READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

HISTORY OF ROME. THE WAR FOR SUPREMACY IN THE WEST

CHAPTER IV.

THE WAR OF THE MERCENARIES,

241-238 B.C.

As sometimes the strongest men, when they have strained every nerve and have kept up bravely in fighting against some threatening danger, succumb suddenly at last when calm and quiet are re-established, and seem doomed to perish from some internal suffering, so Carthage at the end of the long war with Rome was threatened by a much more serious evil than that which she had just gone through. The bad humours in the body of the state, no longer absorbed by exertion and activity, attacked the inner parts, and threatened sudden death. A mutiny of the mercenaries of Carthage, in connection with a revolt of all the allies and subjects, followed close on the Sicilian war. For more than three years there raged a fearful strife, accompanied by horrors which show that man can sink lower than the beasts. The cause of this war was the great weakness of the Carthaginian state, which, as we have seen, consisted in the want of a uniform population animated by the same sentiments. The mixture of races, over which Carthage ruled, felt only the increased burdens of the war with Rome, and not the patriotic enthusiasm which lightens every sacrifice. A decisive victory on the side of Carthage might have inspired her subjects with the respect and fear which with them had to take the place of devoted attachment. But Carthage was conquered. She had, in the eyes of her subjects, lost the right to govern. It required but a slight cause to make the whole proud edifice of Carthaginian power totter to its foundation.

This cause was the exhaustion of the Carthaginian finances. When the mercenaries returned from Sicily, and vainly looked for their overdue pay and the presents which had been promised to them, discontent and defiance arose among them, and they made higher and more extravagant demands when they saw that Carthage was not in a position to oppose them by force. It was now as difficult to pacify them as to bring them back to obedience. Open rebellion broke out, the mutineers and the allies made common cause together, and in a short time all the towns of Libya were in revolt. Utica and Hippo Zaritas alone remained faithful. Tunis was in the hands of the mutineers, who were commanded by the Libyan Matho, by the Campanian Spendius, and by the Gaul Autaritus. The general Hanno, who as their favourite had been selected by the mercenaries as umpire to decide the quarrel, was taken prisoner and detained as hostage. Carthage was surrounded by her numerous enemies, and seemed hopelessly lost. But the spirit of the Carthaginian population now rose. An army was formed from the citizens and those mercenaries who had remained faithful, and Hamilcar Barcas took the command. The superiority of a true general over such chiefs as Matho and Spendius soon became apparent. The mutineers, although reinforced, according to report, by 70,000 Libyans and Numidians, were surprised and defeated again and again. Hamilcar tried clemency. He only demanded a promise from the prisoners not to make war upon Carthage, and then set them free. But the leaders of the mutineers, fearing a universal rebellion among their accomplices, decided on rendering peace with Carthage impossible by an act of barbarous treachery. They caused the imprisoned Hanno and seven hundred Carthaginians to die a cruel death, and even refused to give up the bodies for burial. The war had now assumed its real character, and only the complete overthrow of the one or of the other party could put an end to it.

Carthage was indebted for its deliverance out of all this trouble to Hamilcar Barcas. Inspired by his personal qualities and the renown of his name, a Numidian chief called Naravas, with some thousands of horse­men, went over to his side. The enemy was beaten many times, thousands of prisoners were thrown under the elephants and trodden to death; and their leaders, Spendius and Autaritus, were nailed to the cross. Although the war was not uniformly successful; although Hippo, and even Utica, the oldest and most faithful all of Carthage, revolted; although a fleet with provisions was destroyed by a storm, while on the way from the coast of the Emporiae to Carthage; although, in consequence of a dispute between Hamilcar and Hanno the second in command, the enemies recovered themselves, and in a sally from Tunis defeated Hannibal, a lieutenant of Hamilcar, took him prisoner, and nailed him to the same cross on which Spendius had ended his life; yet the whole rebellion gradually collapsed, and after a reconciliation had taken place between Hamilcar and Hanno at the instance of the senate, Carthage soon gained the ascendancy, and stifled all further revolt in the blood of the mutineers. The Libyan towns submitted again, and Carthage was perhaps wise enough not to punish the misguided masses for the crimes of the ring­leaders. Even Hippo and Utica, which had marked their revolt by the massacre of the Carthaginian garrison, seem to have received mild conditions. Carthage was once again ruler in Africa.

The conduct of the Romans in this war is one of the greatest stains on their history. The conditions of peace which had terminated the Sicilian war had not been equal to their expectations. They had tried to get more out of the Carthaginians, but were obliged to content themselves with raising the contribution of war by 1,000 talents. There was now an opportunity of repairing their neglect, and Rome was not slow in mailing use of this opportunity. The Roman senate seems to have thought it unnecessary to interfere and to take part in the war of the mercenaries. It was enough to assist the rebels with the requisites of war. This was done by mercantile adventurers. Perhaps the Roman officials, even if they had wished it, would have found it difficult to prevent the sailing of ships which had provisions on board for the enemies of Carthage. But what view the senate took of such private speculations we shall soon see. A great number of blockade-runners were captured by the Carthaginians. Rome had no plea or justification for interceding on behalf of these people. Nevertheless she did so, and there was nothing left for Carthage to do in her difficulty but to set the prisoners free. In acknowledgment of this the Roman senate gave up all the Carthaginian prisoners who were still in Italy, and allowed its subjects in future to send the necessaries of war only to the Carthaginians, not to their enemies—a, concession which one would suppose was a matter of course. It was expected that if Carthage had opposed the demands of Rome for the release of the blockade-breakers, the Romans would at once have declared war. Carthage yielded, and the Romans were thus debarred from following up their hostile policy; they were even obliged to permit their friend and ally King Hiero of Syracuse to come forward of his own accord to the assistance of the Carthaginians. This wise states-man saw plainly that the Carthaginians, after their expulsion from Sicily, were no longer his natural enemies—that they were on the contrary able to render him the most valuable services by keeping in check to some extent the excessive power of Rome. He therefore supported them with necessaries at a time when the mutineers blockaded Carthage by land and all supplies were cut off. Perhaps he also sent troops or allowed the Carthaginians to enlist mercenaries in his kingdom, and his aid doubtless contributed materially to the final overthrow of the rebels.

But while the insurrection was still racing in Africa, the Carthaginian mercenaries in Sardinia had imitated the example of their comrades, had murdered their officers, and had taken possession of the island. Unable to keep their position among the natives, they sought aid from Rome. At first, as it is said, the Romans resisted this temptation; they disdained to unite themselves with the mutinous troops, and to make use of the momentary distress of Carthage for violating the conditions of peace which they had just sworn to observe. But when Carthage came out victorious from the doubtful straggle, the old jealousy of the Romans revived, and they decided to take the mutinous mercenaries of Sardinia under their protection. Roman politicians justified themselves probably with the sophistry that Sardinia no longer belonged to Carthage, since Carthaginian authority in the island had come to an end, and there was no longer a Carthaginian garrison in it. War therefore was not carried on against Carthage, when the island was taken, but against the Sardinian natives, who were now an independent nation. But Carthage protested against this view of the case, and made preparations for the reduction of the revolted island. The Romans now openly declared their intentions. They interpreted the Carthaginian armaments as a menace of war and complained of the interruption of Italian commerce by Carthaginian cruisers.

These complaints probably show that smuggling and the blockade-running of Italian traders had not been discontinued, in spite of the promise of Rome. For Car­thage there was left no choice, but either to engage in a war with Rome, or to agree to such conditions as Rome, in contempt of all justice and relying on her superior power, thought fit to propose. Carthage was too much exhausted to take the former alternative. She was obliged to purchase peace by resigning Sardinia, and by the payment of twelve hundred talents. Thus did the Romans of the old time show, as Sallust remarks in tones of praise, ‘that they understood how to restrain their passions, and listened to the demands of right and justice; that especially in the Punic wars, in spite of the repeated treachery of the Carthaginians, they never allowed themselves to act in a similar way, and were alone; guided in their actions by a sense of what was worthy of them’.

The revolting treatment of her humbled rival was an evil seed destined to spring up soon in a luxuriant crop, and to bear as its fatal fruit the devastation of Italy in the Hannibalian war. The bitterness of soul with which the noble Hamilcar submitted indignantly to unjustifiable wrong explains the inextinguishable hatred of Rome which he cherished as long as he lived, and bequeathed as a sacred trust to his great son Hannibal. For the present might triumphed over right. The island of Sardinia became a Roman province. But it was a long time before the wild inhabitants of the mountains were subdued and in some measure became accustomed to an orderly government. For many years Sardinia was the scene of the most savage wars and the most terrible civil strife, in which the descendants of the Roman nobility obtained inglorious triumphs, and slaves for their ever-increasing estates. The neighbouring island of Corsica had never been permanently in the possession of the Carthaginians. The Romans now established themselves there, and united it to the province of Sardinia. But here, as in Sardinia, the natives withdrew into the impenetrable mountains of the interior, beyond the reach of Roman dominion, and resisted Roman customs and political order. The resources of the two islands remained undeveloped. It was only in the small coast towns and near the sea that the original barbarism gave way to civilisation and the dominion of Roman law. The interior remained barbarous; and among the many islands of the Mediterranean, Sardinia and Corsica alone, up to almost the present time, have never been the seats of political order and prosperity.

CHAPTER V.

THE WAR WITH THE GAULS, 225-222 B.C.