyricum a fleet of 50 sail, when Philip, observing that the vessels were being wafted over by a favourable breeze, saw there was something in the wind, and resolved--whatever the blow--to be prepared for it. This was the commencement of the Macedonian War, which became extremely unpopular with the Romans; for the people at large regarded it as a bitter cup, though the nobles desired it for the sake of the "bubble reputation" that the few might find in it. In vain did the tribes protest against the proposed war, declaring they were no enemies to Philip, for the Senate insisted he was an enemy of theirs, and that it was accordingly their duty to fight with him.

The campaign was opened by P. Sulpicius Galba, who crossed the Adriatic, but did little, and was succeeded by Villius Tappulus, who did nothing. Fortune had hitherto observed a sort of stiffness towards both sides, leaning neither to the right nor to the left, when she suddenly took a turn under the consulship of T. Quinctius Flaminius. This individual was, comparatively, young in years, but superlatively old in cunning; and he possessed in an eminent degree the low arts of deceit which are usually held to constitute the high art of statesmanship. He could electrotype falsehood with the external appearance of truth, and he had no lack of that lacquer which brazens out a fraud with the brass of impudence. Everything in the shape of rust had been rubbed off his manners, which had become smooth in the extreme, and had acquired that high state of polish which is frequently associated with a very slippery character. He slid, as it were, into the confidence of all, with the easy lubricity of the serpent, and with not a little of its wiliness. His smile won, or rather lost, those whom he wished to deceive, and he tried its fascination with such effect on some of the Greek chiefs, that they permitted him to enter Thebes, and either did not see what he had in his eye, or were induced to wink at it. He pretended that he wished to parley with the authorities; but, when the citizens were waiting to see what would take place, they found the place itself quietly taken by Flaminius.

Thessaly now became the scene of war, and the Romans met the Greeks near a line of small hills, called, from their shape, the Dogs' Heads, or Cynocephalæ. Here both parties fought with a dogged obstinacy, which was quite in character with the place, until the Greek phalanx, or Macedonian heavies, gave way before the Roman legions. The principle of the phalanx was to pack the soldiers so closely together that their shields touched, and their spears being upwards of twenty feet long, the arms of the rear ranks leaned on the shoulders of those in advance, so that they went forth arm in arm, as it were, to meet the enemy. The Romans, on the contrary, preserved a sort of open order, in which there was room for the exercise of their limbs; while the Greeks, if they were able to raise their arms at all, were very likely to lift them against each other. If the Romans were in need of assistance, there was space left in their ranks for reinforcements to come up. But, amidst the density of a Greek phalanx, nothing could make its way except a panic, which will always find room to run through an entire army. Though presenting, by these means, a formidable front, their line was no sooner broken than they offered a most unprotected rear to an active foe, and the Greek files on the occasion in question bore marks of a special endorsement at the hands of the Romans. Having been packed as closely as cards, 8000 Macedonians fell upon the field, or rather upon one another, and Philip fled to Tempe, as if he was desirous to hide his face in its well-known vale after his discomfiture. Here he negotiated an arrangement, which may be termed the peace of the valley, though it was a kind of peace with which he could scarcely be contented, for it stipulated that he should give up all his ships except five; but he was, nevertheless, permitted to retain 500 men of war in the shape of that number of heavy-armed soldiers.

He was also to pay 1000 talents, which would have taken every talent he possessed, and put him to his wit's end at once, if he had not been allowed ten years, within which to find the money. He was furthermore compelled to send his son Demetrius to Rome for his education--a stipulation, of which the object is not particularly clear, unless it was thought that while the offspring was being schooled, a lesson was also being given to the father. Flaminius, laying aside the character of the warrior, proceeded to Greece as a tourist; and, though in private life he was as gentle as a lamb, he was everywhere received as a lion. Having visited the Isthmian games, he interrupted the herald who was about to open the proceedings with the usual proclamation, and putting into the hands of the officer a scroll, desired him to "read it out" before proceeding with the programme. The document was an announcement of the freedom of the Greek cities over which Macedonia had domineered; and the people, finding that Flaminius had made them free, resolved on making him welcome. Frantic with joy, they nearly deafened him with cheers, and almost buried him in flowers; nor could he keep at bay those who pressed forward to crown him with laurel. So dense was the throng, that he must have felt a smothered satisfaction, if he felt any at all; and even if he could have found words to return thanks, he could find no breath to give them utterance.

In order that the Greeks might be shown the use of their new freedom, Flaminius remained behind, to give an illustration of the method of taking a liberty. Calling to his aid ten commissioners from Rome, he proceeded to apportion the free cities of Greece in the manner most agreeable to his own views; for it is a peculiarity of all freedom imported from abroad, that it must be a freedom in conformity with the taste of the importers, and not of those for whose use the article is required. It thus frequently happens that what is recommended as a luxury from abroad proves far from palatable to a people not accustomed to the new commodity; and, though efforts may be made to force it down their throats, at the point of the sword, the morsel is not easy of digestion, and is only revolting to those whom it may have been intended to satisfy.

After completing the independence of Greece, by forcing republics on some of its cities, taking possession of some others, and establishing internal discord in nearly all, Flaminius returned to Rome in the year of the City 559, and enjoyed the honours of a triumph.

As no one is at times louder in his denunciations of dishonesty than the practised rogue, so the Romans, who were for enslaving and plundering all the world, found it convenient, occasionally, to protest against the rapacity of such as were rivals in the game of conquest. Philip had already been dealt with on the principle that it is impossible for two of a trade to agree; and a quarrel was now picked with Antiochus, who was doing a somewhat extensive business as a wholesale appropriator of what did not rightly belong to him. Flaminius, therefore, while declaring, after his own fashion, the independence of Greece, stipulated that freedom should be restored by Antiochus to all the Greek cities in Asia,--an arrangement that would have left the cities at liberty to be made free with by Rome in her usual manner. Antiochus justified his own wrong by denying the right of any one else to interfere, and continued appropriating to himself other places to which he had no legal or equitable title. He seized on the Thracian Chersonesus, on the ground that one of his ancestors had seized it once before,--a principle about as just as if the grandson of a thief, who had been transported for stealing a watch, should, on the strength of his ancestral crime, rob the owner anew of the same property.

Finding Lysimachia deserted, he took it as his own desert; when the Romans, growing jealous of his success in the predatory line, declared that they should regard, as a direct opposition to Rome, any further acts of plunder.

While matters were in this state, Hannibal was living in scarcely any state at all, as an ordinary member of the Carthaginian Senate. He had taken the opposition side of the house; and though he was a proposer of many useful reforms, he was frequently coughed down, and in a minority always. Finding little sympathy amongst his own countrymen, who were all for peace and quietness, he entered into a negotiation with Antiochus, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they could arrange to create a joint disturbance, and thus weaken the Roman power. Treachery was, however, going on in all directions; for, while Hannibal was plotting with Antiochus against Rome, some of the Carthaginians were plotting with Rome against Hannibal; and a further breach of trust in some other quarter made him acquainted with his danger. He accordingly resolved to escape; and having a small tower--or marine residence--on the coast, he sent orders that a ship should be ready to sail, and a berth secured for him. He walked about the streets of Carthage all day, as if nothing had happened, and nothing was likely to occur; for the Roman ambassadors were continually dogging his footsteps; and he led them about so perseveringly all day, that when the evening arrived they had scarcely a leg to stand upon. Hannibal had, however, ordered his horse, which flew with him across the country to the spot where the ship was in waiting; and, after a difficult passage, by land as well as by sea, he arrived at the Court of Antiochus.

True to his infantine oath, Hannibal did his utmost to excite hostility against the Romans; and asked Antiochus to lend him a trifle, in the shape of 10,000 men, as if they were so many counters, that the game of war required. Antiochus, however, like a boy jealous of his toys, refused to hand over the 10,000 men, whose lives might be required as playthings for himself; and he was not long in making use of them.

The Greeks, being unable to appreciate the sort of independence they had received at the hands of Rome, sent an invitation to Antiochus; for it is the characteristic of slavery, as a moral disease, to seek relief from the existing cause of oppression by the introduction of some more violent form of the same malady.[55]

As the interference of strangers will usually lead to family quarrels, so the effect of foreign influence on Greece was to keep the people continually involved in disputes with each other. Part of the population would have welcomed Antiochus warmly, while others received him coldly; and the king, who had penetrated into Thessaly, had sufficient penetration to see that he had better go a considerable part of the way back again.

By way of narrowing the ground of dispute, he took his position in the Pass of Thermopylæ, and had, for some time, maintained an advantage over the Romans, when M. Porcius Cato, ascending the heights, ran round to the rear, and, by a decisive blow on the enemy's back, changed the whole face of the engagement. Antiochus fled in dismay, and never stopped to look behind him, until he reached Asia Minor, when he sat down, and took a gloomy retrospect of all that had happened. While he met with reverses on land, he heard of the reverse, or rather the same thing, that had happened to his fleet at sea; and he fairly gave up, not only his cause, but the Chersonesus, Lysimachia, Sestos, and Abydos, with all their contents and non-contents; the latter of which included the inhabitants.

Antiochus, though subdued in spirit, was not quite beaten in form; and a large army was sent to Asia, under the command of the two consuls, L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Lælius. L. C. Scipio, though without any acknowledged merit of his own, had the good fortune to be the brother of the celebrated Scipio Africanus, who got him the place; but it is manifest that such an illegitimate step to an appointment will often end in a grievous disappointment of one kind or another. To provide against the ill consequences of this flagrant job, the celebrated Scipio went out in the capacity of legate, to counteract the consequences of his brother's general incapacity in the capacity of general. The Romans had 20,000 men, who, having arrived in Asia, met 70,000 soldiers of Antiochus, at Magnesia, where the latter received a dose from which they never recovered. Peace was granted to them on very humiliating terms; but, however bitter the cup prescribed for Antiochus, so disagreeable was the recollection of Magnesia, that he was obliged to swallow almost anything that came after it.

Rome continued her system of giving independence to various places and people, many of whom seemed so little to appreciate the proffered boon, that in some cases money was tendered and accepted as the price of exemption from the proposed advantages. The Cappadocians were so alarmed at the prospect of their new freedom, that, being still free to confess their dislike to it, they sent 200 talents to the Romans, who, no doubt, mentally impressed with the proverbial baseness of the "slave who pays," quietly pocketed the money.

While the principles of independence were being promulgated in the East, the Romans were also employed in carrying their notions of emancipation into the North, where several tribes were cut to pieces, in order that they might feel the interest which Rome condescended to take in them. In some places the old inhabitants were rooted up like old trees, while the younger branches were transplanted to other soils; and a large quantity of Ligurian offshoots were carried off from their parent stems to fill some vacant ground at Samnium. Many places were thoroughly destroyed; and among others, Cremona was so unmercifully played upon, that it was utterly broken up, and the lamentations of its inhabitants were regarded no more than the moanings of a set of old fiddle-strings.

Not satisfied with being the masters of Italy and the tyrants of Greece, the Romans aimed at establishing their dominion in Spain, which was partly achieved by the treachery of some of the inhabitants, and the cowardice of others. Some of its most powerful men entered into an alliance with Rome, and were treated as insurgents or rebels, when they dared to revolt against the foreign authority that had either cowed or corrupted them.

The subjugation of Spain was mainly effected by M. Porcius Cato, who took a rather remarkable way of reducing the country to submission; for he induced several places to commit a sort of moral suicide; and after condemning them in his own mind, he arranged that they should become, as it were, their own executioners. He sent circulars to a large number of fortified towns in Spain, with instructions that the communications were not to be looked into before a certain day; and the inhabitants of every town experienced the agony of suspense, in the fear that their doom was sealed in a letter they were not allowed to open. At length, when the day arrived for penetrating the envelope in which the mystery was enclosed, every circular was found to contain a command that the walls of the town to which it was addressed should be razed to the ground, or, in case of disobedience, that the heaviest punishment should light on its inhabitants. The authorities not being able to communicate with each other, fancied their own town the only one that was doomed, and proceeded to pull the place about their own ears, until it was reduced to a heap of dry rubbish.

When the mischief was done, it was too late to discover that it need not have been done at all; and though unity is in ordinary cases strength, the unity with which the Spaniards had acted in demolishing their own towns, had reduced them to a condition of utter feebleness.

For some time they lived in peace, though their homes were knocked to pieces; but a war broke out again, in the year of the City 572 (B.C. 181). The Spaniards, however, were not thoroughly reduced until four years after, though they were being continually killed, beaten, cut to pieces, and otherwise dealt with, in a manner from which their reduction would seem to flow as a natural consequence. It was Tib. Sempronius Gracchus--the father of the two great Gracchi, of whom we shall have something to say hereafter--that concluded peace with several of the Spanish tribes, who were brought down so low, that their being otherwise than peaceable was almost impossible.

The Romans continued to intrude themselves and their system on different parts of Europe, and planted a colony at Aquileia, in Istria, which caused the Istrians to try and put a full stop to the disposition which Rome had shown to colon-ise. A war ensued, which resulted in the loss of three towns and one king, when the Istrians came to the conclusion that they had had enough of it, and immediately submitted to the Roman authority.

Having, for a time, lost sight of the illustrious Hannibal, we begin to look about for him once more, and find him living in a Court, kept by one Prusias, the greedy and needy king of Bithynia. After the treaty made by Antiochus and the Romans, Hannibal had fled to Crete, where he could not long remain; and, though history is silent as to the cause, we may conjecture something from the fact, that he effected a clandestine removal of all his wealth, though he pretended to leave behind him a vast amount of treasure. Tradition states that, having procured a number of earthen jars, he filled them with lead, and, strewing a little gold, or loose silver, over the top, he carried them to the temple of Diana, and requested the Cretan priests to become his bankers, for the purpose of his entrusting to them this valuable deposit. The priests assured him, with many protestations, that he would find it all right on his return; and Hannibal, having previously packed all his real gold into the hollow insides of some statues of brass, which he pretended to carry with him, in his character of an admirer of the arts, got clear off with all his money.

He continued to travel from place to place, and had spent the contents of nearly all his statues, except a small one, so that his means had literally come down to the lowest figure. In this dilemma he found himself at Bithynia, where Prusias gave him house-room for a short time; taking advantage of the visit, to render his guest useful in a war that was being carried on against Eumenes, king of Pergamus. Hannibal, however, could not persuade the parsimonious Prusias to go to the expense of conducting hostilities in an effective style; and, indeed, there being no money to carry on the war, it was impossible to do so with credit; for nobody would make any advance on the security of a bad sovereign. The Romans regarding Hannibal as a dangerous agitator, which he had indeed proved himself to be, required that he should be given up; but Prusias, declining to be at the expense of carriage, intimated that whoever wanted Hannibal had better come for him. The Carthaginian general, foreseeing his fate, endeavoured to make his escape by one of seven secret passages leading from his house; but his enemies had found them out, and were therefore certain of finding him at home; for they had taken care to bar his egress.

Though possessing all the courage of a soldier, he was miserably destitute of a superior kind of fortitude, and he always carried a bottle of poison about with him. Finding escape impossible, he drew the fatal phial from his pocket, and, as he shook it up, he indulged in one of those speeches which are usually attributed by classical historians to men on the point of suicide. "I will," he said--or is said to have said, for nobody could have heard him, as he was quite alone, and nobody could have been listening, or the bottle would have been snatched out of his hand; "I will deliver the Romans from the dread which has so long tormented them, since they think it too long to wait for the decease of a worn-out old man." Here he may be supposed to have paused; and, after giving the bottle another final shake, to have continued as follows: "Flaminius's victory over a foe, unarmed and betrayed, will not redound much to his honour;" and, with a mental once, twice, thrice, and away, the wretched Hannibal may be imagined to have raised the nauseous draught to his lips, and to have tossed it off with desperate energy.

Hannibal had certainly, in his lifetime, shown proofs of greatness, though, in the manner of his death, he gave evidence of lamentable littleness. On the admirable principle of "look to the end," we are unable to agree with those classical enthusiasts who regard Hannibal as one of the most illustrious of mankind, because he was more daring and more skilful in the art of exterminating his fellow-creatures than many of his competitors. His personal ambition brought misery on his own, as well as other countries, and his obstinate hatred to Rome was not justified by his juvenile oath, for the taking of which he deserved rather the birch than the laurel. The first public act of his life was to swear when he was too young to have known what he was about, and the last act was to poison himself at the age of sixty-two, when he was quite old enough to have known better. He made a bad beginning, but a worse ending, and he proved that, though aspiring to rule over others, he was unable to command himself, and was in nearly every respect a melancholy specimen of ill-regulated humanity.

Within about a year of Hannibal's death, Scipio Africanus also died in exile. This great man, as it has been customary to call him, because he was a large destroyer of the human race, was taken up before the Senate on a charge of embezzlement. The case happened to be appointed for hearing on the anniversary of some battle he had won, when he declared the day was ill-suited for litigation, and the people, who are always ready for an excuse for a holiday, immediately agreed with him. His brother Lucius was involved in the same accusation, which he met by producing his accounts; but, the popular idol seizing the books, declared it was shabby for a nation to be too particular with those who had served it so well, and tore up the whole of the financial statement. Lucius Scipio remained in Rome; but Africanus ran away to a villa in Campania, leaving his brother to undergo the confiscation of the whole of his property. The innocence of Lucius was subsequently established, and, though no "money returned," is generally the motto of the law, he succeeded in getting back a part of what he had been unjustly deprived of. He, however, having lived without his income, had no sooner got the means restored to him of living within it, than he died, with the melancholy satisfaction of having had justice done when it was too late to be of the smallest earthly use to him.

The merits and demerits of Scipio Africanus have been differently estimated by different authorities; and though it is charitable to give to any man the benefit of a doubt, no one would be thankful for the admission that his was a doubtful character. Scipio Africanus was a great patron of letters; but he seems to have been a despiser of figures, if the story relating to his contempt for the accuracy of his accounts is to be relied upon. Cicero has spoken eloquently of the simple habits of Scipio Africanus, in his marine retirement, throwing stones into the sea, and skimming with them the surface of the water; but this innocent pastime does not relieve him from the accusation of making "ducks and drakes" of the public money, which was the charge that Cato had endeavoured to bring home to him.