Chapter XIII: The Macedonian and Syriac Wars and the Third Punic War (1)

(200-131 B.C.)

From the time of Pyrrhus, Macedonia, and all Greece as well, had abundant causes to look with jealousy upon the growing power of Rome. For the most part Greece was in too shattered a condition--though doubtless most contemporary citizens did not realise the fact--to enter into active dispute with the new Mistress of the West. There were times, however, when Macedonia, not yet able to forget the brief period of her recent supremacy, strove to become a factor in the contest that was going on between Rome and Carthage.

And so it happened that Philip V of Macedon, an unworthy successor of his great namesake, made an alliance with Hannibal, and even promised to send troops to the active assistance of the Carthaginian general. The promise was never kept, thanks to the indecisive nature of Philip. But the intention brought upon Philip the wrath of Rome, and led, among other causes, to a series of contests between Macedonia and Rome, in which the latter always had the advantage; and in which, finally, all Greece was involved, partly on one side and partly on the other--with that suicidal lack of unity which was always the bane of the Greek character. The ultimate result was that all Greece, including Macedonia, became at last a Roman province. The destruction of Corinth followed close upon the destruction of Carthage, and for some generations after these events there was no maritime city left to dispute in any sense the position of Rome as mistress both by sea and land. The commonwealth of Rome thus stood at the apex of its power, little knowing that even in the day of its prime the period of decline was being ushered in.[a]

THE MACEDONIAN WAR; WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS III

[Sidenote: [200-192 B.C.]]

The victory of Zama gave the Romans the dominion of the west; the ambitious senate then aspired to that of the east, and the king of Macedonia was selected as the first object of attack. The people, wearied out with service and contributions, were with some difficulty induced to give their consent; and war was declared against Philip under the pretext of his having injured the allies of Rome, namely, the Athenians, and the kings of Egypt and Pergamus.

Philip after the late peace had been assiduous in augmenting his fleet and army; but instead of joining Hannibal when he was in Italy, he employed himself, in conjunction with Antiochus, king of Syria, in seizing the islands and the towns on the coast of the Ægean, which were under the protection of Egypt, whose king was now a minor. This engaged him in hostilities with the king of Pergamus and the Rhodians. A Roman army, under the consul P. Sulpicius, passed over to Greece (200); the Ætolians declared against Philip, and gradually the Bœotians and Achæans were induced to follow their example.

Philip, thus threatened, made a gallant resistance against this formidable confederacy; but the consul T. Quinctius Flamininus gave him at length (197) a complete defeat at Cynoscephalæ in Thessaly, and he was forced to sue for peace, which, however, he obtained on much easier terms than might have been expected, as the Romans were on the eve of a war with the king of Syria. The peace with Philip was followed by the celebrated proclamation at the Isthmian games of the independence of those states of Greece which had been under the Macedonian dominion; for the Romans well knew that this was the infallible way to establish their own supremacy, as the Greeks would be sure never to unite for the common good of their country.

After an interval of a few years, the long-expected war with Antiochus the Great of Syria broke out. The immediate occasion of it was the discontent of the Ætolians, who, being mortally offended with the Romans, sent to invite him into Greece. He had been for three years making preparations for the war, and he had now at his service the greatest general of the age, if he had known how to make use of him. For Hannibal having been appointed one of the suffets at Carthage, and finding the power of the judges enormous in consequence of their holding their office for life, had a law passed reducing it to one year. This naturally raised him a host of enemies, whose number was augmented by his financial reforms; for discovering that the public revenues had been diverted into the coffers of the magistrates and persons of influence, while the people were directly taxed to pay the tribute to the Romans, he instituted an inquiry, and proved that the ordinary revenues of the state were abundantly sufficient for all purposes. Those who felt their incomes thus reduced sought to rouse the enmity of the Romans against Hannibal, whom they charged with a secret correspondence with Antiochus; and though Scipio strongly urged the indignity of the Roman senate becoming the instrument of a faction in Carthage, hatred of Hannibal prevailed, and three senators were sent to Carthage, ostensibly to settle some disputes between the Carthaginians and Masinissa. Hannibal, who knew their real object, left the city secretly in the night, and getting on board a ship sailed to Tyre. He thence went to Antioch, and finding that Antiochus was at Ephesus he proceeded to that city, where he met with a most flattering reception from the monarch (195).

[Sidenote: [192-191 B.C.]]

Hannibal, true to his maxim that the Romans were only to be conquered in Italy, proposed to the king to let him have a good fleet and ten thousand men, with which he would sail over to Africa, when he hoped to be able to induce the Carthaginians to take arms again; and if he did not succeed he would land somewhere in Italy. He would have the king meanwhile to pass with a large army into Greece, and to remain there ready to invade Italy, if necessary. Antiochus at first assented to this plan of the war; but he afterwards lent an ear to the suggestions of Thoas the Ætolian, who was jealous of the great Carthaginian, and gave it up. He himself at length (192) passed over to Greece with a small army of ten thousand men; but instead of acting immediately with vigour, he loitered in Eubœa, where he espoused a beautiful maiden, wasted his time in petty negotiations in Thessaly and the adjoining country, by which he highly offended King Philip, whom it was his first duty to conciliate, and thus gave the consul M. Acilius Glabrio time to land his army and enter Thessaly. Antiochus hastened from Eubœa to defend the pass of Thermopylæ against him; but he was totally defeated, and forced to fly to Asia (191).

[Sidenote: [191-189 B.C.]]

Antiochus flattered himself at first that the Romans would not follow him into Asia; but Hannibal soon proved to him that such an expectation was a vain one, and that he must prepare for war. At Rome the invasion of Asia was at once resolved on. The two new consuls, C. Lælius and L. Scipio (190), were both equally anxious to have the conducting of this war; the senate were mostly in favour of Lælius, an officer of skill and experience, while L. Scipio was a man of very moderate abilities. But Scipio Africanus offering, if his brother was appointed, to go as his legate, Greece was assigned to him as his province without any further hesitation. The Scipios then, having raised what troops were requisite, among which five thousand of those who had served under Africanus came as volunteers, passed over to Epirus with a force of about thirteen thousand men. In Thessaly Acilius delivered up to them two legions which he had under his command, and being supplied with provisions and everything else they required they marched through Macedonia and Thrace for the Hellespont. A Roman fleet was in the Ægean, which, united with those of Eumenes of Pergamus and the Rhodians, proved an overmatch for that of Antiochus, even though commanded by Hannibal. When the Scipios reached the Hellespont they found everything prepared for the passage by Eumenes. They crossed without any opposition; and as this was the time for moving the _Ancilia_ at Rome, P. Scipio, who was one of the salii, caused the army to make a halt of a few days on that account.

While they remained there an envoy came from Antiochus proposing peace, on condition of his giving up all claim to the Grecian cities in Asia and paying one-half of the expenses of the war. The Scipios insisted on his paying all the expenses of the war, as he had been the cause of it, and evacuating Asia on this side of Mount Taurus. The envoy then applied privately to P. Scipio, telling him that the king would release without ransom his son, who had lately fallen into his hands, and give him a large quantity of gold and every honour he could bestow, if through his means he could obtain more equitable terms. Scipio expressed his gratitude, as a private person, to the king for the offer to release his son; and, as a friend, advised him to accept any terms he could get, as his case was hopeless. The envoy retired; the Romans advanced to Ilium, where the consul ascended and offered sacrifice to Minerva, to the great joy of the Ilienses, who asserted themselves to be the progenitors of the Romans. They thence advanced to the head of the river Caicus. Antiochus, who was at Thyatira, hearing that P. Scipio was lying sick at Elæa, sent his son to him, and received in return his thanks, and his advice not to engage till he had rejoined the army. As in case of defeat his only hopes lay in P. Scipio, he took his counsel, and retiring to the foot of Mount Sipylus formed a strong camp near Magnesia.

The consul advanced, and encamped about four miles off; and as the king seemed not inclined to fight, and the Roman soldiers were full of contempt for the enemy, and clamorous for action, it was resolved, if he did not accept the proffer of battle, to storm his camp. But Antiochus, fearing that the spirit of his men would sink if he declined fighting, led them out when he saw the Romans in array.

The Roman army, consisting of four legions, each of fifty-four hundred men, was drawn up in the usual manner, its left resting on a river; three thousand Achæan and Pergamenian foot were placed on the right, and beyond them the horse, about three thousand in number; sixteen African elephants were stationed in the rear. The army of Antiochus consisted of sixty-two thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, and fifty-four elephants. His phalanx of sixteen thousand men was drawn up in ten divisions, each of fifty men in rank and thirty-two in file, with two elephants in each of the intervals. On the left and right of the phalanx were placed the cavalry, the light troops and the remainder of the elephants, the scythed chariots, and Arab archers, mounted on dromedaries.

When the armies were arrayed, there came on a fog, with a slight kind of rain, which relaxed the bowstrings, slings, and dart thongs of the numerous light troops of the king, and the darkness caused confusion in his long and various line. Eumenes, also, by a proper use of the light troops, frightened the horses of the scythed chariots, and drove them off the field. The Roman horse then charged that of the enemy and put it to flight; the confusion of the left wing extended to the phalangites, who, by their own men rushing from the left among them, were prevented from using their long _sarissæ_ (or spears), and were easily broken and slaughtered by the Romans, who now also knew from experience how to deal with the elephants. Antiochus, who commanded in person on the right, drove the four _turms_ or troops of horse opposed to him, and a part of the foot, back to their camp; but M. Æmilius, who commanded there, rallied them. Eumenes’ brother, Attalus, came from the right with some horse; the king turned and fled; the rout became general; the slaughter, as usual, was enormous; the camp was taken and pillaged. The loss of the Syrians is stated at fifty-three thousand slain and fourteen hundred taken; that of the Romans and their ally Eumenes at only three hundred and fifty men (190).

All the cities of the coast sent in their submission to the consul, who advanced to Sardis. Antiochus was at this time at Apamea; and when he learned that P. Scipio, who had not been in the battle, was arrived, he sent envoys to treat of peace on any terms. The Romans had already arranged the conditions of peace, and P. Scipio announced them as follows: Antiochus should abstain from Europe, and give up all Asia this side of Taurus; pay fifteen thousand Euboic talents for the expenses of the war, five hundred down, fifteen hundred when the senate and people ratified the peace, the remainder in twelve years, at one thousand talents a year; give Eumenes four hundred talents and a quantity of corn; give twenty hostages; and, above all, deliver up Hannibal, Thoas the Ætolian, and three other Greeks. The king’s envoys went direct to Rome, whither also went Eumenes in person, and embassies from Rhodes and other places; the consul put his troops into winter quarters at Magnesia, Tralles, and Ephesus.

At Rome the peace was confirmed with Antiochus. The greater part of the ceded territory was granted to Eumenes, Lycia and a part of Caria to the Rhodians (whose usually prudent aristocracy committed a great error in seeking this aggrandisement of their dominion), and such towns as had taken part with the Romans were freed from tribute. L. Scipio triumphed on his return to Rome, and assumed the surname of Asiaticus, to be in this respect on an equality with his illustrious brother.

[Sidenote: [189-183 B.C.]]

Cn. Manlius Vulso succeeded Scipio in Asia (189), and as the Roman consuls now began to regard it as discreditable and unprofitable to pass their year without a war, he looked round him for an enemy from whom he might derive fame and wealth. He fixed on the Gallo-Grecians, as the descendants of those Gauls were called who had passed over into Asia in the time of Pyrrhus, and won a territory for themselves, named from them in after-times Galatia. He stormed their fortified camp on Mount Olympus in Mysia, gave them a great defeat on the plains of Ancyra, and forced them to sue for peace. The booty gained, the produce of their plunder for many years, was immense. Manlius then led his army back to the coast for the winter. The next year (188) ten commissioners came out to ratify the peace with Antiochus; they added some more conditions, such as the surrender of his elephants; the peace was then sworn to, and the Romans evacuated Asia.

Hannibal, when he found that the Romans demanded him, retired to Crete; not thinking himself, however, safe in that island, he left it soon after and repaired to the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, who felt flattered by the presence of so great a man. But the vengeance of Rome did not sleep, and no less a person than T. Flamininus was sent (183) to demand his death or his surrender. The mean-spirited Prusias, immediately after a conference with the Roman envoy, sent soldiers to seize his illustrious guest.[c] Cornelius Nepos thus describes the tragic result:

Hannibal constantly confined himself to one place, being a castle with which the king had presented him as a reward for his services, which he so contrived, that he had sallies on all sides through which he might escape if he should have occasion; for he always suspected that that would befall him, which at last did really happen. The Roman ambassadors, accompanied with a great number of men, having at length surrounded this castle on all parts, his servant perceiving them from the gate, runs to his master and acquaints him that there appeared a more than usual company of armed men; upon which he commanded him to go round all the doors of the house and speedily bring him word whether there was any way to escape. When the boy had immediately acquainted him how the case stood, and had farther assured him that all the passages were stopped, he was soon satisfied that this could not happen by accident, but that they came to seize his person; and that consequently he could not long enjoy his life, which he was resolved should not be in another man’s disposal: upon which he immediately swallowed a dose of poison, which he was always accustomed to carry with him. Thus, this our most valiant hero, harassed with numerous and various labours, reposed himself in death.[h]

It is said that Scipio Africanus died in the same year with his illustrious rival, an instance also of the mutability of fortune, for the conqueror of Carthage breathed his last in exile. In the year 193 he had had a specimen of the instability of popular favour; for while at the consular elections he and all the Cornelian gens exerted their influence in favour of his cousin P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of Cneius who had been killed in Spain,--and who was himself of so exemplary a character that, when the statue of the Idæan mother Cybele was, by the direction of the Sibylline books, brought to Rome from Pergamus, it was committed to his charge, as being the best man in the city--they were forced to yield to that of the vainglorious T. Quinctius Flamininus, who sued for his brother, the profligate L. Quinctius. But, as the historian observes, the glory of Flamininus was fresher; he had triumphed that very year; whereas Africanus had been now ten years in the public view, and since his victory over Hannibal he had been consul a second time, and censor--very sufficient reasons for the decline of his favour with the unstable people.

[Sidenote: [187-183 B.C.]]

The year after the conclusion of the peace with Antiochus (187) the Q. Petillii, tribunes of the people, at the instigation it is said of M. Porcius Cato, cited Scipio Africanus before the tribes, to answer various charges on old and new grounds, of which the chief was that of having taken bribes from Antiochus, and not having accounted for the spoil. Scipio was attended to the Forum by an immense concourse of people; he disdained to notice the charges against him; in a long speech he enumerated the various actions he had performed, and taking a book from his bosom, “In this,” said he, “is an account of all you want to know.” “Read it,” said the tribunes, “and let it then be deposited in the treasury.” “No,” said Scipio, “I will not offer myself such an insult”; and he tore up the book before their faces.

The night came on; the cause was deferred till the next day: at dawn the tribunes took their seat on the rostra; the accused, on being cited, came before it, attended by a crowd of his friends and clients. “This day, ye tribunes and quirites,” said he, “I defeated Hannibal in Africa. As, therefore, it should be free from strife and litigation, I will go to the Capitol and give thanks to Jupiter and the other gods who inspired me on this and other days to do good service to the state. Let whoso will, come with me and pray to the gods that ye may always have leaders like unto me.” He ascended the Capitol; all followed him, and the tribunes were left sitting alone. He then went round to all the other temples, still followed by the people; and this last day of his glory nearly equalled that of his triumph for conquered Africa. His cause was put off for some days longer; but in the interval, disgusted with the prospect of contests with the tribunes which his proud spirit could ill brook, he retired to Liternum in Campania. On his not appearing, the tribunes spoke of sending and dragging him before the tribunal; but their colleagues interposed, especially Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, from whom it was least expected, as he was at enmity with the Scipios. The senate thanked Gracchus for his noble conduct,[57] the matter dropped, and Scipio spent the remainder of his days at Liternum. He was buried there, it is said, at his own desire, that his ungrateful country might not even possess his ashes.

The actions of the two great men who were now removed from the scene sufficiently declare their characters. As a general Hannibal is almost without an equal; not a single military error can be charged to him, and the address with which he managed to keep an army composed of such discordant elements as his in obedience, even when obliged to act on the defensive, is astonishing. The charges of perfidy, cruelty, and such like, made against him by the Roman writers, are quite unfounded, and are belied by facts. Nowhere does Hannibal’s character appear so great as when, after the defeat of Zama, he, with unbroken spirit, applied the powers of his mighty mind to the reform of political abuses and the restoration of the finances, in the hopes of once more raising his country to independence. Here he shone the true patriot.

The character of his rival has come down to us under the garb of panegyric; but even after making all due deductions, much remains to be admired. His military talents were doubtless considerable; of his civil virtues we hear but little, and we cannot therefore judge of him accurately as a statesman. Though a high aristocrat, we have, however, seen that he would not hesitate to lower the authority of the senate by appealing to the people in the gratification of his ambition; and we certainly cannot approve of the conduct of the public man who disdained to produce his accounts when demanded. Of his vaunted magnanimity and generosity we have already had occasion to speak, and not in very exalted terms. Still Rome has but one name in her annals to place in comparison with that of Africanus; that name, Julius Cæsar, is a greater than his--perhaps than any other.

[Sidenote: [201-171 B.C.]]

To return to our narrative. In the period which had elapsed since the peace with Carthage, there had been annual occupation for the Roman arms in Cisalpine Gaul, Liguria, and Spain. The Gauls, whose inaction all the time Hannibal was in Italy seems hard to account for, resumed arms in the year 201, at the instigation of one Hasdrubal, who had remained behind from the army of Mago; they took the colony of Placentia, and met several consular and prætorian armies in the field, and, after sustaining many great defeats, were completely reduced; the Ligurians, owing to their mountains, made a longer resistance, but they also were brought under the yoke of Rome. In Spain the various portions of its warlike population, ill brooking the dominion of strangers, rose continually in arms, but failed before the discipline of the Roman legions and the skill of their commanders. The celebrated M. Porcius Cato when consul (195) acquired great fame by his conduct in that country.

Philip of Macedonia, who with all his vices was an able prince, had long been making preparations for a renewed war with Rome, which he saw to be inevitable. He died however (179) before matters came to an extremity. His son and successor Perseus was a man of a very different character; for while he was free from his father’s love of wine and women, he did not possess his redeeming qualities, and was deeply infected by a mean spirit of avarice. It was reserved for him to make the final trial of strength with the Romans. Eumenes of Pergamus went himself to Rome, to represent how formidable he was become, and the necessity of crushing him; the envoys of Perseus tried in vain to justify him in the eyes of the jealous senate; war was declared (172) against him on the usual pretext of his injuring the allies of Rome, and the conduct of it was committed to P. Licinius Crassus, one of the consuls for the ensuing year.

[Sidenote: [171-168 B.C.]]

The Macedonian army amounted to thirty-nine thousand foot, one-half of whom were phalangites, and four thousand horse, the largest that Macedonia had sent to the field since the time of Alexander the Great. Perseus advanced into Thessaly at the head of this army (171), and at the same time the Roman legions entered it from Epirus. An engagement of cavalry took place not far from the river Peneus, in which the advantage was decidedly on the side of the king. In another encounter success was on that of the Romans; after which Perseus led his troops home for the winter and Licinius quartered his in Thessaly and Bœotia.

Nothing deserving of note occurred in the following year. In the spring of 169 the consul Q. Marcius Philippus led his army over the Cambunian mountains into Macedonia, and Perseus, instead of occupying the passes in the rear and cutting off his supplies from Thessaly, cravenly retired before him, and allowed him to ravage all the south of Macedonia. Marcius returned to Thessaly for the winter, and in the ensuing spring (168) the new consul, L. Æmilius Paulus (son of the consul who fell at Cannæ), a man of high consideration, of great talent, and who had in a former consulate gained much fame in Spain, came out to take the command.

Meantime the wretched avarice of Perseus was putting an end to every chance he had of success. Eumenes had offered, for the sum of fifteen hundred talents, to abstain from taking part in the war, and to endeavour to negotiate a peace for him: Perseus gladly embraced the offer, and was ready enough to arrange about the hostages which Eumenes agreed to give; but he hesitated to part with the money before he had had the value for it, and he proposed that it should be deposited in the temple at Samothrace till the war was ended. As Samothrace belonged to Perseus, Eumenes saw that he was not to be trusted, and he broke off the negotiation. Again, a body of Gauls, with ten thousand horse and an equal number of foot, from beyond the Ister, to whom he had promised large pay, were now at hand; Perseus sought to circumvent them and save his money, and the offended barbarians ravaged Thrace and returned home. It is the opinion of the historian, that if he had kept his word with these Gauls, and sent them into Thessaly, the situation of the Roman army, placed thus between two armies, might have been very perilous. Lastly, he agreed to give Gentius, king of Illyricum, three hundred talents if he went to war with the Romans: he sent ten of them at once, and directed those who bore the remainder to go very slowly; meantime his ambassador kept urging Gentius, who, to please him, seized two Roman envoys who arrived just then, and imprisoned them. Perseus, thinking him fully committed with the Romans by this act, sent to recall the rest of his money.

Paulus led his army without delay into Macedonia, and in the neighbourhood of Pydna he forced the crafty Perseus to come to an engagement. The victory was speedy and decisive on the side of the Romans; the Macedonian horse fled, the king setting the example, and the phalanx thus left exposed was cut to pieces. Perseus fled with his treasures to Amphipolis, and thence to the sacred isle of Samothrace. All Macedonia submitted to the consul, who then advanced to Amphipolis after Perseus, who in vain sent letters suing for favour (168).

Meantime the prætor Cn. Octavius was come with his fleet to Samothrace. He sought ineffectually to induce Perseus to surrender, and then so wrought on the people of the island, that the unhappy prince, considering himself no longer safe, resolved to try to escape to Cotys, king of Thrace, his only remaining ally. A Cretan ship-master undertook to convey him away secretly; provisions, and as much money as could be carried thither unobserved, were put on board his bark in the evening, and at midnight the king left the temple secretly and proceeded to the appointed spot. But no bark was there; the Cretan, false as any of his countrymen, had set sail for Crete as soon as it was dark. Perseus having wandered about the shore till near daylight, slunk back and concealed himself in a corner of the temple. He was soon obliged to surrender to Octavius, by whom he was conveyed to the consul. Macedonia was, by the direction of the senate, divided into four republics, between which there was to be neither intermarriage nor purchase of immovable property (_connubium_ or _commercium_); each was to defray the expenses of its own government, and pay to Rome one-half of the tribute it had paid to the kings; the silver and gold mines were not to be wrought, no ship-timber was to be felled, no troops to be kept except on the frontiers; all who had held any office, civil or military, under Perseus were ordered to quit Macedonia and go and live in Italy, lest if they remained at home they should raise disturbances. In Greece the lovers of their country were put to death or removed to Italy, under pretext of their having favoured the cause of Perseus, and the administration of affairs was placed in the hands of the tools of Rome.

Paulus on his return to Rome celebrated his triumph with great magnificence. His soldiers--because he had maintained rigid discipline and had given them less of the booty than they had expected--instigated by Ser. Sulpicius Galba, one of their tribunes, a personal enemy to the consul, had tried to prevent it; but the eloquence of M. Servilius and others prevailed. Perseus and his children, examples of the mutability of fortune, preceded the car of the victor. After the triumph, Perseus was confined at Alba in the Marsian land,[58] where he died a few years after.

Octavius was allowed to celebrate a naval triumph; and the prætor L. Anicius Gallus, who had in thirty days reduced Illyricum and made Gentius and all his family captives, also triumphed for that country.

AFFAIRS OF CARTHAGE[59]

[Sidenote: [201-149 B.C.]]

After the conclusion of the Hannibalian War, the Carthaginians seemed disposed to remain at peace; but the ambition of their neighbour Masinissa, whose life, to their misfortune, was extended to beyond ninety years, would not allow them to rest. He was continually encroaching on their territory and seizing their subject towns. The Roman senate, when appealed to as the common superior, sent out commissioners, who almost invariably decided in favour of Masinissa, and he gradually extended his dominion from the ocean inlands to the Syrtes.

On one of these occasions M. Porcius Cato was one of those sent out; and when he saw the fertility of the Carthaginian territory and its high state of culture, and the strength, wealth, and population of the city, he became apprehensive of its yet endangering the power of Rome; his vanity also, of which he had a large share, was wounded, because the Carthaginians, who were manifestly in the right, would not acquiesce at once in the decision of himself and his colleagues; and he returned to Rome full of bitterness against them. Henceforth he concluded all his speeches in the senate with these words, “I also think that Carthage should be destroyed.” On the other side, P. Scipio Nasica, either from a regard to justice, or, as it is said, persuaded that the only mode of saving Rome from the corruption to which she was tending was to keep up a formidable rival to her, strenuously opposed this course. The majority, however, inclined to the opinion of Cato; it was resolved to lay hold on the first plausible pretext for declaring war, and to those who were so disposed a pretext was not long wanting.

At Carthage there were three parties; the Roman, the Numidian, and the popular party. This last, which, with all its faults, alone was patriotic, drove out of the city about forty of the principal of the Numidian party, and made the people swear never to re-admit them nor listen to any proposals for their return. The exiles repaired to Masinissa, who sent his sons Micipsa and Gulussa to Carthage on their behalf. But Carthalo, a leader of the popular party, shut the gates against them, and Hamilcar, the other popular leader, fell on Gulussa as he was coming again, and killed some of those who attended him. This gave occasion to a war; a battle was fought between Masinissa and the Punic troops led by Hasdrubal, which lasted from morning to night without being completely decided. But Masinissa having enclosed the Punic army on a hill, starved them into a surrender; and Gulussa, as they were departing unarmed, fell on and slaughtered them all. The Carthaginians lost no time in sending to Rome to justify themselves, having previously passed sentence of death on Hasdrubal, Carthalo, and the other authors of the war. The senate, however, would accept of no excuse; and after various efforts on the part of the Carthaginians to avert it, war was proclaimed against them (149), and the conduct of it committed to the consuls L. Marcius Censorinus and M’. Manilius Nepos, with secret orders not to desist till Carthage was destroyed. Their army is said to have consisted of eighty thousand foot and four thousand horse, which had been previously prepared for this war.

OUTBREAK OF THE THIRD PUNIC WAR

[Sidenote: [149 B.C.]]

The Carthaginians were informed almost at the same moment of the declaration of war and of the sailing of the Roman army. They saw themselves without ships (for they had been prohibited to build any), without an ally (even Utica, not eight miles from their city, having joined the Romans), without mercenaries, or even supplies of corn, and the flower of their youth had been lately cut off by Masinissa. They again sent an embassy to Rome, to make a formal surrender of their city. The senate replied that if within thirty days they sent three hundred children of the noblest families as hostages to the consuls in Sicily, and did whatever the consuls commanded them, they should be allowed to be free and governed by their own laws, and to retain all the territory they possessed in Africa. At the same time secret orders were sent to the consuls to abide by their original instructions.

The Carthaginians became somewhat suspicious at no mention of their city having been made by the senate. They however resolved to obey, and leave no pretext for attacking them; the hostages accordingly were sent to Lilybæum, amidst the tears and lamentations of their parents and relatives. The consuls straightway transmitted them to Rome, and then told the Carthaginians that they would settle the remaining matters at Utica, to which place they lost no time in passing over, and when the Punic envoys came to learn their will, they said that as the Carthaginians had declared their wish and resolution to live at peace they could have no need for arms and weapons; they therefore required them to deliver up all that they had. This mandate also was obeyed; two hundred thousand sets of armour, with weapons of all kinds in proportion, were brought on wagons into the Roman camp, accompanied by the priests, the senators, and the chief persons of the city. Censorinus then, having praised their diligence and ready obedience, announced to them the further will of the senate, which was that they should quit Carthage, which the Romans intended to level, and build another town in any part of the territory they pleased, but not within less than ten miles of the sea. The moment they heard this ruthless command they abandoned themselves to every extravagance of grief and despair; they rolled themselves on the ground, they tore their garments and their hair, they beat their breasts and faces, they called on the gods, they abused the Romans for their treachery and deceit. When they recovered from their paroxysm they spoke again, requesting to be allowed to send an embassy to Rome. The consul said this would be to no purpose, for the will of the senate must be carried into effect. They then departed, with melancholy forebodings of the reception they might meet with at home, and some of them ran away on the road, fearing to face the enraged populace. Censorinus forthwith sent twenty ships to cast anchor before Carthage.

The people, who were anxiously waiting their return, when they saw their downcast melancholy looks, abandoned themselves to despair and lamented aloud. The envoys passed on in silence to the senate house, and there made known the inexorable resolve of Rome. When the senators heard it they groaned and wept; the people without joined in their lamentations; then giving way to rage, they rushed in and tore to pieces the principal advisers of the delivery of the hostages and arms; they stoned the ambassadors and dragged them about the city; and then fell on and abused in various ways such Italians as happened to be still there. The senate that very day resolved on war; they proclaimed liberty to the slaves, they chose Hasdrubal--whom they had condemned to death, and who was at a place called Nepheris at the head of a force of twenty thousand men--general for the exterior, and another Hasdrubal, the grandson of Masinissa, for the city; and having again applied in vain to the consuls for a truce that they might send envoys to Rome, they prepared vigorously for defence, resolved to endure the last rather than abandon their city. The temples and other sacred places were turned into workshops, men and women laboured day and night in the manufacture of arms, and the women cut off their long hair that it might be twisted into bowstrings. The consuls meantime, though urged by Masinissa, did not advance against the city, either through dislike of the unpleasant task, or because they thought that they could take it whenever they pleased. At length they led their troops to the attack of the town.

The city of Carthage lay on a peninsula at the bottom of a large bay; at its neck, which was nearly three miles in width, stood the citadel, Byrsa, on a rock whose summit was occupied by the temple of Esmun or Æsculapius; from the neck on the east ran a narrow belt or tongue of land between the lake of Tunis and the sea; at a little distance inlands extended a rocky ridge, through which narrow passes had been hewn. The harbour was on the east side of the peninsula; it was double, consisting of an outer and an inner one, and its mouth, which was seventy feet wide, was secured with iron chains; the outer harbour was surrounded by a quay for the landing of goods. The inner one, named the Cothon, was for the ships of war; its only entrance was through the outer one, and it was defended by a double wall; in its centre was an elevated island, on which stood the admiral’s house, whence there was a view out over the open sea. The Cothon was able to contain 220 ships, and was provided with all the requisite magazines. A single wall environed the whole city; that of Byrsa was triple, each wall being thirty ells high exclusive of the battlements, and at intervals of two hundred feet were towers four stories high. A double row of vaults ran round each wall, the lower one containing stalls for three hundred elephants and four thousand horses, with granaries for their fodder; the upper barracks, for twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse. Three streets led from Byrsa to the market, which was near the Cothon, which harbour gave name to this quarter of the town. That part of the town which lay to the west and north was named Megara; it was more thinly inhabited, and full of gardens divided by walls and hedges. The city was in compass twenty-three miles, and is said to have contained at this time seven hundred thousand inhabitants.

The consuls divided their forces; Censorinus attacked from his ships the wall where it was weakest, at the angle of the isthmus, while Manilius attempted to fill the ditch and carry the outer works of the great wall. They reckoned on no resistance; but their expectations were deceived, and they were forced to retire. Censorinus then constructed two large battering-rams, with which he threw down a part of the wall near the belt; the Carthaginians partly rebuilt it during the night, and next day they drove out with loss such of the Romans as had entered by the breach. They had also in the night made a sally and burned the engines of the besiegers. It being now the dog days, Censorinus finding the situation of his camp, close to a lake of standing water, unwholesome, removed to the sea-shore. The Carthaginians then, watching when the wind blew strong from the sea on the Roman station, used to fill small vessels with combustibles, to which they set fire, and spreading their sails let the wind drive them on the Roman ships, many of which were thus destroyed.

Censorinus having gone to Rome for the elections, the Carthaginians became more daring, and they ventured a nocturnal attack on the camp of Manilius, in which they would have succeeded but for the presence of mind of Scipio, one of the tribunes, who led out the horse at the rear of the camp and fell on them unexpectedly. A second nocturnal attack was frustrated by the same Scipio, who was now the life and soul of the army. Manilius then, contrary to the advice of Scipio, led his troops to Nepheris against Hasdrubal; but he was forced to retire with loss, and four entire cohorts would have been cut off had it not been for the valour and the skill of Scipio. Shortly after, when commissioners came out from Rome to inquire into the causes of the want of success, Manilius and his officers, laying aside all jealousy, bore testimony to the merits of Scipio; the affection of the army for him was also manifest; of all which the commissioners informed the senate and people on their return.

[Sidenote: [149-147 B.C.]]

Masinissa dying at this time, left the regulation of his kingdom to Scipio, who divided the regal office among the three legitimate sons of the deceased monarch; giving the capital and the chief dignity to Micipsa, the eldest, the management of the foreign relations to Gulussa, and the administration of justice to Mastanabal. Scipio also induced Himilco Phamæas, a Punic commander, who had hitherto done the Romans much mischief, to desert to them, bringing over with him twenty-two hundred horses.

In the spring (148) the new consul L. Calpurnius Piso came out to take the command of the army, and the prætor L. Hostilius Mancinus to take that of the fleet. They attacked the town of Clupea by sea and land, but were repulsed; and Calpurnius then spent the whole summer to no purpose in the siege of a strong town named Hippagreta. The Carthaginians, elevated by their unexpected good fortune, were now masters of the country; they insulted the Romans, and endeavoured to detach the Numidians. Hasdrubal, proud of his successes over Manilius, aspired to the command in the city; he accused the other Hasdrubal of having intelligence with his uncle Gulussa, who was in the Roman camp; and when this last, on being charged with it in the senate, hesitated from surprise, the senators fell on and killed him with the seats; and his rival thus gained his object.

The elections now came on at Rome; Scipio was there as a candidate for the ædileship; all eyes were turned on him, his friends doubtless were not idle, and the letters from the soldiers in Africa represented him as the only man able to take Carthage. The tribes therefore resolved to make him consul, though he was not of the proper age.[60] The presiding consul opposed in vain; he was elected, and the people further assumed the power of assigning him Africa for his province.

This celebrated man was son to Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Macedonia. He had been adopted by Scipio the son of Africanus; the Greek historian Polybius and the philosopher Panætius were his instructors and friends; and he had already distinguished himself as a soldier both in Spain and Africa.

[Sidenote: [147 B.C.]]

The very evening that Scipio arrived at Utica (147) he had again an opportunity of saving a part of the Roman army; for Mancinus, a vain rash man, having brought the fleet close to Carthage, and observing a part of the wall over the cliffs left unguarded, landed some of his men, who mounted to the wall. The Carthaginians opened a gate and came to attack them; the Romans drove them back and entered the town. Mancinus landed more men, and as it was now evening he sent off to Utica, requiring provisions and a reinforcement to be forwarded without delay, or else they would never be able to keep their position. Scipio, who arrived that evening, received about midnight the letters of Mancinus; he ordered the soldiers he had brought with him and the serviceable Uticans to get on board at once, and he set forth in the last watch, directing his men to stand erect on the decks and let themselves be seen; he also released a prisoner, and sent him to tell at Carthage that Scipio was coming. Mancinus meantime was hard pressed by the enemies, who attacked him at dawn; he placed five hundred men with armour around the remainder (three thousand men), who had none; but this availed them not; they were on the point of being forced down the cliffs when Scipio appeared. The Carthaginians, who expected him, fell back a little, and he lost no time in taking off Mancinus and his companions in peril.

Scipio, on taking the command, finding extreme laxity of discipline and disorder in the army, in consequence of the negligence of Piso, called an assembly, and having upbraided the soldiers with their conduct, declared his resolution of maintaining strict discipline; he then ordered all sutlers, camp-followers, and other useless and pernicious people to quit the camp, which he now moved to within a little distance of Carthage. The Carthaginians also formed a camp about half a mile from their walls, which Hasdrubal entered at the head of six thousand foot and one thousand horse,--all seasoned troops.

When Scipio thought the discipline of his men sufficiently revived, he resolved to attempt a night attack on the Megara; but being perceived by the defenders, the Romans could not scale the walls. Scipio then observing a turret (probably a garden one) which belonged to some private person, and was close to the wall, and of the same height with it, made some of his men ascend it. These drove down with their missiles those on the walls opposite them, and then laying planks and boards across got on the wall, and jumping down opened a gate to admit Scipio, who entered with four thousand men. The Punic soldiers fled to the Byrsa, thinking that the rest of the town was taken, and those in the camp hearing the tumult ran thither also; but Scipio, finding the Megara full of gardens with trees and hedges and ditches filled with water, and therefore unsafe for an invader, withdrew his men and went back to his camp. In the morning Hasdrubal, to satiate his rage, took what Roman prisoners he had, and placing them on the walls in sight of the Roman camp, mutilated them in a most horrible manner, and then flung them down from the lofty battlements. When the senators blamed him, he put some of them to death, and he made himself in effect the tyrant of the city.

Scipio having taken and burned the deserted camp of the enemy, formed a camp within a dart’s cast of their wall, running from sea to sea across the isthmus, and strongly fortified on all sides. By this means he cut them off from the land; and as the only way in which provisions could now be brought into the city was by sea, when vessels, taking advantage of winds that drove off the Roman ships, ran into the harbour, he resolved to stop up its mouth by a mole. He commenced from the belt, forming the mole of great breadth and with huge stones. The besieged at first mocked at the efforts of the Romans; but when they saw how rapidly the work advanced they became alarmed, and instantly set about digging another passage out of the port into the open sea; they at the same time built ships out of the old materials; and they wrought so constantly and so secretly, that the Romans at length saw all their plans frustrated, a new entrance opened to the harbour, and a fleet of fifty ships of war and a great number of smaller vessels issue from it. Had their evil destiny now allowed the Carthaginians to take advantage of the consternation of the Romans, and fall at once on their fleet, which was utterly unprepared, they might have destroyed it; but they contented themselves with a bravado and then returned to port. On the third day the two fleets engaged from morn till eve with various success. The small vessels of the enemy annoyed the Romans very much in the action; but in the retreat they got ahead of their own ships, and blocking up the mouth of the harbour, obliged them to range themselves along a quay which had been made without the walls for the landing of goods, whither the Roman ships followed them and did them much mischief. During the night they got into port, but in the morning Scipio resolved to try to effect a lodgment on the quay which was so close to the harbour. He assailed the works that were on it with rams, and threw down a part of them; but in the night the Carthaginians came, some swimming, some wading through the water, having combustibles with them, to which they set fire when near the machines, and thus burned them. They then repaired the works; but Scipio finally succeeded in fixing a corps of four thousand men on the quay.

During the winter Scipio took by storm the Punic camp before Nepheris, and that town surrendered after a siege of twenty-two days. As it was from Nepheris that Carthage received almost the whole of its supplies, they now failed, and famine was severely felt.[c]

APPIAN’S ACCOUNT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE

[Sidenote: [146 B.C.]]

As soon as spring came on, Scipio assaulted the citadel called Byrsa and the gate called Cothon at the same time, which caused Hasdrubal to set on fire that part of the gate which was square; but whilst he expected Scipio should make a new attempt on that side, and stood firm with the inhabitants, Lælius mounted privately by the other side of the gate which was of a round figure, and making himself master of it, the shouts of those that were already got up so dismayed the enemies that the other soldiers now contemning the besieged, and having filled all the places difficult to pass with beams, engines, and planks, they leaped in on all sides in spite of all the resistance of the guards oppressed with hunger and lost to all courage; Scipio thus possessed of the wall that encompassed the gate called Cothon, got thence into the great place of the city which was nigh unto it, where night coming on, and not suffering him to go farther, he kept there in arms with those soldiers he had with him, and as soon as day broke, caused four thousand fresh men to come thither, who being got into Apollo’s temple, plundered his statue which was all of gold, and all the inside of the temple, which was covered with plates of gold of a thousand talents’ weight. They cut in pieces the plates with their swords, do what their captains could to hinder them, till such time as having got what they could they pursued their enterprise.