A General History for Colleges and High Schools

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The Latin colonies numbered about thirty at the time of the Second Punic
War. A few of these were colonies that had been founded by the old Latin
Confederacy; but the most were towns that had been established by Rome
subsequent to the dissolution of the League (see p. 244). The term Latin
was applied to these later colonies of purely Roman origin, for the reason
that they enjoyed the same rights as the Latin towns that had retained
their independence. Thus the inhabitants of a Latin colony possessed some
of the most valuable of the private rights of Roman citizens, but they had
no political rights at the capital.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.
(264-241 B.C.)

CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIAN EMPIRE.--Foremost among the cities founded
by the Phoenicians upon the different shores of the Mediterranean was
Carthage, upon the northern coast of Africa. The city is thought to have
had its beginnings in a small trading-post, established late in the ninth
century B.C., about one hundred years before the founding of Rome.
Carthage was simply another Tyre. She was mistress and queen of the
Western Mediterranean. At the period we have now reached, she held sway,
through peaceful colonization or by force of arms, over all the northern
coast of Africa from the Greater Syrtis to the Pillars of Hercules, and
possessed the larger part of Sicily, as well as Sardinia, Corsica, the
Balearic Isles, Southern Spain, and scores of little islands scattered
here and there in the neighboring seas. With all its shores dotted with
her colonies and fortresses, and swept in every direction by the
Carthaginian war-galleys, the Western Mediterranean had become a
"Phoenician lake," in which, as the Carthaginians boasted, no one dared
wash his hands without their permission.

CARTHAGINIAN GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION.--The government of Carthage, like
that of Rome, was republican in form. Corresponding to the Roman consuls,
two magistrates, called Suffetes, stood at the head of the state. The
Senate was composed of the heads of the leading families; its duties and
powers were very like those of the Roman Senate. So well-balanced was the
constitution, and so prudent was its administration, that six hundred
years of Carthaginian history exhibited not a single revolution.

The religion of the Carthaginians was the old Canaanitish worship of Baal,
or the Sun. To Moloch,--another name for the fire-god,--"who rejoiced in
human victims and in parents' tears," they offered human sacrifices.

ROME AND CARTHAGE COMPARED.--These two great republics, which for more
than five centuries had been slowly extending their limits and maturing
their powers upon the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, were now about
to begin one of the most memorable struggles of all antiquity--a duel that
was to last, with every vicissitude of fortune, for over one hundred
years.

As was the case in the contest between Athens and Sparta, so now the two
rival cities, with their allies and dependencies, were very nearly matched
in strength and resources. The Romans, it is true, were almost destitute
of a navy; while the Carthaginians had the largest and most splendidly
equipped fleet that ever patrolled the waters of the Mediterranean. But
although the Carthaginians were superior to the Romans in naval warfare,
they were greatly their inferiors in land encounters. The Carthaginian
territory, moreover, was widely scattered, embracing extended coasts and
isolated islands; while the Roman possessions were compact, and confined
to a single and easily defended peninsula. Again, the Carthaginian armies
were formed chiefly of mercenaries, while those of Rome were recruited
very largely from the ranks of the Roman people. And then the subject
states of Carthage were mostly of another race, language, and religion
from their Phoenician conquerors, and were ready, upon the first disaster
to the ruling city, to drop away from their allegiance; while the Latin
allies and Italian dependencies of Rome were close kindred to her in race
and religion, and so, through natural impulse, for the most part remained
loyal to her during even the darkest periods of her struggle with her
rival.

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR.--Lying between Italy and the coast of Africa is
the large island of Sicily. It is in easy sight of the former, and its
southernmost point is only ninety miles from the latter. At the
commencement of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians held possession of
all the island save a strip of the eastern coast, which was under the sway
of the Greek city of Syracuse. The Greeks and Carthaginians had carried on
an almost uninterrupted struggle through two centuries for the control of
the island. The Romans had not yet set foot upon it. But it was destined
to become the scene of the most terrible encounters between the armaments
of the two rivals. Pyrrhus had foreseen it all. As he withdrew from the
island, he said, "What a fine battlefield we are leaving for the Romans
and Carthaginians."

In the year 264 B.C., on a flimsy pretext of giving protection to some
friends, the Romans crossed over to the island. That act committed them to
a career of foreign conquest destined to continue till their arms had made
the circuit of the Mediterranean.

The Syracusans and Carthaginians, old enemies and rivals though they had
been, joined their forces against the insolent newcomers. The allies were
completely defeated in the first battle, and the Roman army obtained a
sure foothold upon the island.

In the following year both consuls were placed at the head of formidable
armies for the conquest of Sicily. A large portion of the island was
quickly overrun, arid many of the cities threw off their allegiance to
Syracuse and Carthage, and became allies of Rome. Hiero, king of Syracuse,
seeing that he was upon the losing side, deserted the cause of the
Carthaginians, and formed an alliance with the Romans, and ever after
remained their firm friend.

THE ROMANS GAIN THEIR FIRST NAVAL VICTORY (260 B.C.).--Their experience
during the past campaigns had shown the Romans that if they were to cope
successfully with the Carthaginians, they must be able to meet them upon
the sea as well as upon the land. So they determined to build a fleet. A
Carthaginian galley that had been wrecked upon the shores of Italy, served
as a pattern. It is affirmed that, within the almost incredibly short
space of sixty days, a growing forest was converted into a fleet of one
hundred and twenty war galleys.

The consul C. Duillius was entrusted with the command of the fleet. He met
the Carthaginian squadron near the city and promontory of Mylae, on the
northern coast of Sicily. Now, distrusting their ability to match the
skill of their enemy in naval tactics, the Romans had provided each of
their vessels with a drawbridge. As soon as a Carthaginian ship came near
enough to a Roman vessel, this gangway was allowed to fall upon the
approaching galley; and the Roman soldiers, rushing along the bridge, were
soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their enemies, in which
species of encounter the former were unequalled. The result was a complete
victory for the Romans.

The joy at Rome was unbounded. It inspired in the more sanguine splendid
visions of maritime command and glory. The Mediterranean should speedily
become a Roman lake, in which no vessel might float without the consent of
Rome.

THE ROMANS CARRY THE WAR INTO AFRICA.--The results of the naval engagement
at Mylae encouraged the Romans to push the war with redoubled energy. They
resolved to carry it into Africa. An immense Carthaginian fleet that
disputed the passage of the Roman squadron was almost annihilated, and the
Romans disembarked near Carthage. Regulus, one of the consuls who led the
army of invasion, sent word to Rome that he had sealed up the gates of
Carthage with terror. Finally, however, Regulus suffered a crushing
defeat, and was made prisoner. A fleet which was sent to bear away the
remnants of the shattered army was wrecked in a terrific storm off the
coast of Sicily, and the shores of the island were strewn with the
wreckage of between two and three hundred ships and with the bodies of one
hundred thousand men.

Undismayed at the terrible disaster that had overtaken the transport
fleet, the Romans set to work to build another, and made a second descent
upon the African coast. The expedition, however, accomplished nothing of
importance; and the fleet on its return voyage was almost destroyed, just
off the coast of Italy, by a tremendous storm.

REGULUS AND THE CARTHAGINIAN EMBASSY.--For a few years the Romans
refrained from tempting again the hostile powers of the sea, and Sicily
became once more the battle-ground of the contending rivals. At last,
having lost a great battle (battle of Panormus, 251 B.C.), the
Carthaginians became dispirited, and sent an embassy to Rome, to negotiate
for peace, or, if that could not be reached, to effect an exchange of
prisoners. Among the commissioners was Regulus, who since his capture,
five years before, had been held a prisoner in Africa. Before setting out
from Carthage he had promised to return if the embassy were unsuccessful.
For the sake of his own release, the Carthaginians supposed he would
counsel peace, or at least urge an exchange of prisoners. But it is
related, that upon arrival at Rome, he counselled war instead of peace, at
the same time revealing to the Senate the enfeebled condition of Carthage.
As to the exchange of prisoners, he said, "Let those who have surrendered
when they ought to have died, die in the land which has witnessed their
disgrace."

The Roman Senate, following his counsel, rejected all the proposals of the
embassy; and Regulus, in spite of the tears and entreaties of his wife and
friends, turned away from Rome, and set out for Carthage to bear such fate
as he well knew the Carthaginians, in their disappointment and anger,
would be sure to visit upon him.

The tradition goes on to tell how, upon his arrival at Carthage, he was
confined in a cask driven full of spikes, and then left to die of
starvation and pain. This part of the tale has been discredited, and the
finest touches of the other portions are supposed to have been added by
the story-tellers.

LOSS OF TWO MORE ROMAN FLEETS.--After the failure of the Carthaginian
embassy, the war went on for several years by land and sea with varying
vicissitudes. At last, on the coast of Sicily, one of the consuls,
Claudius, met with an overwhelming defeat. Almost a hundred vessels of his
fleet were lost. The disaster caused the greatest alarm at Rome.
Superstition increased the fears of the people. It was reported that just
before the battle, when the auspices were being taken, and the sacred
chickens would not eat, Claudius had given orders to have them thrown into
the sea, irreverently remarking, "At any rate, they shall drink."
Imagination was free to depict what further evils the offended gods might
inflict upon the Roman state.

The gloomiest forebodings might have found justification in subsequent
events. The other consul just now met with a great disaster. He was
proceeding along the southern coast of Sicily with a squadron of eight
hundred merchantmen and over one hundred war galleys, the former loaded
with grain for the Roman army on the island. A severe storm arising, the
squadron was beaten to pieces upon the rocks. Not a single ship escaped.
The coast for miles was strewn with broken planks, and with bodies, and
heaped with vast windrows of grain cast up by the waves.

CLOSE OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.--The war had now lasted for fifteen years.
Four Roman fleets had been destroyed, three of which had been sunk or
broken to pieces by storms. Of the fourteen hundred vessels which had been
lost, seven hundred were war galleys,--all large and costly quinqueremes,
that is, vessels with five banks of oars. Only one hundred of these had
fallen into the hands of the enemy; the remainder were a sacrifice to the
malign and hostile power of the waves. Such successive blows from an
invisible hand were enough to blanch the faces even of the sturdy Romans.
Neptune manifestly denied to the "Children of Mars" the realm of the sea.

It was impossible for the six years following the last disaster to infuse
any spirit into the struggle. In 247 B.C., Hamilcar Barcas, the father of
the great Hannibal, assumed the command of the Carthaginian forces, and
for several years conducted the war with great ability on the island of
Sicily, even making Rome tremble for the safety of her Italian
possessions.

Once more the Romans determined to commit their cause to the element that
had been so unfriendly to them. A fleet of two hundred vessels was built
and equipped, but entirely by private subscription; for the Senate feared
that public sentiment would not sustain them in levying a tax for fitting
up another costly armament as an offering to the insatiable Neptune. This
people's squadron, as we may call it, was intrusted to the command of the
consul Catulus. He met the Carthaginian fleet under the command of the
Admiral Hanno, near the AEgatian islands, and inflicted upon it a crushing
defeat.

The Carthaginians now sued for peace. A treaty was at length arranged, the
terms of which required that Carthage should give up all claims to the
island of Sicily, surrender all her prisoners, and pay an indemnity of
3200 talents (about $4,000,000), one-third of which was to be paid down,
and the balance in ten yearly payments. Thus ended (241 B.C.), after a
continuance of twenty-four years, the first great struggle between
Carthage and Rome.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
(2l8-201 B.C.)

ROME BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

THE FIRST ROMAN PROVINCE.--For the twenty-three years that followed the
close of the first struggle between Rome and Carthage, the two rivals
strained every power and taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal
of the contest.

The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing all of it, save the
lands belonging to Syracuse, as a province of the republic. This was the
first territory beyond the limits of Italy that Rome had conquered, and
the Sicilian the first of Roman provinces. But as the imperial city
extended her conquests, her provincial possessions increased in number and
size until they formed at last a perfect cordon about the Mediterranean.
Each province was governed by a magistrate sent out from the capital, and
paid an annual tribute, or tax, to Rome.

ROME ACQUIRES SARDINIA AND CORSICA.--The first acquisition by the Romans
of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have created in them an insatiable
ambition for foreign conquests. They soon found a pretext for seizing the
island of Sardinia, the most ancient and, after Sicily, the most prized of
the possessions of the Carthaginians. The island, in connection with
Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman province. With her
hands upon these islands, the authority of Rome in the Western, or Tuscan
Sea, was supreme.

THE ILLYRIAN CORSAIRS ARE PUNISHED.--At about the same time, the Romans
also extended their influence over the seas that wash the eastern shores
of Italy. For a long time the Adriatic and Ionian waters had been infested
with Illyrian pirates, who issued from the roadsteads of the northeastern
coasts of the former sea. The Roman fleet chased these corsairs from the
Adriatic, and captured several of their strongholds. Rome now assumed a
sort of protectorate over the Greek cities of the Adriatic coasts. This
was her first step towards final supremacy in Macedonia and Greece.

WAR WITH THE GAULS.--In the north, during this same period, Roman
authority was extended from the Apennines and the Rubicon to the foot of
the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of the Romans, who were pushing northward
their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling
with discharged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land
wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of that race,
stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, besides their kinsmen
who were yet beyond the mountains, for an assault upon Rome. Intelligence
of this movement among the northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of
excitement. At Rome the terror was great; for not yet had died out of
memory what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors of
these same barbarians that were now again gathering their hordes for sack
and pillage. An ancient prediction, found in the Sibylline books, declared
that a portion of Roman territory must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping
sufficiently to fulfil the prophecy and satisfy Fate, the Roman Senate
caused two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of the
capital.

Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravaging the country
as they moved southward. After gathering a large amount of booty, they
were carrying this back to a place of safety, when they were surrounded by
the Roman armies at Telamon, and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The
Romans, taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of the
Po, captured the city which is now known as Milan, and extended their
authority to the foot-hills of the Alps.

CARTHAGE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

THE TRUCELESS WAR.--Scarcely had peace been concluded with Rome at the end
of the First Punic War, before Carthage was plunged into a still deadlier
struggle, which for a time threatened her very existence. The mercenary
troops, upon their return from Sicily, revolted, on account of not
receiving their pay. Their appeal to the native tribes of Africa was
answered by a general uprising throughout the dependencies of Carthage.
The extent of the revolt shows how hateful and hated was the rule of the
great capital over her subject states.

The war was unspeakably bitter and cruel. It is known in history as "The
Truceless War." At one time Carthage was the only city remaining in the
hands of the government. But the genius of the great Carthaginian general
Hamilcar Barcas at last triumphed, and the authority of Carthage was
everywhere restored.

THE CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN.--After the disastrous termination of the First
Punic War, the Carthaginians determined to repair their losses by new
conquests in Spain. Hamilcar Barcas was sent over into that country, and
for nine years he devoted his commanding genius to organizing the
different Iberian tribes into a compact state, and to developing the rich
gold and silver mines of the southern part of the peninsula. He fell in
battle 228 B.C.

Hamilcar Barcas was the greatest general that up to this time the
Carthaginian race had produced. As a rule, genius is not heritable; but in
the Barcine family the rule was broken, and the rare genius of Hamilcar
reappeared in his sons, whom he himself, it is said, was fond of calling
the "lion's brood." Hannibal, the oldest, was only nineteen at the time of
his father's death, and being thus too young to assume command, Hasdrubal,
[Footnote: Not to be confounded with Hannibal's own brother Hasdrubal.]
the son-in-law of Hamilcar, was chosen to succeed him. He carried out the
unfinished plans of Hamilcar, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian
power in Spain, and upon the eastern coast founded New Carthage as the
centre and capital of the newly acquired territory. The native tribes were
conciliated rather than conquered. The Barcine family knew how to rule as
well as how to fight.

HANNIBAL'S VOW.--Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which occurred 221 B.C.,
Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by the unanimous voice of the
army called to be their leader. When a child of nine years he had been led
by his father to the altar; and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice,
the little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race. He was driven
on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard fate, not only by the
restless fires of his warlike genius, but, as he himself declared, by the
sacred obligations of a vow that could not be broken.

HANNIBAL ATTACKS SAGUNTUM.--In two years Hannibal extended the
Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a Greek city upon the east coast
of Spain, alone remained unsubdued. The Romans, who were jealously
watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this
city, and taken it, with other Greek cities in that quarter of the
Mediterranean, under their protection. Hannibal, although he well knew
that an attack upon this place would precipitate hostilities with Rome,
laid siege to it in the spring of 219 B.C. He was eager for the renewal of
the old contest. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding his
making war upon a city which was a friend and ally of the Roman people;
but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, continued the siege, and,
after an investment of eight months, gained possession of the town.

The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to demand of the Senate that
they should give up Hannibal to them, and by so doing repudiate the act of
their general. The Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of
the embassy, gathering up his toga, said: "I carry here peace and war;
choose, men of Carthage, which ye will have." "Give us whichever ye will,"
was the reply. "War, then," said Fabius, dropping his toga. The "die was
now cast; and the arena was cleared for the foremost man of his race and
his time, perhaps the mightiest military genius of any race and of any
time."

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

HANNIBAL'S PASSAGE OF THE ALPS.--The Carthaginian empire was now stirred
with preparations for the impending struggle. Hannibal was the life and
soul of every movement. His bold plan was to cross the Pyrenees and the
Alps and descend upon Rome from the north.

[Illustration: HANNIBAL]

With his preparations completed, Hannibal left New Carthage early in the
spring of 218 B.C., with an army numbering about one hundred thousand men,
and including thirty-seven war elephants. Crossing the Pyrenees and the
Rhone, he reached the foot-hills of the Alps. Nature and man joined to
oppose the passage. The season was already far advanced--it was October--
and snow was falling upon the higher portions of the trail. Day after day
the army toiled painfully up the dangerous path. In places the narrow way
had to be cut wider for the monstrous bodies of the elephants. Often
avalanches of stone were hurled upon the trains by the hostile bands that
held possession of the heights above. At last the summit was gained, and
the shivering army looked down into the warm haze of the Italian plains.
The sight alone was enough to rouse the drooping spirits of the soldiers;
but Hannibal stirred them to enthusiasm by addressing them with these
words: "Ye are standing upon the Acropolis of Italy; yonder lies Rome."
The army began its descent, and at length, after toils and losses equalled
only by those of the ascent, its thinned battalions issued from the
defiles of the mountains upon the plains of the Po. Of the fifty thousand
men and more with which Hannibal had begun the passage, barely half that
number had survived the march, and these "looked more like phantoms than
men."

BATTLES OF THE TICINUS, THE TREBIA, AND LAKE TRASIMENUS.--The Romans had
not the remotest idea of Hannibal's plans. With war determined upon, the
Senate had sent one of the consuls, L. Sempronius Longus, with an army
into Africa by the way of Sicily; while the other, Publius Cornelius
Scipio, they had directed to lead another army into Spain.

While the Senate were watching the movements of these expeditions, they
were startled with the intelligence that Hannibal, instead of being in
Spain, had crossed the Pyrenees and was among the Gauls upon the Rhone.
Sempronius was hastily recalled from his attempt upon Africa, to the
defence of Italy. Scipio, on his way to Spain, had touched at Massilia,
and there learned of the movements of Hannibal. He turned back, hurried
into Northern Italy, and took command of the levies there. The cavalry of
the two armies met upon the banks of the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po.
The Romans were driven from the field by the fierce onset of the Numidian
horsemen. Scipio now awaited the arrival of the other consular army, which
was hurrying up through Italy by forced marches.

In the battle of the Trebia the united armies of the two consuls were
almost annihilated. The Gauls, who had been waiting to see to which side
fortune would incline, now flocked to the standard of Hannibal, and hailed
him as their deliverer.

The spring following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led his army, now
recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, and moved southward. At
Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the Romans under Flaminius in a mountain
defile, where, bewildered by a fog that filled the valley, the greater
part of the army was slaughtered, and the consul himself was slain.

The way to Rome was now open. Believing that Hannibal would march directly
upon the capital, the Senate caused the bridges that spanned the Tiber to
be destroyed, and appointed Fabius Maximus dictator.

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