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Title: Helmet and Spear
stories from the wars of the Greeks and Romans
Author: Alfred John Church
Release date: September 29, 2024 [eBook #74494]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Macmillan Co
Credits: Brian Coe, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Library of Congress)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELMET AND SPEAR ***
HELMET AND SPEAR
_STORIES FROM THE WARS OF
THE GREEKS AND ROMANS_
By the
REV. A.J. CHURCH, M.A.
Sometime Professor of Latin in University College, London
Author of "Stories from Homer," etc.
"Yea, but of war the righteous last event
In highest Heaven is born,
And from great Zeus with saving power is sent."
Aeschylus, _Seven against Thebes_.
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
66 Fifth Avenue
1900
[Illustration: Flight of the Persians after Marathon.]
PREFACE
I have told again in this volume some familiar stories, using mostly
the original authorities, but availing myself, where it was possible,
of the help of Plutarch, whose biographies are always rich in
picturesque details. These narratives never lose their interest, and
they have this special significance, that they illustrate what we all
at least desire to believe, that results of abiding good come out of
the losses and sorrows of war. I have sought to draw out this thought
with some detail in my Epilogue.
A.J.C.
Ightham, Sevenoaks.
_September 8, 1900._
CONTENTS
_BOOK I_
GREECE AND PERSIA. THE DEFENCE
PAGE
I. THE MEN OF MARATHON 2
II. THE LION KING 11
III. IN THE STRAITS 21
IV. THE WOODEN WALLS 29
V. THE BATTLES ON THE PLAIN AND ON THE SHORE 44
_BOOK II_
GREECE AND CARTHAGE
I. THE LORD OF SYRACUSE 65
II. THE STORM FROM AFRICA 75
III. DIONYSIUS THE TYRANT 99
IV. THE DELIVERER FROM CORINTH 110
_BOOK III_
GREECE AND PERSIA. THE ATTACK
I. THE FIGHT ON THE RIVER 123
II. THE IRRESISTIBLE PHALANX 135
III. THE ARMY OF THE HUNDRED PROVINCES 143
_BOOK IV_
ROME AND CARTHAGE
I. THE SERVANTS OF MARS 154
II. FOR THE RULE OF THE SEA 159
III. THE MARTYR PATRIOT 166
IV. THE SONS OF LIGHTNING 174
V. THE AVALANCHE FROM THE ALPS 183
VI. THE DISASTER AT THE LAKE 194
VII. THE OVERTHROW AT CANNÆ 202
VIII. THE SECRET MARCH 213
IX. HANNIBAL'S LAST BATTLE 224
X. THE BLOTTING OUT OF CARTHAGE 232
_BOOK V_
ROME AND THE BARBARIANS. THE RISE
I. THE DAY OF ALLIA 242
II. APOLLO THE DEFENDER 253
III. THE SWARM FROM THE NORTH 261
IV. BEYOND THE PYRENEES 275
V. ACROSS EUPHRATES 286
VI. THE CONQUESTS OF CÆSAR 302
VII. FURTHEST BRITAIN 323
VIII. BEYOND THE RHINE 331
IX. THE LAST ADVANCE 337
_BOOK VI_
ROME AND THE BARBARIANS. THE DECLINE
I. A CENTURY OF DISGRACE 343
II. A CENTURY OF REVIVAL 357
III. THREE DEADLY BLOWS 363
EPILOGUE 377
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
FLIGHT OF THE PERSIANS AFTER MARATHON _Frontispiece_
TIMOLEON HOLDING THE FORD OF THE CRIMESSUS 118
THE BATTLE OF ISSUS 140
THE OVERTHROW OF CANNÆ 210
DEFEAT OF THE CIMBRI IN THE BATTLE AT THE
WAGGONS 272
CRASSUS DEFEATED BY THE PARTHIANS 300
TRAJAN BESIEGING A DACIAN FORT 340
ATTILA AND LEO 374
To
MY DAUGHTERS
_BOOK I_
GREECE AND PERSIA. THE DEFENCE
I. THE MEN OF MARATHON
We may say of wars what a famous philosopher said of revolutions, that
they happen about little things, but spring from great causes. When
Herodotus at the beginning of his History proceeds to put on record the
grounds of the great feud between the Greeks and the Barbarians, he
tells us of various outrages committed by one party or the other. The
Phœnicians began by carrying off Io, daughter of Inachus; the Greeks
retaliated by landing at Tyre and bearing away the king's daughter
Europé. This they followed by the capture of Medea, a princess of
Colchi. When Paris of Troy ran away with the fair Helen from Sparta he
was only setting the account straight. It was then that, according to
the Persian sages, with whom Herodotus seems to agree, the Greeks made
a fatal mistake. They actually led a great army into Asia to recover a
worthless woman, though "men of sense care nothing about such people."
The fact is that the Greeks, as a very enterprising and active race,
came into frequent collision with their Eastern neighbours. We catch
glimpses of this in very remote times. To these, however, we need not
go back. Towards the end of the eighth or early in the seventh century
B.C., the kings of Lydia began to encroach on their Greek neighbours
and conquered city after city. Crœsus, who was the last of the dynasty,
had made himself master of all of them before he was himself overthrown
by Cyrus the Persian. This event meant nothing for the Greeks but a
change of masters, and this was not a change for the better. Lydians
and Greeks had long been neighbours, and could contrive to live on
tolerable terms. The Persians were strangers from a remote country, and
were of a harsher temper. In 502 B.C. a general rebellion took place,
in the course of which Sardis, the local capital of the Persians, was
burnt. A contingent of Athenian troops took part in this affair, and
their presence was the immediate cause of the great struggle that
followed. The war between Greece and Persia lasted, with intervals of
doubtful peace, something less than 180 years. The first great conflict
was at Marathon.
In the late summer of 490 B.C. the Persian army landed at the Bay of
Marathon, distant from Athens about twenty miles as the crow flies,
about twenty-five by the only road practicable for wheeled conveyances.
Of the Persian numbers we know nothing. Herodotus, who is our best
authority (born in 480, he probably talked with men who had fought
in the battle), gives no figures. Later writers speak of impossible
numbers, 600,000 being the largest, 110,000 the smallest estimate. To
carry even 110,000 across the Ægean sea would have been a heavy task.
If a guess has to be made, one may venture to say 60,000. The Athenians
numbered 10,000, and they had with them 1,000 men from Platæa, a little
Bœotian town, which they had recently taken under their protection.
The Plain of Marathon is about six miles long from south-west to
north-east, and in breadth varies from two and a half to one and
a-half miles. On the north-east it is bounded by a great marsh, which
is divided from the sea by a narrow slip of land. There is another
smaller marsh on the south-west. Along the edge of this swamp ran the
road to Athens. It was probably the immediate object of Datis, the
Persian general, to seize this road, and of the Athenian commanders to
protect it. Their right wing rested on the seaward slope of what is now
called Agrieliki, the north-eastern spur of Pentelicus. About a mile
from this may still be seen the remains of the mound which was raised
over the bones of the Athenians slain in the battle. It is probable
that this marks the spot where the fight raged most fiercely. If this
is so, the Persian lines must have been advanced to within a short
distance of the rising ground.
The Athenians, on learning the actual approach of the Persian forces,
had sent a swift runner to Sparta to beg for help. The man reached
Sparta, a distance of about one hundred and forty miles, in less than
forty-eight hours ("on the second day" is the expression). The Spartans
promised to come, but could not start, they said, till after the
full moon, which was then five days off. The question then among the
Athenian generals--there were ten in number and had each his day of
command--was whether they should fight at once or wait for the Spartan
contingent. The ten generals who shared the command of the army were
equally divided in opinion. But Miltiades, the most distinguished of
their number, was eager for instant action, and succeeded in winning
over to his views Callimachus the Polemarch, with whom it lay, in case
of an equal division, to give the casting vote. We shall see that he
had good reasons for his action, and that his promptitude saved Athens;
and, we may say, Greece.
The centre of the Persian line of battle was held by the native
Persians and Sacæ, these latter a tribe now represented by the
Turcomans. Of the rest of the formation we are told nothing. Some
cavalry they had, but it is not mentioned as taking any part in the
battle. It has been conjectured that it had not been disembarked when
the battle was fought. It would certainly have been difficult to get
the horses on board again, and if any number of them had been captured,
we should probably have heard something about it. The Athenian line was
drawn up so as to be equal in length to the Persian. To effect this it
was, of course, necessary to make it very thin in parts. This was the
case in the centre, where there were but two or three files. No light
armed soldiers, no archers, no cavalry were present. All were heavy
armed men with a few slaves in attendance. The right wing was commanded
by Callimachus; the Platæans were on the left.
There was, as has been said, a space of a mile between the two armies.
Miltiades ordered the Athenians to cross this at a run. Such a thing
had never been done before in regular warfare. It was an amazing feat
of strength, for the men were in heavy armour. Not less remarkable
was the courage of the movement, for in those days the Greeks had not
learned to look down upon the Persians. To the enemy the charge seemed
to be the act of madmen; but they must have felt that such madmen
were dangerous enemies, and must have been shaken in the confidence
with which they had looked forward to victory. Still they stood their
ground, and met their assailants in hand-to-hand fight. They even
broke the centre of the Athenian line, which, as has been said, was
but two or three files deep. Herodotus even says that "they pursued
them into the middle country," a curious phrase, seeing that the battle
was fought only a mile or so from the sea shore. But in hand-to-hand
fighting, when the conditions were at all equal, the Persians were no
match, either in training or in equipment, for their adversaries. The
poet Æschylus, himself "a man of Marathon," the proudest title which
an Athenian could bear, speaks of the war of the Persian against the
Greek as the battle of the bow against the spear. In the _Persæ_, the
drama which celebrates the crushing defeat of Persia in its second
assault on Greece, he makes the chorus, consisting of the Great King's
councillors, boast of how their lord would bid
"The arrows' iron hail advance
Against the cumbrous moving lance;"
a happy stroke of irony when it was known that the lance had prevailed
over the arrow. It certainly prevailed that day. Both the wings were
victorious in the shock of arms, and when they had put to flight the
ranks opposed to them they turned to restore the fortune of the day in
the centre. This they soon accomplished. Before long the whole Persian
line was in rapid retreat. Pausanias says that many of the fugitives
rushed into the marsh, and, indeed, that the greater part of their loss
was thus caused.
Miltiades, anxious to complete his victory, followed up the flying
enemy, and endeavoured to cut off his retreat. Here he was less
successful, and, indeed, incurred serious loss. In the attempt to burn
the Persian ships not a few distinguished Athenians fell. The Polemarch
and another of the generals were among them; so was a brother of the
poet Æschylus, who, having laid hold of one of the ships, had his hand
cut off by an axe, and died of the wound. The Persians contrived to get
away, not losing more than seven of their ships, but leaving behind
them in their richly furnished tents an ample booty for the conquerors.
Athens, however, was not yet safe. Hippias, who along with his brother
had once held despotic power in the city, and had been driven into
exile twenty years before, had come with the Persian army, hoping
that his friends--for he still had a party that plotted for his
return--would move in his favour. They did not altogether fail him.
When the Persians had re-embarked, a signal--a polished shield flashing
in the sunlight--was perceived on the summit of Pentelicus. This was
to indicate that the Persians should take advantage of the absence of
the army and sail round to Athens, and that the party of Hippias was
ready to act. Part of the fleet accordingly took the direction of Cape
Sunium, which it would have to round before it could reach Athens.
Miltiades seems to have been aware of what was intended, and at once
gave orders to march back to Athens with all haste. This was done, and
the traitors were foiled. The Persian fleet, it will be seen from the
map, would have to make a circuit of about sixty miles, while the army
would have to march less than half that distance.
The Persian loss is put down by Herodotus at 6,200, a moderate figure
which is very probably near the truth. Of the Athenians, one hundred
and ninety-two were slain. They were buried on the field of battle,
and a mound heaped over their remains. On the top of this were placed
ten stone pillars, one for each of the Athenian tribes, inscribed with
the names of the slain. An eleventh pillar commemorated the Platæans,
a twelfth the slaves who fell in the great victory. After the death of
Miltiades a monument was erected to him on the same spot. The pillars
have long since perished, but the mound remains. It is thirty feet
high and about 200 yards in circumference. It was excavated in 1890-91
by order of the Greek Government, and found to contain human remains,
with pottery of the very period of the battle. Writing about six
centuries later, Pausanias says, "Here every night you may hear horses
neighing and men fighting," and adds that it brings bad luck to go out
of curiosity, but that "with him who unwittingly lights upon it by
accident the spirits are not angry." The same tradition lingers about
many of the great battlefields of the world. Shepherds who fed their
flocks on the plains of Troy saw spectres in armour, and conspicuous
among them the spirit of the great Achilles. The scenes of the great
battles of Attila and Charlemagne are still said to be thus haunted.
It only remains to say that 2,000 Spartans arrived on the day after the
battle, that they went to the field of battle to see the Persian dead,
and after greatly praising the Athenians, returned home.
II
THE LION KING
Darius was not by any means disposed to take his repulse at Marathon as
final. On the contrary, he at once set to work on making preparations
for a new expedition, which should this time be one of overwhelming
force, and which he determined to lead in person. A revolt which broke
out in Egypt probably delayed him for a time. Anyhow, he died in 485
before his preparations were complete. He had reigned for thirty-six
years and was probably in his sixty-eighth year. Xerxes, the eldest
of the sons born after his accession to the throne, succeeded him
without any opposition. He is said to have been averse to the scheme
of an invasion, but was persuaded by those who were interested in
promoting it. However this may be, the preparations were not seriously
interrupted. The Egyptian insurrection was put down, and in the autumn
of 481 the army intended for the invasion of Greece was assembled at
Sardis. The story of the events that followed must be sought elsewhere,
for I am not attempting to give a narrative of the Persian war. It
must suffice to say that by August, 490, the Persian army had occupied
Thessaly. It was at the famous pass which leads from this region into
Locris that the Greeks made their first stand.
Thermopylæ (the Hot Gates) consisted of two narrow passes, neither
of them of greater width than one wheeled carriage would require,
caused by the near approach of Mount Œta to the sea, or rather to an
impassable morass which here formed the coast-line. (It is well to
remark that considerable changes have taken place in the character of
the country, the coast-line, in particular, having receded a long way
eastward.) The easternmost of the two passes was that to which the name
properly belonged, for here there were actual hot springs, dedicated to
Hercules, and supplying medicinal baths. Between the two passes (the
distance of a mile) the mountain receded from the sea, leaving a level
space of about half a mile broad. At Thermopylæ proper there was a
wall built by the Locrians, but at the time of which we are speaking it
had fallen into ruins.
It was here that Leonidas, one of the two kings of Sparta, took up his
position, late, it would seem, in July. He had with him 300 Spartans,
2,500 soldiers from other parts of the Peloponnesus, a contingent of
700 from Thespiæ, one of the Bœotian towns, which dissented strongly
from the pro-Persian views of their countrymen, and 400 Thebans, who
came on compulsion. Thebes did not venture to refuse the demands of
Leonidas while their Persian friends were still a long way off. He was
also joined by contingents of the Locrians and Phocians. Both tribes
had given in or were about to give in their submission to the Persians,
but probably preferred the success of the Greeks. In any case, they
were not prepared to resist the Greek commander-in-chief, present as he
was with a much superior force.
Leonidas at once strengthened his position by repairing the half-ruined
wall by the Hot Springs. But he learnt that Thermopylæ was not the only
way by which access could be had from northern to southern Greece.
The Phocians informed him that there was a mountain path which led
from a point beyond the westernmost pass to another point beyond the
defile of the Hot Springs. But they promised that they would guard it.
The fact came, of course, to the knowledge of the troops generally,
and greatly discouraged them. They even wished to abandon Thermopylæ
altogether. Those that came from the Peloponnese were especially
urgent, believing that they had a much better position for defence
in the Isthmus of Corinth. Leonidas refused to retreat, but he sent
messengers to the various Greek States with an urgent demand for
reinforcements. The forces that he had with him were wholly unequal, he
said, to cope with such an army as the Persians had at their command.
Xerxes, who had encamped within sight of Thermopylæ, sent a horseman
to reconnoitre the position of Leonidas. The Spartans were on guard
that day in front of the wall, and the man observed that some were
engaged in athletic exercises, while others were combing their long
hair. Demaratus, an exiled king of Sparta, who was with Xerxes, when
questioned about the meaning of this behaviour, told him that his
countrymen were particularly careful with their toilet when engaged
in any dangerous enterprise, and that he must expect a desperate
resistance. "You have to deal," he went on, "with the first city of
Greece, and with her bravest men." "But how can so small a company
contend with mine," asked Xerxes, who had not yet learnt to doubt his
big battalions. The king was unwilling to believe him, and waited for
four days in the expectation that the Greeks would think better of
their purpose to resist, and would retire without a conflict.
On the fifth day, finding that the Greeks were still in their
positions, Xerxes sent the Medes and the men of Cissia (now Khuzistan)
with instructions to take the Greeks alive and bring them into his
presence. These troops rushed with the greatest courage to the attack.
Many were slain, for indeed they were no match for the Greeks in
hand-to-hand fighting, but others stepped into their places. The
struggle went on during the whole day, with no result except heavy
loss to the assailants. On the morrow Xerxes sent his Persian _corps
d'élite_, which went by the name of the "Immortals," to the attack,
confident that they would be able to force the pass. They met with
no better success. Their spears were shorter than those used by the
Greeks, and the narrowness of the battlefield did not allow them
to take advantage of their superiority in numbers. Herodotus makes
special mention of the practised skill which the Spartans displayed.
One of their methods was to feign flight, lure the assailants on, and
then turn on them with deadly effect. Vast numbers of the Persians
were slain; the Greeks also suffered some loss, for the best troops of
the East could not have fought wholly in vain, but this loss was very
small. Thrice during the day's engagement the Persian king is said to
have leapt from the seat from which he watched the combat in terror for
his army.
Yet another day was spent in a fruitless assault on the Greek position.
The Persians hoped to wear out the enemy by incessant attacks. Some
must be slain or wounded, and when the total number was so small, even
a small loss must tell upon them in the end. As a matter of fact,
however, the strength of the Greeks was not sensibly impaired. The
space of ground that had to be held was very small, and the Greeks
could change their men actually engaged at frequent intervals.
The treachery of a native of Malis, a little Dorian state in the heart
of the mountains, relieved Xerxes of his perplexity. He offered, for
a reward, to show a mountain path by which the Greek position could
be turned. The name of this wretch, on whose head a price was set by
the General Council of the Greek States, was Ephialtes. It is doubtful
whether the secret could have been long kept; but there seems to have
been a general agreement that Ephialtes was the guilty man, though
other names were mentioned.
Xerxes willingly purchased the secret, and entrusted the task of
outflanking the Greek position to the Immortals. They started at dusk
and marched all night. The Phocian guards of the path seem to have
neglected to place any outposts, and were not aware of the approach of
the enemy till the crackling of the leaves under their feet, carried
through the still air of night, gave them warning. They started up from
their bivouack at the sound, and the Persians, surprised at the sight
of an enemy whose presence they had not expected, halted. The Phocians
seem not to have attempted to hold the path, but retreated to the crest
of the hill and then made ready to defend themselves. The Persians left
them alone, and continued their march.
The Greeks at Thermopylæ had by this time received warning of what had
happened. The soothsayer attached to the force is said to have read in
the victims which he examined a prognostic of their fate. More definite
information came from scouts who had been out on the hills, and who
now came hurrying into the camp with the news. A council of war was
hastily held. It could not agree, but the result was that the majority
of the contingents retreated. Whether they did this with or without
the orders of Leonidas is not certain. It is one of the matters about
which it is almost impossible to arrive at the truth. Herodotus thinks
that they were ordered to retire by Leonidas because he saw that they
were unwilling to stay. This has a look of probability. As for Leonidas
himself and his Spartans, they elected to stay. The inflexible military
honour of their commonwealth forbade retreat. The seven hundred
Thespians refused to depart, and must be allowed the glory of a still
more heroic courage.[1] The Theban contingent was detained against
its will. The soothsayer Megistias--his name ought to be preserved no
less carefully than that of the traitor Ephialtes--refused to depart,
though being not a Spartan, but an Acamanian by birth, he might have
done so without discredit, but he sent away his only son. The name of
the Thespian leader ought also to have its place on the roll of honour.
It was Demophilus.
In the forenoon the Persians began a double attack, in front and in
rear. They had seen such proofs of Greek prowess that the men had to
be driven into battle by the whip. As for the Greeks, they changed
their tactics. Leaving the pass of the Hot Springs and the wall, they
advanced into the open space. Hope of escape or victory had been given
up. They would fight where they could sell their lives most dearly.
And dearly did they sell them. Crowds of the Persians fell; many were
trampled under foot by their comrades; many more were thrust into the
marsh that bordered the road on the side of the sea. Among the slain
were two brothers of the king. The Spartans and Thespians fought till
their spears were broken. Leonidas seems to have fallen early in
the day, and there was a furious struggle for the possession of his
body. Four times did the barbarians carry it off, and four times was
it recovered. As the day drew on the Immortals came upon the scene.
Aware of their approach, the Greeks retreated to the pass and prolonged
their resistance to the very uttermost. When their weapons failed
them they used their hands and even their teeth. But the Persians
now surrounded them and showered arrows and all kinds of missiles
upon them. They perished to a man. One more name from among the three
hundred Spartans must be preserved--Dieneces, who seems to have been
a wit as well as a warrior. When a man of Trachis told him that the
Persians were so numerous that their arrows would darken the sun, "'Tis
well," he replied, "stranger; then we shall fight in the shade." One
of the contingent was absent. He and a comrade had been lying sick of
ophthalmia at a neighbouring village. They could not agree as to what
should be done. One buckled on his armour and bade his attendant helot
lead him--for he could not see--to the battlefield. The helot did so,
and then turned and fled. His master plunged into the thick of the
fight and fell. The other sick man returned to Sparta. There no one
would give him light to kindle his fire, or speak to him. He wiped away
the reproach by falling, after prodigies of valour, at Platæa.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Canon Rawlinson does not show himself as acute as usual
when he suggests that this splendid resolve of the Thespians was due to
an ambition of dispossessing Thebes from the headship of the Bœotian
confederacy. Mr. Grote's remark that they knew that they must be left
homeless is more to the point.]
III
IN THE STRAITS
While the army of the allied Greeks was holding the pass of Thermopylæ,
their fleet occupied Artemisium. This was a promontory at the northern
end of the island of Eubœa, a small stretch of coast on either side of
the actual cape being known by the same name. The Persian attack was
being made both by land and sea, and the Greek plan of defence was to
check it at two points which were as nearly as possible in a line.
Both positions were liable to be turned. The danger at Artemisium was
even greater than at Thermopylæ, for there was nothing to prevent the
Persian fleet from sailing down the east coast of Eubœa. Indeed we
shall see that this was done, though, as it turned out, without any ill
result to the Greeks. It is clear that the officers in command of the
fleet were quite as uneasy as some of the army leaders at Thermopylæ,
nor was there any one who could exercise the control that Leonidas, in
virtue of his commanding personality and his rank as a Spartan king,
exercised over the allies.
An event of no great importance turned this uneasiness into panic. Two
out of three ships which had been detached to keep a look out were
captured by an advanced Persian squadron of ten ships. In consequence
of this disaster, the fleet hastily retreated some fifty miles to the
south to a spot where the channel between the mainland and Eubœa is at
its narrowest. It would probably have gone still further south but for
the heavy loss which the Persian fleet suffered during a four days'
storm. No less than four hundred ships were destroyed, and with them an
uncounted multitude of men. The Greeks were so encouraged by the loss
which had befallen the enemy, that they returned in all haste and took
up their former station. Hence the battle of Artemisium.
The first incident was a Greek success. The Persian fleet took up its
position in the great natural harbour which is now known as the Gulf
of Volo. Fifteen ships belonging to it lagged so far behind the rest,
that by the time they reached the south-eastern point of the gulf the
main body had rounded it and were out of sight. But the Greek fleet was
full in view; they mistook it for their own, sailed straight towards
it, and were captured without a struggle. Notwithstanding this stroke
of good fortune the Greek captains were full of fears. Even after the
losses caused by the storm, the Persian fleet greatly outnumbered their
own. They had two hundred and eighty ships, reckoning nine fifty-oars
with the larger triremes or "three-bankers"; the Persians must have had
more than twice as many. The question of retreat again came up, and
seemed very likely to be decided in the affirmative. A different result
was brought about by a proceeding curiously characteristic of Greek
ways of acting and thinking. The people of Eubœa were in despair at the
prospect of being deserted. It would be something, they thought, if
they could secure a few days' grace in which to remove their portable
property to a place of safety. They went to Eurybiades, the Spartan
admiral, who was in supreme command, and begged him to postpone his
departure for a short time. He refused the request. It would not, he
said, be for the public interest. Then they went to Themistocles, the
Athenian admiral. He was not the commander-in-chief, but he commanded
the most numerous contingent, one hundred and twenty-seven ships,
only thirteen short of the half. They offered him a splendid bribe of
thirty talents (about £7,000 of our money) if he could procure for
them the desired delay. Themistocles seems to have known the price of
the men whom he had to buy. To Eurybiades he gave five talents, and
the Spartan, to whom this sum probably seemed a fortune, changed his
views about the public safety. The Corinthian commander, who had the
most powerful squadron after that of Athens, had also to be bought.
Themistocles dealt with him in the frankest way. "I will give you," he
said, "more for staying than the Persians will give you for going."
The Corinthian does not seem to have resented the suggestion that he
was ready to be bribed by the enemies of his country, and accepted the
two talents which Themistocles sent on board his ship. The Athenian
kept the handsome balance in his own hands. We cannot say anything
more for him than that he comes out of the transaction better than
his colleagues. They believed that the better and safer course was to
retreat. He, on the contrary, was convinced that the right policy was
to stop and fight. But he never forgot his personal interests. In this
case he made them harmonise; on other occasions his action was more
doubtful. There is reason to think that, before the end of his career,
he postponed the public good to his own.
The Persians, when they saw that the Greek fleet was still at
Artemisium, had, it would seem, no thought but of how they might make
sure of capturing the whole. They sent a squadron of two hundred ships
to sail down the eastern coast of Eubœa. These were to take the Greek
in the rear, the main body waiting till the arrival of the squadron
had been signalled. Meanwhile the Greeks had received some encouraging
intelligence. A Greek diver, named Scyllias,[2] who had been in the
employ of the Persians, deserted to them. He described the damage that
had been done by the storm, and also informed them about the squadron
that had been sent round Eubœa. The first thought of the Greek admirals
was to sail south, and meet this squadron. But on reflection, bolder
counsels prevailed. Late in the afternoon they left their station, and
sailed towards the hostile fleet. The Persians viewed the movement with
astonishment, and the Asiatic Greeks with dismay, for though serving
with the enemy, they wished well to their countrymen. The Greek ships
were inferior, not only in numbers, but also in equipment, and they
seemed to be rushing on destruction.
The Greeks began by assuming what seemed like a defensive position,
forming a circle, with the sterns of their ships in close order,
and the prows turned to the enemy. The enemy advanced to close with
them, and then, at a concerted signal, the Greeks dashed at their
opponents with such success that they captured thirty of their ships,
the first prize falling, as indeed was fitting, to an Athenian ship.
The Persians, recovered from the first surprise, began to hold their
own better, and when night fell, the issue of the conflict was still
doubtful. The captain of a ship from the island of Lemnos had the
sagacity to see how the struggle would end, and deserted to the Greeks,
receiving afterwards a handsome reward for his timely patriotism.
Again the "stars fought in their courses for Greece." That night there
was a thunder-storm, with heavy rain and wind. The main body of the
fleet did not suffer much material damage, but the crews were dismayed
to see fragments of wrecks and bodies of the dead drifted in by the
wind. These were, indeed, the tokens of a great disaster. The squadron
that was sent round Eubœa had been driven on a lee shore and absolutely
destroyed. On the morrow the Persians made no movement, but the Greeks
repeated the tactics of the day before. The news of the disaster to
the Persian squadron had reached them, and they had been joined by a
reinforcement of Athenian ships. This gave them new courage besides
increasing their strength. Before the close of the day they captured
some Cilician ships.
On the third day the Persian commanders, made desperate by failure, for
they served a master who exacted a cruel penalty for ill-success, moved
forward to engage the enemy, the Greeks awaiting their attack. The
order of the Persian attack was in the shape of a half-moon, and its
object to outflank the enemy on either side. The Greeks accepted the
challenge. The result was not decisive. The Greeks sunk and captured
more ships than they themselves lost. But their own loss was serious.
Of the Athenian fleet especially, more than half was so injured as to
require repair. By this time, too, the position had ceased to have
any strategic value. The pass of Thermopylæ had been forced by the
Persians, and it was useless, therefore, to hold Artemisium. That night
the Greek fleet retired southwards. Themistocles, before he went,
caused to be engraved on a prominent rock an inscription which invited
the Asiatic Greeks serving with the Persians to make common cause with
their countrymen. "If these words," he reasoned with himself, "escape
the knowledge of the king, they may bring these Greeks over to us; if
they come to his knowledge, they will make him distrust them."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Pausanias tells us that he saw at Delphi a statue of this
Scyllias, which had been erected by the Amphictyonic Council. A statue
of his daughter Hydna had formerly stood next to it, but had been
carried off by Nero. The two were famous divers, and some marvellous
legends had gathered about them. Pausanias was told that they had
dragged away the anchors and moorings of the Persian ships during
the storm, and so aggravated the disaster. Herodotus had heard a yet
more marvellous story of how Scyllias had dived the whole distance,
nearly ten miles, between the Persian station and the Greek, but adds
characteristically, "My own opinion is that he made the passage in a
boat."]
IV
THE WOODEN WALLS
The retreat of the Greek forces from Thermopylæ and Artemisium left
Athens without defence. There had been a promise that an army of the
allies should make a stand against the invaders in Bœotia. No attempt
was made to keep it. The only plan of defence that commended itself to
the Peloponnesian States was to fortify the Isthmus of Corinth--and
all the states outside the Peloponnesus, Athens excepted, were either
pro-Persian or indifferent. As Athens was unwalled, there was no
question of defending it; the only thing that could be done was to
save as much life and property as was possible. For this the time
was short, and might have been shorter than it actually was, for the
Athenians had six days in which to transport their belongings to a
place of safety, though the distance to be traversed by the invaders
was not more than ninety miles. All the women, children, and persons
incapacitated by illness or old age were put on shipboard, and carried
either to Trœzen, a friendly city in the peninsula of Argolis, which
had some tie of kinship with Athens, to Ægina, which was but ten miles
away, or to Salamis, which was even nearer. The Athenians begged the
allies to remain in the neighbourhood till the work of transport was
accomplished, and Salamis happened to be the most convenient spot for
this purpose.
The whole fighting strength of Athens was now embarked in its fleet.
Years before, Themistocles, with a sagacity and prescience that seem
almost miraculous, had counselled his countrymen to spend all their
available resources in building ships. And only a few months before,
the oracle of Delphi had advised the Athenians to trust in their
"wooden wall," a phrase which this same statesman had interpreted as
meaning the ships. No one, we may believe, knew better what it meant,
as he had probably suggested it. The time had now come to put this
counsel into practice. Every able-bodied Athenian took service in the
fleet, the wealthy aristocrats, known as the "knights," setting the
examples by hanging up their bridles in the temple of Athené.
It had never been the intention of the officers in command of the
allied fleet to give battle at Salamis. They thought of nothing but
the safety of the Peloponnesus; possibly they believed that nothing
more than this could be hoped for. But when the Athenians, compelled
as they were to abandon their city, asked for their help in saving
non-combatants and such property as could be removed, they could not
refuse. And now the question presented itself--Where are we to meet
the Persian fleet? The captains assembled in the ship of Eurybiades
the Spartan, who was in chief command, and debated on what was to be
done. The general opinion was that they should retire from Salamis,
from which there would be great difficulty in escaping, if escape
should become necessary, and give battle somewhere off the coast of
the Peloponnesus. In the midst of the discussion a messenger arrived
with the news that the Persians had overrun all Attica, and had taken
by storm the citadel of Athens, which a few enthusiasts had insisted
on defending. These tidings could not have taken any one by surprise,
but the fact that one of the great cities of Greece had fallen into
the hands of the barbarians produced a panic. Some of the captains left
without waiting for the decision of the council, and, hurrying to their
own squadrons, prepared to depart. Those who stayed resolved to retire
to the Isthmus and make a stand there.
As Themistocles was returning to his ship from the council, he was
met by a friend who, in bygone years, had been his instructor in
philosophy. The new-comer, on hearing the decision at which the council
had arrived, denounced it most emphatically. "It means ruin for
Greece," he said. "The fleet will not remain together to fight; every
contingent will steal away, hoping to protect its own country. Go and
persuade Eurybiades to reconsider the question."
Themistocles went, and using every argument that he could think
of, at last succeeded in making such an impression on Eurybiades
that he consented to summon another council. Of course it was the
etiquette for the commander-in-chief to state the business which they
had met to discuss, but Themistocles, who saw that it was a matter
of life and death, could not help urging his case, without waiting
for the president of the council. Adeimantus, of Corinth, angrily
interrupted him. "Themistocles," he said, "at the Games, they who
start too soon are scourged." "True," replied the Athenian, "but they
who start too late are not crowned." He then addressed the council
in a tone of studied mildness and conciliation. He said nothing
about the probability that the fleet would be broken up by a general
desertion--such an argument would have been affront--but he urged that
to fight at Salamis would not be to risk everything on the issue of one
battle. To retreat would be to leave all northern Greece at the mercy
of the Persians, while a defeat at the Isthmus would mean the loss of
the Peloponnesus itself. As for the Athenians, they would loyally abide
by any decision to which the allies might come.
Adeimantus, enraged at the Athenian's persistence, interrupted him with
the remark that a man who had no country had no right to speak, and
even appealed to Eurybiades to impose silence upon him. Themistocles
then saw that it was time to assert himself. "With two hundred ships
fully manned and armed we have," he said, turning to Adeimantus, "as
good a country as any man here, for what state could resist us should
we choose to attack it?" Then he addressed himself to Eurybiades.
"Play the man and all will be well. All depends upon our ships. If you
will not stay here and fight, we will take our families on board and
sail for Italy, where the gods have provided us a home. Without us,
what will you do?"
To this threat there was no answer. The council resolved to stay and
fight.
But the matter was not really settled. The Peloponnesian contingents
were determined, in the last resort, to disobey their chief, and
Themistocles was aware of their determination. Only one course remained
for him, and it required the courage of despair to take it. If the
allies would not stay at Salamis of their own free will, they must do
it by compulsion. He sent a trusted slave to the Persian admiral with
this message: "The Athenian commander is a well-wisher to the King,
and he informs you that the Greeks are seized with fear, and are about
to retreat from Salamis. It is for you to hinder their flight." A more
daring stratagem was never put into execution. Not the least strange
circumstance about it is the fact that, years after, when Themistocles
had fallen into disgrace at home, he successfully claimed as a service
to the Persian king that he had given him the chance of destroying the
whole of the Greek fleet at one blow.
The Persian commanders seem not to have suspected the good faith of the
communication thus received, and at once set about closing in the Greek
ships. The town of Salamis was built in a little bay on the eastern
side of the island, the distance across to the mainland of Attica being
about two miles. The Greek fleet was drawn up, in what may be described
as the shape of a bow loosely strung, in front of the town; the Persian
ships were ranged along the opposite, _i.e._, the Attic shore. Both to
the north and to the south the channel narrowed, being less than a mile
across. The Persians now extended their line northwards till it touched
the shore of the island, and southwards till it reached an uninhabited
island called Psyttaleia. On this island they landed a body of troops
who were to help the crews of any of their own ships that might be
damaged, and slaughter any Greek soldiers or sailors who might be in a
similar plight.
While these preparations were going on--and they lasted nearly through
the night--the Greek leaders still hotly debated the question of going
or staying. An unexpected end was put to the controversy. The chief
opponent of Themistocles in Athenian politics was Aristides. He had
been banished, and, at the instance of his successful rival, recalled
from banishment when the danger of a Persian invasion became imminent.
He now came to join his countrymen, and brought startling tidings with
him. He had come from the island of Ægina, which lay some twelve miles
to the south of Salamis, and his ship had narrowly escaped capture in
making its way into the bay of Salamis; only the darkness had made
it possible to do so. Themistocles was fetched out from the council
to hear the tidings. "I hope," said Aristides, "that always, and now
especially, our strife will be who may do his best service to his
country. As for the question of going or staying, it matters nothing
whether the Peloponnesians talk much or little. Go they cannot. We are
enclosed on every side. This I have seen with my own eyes."
"This is good news," replied Themistocles, "for the Persians have done
exactly what I wished. Our men, who would not fight of their own free
will, will now be made to fight." And he told him of what he had done.
"And now go and tell them. If I was to say it, they would not believe
me."
Aristides accordingly went in to the council and told them his news.
Many of them refused to believe it, but when a ship from the island of
Tenos that had deserted from the Persians confirmed the report, there
was nothing more to say. All that could be done was to make all the
preparation possible for a conflict which had become inevitable.
Of the battle we have two accounts, that of Herodotus, derived
doubtless from one or more persons who had taken part in it, and that
of Æschylus, who actually fought there as he had fought before at
Marathon. The two accounts substantially agree, but they differ in the
number of Greek ships engaged. Herodotus says that there were 378, made
up to the round number of 380 by the Tenian ship which deserted on the
night before the battle, and a ship from Lemnos, which had done the
same at Artemisium. He gives the number of each contingent, the largest
being 180 contributed by Athens, while 89 came from the states of the
Peloponnesus, and 57 from Ægina and Eubœa. One ship only came from
Greece beyond the sea. Even this was a private rather than a public
contribution. A certain Phayllus of Crotona furnished a ship at his own
expense, and manned it with fellow-citizens who were sojourning in
Greece. Pausanias saw his statue at Delphi six centuries afterwards.
Æschylus says that there were 300 ships, and ten were of special
swiftness or strength. Mr. Grote thinks that this number is to be
accepted in preference, hardly showing, I think, his wonted acuteness.
The poet had to state his number in verse, and finds "ten thirties" a
convenient way of doing it. But 380 would have been an unmanageable
figure, and we have, accordingly, a convenient round number. Very
likely Mr. Grote was not so alive to the exigencies of verse as he had
been forty years before, when he was a Charterhouse boy.
As soon as the sun rose, the Greek fleet moved forward to the attack,
the crews joining, as they advanced, in the _pæan_ or shout of battle.
They met no reluctant foe. So confident, indeed, was the bearing of the
Persians, that the Greeks were checked. Some of the crews even began to
back water. The issues of great battles are often decided by examples
of courage. So it was at Salamis, for one of the Greek ships advanced
and led the way for the rest. To whom this credit is due cannot be
said for certain. The Athenians declared that this brave captain was
Ameinias, a brother of the poet Æschylus; the Æginetans claimed the
honour for a ship of their own, which had brought over, on the eve of
the battle, the heroes worshipped in their city as auxiliaries of the
Greek people.[3] Herodotus had also heard a legend how the form of a
woman, doubtless the goddess Athené, had been seen in the air and heard
to cry, in a voice which reached from one end of the fleet to another,
"Friends, how much further are ye going to back?" Æschylus gives his
authority in favour of his countryman, not expressly but by saying
that the ship which led the attack broke off the stern of a Phœnician
ship, for we know that the Phœnician squadron was posted over against
the Athenian contingent. The Æginetan was second if not first, and
Simonides gives the third place to a ship that came from Naxos. By
common consent Athens and Ægina shared the chief distinction of the day
between them. The Athenian ships busied themselves with such of the
enemy's fleet as offered resistance or were beached by their captains;
the Æginetans attacked those that attempted to escape by the southern
channel (their way to the open sea).
The subjects of Xerxes, on the whole, displayed great courage, not the
less because they were fighting under the eyes of the king, who was
watching the battle from a projecting point of Mount Ægaleos on the
mainland of Attica. The native Persians and Medes, as inland peoples,
were serving as what we call marines on board the ships furnished by
the maritime provinces of Phœnicia, Egypt, and Cilicia. But they seldom
had the chance of showing their prowess in boarding, and when they
had they were hardly a match for their better-armed and more athletic
antagonists. As for the management of the ships, the sailors from the
east were not, as a rule, equal, either in resolution or in skill, to
the hardier races of the west. Their superior numbers, in the narrow
space to which the battle was confined, were a hindrance rather than
a help. There was no mutual confidence, and no common speech. And the
cogent motive that sent them into action was fear of punishment or, at
the best, obedience to a ruling race, while the Greeks were fighting
for home and country. The Persian fleet was more successful where the
Asiatic Greeks were matched with the squadrons from the Peloponnesus.
Herodotus, himself an Asiatic Greek by birth, vindicates their honour
as combatants at the expense of their Greek patriotism. "I could
mention," he says, "the names of many captains who took ships from the
Greeks." He thinks it prudent, however, to omit them--and indeed when
Herodotus wrote, such exploits would be better forgotten--and gives
two names only, both of them well known already. He also mentions with
pleasure the signal discomfiture of some Phœnician captains, who,
having lost their ships early in the day, sought to excuse themselves
to Xerxes by laying the blame on the treasonable practices of the
Greeks. The battle was still going on, and almost while they were
speaking a Samothracian ship was seen to ram and sink an Athenian. It
was in turn disabled by an Æginetan trireme. But the Samothracian crew
were expert javelin-throwers. They cleared the deck of the Æginetan,
boarded, and captured it. Xerxes turned fiercely on the Phœnicians, and
ordered that they should be instantly executed, as having ventured to
slander men braver than themselves.
Another incident of the day Herodotus relates from personal knowledge.
His native city of Halicarnassus had been ruled for some years by
Artemisia, the daughter of one Lygdamis and the widow of another.
She had advised Xerxes not to engage the Greek fleet, speaking with a
frankness which might well have put her life in danger. Overruled by
other counsellors, she did her best for the king's cause, but found
herself in the greatest peril. An Athenian ship was in close pursuit of
her, and there was a crowd of Persian vessels in front which hindered
her escape. One of these belonged to a Carian neighbour, with whom, it
is possible, she was not on the best of terms. She bore down upon his
vessel, and sank it. The Athenian captain concluded at once that she
had changed sides and was now fighting for Greece. He abandoned the
pursuit, and Artemisia escaped. And she earned praise as well. "Sire,"
said one of the courtiers who stood by the king's seat, "dost thou see
how bravely Artemisia bears herself? She has just sunk a Greek ship."
He was sure, he went on to say, that the exploit was Artemisia's,
for he knew her flag. No one seemed to have suspected the truth, and
fortunately for Artemisia there was not a single survivor from the
Carian ship to tell the tale.
Herodotus gives no estimate of the loss on either side. A later Greek
writer says that two hundred Persian and forty Greek ships were
destroyed, and that the Persian loss in men was in a much greater
proportion. Few of them could swim, and consequently, when a ship was
sunk, the whole crew perished with it. Most of the Greeks, on the
contrary, were able to save themselves by swimming. Another disaster
to the king's forces was the total destruction of the Persian troops
landed on the island of Psyttaleia. Aristides disembarked with some
Greek heavy-armed, and put them all to the sword. Among them were some
of the king's own guard.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: These were Peleus and Phocus, sons of Æacus. Telamon, also
a son of Æacus, and Ajax, son of Telamon, were worshipped in Salamis.]
V
THE BATTLES ON THE PLAIN AND ON THE SHORE
After the defeat at Salamis Xerxes withdrew his army into Thessaly.
The result of his deliberations with his advisers was that he should
himself go home, protected by a division of 60,000 men, and that his
uncle Mardonius should stop in Greece with the intention of renewing
the campaign in the following year. Mardonius was allowed to choose
such portions of the army as he thought best, and having selected
300,000 men, went into winter quarters in Thessaly. It is needless
to relate all that happened during the six months or so that passed
from the opening of the campaign in the spring of 479 up to the final
struggle in the early autumn of that year. It will suffice to say that
Mardonius did his best to detach the Athenians from the cause of Greece
by the most liberal offers, and that the Peloponnesians did all they
could to bring about the same end by the consistent selfishness of
their policy. To Mardonius the Athenians returned a firm refusal. To
the Spartans they addressed a strong remonstrance. They represented
that they had been already deserted, that the promise of help to be
given for the defence of Attica had been shamefully broken. They
hinted that if the Spartans and their friends persisted in neglecting
every Greek interest outside the Isthmus they would be compelled, much
against their will, to make terms with the enemy.
The Spartans would probably have continued to temporise but for the
plain speaking of a native of Tegea in Arcadia, a friendly state for
which they felt the greatest respect. "No wall at the Isthmus will
protect us," he said, "if you drive the Athenians into alliance with
Persia. They will put their fleet at the disposal of the enemy, and you
will be helpless." The change in the Spartan policy was dramatically
sudden. That very night five thousand Spartans set out for the front,
a larger force than the state ever before put into the field, or was
ever to put afterwards. Each Spartan had seven light-armed helots to
attend him. The same number of the non-Spartan population of Laconia,
each with one helot, followed. Mardonius, on hearing of this movement,
withdrew from Attica into Bœotia and prepared to give battle.
The contingents of the Peloponnesian States mustered at Corinth. As
they marched north, the Athenians, who had crossed over from Salamis,
joined them. The whole force amounted to more than 100,000 men. It is
not necessary to give all the numbers sent by the various states. The
Lacedæmonians had 10,000 heavy armed (with 40,000 light armed), the
Tegeans 1,500, the Athenians 8,000; the other contingents, for reasons
which will shortly appear, may be left out of the account.
Mardonius had constructed an entrenched camp on the north or left bank
of the river Asopus. In front of this camp he drew up his line of
battle. The Greek army, which was under the command of Pausanias, uncle
of one of the kings of Sparta and regent, took up its position on the
slopes of Mount Cithæron. Their unwillingness to descend into the plain
and come to close quarters emboldened Mardonius to attack them with
his cavalry. The contingent from Megara happened to be in a peculiarly
advanced or otherwise exposed situation, and suffered so severely that
it had to send for help. It explains Pausanias's apparent timidity
when we find that he could not induce any of his troops to go to the
assistance of their hard-pressed countrymen. In the end three hundred
Athenians volunteered for this service. They took with them a force
of archers, an arm in which Megarians were entirely deficient. Some
sharp fighting ensued; at last an arrow killed the horse of the Persian
general Masistius, and the general, a man of great stature and beauty,
and a splendid figure in his gilded chain-armour, was thrown to the
ground. This happened close to the Athenian lines, and Masistius was
soon killed, though it was only by a thrust in the eye that he could
be despatched, so impenetrable was his armour. The Persian cavalry,
as soon as it became aware of its leader's fate, charged furiously to
recover the body. For a time the Greeks were driven back, but they
rallied and recovered the prize. The Persians, demoralised, in the
usual fashion of Asiatics, by the loss of their leader, retreated in
disorder.
Encouraged by this success, the Greeks descended into the plain,
and took up a second position on the right bank of the Asopus. The
Lacedæmonians occupied the right wing, the Athenians the left. A
curious instance of the want of discipline in the army is afforded by
the dispute which arose between the Athenians and the Tegeans as to
precedence. The first post of honour, the right wing, was conceded by
common consent to the Lacedæmonians; the second part, the left wing,
was the matter in dispute. Tegea claimed it on account of various
mythical exploits, and on more recent successes achieved in company
with Sparta. Athens had also its mythical claims, but it relied on the
victory at Marathon. The decision was given in favour of Athens by
a general vote of the Lacedæmonian soldiery. The new position taken
up by the Greeks was found to be anything but convenient. The army
suffered from a scarcity of water; it was unsafe to approach the river
banks, for this was commanded by the Persian archers, and consequently
the sole supply was a spring, known by the name of Gargaphia, which
was close to the Lacedæmonian position. Mardonius shifted his line of
battle a little to the west, so as to front the new Greek position.
His picked native troops, the Persians and the Sacæ (Turkomans) were
posted, not in the centre, the post of honour in an Asiatic army, as we
have seen more than once before, but on the left wing, where they would
face the Spartans; to the Theban contingent was allotted a place on
the right where they were opposed to their old enemies of Athens. This
was done at the suggestion of the Theban leaders, and the suggestion
did credit, as we shall see, to their sagacity.
For ten days the two armies remained in position without moving. The
soothsayers on both sides reported that the sacrifices portended
success to a policy of defence; disaster, if an attack should be
attempted. It was to the Greek cause that the delay was more perilous.
The army suffered greatly from the incessant attacks of the Persian
cavalry; the scanty water supply was a great inconvenience and even a
danger; and when, at the suggestion of his Theban friends, Mardonius
sent his cavalry to cut off the supplies that were sent by the passes
of Cithæron into the Greek camp, the dangers of the situation were
still further aggravated. But the most serious peril of all was of
another kind. The spirit of party, without which no free state can
exist, but by which every free state is ultimately ruined, was rife in
the Greek ranks. The traitors who had shown the signal of the shield
after Marathon were not absent from the ranks at Platæa. The Thebans,
with malignant sagacity, suggested to Mardonius that he should rely
on the influences that were working for him, and avoid a general
engagement. Happily for Greece, he refused their advice, which was
discreditable, he said, to Persian honour. A people so superior in war
had no need to resort to such expedients. He resolved to assume the
offensive.
The Greeks were apprised of this change of plan by a visitor from
the Persian camp. After nightfall, Alexander, King of Macedonia, who
claimed to be descended from the great hero Achilles, rode up to the
Athenian outposts and demanded speech with the generals. They were
fetched by the guard, and he told them that Mardonius had tried in vain
to obtain from the sacrifices signs that promised success, but that,
nevertheless, he was determined to attack. "Be prepared," he went on,
"and if you prevail, do something for my freedom; I have risked my life
for love of Greece, to save you from a surprise by the barbarians. I am
Alexander of Macedon."
When Pausanias heard the news he made a proposition to the Athenian
generals, which, as coming from a Spartan, a race so punctilious in
military honour, sounds very strange. He suggested that they should
take the place of the Spartans on the right wing, where they would
be opposed to the Persian infantry whom they had already conquered at
Marathon, but whom the Spartans had never met in battle. The Athenians
promptly agreed, but the movement was detected by Mardonius, and
was met by a corresponding change in his line. On perceiving this,
Pausanias reverted to the former arrangement.
The first offensive movement on the part of Mardonius was eminently
successful. His cavalry got past, or broke through the Spartan line, so
as to get at the spring of Gargaphia. This they choked, and so deprived
the Greek army of their only available water supply.
A change of position became necessary. The new ground which the
council of war determined to occupy was near Platæa, and went by the
name of the Island, because it lay between two small streams which
descend from Cithæron. The army would have a water supply, and would
be protected, in a degree, from the Persian cavalry. It was then too
late to make the movement, which would not be practicable except under
cover of darkness. The whole of the next day had to be spent in extreme
discomfort; and when at nightfall orders were given for a change of
position, two somewhat alarming incidents took place. The centre of
the Greek force, comprising all the smaller contingents, had been so
demoralised, it would seem, by the troubles of the day that, as soon
as the night fell, they marched off, not to the Island, but beyond it,
to a place which they very probably considered to be better protected
against the harassing attacks of the cavalry. This was the town of
Platæa itself. They took up a position in front of the temple of Heré,
a building of considerable size, as we know from the ruins still to
be seen, and on high ground. Here they had the town behind them, and
ground, unfavourable to the action of cavalry on either side. The other
disconcerting event was the conduct of one of the Spartan officers,
Amompharetus by name.[4] This man conceived that the movement ordered
by Pausanias was a retreat, and so forbidden by the strict code of
Spartan military honour. Accordingly he refused to move. An angry
dispute followed, Pausanias and his second in command doing all they
could to convince their subordinate, he obstinately adhering to his
decision. In the midst of the argument a messenger from the Athenians
arrived on horseback. They were perplexed by the inaction of the
Spartans, and, very possibly, suspicious of some design which would be
compromising to their own safety. At the moment of this messenger's
arrival Amompharetus had delivered his ultimatum. Taking up from the
ground a huge stone, he cast it at the feet of Pausanias, saying at the
same time, "I give my vote for staying"--the same word serves in Greek
for vote and pebble, pebbles being used in the ballot-boxes. Pausanias
hurriedly explained the situation to the Athenian, and begged him to
carry back a message that he hoped his countrymen would not move till
he could overcome the difficulty in which he found himself. This,
indeed, seemed almost hopeless. At last, just before dawn, Pausanias
made up his mind to leave the refractory captain behind. Finding
himself alone with his company, he would, he hoped, consent to follow.
And this was what actually took place.
By this time day was dawning, and Mardonius became aware of what had
happened. He seems to have looked upon the movement in much the same
way as Amompharetus had done. It was a flight. These Spartans, for all
their boasted courage, were running away. His Persian troops answered
the command by a disorderly advance. They crossed the Asopus, which,
it will be remembered, flowed in front of their position, and hurried
in the track of the Spartans; the rest of the Asiatics followed their
example. Pausanias sent a message to the Athenians, telling them that
the Persians were concentrating their whole strength against his
division, and begging that they would come to his help, at least by
sending their archers. The Athenians, however, had by this time work
enough of their own to deal with, for the Thebans and Thessalians had
commenced an attack upon them.
The Spartans, therefore, had to bear the brunt of the Persian attack
alone. They had ten thousand heavy-armed and four times as many
light-armed, numbers slightly increased by the contingent from Tegea,
a force of three thousand, equally divided between the two classes
of troops. Pausanias, who seems to have shown little ability or
presence of mind from the beginning to the end of the campaign, was
busy with the customary sacrifice. Unfortunately the victims showed no
encouraging signs, and he was content, possibly was compelled by the
public opinion of his men--for a Greek army, even when it came from
Sparta, was a democracy--to postpone any movement of offence till the
Fates seemed propitious. Meanwhile his men were falling about him--one
of the slain was reputed to be the handsomest man in the whole Greek
army.[5] In an agony of distress, Pausanias lifted his eyes to the
Temple of Heré, which stood on a conspicuous height, and prayed for the
help of the goddess. The signs immediately changed, and the welcome
signal to charge was given. The Tegeans seem to have already moved.
Together they advanced against the Persian line, which was protected
by a rampart of wicker shields, from behind which the archers had
been pouring volleys of arrows. The rampart was soon broken down.
Then a fierce hand-to-hand fight began. Again and again the Persian
braves dashed themselves on the Spartans' spears and broke or strived
to break them. "They were not one whit inferior to the Greeks in
boldness and warlike spirit"--such is the testimony which men who had
borne their part in that fierce struggle bore to the bravery of their
antagonists--but their armament was less effective and their military
training less complete. The battle raged most furiously about the
person of Mardonius, who was surrounded by a bodyguard of a thousand
Immortals. As long as he lived these picked warriors held their own;
when he was struck down--a Spartan, Aeimnestus[6] by name, had the
credit of the deed--they fled in wild confusion to their camp. A body
of forty thousand was led off the field by the general in command, when
he saw how the fortune of the day was going.
On the right wing of the Persian army the Theban infantry, always
distinguished for its steady courage, held its own for a considerable
time against the Athenians. It stood alone, however. The other Greeks,
whom Xerxes or his lieutenant had pressed into the Persian service,
felt no zeal for the cause, and took the first opportunity that
occurred of retreating. The Thebans, who must have been much inferior
in numbers to their Athenian adversaries, were driven back, with a
considerable loss in killed. They took refuge within the walls of their
city. Their cavalry, indeed, achieved the only success that the army of
Mardonius could boast. News reached the Greek centre, in its position
outside Platæa, that the right wing had put the Persians to flight, and
it hurriedly advanced to take a share in the victory. The movement was
made in a careless and disorderly way. So relaxed was discipline that
the whole force did not even keep together. Two of the contingents,
from Megara and Phlius (a small state in the north of the Peloponnese)
were attacked by the Theban cavalry as they crossed the plain and
suffered a very heavy loss, as many as six hundred being slain. "So
they perished without honour," says Herodotus. It must be owned that
from first to last the smaller Greek States earned little distinction
in the war.
The Persian entrenched camp was for a time a difficulty. The Spartans
attacked it, but made no progress, being wholly unacquainted with the
methods of assaulting fortified places. They had to await the arrival
of the Athenians, who seem to have had, if not more experience, at
least more intelligence. With their help the camp was taken by assault.
The spoil was very great. Pausanias says that he saw at Athens the
golden scymetar of Mardonius, taken from his tent on the day of the
victory.
The loss of the Persians was, of course, very great. Herodotus says
that only 3,000 survived. This may be an exaggeration, but it is
doubtless true that the chances of escape were very small, and that no
mercy would be shown. Of the Greeks 159 are said to have fallen. To
this number must be added the 600 cut off by the Theban cavalry, and
about as many more who fell in the preliminary conflicts. Plutarch,
while giving the same number as Herodotus, states that the total Greek
loss, from first to last, was 1,360.
Among the Spartan dead were Amompharetus, and Aristodemus, the unhappy
survivor of Thermopylæ.
Two of the Greek contingents, from Mantinea and from Elis, arrived
after the battle was over. They fined the generals whose tardiness had
deprived them of all share in the glory of the victory.
Much might be said of what was done by the conquerors to commemorate
their victory; but my task is finished when the battle has been
described. For one curious story, however, I must find room. Out of the
tenth of the spoil dedicated to the Delphian Apollo, a golden tripod,
or caldron, supported by three legs, was made. This tripod rested on
a bronze pedestal. The gold was plundered by the Phocians about a
century and a half later, but the pedestal was carried by the Emperor
Constantine to his new capital on the Bosphorus. This relic was seen by
English travellers in the seventeenth century, and was more minutely
examined at the time of the Crimean war. The original inscription put
by Pausanius was erased by the Lacedæmonians, a list of the states
that took part in the battle being substituted. Solvents applied to
the rust that had accumulated on the metal made this list legible. It
contains the names of states which we know to have had no claim to the
honour. This exactly agrees with what Herodotus tells us. Systematic
falsification of history was carried on by the cities which by their
misfortune or their fault took no part in the victory.
* * * * *
The combined Greek fleet did little or nothing after the victory
at Salamis. Themistocles proposed, indeed, a vigorous policy. The
Persians should be closely pursued, the bridge across the Hellespont
destroyed, and the whole of the invading army destroyed. The
Spartans took a different line, urging that Greece would do well to
let an enemy, who might still be dangerous, depart without further
molestation. This policy had something to be said for it, and Sparta
carried the other allies with her. The Asiatic Greeks, however,
were not disposed to lose the opportunity of freedom. In the spring
of the following year (479) they sent envoys to the leaders of the
Greek fleet, which was then stationed at Ægina, begging them to
follow up the successes already won. The envoys found their task a
very difficult one. The Spartan Leotychides, who was in command, was
unwilling to undertake the responsibility. He moved as far eastward
as Delos, and there remained. Later in the year another effort was
made, this time by three natives of Samos, which was then governed by
a tyrant established in power by the Persians. The envoys urged on
Leotychides the duty of helping his fellow Greeks to escape from the
Persian yoke, and enlarged on the prospects of success. "Stranger,"
said the Spartan to the spokesman of the embassy, "tell me your name."
"Hegisistratus" (army-leader), answered the man. "I accept the omen,"
cried Leotychides, and the resolution to advance was taken.
The Greek admirals had expected to find the Persian fleet at Samos. In
this they were disappointed. It had left the island, and had taken up
a position on the mainland, where it would have the assistance of the
army, numbering, we are told, 60,000, which had been left to overawe
the Greek cities. The place was _Mycalé_, now known as Cape St. Mary.
The channel between the mainland and Samos is here at its narrowest.
The ships were beached, and protected by a rampart made of stones and
timber.
The first thing that Leotychides did, doubtless suggested by the action
of Themistocles at Artemisium, was to approach the Greeks serving in
the Persian camp. He caused his ship to be brought as close as possible
to the shore, and instructed a herald to proclaim, as he moved slowly
along, a message to the Greeks. "Men of Ionia," such were the words,
"when we join battle with the Persians, remember freedom." They might,
he thought, act upon the suggestion, and turn their arms against the
Persians. Anyhow, it would cause distrust and suspicion. The latter
anticipation was at once fulfilled, The Persians disarmed the Samians,
and sent the contingent from Miletus to a distant spot, which they
were to guard, the real object being to get them out of the way. This
done they prepared to defend themselves against the Greeks, who were
now advancing to the attack.
And now there happened one of the strange events to which we may safely
give the neutral name of coincidence. As the Greeks moved forward, a
rumour ran from one end of the army to the other that a great battle
had been won in Bœotia. At the same time some one saw a herald's
staff[7] lying on the shore. The common belief at the time was, of
course, in a divine interference. Later on the sceptical explanation
that the commanders invented the story to encourage their troops became
current. The strange phenomena of thought-currents, brain-waves, etc.,
familiar to modern experience, will, perhaps, account for the story
as satisfactorily as can be expected. Anyhow the report was true; the
battle of Platæa had been fought and won in the morning of the day of
Mycalé.
The actual conflict was very like that which occurred at Platæa. As we
hear no more of the stockade of stone and timber with which the ships
were protected, we may presume that the Greeks delivered their attack
on the flank of the Persian position. Here a wicker rampart had been
extemporised, just as it had been at Platæa. With the help of this
the Persians were able for a time to hold their own. Herodotus goes
so far as to say that they had not the worst of the battle. But the
Athenians, anxious to secure the honours of the day before the Spartans
arrived, renewed the attack with fresh vigour, broke down the wicker
rampart, and pursued the flying enemy to their fortified camp. For a
time, even when the rampart had fallen, the valiant Persians maintained
the struggle. Then, overpowered by fresh arrivals, they slowly fell
back. The Greek army advanced in two divisions, the Athenians and the
contingents brigaded with them marching over the level ground by the
sea, the Spartans, with the Peloponnesians generally, taking an inland
route which led them over some rough and difficult country. Naturally
their progress was not rapid, and the battle was virtually decided when
they reached the field of action.
To the very last the Persians showed all the courage and pluck of
a ruling race. The Greek victory was by no means bloodless. The
contingent from Sicyon, in particular, lost heavily. The result of
the day, however, was definite enough. Some survivors from the battle
contrived to escape to the hills, and thence to Sardis, but the army,
as a whole, ceased to exist. The ships were naturally abandoned.
Perhaps this was the most important of the Greek successes, for it
meant the liberation of the islands of the Ægean. These were finally
rescued from the yoke which had been heavy on them for half a century.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: He commanded a _lochos_; there were four in each _mora_,
the whole force being divided into six _moræ_. The divisions varied in
size according to the number of men called out. On this occasion each
_mora_ would number 830 men (about), and each _lochus_ 207 (about).]
[Footnote 5: His name was Callicrates, _Fair and strong_, as it might
be rendered. There is a class of historical critics who would argue
that the name gave rise to the legend, just as they suggest--this has
actually been done--that the name of the fleet runner who traversed
the distance between Athens and Sparta so speedily, shows the mythical
character of the story. It was Pheidippides, _i.e._ Horse-sparer's son.]
[Footnote 6: Observe again the significant name--_Ever remembered_.]
[Footnote 7: The herald's staff (_scutalé_) was a contrivance for
sending messages. A strip of leather, on which the message was written
lengthwise, was rolled slantwise round a baton. When unrolled it could
not be read, but when put on the similar baton in the hands of the
officer abroad it again became legible.]
_BOOK II_
GREECE AND CARTHAGE
I. THE LORD OF SYRACUSE
In the early part of the year 480, when the danger from Persia was
imminent, the Greeks sent an embassy to their countrymen in Sicily,
asking for help. The Greek power in the island was largely in the
hands of one man, Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse. To him, therefore, the
application was made. Herodotus gives an account of the interview,
professing to report the speeches which were made at it. These may be
epitomised thus:--
AMBASSADORS: "The Persian King is bringing against us the strength of
Asia. He professes to be seeking vengeance on Athens; really, he is
bent on subduing the whole Greek race. If he should conquer us he
will certainly attack you. Join with us therefore in resisting him.
Combined, we shall be a match for him; disunited, we shall certainly be
conquered."
GELO: "When I asked you for help against Carthage you would not give
it. For anything that you did to stop it, Sicily might have been
conquered by the barbarians. But I will return good for evil. You
shall have two hundred ships of war, twenty thousand men-at-arms, two
thousand cavalry, as many more light-armed troops, and corn for your
whole army as long as the war lasts. Only you must give me the chief
command."
SYAGRUS (the Spartan ambassador): "What would King Agamemnon say if he
heard that Sparta had given up her leadership to a man of Syracuse?
Know that we will not have your help upon such terms."
GELO: "It seems but fair that I who send so large a force should have
the command. Still, if you are so stiff about the leadership, I will
say--'Command the army, and let me have the fleet; or, if you like it
better, take the fleet and give me the army.'"
THE ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR (_interrupting before any one else could
speak_): "The command of the fleet is ours. We will yield it, indeed,
to the Spartans, if they desire it, but we will yield it to no one
else."
GELO: "Friends, you seem not to want for commanders, though you want
for men. As you ask everything and yield nothing, go back to Greece and
say that she has lost the spring out of the year."
There is nothing improbable about this dialogue. Questions of
precedence and leadership were regarded with great jealousy by States
that were actually independent of each other and nominally equal. The
strange thing is that Gelo makes no mention of the danger with which
he was himself threatened. He brings up against the ambassadors the
fact that the States which they represented had given him no help in
conflict with Carthage (an incident of which we know nothing from
any other source), but he does not mention what was undoubtedly the
case that he was at the moment expecting another attack from the same
quarter. It would have been quite impossible for Gelo to send fifty
thousand troops--not to speak of the crews of the ships--out of Sicily,
when he was certain to want every man that he could raise in the course
of a few months.
The truth is that there was another Asiatic power which was scarcely
less formidable to European civilisation than Persia itself. I speak of
Carthage. Though locally situated in North Africa as an Asiatic power,
she was Phœnician in origin, character, and institutions. Founded by
emigrants from Tyre some time in the ninth century B.C., she had always
kept up a close connection with her mother-country of Phœnicia. One of
the traditions of the race was to regard the Greeks as rivals or as
enemies. Sicily, where Greeks began to settle in the eighth century,
just about the time when Carthage was beginning to expand, and which,
at its nearest point, was not more than a hundred miles from that
city, naturally became a battlefield between the two races. Phœnician
traders had been in the habit of visiting the island long before the
Greeks appeared upon the scene, and though they seem to have given up
most of their scattered ports and factories, they continued to occupy
three towns in the western division. Carthage therefore would find
kinsfolk and friends when she sought to gain a foothold in Sicily. When
this attempt was first made we do not know. The early history of the
city is a blank. About 550 B.C. we hear of one of its leaders making
conquests in Sicily, among other places. That there was a great effort
to conquer the island in 480 we cannot doubt. Probably it was the
result of an agreement with Persia. There is, it is true, no evidence
forthcoming of any compact of the kind; but it is not likely that there
would be such evidence. On the other hand, the Persian king may very
easily have come to an arrangement with the Carthaginian government
through Phœnician intermediaries. The Phœnician contingent was the
largest in his fleet, and was high in his favour, at least until the
disastrous defeat of Salamis.[8] The coincidence of time is, in itself,
a strong argument for the existence of a common plan.
One of the many Hamilcars who figure in Carthaginian history was put
in command of an army which is said to have numbered 300,000 men. It
was made up of Phœnicians, probably recruited in Carthage itself, and
in various settlements of that race along the Mediterranean coast, of
Africans from the home provinces, of natives of Sardinia, Corsica,
and the Italian mainland, and, finally, of Spaniards, for Spain was
by this time within the sphere of Carthaginian influence. Hamilcar
landed at Panoromus and marched to Himera, which lay some twenty miles
to the westward on the northern coast of the island. Some of his
large fleet of transports, especially such as carried the cavalry and
the war-chariots, were lost on the way, or lagged behind. Still the
army, as a whole, was successfully transferred to Sicilian soil, and
Hasdrubal, convinced that if this could be done his force would be
practically irresistible, is reported to have said: "The war is over."
He had, we must remember, another good reason for confidence. There
was a powerful minority among the Greek cities which was prepared
to welcome the interference of Carthage. Hamilcar had been actually
invited by the banished tyrant of Himera. Unfortunately, any enemy
of a Greek city could expect to find helpers within its walls in an
unsuccessful party. Eager political life did much for the development
of Greek character, but a heavy price had sometimes to be paid for its
benefits. Hamilcar divided his force between two camps. One of them
was for the crews of the fleet, which had all been beached with the
exception of twenty swift vessels kept for an emergency; the other
was occupied by the army. Himera, on the other hand, prepared for a
desperate resistance. Even the gates were bricked up. The garrison was
under the command of Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum. His first step was
to send off a messenger to Gelo with an urgent appeal for help. Gelo
was ready to march. He had under his command fifty thousand infantry
and five thousand horse. He reached Himera, and strongly fortified a
camp outside the city. He had, as has been said, a strong force of
cavalry, an arm in which the Carthaginians were deficient owing to the
accident to the horse transports. This superiority he used to cut off
the enemy's foraging parties. His success in these operations was so
great as to raise the spirits of his troops. The inhabitants of Himera
grew so confident that they pulled down the brickwork with which, as
has been said, they had blocked up their gates.
The decisive battle was not long delayed. We have no details of the
tactics employed on either side, but we are told that the contest
was long and bloody, lasting from sunrise almost to sunset. A daring
stratagem seems to have done something towards deciding the issue of
the battle. Gelo had intercepted a letter from the magistrates of the
Greek city of Selinus to Hasdrubal, in which there was a promise that
they would send a force of cavalry to his help. He intended some of his
own horsemen to play the part of the cavalry of Selinus. They were to
make their way into the enemy's camp and then take the opportunity of
doing all the mischief they could. A concerted signal was to apprise
the commander-in-chief of their success. On seeing he would press the
attack with all possible vigour. This he did, and the result was the
complete defeat of the Carthaginians.
So far there is nothing improbable about the story. When we are told
that one-half of the invading army fell on the field of battle we
recognise one of the familiar exaggerations of ancient history. It is
probable that the real number, both of the combatants and of the slain,
was much smaller than that commonly received. However this may be,
Carthage certainly suffered a disaster of the first magnitude. Her army
ceased to exist; some of the fugitives probably made good their escape
to the Phœnician strongholds in the island, but many were compelled to
surrender to the conquerors. Some, doubtless, were ransomed by their
friends at home; the rest were sold as slaves.
So fine an opportunity of pointing a moral and adorning a tale was not
likely to be lost by the Greek writers. The story in the shape which
it ultimately took was this: As both of the Carthaginian camps were
captured by Gelo, the fleet met with the same fate as the army. But
the squadron of twenty ships which had been reserved for emergencies
made good its escape. But even these were not fated to reach the
African shore. A storm overtook them on their voyage and all perished.
One little boat, rowed by a single survivor, survived to carry the
story of how the most splendid armament ever sent forth from Carthage
had ceased to exist. Exactly the same story was told of the return of
Xerxes after the defeat of Salamis. According to Herodotus, who had
every opportunity of knowing the truth, the Persian king made his way
back over-land, losing many men on the way from hunger and disease, but
unmolested. So tame a conclusion did not satisfy the Greek sense of
the fitness of things. Tradition pictured the Persian king as making
his escape after the battle in a single ship; and Juvenal, when he
was seeking illustrations for the great theme of the vanity of human
wishes, found the legend admirably suited to his purpose. Xerxes had
lashed the winds and put the sea in fetters when they hindered his
triumphal march. But how did he return?--
"In one poor ship the baffled monarch fled
O'er crimsoned seas and billows clogged with dead."
The fate of Hamilcar himself was wrapped in romantic mystery. Some said
that he was slain by one of the horsemen who made their way into the
camp; according to others he destroyed himself. While the conflict was
raging he remained in the camp, occupied in soliciting the favour of
the gods by costly sacrifices. He was not content to offer the victims
in the usual way, by pieces taken from this or that part. They were
thrown whole into the fire, which was built high in order to consume
them. When he found that his devotion was unavailing and that the tide
of battle was turning against him, he threw himself into the furnace.
Certain it is that he was never again seen alive. Gelo erected a
monument to him on the field of battle, and the Carthaginians paid
to his memory yearly honours of sacrifice. There must have been some
greatness in the man which was thus recognised by the conqueror, and by
the city which had, one would think, no reason to be grateful to him.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: See p. 41.]
II
THE STORM FROM AFRICA
Though the Carthaginians, for some reasons which we do not understand,
commemorated Hamilcar on the field of Himera, they did their best at
home to banish all recollection of his disastrous expedition. They even
sent his son, Gisco, into exile for no reason except his unfortunate
parentage. Gisco took up his abode in the Greek city of Selinus. A
Greek city was not likely to be an agreeable home for a stranger not
of Hellenic blood. The Greek's pride of race was intense; all the
outside world was barbarian to him. Anyhow, one of Gisco's children,
Hannibal by name, carried away from the place where his youth was spent
an intense dislike of the race. "He was by nature," says Diodorus, "a
Greek-hater." The guilt of his race had been expiated, it would seem,
by his father's lifelong exile, and he had been permitted to return
home, and had even risen to the highest office in the State.
An opportunity now came to him for gratifying the animosity which he
felt against the city of Selinus. This seems to have been in a state of
chronic enmity with its neighbour Egesta. The quarrel between them had
already led to the most disastrous consequences. It was the complaint
of Egesta against their neighbours of Selinus that had given Athens a
pretext for their Sicilian expedition. Only two years had passed since
this expedition had come to an end, disastrous beyond all precedent in
Greek history, and now this paltry quarrel was about to cause another
devastating war. Egesta was, of course, worse off than when she made
her unlucky application to Athens and was hard pressed by her Greek
neighbours. She now sent envoys to Carthage. Hannibal, as I have said,
saw his opportunity. He persuaded his countrymen to take up the cause
of the weaker State. The first thing was to send envoys to Sicily with
instructions so to manage the affair as to make an appeal to arms
certain.
They were to go to Syracuse in company with a deputation from Egesta,
lay the affair before that State, and offer to submit to arbitration.
It was pretty certain that Selinus would refuse its consent, for it
was practically in possession of the territory which was the matter in
dispute. This, indeed, was exactly what happened. Selinus represented
its case before the Syracusan assembly, but refused arbitration.
Syracuse, accordingly, resolved to stand neutral, to maintain its
alliance with Selinus, and to remain at peace with Carthage. Selinus,
left to itself, failed to understand the danger in which it was placed.
Five thousand Africans and eight hundred mercenaries from Italy,
veterans who had served with the Athenians in the siege of Syracuse,
but had left them or been discharged before the final catastrophe, came
to the help of Egesta. The Selinuntines took no heed of their arrival,
but continued to ravage the enemy's territory. As they met with no
opposition, they grew more and more careless. But the enemy was on the
watch, and taking the invading force by surprise inflicted on them a
heavy loss, killing or taking prisoners as many as one thousand men.
Even now Selinus, it is possible, might have escaped her doom. My
readers will remember that the State had been on friendly terms
with Carthage, and had actually sent, or at least promised, help to
Hamilcar when he was attacking Himera.[9] Had it asked for peace and
appealed to these associations in support of the petition, Hannibal
might not improbably have granted tolerable terms. His great quarrel
was not against Selinus, but against Himera. It was at Himera that
his grandfather had perished, and it was his grandfather's death that
he desired above all things to avenge. But the Selinuntines appear to
have been totally insensible of their danger. They asked for help from
Syracuse, should the need arise, and received a promise that it would
be given. But nothing was actually done.
The fact is that no one in the island was aware of the vast
preparations which Hannibal was making for an expedition in the
following year. We are not told how the secret was kept; but kept
it was. When the storm burst on the Sicilian Greeks it took them by
surprise, and it came with overpowering force.
The numbers given by historians are, as usual, various and
untrustworthy.[10] One writer gives 100,000, and this we may take
as approximating to the truth. The army was made up as usual of
mercenaries, commanded, as far at least as the superior officers were
concerned, by native Carthaginians. The city was now at the very height
of its prosperity and could command a practically unlimited supply of
men from the fighting races of the world. Africans, Spaniards, and
Italians made up the force, with a mixture of Greeks, always ready
to sell their swords to any paymaster. This great army was carried
across the sea in fifteen hundred transports, and were landed in the
bay of Motyé, not far from Lilybæum, the western extremity of the
island. Selinus is on the southern coast of the island, but Hannibal
preferred to disembark his troops at some distance. Had he sailed any
distance along the southern coast his advance might have been regarded
as a menace to Syracuse and the other Greek cities. His sagacity
served him well. Syracuse, whether informed of what had happened or
not, made no movement. Hannibal, on the other hand, lost no time, but
marched straight to Selinus, his forces being increased by contingents
from Egesta and the Carthaginian settlements. The walls of the town
were ill-adapted to resist the attack of an army far outnumbering the
force available for defence and amply furnished with everything that
the engineers of the time could put at the disposal of a besieging
force. Powerful catapults discharged showers of missiles which cleared
the walls; archers and slingers were posted at points of advantage
where they could serve with the best effect the same purpose; wooden
towers, filled with armed men, were brought up to the walls, with
which they were very nearly on a level; elsewhere huge battering-rams
were driven against such spots in the fortifications as showed any
signs of weakness or decay. Every one of these methods of attack was
made formidable in the extreme by the multitudes of men available for
pushing them home. And Hannibal was present everywhere, urging on his
soldiers with an almost fanatical energy. The siege lasted for nine
days, the besiegers pressing the assault with unabated energy, the
besieged maintaining the defence with all the resolution of despair.
There was no thought of capitulation. Indeed, the Carthaginian general
would grant no terms. He had promised the plunder of the town to his
soldiers, and Selinus had no other prospect than to resist or to perish.
Assault after assault was delivered and repulsed. But it was a conflict
that could not be indefinitely continued. The combatants in the place
could hardly have exceeded ten thousand; probably their number, even
when swelled by every one who could hold a weapon, was under this
figure. And they had all to be on service, with the very briefest
intervals of rest, or with no intervals at all. The assailants came on
by relays, of which there were so many that no one had to fight for
more than three or four hours at a time. On the third or fourth day
a body of Campanian mercenaries found their way into the town over a
breach that had been made by the battering-rams. But Selinus was not
yet taken. The townsmen gathered themselves up for a supreme effort,
and the Campanians were driven out with the loss of many of their
number. On the tenth day a Spanish force--the Spaniards were always
the most resolute fighters in the armies of Carthage--made their way
into the town. This time the wearied citizens could not drive the
storming party back. Yet they still resisted. Barricades were set up
and desperately defended in the narrow streets, while the women and
children showered tiles and bricks from the roofs and upper stories
on the enemy below. A last stand was made in the market-place. Thus
most of those who still survived were slain. Some fell alive into the
hands of the enemy; two or three thousand made good their escape to
Agrigentum.
And all the while not a single soldier from any one of the Greek cities
of Sicily came to help the unhappy town. Messenger after messenger had
been sent to tell how pressing was the need, and to implore assistance,
but no assistance was given. Agrigentum and Gela had indeed their
forces ready to march, but they waited for Syracuse, and Syracuse was
culpably tardy in moving. Possibly, as had been suggested, its rulers
fancied that Hannibal would waste time as they had lately seen Nicias,
the Athenian commander, waste it before their walls. Anyhow, they
waited first till a petty quarrel with two of their Greek neighbours
was finished, and then till the very largest and best equipped force
that could be raised was ready to march. By this time the opportunity
was lost. With horror, not unmixed with a certain fear for its own
future, Syracuse heard that Selinus, a Dorian Greek city, like itself,
had fallen.
The fall of a city taken by storm has always been miserable in the
extreme. In whatever respects the world may have advanced and improved,
in this it remains much about the same. But the Carthaginians seem
to have used their victory with more than common barbarity. That the
prisoners should be slaughtered in cold blood was unhappily a common
incident. A Greek conqueror was more likely than not to treat fellow
Greeks in this way. But mutilation was a hideous barbarity, and in this
Hannibal permitted his soldiers to indulge. I mention the fact because
it helps us to realise how the world would have been put backward if
Carthage had triumphed over Greece. Selinus was again inhabited, but
it never recovered the terrible blow inflicted upon it by Hannibal.
To this day the prostrate columns of its temples, some of the most
magnificent ruins in the world, bear the marks of the crowbars which
the barbarous invaders used in overthrowing them.
The main purpose of Hannibal was still to be accomplished. It was
against Himera, the scene of his grandfather's defeat, that his
expedition was really aimed, and, Selinus destroyed, he marched against
the other city, which was on the north coast of the island, and about
fifty miles distant. His numbers were swollen by recruits from the
native Sicilian tribes, who had never reconciled themselves to the
presence of the Greek settlers, and now gladly seized the opportunity
of expelling them. Hannibal repeated at Himera the tactics which he
had employed with success at Selinus. He delivered his attack without
any delay, bringing his battering-rams to bear upon the walls, and
bringing up his movable towers. Nothing was accomplished on the first
day. The people of Himera had the help and, what was probably not less
effective, the encouragement of a Syracusan contingent of 4,000 men.
Repeated assaults of the besiegers were repulsed with great slaughter,
and the spirits of the defenders rose high. So great indeed was the
confidence which they felt in their superiority to the enemy that
they resolved to take the offensive. At dawn on the second day a body
of 10,000 men sallied forth from the town and fiercely attacked the
investing force. The Carthaginians were not prepared for any such
action. Their first line was easily broken. The Greeks pursued the
fugitives and inflicted upon them a heavy loss, killing, it is said
by one writer, as many as 20,000 men. As this number would allow an
average of two victims to each combatant, it may safely be rejected.
The 6,000 given by a more sober historian is probably much nearer,
though not under the number. But the easy success of the sally led to
disaster. Hannibal was watching the affair from some elevated ground in
the rear of the position, and he now moved forward. He found the Greeks
exhausted and breathless, and after a fierce struggle drove them back.
The main body reached the gates of Himera, though not without loss, but
3,000 men were isolated on the plain and perished to a man.
While the struggle was proceeding, a squadron of twenty-five ships of
war arrived from Syracuse. Unfortunately they brought with them some
alarming news. In passing the Carthaginian port of Motyé they had
observed signs of preparation in the fleet. The explanation suggested
and received was that the enemy were preparing to attack Syracuse. The
captain of the Syracusan contingent, Diodes by name, was profoundly
alarmed by this intelligence. The defence of Himera became a secondary
consideration in view of what he believed to be the instant danger of
Syracuse itself. He ordered the warships to return immediately. He even
insisted on taking back the troops under his own command. The Himeræans
remonstrated against this desertion, but remonstrated in vain. It could
hardly be denied that Diocles was acting in the interest, at least in
the immediate interest, of Syracuse. All that he would agree to, in
the way of compromise, was that the ships should transport as many of
the Himeræans as could be taken on board to Messana, which was about
150 miles distant (Syracuse was 100 miles further off), and that they
should return with all speed to take away the remainder. Those who were
left behind, or elected to remain, should do their best in the meantime
to hold the city. As for Diocles, he marched away in such haste that
he left the bodies of such of his own men as had fallen in the recent
conflict unburied--the most shameful confession that a Greek general
could make of weakness or defeat. The next day Hannibal renewed the
attack. The brave Himeræans still repulsed him. For the whole of that
day they were able to hold their own. If they could have maintained
their resistance for yet another twelve hours, all might have been
well, for the ships, which clearly could not have gone so far as
Messana, were seen to be returning. But their strength was exhausted.
A breach had been made in the walls, and the Spaniards, again showing
their superiority over Hannibal's other troops, forced their way
through it. A few of the Himeræans made their way to the ships; but the
great mass of the population was either slain or captured. Hannibal,
while giving up the spoil of the city without reserve to his soldiers,
did his best to stop the massacre. But there was no mercy in his
motives. The women and children were either distributed among the
conquerors or sold as slaves. The male captives of full age, 3,000 in
number, were taken to the precise spot where Hamilcar had been last
seen alive, cruelly mutilated and slain. We read of many barbarous
acts in Greek history, but of nothing so atrocious as this. If we can
see but little trace of humanity, as we understand it, in the Greek
character, the people had a sense of fitness, a restraining power of
taste, if not of conscience, that forbad such horrors.
The danger that threatened civilisation must have seemed great at the
time, though it was probably less than had been the case when the fate
of the world, so to speak, had been in suspense on the day of Salamis.
But the fears of Sicily, felt also, we may believe, in mainland
Greece, were suddenly relieved. Hannibal had accomplished his object.
He had exacted a never-to-be-forgotten vengeance for the death of his
grandfather, and he wanted no more. Half Sicily was now in the hands of
Carthage, and the Greek name was more humbled than it had been within
the memory of man. He disbanded his army, and returned, laden with the
spoils of war, to Carthage, where he was received with enthusiasm.
But the danger was only postponed. If Hannibal had been satisfied
with the results of his campaign, Carthage was not. Its old ambition
of dominating Sicily was revived, and for the next four years it made
costly and incessant preparations for another invasion of the eastern
or Greek portion of the island. Unfortunately the Sicilian Greeks spent
the time, not in consolidating their strength, but in intestine strife.
The most eminent citizen of Syracuse had made repeated attempts to
establish a despotism. He had met with failure and death, but he left
behind him a legacy of political hatred that might well have proved
fatal to the State.
In 407 the hostile intention of Carthage became known to the Sicilian
Greeks. They sent envoys to make a remonstrance, and to suggest a
treaty of peace. No answer was given, and the preparations went on with
unabated zeal.
In the following year the expedition sailed. Hannibal was again in
command, but he shared his power with a young kinsman, Himilco by name.
His force, on the most moderate computation, amounted to 120,000 men,
with a fleet of 120 ships of war. It was in Agrigentum, to which the
frontier of Greek Sicily had now been pushed back, that the storm was
first to fall.
Agrigentum was a splendid city, second only to Syracuse in population,
and not yielding even to it in magnificence and wealth. No city in the
island or even in mainland Greece, Athens only excepted, could boast
more stately temples and public buildings. Surrounded by a large and
fertile territory, it carried on a profitable trade with the African
coast. It could boast of one kind of wealth in which few Greek cities
could vie with it--a noble breed of horses, which were seen at least
as often in the front at the chariot-races of Olympia as the teams
sent from Syracuse or Argos. Only two years before the time of which
I am speaking an Agrigentine citizen had won the prize for four-horse
chariots, and on his return home had been escorted from the frontier by
three hundred private chariots each drawn by two white horses.
Agrigentum was built on a site naturally strong and had been skilfully
fortified. It occupied a group, or rather part of a group, of hills
which on all sides but one, the south-western, rose precipitously from
the plain, so precipitously indeed that attack was impossible. On
the north-east, crowning the height of the most lofty hill, was the
citadel, approachable by one narrow path only.
While the fortifications were strong and well cared for, they were also
adequately garrisoned. Besides a numerous force raised from her own
citizens Agrigentum had in her pay eight hundred Campanian mercenaries,
who three years before had served under Hannibal, and had thrown up
their engagement dissatisfied with their pay. She had also secured
the services of fifteen hundred other mercenaries who were under the
command of Dexippus, a Spartan soldier of fortune. The citizens were
confident in their ability to repel any attack that might be made on
them. When Hannibal proposed a treaty of alliance, which, however,
would permit Agrigentum to stand neutral in the approaching conflict,
it was promptly rejected.
For a while all went well with the defence. Hannibal assaulted the
town at the only point where an assault was possible, but accomplished
nothing. He even lost his siege train, for the Agrigentines made a
sally, captured, and burnt it. He then adopted the alternative plan of
constructing a mound which would put the assailants on a level with the
walls. The cemetery of Agrigentum was situated outside the walls in
the same quarter as that which was the scene of the attack. Indeed, it
was only here that there was any level space. Massive tombs of stone,
in which reposed the remains of distinguished or wealthy Agrigentines
of past days, abounded, and Hannibal, with the national carelessness
of all religions other than his own, determined to make use of these
materials for his siege work. His workmen had destroyed many of the
tombs, and were busy with the most splendid of them all, that of Theron
(tyrant of Agrigentum from 488 to 472) when a thunderbolt fell on the
spot. This was regarded by the Carthaginians as a manifest token of
the divine displeasure. The panic which followed largely increased the
fatalities from a disease which now appeared in the camp. Thousands
perished, Hannibal himself being one of the victims. It was not till
various expiations, one of them a human sacrifice, had been made that
Himilco, who now succeeded to the chief command, was able to resume the
operations of the siege.
But fortune still seemed to favour the Greek cause. The other Greek
cities had been actively employed in raising a relieving force. A
Syracusan army, made up by contingents from Gela and Camarina to 30,000
foot and 5,000 horse, reached the Agrigentine territory. Himilco
despatched a force of Spaniards and Italians to contest their further
advance. After a fierce fight the Carthaginian mercenaries were broken,
and compelled to retreat to their camp. Daphnæus of Syracuse, who was
in chief command, possibly recollecting the disastrous result of the
too vigorous pursuit of the enemy before Selinus, held back his men
when they would have followed up the victory. The officers in command
at Agrigentum were equally cautious. Their troops were eager to sally
out from the gates and fall upon the flying mercenaries as they
hurried past in disorder, but the generals absolutely refused their
permission, and the opportunity of completely destroying the enemy--so
at least the malcontents contended--was lost.
The allies now entered the town amidst general rejoicing. It was not
long, however, before a discordant note was heard. Loud complaints
were made of the supineness of the Agrigentine generals in allowing
the enemy to escape. Some went so far as to suggest that a treasonable
understanding existed between the Agrigentine generals and Himilco. A
public assembly was hurriedly convened, and the accused generals were
put upon their trials. The leader of the contingent from Camarina,
Menes by name, ranged himself with the accusers. What evidence was
brought against the generals we do not know. It is quite possible that
there was nothing worthy of the name, for a Southern mob was ready
then, as, indeed, it is now, to take its wildest guesses as truth.
Anyhow their defence, whatever it was, availed nothing. Four out of
the five were stoned to death, the fifth was allowed to escape in
consideration of his youth. At the same time the Spartan Dexippus was
severely censured.
This deplorable affair bears a curious resemblance to a well-known
incident in Athenian history, which indeed almost coincided with it
in time: the execution of the Athenian generals after the victory at
Arginusæ, on the charge of having neglected to do all that was possible
in saving the lives of the shipwrecked crews. It shows, as any one who
tells the story of Greece has many occasions of showing, the dark side
of free political life. For the time, however, no ill result seemed to
follow, as far as the war was concerned. The tide of fortune still ran
strongly against the invading army. Himilco had practically to raise
the siege of Agrigentum, and was besieged in his own camp. This was
too strongly fortified to be taken by assault, but it seemed in danger
of being reduced by famine. Daphnæus was strong enough to cut off the
supplies, and the Carthaginians were reduced to the greatest straits.
Some of the mercenaries mutinied, and were with difficulty pacified by
having handed over to them the plate which the wealthy Carthaginians
who held high command in the army had brought with them. Then by a bold
_coup_ Himilco effected a total change in the situation. Agrigentum
was mainly supplied from Syracuse, and towards the end of the year a
fleet of transports carrying stores was on its way under the escort of
some Syracusan ships-of-war. The Carthaginian fleet had been inactive
since the beginning of the campaign, and the Greek commanders seem
to have thought that it might safely be neglected. In this they were
soon undeceived. A squadron of forty ships-of-war issued unexpectedly
from Motyé, attacked the escorting ships, of which they destroyed
eight, driving the rest ashore, and succeeded in capturing the whole
of the convoy. The positions of the two armies were now reversed. The
Carthaginians were possessed of abundance of supplies; the Greeks were
threatened with famine. The mercenaries in the service of Dexippus
approached him with a complaint. He was unable to satisfy them, and
they marched away to Messana, alleging that the time for which they had
been engaged was expired. The alarm caused by this desertion was great,
and Dexippus took no pains to allay it. He had not forgotten the fate
of the Agrigentine generals or the censure passed upon himself. The
magistrates of Agrigentum instituted an inquiry into the condition and
amount of the supplies still remaining in the city, and found that very
little was left. They lost no time in deciding on a course of action.
Agrigentum must be evacuated, and that at once. That very night all
the population, except the sick and helpless, and a few patriots who
preferred dying in their native city to leaving it, hurriedly fled to
Gela, their rear being guarded by the Syracusan and Agrigentine troops.
They escaped with their lives and with such property as they were able
to carry off. Those that remained behind were slaughtered without
mercy, unless they preferred to put an end to their own lives. Some
had hoped to find safety in the temples, but the Carthaginians showed
no respect for the sacred places of the city, which they plundered and
destroyed as remorselessly as they did the secular.
But the tide of Carthaginian success had not yet reached its height.
Two more Greek cities, Gela and Camarina, had to be evacuated.
Practically Syracuse and Messana alone remained. If this success had
been attained in 480 the prospect of European civilisation would have
been dark indeed. Happily by this time Persia, Carthage's natural ally,
had ceased to be formidable.
It would demand too much time, and would take me too far from my proper
subject, if I were to relate in detail the history of the war. It can
hardly be doubted that there had been much mismanagement on the part
of the Syracusan generals. But all the mistakes which they made might
have been repaired without serious loss to the State and to the welfare
of the Greek race in Sicily, if it had not been for the unscrupulous
ambition of a Syracusan citizen. A short time before the Carthaginian
invasion there had been attempts on the part of one of the leaders
of the aristocracy of Syracuse to make himself an absolute ruler.
He perished in the enterprise, but his plan did not die with him. A
certain Dionysius, who had married the daughter of the deceased man,
now saw in the popular indignation against the incompetent generals
an opportunity of securing his own ends. He brought about their
condemnation, and procured his own election in their place. A crafty
manœuvre enabled him to surround himself with a bodyguard. In the
end he made himself master of the city. Ostensibly he was the chief
citizen of the republic. The coins of Syracuse still bore the figure
of the personified city, for Dionysius did not venture to put his
own likeness upon them. But practically he was absolute. So far the
success of the Carthaginian invasion had helped him. He would never
have risen to supreme power had it not been for the terrible disasters
which had overtaken Agrigentum, Camarina, and Gela, and had seemed to
make him a necessary person. But he felt, of course, that Syracuse must
not fall. Fortunately for his plans, he found that Himilco was not in
a position to carry the war further. The Carthaginian army, loosely
constituted of mercenaries gathered from many countries, had fallen
into a disorganised condition. The sickness that had worked such havoc
during the siege of Agrigentum had broken out again, and had claimed
thousands of victims. Without much difficulty an agreement was arrived
at. The Carthaginians were to keep all their former possessions and
their recent acquisitions. Only Gela and Camarina might be reoccupied
by their former inhabitants, on the condition of paying tribute.
And--for here was the important article of the treaty--_Syracuse was to
be subject to Dionysius_. Peace was concluded on these terms, and the
Carthaginian army returned home, carrying back with it, we are told,
the terrible disease which had wrought so much damage in Sicily.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: See p. 71.]
[Footnote 10: It may be as well to explain that our knowledge of
this period is derived chiefly from Diodorus Siculus, a writer of
the first century of our era. He was a native of Sicily, and while
writing something like an Universal History, gave special attention to
the affairs of his own country. He had before him, it would appear,
two writers of much earlier date, both of them Sicilians. These were
Ephorus, who was born about 404 B.C., and Timaeus, who was about half a
century later. Fragments only of their works survive, but practically
all that Diodorus tells us about Sicilian affairs comes from them. Some
details we get from Plutarch.]
III
DIONYSIUS THE TYRANT
We may feel pretty certain that neither of the two parties to the
treaty which brought the war of 407-6 to an end had any intention
of keeping it longer than it might suit his or their convenience.
Dionysius had skilfully used the war to raise himself to despotic
power; Carthage probably expected that once again, as so often
before, the internal quarrels of the Greek people might give her the
opportunity of some fresh aggrandisement. She had accomplished much
in a few years, though not without severe losses. But these losses,
after all, counted but for little. The blood of mercenaries was cheap.
As long as the city's sources of income were untouched, she could
reckon with certainty on gathering as many recruits from Africa, Spain,
Italy, and the shores of the western Mediterranean as she might choose
to pay for. She had therefore no small reason to believe that her
long-cherished scheme of subjugating Sicily might be accomplished at no
distant date.
Peace lasted for some eight years--years which Dionysius utilised to
consolidate his power at home, and to extend his dominions abroad. He
felt acutely the reproach levelled against him by his enemies that his
power rested on Carthaginian support, and was anxious to remove it. In
397 he felt himself strong enough to act, and taking the people into
his counsel, for he was careful to observe the forms of constitutional
government, proposed to commence hostilities. No declaration of war
was made, but the property of Carthaginian residents in Syracuse was
given up to plunder, and the trading vessels in the harbour were
seized as prizes. If Carthaginian wealth excited the cupidity of their
Greek neighbours, so their oppressive rule and brutal manners were
the objects of universal hatred. As soon as the news of what had been
done in Syracuse with the consent, and, indeed, at the suggestion of,
Dionysius spread through the Island, it was followed by a general
massacre of the Carthaginian inhabitants. In all the cities which the
late campaigns had left in a dependent or tributary condition there was
a rising of the population against their Carthaginian masters, and
a massacre followed not unlike that which was planned and partially
carried out amongst the Danes of East Anglia on St. Brice's Day, 1006,
A.D., or that which is known as the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. In a very
short time the region actually held by Carthage in the Island did not
extend beyond her strongholds on the western coast.
Dionysius followed up these proceedings by an _ultimatum_. Carthage
might have peace if she would renounce her dominion over all the Greek
cities; failing this, she must prepare for war. To such a demand there
could be but one answer. Dionysius did not even wait for the inevitable
negative, but marched with the whole military strength of the
Island--never probably gathered in such strength or with such unanimity
before--against the stronghold of Motyé. The Carthaginians resisted
with an obstinacy which is characteristic of the Semitic race. One line
of defence after another was stoutly maintained. When the walls had to
be given up, the streets were barricaded. In this kind of fighting the
Greeks lost heavily. At last a stratagem which is not without parallel
in modern warfare proved effective. For some days in succession the
assailants ceased fighting at sunset, the signal for recall being
sounded on a trumpet. This came to be expected by the townspeople, who
began to relax their watchfulness. But Dionysius prepared a picked
force which was to make a night attack. This was done before the
Motyans were aware of what had happened, and the town was taken. A
massacre followed in which many were destroyed, though Dionysius did
his best to stop it. He was certainly not specially humane, but he did
not approve of the useless destruction of what, in the shape of slaves,
might be valuable property. It is to be noted that the Greeks respected
the lives of those who fled to the temples for protection. It shows
them to have been on a somewhat higher plane of feeling than were the
Carthaginians. The temples, it must be remembered, were those of Punic
gods.
Carthage had no intention of allowing these attacks to pass without
retaliation. A large force, amounting at the lowest estimate to 100,000
men, was levied in Africa and landed in Sicily, where it received an
accession of another 30,000. Himilco, who had commanded in the last
campaign, was made general-in-chief. He conceived a novel and bold plan
of campaign. He marched to north-eastern Sicily, a part of the Island
which up to that time had been exempt from attack. Messana was his
objective point, and Messana was almost helpless. It had walls, indeed,
but these were in repair so bad that they were useless for any real
defence. And then a considerable part of the army was with Dionysius
and the Syracusans. What was left boldly confronted the enemy in the
field. Himilco did not offer them battle, but embarking a considerable
force in the ships which moved along the coast as the enemy advanced,
made a direct attack on the town. He calculated that the ships
would outstrip the Messanian army, and he proved to be right. The
Carthaginians found the place almost deserted, and simply poured into
the town by the gaps in the walls. The forts he could not take. Some
of the inhabitants were slain in a hopeless attempt to hold the town;
some attempted the desperate expedient of swimming across the Strait
of Scylla and Charybdis, whose terrors were not so formidable as the
ferocity of the Carthaginians--out of two hundred swimmers fifty got
safe to the Italian side. Messana gained, Himilco marched on Syracuse,
intending to take Catana on his way. The army was to follow the line
of the seashore; the fleet was to keep on a level with it. At Ætna a
diversion had to be made. The volcano was in action, and the streams of
lava that flowed down the eastern slope compelled the army to make a
_détour_ to the west. Dionysius thought he saw his opportunity in this
division of the invading force. He put both his army and his fleet in
motion, and proceeded to meet the enemy. Only the fleets, however, came
into collision, and the result was a serious defeat of the Syracusans.
The admiral, Leptines by name, had been strictly enjoined to be
cautious; to keep his fleet in close order, and on no account to break
the line. This tactic did not suit him. He attacked the enemy with a
squadron of thirty quick-moving ships, at first with brilliant success.
Then what the more prudent Dionysius had feared came to pass. Leptines
could not hold his own against the overpowering numbers of the enemy.
After some hours of fighting he had to make his escape with what ships
were left to him. He had lost a hundred ships and, it was said, as many
as twenty thousand men.
Dionysius had watched the disaster from the shore without being able
to give any help to his comrades. The question what he was himself to
do became urgent, His bolder counsellors urged him to give battle to
Himilco. He was half disposed to follow their advice, but the risk
seemed too great. It would be to hazard everything on one throw of the
dice. He retreated on Syracuse, and took shelter within the walls.
Himilco promptly followed. His army, said to have numbered 300,000, and
certainly large, was easily able to invest the city on the landward
side; his fleet filled the Great Harbour, though this had an area of
nearly four square miles. The Syracusan army did not dare to leave
the shelter of their walls; the fleet was glad to be protected by
the defences of the Inner Harbour, a refuge which had never yet been
entered by a foe. Never had the Greek race in Sicily been reduced to
straits so desperate. Only one city remained to it, and this closely
invested. Syracuse was like Jerusalem as Isaiah describes her in the
height of the Assyrian invasion, "a cottage in a vineyard, a lodge in a
garden of cucumbers."
Then the tide began to turn. The Syracusans obtained some successes
at sea. Some corn ships carrying supplies to the Carthaginian camp
were captured, and a squadron of men-of-war which attempted to recover
them defeated with a loss of more than half its number, including the
admiral's ship.
Then pestilence, an attack of bubonic plague if we are to judge from
the description given of it, broke out in the camp. It was aggravated
by religious terrors. Himilco had shown himself as careless about
sacred things as his predecessor in command. He had broken down
tombs to use their materials, and had plundered temples, one of them
of especial sanctity, the shrine of Persephone, Queen of Hell, and
her mother Demeter (the Ceres of Roman mythology). Thousands of men
perished--the historians, dealing, as usual, in enormous figures, say
one hundred and fifty thousand. The mortality was certainly great,
and Dionysius did not fail to use his opportunity. He delivered
simultaneous attacks by land and sea, and was successful in both. The
fleet was nearly destroyed. Many ships were captured; many more were
burnt. Part of the camp was taken. Dionysius took up his quarters at
the close of the day near the temple of Zeus, in which Himilco had had
his headquarters that very morning.
The Carthaginian general then opened secret negotiations with his
antagonist. To tell the story in a few words, he purchased the safety
of himself and the native Carthaginian officers in the army by a bribe
of three hundred talents. The money went into the private coffers
of Dionysius, and Himilco was allowed to escape with his countrymen,
though some of the forty ships filled with the fugitives were captured.
The Syracusan admiral, of course, knew nothing about the arrangement,
and Dionysius, while he contrived to postpone, could not absolutely
forbid pursuit. The mercenaries thus left to their fate had various
fortunes. Dionysius took some of them into his own service; the native
Sicilians contrived, for the most part, to escape unmolested to
their own homes. A considerable number surrendered, and were sold as
slaves. Himilco reached Carthage in safety, but could not endure the
humiliating position in which he found himself. He blocked up the doors
of his house, refused admittance to friends and kinsmen, even to his
own children, and died by voluntary starvation.
Whether Carthage would have made any attempt to recover what had been
lost, we cannot say. The events that followed made it impossible. Her
African subjects revolted from her; her allies deserted her. For a few
weeks she stood as much alone as Syracuse had stood a few weeks before.
But the combination against her was not one that could hold together
long. It soon began to fall to pieces, Carthage helping the process by
heavily bribing the leaders. But her power was crippled for a time, and
she had to be content with withdrawing her boundary line in Sicily to
its old place in the western portion of the Island.
It would be tedious to follow in detail the wars of the next few years.
War followed war; sometimes one party triumphed, sometimes another.
We have just seen Carthage reduced again to the narrow limits within
which she had been confined before 409. Then, twelve years afterwards
(383), Dionysius is compelled, after a disastrous defeat at Cronium, at
which he is said to have lost 14,000 men, to concede nearly half of the
Island. In 368 again--our knowledge of these campaigns is sadly broken
and confused--there is another change of fortune, a brilliant victory
of Dionysius, followed, however, by a reverse, which had the effect of
leaving things very much as they had been when the campaign began.
In 367 Dionysius died, after a reign of thirty-eight years. I am not
concerned now with his character as a domestic ruler. In this respect
his name is proverbial for a cruel tyranny, amply punished by the
torturing suspicions with which the life of the tyrant was harassed.
But it is impossible to deny his great merits as a soldier. He had
faults, but he certainly supported the Greek cause in Sicily against
the incessant attacks of a very powerful enemy. We shall see how much
his abilities were missed when his power passed into the hands of a
feebler successor.
IV
THE DELIVERER FROM CORINTH
The younger Dionysius was indeed wholly unequal to the position
into which he was thrust by the accident of birth. He was entirely
inexperienced in government, for his father had jealously excluded
him from all share in public affairs, and he had little capacity for
learning the art of rule when he found himself under the necessity of
practising it. Some ability he had, but it was not in the direction
of politics. In this direction he seems to have had few ideas beyond
securing his own safety and getting as much enjoyment as possible
out of the opportunities of power. The history of his reign may be
told in a very few words. He held the power inherited from his father
during a period of fourteen years. Then he was expelled from Syracuse,
but contrived to establish himself at Locri, with which city he was
connected through his mother. After the lapse of ten years he regained
possession of Syracuse. But his power was not secure, and he could not
spare any thought or energy for the general interests of the Island.
The other Sicilian cities were no better off. Carthage, of course,
made use of the opportunity thus given, and steadily increased her
power. The situation became so threatening in 344 that some Syracusan
exiles bethought them of invoking the aid of Corinth, their mother
city. Corinth acceded to their request, but rather by way of permission
than of giving active help. No expedition was sent by the State. But a
general was nominated and appointed at a public assembly; Corinthian
citizens were allowed to volunteer for service. Finally seven ships
were sent by the State, two being added to this number by Corcyra,
another Corinthian colony, and one by Leucadia, also Corinthian
in origin. But the greater part of the force that was raised were
mercenaries. Something must be said about the general, who was one of
the most remarkable figures in Greek history.
Timoleon was a noble citizen of Corinth who had saved the liberties of
his country by a terrible sacrifice. His elder brother Timophanes, an
able and unscrupulous soldier, had established himself as a despot by
help of a band of mercenaries who had been hired for the protection of
the city against the threatened danger of Athenian invasion. Timoleon
remonstrated with him, but in vain. Then he resolved to free his
country at any cost. He communicated his intention to two, one account
says three, friends. They went together and asked for an interview
with Timophanes. Timoleon addressed another appeal to his brother, and
was contemptuously repulsed. His companions then drew their swords,
for, thanks to their introducer, they had been permitted to enter the
tyrant's presence with arms, and put Timophanes to death. Timoleon
took no part in the deed, but stood apart, his face covered with his
mantle and weeping bitterly. The act met with enthusiastic approval
from the great majority of Corinthian citizens. Some who had looked
for some personal gain from the favour of the despot, and in their
hearts regretted his death, pretended to be shocked by the way in
which it had been brought about. To Timoleon himself the event was the
cause of the deepest and most permanent sorrow. He shut himself up in
his house, took no part in public affairs, and refused the visits of
his friends. The arrival of the Syracusan exiles delivered him from
this miserable existence. At the Assembly held for the appointment of
a general, name after name had been proposed in vain. The internal
dissensions of Syracuse were so notorious at Corinth that no one was
willing to undertake the thankless task of intervening in its affairs.
Unexpectedly some one in the Assembly--it was thought at the time by
a divine inspiration--proposed the name of Timoleon. It was received
with general acclamation, and Timoleon thankfully accepted the post. He
contrived to elude the Carthaginian squadron which was sent to watch
him, and reached Sicily. Some four years were spent in restoring order
and freedom in the Greek cities. For some reason with which we are not
acquainted, Carthage did not interfere with him whilst so engaged. War
is said to have been precipitated by a violation of the Carthaginian
territory. That it would certainly have broken out sooner or later may
safely be affirmed.
Carthage evidently made a great effort to bring the war to a successful
issue. She seems to have been aware that circumstances were unusually
favourable, for the Greek cities of Sicily had never before been in
so deplorable a condition of weakness. It was, indeed, a happy thing
for the cause of freedom that so exceptionally able a man as Timoleon
had the conduct of affairs. The army landed at Lilybæum, under the
command of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, numbered 70,000. Of these, not less
than 10,000 were native Carthaginians. Carthage was always sparing of
the blood of her own citizens, preferring to buy even at lavish prices
the valour and skill which she needed. On this occasion she raised
an unprecedently large native force. They were equipped, too, in the
most costly fashion. Each soldier was clothed in complete armour, much
heavier and, therefore, more impenetrable than that usually worn. Each,
too, had an elaborately ornamented breastplate. A _corps d'élite_,
numbering 2,500, was the nucleus of the force. A fleet of two hundred
ships of war accompanied the army, whose needs were supplied by a vast
multitude of nearly a thousand transports. One important item in the
war material was a number of chariots. The personal effects of the
Carthaginian soldiers, many of whom belonged to the wealthiest families
in the city, splendid tents and rich goblets and other plate for the
table, were costly in the extreme.
Timoleon could not raise more than 12,000 men. He had 3,000 Syracusan
citizens, an unknown number, possibly about 6,000, of volunteers from
other Greek cities, and a force of mercenaries. His cavalry numbered
one thousand. But he could not keep with him even the whole of these.
When he had nearly reached the border of the Carthaginian territory
there was a mutiny among the mercenaries. Their pay was considerably
in arrears, and one of their officers took advantage of this fact to
rouse them against the commander-in-chief. "He is taking you," he
said, "on a desperate errand. You will have to encounter an enemy who
can match every one of our soldiers with six of his own. And he does
not even pay you your wages." Never did the strong personality of
Timoleon show itself to more advantage. The mutineers got, in a way,
all they wanted. They were sent back to Syracuse with instructions to
the authorities at home that they were to be paid off at once, whatever
it might cost to raise the money.[11] This concession seemed to put a
premium on mutiny. Nevertheless, Timoleon by his personal influence
succeeded in checking the movement. The troops that were left, when the
discontented element was removed, followed him with unabated loyalty
and courage. Marching westward into the heart of the Carthaginian
territory, he reached the stream known as the Crimessus.[12] If he
had before to contend against the avarice of his soldiers, he had
now to deal with their fears. The army was encountered by some mules
carrying loads of parsley. The men were dismayed at what they took as
an unlucky omen, for parsley was commonly used for the garlands that
are placed on tombs. Timoleon was equal to the occasion. "With this,"
he cried, seizing a sprig of the herb, "we crown our conquerors in
the Isthmian Games at home. It is our symbol of victory," and he put a
chaplet on his own head and adorned his officers in the same way. The
Greek army had now reached the brow of the hill which forms the eastern
bank of the valley of the Crimessus. The whole country was covered
with a mist, but there came up from the valley beneath a confused
sound as of a great host in motion. Suddenly the mist lifted, and
Timoleon saw below him the great Carthaginian army. The war-chariots
had already crossed the river and were drawn up on the eastern shore;
the Carthaginian infantry, in their splendid armour, were in the very
act of the passage; pressing on their rear in a disorderly crowd was
a multitude of mercenaries and native African levies. Timoleon saw
his opportunity, and promptly seized it. He could never have so good
a chance of delivering a successful attack on the enemy as when they
were thus divided, some being actually in the river and some on the
further shore. After a brief exhortation to his men, he led them down
the steep slope to the river. The cavalry went first, and charged the
native Carthaginians, who were just struggling out of the river and
forming themselves in line on the bank. But for a time they charged
in vain. Indeed, they had to do their best to save themselves from
being broken up, for the chariots were driven furiously backwards and
forwards among them. They could hardly keep their own lines; on the
lines of the enemy they made no impression. Timoleon then changed his
plan. Recalling the cavalry, he sent it to operate on the flank of the
enemy, while he proceeded to lead his infantry to a front attack. He
took his shield from the attendant that carried it, and bade his men
follow him. "He shouted to the infantry to be of good cheer and follow
him," says Plutarch, "in a voice much louder than was his natural
wont." It may have been the excitement of the conflict that lent it
such a power, but the common belief at the time was "that something
divine was speaking through him." The work that they had to do required
no little enthusiasm of courage. The Carthaginians were stout soldiers
and splendidly armed. The spear availed little against them; the
Greeks had to get under their guard and assail them with the sword. At
this critical point of the battle something happened which convinced
Timoleon's soldiers that their leader had powers more than mortal
on his side. The mist that had cleared away from the valley, and
risen to the hilltop, now seemed to descend again in a furious storm.
Besides the sound and sight of the thunder and the lightning--and
there were but few spirits in that day hardy enough to despise these
terrors--there was a blinding storm of rain and hail driven fiercely by
a tempestuous wind into the faces of the Carthaginians. To the Greeks,
who had it behind them, it caused little inconvenience. And then the
river began to rise. The Carthaginians began to stagger under the
weight of their heavy armour and saturated clothing, and when once a
man had fallen there was no hope of his rising again. It was not long
before the four hundred picked soldiers who formed the front ranks
were cut down. These champions gone, the rest broke up and attempted
to flee. This was almost impossible. Many were slain in the attempt;
many others were drowned; and there were thousands of prisoners. Never
before had such a blow fallen on Carthage. She lost, not as usual, the
mercenaries whom it was easy to replace as long as her wealth held out,
but her noblest sons. On the other hand, the Greeks, besides winning a
very complete victory, gathered a spoil more magnificent than the most
experienced campaigner had ever seen.
[Illustration: Timoleon holding the Ford of the Crimessus.]
Timoleon had not yet finished his work. He had still to put down the
despots whose thrones were propped up by the power of Carthage, and
Carthage was not inclined to give up her position in Sicily. In the
course of the next year, however, the despots were all destroyed,
and Carthage was glad to conclude a peace. By this she bound herself
to keep to the western side of the Halycus (_Platani_) and not to
interfere with the internal affairs of the Greek cities.
It is needless to continue in detail the story of the conflict between
Greece and Carthage. The result was practically fixed by the victory
of Timoleon at the Crimessus. Carthage did not indeed altogether
abandon her ambition. She still coveted Sicily, still hoped, it may
be, to acquire it, and came, once at least, as near to attaining to
this end as she had ever done before. In 309 B.C. Syracuse had again
lost the freedom which Timoleon had given back to her, and had fallen
under the domination of one of the ablest and most unscrupulous in the
long list of Sicilian tyrants, Agathocles. This man provoked a war
with Carthage, but found himself unequal to his antagonist, and after
a series of defeats was shut up in Syracuse. This city was, as it
had been eighty-odd years before, the only place in the Island which
the Greeks could call their own. Then Agathocles conceived a daring
scheme. He would transfer the war to Africa, and attack Carthage at
home, where, as he shrewdly perceived, her weakest points were to be
found. An invader could always reckon upon the sympathy and support
of the subject races, which suffered from the exacting rule of the
Carthaginian government. Agathocles carried out his plan, and for a
time achieved a brilliant success. He afterwards met with reverses, but
his main object, the rescue of Sicily, was fully achieved.
Agathocles died in 289 B.C. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, famous for the
victories which he won over Rome, was the next to take up the part of
the leader of the Sicilian Greeks in their long struggle with Carthage.
He accomplished little. In fact he spent two years only in the Island.
The most memorable incident of his stay was that Carthage offered him
alliance on most advantageous terms, and that he refused it unless she
would agree to evacuate the Island. This was an honourable action,
for the offer would have given him a most important advantage in the
renewed attack upon Rome which he was planning. But the Sicilian Greeks
showed little gratitude for his self-denial; in fact, they became so
hostile that he had no alternative left him but to leave the Island.
"How fair a wrestling-ring," he is reported to have said as he took his
last look of Sicily, "are we leaving to Rome and Carthage!" With this
departure of Pyrrhus, Greece, we may say, disappears from the scene,
and Rome takes her part. Pyrrhus left Sicily in 276, and Rome came for
the first time into collision with Carthage twelve years afterwards in
what is called the First Punic War. These wars will be the subject of
my Fourth Book.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: It is difficult not to feel a certain satisfaction at
knowing that the mutineers came to a bad end. They had a disreputable
record, for they had taken the pay of the Phocians, knowing that it
had been provided out of the sacred treasures of the temple at Delphi.
On receiving their arrears they sailed to Southern Italy, where
they attempted to form a settlement, were entrapped by the native
inhabitants, and perished to a man.]
[Footnote 12: It is uncertain where this stream is to be located.
Some geographers (Sir E. Bunbury among them, in the "Dictionary of
Classical Geography") suppose it to be a little river that flows into
the sea near Castellamare; by others it is identified with one that has
its mouth on the south coast of the island, a few miles to the east
of Selinus. This is the view taken by the author of the map recently
published by Mr. John Murray, where the name is given to one of the
upper tributaries of the Hypsas, now known as the Belici.]
_BOOK III_
GREECE AND PERSIA. THE ATTACK
I. THE FIGHT ON THE RIVER
All danger to Greece from Persian attack, so far as the mainland and
the islands in the Ægean were concerned, practically ceased with the
victory of Mycalé. But the Greek cities in Asia Minor were not safe.
In the years 466-5 B.C. Cimon, son of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon,
conducted operations in South-Western Asia Minor, which had for their
object the expulsion of the Persians from certain Greek settlements in
that region. In 450 a formal convention was made which brought to an
end, it may be said, the first act of the drama. The great king bound
himself to leave the Asiatic Greeks free and untaxed, and not to send
troops within a certain distance of the coast; Athens, on the other
hand, agreed to leave Persia in undisturbed possession of Cyprus
(though this island had a large Greek population) and of Egypt.
The next period was one in which the relations of Persia and Greece
were largely determined by the exigencies of Greek politics. The two
great rivals for supremacy, Athens and Sparta, found Persian help,
especially in the shape of gold, very useful; and Persia, for her own
purposes, played off the two against each other. There is an amusing
scene in Aristophanes which illustrates this state of affairs. A
pretended Persian envoy is introduced to the Assembly. He wears a mask
which is made of one big eye, in token that he is the King's Eye, and
mutters some gibberish which his introducer interprets as a promise to
send some gold. The scene goes on:--
"Tell them about the gold; speak louder and more plainly."
The Eye spoke again: "Gapey Greeks, gold a fooly jest."
"That is plain enough," cried a man in the Assembly.
_Ambassador._ "Well, what do you make of it?"
_Citizen._ "Why, that it is a foolish jest for us Greeks to think that
we shall get any gold."
_Amb._ "You're quite wrong. He didn't say 'jest' but 'chest.' We are to
get _chests_ of gold."
_Cit._ (turning to the _Eye_). "Now listen to me; is the king going to
send us any gold?"
_Eye_ shakes his head.
_Cit._ "Are the ambassadors cheating us?"
_Eye_ nods.
_Cit._ "Well, anyhow the creature knows how to nod in the right way."
This humiliating state of things reached its worst in 387 B.C., when
what was called the Peace of Antalcidas was concluded between Persia
and Sparta. It is enough to quote one clause from the treaty, which, it
should be said, all the Greek States agreed to accept.
"King Artaxerxes thinks it just that the cities in Asia and the islands
of Clazomenæ and Cyprus should belong to him. He thinks it just also to
have all the other Hellenic cities autonomous, both small and great,
except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which are to belong to Athens as
they originally did. Should any parties refuse to accept this peace, I
will make war upon them, along with those of the same mind, by land as
well as by sea, with ships and with money."
It looked as if all that had been won at Marathon and Salamis had
been lost, and Persia had become the arbiter of the fate of Greece.
The Asiatic Greeks did lose what had been gained for them, for they
fell again under the power of Persia. But these evils worked, in a way,
their own cure. The States which had abused their power for selfish
purposes fell, one after another, into the background, and others,
which had not exhausted themselves in futile struggles for supremacy,
came to the front. One of the claims which these new representatives of
Greek feeling put forward was the resolve to exact vengeance--for this
was the common form which the idea took--for the wrongs which Persia
had done to Greece. At the same time there had been various revelations
of the real weakness of the gigantic Empire which stretched from the
Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. The Expedition of the Ten Thousand,
though it had failed of its immediate object of dethroning one prince
in favour of another, had shown the immense superiority of the Greek
race over its ancient enemy. Ten thousand men had marched into the very
heart of Persia without meeting with a check, and had made their way
back again under circumstances of almost incredible difficulty, without
suffering anything like disaster. Jason, tyrant of Pheræ in Thessaly
(_d._ 370 B.C.) was the first, as far as we know, to form a definite
scheme for the invasion of Persia. Thessaly I have had occasion but
once only to mention. This was in describing the battle of Platæa,
when some cavalry from this region did good service to the Persians.
It is strange to find in it the first advocate of what we may call
the anti-Persian Crusade. But Jason had not the means to carry out so
important a scheme. Anyhow, his career was cut short by assassination.
About a quarter of a century later we find the idea further developed.
Its exponent is now the greatest rhetorician of the time, and the
champion whose services are invoked is Philip of Macedon. About 346
B.C. Isocrates addressed a letter to Philip, who had recently been
made president of the Amphictyonic Council, suggesting to him that he
should reconcile the Greek States to each other and with their help
wage war against Persia. The counsel was not offered, we may be sure,
without a previous assurance that it would be welcome to the prince to
whom it was given. Philip certainly cherished some such purpose. This
was the ultimate object which he set before himself in his struggle
for supremacy in Greece. He even went so far as to make definite
preparations for the enterprise. It may well be doubted whether he
had genius enough for so gigantic an enterprise. It was not put to
the test. His career also was cut short by the sword of the assassin.
He was slain in 336 B.C., in the forty-seventh year of his age. Able
as he was, he left a still abler successor the inheritance of his
preparations and his plans.
Alexander, who at his father's death was not quite twenty, had first to
consolidate his position. He began by crushing his barbarous neighbours
in the north; he then stamped out a rebellion in Greece. This done he
turned his attention to preparing his great plan. All was ready in less
than two years.
* * * * *
In April, 334, Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia. He had
about 35,000 men with him, one-seventh being cavalry. Marching slowly
eastwards, he came, a few weeks later (May 25th), on the Persian army,
which was encamped on the eastern bank of the Granicus, a small stream
which flows down from the Ida range into the Sea of Marmora. Of the
Persian strength differing accounts are given. The total probably
exceeded that of Alexander's army. The proportion of cavalry to
infantry was certainly much larger. The front line, indeed, which held
the bank of the river, consisted wholly of this arm. On the right were
the Medes and Bactrians, wearing the national dress, a round-topped
cap, gaily-coloured tunic, and scale armour. In the centre, similarly
accoutred, were the Paphlagonians and Hyrcanians; on the right was a
small body of Greek horse, and the Persian cavalry proper, largely
made up of men who claimed descent from the Seven Deliverers, the
little company of nobles who delivered Persia from the sway of the
false Smerdis.[13] Here Memnon, the Rhodian, the ablest counsellor of
King Darius, was in command. The infantry, both Asiatic and Greek, was
posted in reserve, on the rising ground which marked the limit of the
winter floods. The river was now flowing within its banks, but with a
full, strong stream.
Alexander, who was mounted on his famous charger Bucephalus, rode along
the line, addressing a few words of encouragement to each squadron
and company as he passed it, and finally placed himself at the head
of the right division of the army. As soon as the Persian leaders
perceived his intention, they began to reinforce their own left. The
fame of the king's personal prowess had not failed to reach them, and
they knew that the fiercest struggle would be where he might be in
immediate command. Alexander saw the movement and the opportunity which
it offered him. He would have his antagonists at a disadvantage if he
could catch them in the confusion of a change. Accordingly he ordered
the whole line to advance, the right division being thrown somewhat
forward. Here was a famous _corps d'élite_, a heavy cavalry regiment
that went under the name of the "Royal Companions." This was the first
to enter the river. A number of javelin-throwers and archers, on either
side, covered their advance; they were supported by some light horse
and a regiment of light infantry.
The van of the attacking force made its way across the stream in fair
order. The river-bed was rough, full of great stones brought down by
floods and with here and there a dangerously deep hole, but there was
no mud or treacherous sand. The first assault was checked. A line
of dismounted troopers stood in the water, wherever it was shallow
enough to allow it; on the bank itself was a mass of horsemen, two or
three files deep. The combatants below plied their swords; those on
the higher ground showered javelins on the advancing foe. Only a few
of these could struggle up the somewhat steep bank; of the few some
were slain, others thrust back upon the troops that followed them. The
attack seemed to have failed. But when the king himself took up the
attack the fortunes of the day were rapidly changed. For the first of
many times throughout his marvellous career the personal courage of
Alexander, his strength, his dexterity in arms, turned the tide of
battle. He was a matchless soldier as well as a matchless general, and
seemed to combine the old soldiership and the new, the personal prowess
of an Achilles and the tactical skill of an Epaminondas. He sprang
forward, rallying, as he advanced, his disheartened troops, struck
down adversary after adversary, and climbed the bank with astonishing
agility. The example of such a leader seemed to give the Companions an
irresistible strength. In a few minutes the bank of the Granicus was
won. But the battle was not yet over. The Persians had been beaten back
from their first line of defence; but they still held the level ground,
and till the whole of the Greek army had crossed the stream they had a
great superiority in numbers, enabling them to deliver charges which
the weight of men and horses might well have made irresistible. Again
Alexander was in the thick of the conflict. His pike had been broken in
the struggle for the bank. He asked his orderly for another. The man
showed him his own broken weapon. Then the king looked round to his
followers, holding high the splintered shaft. The appeal was answered
in an instant. It was a Corinthian, Demaratus by name, who answered
his call and supplied him with a fresh lance. It was not done a moment
too soon. The Persian cavalry charged in a heavy column, its leader,
Mithradates, son-in-law to King Darius, riding a long way in front
of his men. Alexander spurred his horse, charged at Mithradates with
levelled pike, struck him in the face, and hurled him dying to the
ground. Meanwhile another Persian noble had ridden up. He struck a
fierce blow at Alexander with his scymetar, but missing his aim in his
excitement, did nothing more than shear off the crest of the helmet.
Alexander replied with a thrust which broke through his breastplate and
inflicted a mortal wound. There was a third antagonist behind, but his
arm was severed by a sword-cut from a Macedonian officer just as he was
in the act of delivering a blow. The struggle, however, was continued
with unabated fury. It was not till almost every leader had fallen that
the Persian cavalry gave way.
Elsewhere in the field the victory was more easily won. The _élite_ of
the Persian army had been brought together to oppose Alexander, and
the remainder did not hold their ground with equal tenacity. When the
phalanx had made its way across the river, and reformed itself again on
the eastern bank, it encountered no opposition.
There still remained, however, a force to be dealt with which, had
it been properly handled, might have been found a serious difficulty
for the conquerors. The infantry, as has been said, was posted in
reserve, and of this force not less than a half, numbering as many
as ten thousand, consisted of Greek mercenaries. These had remained
in absolute inaction, idly watching the struggle on the level ground
below. They had no responsible leaders; no orders had been issued to
them. The Persian generals, confident in the strength of their special
arm, the cavalry, neglected to make any use of this invaluable force.
And yet they might have known what ten thousand Greeks, well led,
could do! Alexander came up and charged the unprotected flank of the
Greek force. "He had the defects of his virtues," and was too eager
in "drinking the delight of battle." His charger--not the famous
Bucephalus, which had fallen lame, but another horse--was killed under
him. The light infantry also delivered an attack, but the mercenaries
still held their ground. But when the phalanx came up, their strength
or their courage failed. The front ranks were crushed by the advance
of the ponderous machine, and the rest first wavered, then broke up in
hopeless confusion. Not less than half of their number were killed in
their places or in the attempt to escape. The rest were either admitted
to quarter, or contrived to make their way to some place of safety.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: Cambyses, in a fit of frantic jealousy--so the story
ran--had put his brother Smerdis to death. Cambyses died in Egypt.
The magi, Median soothsayers and priests, contrived that one of their
number should personate the murdered prince. After he had occupied the
Persian throne for a few months, seven nobles conspired against him
and slew him. One of the seven, Darius, became king; the others were
rewarded by perpetual immunity from taxes, for themselves and their
descendants, and other privileges.]
II
THE IRRESISTIBLE PHALANX
The eighteen months that followed the battle of the Granicus Alexander
spent in Asia Minor. A few strong places resisted him, but on the whole
he met with little opposition. On the other hand, he did not move very
quickly. At Gordium, in Phrygia, he gave his army a long rest, and
at Tarsus, in Cilicia, he was detained against his will by a severe
illness, contracted, it was said, by bathing in the ice-cold waters of
the Cydnus. Meanwhile Darius had been gathering together from all parts
of the Empire a vast army which would be sure, he thought, to crush
the invader. So confident did he feel that he did not attempt to check
Alexander's advance. He left the strong passes into Cilicia undefended.
He did the same with the passes from Cilicia into Syria. He desired
nothing better than that the enemy should come to close quarters with
him. His original plan was to wait for the Macedonian army at a place
named Sochi, where there was a great expanse of level ground. Then he
began to fear that Alexander might after all escape him. He left Sochi,
and marched by one of the passes of Mons Amanus (Sáwur Dagh) to Issus,
where he would be in the rear of the enemy, and so be able to cut off
the retreat which he believed would be attempted. Alexander, who had
in the highest degree the faculty of guessing what his antagonist was
thinking, saw his advantage. At Issus, Darius could not make use of his
numbers, and so might be attacked with good hope of success. He made a
night march, recrossed into Cilicia, and fought at Issus the second of
his great battles.
Darius took up his position on the north bank of the River Pinarus
(_Deli Tschai_). The centre of his line of battle was composed of
90,000 heavy-armed infantry, drawn up in three bodies of 30,000 each.
One of these consisted of Greek mercenaries, and occupied the middle
place; on either side were the other two--Asiatics armed in Greek
fashion. His own place was behind the Greeks. It was in them that he
really trusted, though he had violently resented the suggestion when
it was made by another. Some weeks before, when reviewing the army
with which he was about to encounter Alexander, he had asked for the
opinion of Charidemus, an Athenian exile, who was in attendance on him.
Charidemus was bidden to speak his mind freely, and he was imprudent
enough to take the king at his word. The substance of his advice to the
king was not to trust Asiatics, but to spend his accumulated treasure
in hiring Greeks. Darius was deeply offended, and the great nobles
about him were furious with rage. Charidemus was put to death, but his
advice must have been followed. The cavalry was massed on the right
wing--that end of the line which was nearest to the sea, for there
alone was there any ground suitable for their action. On the left wing,
reaching far up the mountain-side, were twenty thousand light-armed
infantry, who were to throw themselves on the flank of the Macedonians
as soon as these should attempt to cross the river. Behind this line
of battle, numbering, it is probable, not less than 120,000 men, stood
a mixed multitude, swept together from all the provinces of the vast
Persian Empire. This mass of combatants, if combatants they can be
called, already unwieldy, received the addition of 50,000 troops,
who had been posted on the southern bank of the river to cover the
operation of forming the Persian line, and who were brought back when
the formation was completed. The ground had been over-crowded before,
and this addition to the numbers of the second line only made it more
hopelessly unmanageable.
Alexander put his light infantry on the extreme right of his line,
opposite, it will be remembered, to a similar force in the Persian
array. Here also was the cavalry regiment of the "Companions," and with
them some Thessalian horse. The main line was composed of the phalanx
in five divisions, the fifth, on the extreme left, being close to the
sea, which was little more than a mile and a half from the foot of
the mountains--so narrow was the space which Darius had chosen for a
battlefield. He could have done nothing better calculated to destroy
any advantage that might have been given by his vast superiority in
numbers. On the left were some squadrons of Greek cavalry, and bodies
of light-armed troops from Crete and Thrace.
On coming in sight of the enemy Alexander made some changes in the
disposition of his forces. The most important of these was to transfer
some light infantry, cavalry, and archers to act against the 20,000
Persians who had been so placed as to threaten his right flank. It was
a wise precaution, but, as a matter of fact, it was not needed. The
Persians made no move, and Alexander soon perceived that they might
be safely neglected. He left a few hundred cavalry to watch them, and
placed the rest of the force destined for this service in his main line.
A brief time was allowed for rest when the river was reached. It was
well, too, to wait for a possible forward movement on the part of the
Persians. The confidence that had prompted the march to Issus might
also prompt an attack. But the Persian line remained in its place, and
Alexander crossed the stream. He had with him his light infantry, not
slingers and archers, it should be explained, but regular soldiers,
with armour and weapons so modified as to enable them to move quickly,
the "Companions," and two divisions of the phalanx. The phalanx was
drawn up in companies each sixteen deep. All the soldiers were armed
with a pike (_sarissa_), which was twenty-one feet in length. The pikes
of the front rank projected fifteen feet, the other end being weighted
so that the weapon could be held without difficulty. The pikes of
the second rank projected twelve feet, of the third, nine, of the
fourth, six, of the fifth, three. The other ranks held their pikes in
a slanting direction over the shoulders of those who stood in front.
Alexander led the attack, as usual, in person. The Macedonians, moving
as quickly as the phalanx could go, fell upon the Asiatic heavy-armed,
who occupied the left division of the main Persian line. They were
mainly Carduchi, the Kurds of to-day, better hands, it would seem,
then as now, at plundering than at fighting. The Carduchi gave way,
not waiting for the Macedonians to come to close quarters with them.
Their flight endangered the safety of the king, or, rather, the king
himself believed that it was endangered. He bade his charioteer turn
the horses' heads and fly. As long as the ground allowed he kept to
the chariot; when it became too rough he sprang upon a horse, and fled
in such haste that he threw away his royal mantle, his bow, and his
shield. The mixed multitude that stood behind the main line of Persian
battle, as soon as they saw the king quit the field, fled, or, rather,
attempted to fly. But, so narrow was the space in which they had been
crowded together, they could scarcely move. A scene of frightful terror
and confusion followed. The fugitives struggled fiercely with each
other in the frantic attempt to escape. Had they shown as much energy
in resisting the enemy as in thrusting aside and trampling down their
friends, they might have changed the fortune of the day. In less than
half an hour from the time when Alexander crossed the Pinarus the left
wing of the Persian host was a hopeless mass of confusion.
[Illustration: The Battle of Issus.]
Yet the Persians had a still unbroken strength with which much might
have been done, if only there had been a leader to make use of it. The
Greeks in the centre stood their ground bravely. They even advanced,
charged the left divisions of the phalanx, which had not completed
the passage of the Pinarus, and inflicted some loss upon it, killing
as many as 150 of the front rank men, and the officer in command. But
by themselves they could not hope to hold the field. When Alexander,
wheeling round after his victorious assault on the Persian right,
attacked them in flank, they were forced to give way. But they retired
in good order, and the main body of them made good their escape. The
Persian cavalry, too, had shown themselves not altogether unworthy
of their ancient renown. They had actually crossed the Pinarus, and
charged the Thessalian horse, which had been transferred, it should
be said, by Alexander from the right to the left of his army. In the
combat that ensued they held their own. But their courage failed when
they became aware of the flight of Darius. When their king had given
up the struggle what was there for them to stay for? To him they were
bound, but they had no conception of a country to whose service it was
their duty to devote their lives. They fled, suffering greatly in the
pursuit.
The Macedonians lost 450 in killed, Alexander himself being slightly
wounded. The slaughter among the Persians cannot be estimated. It was
put down at more than 100,000. Ptolemy, afterwards King of Egypt, who
was one of Alexander's most trusted generals, declared that he found a
ravine so choked with dead bodies that he could use them as a bridge.
Ptolemy kept a diary of the war, which he afterwards embodied in a
regular narrative. Arrian, who wrote the story of Alexander's campaign
in the second century of our era, had this work before him.
III
THE ARMY OF THE HUNDRED PROVINCES
During the twenty months which followed the victory of Issus, Alexander
continued to make fresh conquests and to consolidate those already
made. He subdued Syria--a name which must be taken to include both
Phœnicia and Palestine. Here the two cities of Tyre and Gaza made an
obstinate resistance, the two detaining him for no less than nine
months. Egypt, which hated its intolerant Persian masters, gave itself
up without a struggle. Early in 331 he heard that Darius had collected
another huge army, with which to make another effort for his kingdom.
The king had lost the western half of his dominions, but the eastern
still remained to him, and from this he drew forces which exceeded in
number even the great host which he had put into the field at Issus.
The meeting-place was at Arbela, a place still known by the slightly
changed name of Erbil, and situated on the caravan-route between
Erzeroum and Bagdad; but the actual battlefield must be looked for some
twenty miles away in a level region known by the name of Gaugamela.
On the extreme right were the Medes, once the ruling people of Asia
and still mindful of their old renown, the Parthian cavalry, and the
sturdy mountaineers of the Caucasus; on the opposite wing were the
Bactrians--mostly hardy dwellers in the hills, and famous both for
activity and for fierceness--and the native Persians, horse and foot,
in alternate formation. But it was in the centre of the line, round the
person of Darius, where he stood conspicuous on his royal chariot, that
the choicest troops of the Empire were congregated. Here were ranged
the Persian Horseguards--a force levied from the noblest families of
the race that had ruled Western Asia for more than two centuries.
They were known by the proud title of "Kinsmen of the King," and the
Footguards, also a _corps d'élite_, who carried apples at the butt-end
of their pikes. Next to these stood the Carians, probably a colony from
the well-known people of that name in Asia Minor, possibly transported
by some Persian king to a settlement in the East. Of all Asiatic
races the Carians had shown themselves the most apt to learn the Greek
discipline and to rival Greek valour. Next to the Carians, again, stood
the Greek mercenaries.
In front of the line were the scythed chariots, numbering two hundred
in all, each with its sharp-pointed sides projecting far beyond the
horses, and its sword-blades and scythes stretching from the yoke and
from the naves of the wheels. (This is the first time that we hear of
the scythed chariot. It was a device of a barbarian kind, and seldom,
as far as we know, very effective.) Behind the line, again, was a large
mixed multitude, drawn from every tribe that still owned the Great
King's sway.
Alexander saw that this time he had a formidable enemy to deal with.
He had an entrenched camp constructed, as possibly useful in case of
a reverse, and he consulted his generals--a course which he seldom
followed--as to how an attack might be most advantageously delivered.
But when one of his most experienced officers suggested an assault
by night, he emphatically rejected the idea. It was, he declared, an
unworthy stratagem; victory so won would be worse than defeat. A more
powerful reason was probably the danger of such an attempt. A night
attack is always a desperate device.
The first day after coming in sight of the enemy Alexander spent in
preparation and consultation. On the morrow he drew out his order of
battle. As usual he put himself at the head of the right wing. This was
made up of the "Companions," the light infantry, and three out of the
six divisions of the phalanx. The left wing, if it may be so called,
for there was no centre, consisted of the rest of the phalanx, with a
body of cavalry from the allied Greek states.
And now, for the first time, Alexander had a second line in reserve.
His numbers were considerably increased, the 35,000 with which he had
crossed into Asia having now mounted up to nearly 50,000. And the
nature of the battlefield made such an arrangement necessary. The enemy
had an enormously superior force and it was necessary to guard against
attacks on the flank and the rear. The second line consisted of the
light cavalry, the Macedonian archers, contingents from some of the
half-barbarous tribes which bordered on Macedonia, some veteran Greek
mercenaries and other miscellaneous troops. Some Thracian infantry were
detached to guard the camp and the baggage.
The Persians, with their vastly larger numbers, were, of course,
extended far beyond the Macedonian line. Left to make the attack, they
might easily have turned the flank, or even assailed the rear of their
opponents. Alexander, seeing this, and following the tactics which
had twice proved so successful, took the offensive. He put himself at
the head of the "Companions," who were stationed, as has been said,
on the extreme right, and led them forward in person, still keeping
more and more to the right, and thus threatening the enemy with the
very movement which he had himself reason to dread. He thus not only
avoided the iron spikes, which, as a deserter had warned him, had
been set to injure the Macedonian cavalry, but almost got beyond the
ground which the Persians had caused to be levelled for the operations
of their chariots. Fearful at once of being outflanked and of having
his chariots made useless, Darius launched some Bactrian and Scythian
cavalry against the advancing enemy; Alexander, on the other hand,
detached some cavalry of his own to charge the Bactrians, and the
action began.
The Bactrians commenced with a success, driving back the Greek
horsemen. These fell back on their supports, and advancing again in
increased force, threw the Bactrians into confusion. Squadron after
squadron joined the fray, till a considerable part of the Macedonian
right and of the Persian left wing was engaged. The Persians were
beginning to give way, when Darius saw, as he thought, the time for
bringing the scythed chariots into action, and gave the word for them
to charge, and for his main line to advance behind them. The charge
was made, but failed, almost entirely, of its effect. The Macedonian
archers and javelin-throwers wounded many of the horses; some agile
skirmishers even seized the reins and dragged down the drivers from
their places. Other chariots got as far as the Macedonian line, but
recoiled from the bristling line of outstretched pikes; and the few
whose drivers were lucky enough or bold enough to break their way
through all hindrances were allowed to pass between the Macedonian
lines, without being able to inflict any serious damage. Then Alexander
delivered his counter attack. He ceased his movement to the right.
Wheeling half round, the "Companions" dashed into the open space which
the advance of the Bactrian squadrons had left in the Persian line.
At the same time his own main line raised the battle-cry, and moved
forward. Once within the enemy's ranks he pushed straight for the place
where, as he knew, the battle would be decided, the chariot of the
king. The first defence of that all-important position was the Persian
cavalry. Better at skirmishing than at hand-to-hand fighting, it broke
before his onslaught. Still there remained troops to be reckoned with
who might have made the fortune of the day doubtful, the flower of the
Persian foot and the veteran Greeks. For a time these men held their
ground; they might have held it longer, perhaps with success, but for
the same cause which had brought about the disastrous result of Issus,
the cowardice of Darius. He had been dismayed to see his chariots fail
and his cavalry broken by the charge of the "Companions," and he lost
heart altogether when the dreaded phalanx itself, with its bristling
array of pikes, seemed to be forcing a way through the line of his
infantry and coming nearer to himself. He turned his chariot and fled,
the first, when he should have been the last, to leave his post.
The flight of the king was the signal for a general rout, so far at
least as the centre and left wing of the Persian army was concerned. It
was no longer a battle; it was a massacre. Alexander pressed furiously
on, eager to capture the fugitive Darius. But the very completeness of
his victory, it may be said, hindered him. So headlong was the flight
that the dust, which, after the months of burning summer heat, lay
thick upon the plain, rose like the smoke of a vast conflagration.
The darkness was as the darkness of night. Nothing could be seen, but
all around were heard the cries of fury and despair, the jingling of
the chariot wheels, and the sound of the whips which the terrified
charioteers were plying with all their might.
Nor was Alexander permitted to continue the pursuit. Though the
Persian left, demoralised by the cowardice of the king, had fled, the
right wing had fought with better fortune. It was under the command
of Mazæus, who was probably the ablest of the Persian generals, and
knew how to use his superiority of numbers. Whilst the sturdy Median
infantry engaged the Macedonian front line, Mazæus put himself at
the head of the Parthian horse and charged the flank. Parmenio,
Alexander's ablest lieutenant--his one general, as he was reported to
have said--who was in command, sent an urgent request for help, so hard
pressed did he find himself to be. Alexander was greatly vexed, for
he saw that all chance of capturing Darius was lost, but he knew his
business too well to neglect the demand. He at once called back his
troops from the pursuit, and led them to the help of the left wing.
Parmenio had sent the same message to that division of the phalanx
which had taken part in the advance of the right wing.
As things turned out, however, the help was hardly needed. On the one
hand, the Thessalian cavalry had proved themselves worthy of their old
reputation as the best horsemen in Greece. Held during the earlier
part of the engagement in reserve, they had made a brilliant charge on
the Parthians, and had restored the fortune of the day. And then, on
the other hand, Mazæus and his men had felt the same infection of fear
which the flight of Darius had communicated to the rest of the army.
Parmenio felt the vigour of the enemy's attack languish, though he did
not know the cause, and had the satisfaction of regaining, and more
than regaining, the ground which he had lost, before the reinforcements
arrived.
The day was virtually over, yet the hardest fighting of the battle
was yet to take place. The Parthian cavalry, with some squadrons of
Persian and Indian horse among them, encountered, as they retreated
across the field of battle, Alexander himself and the "Companions."
Their only hope of escape was to cut through the advancing force. It
was no time for tactics, only for a desperate charge for life. Each
man was fighting for himself, and he fought with a fury that made him
a match even for Macedonian discipline and valour. And the enemy had
among them some of the most expert swordsmen in the world. Anyhow,
the "Companions" suffered more severely than they did in any other
engagement in the war. Sixty were slain in the course of a few minutes,
three of the principal officers were wounded, and even Alexander
himself was in serious danger. But the Parthians thought only of saving
their lives, and when they once saw the way clear before them they were
only too glad to follow it.
The Persians achieved one more success. A brigade of Indian and Persian
horse had plunged through a gap which the movement of the phalanx had
left in the line, and attacked the camp. The Thracians who guarded it
were hampered by the number of the prisoners whom they had to watch.
Many of these escaped. The mother of Darius--the effort had been made
for her--might have been one of them, but she refused to go. By this
time some troops had come to the rescue of the camp, and the Persian
cavalry had to fly.
The great battle of Arbela was over. It was the most hardly won as it
was the most conclusive of all Alexander's victories. The Persians made
no further stand. The great enemy of Greece had disappeared from the
stage of history. But we shall find the powerful forces which Persia
represented appear again in another shape.
_BOOK IV_
ROME AND CARTHAGE
I. THE SERVANTS OF MARS
I have had to speak more than once of mercenary troops employed by
the Greek cities in Sicily to help them in their long struggle with
Carthage. The use of such troops was a regular practice with Carthage;
it was only on great occasions that this State put its own citizens
in the field. With the Greeks, on the contrary, it was the exception
to employ any but citizen soldiers. The mercenary was suspected, and
not without reason, of being a ready instrument in the hands of any
unscrupulous person who might be seeking to establish a tyranny. As
time went on, however, he became more and more a necessity. As society
became more complex, the citizen found himself less willing to bear
arms and less capable of doing it. And the exhaustion caused by almost
incessant wars made it necessary to seek elsewhere for men who should
fill up the depleted ranks. Hence the employment of mercenaries even
by free cities. Whatever their use in time of war, these auxiliaries
were naturally difficult to manage or dispose of when peace had been
restored.[14] Such certainly the Syracusans found to be the case
with a body of Italian mercenaries whom Agathocles[15] had had in
his service. They were paid off and peremptorily ordered to return
home. This prospect was not agreeable; it meant a return to regular
and not very profitable labour; they greatly preferred to live by the
sword. They professed, however, to be willing to obey the command, and
accordingly marched in the direction of Italy, intending, it appeared,
to be ferried across the Straits of Messana. Whether they had fixed
on any settled plan, or yielded to the sudden attraction of a chance
that seemed to offer itself, cannot be determined. What we know is
that when they reached Messana, from which they were to have embarked,
and had been imprudently invited within the walls by its citizens,
they seized the town with all that it contained. Here they established
themselves, taking the name of _Mamertini_, or "Servants of Mars"
(_Mamers_ was the Oscan name for the deity known to the Romans as
_Mars_). A similar body held the adjacent mainland, and the two, joined
as they were by an informal alliance of interests, became a formidable
power. They practically lived by robbery by land and sea, and their
existence became an intolerable nuisance to the two powers that shared
Sicily between them. For once the interests of Syracuse and Carthage
were identical. The Syracusan troops inflicted a severe defeat on the
Mamertini, and, with the help of their new allies, closely besieged
their town.
The Mamertini had for some time perceived that they could not stand
alone, but must take sides either with Rome or with Carthage. They were
divided as to the choice, but circumstances inclined them to Rome, and
they sent envoys asking for protection and help. The Senate, to whom
this application was addressed, were not a little perplexed. They had
just inflicted a severe punishment on a body of mercenaries who had
done at Rhegium exactly the same thing that the Mamertini had done at
Messana. They postponed the matter more than once, possibly in the
hope that the necessity of deciding might pass away. But the General
Assembly of the People, to whom the Senate referred the matter--this
dual government had at times its convenience--was not disposed to be
so indifferent. A resolution was passed that the Mamertini were to be
helped, and Appius Claudius, one of the Consuls of the year, was sent
in command of an expedition.
When he arrived, he found the situation considerably changed. There
was a Carthaginian as well as a Roman party among the Mamertini,
and the former had now gained the upper hand. A Carthaginian fleet
was in the harbour and a body of Carthaginian troops in possession
of the citadel. Fortunately for Rome, there was no one of energy or
determination to manage affairs. The officer in command of the fleet
was seized by the pro-Roman faction, and Hanno, who was in charge of
the citadel, consented to evacuate it, if he were allowed to withdraw
with the honours of war. Rome became possessed of Messana without
having to strike a blow. She never lost it--it was not her way to lose
what she had once gained--and she found it a most valuable position.
But the acquisition of Messana meant war with Carthage. Carthage began
by crucifying the unlucky general who had abandoned the citadel, and
then, entering into close alliance with Hiero, invested the city.
Appius Claudius made proposals for peace, which were not accepted. Then
he made a sally from the town and inflicted such a defeat on the enemy
that they raised the siege. The next year Hiero, who had the sagacity
to see that Rome would be a more useful ally than Carthage, changed
sides. Rome had its foot down in Sicily and never took it up.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: Xenophon gives in the later books of the _Anabasis_ a
graphic description of the troubles that arose when the "Ten Thousand,"
or such as were left of them (between eight and nine thousand), had
made their way to the coast, and were looking out for employment.]
[Footnote 15: See pp. 120-21.]
II
FOR THE RULE OF THE SEA
I am not going to tell the whole story of the Punic Wars. In each
of them, however, there is something that belongs to my subject. In
the First, with which I am now concerned, there is the extraordinary
effort by which the Romans put themselves in a position to contend with
Carthage for the dominion of the sea. There is nothing quite like it
in history, and nothing, one might say, which more plainly showed the
wonderful fitness of the nation for its great destiny of ruling the
world. Polybius, one of the most thoughtful and judicious of ancient
historians, becomes enthusiastic in his praise of this marvellous
effort. He says: "There could be no more signal proof of their courage,
or rather audacity. They had no resources at all for the enterprise;
they had never even entertained the idea of a naval war--indeed it
was the first time they had thought of it--but they engaged in the
enterprise with such daring that, without so much as a preliminary
trial, they took upon themselves to meet the Carthaginians at sea, on
which they had held for generations an undisputed supremacy." The first
thing, of course, was to build the ships. They had not even a model to
copy, till one of the Carthaginian men-of-war happened to run aground,
and so fell into their hands. And while the ships were being built the
crews which were to man them were being exercised. Sets of rowers'
benches were constructed on dry ground; the crews sat on them as they
would have to sit in actual vessels. In the middle the fugleman, as
we may call him, was stationed. As he gave the signal, they stretched
their bodies and arms forwards, and drew them back again, all in time.
By the time the ships were finished, the crews were as ready as this
kind of teaching could make them. A little practice in actual rowing on
the sea was given them, and then the new fleet entered upon its first
naval campaign.
The first experience of the new force was not encouraging. A squadron
of seventeen ships under one of the Consuls for the year, a Scipio,
great-uncle of a famous man of whom I shall have to speak hereafter,
was shut up in the harbour of Lipara, and had to surrender. The other
Consul was put in command of the fleet and at once set about suiting it
better to the actual conditions of warfare. He had the sagacity to see
that there was more in seamanship than could be acquired by a landsman
in a few weeks, and the object that he set before himself was that
seamanship should not be allowed to count for more than could possibly
be helped. To put the matter shortly, a battle on sea was to be made as
like to a battle on land as could be managed. He adopted accordingly
the suggestion of an ingenious inventor that the ships should be fitted
with boarding-machines, or "crows" (_corvi_), as they afterwards came
to be called. The actual "crow" was a gangway, four feet wide and
thirty-six feet long, with a wooden railing on either side, about the
height of a man's knee. This construction was fastened to a pole,
some twenty-four feet high, that was placed near the bowsprit. It was
fitted with pulleys and ropes so that it could be dropped at pleasure
in any direction that might be convenient. When it was dropped to the
deck of a hostile ship it acted as a grappling-iron, for it was fitted
with a heavy spike which ran into the timber. If the two ships came
together side by side the boarders could scramble over the bulwarks,
and the chief use of the machine was for grappling. If they met prow to
prow the gangway, which was broad enough for two men to pass over it
abreast, became very useful.
When this equipment was complete, Duilius boldly put to sea, sailing
for a spot on the north coast of Sicily where the Carthaginians
were busy plundering. As soon as the Roman fleet came in sight the
Carthaginian admiral--one of the many Hannibals who figure in these
wars--manned his ships, and went out of harbour to meet it. He was
superior in numbers, having 130 ships, while the Romans could have
had but few over 100 (they had built 120 and had lost 17). But it was
on his superiority in seamanship that he most relied. For the Romans
as sailors he had, and not without reason, a profound contempt. So
strong was this feeling of superiority that he did not take ordinary
pains in keeping his ships in order. "He advanced," says Polybius, "as
though he was about to seize an easy prey." He and his officers saw
the "crows," and could not make out what they meant. That there was
anything dangerous about them no one seems to have imagined, for the
Carthaginian captains that led the van of the fleet charged straight
at their antagonists. When they came to close quarters they made a
very discomfiting discovery. Any ship that came into contact with a
Roman vessel was immediately grappled; no sooner had it been grappled
than it was boarded by a number of armed men, and became the scene of
a conflict that was practically the same as if it were being fought
on dry land. The Carthaginian crews were not prepared for this; it is
not improbable that they were insufficiently armed, for they counted
on ramming and sinking their antagonists. Thirty ships were captured
in this way; the rest of the fleet sheered off when they saw what
had happened to the van, and tried to manœuvre, taking the enemy,
if possible, at a disadvantage. They were able, however, to affect
little or nothing. If they were to do any damage to the enemy, they
had, sooner or later, to come into contact with him. But this contact
was very likely to be fatal. The "crow" was promptly dropped, and the
dreaded Romans had to be encountered. Twenty more ships were thus lost,
and the rest were glad enough to make their escape.
This victory was undoubtedly a great achievement, and Rome did not
fail to appreciate it properly. The Consul Duilius became at once one
of the most famous of Roman heroes. He did not perform, possibly had no
opportunity of performing, any other service of much importance, but
the victory of Mylæ established his reputation for ever. A story is
told of the privileges accorded to him in his old age. He had a fancy
for being attended by a couple of flute players when he was returning
home from an entertainment, and though the practice was thought
inconsistent with the simplicity of Roman manners, his fellow-citizens
endured it with patience in consideration of the singular service which
he had rendered to his country.
Nor was the victory at Mylæ a solitary success. Four years afterwards
there was another great sea-fight at Heraclea,[16] on the south coast
of Sicily. The Romans had determined to adopt a policy which, as we
have seen, had been previously followed with success, and to attack
Carthage on her own territory. A very large fleet was collected or
constructed to carry out this purpose. There were, according to
Polybius, 330 ships, each carrying on an average 300 rowers and
sailors and 120 soldiers or marines. This gives a total of nearly
140,000, a huge number which Polybius mentions with astonishment, but
apparently without disbelief. The Carthaginian fleet, which numbered
350 men-of-war, prepared to dispute the passage.
The battle that followed was fiercely contested. The description that
Polybius gives of it is not easy to understand, but the main features
are clear enough. In manœuvring the Carthaginians more than held their
own. Whatever success they won was due to the rapidity and skill with
which they moved; but they could not contend on equal terms with their
antagonists when they had to come to close quarters. "Over thirty" of
their ships were sunk. Polybius does not give, doubtless because he
could not ascertain, a more definite figure, while the Romans lost
twenty-four. So far there was no great disparity. But, on the other
hand, sixty-four Carthaginian men-of-war were captured, whereas not
a single Roman ship was taken. Plainly, when the "crows" could be
brought into use, and the struggle between ship and ship was decided by
hand-to-hand fighting, the old Roman superiority declared itself.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 16: The battle is sometimes spoken of as the battle of
Ecnomus.]
III
THE MARTYR PATRIOT
The two Consuls of the year were in command of the fleet at Heraclea,
and the historian attributes some of the energy and determination with
which the battle was fought to the encouragement of their presence.
The junior of the two, M. Atilius Regulus, is one of the most romantic
heroes of Roman story, and it is impossible not to give a short account
of the rest of his career. It was by an accident, the death of the duly
elected Consul of the year very shortly after his coming into office,
that Regulus happened to share the command of the expedition to Africa.
But he had held the Consulship before, and had then so distinguished
himself--he had in fact the glory of completing the Roman conquest of
Italy--that he had obtained the honour of a triumph. After the victory
at Heraclea, he effected a successful landing on the African coast.
The departure of his colleague, who was summoned home, left him in sole
command. Aided by an insurrection of the native tribes, always ready
to revenge themselves on their oppressive masters, he reduced Carthage
to great straits. That haughty State even brought itself to ask for
peace. Regulus demanded such conditions--what they were we are not
told--that the Carthaginians unanimously resolved to bear any extremity
of suffering rather than submit to them.
And now there was a change of fortune. It came with dramatic
suddenness, and signally illustrated the aphorism which the moralists
of antiquity repeated with such frequency and emphasis, "pride goeth
before a fall." The Carthaginian recruiting agents, when they visited
Greece, found a man who was admirably suited for their purpose.
Xanthippus was one of those Spartan soldiers of fortune who in several
conspicuous instances affected the course of history. It was the
Spartan Gylippus who saved Syracuse when it was almost in the grasp of
Athens; and now it was another Spartan who at least prolonged for a
century the existence of Carthage. Xanthippus had, it would seem, taken
service in some subordinate capacity as an officer of mercenaries.
He was an acute observer, and saw that the resources of Carthage were
but ill employed. In the two arms of elephants and cavalry her army
was so superior to the Romans that defeat could not but be the result
of mismanagement. These opinions, freely expressed to his comrades,
came round before long to the ears of the authorities. Xanthippus was
summoned before them; he explained his views and pointed out some
changes in the management of the campaign which it would be necessary
to make. His hearers were greatly impressed by the force and clearness
of his statement, and gave him what was probably a provisional command
of the army. He had now the opportunity of showing his military
abilities. He began by manœuvring bodies of troops, and showed such
tactical skill as to excite the admiration of the men. They loudly
demanded to be led against the enemy, stipulating that the leader
should be Xanthippus. It is needless to describe the battle which
followed. The hundred elephants which Xanthippus put in part of his
line were used to good effect. They did not actually break the Roman
legions, but they inflicted a great deal of damage, and prepared the
way for the infantry behind them. In cavalry the Carthaginian army was
so much stronger than the Roman--four thousand, we are told, to five
hundred--that there was practically no conflict. In the end the army
of Regulus was nearly annihilated. Two thousand men made good their
retreat to the town of Aspis on the coast; five hundred, among whom was
the Consul himself, were taken prisoners; the rest, more than twelve
thousand in number, perished on the field of battle.
For five years Regulus remained in captivity. Then--so runs the
story--he was sent to Rome in company of some ambassadors who were to
propose a treaty of peace. It was expected of him that he should do
his best to recommend the proposal to his countrymen; his release was
to be the reward of his help. But Regulus had very different views of
the situation. He thought that peace, at least on any such terms as
Carthage was willing to accept, would not be for the interest of Rome,
and he determined to oppose. He asked permission to speak; his right
to deliver an opinion as a member of the Senate he considered himself
to have lost by having fallen into the hands of the enemy. Leave
granted, he delivered an oration in which he did his best to dissuade
his countrymen from making peace, and succeeded. But his success was
fatal, not only to his chances of liberty, but to his life. He was
taken back to Carthage, and there--so the story has it--put to death
by cruel tortures. The tale is told by many writers, but Polybius, who
is by far the best authority for events of the time, is absolutely
silent about it, and his silence, in view of the strong feeling in
favour of the Romans which is noticeable in him, is a very important
consideration. According to another story, which seems to have as
little or as much foundation, the Senate handed over to the widow of
Regulus two noble Carthaginian prisoners. The woman, in revenge for
her husband's death, treated them with such barbarity that, for very
shame, the Senate took them out of her hands. Perhaps we shall be
justified in regarding both legends as specimens of that wonderful crop
of inventions which springs up whenever the feelings of a nation are
greatly roused by the agitations of war.
This was not the only loss that Rome suffered during the latter part
of the war. She lost one fleet by a storm, and another by the folly
of its commander. This man was one of the Claudian family, a house
which showed more ability in politics than in war. He seems to have
fallen into the mistake of underrating the enemy, made an attack upon
them from which he was compelled to withdraw, and when he saw that the
day was lost, made his own escape with a discreditable precipitancy.
The battle was fought in and outside the harbour of Drepanum, a town
in the extreme west of the Island. Claudius was indicted on his
return to Rome, heavily fined, and thrown into prison. He is said to
have committed suicide. In later writers we find a story which has
something of the look of having been invented to point a moral. It
was represented to him on the morning of the battle by the keepers of
the sacred chickens, that the sacred birds, whose conduct was held to
foretell the future, would not eat. This was a most sinister sign. The
insolent soldier received the intimation with contempt. "If they won't
eat," he cried, "they shall at least drink!" and he gave orders that
they should be thrown into the sea. It is certainly, whether true or
not, a characteristic illustration of the arrogance of the Claudian
family. Such, too, is the other story which supplements it. Some years
afterwards a sister of the unlucky or impious general was greatly
incommoded by the crush of people coming out of the amphitheatre.
"I wish," she cried, "that my brother were alive again, and would
take another fleet to Sicily, and ease us of some of this superfluous
crowd." She was fined for her _incivility_, the use of language
unbecoming a citizen.
In B.C. 241 this long war at last came to an end. Both sides had
suffered fearfully both in men and means. The Romans lost 700 ships of
war and the Carthaginians about 200 less, for though they had not shown
themselves a match for their antagonists in fighting, they knew better
how to deal with bad conditions of weather. The Romans had a way of
going straight to their point, whatever obstacles were in their way.
Storm or no storm, they went on, and the result of their obstinacy was
often not a little disastrous.[17]
On the whole the balance of success was considerably in favour of
Rome, and the conditions of the peace showed a distinct gain. The most
important article was the total withdrawal of Carthage from Sicily.
For more than three centuries she had renewed her attempts to possess
herself of the Island. Now she was compelled to definitely renounce her
ambition. This renunciation marks an important stage in the history of
the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 17: We may compare the way in which they made their great
military roads. These went by the nearest way from point to point, not
engineered according to modern practice.]
IV
THE SONS OF LIGHTNING
The later years of the First Punic War had brought to the front a man
of extraordinary genius, Hamilcar, surnamed Barca.[18] As his son,
Hannibal, was born in this very same year, we may safely put his age
at twenty-five. Hamilcar kept the Romans in check, first at Ercté, a
stronghold in Sicily, and afterwards at Eryx in the same island, for
five years, and might have even changed the course of the war if he
could have been adequately supported from home. So greatly did his
military ability impress the Romans that when negotiations for peace
were commenced, he was permitted to march out of Eryx with all the
honours of war. During the next four years he rendered the greatest
service to his country, which had been brought to the very verge of
ruin by the revolt of the mercenaries. It was Hamilcar, in fact, who
saved Carthage from destruction. This done, he devoted the remainder
of his life to the working out of a great scheme which was to restore
his country to the commanding position from which she had been deposed
by the disasters of the First Punic War. Sicily had been lost; another
province, far larger, and possibly more valuable, might be found in
Spain. Carthage had had for several generations a large trade with
Spain, and probably possessed some trading ports or fortified factories
on the southern coast. Hannibal crossed over into Spain with a general
commission to do what he could for the interests of Carthage in that
country. We know next to nothing about the details of his action, but
it is clear that he was eminently successful. He practically conquered
a considerable part of Spain, and did it without any charge on the home
revenues, which, indeed, were largely augmented by the sums which he
sent home. After a prosperous career of nearly nine years he fell in
battle. This was 229 B.C., when he was little more than forty years of
age. His work was taken up by his son-in-law, Hasdrubal. Hasdrubal was,
by all accounts, more of a politician than a soldier. The interests
of Carthage, however, were furthered rather than hindered by this
difference of character. Hamilcar had impressed the Spanish tribes by
his military genius and resources. Hasdrubal conciliated them. His
wife was the daughter of a Spanish chief. Altogether he did much to
consolidate the Carthaginian power in the Peninsula. Not the least of
his services was his foundation of New Carthage, a place admirably
chosen for strength of position and convenience of access. After eight
years of rule he was assassinated by a slave whose master he had put to
death.
The successor of Hasdrubal was the son of Hamilcar, a son who possessed
a military genius even greater than that of his father. Hannibal is
ranked by common consent among the greatest generals of the world.
If Rome could have been overthrown by any enemy, it would have been
by him, so brilliant was his strategy, so great his capacity for
leadership--nothing is more remarkable in his career than his power
of giving unity to the varied components of a mercenary army--and
so resolute his hostility to Rome. He himself narrated towards the
close of his life the incident which seems to have made this feeling
the dominant motive of his life. He was then in exile, and the guest
of Antiochus the Great, King of Syria. Some jealous courtiers had
suggested to Antiochus that Hannibal was not indisposed to come to
terms with Rome. He then told his story.
"When my father was about to go on his expedition to Spain, I was
nine years old. I was standing near the altar when he made the usual
sacrifice to Zeus. This successfully performed, he bade all the other
worshippers stand back, and calling me to him, asked me whether I
wished to go with him. I gave an eager assent, and begged him most
earnestly to take me. On this he took me by the right hand, led me
up to the altar, and bade me lay my hand upon the victim, and swear
eternal enmity to Rome."
No vow was ever more faithfully performed.
Of Hannibal's early years we know but little. He was present at the
battle in which his father was killed, being then in his nineteenth
year. During the period of his brother-in-law's command he was
continuously employed on active service. Hasdrubal's ability, as
has been already said, was political rather than military, and the
operations in the field were largely conducted by the younger man, and
conducted with conspicuous success. His habit of victory and his great
personal qualities made him the favourite of the army. Livy gives us a
vivid picture of the man as he was in his youth.
"Bold in the extreme in incurring peril, he was perfectly cool in its
presence. No toil could weary his body or conquer his spirit. Heat
and cold he bore with equal patience. The cravings of nature, not the
pleasure of the palate, determined the measure of his food and drink.
His waking and sleeping hours had no relation to day and night. Such
time as business left him, he gave to repose, but it was not on a soft
couch or in stillness that he sought it. Many saw him, wrapped in his
military cloak, lying on the ground amidst the sentries and pickets.
His dress was not one whit superior to that of his comrades, but his
accoutrements and his horses were conspicuously splendid. Of all the
cavalry and the infantry, he was by far the first soldier, earliest to
join the battle and last to leave it."
The quarrel with Rome, undoubtedly provoked of set purpose by Hannibal,
began with his attack on Saguntum (now _Murviedro_, i.e., _Muri
Veteres_, "The Old Walls," in Valencia). This town was in alliance
with the Romans, who sent envoys to Hannibal bidding him desist from
the attack, and to Carthage, complaining of their general's action.
Hannibal refused to receive the embassy; at Carthage the answer given
was practically a refusal to interfere. Meanwhile Saguntum was left
without help. When it fell, after a siege of several months, the Romans
felt that war was inevitable, and made preparations for carrying it on
with vigour. They probably under-estimated the strength of the enemy.
The army voted, largely made up, it must be remembered, of recruits
enrolled for the purpose, amounted to about 70,000; and the fleet was
to number about 250 ships. Everything, however, was to be done in due
form. Another embassy was sent to Carthage, with instructions to put
the direct question, whether the government accepted the responsibility
for the destruction of Saguntum. There was, it is true, a peace-party
in Carthage, but it had been reduced to helplessness. The envoys could
obtain no satisfaction. Their spokesman, one of the great Fabian House,
on receiving a reply which could have no meaning but war, gathered up
his robe into a fold and cried, "We bring you peace and war; take which
you please." He was met with a fierce cry, "Give us which you will."
Fabius shook out the fold with the words, "I give you war," and the
answer was, "We accept it."
I shall pass as quickly as possible over the early operations of the
war. Early in the spring of 218 B.C. Hannibal left his winter quarters
at New Carthage, crossed the Ebro, and fought his way from that river
to the foot of the Pyrenees. The Pyrenæan range itself presented no
great difficulties. At the Rhone he encountered formidable opposition,
but effected a crossing with great skill. In his march from the Rhone
to the Alps, and in his passage of the Alps themselves he suffered
little from hostile attacks. But the natural difficulties of the route
were great, and he was late. He appears to have left New Carthage at
the beginning of May. We may be sure that the start was made at the
earliest practicable moment, but the delay was to cost much. Could
he have moved a month earlier it would have been well. As it was he
did not reach the Alps till the beginning of October, when the snows
have already begun to fall on the higher ranges. The crossing was
effected in fifteen days, but the cost in men and beasts of burden was
tremendous. Hannibal had started from New Carthage with 90,000 foot
and 16,000 horse; he descended into the Lombard plains with 20,000
infantry and 6,000 horse. He had very little more than one-fourth of
his original numbers. He had not indeed lost the other three-fourths
by battle or by disease. Many had deserted, many had been sent home,
and the troops that remained were thoroughly trustworthy. But the
fact remains that an army of 26,000 was even ludicrously small to
be confronted with such an enemy as Rome. (It may be noted that the
infantry was made up of Africans and Spaniards. The higher posts in
the army were filled by Carthaginians, and some probably served in the
cavalry, but in the main the army consisted of mercenaries.)
* * * * *
It would be a pity to omit so picturesque an incident as Hannibal's
dream. Livy thus relates it: "He saw--so the story goes--a youth of
godlike shape, who said that he had been sent by Jupiter to conduct the
army of Hannibal into Italy; that he was therefore to follow, without
ever turning away his eyes. At first Hannibal followed, trembling,
looking neither round him nor behind; after a while, with the curiosity
natural to the human mind, as he thought what that on which he was
forbidden to look back might be, he could no longer restrain his eyes.
What he saw was a serpent of portentous size moving onward with fearful
destruction of bushes and trees; close behind the creature followed a
storm-cloud with crashing thunder. He asked what this portent meant,
and was told, 'It means the devastation of Italy.' He must go straight
on, and leave the fates in darkness."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: "Barca" is equivalent to the Hebrew _Barak_, and means
"lightning." We may compare the surname of _Boanerges_, "Sons of
Thunder," given by Christ to the sons of Zebedee. In 247 B.C. he was
appointed to the chief command of the forces of Carthage, being then "a
very young man," if we may so translate the term _adolescentulus_ which
Livy applies to him. This word, however, is very vague. It covers any
age from eighteen to upwards of thirty. Cicero, for instance, uses it
of Cæsar at the age of thirty-two.]
V
THE AVALANCHE FROM THE ALPS
A few days for rest and refreshment of the army were imperatively
needed, but only a very few could be spared. Hannibal could not hope
to face his antagonists without a large increase to his army, and this
increase he could only get for the moment from the Gauls, the people in
whose country he was, though later on reinforcements might be expected
from Carthage. The Gauls would be ready enough to join him, for they
were permanently hostile to Rome; but they would have to be satisfied
of his strength. A war had opportunely broken out between the Taurini
(Turin) and the Insubres (Milan). Hannibal took the part of the latter,
and stormed a stronghold of the Taurini. From that moment he could
practically command the services of as many Gauls as he wanted. But he
had now to meet the Romans for the first time in the field.
P. Cornelius Scipio, one of the Consuls of the year, had had the
province of Spain allotted to him. His intention had been to dispute
the passage of the Rhone, but Hannibal had moved with such rapidity
that Scipio found himself anticipated. The Carthaginians were already
across the river when Scipio reached its mouth, and had secured so
long a start that it was useless to follow him. But the news of the
Carthaginians arrival in Italy seemed to demand instant action. He
handed his army over to Cnaeus, his brother and second-in-command,
reserving for himself a few picked troops only, and sailed for Italy,
where he took over the division under the charge of the prætor Manlius.
He marched as rapidly as possible to Placentia (Piacenza), where he
crossed the Po, and advanced up the left bank of the river till he
reached the Ticinus (_Ticino_), one of its tributaries. Over this
stream he threw a bridge, which he protected by building a fort.
Hannibal was encamped some ten miles to the westward, at a spot called
Ictumuli, and had sent out Maharbal in command of some Numidian cavalry
to ravage the country; sparing, however, all the territory belonging
to the Gallic tribes. Maharbal was recalled when the advance of the
Romans became known, and Hannibal moved out of his camp, in personal
command of his cavalry. Scipio did exactly the same. The battle that
ensued was therefore wholly a battle of cavalry. This put the Romans at
a great disadvantage. They were distinctly inferior in this arm, and
the nature of the country, an expanse of unincumbered plain, gave the
enemy every opportunity of making the best of the advantage. Scipio
had put some light-armed troops in the van. They seemed to have been
of the poorest quality, for they fled at the first impact of the two
armies. The regular cavalry of the Romans showed to better advantage.
They held their own for some time against their assailants, also a
force of regular cavalry. But they were at a great disadvantage. The
fugitives from the front had thrown their lines into disorder. These it
was impossible to keep firm when those panic-stricken creatures were
trying to find their way through them. Then there happened a great
misfortune. Scipio was so seriously wounded that he had to give up
the command. According to the most generally received account, he was
saved from capture by the valour of his son, then a lad of eighteen.
We shall hear of him again, for he became in later years the great
hero of the war, Scipio Africanus the elder. Some of the Roman cavalry
made a determined stand round their wounded chief and contrived to
carry him off the field. But the battle was lost. The defeat, however,
was not so complete that the Roman camp was in any danger. Hannibal,
who was still hampered by his scanty numbers, was content to rest on
the field of battle. That night the Romans hurriedly retreated to
Placentia, hoping to find their bridge unbroken. They had actually
reached their destination before Hannibal became aware of their
departure. He was in time enough, however, to capture some six hundred
stragglers whom he found lingering on the left bank of the Po. A great
raft had been constructed for the passage of the river, and they
were at work in loosing it. Hannibal came upon them while they were
so employed. He captured the men, but the raft, which it would have
been a great advantage to secure, floated down-stream. Two days were
spent in looking for a practicable ford. Before this could be found
the Roman army had recovered its order and confidence. It suffered,
however, a most damaging blow within the next few days. A body of
Gallic auxiliaries, two thousand infantry, and two hundred cavalry,
deserted to Hannibal, cutting down the sentries at the camp gate. The
Carthaginian general gave them a hearty welcome, and held out to them
great promises of advancement and reward. For the present he sent them
to their homes. The best service, in his judgment, that they could do
was to spread abroad the report of his generosity and of the Roman
defeat.
Scipio now moved southward, falling back to a position near the river
Trebia, a tributary of the Po, which flows into it on its right or
southern bank. Here he fortified a camp, and sat down to await the
arrival of Sempronius, his colleague in the Consulship, who had been
recalled from his province (Sicily) to take part in the defence of
Italy. He was suffering greatly from his wound, and was unequal to the
active duties of command, which, however, he was unwilling to hand over
to a substitute. Probably it would have been unconstitutional to do
so, when the other Consul was within reach. Yet the prætor Manlius, in
whose charge the army had originally been, was probably in the camp.
Constitutional forms, as we shall see again and again, weakened the
military energies of Rome. Nothing could be imagined more absurd than
that the army should have been entrusted to generals, changed every
year, and elected by popular vote. To oppose such men to the unequalled
genius of Hannibal was to ensure defeat. The mere permanence of the
Carthaginian command gave him an immense advantage. But we must never
forget the other side of the case. Without these constitutional forms
neither Rome nor Greece (about which the historian has to say much the
same thing) could have been what they were. We must expect to find in a
nation as in a man the defects of its great qualities.
Sempronius joined his colleague some time, it would seem, during
the month of November. He was all for action. "It is intolerable,"
he urged, "that Italy should be invaded and Rome threatened in this
fashion. And what are we waiting for? There is no third army that can
join us. Our men will lose all heart if we let them sit in their camp
while the enemy plunders our friends." All this is natural enough,
especially when we know that the Romans had very little idea, so far,
of what Hannibal really was. But Livy, doubtless, is right when he
adds that Sempronius had before his eyes the approaching election of
Consuls. On the 1st of January ensuing he would have to go out of
office, and yield up his command. If he was to gain the distinction of
a victory he must strike at once.
He was encouraged by success in an affair in which he had engaged
against the more prudent counsels of his colleague. He had strongly
urged the duty of defending the friendly Gauls, had overruled the
opposition of Scipio, and had actually carried off the honours of
victory in a considerable cavalry skirmish.
Hannibal's plan was sufficiently simple. He was well aware--for what
we should now call his "intelligence department" seems to have been
admirably managed[19]--of Sempronius's eagerness for battle. In
the country that lay between the two camps was a spot which seemed
admirably suited for an ambush; the bed of a stream, closed in on
either side by steep banks, and enclosing a considerable space of
level ground, thickly covered with bush. Here he put his brother
Mago with a picked force of 2,000 men, composed of equal numbers of
cavalry and infantry. "You have an enemy," he said in dismissing
them, "who is blind to these stratagems of war." How familiar the
words have been made by recent experiences of our own! These
arrangements made, Hannibal sent his Numidian cavalry at dawn the
next day with instructions to ride up to the Roman camp, to pour a
shower of missiles upon the sentries, and, if possible, to provoke an
engagement. Sempronius was, he knew, eager to fight. This insulting
demonstration would stir the temper of the men in such a way that
they would obey with enthusiasm a command to advance. The device was
completely successful. Sempronius led forth his men in hot haste after
the Numidians, who retreated in apparent disorder. The Romans, thus
hurriedly summoned, had not had a meal; their horses had not been fed;
and they suffered from cold as well as from hunger. It was a snowy day
in November, and the region, the marshy, low-lying ground between the
Alps and the Apennines, had an inclement climate. More than this, they
had to cross the river, whose waters, swollen by the autumn rains, and
now breast high, struck a piercing cold into their limbs. When they
emerged on the other side of the stream they could scarcely grasp their
weapons.
Hannibal's men were in very different case when they were led forth to
encounter the enemy, warmed by fires in their tents, and strengthened
by a leisurely meal. The order of battle was this. The slingers were
in front; on either wing the cavalry and the elephants; in the centre
the heavy-armed infantry. The total number is given by Polybius at
about forty thousand. Half of these were infantry, Spaniards, Africans,
and Gauls, these last representing the addition which Hannibal had
been able to make to the army of the Alps. The cavalry numbered more
than ten thousand. Here also Gauls appear as "Celtic allies." Of the
slingers there were eight thousand. The Roman force was almost exactly
equal, but differently made up. It had but four thousand cavalry, as
against ten thousand. Of the infantry, sixteen thousand were Romans,
and twenty thousand auxiliaries.
It was among the light-armed and the cavalry that the first signs of
disorder and weakness could be seen. They were specially depressed
by suffering and exhaustion. A light-armed soldier is nothing if he
has lost his mobility, and this is exactly what had happened to the
Romans. They could render little or no help to the heavy-armed, whose
flanks and front were alike exposed, without any kind of covering, to
hostile attack. The centre, nevertheless, offered a stout resistance
to the enemy. For a time they held their ground manfully, and in
one direction did more than hold it. A body of ten thousand men
broke through the Carthaginian line, and steadily made their way to
Placentia, where, of course, they were in safety. Of the rest of the
army few survived. Their line was first broken by the unexpected charge
of the ambushed force. This was actually in the rear of the Roman
infantry, and the attack which they made from behind on the legions,
occupied as they were with what was going on in front, was very
destructive.
Many, also, were crushed by the elephants, which gave valuable help to
their side, not, however, without some counterbalancing mischief. The
animals, once wounded, became unmanageable, and were quite as likely
to damage their friends as their foes. This was, indeed, the last as
well as the first occasion on which Hannibal used them, for the cold
was so severe that all but one perished. We may sum up what is recorded
of the effectiveness of the elephant in ancient warfare by saying that
his first appearance was terrifying, that experience greatly lessened
the fear with which he was regarded, as the means of dealing with him
were soon learnt, and that he was always an incalculable and unreliable
force.
The season was now far advanced, considerably beyond the time when it
was usual to suspend military operations for the year. Hannibal retired
into winter quarters, though his cavalry never ceased to scour and
ravage the country. At Rome there was much alarm, shown, however, in a
resolute attempt to do all that was possible in the way of preparation
for the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: The Gallic auxiliaries in the Roman camp were his chief
sources of information.]
VI
THE DISASTER AT THE LAKE
The winter of 218-217 Hannibal spent in Cisalpine Gaul. Livy tells us
that his position here was uneasy, that the Gauls were dissatisfied
with the state of affairs, that they had expected the plunder of Italy,
but found themselves burdened by the presence of a powerful guest, and
that, in consequence, more than one plot was laid for the assassination
of Hannibal. Whatever truth there may be in this story, it is certain
that the Carthaginian general made good use of his time by recruiting
among the Gauls. As many as sixty thousand foot soldiers and four
thousand horsemen are said to have joined his standard. Early in the
spring of 217 he crossed the Apennines. The passage of this mountain
range was made without difficulty; it was when he reached the low-lying
country between the Arno and the Serchio that his troubles began.
His troops were decimated by sickness; multitudes of the baggage and
cavalry horses perished; he was himself attacked by ophthalmia in so
severe a form that he lost the sight of one eye. When he had extricated
himself and his army from the marshes, he marched on, plundering and
wasting the country as he went.
* * * * *
Of the two Consular armies one was at Ariminum (Rimini), nominally
watching an enemy who was now busy elsewhere, the other was at Arretium
(Arezzo). It was the latter that Hannibal designed to engage, his plans
being laid in such a way as to show that his political sagacity was
not less remarkable than his military genius. The Roman general was C.
Flaminius, a vehement advocate of plebeian rights. He had denounced
the incapacity of the Senate and of the patrician generals. He had
gained some distinction as a soldier, though, as a matter of fact,
his victories had been won by the valour of his troops, which had
triumphed in spite of their general's blunders. During his canvass for
the Consulship he had loudly proclaimed that, put at the head of the
army, he would speedily make an end of the invader. Now the time was
come for him to make good his boast. If he had been himself disposed
to hang back, though there is no reason for supposing that he doubted
of the result, he could not disappoint his friends and followers. The
camp was half filled, we are told, with adventurers who had thronged to
get a share in the Carthaginian plunder. Hannibal marched slowly past
the Romans, ravaging the country as he went, and Flaminius, infuriated
by the sight, immediately broke up his camp and pursued him. The omens
were, it was said, of the gloomiest kind. When the Consul mounted his
horse the animal stumbled and threw him; when the standard was to be
removed all the efforts of the officer whose business it was to take
charge of it was unable to stir it from the ground. Flaminius was
wholly unmoved by these occurrences, and followed Hannibal in hot
haste. The Carthaginian laid a trap for his antagonist, into which the
Roman fell with an almost ridiculous simplicity. The road southward led
past Lake Trasumennus. Here it was narrow, the mountains approaching
near to the water-side; a little further on there was an open space of
some extent; after this again the mountains closed in again and made a
narrow defile. These features are not visible to any one who approaches
the place from the north; and the Consul seems to have taken no pains
to acquaint himself with the road which he was following. Hannibal
barred the southern outlet with a strong force of his picked troops;
his cavalry he put in ambush at the point of entrance; the high ground
that bordered the road on the landward side he occupied with his
slingers and light-armed troops. Flaminius reached the lake at sunset
on the day of his breaking up his camp at Arretium, and bivouacked
there for the night. Next day, at early dawn, he moved forward, again
without reconnoitring, and reached the open space described before. A
heavy morning mist hung over the country, and the Romans saw nothing
but the road on which they were marching. Their first sight of the
enemy was when they reached the defile where Hannibal himself was in
position. Almost at the same moment the mist rolled away, and they saw
that the mountain-sides on either hand were alive with enemies, and
that their retreat was barred by the Carthaginian cavalry. At the same
moment they found themselves attacked, before, says the historian, they
could form their lines, or even draw their swords.
The result of this surprise was something like a panic. The march had
been conducted with so much carelessness and disorder that the legions
and even the maniples or companies were broken up. It was by the merest
chance that a soldier found himself in his proper place, or ranged with
his proper comrades. Some, it would seem, were actually without arms,
for these were being carried in waggons, and the waggons could not be
found when they were wanted. The mist, it must be remembered, though
it had cleared away from the higher ground, still lay thick upon the
lower ground, which was indeed very little raised above the level of
the lake. So it came to pass that, as Livy puts it, the ear was of more
service than the eye. The men rushed where they heard the groans of the
wounded, the clash of sword upon armour, the cry of victory or defeat.
The coward, flying in terror, found himself entangled in the mass of
combatants; the brave man, eager to take his part in the struggle,
might be irresistibly carried off by a crowd of fugitives.
After a while something of the habitual Roman courage reasserted
itself. Every one could see for himself that the army was hemmed in.
The mountains were on one side, the lake on the other; at either end of
the road the passage was barred by serried lines of the enemy. If there
was to be any deliverance it must come from their own strength and
valour. Panic was succeeded by the courage of despair. Nothing could
restore to the army its lost order, but it was at least determined to
sell its existence dearly. And here, at least, Flaminius did his duty
to the utmost. Incompetent as he was as a general, he was the bravest
of the brave. "It is not by prayers to heaven," he cried, "that you
will escape. Strength and courage, and these alone, will save you. The
less your fear, the smaller the danger." The men answered to their
leader's call. So fierce was the fight that the combatants were wholly
unconscious of an earthquake which, at the very hour when the battle
raged most fiercely, laid more than one city in ruins, changed the
courses of river, and brought down huge masses of earth and rock from
the mountains to the plains.
It was round the person of the Consul that the battle raged most
fiercely. He was a conspicuous figure in the scarlet cloak which marked
the officer in chief command, and in arms of unusual splendour. And as
long as he was in the front the legions held their own. For three hours
the issue seemed to be in suspense. But a general who exposes himself
as recklessly as the Consul felt constrained to do can hardly hope to
escape. And there were some in the hostile ranks who bore him a special
grudge. Five years before Flaminius had carried on a campaign against
the Insubrian Gauls,[20] and had treated them, it would seem, with
exceptional severity. An Insubrian trooper now recognised him. "This is
the man," he cried to his comrades, "who slaughtered our countrymen,
and laid waste our fields. I will offer him a sacrifice to the spirits
of the dead." So saying, he set spurs to his horse and charged through
the Roman line. The Consul's armour-bearer threw himself in the way,
and was struck down. The Consul himself fell mortally wounded. A fierce
struggle took place over his body, but the Roman veterans succeeded in
rescuing it. But to an army that is fighting at a disadvantage the fall
of its leader is often a disabling blow. So it was at Lake Trasumennus.
The Roman army no longer held its ground. Frantic attempts were made
to fly. Some tried to climb the mountain-side; others endeavoured
to escape by wading out into the lake. Very few succeeded in either
attempt. In the lake, especially, many perished. Those who attempted
to swim were drowned sooner or later; those who made their way back
to the shore were cut down by the enemy's horsemen, who rode out in
the shallow and were ready to receive them. Fifteen thousand in all
were slain; ten thousand contrived to escape. One body of six thousand,
possibly a complete legion, succeeded in forcing its way through the
defile occupied by Hannibal's troops. But its fate was only delayed for
a time. It was without provisions, and without guides. When, the next
day, Maharbal with the Carthaginian cavalry appeared, it surrendered.
Hannibal's loss was fifteen hundred slain and a very considerable
number of wounded. Livy gives these figures on the authority of a
contemporary writer, Fabius Pictor.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 20: Near Mediolanum (_Milan_).]
VII
THE OVERTHROW AT CANNÆ
The disastrous defeat at Lake Trasumennus was followed by a change of
policy at Rome. Quintus Fabius, who was appointed dictator, was as
cautious as Flaminius had been rash. His plan was to watch the enemy,
to use all the opportunities which a knowledge of the country and the
friendly feeling of the population--for Italy remained firmly faithful
to Rome--put in his way. To a certain extent he was successful. While
he was in command Rome suffered no disasters. But he was, probably,
nothing more than an able soldier. He had nothing like the genius of
Hannibal, and when he might have struck a really effective blow at the
enemy, he allowed himself to be outwitted. And the Romans had not yet
thoroughly learnt their lesson. They wearied of the cautious strategy
of Fabius which avoided defeat but did not save Italy from fire and
sword. The first result of this revulsion of feeling was putting the
dictator's second-in-command--"Master of the Horse" was his official
title--on an equality with him. Minucius--for this was his name--was
an adventurous soldier of the Flaminius type. He had won some slight
successes when Fabius had been absent on official business in Rome, and
he now hoped to distinguish himself still more. He took charge of half
the army, and pitched a camp for himself. It was not long, however,
before he was outmanœuvred by the enemy, and reduced to extremities,
from which he was saved by the timely arrival of Fabius. But different
views of these events prevailed at Rome--and we must remember that we
have one side only of the case. It was affirmed that Minucius had been
purposely deserted, and that his reverse was due to the intrigues of
the aristocrats. Great popular excitement followed, and the result was
that when the Consuls of the new year were elected a violent partisan,
Terentius Varro by name, was put in office. Varro, though he could
scarcely have been as incompetent as we should suppose from Livy's
account,[21] had had no military experience. The aristocrats succeeded
in giving him as a colleague L. Æmilius Paullus, a soldier of some
reputation, but unfortunately much disliked by the commons.
Hannibal was now in Apulia, in Southern Italy, where he probably found
the population more sympathetic than in the north, the larger Greek
element being not yet reconciled to Roman rule. His headquarters were
at Cannæ, a town on the right or southern bank of the Aufidus. The
Roman army, which was under peremptory instructions from home to fight,
had probably followed the _Via Appia_ as far as Venusia, and had then
marched eastward. A garrison was probably left at Canusium, a strongly
fortified town, about six miles to the west of Cannæ. An hour's march
from Canusium must have brought them within sight of Hannibal. He
was encamped outside Cannæ, the country round him being level and so
well adapted for the operations of cavalry, an arm in which he was
particularly strong. A difference of opinion now developed itself
between the two Consuls. Æmilius Paullus was for drawing the enemy into
a country less suited to him; Varro, on the other hand, was impatient
to fight at once. He ordered an advance, which resulted in a partial
engagement, terminating, on the whole, not unfavourably to the Romans.
The final position taken up by the Consuls was this. Two-thirds of the
army was located on the north or left bank of the river, the remainder
was left on the south, being very nearly in touch with the Carthaginian
outposts. It must be remembered that the Aufidus, a shallow and rapid
stream, dwindled in summer to a very inconsiderable river which might
be forded anywhere without difficulty, at least in this part of its
course. The battle was fought on August 2nd, according to the Roman
calendar, but as this was very much in advance of the true time,
really in the middle of June, Paullus was for a policy of inactivity.
He believed that Hannibal would have to shift his ground for want of
supplies, and he hoped that he might find a favourable opportunity for
delivering an attack. His colleague, however, had a very different view
of the situation. Naturally rash and eager, he was irritated by the
aggressive movements of the enemy, who did all that was possible to
provoke him. The Roman troops, too, were eager to fight, and they soon
had their wish.
It was the custom that when the two Consuls were with the army they
should exercise the command on alternate days. At early dawn on his
day of command Varro gave orders to the force encamped on the north
bank of the Aufidus to cross the stream. This done he drew out his
whole force in a long line fronting the south. He had in all about
80,000 infantry and 6,000 horse. The Roman cavalry he posted on the
right wing along the river bank; the right centre consisted of the
Roman foot, which was drawn up in deeper and closer formation than
usual; the left centre and the left wing were made up of the horse
and foot of the allies. The archers and light-armed generally were
in advance of the main line. Hannibal posted his Gallic and Spanish
cavalry on his left wing, _i.e._, opposite the Roman horse, and his
African horse on the right. Next the mounted troops on either side was
a body of African infantry, equipped with armour and weapons collected
from the spoils of Trebia and Trasumennus. The centre consisted of
Gauls and Spaniards. Livy speaks of the imposing effect of their
stature, for physically these Celtic warriors were greatly superior
to their Italian antagonists, and of their general appearance. The
Gauls were naked to the waist, the Spaniards clad in linen vests, of
dazzling whiteness, edged with purple. In numbers Hannibal was greatly
inferior, having only 40,000 infantry. For this disadvantage he was
partly compensated by the superiority of his cavalry, both in numbers
and efficiency. Of this arm he had no less than 10,000. Livy tells us,
though Polybius does not mention the circumstance, that a strong wind
from the S.E., locally known as the Volturnus, carrying with it clouds
of sand, blew into the faces of the Romans, and greatly incommoded them.
The battle began, as usual, with some indecisive skirmishing between
the light-armed troops on either side. The Gallic and Spanish cavalry,
on the contrary, soon achieved a very decided success. There was little
room for the display of tactics or even for a charge. The combatants
came to close quarters, and here the great personal strength of the
Celts gave them an advantage. They dismounted and dragged their
antagonists from their horses. A valiant resistance was made; it was
not till many had been slain in this fierce struggle that any sought
safety in flight.
The legionary infantry did not fail to assert its superiority in
discipline and effective equipment over the Gallic and Spanish foot
opposed to it. The latter fought with conspicuous courage, but
failed to bear up against the weight and the orderly advance of the
heavy-armed Romans. Had there been a cool-headed soldier in command
at this point the success of the legions might have been turned to
excellent advantage. Wanting capable leadership it ended in disaster.
The pursuit was carried far beyond the point at which, in view of the
fact that the cavalry had been driven off the field, prudence would
have stopped it. The legions, while they followed the flying Celts,
were themselves assailed on either flank by the African contingents,
made on this occasion more formidable by the fact that they had a
Roman equipment of armour and weapons. Already disordered by their
hasty advance, they were still further broken by this attack. But
though the line ceased to exist, many of the companies preserved their
formation, and, for a time, the conflict was carried on under fairly
equal conditions. A brilliant charge by the Carthaginian cavalry under
Hasdrubal[22] decided the day. He had led his Celtic host in the fierce
conflict with the Romans, had afterwards helped the Numidians to beat
the allies, and he now threw himself with his victorious squadrons
on the rear of the Roman legions. After this there was but little
more resistance offered, and the battle became a massacre. Rome never
suffered a more frightful loss than she did on the fatal day of Cannæ.
Of the 80,000 men whom she brought into the field only three or four
thousand escaped. The number of the slain is put by Polybius at 70,000;
Livy gives a much smaller figure (40,000), but Polybius is the most
trustworthy authority. Many prisoners were taken, some in the camps
which they had been left to guard, some at Cannæ, where they vainly
sought refuge. Only those who had the wisdom or good fortune to make
their way to Canusium found themselves in safety. Varro, with some
seventy troopers, escaped to Venusia. Æmilius Paullus died upon the
field. Livy tells a pathetic story of his end, which may well be true,
though Polybius does not mention it.[23] It runs thus:--
One Lentulus, a military tribune, found the Consul sitting on a
stone, covered with blood. He offered him his horse. They might both
escape. He was himself unwounded and could help his chief. "Do not
add," he went on, "to the other disasters of the day the death of a
Consul. There will be tears and mourning enough without that." Paullus
refused the offer. "Do not waste," he said, "in useless pity your own
opportunity of escape. Go and tell the Senate from me to make Rome as
strong as possible against the arrival of the victorious enemy. As
to me, let me die here in the midst of my slaughtered soldiers. I do
not wish again to be brought to trial or to prove my own innocence by
accusing my colleague." Here a crowd of fugitives, followed close by
the enemy, swept over them. Lentulus escaped, thanks to the swiftness
of his horse. The Consul, whom the pursuers did not recognise, was
slain.
[Illustration: The Overthrow at Cannæ.]
Paullus, it will have been seen, is represented as anticipating the
immediate advance of Hannibal against Rome. The question whether that
advance should have been made has, we might say, been discussed ever
since; Livy tells us that Hannibal was strongly urged by his own
lieutenants to take this step. Maharbal, who was one of the ablest
among them, declared that if he would but start at once he should be
feasting in the Capitol in four days' time; and when Hannibal refused
to follow his advice, added, "I see that the gods do not give all
things to one man. You know how to win a victory, but you do not know
how to use it."
It is impossible, of course, to speak with confidence on such a
subject. That Hannibal was thoroughly competent to judge of the
situation from a soldier's point of view must be conceded. Nor is it
difficult to see that, victorious as he had been, his available force
must have been greatly reduced. His loss in killed is said to have been
6,000. The proportion of wounded in ancient warfare was far smaller
than that which prevails under modern conditions. Still we must make
a considerable addition if we would reckon the total of the disabled.
He had about 55,000 on the morning of the battle, and could hardly
have been able to put more than 30,000 in the fighting line at its
close. He thought it better, under the circumstances, to wait for the
results of his victory on those who both within and without Italy were
watching the course of the war. These were not inconsiderable, but
they were not as decisive as might have been expected. And Hannibal
seems to have continued to hope for developments which never occurred.
Perhaps we may say that it would have been wise to have abandoned the
Italian campaign, if, six months after Cannæ, he still felt himself
unable to march on Rome. This is one of the questions upon which the
most sagacious of men and the ablest of generals may be mistaken. To
abandon Italy would have been to give up the dream of his life, and to
this Hannibal could not bring himself, even after it must have become
evident to his cooler judgment that Rome was not to be vanquished.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 21: He held important commands in subsequent years.]
[Footnote 22: Not to be identified with any other officer of the same
name, for, strangely enough, he is not mentioned on any other occasion.]
[Footnote 23: His silence is certainly remarkable because he was
certainly acquainted with Paullus' son, and was on terms of intimate
friendship with his grandson. (The younger Scipio was a son of the
Æmilius Paullus who conquered Macedonia, and was adopted by a son of
the elder Scipio.)]
VIII
THE SECRET MARCH
The result of the victory of Cannæ, stated broadly, was that the
southern half of Italy threw in its lot with Hannibal. The Samnites,
in former days the fiercest and most dangerous enemies of Rome; the
Campanians, a warlike race whose name has occurred more than once in
my story, and who possessed in Capua the second city of Italy; the
Greek region, far less populous and wealthy than it had once been,
but still formidable, and the aboriginal mountain tribes of Bruttium
declared against Rome. Northern Italy, however, remained faithful,
and even the disaffected territories were more or less held in check
by the colonies, Latin as well as Roman, for the Latins were firm in
their allegiance.[24] On the whole the effect of the disaster was not
so absolutely crushing as might have been expected. Hannibal's most
noteworthy gain during the remainder of the year was the accession
of Capua. Rome had the profound relief of feeling that the worst was
over, and that she still existed. This relief was expressed in a truly
characteristic way when the Senate voted thanks to Varro "because
he had not despaired of the Republic." To Varro, indeed, no thanks
were due; he had done nothing more than save his own life; what the
resolution really expressed was that Rome had survived what might well
have been an annihilating blow.
The next two years (215-214) passed without any event of great
importance. One serious danger, indeed, threatened Rome, but it passed
away. At Syracuse, Hiero, who had been a steady friend for nearly
fifty years, had been succeeded by his grandson, Hieronymus, a foolish
lad, who was under Carthaginian influence. In Macedonia Philip V.
made up his mind to give active help to Hannibal. But Hieronymus was
assassinated before he could do anything, and Philip, for reasons
which we do not know, let the opportunity pass. In 213 Tarentum fell
into the hands of Hannibal, though the citadel was held by a Roman
garrison. In 212 the Carthaginians won a great victory at Herdonia in
Apulia, wholly destroying a Roman army, and got possession of some
important towns in Southern Italy. They had also a great success in
Spain, where two Roman armies were defeated with the loss of their
commanders, Cnæus and Publius Scipio. On the other hand, Rome recovered
Syracuse, which was taken by Marcellus after a siege of nearly two
years' duration. Hard pressed as she was in other directions she thus
accomplished what Athens and Carthage, both at the height of their
power, had failed to do. And Capua was invested; nor could Hannibal,
victorious as he was in the field, relieve it. Much, it is evident,
turned on the fate of Capua. No Italian city would venture to take up
the Carthaginian cause if this important place could not be protected.
In 210, accordingly, Hannibal made a vigorous effort to relieve it. In
the hope of compelling the Consuls to raise the siege, he threatened
Rome itself, and advanced to within three miles of the city. He even
rode up with a body of cavalry to the walls. But he failed to achieve
his purpose. One of the Consuls led his army from before Capua to the
relief of the capital, but the other still pressed the siege. Hannibal
retreated, and though he turned upon the Consul, who was following him
somewhat carelessly, and defeated him with very heavy loss, he could
not relieve Capua. This city capitulated before the end of the year.
In 209 Hannibal won another great battle on the same spot, Herdonia,
where he had triumphed two years before. In the field, it will be seen,
he was always successful, but he could not be everywhere, nor could he
protect all his Italian allies. In this year the two important regions
of Samnium and Lucania gave in their submission to Rome, which had the
wisdom to grant them favourable terms. And Tarentum was lost, betrayed
to the Romans, as it had been betrayed a few years before to Hannibal.
The next year (208) was marked by the death of the consul Marcellus,
and by other Carthaginian successes. In 207 we came to another great
crisis of the war, the attempt of Hasdrubal to join his brother, ending
in the decisive battle of the Metaurus.
We last heard of Hasdrubal as defeating the two Scipios in 212. What
hindered him from following up this success by an immediate march into
Italy it is impossible to say. Livy's account of the transactions of
the next five years is wholly incredible, and Polybius' narrative is
lost. It is rash to pronounce a judgment where we know so little of
the facts. Still it is generally true that few commanders have the
same power of perspective which Hannibal seems to have possessed. It
is at least possible that Hasdrubal may have overrated the importance
of what he might be able to do in Spain, and have forgotten that the
war had really to be decided in Italy. It is a fact that he put off his
advance in Italy for four years, and that when he made it his general
prospects had not improved. A very able young commander, afterwards
known as Scipio Africanus, had appeared upon the scene, and had
achieved the great success of capturing New Carthage. This he followed
up in 209 by defeating Hasdrubal himself. This defeat, however, did not
prevent the Carthaginian general from carrying out his original plan.
Either in this year or in the next he crossed the Pyrenees. He spent a
considerable time in Gaul, where he was able to enlist a large number
of recruits, and, after an easy passage of the Alps, descended into
Italy early in the year 207. And here, again, we find him neglecting,
as far as we can see, the main issue, and wasting strength and time on
a quite subordinate matter. He besieged Placentia, a strongly fortified
colony, and so gave the Romans time to recover from the surprise of
his unexpectedly early arrival. By the time he had made up his mind to
raise the siege of Placentia, one of the Consuls, Livius by name, had
advanced to bar his way.
The Roman generals must have been aware that the main object of
Hasdrubal's descent into Italy was to effect a junction with his
brother. And now, by a lucky chance, they found out how this was
to be done. Hasdrubal sent a party of six horsemen charged with a
letter to his brother, in which he announced his arrival in Italy, and
suggested that they should meet in Umbria. These messengers traversed
nearly the whole of Italy in safety, only to fail at the last. When
they were some thirty or forty miles from Metapontum, where Hannibal
was encamped, they took the wrong road, and made for Tarentum. They
fell into the hands of a foraging party, and were brought before the
officer who was in local command. To him they confessed, under threats
of torture, that they carried despatches to Hannibal. The officer
sent them on to the Consul Nero, who was watching Hannibal. Nero at
once conceived a bold design. The junction of the two Carthaginian
armies must be prevented at any cost, and the best means of doing this
would be to strengthen the army of the north, and crush Hasdrubal
before he could unite his forces with his brother's. But there was no
time to be lost. Nero picked seven thousand men out of his army, the
very best troops that he had, and hurried northwards. No one knew of
his plan; even the authorities at Rome were hoodwinked. Nor did he
hamper himself with transport. He would be passing through a friendly
population, and he judged it sufficient to send messengers before him
with directions that ready-cooked provisions should be brought down for
the use of the army, with such horses as would suffice to carry what
was absolutely necessary. Everything turned out well. The soldiers made
forced marches of extraordinary length, and reached their journey's
end without mishap, entering the camp at night, as it was desirable to
keep their coming a secret. This, however, was not effectually done.
Hasdrubal had at least some suspicion of what had happened. Riding up
to the Roman camp, he observed some shields of unfamiliar pattern. Some
of the horses were leaner than those he had seen before, and there
were, as he thought, more of them. Another suspicious circumstance
was one for which he had been on the lookout. There were, it should
be explained, two Roman camps, one in charge of the Consul Livius,
the other commanded by the prætor Porcius. In the Consul's camp the
signal was sounded twice, indicating that both consuls were there.
On the other hand there was the perplexing circumstance that the
limits of the camps had not been extended. If a large reinforcement
had arrived, where could they have been put away? Above all, was
it possible that a general so consummately skilful as Hannibal had
allowed such a manœuvre to be made? Or was it possible that Hannibal
had been destroyed? The general result of these questionings was great
discouragement. He declined the battle which the Consuls, who had made
up their minds to fight without delay, offered him as soon as possible
after Nero's arrival, and in the course of the following night struck
his camp and moved away. It is not easy to say what was his object in
thus retreating, for a northward movement was a retreat, the Metaurus
river, which he wished to cross, being some miles to the north of his
camp. Possibly he wished to get to a region where the population would
be friendly. Anyhow, the movement ended in disaster. Two guides whom he
had pressed into his service contrived to disappear in the night-march,
and the ford of the Metaurus could not be discovered. The army
proceeded slowly up the right bank of the river. It was a fatiguing
march; many men fell out, and all were wearied and dispirited. Early
in the next day the Roman army came up, and Hasdrubal saw that he must
fight. He posted his elephants as usual in front of the centre, with
the Ligurians behind them. On the right were his Spanish troops,
veteran soldiers of his own, and of the very best quality. These were
under his personal command. The Gauls were on the left, but seem to
have taken but little part in the battle that followed. The Spaniards
acquitted themselves in a way worthy of their military reputation, and
maintained the struggle for some time on equal terms. The result of
the day was in a great measure decided by a bold movement of Nero. He
judged that he might safely neglect the Gauls, who were his special
antagonists, and wheeling rapidly from the left, fell upon the enemy
with crushing effect. The elephants behaved as usual. Formidable at
first, they threw the lines of the enemy into disorder; then becoming
unmanageable did not less damage to their friends. Livy says that more
were killed by their drivers than by the enemy. The battle was long and
fierce. So much is amply testified by the amount of the Roman loss. No
less than eight thousand men were slain, a very large proportion, it
is certain, of the number engaged. The Carthaginian army, of course,
suffered more. Probably few of the Spanish troops survived. Some of
the Ligurians escaped, and many of the Gauls. They were not far from
their own country, and the Romans were probably too much exhausted to
make an energetic pursuit. "Let some be left alive," said the Consul
Livius, when he was urged to follow the Gauls, "to carry home accounts
of the enemy's losses, and of our valour." These could hardly have
been his real reasons. But the total loss in killed and prisoners is
put at sixty thousand. Hasdrubal fell in the battle. As long as there
was any hope of victory he had done his best, reforming the line again
and again, encouraging the wearied, and putting fresh spirit into the
discouraged. When all was lost, he set spurs to his horse and charged
the enemy's line. Seven days afterwards his head was thrown among the
advanced guards of Hannibal's camp.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 24: A colony, I may remind my readers, was practically a
military outpost. It was inhabited by old soldiers to whom land had
been granted. There were two classes of colonies, Roman and Latin,
as there were two kinds of citizenship, Roman and Latin. Livy has an
interesting passage about the behaviour of the Latin colonies in the
year 209. There were thirty in all. Twelve of these declared themselves
to be unable to comply with the requisitions for men and money made
upon them. The other eighteen expressed themselves in an opposite
sense, as willing to do even more than was asked of them. Among these
we find Brundisium, Luceria, Venusium, Paestum, and Beneventum, all
important places in the region generally occupied by Hannibal. Livy
goes so far as to say that it was their support that was the salvation
of Rome. "After all these years they must not be forgotten or deprived
of the praise which they so well deserved."]
IX
HANNIBAL'S LAST BATTLE
What Hannibal proposed to himself by remaining in Italy after the
disastrously decisive day of the Metaurus it is not easy to say.
Perhaps he continued to hope against hope that the great anti-Roman
combination, for which he had been working for more than ten years,
might yet come into being. To us, who know what Rome became in after
days, it seems strange indeed that the kingdoms which she was destined
to crush one after another should not have joined with Carthage in
the attempt to destroy her. If Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt could
have combined while Hannibal had still a footing in Italy, she could
hardly have survived. But they were too jealous of each other, or too
short-sighted. Possibly they were unwilling to make Carthage, which
the Greeks had no reason to love, too powerful. And what was not done
after Cannæ would hardly be attempted after the Metaurus. Anyhow,
Hannibal remained in Italy for four years after Hasdrubal's death. He
now held only the extreme south of the Peninsula, and the limits of
the region which he occupied were slowly contracted by the loss of
town after town. Still he clung to his position; he could have gone at
any time; but he could not bear to give up the dominating hope of his
life, and he lingered on. At last, late in the year 203, in obedience
to an urgent summons from home, he embarked his army. No attempt was
made to hinder him. The Romans indeed were unfeignedly glad to see his
departure. They had lost three hundred thousand men during the fifteen
years of his stay. The huge dragon of his dream had indeed desolated
Italy. It is said that when he took his last look of the land where
he had met with such successes and such disappointments, he bitterly
reproached his countrymen for the grudging support which they had given
him. "It is not the Roman people, so often routed in the field, it is
Hanno"--the leader of the Peace party in Carthage--"that has vanquished
me." The charge can hardly have been true; but it is natural to one
who had finally to abandon one of the most splendid schemes that man
ever devised. Livy adds that Hannibal now bitterly regretted that he
had not led his troops against Rome immediately after the great victory
of Cannæ.
It is needless to dwell on the events that followed Hannibal's return
to Africa. We have not, indeed, the means of drawing out a quite clear
and consistent narrative of them. The romantic story in which Syphax,
Masinissa, and Sophonisba (daughter of Hasdrubal, son of Gisco) play
the chief parts, does not belong to my subject, and I pass on at once
to the battle of Zama.
Hannibal ranged his elephants, as usual, in front of his line.
Immediately behind them were the mercenaries, a mixed multitude, to
whom Polybius applies the famous verse in which Homer describes the
many-tongued battle-cry of the Trojans and their allies. Behind these
mercenaries were the native Carthaginians, brought once more into
the field by the extremity of their country, and in the rear of all,
as a reserve which in the last resort might restore the fortunes of
the day, the veterans whom Hannibal had brought with him from Italy.
Scipio departed in one particular from the usual rules of Roman
tactics. Usually the intervals in the front line were filled up in
the second, and the intervals in the second filled up in the third.
On the present occasion the intervals were continuous, giving a free
passage from the front of the army to the rear. This was done with a
view to lessening the danger from the elephants. For the same reason
the space between the lines was made greater than usual. The more space
these animals were allowed in which they might move, the less likely,
Scipio thought, they would be to trample down the ranks of his men.
Lælius with the Roman cavalry occupied the left wing, with the native
Carthaginian horse opposed to him; Masinissa on the right had a body
of African horse fronting men of the same or kindred nationalities in
the service of Carthage. The elephants were of even less use and did
even more damage to their friends than usual. The stock of trained
animals had been long since exhausted, and the untaught creatures now
brought into the field were unmanageable. In this instance they turned
against the Carthaginian cavalry, and put them into such disorder that
Lælius won an easy victory over them. On the Roman right Masinissa, one
of the best cavalry officers that the world has ever seen, defeated
his antagonists. But in the centre the victory was less easily won.
The mercenaries were veteran soldiers skilled in all the arts of war,
and they more than held their own against the Roman infantry, largely
consisting of recruits. If they had been properly backed up by the
Carthaginians behind them, they might have changed the fortunes of the
day. But the citizen soldiers remained stolidly in their places. It was
only when they were themselves attacked--the mercenaries, we are told,
enraged at being thus deserted, turned against them--that they drew
their swords. The line of veterans, under Hannibal's personal command,
made a fierce and obstinate resistance. It was only when they were
charged on both flanks by the victorious cavalry that they gave way.
After this the rout was general. Twenty thousand men were left dead
on the field of battle, and as many more were taken prisoners. Of the
conquerors fifteen hundred fell. It was not a high price to pay for the
victory that, as Polybius puts it, "gave to Rome the sovereignty of the
world." Hannibal made his way to Adrumetum, and from thence to Carthage
with a body of six thousand troops.
The terms of peace were unexpectedly lenient. Carthage was to retain
its independence, and its African possessions. But it was to pay an
annual tribute of two hundred talents and an indemnity of ten thousand,
and it was to retain only ten ships of war. Hannibal was so strongly
impressed with the necessity of accepting these terms that he forcibly
pulled back into his seat a senator who had risen to speak against them.
A few lines may be given to the after history of this remarkable
man, the most formidable enemy that Rome ever had, equally great as
statesman and as general.
Not long after the conclusion of peace he left Carthage, avoiding by
his voluntary departure a demand that Rome was preparing to make for
his extradition. He was suspected, and probably with justice, of still
cherishing hostile designs. He took refuge with Antiochus, of Syria,
surnamed, but not for very convincing reasons, the Great. Antiochus
was flattered by his presence, but showed a ridiculous jealousy of his
genius. He would not employ him or even take his advice. A combination
against Rome among the Eastern powers was still possible, and Hannibal
strongly urged that it should be made, but he urged it in vain. In 192
he was indeed put in command of the Syrian fleet, largely consisting,
it may be presumed, of Phœnician ships. He was attacked by a superior
force from Rhodes, then the greatest naval power in the world, and was
defeated. Two years afterwards the great battle of Magnesia was fought.
Whether Hannibal was present we do not know, but he was certainly
not in command. Possibly an anecdote that is told of him belongs to
this time. King Antiochus showed him his army, splendid with gold and
silver. "Will not this be enough for the Romans?" asked the king.
"Yes, indeed," answered the veteran, "though they are the greediest
people upon earth." But it was of the value of their spoils, not of the
efficiency of their weapons, that he was thinking. The battle ended in
the total defeat of Antiochus and his splendid army. Two years later he
made peace with Rome, one of the conditions being that he should banish
from his dominions all the enemies of Rome. Hannibal had anticipated
the decree. He visited various places, and found at last what promised
to be a final refuge with Prusias, King of Bithynia. But Prusias
quarrelled with a neighbour, Eumenes, King of Pergamum, and Eumenes
was a friend of Rome. Rome sent to Prusias to demand the person of
his guest, and the veteran--he was now in his sixty-fifth year--took
poison. He carried the drug about with him in a ring, so the story
runs, to be used in such an emergency.
X
THE BLOTTING OUT OF CARTHAGE
For fifty years after the conclusion of the Peace of Hannibal, as
the treaty described in my last chapter came to be called, Carthage
and Rome continued to live on uneasy terms of mutual suspicion. Rome
dreaded the rapid recovery in power and wealth of her old enemy;
Carthage feared, and doubtless with more reason, the inextinguishable
hatred of the State which she had once brought so near to destruction.
The conditions imposed after Zama had not prevented the accumulation
of wealth in the vanquished city. Her commerce had been left her
untouched; commerce meant a full treasury, and it was with her treasury
that Carthage had always made war. There were two men who had much to
do with embittering this quarrel, though neither of them lived to see
the end which they desired.
Of one of these two, Masinissa, I have already had occasion to speak.
He was the son of a Numidian king, and in early life had been an
energetic ally of Carthage. He served in the Spanish campaigns of
Hasdrubal (brother of Hannibal) with a strong contingent of Numidian
horsemen. Even the defeat of the Metaurus did not shake his loyalty.
In the following year, however, he began to think of changing sides,
and he finally came to an agreement with Scipio that he would do his
best to help the Roman cause, when the war should have been transferred
to Africa. He had strong personal motives for this change. He had
been deprived of the succession to his father's kingdom by the action
of Syphax, a neighbouring potentate who was in close alliance with
Carthage, and he had also seen his promised wife, Sophonisba (daughter
of Hasdrubal Gisco), given to the same rival. Such then were the causes
which made him a prominent actor in the battle of Zama. The Peace of
Hannibal left Masinissa in undisputed possession of his hereditary
dominions, increased by the kingdom of Syphax. For the next fifty years
he was perpetually on the watch to aggrandise himself at the expense of
Carthage. Again and again he seized some desirable region belonging
to that State, was met with protests which he uniformly disregarded,
and was sustained in his usurpation by Rome, whose commissioners were
secretly instructed, we are told, to favour so useful an ally. In 150
B.C. these continual feuds ended in open war. Masinissa, who was still
vigorous and active, though he had reached his eighty-eighth year,
defeated the Carthaginians in a pitched battle. Two years afterwards he
died.
The other persistent enemy of Carthage was M. Porcius Cato, commonly
known as Cato the Censor or Cato the Elder. Born in 234 B.C., Cato was
just of an age to serve in the army when Hannibal invaded Italy. We do
not know whether he was present at any of the great battles, but he was
certainly aide-de-camp to Fabius at the siege of Tarentum in 209. He
never forgot the scenes which he witnessed when Hannibal was ravaging
Italy; and when he had risen to a high place in the State, he devoted
himself to obtaining what he considered a satisfactory vengeance. He
lost no opportunity of impressing upon his countrymen his conviction
that Carthage should not be permitted to exist. It is related of him
that whatever the question before the Senate might be, he would add to
his opinion,[25] "and I also think that Carthage ought to be blotted
out." He died in 149 B.C., in his eighty-fifth year.
It was in this year that the Third Punic War commenced. Cato had
succeeded, it would seem, in the great object of his life. Rome was
determined that Carthage should be blotted out. It is probable, indeed,
that other motives besides the national and political were at work. The
commercial interest was very powerful in Rome, and to this interest
the destruction of a successful rival, which had long commanded most
of the markets of the Mediterranean coast, seemed most desirable.[26]
Anyhow, the terms proposed when the Carthaginian envoys were introduced
into the Senate at Rome were such that it was manifest that war was
determined upon. When the first conditions, onerous as they were, were
accepted, then fresh severities were added. The ultimatum was that
the Carthaginians must give up their city to be destroyed. They would
themselves be spared, and might retain a portion of their property,
but their new habitation must not be within ten miles of the sea. This
was meant to be impossible, and it had the effect which was desired.
When the envoys returned and related the terms which had been finally
imposed, the popular fury burst out. Those who had been prominent in
advising the negotiations for peace were massacred, and the envoys
themselves shared their fate. The Senate, in the face of such a
demonstration, could but come to one decision. It declared war against
Carthage.
It is needless to tell in detail the events of the two first two
campaigns. The Romans led, it would seem, by incompetent generals,
were not so successful as had been expected, and by the close of the
summer of 147 little or no progress had been made. In fact, the Romans
were rather worse off than when they began. Their African allies
began to doubt whether they had chosen the right side. Masinissa's
sons in particular were wavering. They hardly knew, indeed, what to
wish. If Carthage were to fall into the hands of Rome, their own turn
would soon come. Probably the best thing that could happen would be
to have a feeble Carthage, not able to oppress its neighbours, but
still preserving an independent existence as a "buffer-state" between
themselves and Rome.
Then with the appointment of the younger Scipio[27] to the supreme
command of the armies in Africa a great change came over the scene.
He had been serving as a Military Tribune (about equivalent in rank
to a Brigadier-General), and had distinguished himself by his courage
and intelligence. When the elections in Rome came on he went home,
nominally to stand for the Ædileship, but probably with higher views.
He was thirty-seven years of age, and so five years under the legal
age for the Consulship. But to the Consulship he was elected. The
presiding officer protested in vain. The people would have it so, and
the president yielded. And when the ballot for provinces took place,
Scipio's colleague yielded again, and Africa, to which indeed he seemed
to have an hereditary right, was assigned to him.
He sailed at once for Carthage, and began by rescuing one of the
generals who were about to be superseded from a dangerous position
into which his imprudence had led him. Then he set the affairs of the
army in order. The camp was cleared of a crowd of idlers, soldiers'
servants, sutlers, and dealers. Then active operations were begun. A
suburb of the city, called Megara, where the wealthier citizens had
their homes, was taken. It was soon relinquished, indeed, for it was
found too costly to keep, but this success led to the abandonment of
the camp which had been fortified outside the walls, and which was
the first line of defence. The city was now almost invested. On the
land side the blockade was complete, and no more supplies could be
introduced; and now Scipio began to block up the mouth of the harbour.
But here the besieged foiled him. They built a fleet of fifty ships,
and they dug a new channel from the inner harbour to the open sea. The
Romans were taken by surprise. They had no idea that a fleet was being
built, and they saw it for the first time when it issued from a harbour
which was also a new creation. If the Carthaginians had acted at once,
for they found the Roman fleet wholly unprepared for action, they
might at least postponed the end. But they contented themselves with
a demonstration. A day or two after there was a drawn battle between
the two fleets, but when the conflict was renewed on the morrow, the
advantage rested with Rome. But the resources of the besieged were
not exhausted. An attack was made on the city on the land-side, and
battering-rams were brought up to the walls. But the besieged made a
determined sally, drove back the assailants, and burnt their engines.
During the winter Scipio busied himself with cutting off the supplies
that the city still received from the interior. He also routed an army
of native allies which had been gathered for its relief.
In 146 the siege was pressed with renewed vigour. The harbour of the
warships and the Lower City were occupied after a feeble resistance.
Then the Upper City was attacked. The struggle here was long and
fierce; the houses had to be taken one by one. Each was obstinately
defended, in each many non-combatants perished. This was kept on for
seven days and nights. The Romans fought in relief parties; but Scipio
never rested. He snatched such food and sleep as chance threw in his
way, and was never absent from his post of leader. At last nothing
but the citadel was left. A deputation was sent to Scipio offering
to surrender on the single condition that the lives of the prisoners
should be spared. Scipio granted this prayer, but excepted the
deserters. Fifty thousand men, women, and children availed themselves
of the conqueror's mercy, and gave themselves up. Only Hasdrubal and
his family, his chief officers, and the deserters were left. The
citadel was impregnable, but it could be reduced by hunger. Then
Hasdrubal contrived to escape from his companions, and creeping into
the presence of Scipio, begged for his life. This was granted, not
because the suppliant deserved any mercy, but because he could make
himself useful to the conqueror. A tragic scene followed. Hasdrubal's
wife had observed with disgust her husband's pusillanimity. Leading
her two children by the hand, she advanced to the front of the wall.
For Scipio she had no reproaches, but on her husband she invoked every
curse that she had at her command. Then she stabbed her children, threw
them into the flames, for the deserters, resolved not to fall into
Roman hands, had set fire to the citadel, and followed them herself. By
the express orders of the Senate, but against the wishes of Scipio, the
whole city was burnt. He is said to have burst into tears as he looked
on the conflagration, after repeating the well-known lines from the
Iliad (vi. 417-8), in which the great champion of Troy foretells the
doom of the city.
"The day wherein Ilium the holy shall perish, will come; it is near
Unto Priam withal, and the folk of the king of the ashen spear."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 25: The presiding magistrate put the question to every
senator in turn.]
[Footnote 26: The influence of the commercial party may be seen in the
destruction of Corinth in the same year that saw the fall of Carthage;
for the policy followed in the case of Carthage many reasons could be
given, but the destruction of Corinth was certainly indefensible. No
one could pretend that it would ever be dangerous to Rome. The act was
one of commercial jealousy pure and simple.]
[Footnote 27: The younger Scipio was the grandson by adoption, and the
nephew by marriage, of the Elder Scipio. He was the son of L. Æmilius
Paullus, and was adopted by the Elder Scipio's son Publius, whose
feeble health had prevented him from taking any part in public life.
Publius's mother was a sister of Æmilius Paullus, and therefore aunt of
the younger Scipio by blood and grandmother by adoption.]
_BOOK V_
ROME AND THE BARBARIANS. THE RISE
I. THE DAY OF ALLIA
One Roman historian tells us that his countrymen believed that while
their valour could easily overcome all other dangers, a contest with
the Gauls must be for existence and not for fame; another remarks
that the Senate never neglected any tidings that might reach it of a
movement among this people. For such movements there was a special
name,[28] and a special reserve of treasure was laid up in the Capitol
to be employed when this particular danger threatened the State. There
were Gauls, as the classical atlas tells us, on either side of the
Alps. The tribes that dwelt south of the Alps were unquiet neighbours
to the Latin nations, but the real danger arose when a swarm of
invaders from beyond the mountains, moved by the love of adventure, or
driven by famine, descended on the fertile plains of Northern Italy.
The first invasion of which we have any detailed account took place in
the early part of the fourth century B.C.
The true story of this event has, as usual, been not a little overgrown
with legend. It was said that the Gauls, under their king Brennus, were
induced to attack the Etrurian town of Clusium by one of its citizens,
who hoped thus to avenge a private injury inflicted by a powerful noble
who could not be reached by the law.[29] The inhabitants, alarmed by
the formidable appearance of the invading host, sent envoys to Rome
begging for help. Livy tells us that there was no alliance between
the two towns. All that the Clusines could plead was that they had
remained neutral in the long war between Rome and Veii, an Etrurian
town, which it would have been natural to help. The Romans sent envoys
to the Gauls, three brothers belonging to the Fabian house (not a
very likely thing, one would imagine), with a message to this effect:
"Clusium is a friendly State; we must help it even by force of arms,
if that should be necessary, when it is wantonly attacked. But we wish
to avoid war if it is possible. Let the Gauls explain what they want."
The Gallic leaders replied that they too preferred to be on good terms
with the Romans, who, from the fact that their help had thus been
asked, were evidently brave men. What they wanted from the Clusines
was a portion of land. They had more than they could use, whereas the
Gauls had none. The Roman envoys made an indignant reply. "By what
right do you demand land from its lawful possessors; what have you
Gauls to do with an Etrurian town?" "Our rights," said the Gauls, "is
in the point of our swords; as for property, all things belong to the
brave." The conference broke up, and both parties prepared for battle.
In the conflict that ensued the brothers Fabii took a prominent part.
So conspicuous was their valour that it could not but be noticed both
by friend and foe; one of them in particular was recognised as he was
stripping the arms from a Gallic chieftain whom he had slain in single
combat. The Gauls now suspended all hostilities against Clusium.
They were bent on demanding satisfaction from Rome for this gross
offence against the law of nations. The more impetuous spirits were for
marching against the offending city, but the older and more prudent
counsellors prevailed when they suggested that envoys should be sent
to represent their wrongs, and to claim redress. The envoys came, and
were heard by the Senate, which acknowledged the transgression of the
Fabii, but hesitated to accede to the demand that the guilty should be
given up. Unable or unwilling to come to a decision, they referred the
matter to the General Assembly of the People. Here there was little
chance of justice being done. The proposition that these brave nobles
should be given up was at once scouted. The Fabii's were not only not
punished, but were actually elected Military Tribunes[30] for the
ensuing year. No one thought of the step usually taken in an emergency,
the appointment of the ablest soldier available as dictator. Even the
ordinary preparations for meeting a formidable enemy were neglected.
Meanwhile the Gauls were advancing on Rome, thinking of nothing but
vengeance on this insolent city. The appearance of their host terrified
the inhabitants of the country through which they passed, but they did
not turn aside to attack or plunder any of the towns on their route.
They gave it to be understood that all their quarrel was with Rome.
Roused at length to a sense of their danger by the frequent messengers
who came hurrying in from the north the Romans hastily got together
such troops as they could find, and marched out to meet the enemy, who
had now advanced as far as the river Allia, little more than eleven
miles from the city. Livy tells us that the generals formed no camp,
constructed no rampart to protect them in case of a reverse, and
offered no sacrifice. The battle-line had to be widely extended if they
were to be protected against a flanking movement; but this could not be
done without perilously weakening the centre. It mattered, however,
little or nothing what arrangements were or were not made. There was
nothing like a battle; only a blind panic and headlong flight. "No
lives," says Livy, "were lost in battle." But thousands were cut down
in the pursuit, while the fugitives, so densely packed was the throng,
hindered each other from escaping; many perished on the Tiber bank,
where they stood helpless, the enemy behind, the impassable stream in
front; not a few were drowned, some who, unable to swim, yet threw
themselves into the stream, in the wild hope of somehow struggling
through, or, being swimmers, were weighed down by their heavy armour.
Of those who escaped the greater part made their way to Veii. These
neglected to send any tidings of their safety to Rome. Those who
reached Rome did not even stop to shut the gates of the city, but
hurried to take possession of the Capitol.
All this sounds very romantic, not to say improbable. It is strange
to find these barbarous Gauls so strict in demanding an observance of
international laws. And then the battle--there was, indeed, nothing
Roman about it. Where were the three Fabii, all in high command, whose
valour had been so conspicuous at Clusium, but on the Allia are unable
either to rally their soldiers or to strike a blow for themselves?
And the sacrifices--is it credible that so regular a custom, observed
almost mechanically, was for this one occasion omitted? And the
behaviour of the fugitives--what could be more unlikely? If they were
in too great a hurry to shut the city gates, were there no old men
or boys to do it? Livy manifestly piles up every possible neglect or
misdoing to heighten the dramatic contrast between reckless pride and
humiliating defeat. But that a great disaster occurred at the Allia,
it is impossible to doubt. Allia was, indeed, as Virgil calls it,
_infaustum nomen_, an ill-starred name. For centuries afterwards its
anniversary, the 15th of July, _Dies Alliensis_, was marked as one
on which no public business could be transacted. When Tacitus wishes
to describe the height of reckless impiety in Vitellius, one of the
short-lived Emperors who succeeded one another after the fall of the
Julian Cæsars, he says that he was so regardless of all law, human or
divine, that he actually published an edict on the fatal Day of Allia.
The story goes on in the same romantic style. But a sudden change comes
over the whole temper of the nation, from the highest to the lowest.
Impiety, recklessness, and cowardice give place to reverence, prudence,
and constancy. The Capitol, the last hope of Rome, is to be held by
its picked warriors. No one is to consume its scanty stores who cannot
contribute his full share to its defence. The populace obey without a
murmur, and flock out of the city, seeking a refuge where they may, or
remain to await their doom. The old nobles who have borne high office,
consuls, prætors, and senators, will not leave the city but will abide,
each in his robes of office and chair of state, the coming of the foe;
the holy things from temple and shrine are either buried or conveyed to
some place of safety. Now all is dignity as before all was disgrace.
The story goes on in the same romantic style--the venerable old men,
treated at first with reverence, are slaughtered when one of them
resents with a blow of his ivory sceptre a barbarian's too familiar
touch. The Capitol is closely invested, resolutely defended, but almost
lost by the carelessness of the sentries. The besiegers had either
observed the track of one of the messengers who had carried some
communication from the garrison to the outer world, or had discovered
the place where the ascent was not too difficult to attempt. They make
the venture one moonlight night--one would think that the moonlight
would be more of a hindrance than a help--and almost succeed. The watch
has neglected its duty; the very dogs are asleep. But Roman piety
saves the last refuge of Rome. There was a flock of sacred geese in
the temple of Juno, and these had been not only spared but fed, hard
pressed as the garrison had been for food. And now they give warning of
the enemy's approach. Manlius, one of the most distinguished veterans
in the garrison, for he had been Consul, is roused by their clamour,
hurries to the edge of the height, hurls one man down by driving his
shield into his face, slays others, and gives the garrison time to
assemble.
But though the Capitol is not to be taken by force, it cannot stand out
against hunger. Negotiations are opened, for the Gauls have somehow
given it to be understood that they are ready to depart if a sufficient
price can be paid. A thousand pounds weight of gold is agreed upon for
the ransom. As the weighing is going on one of the Romans complains
that the weights are unfair. Thereupon the insolent Gaul throws his
sword into the scale, uttering words that were beyond all bearing to a
Roman ear, "Woe to the vanquished!"
But the gods will not allow the most pious of nations to suffer
this last humiliation. Before the price can be handed over to these
insulting barbarians, the greatest of Roman soldiers appears upon the
scene, orders scales and gold to be removed, bids the Gauls prepare for
conflict, and defeats them, first in the Forum itself, and afterwards
at the eighth milestone from Rome, as completely as they had themselves
routed the Romans at Allia.
We need not endeavour to disentangle the true from the false in this
story. That Roman pride covered a humiliating fall is plain enough, and
we may well doubt the too opportune arrival of the victorious Camillus.
But it is certainly true that Rome recovered with amazing rapidity from
what might well have been an overwhelming blow. In the first three
centuries and a half of her existence Rome has made so little progress
that she has still a rival city not more than ten miles from her gates.
She is reduced to her last stronghold, and has to ransom even that.
Nevertheless in the course of another century and a half she is in
undisputed possession of the whole of Italy. It has been suggested, not
without probability, that the other Italian peoples suffered even more
from this barbarian deluge, and that the Roman arms when once the acute
crisis had passed encountered a less formidable resistance.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 28: _Tumultus._]
[Footnote 29: A very similar story is told of the coming of the Moors
into Spain. It is quite possible that in both cases the invaders may
have received help, in the way of guidance or information, from some
one who had an injury to avenge; but the national movement itself must
have had some deeper and more powerful cause.]
[Footnote 30: These officers, "Military Tribunes with Consular
power," to give their full title, were sometimes elected in place of
the two Consuls. According to Livy this was done nearly fifty times
between the years 445-367 B.C. The arrangement had its origin in the
difficulty between the patricians and the plebeians. The former could
not reconcile themselves to the ideas of a plebeian consul. After
the reconciliation of the two orders by the compromise known as the
_Licinian Rogations_, it was not done again.]
II
APOLLO THE DEFENDER
We need not follow the story of Rome and the Gauls through its details.
Time after time we find them leagued with the nations of Italy, when
these were at war with the great power which was slowly compelling
them either to subjection or to alliance. We find them, for instance,
fighting side by side with the Samnites at Sentinum (295 B.C.), and
with the Etrurians at the Vadimonian Lake (283 B.C.). But they made no
really formidable attack on Rome for a long period after 390. The early
part of the third century B.C. was a period of great unrest among the
tribes on both sides of the Alps. In 279 this culminated in an invasion
of Southern Europe so formidable that though Rome was not immediately
concerned with it, some account of it must be given.
According to the narrative of Pausanias, who introduces the story as
a digression in his description of Delphi, the Gauls invaded Greece
under the leadership of a certain Brennus, the same name, it will be
observed, as that borne by the conqueror of Rome (the word _Brennus_
has been said to mean "king"; but Celtic scholars are not agreed upon
the point). His forces are said to have amounted to 150,000 infantry,
a figure on which the authorities are fairly unanimous, and cavalry
variously estimated at from 60,000 to 10,000.[31] The Greeks, though
in a very depressed condition, roused themselves to resist. It was not
a choice, as it had been two centuries before, between freedom and
servitude; it was a question of life or death. The barbarians spared
no one, and if they could not be checked in their advance, Greece
would be turned into a desert. The stand was to be made, as of old,
at Thermopylæ. The comparison between the forces led by Leonidas and
those now assembled is interesting. The most numerous contingent was
from a nation which scarcely appears in the history of Greece at its
best days, the Ætolians. "Very numerous and including every arm," says
Pausanias. Their heavy-armed infantry numbered 9,000. The other figures
he does not give, or they have disappeared from his text. The whole
force may have amounted to between thirty and forty thousand.
A battle that was fought in the Pass ended greatly to the advantage of
the Greeks. The Gauls with their long and unwieldy swords and cumbrous
shields were no match for their antagonists, though they fought with
desperate valour. Their cavalry, the strongest arm they possessed,
could not act on account of the nature of the ground. The result was
that they were driven back with very heavy loss, while the Greeks had
but forty killed.
Brennus, who seems to have had some military ability, seems to have
become aware that the Ætolians made up the most numerous and effective
part of the Greek army. He conceived the idea of detaching them by
sending a force under his second-in-command to ravage Ætolia. The
stratagem succeeded. The Ætolians, on hearing of the movement, hastened
to march to the defence of their country. They were too late to save
two of their frontier towns, which were stormed and sacked in the most
brutal manner. But they were in time to exact a heavy vengeance from
the barbarians. Of the fifty thousand who had been detached on this
expedition, less than half returned to the camp at Thermopylæ.
The incidents that followed bear a curious resemblance to the history
of the first defence of Thermopylæ. The path by which the Persians,
through the treachery of Ephialtes, were able to take the defenders of
the pass in the rear was again used for the same purpose. The Phocian
pickets were surprised as before, being hindered by the mist from
seeing the Gauls till these were close upon them. But there was no
obstinate determination among the Greeks to die upon the ground. They
were carried off by the Athenian fleet, which from the first had been
in attendance, keeping as close as possible to the shore.
The object which now roused the cupidity of the barbarians was the
shrine of Delphi with its treasury, still rich in the offerings of many
generations of worshippers and inquirers, though it had not altogether
escaped the hand of the spoiler.[32] As in the Persian war, the
terrified inhabitants inquired of the god whether they should remove
or conceal the sacred treasure. Again, as before, the answer was that
the god would take care of his own. "I will provide, and with me the
Maidens veiled in white," were the words of the oracle. The greater
part of the army mustered at Thermopylæ had gone home; but there were
some thousands who remained to protect Delphi. The god did not disdain
to use their services, though the most effective protection came--so
runs the story--from his own interference. The ground on which the
Gauls had pitched their camp was shaken throughout the day by repeated
shocks of earthquake, while overhead the thunder rolled and the
lightning flashed incessantly. Through the darkened atmosphere might
be seen the flashing arms of warriors who were more than mortal--one
of them, it was said, the hero Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who had met
his death at Delphi many centuries before, and had ever since been
worshipped as a local hero. That day, however, the Gauls held their
own; many of the Phocians, in particular, were slain. But the night
that followed was one of terrible suffering. A sharp frost set in, and
following the frost came a heavy fall of snow. The snow symbolised
"the maidens vested in white"--such, at least, was the rationalistic
explanation given in after years. Nor was this all: great masses of
stone from Parnassus, and rolling into the camp of the barbarians
crushed as many as twenty or thirty by a single blow. The next day the
Greek garrison at Delphi advanced against the invaders, the main body
making a front attack, the Phocians, who were well acquainted with
the country, assailing the rear. The Gauls did not lack in courage or
firmness. Suffering though they did intensely from the cold, they made
a resolute stand, and did not retreat till their leader was severely
wounded and carried fainting off the field. Again the night was more
fatal than the day. After dark a panic fear fell upon the camp. The
barbarians seemed to see and hear enemies everywhere, and turned their
arms upon each other. After this their destruction was certain. To a
host without discipline a retreat is fatal. The Gauls were without
stores, for they reckoned to be supported by the countries through
which they passed. But now the victorious enemy hung upon their rear,
and cut off any stragglers that ventured to leave the main army. Famine
and the incessant attacks of the pursuers reduced their numbers till
there was but a scanty remnant of the great host that a few weeks
before had descended on Northern Greece. Brennus, it is said, poisoned
himself, unable to face his people at home after so disastrous a
campaign.
Pausanias tells us that not one of the invading Gauls quitted Greece
alive. It is hardly probable that this is true; and other writers gave
a different account. What is certain is that one great division of the
swarm that had descended from Northern into Southern Europe met with a
very different fortune from that which overtook Brennus. This took a
more easterly route, and plundering and destroying as it went reached
the shores of the Hellespont. (This seems to have happened in 278 B.C.,
the year after that in which Delphi had been attacked.) The Gauls cast
covetous glances on the rich territories of Asia, now separated from
them by only a narrow stretch of water, and in one or another contrived
to reach them. One division seized a few small vessels and boats, and,
as no sort of opposition was attempted, ferried themselves across; the
other was actually transported by an Asiatic Greek prince, who was
contending with his brother for the kingdom of Bithynia. They secured
the victory for him, but Bithynia, and indeed the whole of Western
Asia Minor, paid a heavy price for their help. Their history during
the next few years is very obscure, but we may gather that they roamed
from province to province, laying waste all the countries which they
traversed. The unwarlike inhabitants of Asia Minor were quite powerless
to check them. After some twelve years Antiochus, King of Syria, son
of one of the great generals trained by Alexander, undertook the task,
and accomplished it with such success that he earned the surname of
_Soter_, "the Saviour." He could not indeed expel them; in fact, so far
was their power from being broken that in 261 Antiochus lost his life
in a battle with them. But the general result of the war was that the
invaders were glad to settle down in a definite region which was ceded
to them, and which was known by the name of Galatia, or Gallo-pæcia.
The Galatians afterwards played an important part in history. But with
this we are not now concerned.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 31: Pausanias says that every trooper had two mounted
attendants, themselves practised warriors and ready to supply him with
a fresh horse, or even to take his place in the ranks. They must have
had therefore much mobility, a phrase with which we have lately become
very familiar.]
[Footnote 32: The treasury was robbed by the Phocians in 346, in what
was called the Second Sacred War. The Phocians were condemned to make
restitution by paying a fine of 10,000 talents (£2,500,000), but it is
certain that they were never able to pay this amount. We may be sure,
on the other hand, that many offerings had been made in the intervening
time, and that as the treasury had remained intact for twenty years, it
probably contained considerable wealth.]
II.
THE SWARM FROM THE NORTH
For a century and a half after the events recorded in my last chapter,
no important southward movement of the northern nations took place.
The destruction of one great host of Gaul and the permanent settlement
of another in Western Asia must have diminished the population of the
region beyond the Alps, and lightened the pressure on the means of
living. Rome was not called upon to meet any powerful army of invaders;
a fortunate circumstance, when we consider the exhaustion that must
have followed the terrible struggle of the Second Punic War. After the
wars of the first half of the second century B.C., which practically
reduced the successors of Alexander to insignificance, Rome even began
to advance her frontiers northward.
Curiously enough these successes had the effect of bringing down on
the Republic a more formidable attack, the invasion led by Brennus
not excepted, than she ever had had to meet before. For some years
previous to the year 113 B.C., a homeless people called Cimbri, a
word variously translated by friends and enemies as "champions" or
"robbers," had been wandering about in the regions north of the Danube.
The word suggests the well-known name of _Cymri_, but the resemblance
of sound is deceptive. The Cimbri were really of the Germanic stock.
In fact a remnant of the tribe preserved the name for many years
afterwards in what seems to have been its original habitation, the
peninsula of Denmark. What cause drove them southward cannot be stated
with certainty. An ancient writer records one account that had come
to his ears, that large tracts of land occupied by the tribe on the
shores of the Baltic had been overflowed by the sea, and that its
inhabitants were compelled to migrate or to starve. The story seemed
incredible to the writer who preserved it. To us, who can easily find a
parallel in the history of the great migrations of mankind, it appears
not improbable. And this, in the absence of evidence, which indeed is
not likely to be forthcoming, is all that we can say. For some time
the Celtic tribes that occupied the banks of the Danube had kept the
Cimbri from reaching that river. But when the Celts had been seriously
weakened by the armies of Rome, they were no longer able, or, it may
be, no longer willing to continue this resistance. It is quite likely
indeed that they welcomed as allies the people which they had been
accustomed to regard as enemies. One thing is certain, that either
then, or during their previous wanderings, the Cimbri had added to
their hosts many Celtic comrades. The Celts were better armed, more
advanced in the military art, and--a most important consideration--more
familiar with the Roman methods of warfare. Hence we are not surprised
to find among the leaders of the invading host, Germanic as it was in
the main, some unquestionably Celtic names.
The movement was on a scale and of a kind new to Roman experience.
It was no expedition of warriors. The whole nation had come. The
Cimbri had a vast array of waggons with them, containing their wives,
their children, and all that belonged to them. There was a curious
resemblance between them--something of the same kind may be seen to-day
in a shipload of Scandinavian emigrants--for all were huge of stature,
the women falling little short of the men, and all fair-haired. For
weapons they had a javelin and a long sword; every man carried a long
narrow shield, and the chiefs among them were also protected by coats
of mail.
The first relation between the Romans and the Cimbri was not other than
friendly. Papirius Carbo, the Consul in command of the Roman army,
required them to abstain from interfering with the Taurisci, a Celtic
tribe inhabiting the northern bank of the Danube, on the ground of
being in alliance with Rome. The Cimbri did not refuse obedience. Then
Carbo was guilty of a shameful act of treachery, which, as we shall
see, met with its due reward. He offered the strangers guides, who were
to lead them to a region which they might occupy without hindrance.
These guides had in fact instructions to lead the Cimbri into an ambush
which had been carefully prepared for them. The plot succeeded in a
way, but the result was very different from what Carbo had expected.
The Cimbri turned upon their betrayers, inflicted upon them a heavy
loss, and, but for the opportune breaking of a great storm over the
battlefield, would have entirely destroyed them.
The conquerors did not move southwards, as might have been expected,
but marching west through Northern Switzerland and South-eastern Gaul,
remained quiet for a while. They were, however, still in need of land
which they could call their own, and they asked the help of the Roman
general who was in command at the frontier to help them in obtaining
it. His own reply was to attack them, with no better result than a
terrible slaughter among his troops and the loss of his camp. The
Cimbri sent an embassy to Rome, repeating the request that they made to
the Consul, and while they waited for the reply employed themselves in
subjugating their Celtic neighbours.
Eight years had now passed since the defeat of Carbo, and the
unexpected reprieve which Rome had enjoyed was at an end. The Cimbri,
disappointed at receiving no reply to their demands from Rome, and
recognising that it would be more profitable to invade Italy than
to fight for less desirable regions in Gaul, marched to the Rhone
under the command of their king Boiorix. The Romans had no less
than three armies on the spot. The weakest of the three, commanded
by the ex-Consul Æmilius Scaurus, was the first to be attacked. It
was routed, and its commander taken prisoner. Brought before King
Boiorix, Scaurus warned the invader not to venture on invading Italy,
and was put to death for what was judged to be presumption. The two
remaining armies were concentrated at Arausio, on the left bank of the
Rhone. Unhappily the two officers in command were enemies. They would
not occupy a common camp, nor would they deliberate on the plan of
campaign that was to be followed. The result was a frightful disaster.
It is possible that a conflict might have been avoided altogether.
Even after the defeat of Scaurus the two consular armies presented so
formidable an appearance that Boiorix expressed himself willing to
treat. Negotiations were actually in progress when Cæpio, an ex-Consul,
who was inferior in rank to the Consul Maximus, committed an act of
surprising folly. Fearing that his colleague might gain all the credit
if the negotiations with the Cimbri were successful, he attacked
the enemy with the force under his immediate command. The battle of
Arausio, fought on October 6, 105, was not less fatal than Allia and
Cannæ, followed as it was by the defeat of the other army. Eighty
thousand soldiers are said to have been slain on the field, or to have
perished in the retreat.
At Rome the result was something like a revolution. The political
history of the time is outside my province. It will be enough,
therefore, to say that the most renowned general of the time, C.
Marius, was put in supreme command. He was made Consul, in spite of the
law that forbade especial election to this office, and he was continued
in command for five years in succession.
The Cimbri had not actually carried out their intention of invading
Italy. They had turned aside to plunder South-western Gaul, and even to
cross the Pyrenees into Spain. Marius made use of the delay, which it
is scarcely too much to say was the salvation of Rome, to strengthen
the defences of Northern Italy, to recall the wavering tribes of
Cisalpine Gaul to their allegiances, and to find auxiliaries among
the peoples which had as much reason as had Rome herself to dread the
success of the Cimbri.
This people had now received considerable reinforcements. They had been
joined by some Helvetian tribes, and by the Teutones, old neighbours
in Northern Europe, and now, by a curious chance, associated with
them in their invasion of the south. The first intention of the
allies was to force their way into Italy in one vast army. This was
given up, probably on account of the mechanical difficulty connected
with transport. It was finally arranged that the Teutones, with the
Helvetian tribe of the Amburones and a Cimbrian contingent, were to
invade Italy by the western passes of the Alps, and that the Cimbri,
also reinforced by some Helvetians, should try the passes to the east.
It is with the former of these two divisions that I am first concerned.
Marius had taken up his position in a strongly fortified camp at the
junction of the Rhone and the Isère. Here he resolutely refused to risk
the chances of a battle. It was no question, he represented to the
impatient spirits in his army, of victories and of triumphs, but of the
safety of Rome, which would be lost if her last army were defeated. To
the soldiers, who were not less impatient, he used different arguments,
appealing, for instance, to their superstition. He affirmed that he
was in possession of oracles which promised Rome a decisive victory,
which was to be won, however, at a certain place and time. There was
a prophetess in his camp, a Syrian, very possibly a Jewess by birth,
whom he professed to consult, and who, we may reasonably suppose,
accommodated her answers to his ideas of the military necessities
of the time. The barbarians were encouraged by the inaction of the
Romans to make an attack on the camp. They were easily repulsed, and
speedily abandoned the attempt, marching forward as if the Roman force
might safely be neglected. For six days, so vast was their array of
fighting-men and baggage, they filed past the camp, uttering insulting
cries as they went. When they had passed, Marius broke up his camp and
followed them. He never relaxed, however, his precautions. He chose
every night a strong position for his camp, and fortified it to resist
an attack. At Aquæ Sextiæ (Aix)[33] he determined to bring the enemy to
an engagement.
The story ran that he deliberately chose a position for his camp where
the supply of water was short, and that when the soldiers complained he
pointed to the river that ran close to the position of the barbarians,
saying, "There is drink, but you must buy it with blood." "Let us go
then," cried the soldiers, "while our blood still flows in our veins."
Marius insisted upon their first fortifying the camp. The legion was
too well disciplined not to obey him, but there were others less
amenable to discipline, and a collision with the enemy took place
before the day was out. The camp followers, who had no water for their
beasts, or even for themselves, flocked down to the river, having
armed themselves as well as they could. Here they came into collision
with the Amburones, who, taken at first by surprise, soon recovered
their courage, and raising their warcry with what is described as
a terrific volume of sound, advanced to repel the new-comers. The
light-armed Ligurians on the Roman side came to the help of their
comrades, and these again were supported by some of the regular troops.
The affair was a skirmish on a very large scale rather than a battle.
The Romans had much the best of it, but they were far from feeling the
security of conquerors. They spent the night under arms, expecting from
hour to hour an assault upon their camp.
The barbarians, however, were less confident than Marius supposed. For
two days they remained inactive, and even then it was not they who
challenged the conflict. Marius, who had great gifts as a general, had
observed a convenient place in the rear of the enemy's position where
an ambush might be conveniently laid. Here he posted three thousand
men under the command of Marcellus. In the battle that followed the
unexpected onslaught of this force on the barbarian rear did much to
decide the issue of the day. Attacked both in front and in rear the
Teutones gave way. To give way under such circumstances meant utter
destruction. What the numbers of the slain and the captured may have
been it is impossible to say. Levy says that 200,000 were slain,
180,000 taken prisoners. Other authorities reduce the number of the
slain by a half. One thing, however, is certain, that the Teutones
ceased to exist. Those who did not fall on the field or in the rout
put an end to their own lives. The women also killed themselves rather
than fall into the hands of the enemy. It is curious that the name of
the tribe was preserved by the remnant left behind in its original
seat when the great host migrated southward, and that it is now used
to designate one of the great families of the human race. Marius was
just about to set fire to a huge pile of the spoils of the dead when
messengers from Rome reached the field, announcing that he had been
elected for the fifth time to the Consulship.
But Rome was not yet out of danger, for the Cimbri were yet to be
accounted for. They had forced their way into Italy, Lutatius Catulus,
the colleague of Marius in the Consulship, finding himself unable to
stop them. His original intention had been to defend the passes of
the Tyrol, but he relinquished the idea and took up a strong position
on the Athesis (_Adige_). Even here he did not feel safe. His troops
indeed were so terrified by the report of the barbarians' advance that
they refused to remain, and Catulus, making a merit of necessity,
putting himself at their head, retreated to the southern side of the
Po, leaving the richest plains of Northern Italy to the mercy of the
foe.
When news of the threatening position of affairs reached Rome Marius
was summoned to the capital to advise on the course to be pursued. As
soon as he arrived the people, with whom he was in the very highest
favour, offered him a triumph for his victory over the Teutones. He
refused to accept the honour so long as the Cimbri remained on Roman
soil. He at once went northwards, and summoning to him the _élite_ of
his legions, marched to reinforce Catulus. He effected a junction with
this general near Vercellæ (_Vercelli_). The Cimbri had not heard, it
seems, of the disaster which had overtaken the Teutones, and put off
fighting in the hope of being joined by them. They even sent envoys to
the Roman generals, demanding an allotment of land for themselves and
their kinsmen. "We have given your kinsmen their portion, and they are
not likely to be disturbed in it," replied Marius with grim humour.
"You shall pay dearly for your jest," they replied and prepared to
depart. "Nay," said the Roman, "you must not depart without saluting
your relatives," and he ordered the captive kings of the Teutones who
had been captured in an attempt to cross the Alps to be produced. After
this nothing remained but to fight with as little delay as possible.
[Illustration: Defeat of the Cimbri in the Battle at the Waggons.]
The combined forces of the Romans numbered between 50,000 and 60,000.
We have no trustworthy account of the battle which followed, Plutarch's
narrative being borrowed, it would seem, from writers not favourable
to Marius, from Catulus himself, who left a history of his campaign,
and from the notebook of Sylla, who was serving with Catulus. His story
is that Marius missed his way in a dust-storm that suddenly swept over
the plain, and that he wandered about vainly seeking the enemy till
the battle had been practically decided by the courage of the troops
commanded by Catulus and his lieutenant, Sulla. It is certain, however,
that at Rome the credit of the victory was, in the main, assigned to
Marius. About one part of the battle there is, however, no doubt.
Never has there been seen a more tragic spectacle. The scene that
closed the day at _Aquæ Sextiæ_ was repeated on a larger scale and with
added horrors at the _Campi Raudii_.[34] The Cimbrian women stood on
the waggons robed in black. They slaughtered the fugitives when these
sought temporary shelter behind the barricade, sparing neither father,
brother, or husband. Then they slaughtered their children, and finally
put an end to their own lives. As many as sixty thousand prisoners,
however, were taken, while the number that fell on the field of battle
is said to have been twice as great. The Cimbri perished as utterly as
the Teutones.
The triumph which Marius and his colleague celebrated on their return
to Rome was indeed well deserved if we consider the consequences of the
victory which it was given to reward. For more than two centuries Rome
was not again called upon to fight for her life against barbarian foes.
Her armies met indeed more than once with serious disasters, but these
defeats were incurred in campaigns of aggression. And if, as might
easily happen, her frontiers were sometimes crossed, it was a mere
matter of hordes of casual plunderers, whose movements did not really
affect the general course of events.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 33: About 15 miles to the north of Marseilles. It must be
distinguished, of course, from Aix-les-Bains.]
[Footnote 34: The spot cannot be identified, but it must have been near
Vercellæ.]
IV
BEYOND THE PYRENEES
We have seen how Carthage, expelled from the islands that belonged to
Italy, found compensation in Spain. When the issue of the Second Punic
War was decided against her, and her domains were limited to Africa,
Spain passed into Roman hands. Much of the country, however, had never
acknowledged the rule of either power, and it required two centuries of
effort before it became what it was for the first three centuries of
our era, the most completely Latinized of all the Roman provinces.
The Carthaginians were finally driven from Spain in 206. We may pass
quickly over the next fifty years. By degrees the Roman power advanced
till the whole peninsula, some mountainous regions in the north and
centre excepted, became subject to it. Rebellions were frequent, for
the Roman system was to change the provincial governors almost from
year to year, and some of these officials were cruel and extortionate.
As I am not writing a history either of Rome or of Spain, I must limit
myself to the most important and representative persons and events.
Viriathus was a native of Lusitania, a region nearly corresponding
to what is now called Portugal. His hatred of the Romans came from a
shameful act of treachery from which his countrymen suffered at the
hands of one of the Roman generals. This man had expressed his pity
for the poverty of their country, which drove them, he said, into
robbing their neighbours. He would give them, if they would trust him,
lands better worth cultivating. What he did was to massacre them in
detachments, one detachment being kept in ignorance of the fate of
those who had gone before. Viriathus was one of the few who escaped.
It was not for some time that he secured the complete confidence of his
countrymen, or was able to collect an army with which he could meet his
adversaries in the field. His first great success was won in 147 B.C.,
when the proprætor Vetilius was drawn into an ambush and defeated.
Vetilius was taken prisoner and killed by his captors, who, seeing
only a "very fat old man," did not recognise his value. Two-fifths of
the army of ten thousand perished at the same time. Another disaster
happened in the year following. Plautius, the Roman general, was
deceived by a pretended retreat, and suffered a heavy loss of men.
Affairs seemed to be in so serious a condition that the authorities
at Rome resolved on sending a large force and as able a commander as
they could find to the seat of war. The man they chose was Fabius,
the brother of the younger Scipio, and a son therefore of the famous
conqueror of Macedonia.[35] Before Fabius could reach the scene of war
another Roman army had been almost destroyed. Fabius himself for a time
could do but little. He had to content himself with getting his forces,
all of them newly recruited, into order. In his second year of command,
however, he inflicted a severe defeat on Viriathus and compelled him to
evacuate the Roman territory.
The war was carried on with varying fortunes for four years. In 141
B.C. it seemed to have been brought to a conclusion highly favourable
to the Lusitanians and their gallant leaders. Viriathus surprised
a Roman army that was investing one of the Lusitanian towns, and
inflicted upon it so heavy a loss that it was compelled to raise
the siege. In their retreat the Romans became entangled in a narrow
pass, and were compelled to surrender. Viriathus was moderate in his
demands. Lusitania was to be independent, and its people recognised as
allies and friends of Rome. This treaty was ratified at Rome. But the
ambition of a Roman general and the bad faith of the Senate brought
this arrangement to an end. Servilius Cæpio was disappointed to find
that the war had been brought to an end, and obtained permission from
the Senate, which had not the effrontery to cancel the treaty, to make
private war upon Viriathus. Before long something happened that gave
the desired pretext, and Viriathus was declared a public enemy. He
sent envoys to the Roman camp to arrange, if it were possible, terms
of peace. Cæpio persuaded them by promises of great rewards to murder
their chief. This they did, stabbing him in the neck as he lay asleep
in his tent fully armed. The blow was so skilfully given that he died
without a groan, and the murderers were able to escape to the Roman
camp. From Cæpio, however, they received nothing but the remark that
the Romans did not approve and could not reward soldiers who slew their
own general. One is glad to record the disappointment of such villains,
but it is not easy to understand the unblushing assurance with which
Roman historians inveigh against the "_Punic faith_," as they are
pleased to call it, of Hannibal. The war was carried on for a time, but
the Lusitanians could find no competent successor to Viriathus and were
compelled to submit.
But Spain was not yet subdued. The scene of war was transferred to
Numantia (now Garay on the upper waters of the Douro). Though not a
walled town, it was a very strong place, environed with woods, situated
on steep cliffs, and protected by two rivers. The one accessible side
was strongly entrenched. The fighting force which it could muster was
small, numbering not more than eight thousand, but there were no better
fighting-men in all Spain. General succeeded general in the Roman camp,
but no advance was made. At last the people of Rome waxed impatient.
There had been, they said, the same disappointment and mismanagement
at Carthage, and they must employ the same man to put an end to them.
Scipio Africanus was accordingly elected. He declined to take any
men from the muster roll. There were soldiers enough, he thought, in
Spain. And there was no lack of volunteers attracted by his remarkable
prestige, among them a company of five hundred to which he gave the
name of the "Company of Friends."[36] Even these he left to follow him
while he hurried on to do for the besieging army at Numantia what he
had done ten years before at Carthage. He cleared it of an idle and
dissolute multitude, among whom soothsayers are specially mentioned,
perpetually consulted, says the historian, by a soldiery demoralised
by fear. A spit, a brass pot, and a single drinking-cup were all that
was allowed for mess furniture; the rations were cut down to flesh,
boiled or roasted (bread, we may presume, though it is not mentioned).
In short, every luxury was banished, some of them seeming, certainly,
a little strange, bath attendants, for instance. "Your mules," he
said, "want rubbing down, for they have no hands, but you have." This
purification effected, he proceeded to harden his men by exercise,
avoiding battle till he thought they were fit for it. It is interesting
to find that in the winter of this year he was joined by a contingent
of African troops under the command of Jugurtha, a grandson of the old
king Masinissa.
The Romans had an overwhelming superiority in numbers, and it was
only a matter of time for a patient and skilful commander such as was
Scipio to make resistance impossible. The river, which the besieged had
found very useful as a method of communicating with the outer world
and replenishing their supplies, was closed against them by elaborate
contrivances. The whole town, which had a compass of fifteen miles, was
closely invested, while a system of signals for the protection of the
siege works from sudden attack was organised. Thirty thousand men were
on constant duty in guarding the turrets and ramparts; twenty thousand
more were held in readiness to deliver an assault wherever and whenever
Scipio might see fit, and there was a further reserve of ten thousand.
Every man of the whole number had his place, which he was not permitted
to leave except under express orders. The besieged did not give up the
hope of damaging the siege works, and made frequent attacks, but they
contended in vain against a system so elaborately complete, one, too,
which received the unwearying attention of the man who had contrived
it. Not a day or a night passed, we are told, without Scipio visiting
the whole circle of the investment. After all, it was by the pressure
of famine not by superior strength that Numantia fell. An embassy
was sent to ask for terms. Scipio, who knew from the deserters how
desperate was the condition of the city, demanded an unconditional
surrender. The unhappy men who carried back this unwelcome reply
were slain by their infuriated countrymen. But there was no other
alternative, except death. That was the choice of the great majority;
a few hundreds came out to the conqueror, such a miserable spectacle,
so squalid, so emaciated, and withal so savage as none had ever seen
before. Scipio chose fifty of the poor wretches to adorn his triumph;
the rest he sold as slaves. It must be admitted that the Romans were
not generous enemies, for Scipio was conspicuous among his countrymen
for humanity and culture. Yet this was the best treatment he could
bring himself to accord to foes so brave that he had never ventured an
assault on their city.
Sertorius is a remarkable, one might say, an admirable figure, but
the story of the long struggle between him and the generals of Rome
scarcely belongs to my subject. Yet it is not wholly unconnected
with it. Political life at Rome did not habitually run into the
excesses which were so lamentably common in the Greek states. When the
aristocrat Coriolanus led the Volscian armies against his own country
the act was exceptional. Sertorius was a democratic Coriolanus.
Sertorius won considerable distinction as a soldier in the campaigns
against the Cimbri and Teutones. When the Consul Cæpio was defeated
he narrowly escaped with his life, swimming across the Rhone in full
armour; he fought at Aquæ Sextiæ, having done good service by entering
the camp of the Teutones as a spy. When the Civil War broke out he
declared for the democratic party. After various changes of fortune
the aristocrats were victorious, and then Sertorius found himself in a
most difficult position. The democratic leaders had given him a command
in Spain, as much to get rid of him, for he was too honourable to suit
them, as for any other reason. By degrees he drifted into the position
of an enemy. He opposed the march of a Consular army sent across the
Pyrenees by the Roman government, crossed to Africa when he could no
longer remain in Spain, and came back again to take command of the
Lusitanians when this tribe rebelled against Rome. Here he was joined
by other adherents of the democratic party, the most important of whom
was a certain Perpenna, who brought with him a considerable force,
and became his second-in-command. All this time, though waging war
with Roman consuls and proconsuls, he claimed to be the Roman governor
of Spain, establishing, for instance, a Senate into which no one but
Roman citizens were admitted. In 77 B.C. Pompey, who was already
famous as a soldier--he had enjoyed the honour of a triumph at the age
of twenty-five--was sent into Spain. But Pompey found his task more
than he could perform. He won, it is true, victories over Sertorius'
lieutenants, but he could not claim any decided success over the great
man himself. In a great battle fought on the banks of the Sucro he
was routed with the loss of six thousand men. Nor during the three
years that followed did he make much way. What really happened during
this time it is not easy to say. By some accounts Sertorius became
self-indulgent and arbitrary; according to others, his Roman colleagues
in command, many of them of better birth than their superior, were
jealous of him. What is certain is that it was by a Roman hand that
he fell. In 72 B.C. he was assassinated by the orders of Perpenna.
Perpenna was wholly unequal to the position which he hoped to attain
by the death of his chief. He was defeated in the first battle which
he fought with the Roman armies, and was taken prisoner. To save his
life he offered to put into Pompey's hands the private letters of
Sertorius. Many of them had been sent from Rome, and would probably
have compromised various persons of distinction. Pompey ordered the
letters to be burnt and Perpenna to be executed.
One Spanish people, the Cantabri, represented by the modern Basques,
still retained their independence. They were not finally subdued till
fifty years after the death of Sertorius, and even then they had to be
watched and kept in order. Spain, however, as a whole became the most
thoroughly Italian in manners and speech of all the provinces of Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 35: Æmilius Paullus. This son had been adopted into the
Fabian family.]
[Footnote 36: Possibly in recollection of the Royal Companions in the
army of Alexander the Great, _vide_ p. 130.]
V
ACROSS EUPHRATES
It would be impossible to pass over without notice one of the most
formidable enemies that Rome ever encountered--Mithradates, King of
Pontus. Mithradates was, indeed, hardly to be called a barbarian. He
had a taste for art and letters, had a museum of Greek and Persian
antiquities, and played the part of a generous patron to poets and
philosophers. But he was a barbarian at heart, savage and cruel in his
dealings with his kinsfolk and his servants, and with no conception
of enlightened rule. Rome, however oppressive and short-sighted her
individual citizens might be, was an agent of civilisation, and her
final triumph over the King of Pontus, the ablest, it may be said, of
the Eastern potentates with whom she came into connection, was for the
general good of mankind.
Mithradates came to the throne of Pontus in early youth. He cherished
from the first ambitious schemes of extending his dominions. At first
his efforts were directed against his neighbours on the north and east;
when he attempted to extend his frontiers westward he naturally came
into collision with the Romans. It is needless to go into details; it
will suffice to say that war was declared in B.C. 89. The time suited
Mithradates very well, for it found Rome in a very helpless condition.
What is called the Social War, _i.e._, the revolt of the Italian allies
against Rome, was still in progress, and there was positively no army
available to meet the huge host, nearly 300,000 in all, which the King
brought into the field. All that the Roman officers in Lesser Asia
could do was to shut themselves up in such fortified towns as they
could hope to hold against the King. Mithradates now gave orders for an
act which was as foolish as it was wicked. He was at Ephesus--the fact
shows how little remained to Rome--when he directed that all Italians
sojourning in Lesser Asia should be put to death. Had he said "Romans,"
not "Italians," he might have secured the combination with himself of
the Italian adversaries of Rome. As it was he hopelessly alienated
them.
Nor did he make himself better liked by his new subjects in Asia. They
found that in exchanging masters they had lost much more than they
had gained. The Romans were often oppressive, but they had at least
some kind of system, and were, in theory at least, subject to law; the
King was a capricious tyrant, whose whims, often as cruel as they were
strange, had to be instantaneously humoured under pain of death or
torture. The end was that Mithradates was beaten everywhere. An army
which he had sent into Greece was destroyed. His arms were equally
unsuccessful in Asia. An attempt to make common cause with Sulla's
political opponents--some of the democratic leaders were actually in
arms--came to nothing. Finally, in 84 peace was made. The King had to
give up all his conquests, to surrender for punishments the men who had
taken a leading part in the massacre, and to pay a war indemnity of
20,000 talents.[37]
After a somewhat uneasy peace of ten years war broke out again. Each
side was suspicious of the other. Mithradates had steadily employed
himself in increasing his dominions in every direction where he did not
come into actual collision with Rome. Rome, on the other hand, had
a way of receiving legacies of kingdoms, very much to the annoyance
of those who conceived themselves to have a better title to the
inheritance. In 75 B.C., for instance, she took possession of Bithynia,
which Mithradates had always coveted, in accordance with the will of
Nicomedes III. The King naturally took offence at this proceeding, and
as he saw at the same time a prospect of taking his great enemy at a
disadvantage, he declared war. He hoped that Sertorius in Spain would
make a diversion in his favour, and he also looked for help from the
pirates who swarmed in the Mediterranean.
These expectations were but partially fulfilled. Sertorius was
very near the end of his career, and could be practically ignored.
Mithradates won a few successes here and there, but he had a very able
soldier, Lucullus, to contend with. After a few months' fighting he had
to fly from his kingdom and take refuge with his son-in-law, Tigranes,
King of Armenia.
Lucullus now ventured on a very bold course of action. He sent envoys
to Tigranes demanding the surrender of Mithradates. This was, of
course, refused, as indeed Lucullus expected and even intended that
it should be. The Roman general then crossed the Euphrates and marched
on Tigranocerta. This was a new city, and was the creation as it bore
the name of Tigranes. He had peopled it with inhabitants, taken, after
the fashion of Eastern kings, from conquered or simply subject tribes,
and had supplied it with all the conveniences and ornaments of Greek
civilisation. Its walls, the historian tells us, were seventy feet
high, and must have been of huge circuit, if there were parks and lakes
within them. Lucullus laid siege to the city, though he could hardly
have had sufficient force to invest it. It was not long before Tigranes
moved to its relief. At first, indeed, he had simply refused to believe
that the Romans could have made so audacious an advance, and with a
savagery, in curious contrast with his veneer of civilisation, ordered
the messenger who brought the unwelcome news to be crucified. When he
learnt the truth, he raised a huge army--250,000 infantry and 50,000
cavalry are the numbers given us by historians--and marched to attack
Lucullus.
Mithradates was with his son-in-law, and strongly advised him not to
risk a battle. "Use your cavalry to cut off his supplies," was his
advice, for the old King knew what Roman soldiers were when they were
led by such a general as Lucullus. Tigranes laughed to scorn this
prudent counsel. He could not conceive that the handful of men which
were all that the Romans had to oppose to him, could possibly stand up
against an army which was nearly twenty times as numerous. For Lucullus
had divided his small force, leaving a part to carry on the siege of
the city while he went to meet Tigranes with the remainder.[38]
The battle that followed was one of the most remarkable in history,
worthy to be ranked with Marathon, for, indeed, the odds were at least
as great as any of which we have a record. Unfortunately for the fame
of Lucullus there was no one to tell the story as it ought to have
been told. The strategy of Lucullus was that employed times out of
number with success by the leader of a regular army acting against an
undisciplined host--he outflanked his opponents. What we can understand
from the accounts, not easily reconcilable, is that a front attack was
made, or rather threatened, by the Roman cavalry. It advanced, and
then retreated, in seeming panic, and the Asiatics pursued in headlong
haste. Meanwhile the outflanking movement had been made unseen by the
infantry. Attacking the rear of the army, they sent the camp-followers
flying in wild confusion; these broke the lines of the infantry; the
infantry in turn threw the horsemen into confusion. The panic once set
up, the huge, unmanageable numbers of the Asiatic host did nothing but
aggravate it. The pursuit was fierce and pitiless. Lucullus threatened
the severest penalties against any soldier who should turn aside for a
moment to encumber himself with spoil. For fifteen miles the road was
strewed with costly chains and bracelets which no one picked up. The
pursuit over, the men were allowed to appropriate all the treasures
they could find. _Five_ Romans, and five only, are said to have been
slain. The enemy's dead were counted by tens of thousands.
This great victory had not, it is true, the permanent result which
might have been expected. This failure was due to the weakness of the
Government at home and the jealousy of parties. Lucullus was hampered
by want of means, and had to share his authority with incompetent
colleagues. It was not long before both Tigranes and Mithradates
recovered all that they had lost.
But this was but a temporary falling back of the Roman power. The
people, profoundly dissatisfied with the policy that had made such
brilliant victories unproductive, put the supreme power into the
hands of a man whom it could trust. In 67 B.C. Pompey cleared the
Mediterranean of the pirates, and two years later he brought to an end
the long struggle with Mithradates. Tigranes had made his submission
to Rome, and, while surrendering all his conquests, had been permitted
to retain his hereditary kingdom of Armenia. Mithradates was driven to
take refuge in a remote region at the eastern end of the Black Sea. He
had conceived, it is said, a bold scheme of raising the tribes to the
north of that sea and falling upon Italy as the Gauls and as Hannibal
had fallen upon it. But he had not the means of carrying out so large a
project. His subjects, wearied of perpetual exactions, rebelled, led by
one of his sons, and he saw that nothing remained but death. His wives
and his daughters were compelled or possibly offered to drink poison.
He drank it himself, but--so runs the story--had so fortified himself
with antidotes, that the drug did not affect him. He then commanded
a Celtic mercenary to render him the last service by a stroke of his
sword. By his death the Roman dominion was practically established as
far as the Euphrates. That it was not to be extended beyond it was
practically proved by the events which I have now to relate.
Five years after the fall of Mithradates there was formed at Rome what
is commonly called the First Triumvirate.[39]
Of the three men who composed it Pompey had gained a great reputation
as a soldier, Cæsar had acquired almost equal distinction by his
victory in Gaul, while Crassus, though he had served with credit on
more than one occasion, was distinctly inferior in this respect to his
colleagues. He felt that such an inferiority would tell greatly against
him when the spoils came to be divided. It was to the East that he
looked for the opportunity that he desired. There had been trouble in
the region beyond the Euphrates for some time, and Rome, accused of
having failed to keep her treaty arrangement, was, of course, mixed
up in it. In 55 B.C., the year when Cæsar's command in Gaul had been
renewed for a second period of five years, Crassus was elected Consul,
his colleague being Pompey. The province allotted to him after his year
of office was Syria, and he left Rome before the year was out to take
up his command. He did not meet with anything like universal approval.
The decree which gave him the province of Syria made no mention of
Parthia, but everyone knew that Parthia was to be attacked, and there
was a strong party that, either from prudence or from a sense of right,
was strongly opposed to what was manifestly a war of aggression. One
of the Tribunes of the People attempted to stop his departure from
Rome, actually bidding his attendant detain him by force. This attempt
failing, he took his stand at the gate by which Crassus was to depart,
and on a hastily constructed altar performed some mysterious rite by
which he devoted, under strange and awful curses, the head of Crassus
to destruction. But Crassus persevered; arrived at Brundisium he would
not wait for favourable weather, but at once crossed the sea, not
without suffering a considerable loss in ships. The rest of his journey
he performed by land. When passing through Galatia he was entertained
by the prince of that country, Deiotarus, then a very old man.
Deiotarus was busy building a city, and Crassus jestingly marvelled
that at such an age he should engage in such an undertaking. "And you,"
replied the old man, "who are on your way to Parthia, are not quite in
your youth." Crassus was sixty, and looked, we are told, considerably
older.
His first operations, after his arrival, were fairly successful, but
he did not make a favourable impression. The Euphrates he crossed
without opposition, and he received the submission of some important
towns in Mesopotamia. He was considered, on the other hand, to have
been wanting in dignity when he allowed his soldiers to salute him on
the field as Imperator after the capture of a third-rate fortress--for
this was a compliment that was appropriate only to real achievements.
And in his proceedings generally he seemed to look to the collection
of wealth rather than to military glory. The tokens of ill-fortune to
come were, of course, not wanting. Crassus had been joined by his son,
who had been serving as one of Cæsar's lieutenants in Gaul, and both
paid a visit to a famous temple at Hierapolis. As they were leaving
it the son caught his foot and fell, and the elder man stumbled over
him. The enemy were in no submissive mood. Envoys from the Parthian
king declared that if Crassus was executing the will of the Roman
people the Parthians would avenge the insult to the utmost, but that
if he was only seeking his own private ends they would pardon an old
man's folly and restore unharmed the garrisons who were virtually
their prisoners. Crassus replied that he would give them an answer at
Seleucia, their capital. "Seleucia!" cried the leader of the embassy,
holding up the palm of his hand. "Hair will grow on this before you see
Seleucia." The army soon became seriously discouraged. The Parthians
were evidently a more formidable enemy than they had yet encountered,
very different from the unwarlike races of Western Asia. The reports
of the soothsayers were of the gloomiest kind, and omens of coming
disasters were frequent. The spot selected for a camp was twice struck
by lightning; when the rations were distributed the articles first
given out were lentils and salt, the two chief articles in the meals
served for the spirits of the dead. Worst of all, the eagle-standard of
the legion that was the first to advance was seen to turn away from
the enemy's country.
Crassus had under his command no contemptible force--seven legions,
4,000 cavalry, and an equal number of light-armed troops. The first
reports that reached him represented the enemy as shrinking from
the contest. This notion was confirmed by an Arab chief, Abgarus of
Edessa, who was believed to be friendly to Rome. He had certainly done
good service to Pompey, but he was now acting in the interest of the
Parthian king. He urged on Crassus an immediate advance; the enemy,
he declared, were already removing their most valuable property to a
place of safety. This was all false. The Parthian king with half his
army was ravaging Armenia; his commander-in-chief had been detached
with the other half to deal with Crassus. The Romans moved forward with
all the haste that they could compass. Day after day they advanced,
but no enemy could be seen. At last some horsemen were descried in the
distance, and Abgarus was sent on in advance to reconnoitre. He did
not return, and the army again moved forwards. Their march brought
them to a river called the Balissen. Crassus was advised by his staff
to halt and encamp. He was too impatient to listen to this counsel,
and still advanced. It was not long before he came in sight of the
enemy. At first sight the Parthian host did not seem very formidable.
It did not display any of the pomp and circumstance of war, and its
numbers had been carefully concealed. Then by a sudden movement the
banners of glistening silk embroidered with gold were displayed, and
the helmets and coats of mail glittered in the sun, the drums giving
out all the time a terrific volume of sound. Never before had the
Romans encountered a similar enemy. It was a host of cavalry which they
had to meet, most of them archers, both man and horse being protected
with armour made sometimes of iron, sometimes of leather. The Romans
were taken at a terrible disadvantage. All their tactics, especially
the close order in which they were accustomed to fight, told against
them, whilst their light-armed troops were hopelessly outnumbered. The
younger Crassus was sent forward by his father with a picked force,
in the hope that he might relieve the legions of the brunt of the
attack. The enemy retreated before him, but when they had lured him
on out of sight or reach of the main army they turned upon him. He
had no choice, so overwhelming were their numbers, but to fall back
before them. He made a stand at a hill, on the sloping side of which
he ranged what troops remained to him. But the ranks rising one above
another offered a broader target to the Parthian archers. Nearly the
whole force perished, Crassus and his officers by their own hands.
Five hundred were taken prisoners; none escaped. The first knowledge
that the elder Crassus had of his son's fate was the sight of his head
on a pole. The attack upon the legions was renewed again and again
until darkness brought a temporary relief. During the night the Romans
retreated, and reached Carrhæ in safety. But even then their troubles
were not ended. Crassus either would not or could not stay at Carrhæ,
and set out in the hope of reaching the friendly country of Armenia.
He was overtaken, and consented to hold a conference with the Parthian
commander to discuss the terms of an armistice. It is not clear whether
the Parthians intended treachery; anyhow the Romans suspected it. A
fierce quarrel ensued; the Roman officers were killed, and Crassus put
an end to his own life. Of the army many were taken prisoners, and a
few contrived to escape. But as a force it ceased to exist.
[Illustration: Crassus defeated by the Parthians.]
The battle of Carrhæ, as it may be called, though it happened at some
distance from that town, was one of the worst disasters in Roman
history. What especially touched the pride of the Empire was the
submission of the numerous prisoners to their fate. Horace inveighs
against the cowardice of the men who were content to forget all the
glorious associations of Rome and to become the subjects of a barbarian
king. He seeks to console himself by telling how the standards captured
from the army of Crassus were torn down from the Parthian temples by
the victorious Augustus. What really happened was that these trophies
were given up under the conditions of a peace made between Parthia and
Rome. There was more than one struggle between the two powers, and
the superiority of Roman arms was vindicated more than once. Parthia,
also, had its triumphs. One Roman Emperor, Valerian, ended his days in
Parthian captivity. When the Empire fell in the third century of our
era it was by a rebellion among its own subjects.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 37: Nearly £5,000,000, taking the talent at £240.]
[Footnote 38: "If these men come as ambassadors," Tigranes is reported
to have said, "there are too many of them; if they are an army there
are certainly too few." But he was not the first to use the witticism.]
[Footnote 39: Mommsen speaks of it as the _Second_, the First being a
coalition of the same persons ten years before. It is as well to remark
that the coalition had no legal existence. It was an informal agreement
between the three most powerful citizens to act together. The _Second_
Triumvirate, in 43 B.C., was a regularly constituted body.]
VI
THE CONQUESTS OF CÆSAR
The second great European conquest made by Rome outside the borders
of Italy was Gaul. The beginning of this conquest, which was spread
over about a century, the last ten years, however, being by far the
most productive of result, belongs to the year 152 B.C. The people
of Massilia (Marseilles) begged the help of the Romans against two
tribes of Gaul who were attacking dependencies of theirs. Much the same
thing happened again some twenty years later. The end of this and of
other affairs which it is not necessary to describe in detail was the
establishment in 121 B.C. of what was called the _Provincia_ (a name
still preserved in the modern Provence). Two colonies were founded in
this region, one at Aquæ Sextiæ (_Aix_), the other at Narbo Marcius
(_Narbonne_). The _Provincia_ occupied the valley of the Rhone, and
reached westward as far as the Garonne.
I pass on at once to the story of how the whole of the country from the
Mediterranean to the North Sea and from the Atlantic to the Rhine was
incorporated in the Empire of Rome.
In 59 B.C. Julius Cæsar was appointed to the government of Gaul (on
both sides of the Alps) and Illyria. In the April of the next year he
proceeded to take up his command. The first important operation which
he undertook shows plainly enough how great a change had taken place in
the relation between Rome and his barbarian neighbours of the north.
The Helvetii, of whom we have heard in connection with the story of the
Cimbri and Teutones, were in a restless condition. Their land (which
we may roughly describe as the non-mountainous part of Switzerland
and adjacent districts of France) was too narrow for them, and they
resolved to look for another more fertile and more spacious. A hundred
or even fifty years before they would certainly have moved southward,
as kindred tribes had done under the First and the Second Brennus. But
Italy no longer tempted them. It was as attractive as ever, but the
way was too perilous. Accordingly, the migration of the Helvetii was
northward. Cæsar saw his opportunity. The Helvetii would have to pass
through a corner of the Provincia, and they sent envoys asking his
leave. Cæsar did not directly refuse their request, the truth being
that he had not troops enough to stop them, if they were minded to
force a passage. He put them off. He would give an answer shortly. When
they came again his soldiers were ready and therefore his answer also.
They must not go. The Helvetii then chose another way, but Cæsar is
determined that they shall not go at all. They went, indeed, burning
everything that they could not carry with them, but Cæsar pursued
and overtook them. The battle that followed was long and fierce. It
lasted from one o'clock in the afternoon to evening, and for all these
hours no Roman saw the back of a foe. A barricade had been made of the
waggons, and this was obstinately defended. At last the camp was taken,
but as many as 130,000 men made their escape. They had three days'
start, for Cæsar had to stay where he was so long, providing for the
treatment of his wounded, and for the burial of his dead. But though
the fugitives marched without resting day or night they could not get
out of their enemy's reach. Couriers were sent on, warning the tribes
through whose territories they were to pass not to supply the Helvetii
with food. To do so would be to incur the same penalty. This prompt and
stern action had its immediate effect. The fugitives halted and sent
back envoys begging for peace. Cæsar granted their request, but they
were to give hostages, and to surrender their arms and all runaways
and deserters. The men of one canton attempted to escape eastward,
hoping that their flight might not be observed till it was too late to
overtake them. But Cæsar observed everything; the unhappy men--there
were six thousand of them--were brought back and slaughtered. The rest
were admitted to quarter. They were compelled, however, to go back
to their deserted country. Their neighbours, the Allobroges, were
instructed to feed them till they could grow food for themselves, and
they had to build again the houses which they had destroyed. Cæsar
tells the story with a passionless accuracy. He shows neither anger nor
pity. But the bare numbers which he gives are eloquent enough. There
were 368,000 emigrants; 110,000 returned. More than two-thirds--men,
women, and children--had perished. Anyhow, they could no longer
complain that the land was too narrow for them. But the spirit of
unrest had reached to other tribes beside the Helvetii. The Germans
from the eastern side of the Rhine had made their way into Gaul, under
the command of their King Ariovistus. They had been invited to come
by one tribe of Gauls to help them against another, but had soon made
themselves odious both to friends and to foes. The particular tribe
which had called them in had given up to them one-third of its land,
and was now called upon to surrender another. Cæsar was called upon
to help. The invitation was just what he wanted. To be the champion
of Gaul was the first step towards being its master. Accordingly he
informed the German king that he must let the friends of the Roman
people alone. Ariovistus's answer was a defiance, and Cæsar's rejoinder
was a rapid march eastwards. There was no time to be lost. Other tribes
from beyond the Rhine were said to be on the move. Were these to join
the first-comers, it would be a very formidable combination. Seven
days' marching brought the Romans within twenty-four miles' distance
of the enemy. There were negotiations which came to nothing, various
strategic movements, with a cavalry skirmish now and then. Finally
Cæsar made an attack on the German host, and drove it before him to
the Rhine. It suffered heavily in the flight. Ariovistus escaped, but
he took very few of his Germans back with him.
In the following year (57 B.C.) Cæsar was engaged with the Belgæ in
North-eastern Gaul. (Gaul must always be conceived of as the whole
country to the westward of the Rhine.) He fought and won a great battle
on the Aisne, falling on the enemy while they were endeavouring to
cross the river, and inflicting a heavy loss on them. "They tried,"
says Cæsar, "in the most daring way to pass on the dead bodies of their
own comrades." As he never puts anything in for the sake of effect, we
may rely on the absolute truth of this gruesome picture. This victory
was not easily won; a harder piece of work was the conflict with the
Nervii that shortly followed. The Nervii occupied the country now known
as Belgium, and had a high reputation for valour and for simplicity,
not to say savagery, of life. They would not allow the importation
of wine or any other foreign luxuries, and they were firmly resolved
not to have any dealings with Cæsar. Their kinsmen and neighbours who
had consented to treat with the Romans, had behaved, they considered,
with much baseness and cowardice. The great battle was fought on the
Sambre, and seems to have been, at one time, the most critical thing
that Cæsar was ever engaged in.
Cæsar had been marching with his legions--he had eight in his
force--each followed by its own baggage, and so far, therefore,
separated from each other. The Nervii had been informed of this
arrangement by some well-wishers in Cæsar's train, and had been advised
to deliver their attack on the foremost legion as soon as the baggage
came in sight. But the Roman general, who probably knew this, as great
commanders have a way of knowing everything, altered his order on the
way. First came the cavalry, then six legions together, all in light
marching order, then the baggage, and bringing up the rear two newly
levied legions. When the baggage came in sight the Nervii saw, as they
thought, their opportunity. As a matter of fact, they had been waiting
too long. They had to deal with six legions, not, as they expected,
with one. Even then their onslaught came perilously near to a success.
Emerging unexpectedly from the woods in which they had been lying hid,
they drove before the Roman cavalry, and were engaged in hand-to-hand
fight with the legions almost before these knew what had happened.
It was almost a surprise. "Cæsar," so he writes of himself, "had
everything to do at once--to hoist the red flag that was the signal for
battle, give the trumpet call, summon back to their places in the ranks
the men who were collecting materials for the rampart, draw up the
line, and address the troops." The enemy had been unexpectedly quick in
their attack. On the other hand, the army was in thoroughly good order;
every man knew what he had to do. But the time was very short. The men
could not even don their helmets or get their shields out of their
covers before the enemy was upon them. The tribesmen in alliance with
the Nervii could not hold their own against the Romans, but the Nervii
themselves for a time carried everything before them, breaking through
the two legions that confronted them, and actually taking possession of
the Roman camp. The camp followers fled in dismay, and were followed by
some of the light-armed troops. Even a contingent of cavalry sent by
the Treveri rode off the field, and carried with them the report that
the day was lost. As the Treveri had a high reputation for courage,
their flight was of the very worst omen.
At this critical moment Cæsar personally intervened, and restored the
fortunes of the day. He seized a shield, addressed himself to the
centurions, whose names, again after the fashion of the great general,
he knew, and turned the tide of battle. Cæsar did not show himself so
frequently in the front as was the habit of Alexander, but he could do
it on occasion with the happiest effect. At the same time the officer
in command of the tenth legion (Cæsar's _corps d'élite_, as we may call
it), who had made a successful attack on the enemy's position, brought
back that force to the help of his chief. The Nervii still resisted
with the greatest courage. But the day was lost, and few of the tribe,
so far, at least, as it had taken part in the battle, were left alive.
An episode of the campaign is worth relating, though it had little
or no effect on the general result. The force left by the Cimbri and
Teutones to guard their spoil had after various wanderings found their
way into this region. They asked and obtained terms from Cæsar, tried
to outwit, and were, by way of punishment, sold as slaves.
The third campaign was carried on in Western Gaul, among the Veneti,
represented by the Bretons of to-day. Cæsar had made a requisition
on them for corn, of which, as they were a seafaring people, they had
probably little to spare. They refused the demand, which, indeed, he
had no right but that of superior force to make, and even detained his
envoys, whom they probably considered, and not without good reason,
to be spies. Cæsar found that he wanted ships if he were to deal
successfully with the Veneti. Accordingly he had a fleet built on the
Loire, and manned with a levy raised in the neighbourhood. It was the
First Punic War over again. The tribes of the western coast were beaten
on their own element. As they had been guilty of what Cæsar chose to
consider a great offence, an insult to ambassadors, he determined to
punish them with unusual severity. Their chiefs were put to death; the
rest of the population sold into slavery. A general surrender of the
western tribes took place. Meanwhile one of the great man's lieutenants
subdued the region between the Pyrenees and the Garonne (to the west,
therefore, of the _Provincia_), and Cæsar himself spent what remained
of the year in reducing some tribes in the north-east.
In the following year (B.C. 55) Northern Gaul was disturbed by
another great movement of population. Two German tribes, themselves
dispossessed by the overpowering strength of the Suebi, a great
confederation of kindred tribes from Eastern Germany, crossed the
Rhine, and quartered themselves on the Menapii, a people which
inhabited the left bank of the lower Rhine. Cæsar was well aware
that the ill-affected Gauls would soon make common cause with the
new-comers, and determined to be beforehand with his enemies of either
race. He marched with great promptitude against them, not allowing
himself to be put off by the negotiations which they desired or
pretended to open with him. Before long a treacherous attack, made by
the German horsemen on Cæsar's cavalry--chiefly composed, it would
seem, of native levies--gave him an excellent justification for acting.
He attacked the enemy, and drove them in headlong flight to the river.
Many were slain in the fight and the pursuit, more were drowned in the
river; the result was the almost entire destruction of the invading
host. Nor did this satisfy him. He determined to make a demonstration
of his strength in Germany itself. To do this he had to transport his
army across the Rhine. To carry them over in boats did not, as he puts
it, suit the dignity of the Roman people. Possibly he thought it
unsafe. Accordingly he built a bridge, a marvel of engineering skill,
when we consider the breadth, depth, and force of the river to be
spanned, and the short supply of tools and materials at hand. The work
was complete in ten days; eighteen days more were spent in Germany.
And Cæsar then came back, having certainly impressed the tribes beyond
the Rhine with a great idea of his resources. Late in this year Cæsar
made his first expedition to Britain. Of this and of the more serious
invasion of the following year I shall have to speak elsewhere.
The year 54 B.C. was a very critical time. Cæsar evidently had
overrated the result of his successes, a pardonable error, so rapid and
apparently so complete had they been. A feeling of false security had
suggested the somewhat romantic expedition to Britain, an expedition
which he certainly would not have made if he had been aware of the
real state of affairs in Gaul. He supposed that the country had been
finally subdued--"pacified" or "quieted" was the Roman euphemism--but
he was rudely undeceived. Fortunately for him he was in Gaul when
the formidable rising, which he had soon to crush, took place. If he
had been still in Britain, or if, as had been his intention, he had
started for the south, the consequences might have been more serious
than they were.
The harvest in Gaul that year (B.C. 54) had been short. Hence it
became necessary to scatter the legions in arranging for their winter
quarters. There were eight legions, and the half of another, and they
were located in eight camps. Two of these camps were in Normandy (Seez
and Chartres), two in Picardy (Amiens and Montdidier), one in Artois
(St. Pol), and three in Belgium (Charleroi, Tongres, and Lavacherie
on the Ourthe). One of the last three, that at Tongres, which was
under the command of two legates, Sabinus and Cotta, was attacked by
a detachment from one of the tribes in the neighbourhood. Force not
succeeding, treachery was tried. One of the local chiefs, Ambiorix by
name, proposed a conference. He was friendly, he said, to the Romans,
Cæsar having done him a kindness, though he had been compelled to pose
as an enemy. His advice to the generals was to leave the camp, which
it would not be possible to hold. A multitude of Germans had crossed
the Rhine, and were on their way to attack the camp. If the troops
were withdrawn to one of the other camps in Eastern Gaul, he would
guarantee them a safe-conduct. The two officers in command were divided
in opinion. Finally Sabinus, who was in favour of evacuating the camp,
had his way. At dawn next day they started; after proceeding two miles
they fell into an ambush. Forming into a circle they resisted, till the
severity of their losses made them ask for terms. These were granted,
and immediately broken. Sabinus and some officers laid down their arms
and were massacred; Cotta died fighting; the survivors of the day's
battle made their way back into the camp. Seeing that they could not
possibly hold it against the enemy, they committed suicide during
the night. A few stragglers escaped to the camp at Lavacherie, where
Labienus was in command.
The camp at Charleroi, in the country of the Nervii, where Q. Cicero,
younger brother of the great orator, was in command, was next attacked.
The Gauls, now largely increased in number, assaulted it with the
greatest fury, but were repulsed. Cæsar was informed of the position
of affairs, and acted with his usual promptitude. He was able to
concentrate a force of two legions, and with these he promptly relieved
Cicero, having inflicted a severe defeat on a force of Gauls which
attacked him on the way.
The next year (53 B.C.) was entirely devoted to exacting vengeance for
the massacre of Sabinus and Cotta with their men. It is needless to
follow the operations of Cæsar. It must suffice to say that though one
somewhat serious reverse was sustained, they were successful on the
whole. But much yet remained to be done before Gaul could be said to
have been thoroughly "pacified." Cæsar was yet to be reduced to greater
straits than he had yet experienced.
The year 52 B.C. was one of furious party strife in Rome, and Cæsar
gives us clearly to understand that this state of things had its effect
on the Gauls. Chafing under the newly imposed yoke, they naturally
exaggerated the troubles of their masters. In one matter in particular,
their "wish was father to their thought." They dreaded, and with
excellent reason, the commanding personality of Cæsar. He had done in
seven years more than his predecessors had been able to accomplish in
seventy. What an inestimable advantage it would be if he were to be
kept away from the scene of war by these party quarrels! The report
that this was the case was spread about and eagerly believed. In a very
short time all Gaul was in a blaze of revolt, the news spreading with
extraordinary rapidity. What had happened at Gennabum (Orleans) at
sunrise was known in the country of the Auverni, nearly 150 miles away,
before 9 p.m. It was shouted from field to field.
Vercingetorix, an Auvernian, was the hero of the new movement. All
the tribes of Western Gaul joined him immediately. He began his own
operations in the south-west on the borders of the old _Provincia_.
While occupied with them, Cæsar suddenly appeared on the scene,
bringing with him new levies from the other side of the Alps. His
coming caused an immediate change in the aspect of affairs. Moving with
his usual speed, he concentrated his army at Sens (80 miles to the
south-east of Paris). He then proceeded to attack one after another of
the revolting tribes. His successes were so numerous and so rapid that
Vercingetorix felt that he must change his plan of campaign. Unable
to meet Cæsar in the field, he must starve him out. To do this it was
necessary to lay the whole country waste. Even the towns would have to
be burnt. Only the policy, to be useful, had to be thorough. This was
more than Vercingetorix could effect. When it came to the question of
destroying Avaricum (_Bourges_) he had to give way. Its inhabitants
pleaded for it too earnestly, for it was the finest city in Gaul. If it
had been burnt with all the stores that it contained the Roman campaign
must have ended in disaster. As it was, the town was besieged by Cæsar.
The Gallic chief, who had his camp sixteen miles away, did all he could
to annoy and injure the besiegers. But he could not stop them. He threw
10,000 men into the city, but though the defence was prolonged, the
skill and determination of the Romans would not be denied. When the
prospect seemed desperate the garrison resolved to leave the city, but
the shrieks of the women revealed their intention to the besiegers.
Finally Avaricum was stormed, and all its inhabitants massacred.
Great as was this disaster, Vercingetorix felt his position to be
strengthened by it. He could now say to his countrymen, "Avaricum has
perished, after all, but the Romans have got the stores." Cæsar's
next proceeding was to lay siege to Gergovia, a town which cannot be
identified. Here he met with a decided reverse. One division of his
army persisted in an attack upon the walls after the recall had been
sounded, and were repulsed with heavy loss, 700 men, of whom nearly
fifty were officers, falling in the action. Cæsar himself seems to
have had a narrow escape. He does not mention it himself, not thinking,
perhaps, that it was of sufficient importance to be recorded. But
Servius, an ancient commentator on Virgil, relates it on the authority
of a Diary (_Ephemeris_) which was extant in his time. In Virgil,
Tarchon, an Etrurian chief and ally of Æneas, drags one Venulus, in
full armour, from off his horse. The same thing, he says, happened to
Cæsar at Gergovia. One of the Gauls recognised him as he was being
carried away, and shouted out _Cæsar_! The name was very like the
Gallic words for "Let him go!" And Cæsar's captor relaxing his hold,
the great man escaped. Plutarch tells another story of how the Auverni
had a sword hanging up in one of their temples which they declared to
be Cæsar's, and that when it was shown to him, he smiled. Nor was the
defeat at Gergovia the last of his troubles. The Ædui, who had been
loyal to Rome from the beginning, now joined the rebellion. They seized
Cæsar's _depôt_ at Noviodunum (site unknown), slaughtered the garrison,
and possessed themselves of the stores, and with them, of the hostages,
who were pledges of the fidelity of the other tribes. They then tried
to stop him from crossing the Loire. As usual, he was too quick for
them. His legions forded the river, though the river, swollen with the
melted snows, was breast-high.
Labienus, who was operating in the neighbourhood of Paris, had had
difficulties of his own, but had surmounted them with his usual skill.
He was Cæsar's ablest lieutenant, as useful to his chief as Lord
Hill was to Wellington in the Peninsula. He now succeeded in joining
the main army. Notwithstanding this addition of strength, the Roman
commander was compelled to retreat. He was not far from the _Provincia_
when he turned upon Vercingetorix and defeated him, largely by the help
of the German cavalry. The Romans, among other qualifications of a
ruling race, had the gift of turning to the best account the qualities
of others. Eight or nine years before there was not a trooper of German
race in the Roman army; now that nation furnishes it with an efficient
arm.
Vercingetorix now threw himself into Alesia, a strong place in the
hills, probably to be identified with Alise-Sainte-Reine in Burgundy.
He sent messengers to the various States in alliance, asking for a
_levée-en-masse_. This was not made, but a huge army was gathered,
250,000 infantry and 8,000 horse. It was the last great effort of
Gaul for freedom, and it failed. The Gauls came on, convinced that
they must triumph, but the Romans stood firm during a struggle that
lasted from noon till sunset, and the enemy were driven back to their
camp. Another attack, made after a brief rest, failed also. Then came
the last desperate struggle. One of the chiefs of the relieving army,
a kinsman of Vercingetorix, threw himself on a weak spot in the lines
of investment, where the Roman camp had been constructed on ground
that sloped towards the town. He had 60,000 men with him; the Roman
force consisted of two legions. The besieged made a simultaneous
effort to break out. The struggle was long and fierce. Cæsar directed
the Roman battle from a point of advantage. When the time came, he
himself, conspicuous in the scarlet cloak of command, took personal
part in the struggle. His trusted lieutenant Labienus got together
forty cohorts from all parts of the lines of investment, and Cæsar
put himself at their head. The Gallic host was utterly broken. The
slaughter on the field was great, and the survivors dispersed during
the night that followed, every man seeking his native State. The next
day Vercingetorix surrendered himself to the conqueror. He was kept in
prison for seven years, was led in the triumph which Cæsar celebrated
in 45 B.C. and put to death afterwards. The war in Gaul lasted for
two years more. One after another the rebellious States were subdued,
and dealt with mercifully or severely as policy dictated. Cæsar, who
recognised the duty, or, anyhow, the policy, of forgiveness where his
countrymen were concerned, was wholly proof against any emotion of
the kind when he had to do with barbarians. He had no pleasure in a
massacre; but, on the other hand, it caused him no compunction or even
pain. These eight years of war must have cost Gaul some two millions
of lives. It was an awful price to pay, but it completed a great work,
which had been on hand for three centuries and a half. In 390 B.C.
Brennus captured Rome; in 50 B.C. the Gauls had become the Latin people
which they are to-day.
VII
FURTHEST BRITAIN.
I cannot omit all mention of our own island, though it can hardly be
said that there was any incident in its history of really critical
importance in the long struggle between Rome and the barbarian tribes.
The visits of Cæsar to Britain, though highly interesting in more ways
than one, may be briefly passed over. He came for the first time not
long before the end of the campaigning season in 55 B.C. His chief
reason, as he states it himself, was that he found that the Britons
were in the habit of helping their neighbours of Gaul. (The inhabitants
of south-eastern England were of the same race as the Belgæ.) We do not
find, as a matter of fact, any mention of British auxiliaries in the
Gallic armies, or that in later years Gaul was tempted into rebellion
by the knowledge that Britain was free. Cæsar was of the Alexander
type, strongly moved by the ambition of a conqueror. The first visit
lasted altogether about three weeks, and the army practically remained
where it landed.
The second visit took place in the following year (54 B.C.) and was
a far more important affair. Caesar's intention was, we may be sure,
to conquer the island. Probably he was not acquainted with its real
dimensions, and circumstances occurred that made him change his
plans. Originally, however, he had in his mind something more than a
_reconnaisance en force_. He brought with him six legions and 2,000
cavalry, more than a half of his whole available force, coming at the
end of July, and leaving about the middle of September. He advanced
some sixty or seventy miles into the country, crossing the Thames,
possibly near Weybridge, possibly a little below Eton. The Britons
could not, of course, stand against him in the field, but they proved
themselves to be formidable enemies. Cæsar does not expressly say that
he had underrated the difficulties of the task; but he acted as if he
had. He was engaged in Gaul for five more years, and during the last
two of these five was practically master of the country, but he seems
to have entirely abandoned the idea of subjugating Britain.
For 89 years the island was left practically to itself. Augustus, in
the scroll of his achievements which he inscribed on a slab in a temple
at Ancyra (the capital of the Roman province of Galatia) mentions the
tribute paid by certain British kings; the inscription is imperfect at
this place, and we know no particulars. It is certain, however, that
no serious attempt was made on Britain between the years 54 B.C. and
43 A.D. There are various allusions to the people in the literature of
the time, but they are always spoken of as savage enemies of whom very
little was known.
In 43 A.D., however, Rome, at the invitation of a native prince, who
conceived himself to have suffered wrong, seriously undertook the
conquest of the Island. Aulus Plautius was appointed to the command,
took four legions with him, and in the course of the year the Emperor
himself (Claudius) brought over an additional force. A great battle
was fought near Camalodunum (Colchester), in which the Britons were,
as usual, defeated. Vespasian, afterwards Emperor, was actively
engaged in the west of the Island. We know very little of the details
of the campaigns which followed. One heroic figure, however, stands
prominently out. This is Caractacus (Caradoc). For seven years this
prince (elder son of Cunobelin, the _Cymbeline_ of Shakespeare) held
out against the Roman forces. We cannot identify the scene of the
final battle,[40] but a sufficiently clear description of it has been
preserved. The Britons occupied a hill which had an unfordable river
in front, and was itself fortified, wherever the ground permitted or
required it, with ramparts of stones. So formidable did the position,
crowded as it was with warriors, seem to the Roman general, that he
was inclined to manœuvre, probably to attempt a flanking movement.
But the soldiers demanded to be led to a frontal attack, and their
general yielded. The river was crossed, how we are not told. The space
between the river and the British ramparts was not traversed without
loss. Many were wounded and some killed by a storm of missiles from the
British lines. But when the _testudo_ was formed under the rampart,
rudely constructed of uncemented stones, the battle was practically
over. The rampart was soon pulled down, and the Britons retired to
the heights. Here they were outmatched. The artillery played upon
them from a distance, and they had nothing wherewith to reply to it.
In close combat the armour and weapons of the legions gave them an
immense advantage. Finally the Britons were driven headlong from their
position. Caractacus' wife and daughter were captured, and his brothers
surrendered themselves. The king himself was handed over to his enemies
by the treachery of a neighbouring potentate, Queen Cartismandua.
The story of his dignified behaviour before Claudius, and of the
generous spirit with which it was taken, need not be repeated here.
Roman manners had been somewhat softened since the days when the brave
Vercingetorix had been put to death. It was not that Caractacus had
ceased to be formidable; he was never allowed to return to Britain.
Nor need I tell in detail the story of the revolt of Boadicea, Queen of
the Iceni, a tribe of Eastern Britain. It was provoked by the insolence
of Roman officials and the greed of Roman financiers,[41] and for a
time it shook the Roman power in Britain to its base. Londinium,
already the largest and wealthiest town in Britain, though not ranking
as a colony, was sacked; so was Verulamium (St. Alban's) and other
places. As many as seventy thousand persons are said to have perished.
The majority must have been Britons, "friendly natives," as we should
now call them; but there were many Italians among them. "Citizens and
allies" is the historian's term. As only seventeen years had passed
since the conquest of Britain had commenced, it is remarkable how far
the Romanising of the country had proceeded. Traders and settlers must
have swarmed into it, as they do in the United States when an Indian
reserve is thrown open. Besides these frightful massacres, there were
military disasters. One legion was cut to pieces. The commander of
another was so cowed that he did not venture out of his camp. But
Paullinus, the commander-in-chief, behaved with consummate discretion.
He refused to risk a battle with insufficient forces, though his
delay meant the destruction of London. But when he struck he struck
with terrific force. The British army was practically annihilated. In
Southern Britain, at least, the dominion of Rome was never seriously
threatened for many years after the great victory won by Paullinus.
When, in A.D. 78, Agricola took over the command of Britain, it was
in North Wales that he carried on his first campaign. The campaigns
that followed I need not describe in detail. The last of them was
finished by a great victory over the Caledonians near the Grampians,
probably at Aberfoyle, in Perthshire. The Roman sway, however, did
not really extend so far. Its high-water mark was, probably, reached
about A.D. 200, when the Emperor Septimius Severus marched to the
extreme north of the Island, and on his return added a second wall to
the great rampart constructed by Antoninus Pius between the estuaries
of the Forth and the Clyde. But this advanced post was not long held.
The most permanent, as it was the most elaborate barrier against the
northern tribes, was the Great Wall built by Hadrian, about A.D. 120,
between the Solway Firth and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Britain south of this
was completely Latinised. But the existence of the walls and the fact
that the Island had the reputation of being to the Empire what India
is to us, a nursery of captains, prove that the North was practically
independent. Here then--and this is what makes Britain really important
in Roman history--was the furthest limit of Roman advance. And it was
here that the first overt confession of weakness had to be made. In
A.D. 408 one of the many soldiers of fortune who attempted to seize the
Imperial throne crossed over into Gaul with the British legions. The
legions never came back, and Britain, though nominally included in the
Provinces of the Empire, was actually abandoned.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 40: It was probably somewhere in Shropshire or Herefordshire.]
[Footnote 41: According to Dion, the philosopher Seneca had something
to do with the disturbance by suddenly calling in money which he had
lent at usurious interest. We may hope that it is a slander, but Romans
of good repute were not above such conduct. The patriotic Brutus lent
money to a town in Cyprus at 40 per cent., and was much annoyed with
Cicero for refusing the help of the military in collecting the debt.]
VIII
BEYOND THE RHINE
In the German tribes Rome found at last the antagonist who was to
vanquish her. The victories of Marius and of Cæsar had been complete,
but they did not crush the race. Their numbers and the solidity of
their character, moulded as it was by a tenacity and a power of
resistance which neither the Spaniard nor the Gaul had shown, made
them practically unconquerable. The early Empire was not without
ambitions in this direction. Drusus, the step-son of Augustus, carried
on several campaigns in Lower Germany, and executed besides some
important engineering works, in the way of canals and embankments,
which were intended to make the country more accessible. But he came,
once at least, very near to a terrible disaster. In B.C. 11 he had
got as far as the Weser, thanks, in part at least, to the absence
of his most formidable enemies, the Sicambri, who were busy fighting
with the Chatti. At the Weser he felt that it would be prudent to
halt and to retrace his steps. It was well that he did, for the
Sicambri had settled their quarrel with their neighbours, and were
now in the opposite ranks. At a place called Arbalo, which we have
no means of locating, he was almost surrounded. The allied tribes
threw away, by their rashness, a victory which was almost in their
hands. They divided, so to speak, the Roman wolfskin before they
had captured the wolf. Each tribe chose its own share of the spoil,
rushed in a headlong charge to secure it, and were driven back with
heavy loss. Drusus built two forts which might be convenient centres
for future operations, and returned to Rome, where he had so much of
the honours of a triumph as the jealousy of the Emperor permitted a
subject to enjoy. In the following year (B.C. 10) he returned to the
same country, and in B.C. 9 he did the very same thing again. It was
in this campaign that he reached his furthest point, making his way
as far as the Elbe itself. Here indeed--so it seemed to the men of
the time--was the fate-appointed limit of the Roman arms. As he was
making ready to cross the Elbe, a female figure, of more than human
proportions, appeared to him. "Whither goest thou, insatiable Drusus?"
cried the strange apparition. "Destiny forbids thee to go further.
Here is the end of thy exploits and thy life." He erected trophies
on the river bank to mark the spot which he had reached, and turned
back. But he never reached the Rhine. He was thrown from his horse,
and received injuries from which he died. His younger brother Tiberius
arrived just in time to see him alive. The last duties to the dead
performed--Tiberius is said to have walked before the bier all the way
from the Rhine bank to Rome--he returned to prosecute the campaign. For
some years the Roman arms met no serious check, and by A.D. 9 so much
had been done in subjugating the country that Augustus conceived the
idea of making it into a Roman province. For this purpose he sent an
officer of high rank, who had for some years administered the province
of Syria--Quintilius Varus. The new-comer was totally mistaken about
the real condition of the country, which was on the brink of revolt.
The native chiefs, at whose head was the famous Arminius (the Latin
form of _Hermann_), pretended friendship and submission, assisting at
the courts which he held after the fashion of an Indian _durbah_, and
promptly executing his orders. The report of an insurrection in South
Germany reached him while thus employed, and he marched southward to
quell it. Arminius and his fellow-countrymen left him, under a promise
to return, but really with the intention of preparing an attack. His
road lay through the valleys of what is now called the Teutoburgerwald,
between Osnabruck and Paderborn, in Westphalia. He marched without any
suspicion of danger, his army in a straggling line, encumbered with
baggage and a multitude of non-combatants. Half-way through the pass
they were attacked. There were three legions and a considerable force
of cavalry, and for a time they successfully resisted the enemy. The
camp which they pitched at the end of the first day's battle was of
such a size, when it was discovered some years afterwards, as to show
that the three legions were then substantially intact. The next day,
after destroying his baggage, for he recognised that his position was
one of extreme peril and that his only hope was to give to his army all
the mobility possible, he made for the fortress of Aliso on the Lippe.
All the day he was attacked, and had to struggle for every yard of
road. By evening his forces had been greatly diminished, for the second
camp was seen to be much smaller than the first. The third day's march
brought them out of the woods, but only to encounter a fresh multitude
of the enemy. Their strength was now exhausted, and they could no
longer keep their ranks. Varus killed himself; his army, a very few
excepted who contrived to reach Aliso, was destroyed. The effect in
Germany was to throw back the frontier of Rome to the Rhine; in Rome
the news produced something like a panic. The disaster embittered the
remaining years of Augustus. Again and again he was known to start from
his sleep and cry in tones of agony, "Quintilius Varus, give me back my
legions!"
Rome could not, of course, submit to such a defeat without vindicating
her honour. This was not an easy task. In A.D. 14, Germanicus, the son
of Drusus, marched into the country with a powerful force. He narrowly
escaped disaster. Had not the divisions between the German chiefs
hindered them from following up their successes--both Germanicus and
his lieutenant, Cæcina, suffered serious reverses--he might have met
with the fate of Varus. In the campaign of 16 he was more fortunate,
and, if the Roman narratives are not exaggerated, restored the old
frontiers. Arminius himself was nearly taken, and Northern Germany,
between the Rhine and the Elbe, was once again Roman. But Tiberius did
not like a "forward" policy. Tacitus, who abhorred the man, tells us
that his motive was a mean jealousy of Germanicus, but it is likely
that he saw that the resources of the Empire might be better expended.
Anyhow, Germanicus was recalled, and Germany recovered her freedom; nor
was any serious attempt again made, as far as the northern part of the
country was concerned, to reassert the authority of Rome. It was to the
south that Rome limited her efforts for dominion.
IX
THE LAST ADVANCE
When Tacitus speaks of the _urgentia imperii fata_, the irresistible
destinies of empire, he uses a phrase which every Englishman
understands. A great empire cannot stand still. Its adventurous
subjects are always pressing forward, and must be protected. Its
neighbours are continually feeling and resenting the pressure which
it exercises upon them. It has to defend boundaries which represent
to those who are outside them a series of aggressions, and it has to
satisfy the warlike tastes of the huge force which it has to keep
under arms. Augustus had done his best to limit the growth of the
Empire. His testament to his successors was an injunction, it would
be better, perhaps, to say a counsel, that no new dominions should be
sought. Tiberius religiously observed this advice. But the Cæsars that
followed Tiberius found the circumstances of the situation too much for
them. Caligula made an expedition against the nations yet unsubdued
beyond the northern frontier, which might have been serious but for his
own lunatic folly. Claudius began the subjugation of Britain, which was
carried to a conclusion by the brilliant generalship of Agricola in the
reign of Domitian. Domitian was not so fortunate in his other great
enterprise. This was the invasion of Dacia. Agricola was still alive,
but Domitian was too jealous of his abilities and his renown to entrust
to him the management of the campaign. He found a substitute in the
person of Cornelius Fuscus, Prefect of the Prætorians, who had at least
the recommendation of being a subservient courtier. Juvenal includes
Fuscus among the counsellors who were summoned to discuss the important
question of how the gigantic turbot which a fisherman had presented to
the Emperor should be cooked. He seems to have been a student of the
military art, for he is described as "planning battles in his marble
halls." Possibly he wrote a book on the subject. In the field he seems
to have had little or no capacity. The Dacian chief, Decebalus by name,
enticed the Roman general to cross the Danube, turned on him when
the opportunity came, and defeated him with the loss of at least one
legion and its exile. We have absolutely no record of the battle. It
came within the period of events covered by the histories of Tacitus,
but the book which contained the narrative is lost. Even did we possess
it, we should still be ignorant of one important detail, for Orosius,
who had the narrative before him, tells us that Tacitus held it to be
the part of a good citizen to conceal the losses suffered by the armies
of Rome. The whole story is wrapped in obscurity. It is said that the
defeat of Fuscus was retrieved in the next campaign by his successor
Julianus. But again we have no details. There is even to be found
the statement, whether well or ill-founded we cannot say, that the
Dacians exacted from Rome an annual sum of money as the price of their
forbearance.
It was to Dacia then that Trajan turned his thoughts when he found
himself seated on the imperial throne. Trajan had many reasons for
undertaking the enterprise. It was much to his taste. He was a soldier,
who had already distinguished himself in the field. And he had to
justify his elevation to the throne. The Empire really rested on
the swords of the soldiers, and no man who could not count on the
respect of the army could feel himself safe. And there was also the
cogent reason that it was easier to attack than to defend, that the
barbarians, if left to themselves, would sooner or later invade the
Empire, and that the wisest plan would be to assume the offensive.
Trajan was busied with protecting the German frontier of the Empire
when he received the news that he had been adopted by the aged Nerva.
He spent a year, after receiving the tidings, in completing the
preparation for its defence. Then he went to take up his new dignity.
Home affairs settled, he started for the Danube. Of the campaigns which
followed we know little in one way, and much in another. We know, from
the sculptures on Trajan's Column, exactly what arms and armour, and
what engines of war were used by the soldiers of Rome. But as to the
strategy of the campaign, and its chief incidents, we are almost wholly
in the dark.
[Illustration: Trajan besieging a Dacian Fort.]
Trajan crossed the Danube at two places without molestation. At first
it seemed as if the Dacians were going to give in without a struggle.
An embassy arrived to beg for peace, offering surrender without
conditions. But this was a palpable imposture. The envoys were men
of low rank--so much Trajan knew from the habits of the country--for
they were bareheaded. The next envoys were certainly nobles, but they
had no real authority to treat. The Dacian king, Decebalus by name, was
simply trying to gain time. Not long after he fell upon the legions
as they marched. A fierce battle followed, in which the Dacians were
defeated, but at a heavy cost. The Romans still advanced; when they
were near his chief stronghold, Decebalus again gave battle. This
time he was beaten even more decisively than before. For the time his
spirit was broken. The envoys whom he now sent were nobles of the
highest rank, who came into Trajan's presence with their hands bound
behind their backs in token of absolute submission. Decebalus himself
consented to pay his homage to Trajan in person, and to send deputies
to Rome to arrange conditions of peace. This was in 102 A.D.
Scarcely had Trajan turned his back--his presence being much wanted at
Rome--when the Dacians were in arms again. Decebalus's own hereditary
kingdom lay far to the east, in what is now called Transylvania, but
nothing could stop the march of the Roman legions. They made their way
over river and mountain, and stormed stronghold after stronghold.
At last Decebalus, in despair, put an end to his own life. The new
province of Dacia was thoroughly organised, for Trajan was as great an
administrator as a soldier. To this day the remains of the great works
which his engineers and architects raised at his bidding remain to
testify to the completeness with which the work was done. For more than
a century and a half it remained one of the most orderly and civilised
of the Roman provinces. It was not till 275 A.D. that Aurelian withdrew
the legions to the southern bank of the Danube.
During the time of the Good Emperor[42] Rome kept her dominions
unimpaired. Even under their weaker successors, though decay was at
work within, her power for awhile was not visibly shaken. It was with
the appearance of the Goths upon the scene that the end began.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 42: It began with Nerva in 96 A.D. and ended with the death
of Marcus Aurelius in 180.]
_BOOK VI_
ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE DECLINE
I. A CENTURY OF DISGRACE
One of the strangest facts in history is the rapid decline of Roman
power that set in immediately after the Empire had enjoyed such a
succession of good rulers as had never before fallen to its lot. The
period of eighty-four years which began with the accession of Nerva
and ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius has always been regarded,
and rightly regarded, as the golden age of Rome. Trajan was, it is
true, a warlike Emperor by choice, and Marcus Aurelius the same by
necessity, but Rome had never had since its founding any but the
briefest intervals of peace. War, in short, was its natural condition,
and it had seldom been carried on with more success than it was by
Trajan in Dacia and by Aurelius against the Quadi and the Marcomanni.
On the other hand, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius (117-161)
made up together forty-four years, considerably more than what is
usually reckoned as a generation, of almost unbroken peace. Yet the
good effects of nearly a century of wise rule seemed to vanish almost
immediately when the last of the "Good Emperors" passed away. It is
true that Aurelius had a deplorably weak and vicious successor.[43] But
Commodus was not more contemptible than Caligula, Nero, or Domitian,
and Rome had survived their rule without much apparent injury. Some
writers have found a cause in a succession of plagues which raged
throughout the Empire with an almost unexampled severity, and it is
true that the century which followed the year 165[44] was terribly
distinguished by this visitation, but no external calamities are
sufficient to account for a nation's decay. These causes are to be
sought elsewhere, within rather than without, in the life of men more
than in the calamities which years of famine or of pestilence inflict
upon them. And it is clearly beyond my province to do more than
indicate them in the very briefest way. We see signs of what was going
on in days when to all appearance the Empire was most flourishing,
while it was certainly still pursuing its career of conquest. Virgil
writes a great poem to commend the honest healthy toil of a country
life to a generation which had ceased to care for it. The cities were
more and more crowded, for the luxuries which they put within the
reach of even the poorest were more and more sought after, but the
country was passing into a desert or a pleasure ground. The farmers or
peasants who had formed the backbone of Roman armies had ceased to be;
their fields, where they had not gone out of cultivation, were tilled
by huge gangs of slaves. Provincial towns which in old days had been
strong enough to make treaties on equal terms with Rome were now half
in ruins, with a scanty population that barely contrived to exist. With
every year things grew worse and worse. And the Empire aggravated the
evils which at first it had done much to palliate if not to remedy. It
had superseded the Republic, because this had become utterly corrupt;
but in time it became as corrupt itself, and for the corruption of a
despotism there is no cure. A succession of able rulers put off the
end for a time, but it had to come. And when it came there came with
it more vigorous races out of whom was to be formed by degrees, not
without help of the old order which they swept away, a new civilisation.
Commodus, the unworthy son and successor of the good Aurelius, reigned
but for a short time. He was assassinated in his thirty-second year.
With his death began, it may be said, the rule of the sword. His
successor, indeed, Pertinax by name, was chosen by the Senate, and well
deserved his election, but he reigned for something less than ninety
days, and the Prætorians, the soldiers of the capital, murdered him and
sold the throne openly to the highest bidder. To this arrogance the
legions in the provinces refused to submit. The principal armies put
up candidates of their own. We need not follow the succession of these
short-lived rulers. It will suffice to say that in the hundred and five
years which intervened between the death of Aurelius and the accession
of Diocletian (180-285) there were no less than twenty Emperors,
not to mention innumerable Pretenders--it was said that at one time
thirty[45] claimed the throne.
For a time the spectacle of the Roman armies engaged in almost
incessant struggles with each other does not seem to have produced
the effect which might have been expected on the tribes outside the
frontiers of the Empire. No movement of any importance among the
barbarians is recorded during the fifty years which followed the murder
of Pertinax by the Prætorians. In 209, indeed, the Britons of the north
attacked the Roman province, and were punished, without any lasting
effect, by Septimius Severus. But the event was of no particular
importance, for the North Britons were not powerful enough, even if
they had succeeded, to seriously affect the course of events. Causes
with which we are not exactly acquainted kept the far more formidable
tribes of Germany inactive. We hear of a combination among them in
the reign of Aurelius which might well have become dangerous, if,
to use the language of Gibbon, it included all the nations from the
mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. But it came to nothing.
The tribes which first took the field were defeated. Discouragement
and dissension kept the others inactive. Dissension, indeed, was
the most potent influence which worked in favour of the Romans. In
his remarkable treatise on Germany and its tribes Tacitus gives a
description of the people which emphasises their superiority in many
important respects to the degenerate sons of Rome. But he speaks with
satisfaction of the internal strife which prevented them from becoming
formidable, mentioning one great conflict in which one tribe had been
wholly destroyed by its neighbours, and adds, "While the destinies of
Empire hurry us on, fortune can give us no greater boon than discord
among our foes."
But this state of things naturally would not last. It would cease when
some chief of commanding ability and strong personal influence should
come to the front, or when some tribe should become so powerful as to
attract or compel its neighbours to unite with it. Such a tribe came
upon the scene later on in the first half of the third century of our
era. The _Gothi_, to use the most common of the various forms of their
name, are first mentioned many centuries before the time of which I am
now speaking. Pytheas, of Marseilles, who travelled in Northern Europe
about the time of Alexander the Great, speaks of them as inhabiting
the coasts of the Baltic, and Tacitus, writing about 90 A.D., locates
them in much the same district. A hundred years or so after this date,
however, they are spoken of as dwelling near the Black Sea. We need not
trouble ourselves, however, with their place of abode, nor yet with
the question of their race. Some writers hold that they were of the
Slavonic family, not the Teutonic. That there were some Slavs in the
great multitude which the Romans knew by the common name of Goths is
more than probable. In just the same way there was a Celtic element in
the great Teutonic swarm which had so nearly overrun Italy at the close
of the second century B.C. But all that we know about them, whether as
regards their habits or their appearance, would lead us to think that
they were Germans.
Some time, therefore, about 247 A.D., the Goths invaded and overran
the province of Dacia. Crossing the Danube into Mœsia[46] (Bulgaria)
they besieged its capital town, now known by the name of Pravadi
(twenty-five miles to the west of Varna). The town was ill-protected,
for with the whole province of Dacia between it and the frontier of the
Empire it anticipated no danger. The inhabitants saw nothing better
to do than to buy off the enemy by the payment of a large ransom. Such
a policy is seldom successful, as we know from the history of our own
island, where the plan of buying off the Danes was tried again and
again to very little purpose. The Goths departed, and before long came
back again.
Decius, who had by this time supplanted Philip the Arabian on the
imperial throne, on receiving the news of this second invasion,
marched to the relief of the provinces attacked. He found the
barbarians besieging Nicopoli (on the southern bank of the Danube).
On his approach they promptly raised the siege, marched across Mœsia
and made their way over the Balkans with the intention of attacking
Philippopolis. Decius followed them, without apparently taking due
precautions against surprise, for the Goths turned upon him, and routed
his army. His forces were so shattered that he could not attempt to
help Philippopolis, which not very long afterwards was taken by storm
and sacked.
Decius, though he had made a disastrous mistake, was a brave and
capable soldier. He took prompt measures to retrieve his defeat,
guarding the places where the Danube could be crossed and the Balkan
passes so as to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Goths. These,
on their part, had suffered severely. The siege and storms had cost
them many lives; their supplies were running short, for they carried no
stores with them, and could draw but little sustenance from a country
which they had wasted. And they were much alarmed at the prospect of
having their retreat cut off. Under these circumstances they offered
to surrender all their booty and all their prisoners, if they were
permitted to return unharmed to their own country. Decius refused
to accept the offer. He probably thought, and had some reason for
thinking, that no agreement could be profitably made with barbarians.
The only way to deal with the Goths was to deal with them as Marius had
dealt with the Cimbri and Teutones. The invaders prepared to fight.
The battle that followed was obstinately contested. The Goths were
drawn up in three lines--we may observe from the first indications
of a certain military skill and training in the tribe--the third of
which was protected by a morass. The first and the second of these
were broken; the third stood firm, and repulsed all the attacks of the
legions. The Emperor's son had fallen early in the day; of the fate
of Decius himself nothing was ever known. What is certain is that the
army was almost annihilated. The Goths were able to make their way
home without losing their spoil or their prisoners. They even received
a great sum for promising not to molest again the provinces of Rome,
till, of course--for such must have been the proviso understood on
both sides--they should find it convenient to do so. This battle lacks
a name, for the place where it was fought cannot be identified, but
it was an event of the greatest importance. Rome had suffered worse
disasters before, but never one that entailed so great a loss of
credit. A barbarian army destroys a provincial capital, defeats two
armies, slays the Emperor himself, and returns home, not only with all
its booty, but with a heavy bribe with which its forbearance had been
purchased. Clearly this was the beginning of the end.
For some years after their campaigns in the region of the Danube,
the Goths occupied themselves with expeditions which bear a curious
resemblance to those made by their kinsmen of later times, the Vikings
and Northmen. They do not seem to have had any seamanship of their
own, but they lured or compelled the maritime population of the Black
Sea coast-line to assist them. Their first voyage was eastward. They
sailed along the northern coast of the Black Sea, taking Pitsunda on
their way, rounded the eastern end, and finally captured Trebizond,
the wealthiest city in northern Asia Minor, where they possessed
themselves of a vast quantity of spoil and a multitude of prisoners.
Their next voyage had a westerly direction. They overran the province
of Bithynia. The famous towns of Nicala and Nicomedia, among others,
fell into their hands, almost without any attempt at resistance. It was
more than three centuries since these regions had known the presence
of a foreign enemy. They had no troops of their own, except, possibly,
some local levies which certainly had had no experience of warfare,
and the legions which should have defended them had sadly degenerated
both in courage and in discipline. The third expedition of the Goths
took them outside the Black Sea into the Ægean. Their fleet sailed into
the Piræus. Athens, which had not attempted, possibly had not been
permitted, to repair its walls, demolished more than three hundred
years before by Sulla, was taken and plundered. Greece could offer no
resistance. It had neither means nor men. The invaders still advanced
westwards, and threatened Italy itself. Here, however, their progress
was stayed. But from this expedition also, audacious as it was, they
returned in safety. It gave another proof, not less significant than
the death of Decius, how low the Empire had already fallen.
While the Goths were evading the south-eastern provinces of the Empire,
other enemies were busy in the north and west. The Franks now make
their first appearance in history. The name which meets us frequently
in the modern world, notably in France, and in such terms as Franconia,
Frankfort, Frankenthal, means the "free," and probably originated in a
combination of the tribes who inhabited the eastern bank of the Rhine,
and who assumed this title by way of distinguishing themselves from
the subjects of Rome on the opposite side of the river. The Franks
laid waste the province of Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees and desolated
Spain. We know very little of the details of their invasion. One of the
so-called "Thirty Tyrants," Postumus by name, is said to have checked
their progress, and done something to protect the Roman provinces of
the West. Postumus was slain in 267 A.D.
This date belongs to the period of extreme depression which coincides
with the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus. Valerian was a favourite
lieutenant of the Emperor Decius, and seems to have been a man of high
character and ability. But circumstances were too strong for him. Great
as were the dangers that threatened the European provinces of the
Empire, it was on the Asiatic frontier that he found his presence more
imperatively demanded. A revolution in Parthia had restored the ancient
dynasty of the Persian kings, or, at least, a family that claimed that
character. The new line of kings was now represented by a certain
Shapar, or, as the Romans spelt it, Sapor. Armenia, long a bone of
contention between Rome and Parthia, was overrun; the garrisons on the
Euphrates were forced to surrender. Valerian hastened to meet the new
enemy, encountered him near Edessa, and suffered a crushing defeat. We
know next to nothing of what happened except that the legions were led,
by the folly of their chief or the treachery of those whom he trusted,
into a hopeless situation; that their attempt to cut their way through
the hosts of the enemy was repulsed with great loss; and that in the
end Valerian had to surrender himself to Sapor, and that the legions
laid down their arms. There was nothing now to stop the Parthian king.
The splendid city of Antioch was taken and plundered or burnt. He even
crossed the Taurus range, and captured the wealthy city of Tarsus.
It is impossible to say where he would have stopped, had it not been
for the courage and ability of Odenathus, the governor of Palmyra and
his wife Zenobia. It was they, not the Roman arms that compelled the
Parthians to make their way back to their own country.
Valerian was never released from captivity. Stories--whether true or
no it is impossible to say--were told of the humiliations to which he
was subjected by the Persian king. Whenever Sapor mounted his horse, he
used to put his foot on the neck of his captive. And when the unhappy
man was released by death, his skin was stuffed with straw, and the
figure preserved in one of the Persian temples, "a more real monument
of triumph," remarks Gibbon, "than the fancied trophies of brass and
marble so often erected by Roman vanity." Whatever may be the truth
about this or that fact, it is certain that this period witnessed the
infliction of two unprecedented humiliations on the dignity of Rome,
one Emperor slain in battle, another kept in a dishonourable captivity.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 43: It is remarkable that the most philosophic of the "Good
Emperors" departed from the rule of adoption which had apparently been
so beneficial to Rome, and left the succession to his son, of whose
real character he could hardly have been ignorant. Gibbon, however,
thinks that the want of the hereditary principle was one of the great
causes of the troubles of the Empire.]
[Footnote 44: In 165 the legions returning from the East are said to
have brought the Oriental plague into Europe.]
[Footnote 45: Gibbon reduces the number to _nineteen_.]
[Footnote 46: The Eastern division of the province.]
II
A CENTURY OF REVIVAL
An observer of the calamities and disgraces which overtook the Empire
in what I have called "A Century of Disgrace," might have supposed that
the end was at hand. But an ancient institution does not perish so
easily. The Empire still possessed a great prestige, an organisation of
government which had been worked out by a succession of able statesmen
and rulers, and an army with numberless traditions of victory. Given
an able leader, there would certainly be a revival of vigour, or, to
say the least, a check to the progress of decay. A better time began
with the death of Gallienus, the son of Valerian, in A.D. 268. He
perished, it is doubtful whether by treachery or accident, in one of
the numberless conflicts that occurred during this period between
the possessor of the imperial throne and the numerous pretenders who
aspired to it. His successor was a soldier of humble origin, though
he bore the old patrician name of Claudius. He had soon an opportunity
of showing his qualities as a soldier. In the year after his accession
to the throne a huge army of Goths and of other tribes who were
accustomed to fight under their standard invaded the provinces south
of the Danube. Claudius hastened to encounter them, and fought a great
battle at Nissa in Servia in which 50,000 of the barbarians are said
to have perished. Little is known of the details of this or indeed of
any of the conflicts of the time; the chronicles of the age are wanting
in the power of description and, indeed, in all literary gift, but
we gather that the legions were beginning to give way when Claudius
brought up reinforcements to their help. These fresh troops fell upon
the barbarian rear, and wholly changed the fortunes of the day. But
the victory of Nissa did not put an end to the war. Nor, indeed, did
Claudius live to finish it. He did enough, it is true, to win the
title of Gothicus, and to deserve it better than was sometimes the
case with Emperors who were similarly honoured.[47] But he died--the
victim, it was said, of a plague which had originated in the barbarian
camp--after a reign of little more than two years, and left the
completion of the war to his successor Aurelian.
Aurelian's reign was but little longer than that of Claudius. It began
in August, 270, and was ended in March, 275, by assassination; but this
brief period was crowded with great achievements. In dealing with the
Goths he showed that he was a statesman as well as a soldier. After
conclusively proving to them that he could vanquish them in the field,
he turned them, by a seasonable generosity, from enemies into friends.
It had become evident that the province which Trajan had added to the
Empire could no longer be held with advantage; Dacia, accordingly, was
given up to the Goths, and a tribe associated with them, of whom we
shall hear again, the Vandals. The Goths remained loyal to Rome, till,
as we shall see, they were forced into hostility. They even furnished a
body of auxiliary cavalry to the imperial army.
But while Aurelian was thus engaged, Italy and even Rome were
endangered by the attack of another multitude of the same German
race. The Alemanni, a people of which we know next to nothing except
the stock to which they belonged,[48] suddenly crossed the Roman
frontier, and made their way as far as the north of Italy. The armies
of the Empire were engaged elsewhere, and the invaders plundered the
country without hindrance. They had even made their way back to the
Danube when Aurelian encountered them. It is not easy to understand the
story of what followed. The Emperor outmanœuvres the barbarians, and
reduces them to such extremities that they beg for peace. When their
envoys are introduced to the presence of Aurelian, there is a sudden
change of circumstances. The Alemanni, instead of imploring pardon,
dictate conditions. They must have a subsidy, if Rome would have them
as allies. The Emperor dismisses them with an indignant refusal,
and we expect to hear of the severest punishment being inflicted on
them. Nothing of the kind occurs. Aurelian, called elsewhere by some
demand which he cannot refuse, disappears from the scene, and leaves
the completion of the business to his lieutenants. They neglect their
duty or fail to perform it; the Alemanni take the opportunity, break
through the _cordon_ of troops which had been formed round them, and
make their way back to Italy. We next hear of them as ravaging the
territory of Milan. Aurelian orders the legions to follow them with
all the speed that they could manage, and hastens himself to defend
Italy with a quickly moving force, partly composed, it is interesting
to observe, of auxiliary cavalry levied from the new settlers in Dacia.
The struggle that followed is not what we should have expected after
hearing of the straits to which the Alemanni had been reduced at the
Danube. At Piacenza the Roman army came perilously near to destruction.
The barbarians fall unexpectedly upon the legions as they march
carelessly through a wooded defile. Only by the greatest exertions does
Aurelian rally them. But though the army is saved from destruction, it
cannot arrest the progress of the enemy. When we next hear of them the
barbarians have advanced more than a hundred miles nearer to Rome. Near
the Metaurus, and not far from the spot where Hasdrubal had perished,
the Emperor overtook them. This time they must have suffered a serious
defeat, for their third and last appearance in Northern Italy, near
Pavia (the ancient _Ticinum_). Historians relate that they were
exterminated, and this is probably true, for it was the fate that would
naturally overtake unsuccessful invaders of Italy.
I may mention in the very briefest way that Aurelian restored the Roman
power in the East by overthrowing Zenobia, who, since the death of her
husband Odenathus, had remained independent at Palmyra, and in the West
by putting an end to the usurpation of Tetricus, who had maintained his
independence in Gaul and Britain for several years. To all appearance,
the Empire was restored to what it had been at the death of Marcus
Aurelius.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 47: Domitian, for instance, was styled _Germanicus_, though
his campaigns against the Germans were marked by disaster rather than
by victory.]
[Footnote 48: The historians of the time do not give them the same
name.]
III
THREE DEADLY BLOWS
To tell the story of the last century of the Roman Empire in any
fullness of detail would be impossible in any space that I can command.
I must limit myself to a narrative of what may truly be called the
three most significant incidents in that period.
The first of the fatal blows which may be said to have brought the
Empire of Rome to an end was dealt almost against the will of those
from whom it came. The policy of Aurelian in ceding Dacia to the Goths
had been, on the whole, successful. They had been contented and even
friendly, finding sufficient employment for their arms in extending
their power among their barbarous neighbours, and furnishing not a few
recruits to the imperial armies. In 375 they were disturbed by reports
of an invading host which was advancing from the north and east. These
reports pictured the new-comers as hideous in appearance and cruelly
savage in character. We are now used to the Tartar countenance, but
to Europe in the fourth century the broad, almost beardless face,
flat nose, eyes set wide apart, and squat figure, were as frightful
as they were strange. As for the savagery of the Huns--for so the
new-comers were called--rumours were scarcely exaggerated. The Goths
had themselves in former times been scarcely less ferocious in their
manners, but they had now for several generations been in contact with
civilisation, and the Christian faith had begun to find its way among
them. Both divisions of the nation, known by the names of Ostrogoths
and Visigoths, were successively defeated by the invading host, which
showed military skill as well as courage. The Ostrogoths submitted, as
a body, to the invaders, though a considerable minority contrived to
escape, taking with them their infant king. The Visigoths resolved to
throw themselves on the protection of Rome. They sent envoys to the
Emperor (Valens), and begged that they might be permitted to cross
the frontier. After some delay Valens gave his consent, and the whole
nation--a few scattered companies excepted--was transported across the
Danube. The numbers of the refugees may be calculated at a million,
as there were no less than two hundred thousand males of the military
age. It had been stipulated that all weapons should be given up. But
this condition was very generally evaded. The corrupt officials of the
Empire were ready, for a consideration, to permit the Gothic warriors
to keep their arms. Having thus allowed them to remain formidable, they
proceeded, with almost incredible folly, to insult and oppress them
in every possible way. They robbed them of their wives and children,
and sold at extortionate prices the food which the Imperial Government
was bound to provide without cost. Meanwhile the generals of Valens
neglected to maintain the defences of the Danube, and a large body of
Ostrogoths who had been refused a passage over the river, took the
matter into their own hands, and crossed over into the province. The
two branches of the nation were not long in coming to an understanding,
and making common cause against their oppressors. It was not long
before the smouldering fire burst into flame. The first battle took
place not far from Pravadi,[49] where Claudius had defeated the Goths
many years before. We know little about this conflict except its
result, which, as the historian of the Goths (or, as he calls them,
Getæ) puts it, was to bring about a state of things in which the Goths
were no longer strangers and foreigners, but members of the State and
lords of the country which they occupied. An indecisive engagement
followed at a spot called _Salices_ ("The Willows") in the low land
near the mouth of the Danube, but the great battle of the war was
fought at Hadrianople. Valens, who had spent a considerable time, with
little profit to the Empire, at Antioch, returned in the early summer
of 378 A.D. to Constantinople. After a brief rest in that city, where
he made some changes in the chief commands of his army, he marched
northwards and fortified a camp under the walls of Hadrianople. It
was debated between the Emperor and his chief advisers whether or no
they should fight at once. There were many reasons for delay. Valens
occupied a strong position, and had the command of unlimited supplies.
The barbarians, on the other hand, were ill-provided in every respect,
and would most certainly grow weaker the longer they were compelled to
keep the field. Another powerful consideration was, or should have
been, the approach of Gratian, Emperor of the West, to whom Valens
had appealed for help, and who was now advancing eastward by forced
marches. Gratian had, indeed, sent a special messenger imploring Valens
not to risk a battle before his arrival. Unfortunately this request had
an effect exactly opposed to what had been intended. Valens was anxious
to secure for himself all the glory which would come from the victory
which he confidently expected, and when Gratian begged for delay, he at
once resolved to fight.
It was the height of summer, and Valens was scarcely acting with
judgment when he moved out of his position under the walls of
Hadrianople, and commenced a march which could not be expected to be
accomplished under four hours--the distance to be traversed was ten
miles--with the intention of attacking the enemy. In any case the men
would have been not a little wearied or exhausted; as it was, one wing
of the army considerably out-marched the other, and that which had
lagged behind was forced to hurry that it might take its proper place
in the line. Even after this time was wasted, for Valens was amused
with proposals for a truce or cessation of arms which the enemy had
no intention of acting on. One of the imperial generals, possibly
impatient of the delay, made an attack which was easily repulsed. The
Gothic cavalry, in reply, charged with fatal effect. The Roman horsemen
fled before them, and the legions, left alone in an open plain to face
an enemy superior in force, were practically destroyed. The fate of
Valens is uncertain; but the more generally received account was that,
having been severely wounded, he was carried off the field to a cottage
in the neighbourhood. Before any way of escape could be discovered,
before even his wound could be dressed, the cottage was surrounded by
the enemy. The inmates did their best to defend it, and the Goths,
impatient of delay, set fire to it and burnt it to the ground. Valens,
anyhow, was never seen again. The army of Rome was swept from the earth
at Hadrianople as completely as it had been at Cannæ, but Rome had lost
in the five centuries that separated these two great disasters her
power of recovery.
The next great blow received by Rome came also from Gothic hands. The
first mention of Alaric shows us a significant change in Roman policy.
The Gothic chief holds a high command in the armies of the Empire,
and was employed by the ruler in possession in his struggle against a
pretender. When he turned against his employer it was because he was
disappointed in his ambition of filling a yet higher post. There is no
need to describe his career at length. A brief outline shows plainly
enough, not only his genius, for he was certainly a statesman and a
soldier of great ability, but the deplorable weakness of the Empire.
At first, indeed, he had an antagonist who was more than his match. In
396 he openly revolted, and marched into Greece, which he plundered
without meeting with any resistance, for the country had long since
passed into a condition of helpless servitude. But he was pursued by
Stilicho, himself a barbarian by birth--a soldier who was equal to any
of the great commanders of the past. The Goths found themselves shut
up in the Peloponnesus. Their leader, however, contrived to extricate
himself from his difficulties, transporting his army across the western
end of the Gulf of Corinth, and occupying Epirus. The next thing in his
extraordinary career was that he was appointed by the Emperor of the
East--the Eastern and Western Empires had been finally severed four
years before[50]--to be the Governor of the province of Illyricum. Here
he was able to plan and prepare his schemes for the final conquest of
Rome. That the opportunity for so doing should have been given by the
power that should have been Rome's closest ally was a sure sign of the
approaching ruin.
A few years after his establishment in Illyricum, Alaric, who had
been in the meantime saluted king by his countrymen, felt himself
equal to the task of invading Italy. Stilicho, however, was still in
command of the Roman armies--now almost wholly recruited from barbarian
tribes--and he proved himself more than a match for the Gothic king.
The great battle of Pollentia (in Northern Italy) was contested with
more than usual stubbornness. Fortune changed sides more than once.
Stilicho's genius prevailed, however, in the end; the Goths were driven
from the field; their camp was taken, and Alaric's wife fell into the
hands of the conquerors. But the great leader was not yet beaten. His
cavalry, the principal strength of his forces, had not been broken,
and he formed the bold scheme of marching upon Rome. This, however,
was given up; he accepted, in preference, the offer of Stilicho, who
proposed to allow him to depart unharmed from Italy, on condition of
his becoming for the future an ally of Rome. He did not, however,
intend to perform his part of the bargain. On the contrary, he formed
a scheme for possessing himself of Gaul. But his plans were betrayed
to Stilicho, and he suffered another defeat in the neighbourhood of
Verona which was not less disastrous than that of Pollentia. Even then,
however, he was a formidable enemy, and Stilicho allowed him to retire
from Italy, rather than drive him to extremities.
After four years, years of incessant drain upon the resources of the
Empire, Alaric prepared to renew his attempt on Rome. Stilicho was
dead. Possibly he had deserved his fate, for he had certainly cherished
ambitions which did not become a loyal subject. But there was no one to
take his place at the head of the legions. Certainly Alaric met with
no opposition as he marched through Italy, finally pitching his camp
under the walls of Rome. Resistance was impossible; it only remained
to see what was the smallest price at which the enemy could be bought
off. Two envoys from the Senate approached the king. They began by
counselling prudence. It would be well, they said, if Alaric did not
drive a brave and numerous people to despair. "The thicker the hay,
the easier to mow," was the king's answer. When asked to name the
ransom which he was willing to accept, he declared that he must have
all the gold and silver that they possessed, all their valuables, and
all the slaves of barbarian birth. "What then do you leave us?" was
the question which the envoys in their consternation put to him. "Your
lives," he answered. In the end, however, he consented to a compromise,
by which he was to receive five thousand pounds of gold, thirty
thousand pounds of silver, and a quantity of precious articles, silk,
cloth, and spices.
The respite thus purchased was but brief. The ministers of the Emperor,
safe themselves in the fortress of Ravenna, behaved with a strange
mixture of weakness and treachery. Their crowning act of folly was to
permit a barbarian chief in their pay to make an unprovoked attack on
a detachment of Goths. This was indeed destroyed, but the victory was
dearly purchased. Alaric, justly indignant at such behaviour, broke
off all negotiations, and marched on Rome. The Senate prepared to make
all the resistance possible. But nothing was really done. Some traitors
within the city opened one of the gates, and the Goths made their way
into the city, which was given over to slaughter and plunder for six
days. Rome may be said to have thus lost for ever her claim to rule the
world. But her cup of humiliation was not yet full.
Alaric did not long survive the conquest of Rome. He died in the same
year, and was buried--so, indeed, the story runs--in the channel of
a stream whose waters had been diverted for the time, the labourers
who performed the work being slaughtered to keep the secret of his
resting-place from being ever divulged.
But Rome was to fall into the power of a conqueror yet more powerful
and more ferocious. Attila was a Hun, and is said to have even
exaggerated in his personal appearance all the characteristic
deformities of his race. The boundaries of the Empire can hardly be
defined, but it is certain that it was of enormous extent. It is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that it reached from China to the
Rhine. The hosts that followed him were almost beyond counting. For
once the incredible numbers in which the historians of antiquity
delight were no exaggeration. It is probably a modest estimate of his
host to say that it consisted of half a million combatants.
[Illustration: Attila and Leo.]
Powerful as he was, the king of the Huns was not permitted to pursue
his course without opposition. Rome could still produce or rather adopt
great soldiers--Aëtius, the great antagonist of Attila, was a Scythian
by birth as Stilicho was a Vandal--and great soldiers can always find
men to follow them. In the earlier part of Attila's reign,[51] his
operations were carried on within the limits of the Eastern Empire. In
450 he attacked the West, one of his pretexts being the refusal of the
Emperor Valentinian III. of his proposals for the hand of the Princess
Honoria. He crossed the Rhine with a huge army at Strasburg, and
marched on Orleans. But Aëtius was prepared for him. A great battle was
fought at Châlons-sur-Marne, the last successful effort of the Roman
arms. One of the notable features of the battle is the division of the
Goths, the Ostrogoths following the standard of Attila, while the
Visigoths fought for Rome. The loss of men amounted to between two and
three hundred thousand, but it was not unequally divided. Aëtius could
not prevent the retreat of Attila, who retired into Eastern Europe,
where he spent some months in recruiting his army.
Early in the following year he crossed the Alps, descended into Italy,
and after capturing and totally destroying the city of Aquileia,
marched Romewards. He never reached the city, indeed. Not far from
Mantua he was met by three ambassadors, one of them the bishop of
Rome known as Leo the Great. They brought the offer of a complete
submission. The Emperor no longer refused the condition which he had
before peremptorily rejected. The Hunnish king was to have the hand of
the Princess Honoria, and with her, as Gibbon epigrammatically puts it,
"an immense ransom or dowry." The marriage never took place, for Attila
died in the following year, but he had inflicted on Rome a humiliation
even greater than that which she had suffered at the hand of Alaric.
One more event I must record, because in a way it completes this great
period of history. In 475 a youth who bore the name of Romulus and the
nickname of Augustulus was raised to the throne by his father Orestes,
who secured for a time control of such armies as still obeyed the
Empire. In the following year Orestes was defeated and slain, and his
son permitted to abdicate. Italy passed into the hands of Odoacer, king
of the Heruli. The Old World had passed away and the New had begun.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 49: See p. 349.]
[Footnote 50: When the Emperor Theodosius died (394 A.D.) his two
sons Honorius and Arcadius became emperors of the West and East
respectively.]
[Footnote 51: He succeeded to the throne in 434 in partnership with his
brother, and by this brother's death, or murder, as some said, became
the ruler of the nation in 445.]
EPILOGUE
I take it for granted that none of my readers doubt the existence of
a definite purpose--some may prefer to call it a tendency--in human
history. Writers on this subject have often been accused of dwelling
too much on war. But war is the ultimate expression of human will,
and war, with all its horrors and losses, has worked, we are glad to
believe, for the general good. The fittest among the nations have
survived. We cannot estimate the loss which mankind would have suffered
if the great military monarchies of the East had crushed out of
existence the insignificant tribe which was to be the world's teacher
in righteousness. Something of the same kind may be seen in what is
called secular history.
Greece struggled bravely, against what must have seemed almost hopeless
odds, to preserve herself from Persian domination. If the eleven
thousand "Men of Marathon" had been trodden under foot by the hosts
of Persia, the Athens of the fifth century, with its free political
life and unrivalled intellectual development, would not have existed.
A sterile despotism, without literature or art, would have taken its
place, and the world would have been incalculably the poorer for the
exchange.
What is true of the struggle between Greece and Persia is true also of
the great conflict, lasting for more than two centuries, in which the
Sicilian Greeks, with now and then a little help from the motherland,
held their own against Carthage. Persia and Carthage, though differing
much from each other, were equally hostile to the essential principles
of Western civilisation.
Little need be said as to the issue of the wars between Rome and
Carthage. Rome, indeed, took up the cause for which Greece had
contended. It is impossible to conceive a Carthaginian Empire
exercising a worldwide sway with anything like the beneficial results
for which the world has to thank the dominion of Rome. Carthaginian
politics and morals, as far as we have any knowledge of them, seem to
have been narrow and inhuman.
When we come to the conquests of Alexander, we are not able, it must
be confessed, to see our way so plainly. We may perceive, however,
in it the spread of Greek influence over Western Asia. That influence
had already been at work. Greek colonies had been planted far to the
east; the Oriental nations had been much affected by Greek thought and
manners. Alexander's brief career--it lasted but eleven years--did much
to promote this Hellenizing process. The empire of the great conqueror
fell to pieces at his death, but two Greek kingdoms, to speak only of
his Eastern dominion, were built out of the ruins. It was in these
kingdoms that some of the earliest victories of Christianity were won.
Given to the world by a Semitic tribe, our faith used largely for
its spread Greek means, of which a common Greek language is the most
obvious.
We need not prove that it was for the lasting good of the world that
Rome was not crushed by the Celtic invaders of 390 B.C. or the Teutonic
swarm of 112 B.C. It is equally plain that the development of the human
race was largely helped by the subsequent spread of the Empire, till
it embraced all Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Danube, all
Northern Africa, and Asia west of the Euphrates. It is enough to say
that Roman law is a dominating power in most of the codes of modern
Europe, and an important element in all.
Finally, we have the overthrow of the Roman Empire by barbarians from
the north and east. This overthrow may seem at first to be "chaos come
again." So doubtless many thought at the time. Yet out of the turmoil
of the fourth and the fifth centuries there came a new order, the order
which we see in the Europe of to-day. The subject lies outside my
province. I can only indicate the fact.
UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON
Transcribers note: "Text enclosed by underscores is in italics
(_italics_)."
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