READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM 2025

HISTORY OF ROME. THE WAR FOR SUPREMACY IN THE WEST

CHAPTER V.

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

The twenty-four years of war with the great power of Carthage were followed by a six days’ war with Falerii, if the collision between the colossal power of Rome and the puny town of Falerii can really be termed a war. How it happened that the Faliscans provoked the Romans, how they could venture to think of opposition, we cannot understand. The town, which, even at the time of Camillus, was constrained to submit to the superior strength of Rome, was without difficulty taken and destroyed. The Roman consuls were not ashamed to make this event the subject of a triumph, which is chronicled in the Roman Fasti by the side of the triumphs of Catulus and the Scipios.

Putting aside this incident, the period between the first and the second Punic wars (from 241 till 218 B.C.) was occupied with wars of a more serious character—one in Italy with the Gauls, and two on the opposite side of the Adriatic with the Illyrians. In the order of time the first Illyrian war preceded the war with the Gauls; but for the sake of greater clearness we will follow in our narrative a geographical rather than a chronological order, and speak first of the war waged in Italy against the Gauls, and then of the two Illyrian wars conjointly.

After the defeat of the Senonian Gauls in the year 283 and after the establishment of the colony of Sena in their desolated territory, the Gallic races in Northern Italy remained quiet for forty-five years. This long pause, which was most advantageous to the Romans during the wars with Pyrrhus and the Carthaginians, may in part be ascribed to the impression made among the Gauls by the defeat on the Vadimonian Lake and by the destruction of the Senonians. It seems, however, that besides the exhaustion of the Gauls and their fear, another circumstance contributed to keep them thus long quiet; and this was probably the fact that during that long period they found occupation as mercenaries in the Carthaginian armies. The ending of the war in Sicily, while it stopped the employment of Gallic adventurers, was, therefore, a cause of renewed attacks on Italy. Rome accordingly could not fail soon to meet on another battle-field those Gallic warriors whom she had so long encountered in Sicily.

The greater Part of Italy, north of the chain of the Apennines, at that time justly called Cisalpine Gaul, had been for a course of years in the possession of several Gallic tribes. In the modern district of Aemilia were the Boians, the neighbours and allies of the conquered Senonians, and the smaller tribes of the Lingonians and Anarians; north of the Po, in the country about Milan, dwelt the great people of the Insubrians, while to the east of these on the Mincio and the Adige lay the Cenomanians; but these tribes, little inclined, seemingly, to make common cause with their countrymen, remained neutral in all the hostilities against Rome. Besides these Gallic races, there were in the north of Italy two totally different nations: in the east and about the Adriatic Sea, the Veneti, while in the west, where the Alps and the Apennines join, the Ligurians were scattered about on both sides of the Apennines almost as far as the valley of the Arno, and towards the north in Piedmont along the upper course of the Po and its tributary streams.

Four years before the outbreak of the war with Carthage (268 B.C.) the Romans founded the colony Ariminum (Rimini), on the Adriatic Sea, as the most northern bulwark of the Italy of that time. This town was exposed to the first attacks of the enemy whom it was intended to control. In the year 238 (in the third year, therefore, after the conclusion of peace with Carthage), a Gallic army, which we are told had been called by the chiefs of the Boians from Transalpine Gaul, encamped before Ariminum. However, before hostilities began, a dispute arose between the Boians and their troublesome and unwelcome guests, whose rapacity, it may be presumed, made but little distinction between friends and foes. The Boian chiefs were murdered by their own people, the strangers were attacked, conquered in open war, and compelled to return to their homes.

Thus, for this time, the danger passed away. Still, the attention of the Romans had been drawn to their north­east boundary, where new means of defence against their unruly neighbours seemed necessary. The colonists of Ariminum were clearly unable by themselves to resist the Gauls. Nothing was more suited to the needs of the case than an increase of the Roman population in those parts. This could easily be effected, and was desirable also on many other accounts. The whole country of the Senonians round about Ariminum, and south in Picenum, was depopulated and laid waste since the war of extirpation of 283, and was probably left for the use of the large Roman families only as pasture land. A better opportunity could not present itself for rewarding Roman veterans for their military service, for making impoverished peasants landowners of small estates, for peopling again a country which had become desolate, for bringing together on the endangered frontier a warlike and faithful population, and by the extension of the Latin race and the Latin tongue to Romanise the land conquered by force of arms. The only thing which was opposed to so wholesome a measure was the private interest of the Roman nobles who had taken possession of and used the land in question as if it were their own. They had no legal right to the land. They were only possessors on sufferance until the state should think fit to make a different arrangement. They could lay no claim even to compensation if the land should be taken from them. But this fact only added virulence to the opposition with which the Roman nobility resisted any measure for dividing the state lands in the interests of the whole community rather than their own.

We have unfortunately only very imperfect accounts of the disputes which arose in Rome between the nobles and the popular party relating to the allotment of the land in Picenum. Even Polybius gives us no help here, and appears to have judged the measures from a narrow and aristocratic point of view. The champion of the popular party and of the public interest was the tribune C. Flaminius. In spite of all opposition on the part of the senate, he obtained the sanction of the people for his proposal (232 B.C.). The nobility, blind and obstinate in their selfishness, carried their opposition to the utmost limits, and thus forced their opponents to take their stand on the formal constitutional law, to set aside the usual practice, and to cause the agrarian law to be passed by a vote of the assembly of tribes, without a previous resolution or the subsequent approbation of the senate. It was very much to be regretted that the cooperation of the senate was set aside, and that the popular leaders were enabled to become conscious of their power. But the senate could only attribute the loss of its influence to itself. It had taken up a position which it could not maintain, and hazarded the strength of its moral weight, which, till now, had been unimpaired; although, legally, since the Hortensian law in 287 B.C., a resolution of the tribes needed no confirmation from the senate. It is therefore not without a good reason that from the acceptance of the agrarian law of Flaminius by the assembly of tribes against the opposition of the senate Polybius dates a change for the worse in the Roman constitution.

If the nobles wore not able to prevent the useful measure of Flaminius, they knew at least how to avenge themselves. The hatred of his enemies pursued him to his death on the bloody battlefield of Thrasymenus; nay, it even survived him, and endeavoured, by venomous and false representations in the Roman annals, to blacken the name of the popular leader.

The agrarian law of Flaminius did not remain a dead letter, but was fully carried out. The country along the Adriatic Sea, through which formerly the barbarous Senonians had roamed, was filled with Roman settlers. This extreme outpost of Roman civilisation was connected with the centre of the empire by the Flaminian road (Via Flaminia), which crossed the Apennines in Umbria, and owed its name as well as its origin to the founder of the settlement in the land of the Senonians. It was the second great highway through Italy, connecting Rome with the eastern coast, its terminus being at Ariminum on the Adriatic, as that of the Appian way was Brundusium. These two roads opened the mountainous interior of the country to commerce, and united the seas on the east and on the west.

Before these works could be completed, the neighbouring Gauls showed great uneasiness about the further advance of the Romans. The extension of civilisation is always an attack on surrounding barbarism; and as it was at that time in Italy, so is it now at the present day in North America. The Boians looked forward to the time when their country, like that of the Senonians, would be seized by Roman settlers; they saw that they were doomed to extermination, and they determined to try and avert the threatened danger by an attack on Rome. They organised a military alliance of all the various Cisalpine Gallic tribes with the single exception of the Cenomanians, and they drew swarms of adventurers across the Alps by the prospect of rich spoils. The latter, called Gaesatians, were not a peculiar Gallic tribe, but volunteers from all parts of the country, such as for many years had been accustomed to enter into foreign, and mostly into the Carthaginian, service. They united together to form voluntary companies under separate leaders, a custom which prevailed for centuries among the Gauls and their neighbours the Germans.

The bringing together of these forces, with the manifest preparations for a war with Rome, roused again, not in Rome alone, but in the whole of Italy, that fear of the Gauls which had never quite disappeared since the battle on the Allia. The Romans had certainly overcome their rude enemies in many engagements, but not without having suffered many reverses on their own part. The brave Roman soldiers trembled at the thought of the Gauls, and shook with terror at the sight of the huge, half-naked, defiant forms. Their minds were alarmed by supernatural appearances of all kinds. A three-fold moon, or a sudden bright light in the midnight sky, flowing blood, and similar threatening signs were reported on all sides, and seemed to show that the gods were exasperated and must be solemnly appeased. Superstition is always apt to do violence to human feelings; and although the Romans had long since given up ascribing to their deities a Satanic thirst for human blood, fear so troubled their thoughts that, to avert the impending evil, human beings were sacrificed on the public market in Rome. A male and a female Gaul, and a male and a female Greek, were buried alive, in order that thus, without injury to the Roman people, a prophecy might be fulfilled which promised the possession of Roman soil to the Gauls and Greeks.

At length, in the year 225, the storm burst. An army of Gauls, consisting of 50,000 foot, and 20,000 mounted on horses or war chariots, marched towards the south. The consul L. Aemilius Papus commanded a consular army of two legions and the proportionate number of allies from 22,000 to 23,000 men in all—and was posted in Ariminum, from which side the attack was expected. A reserve corps of 50,000 Umbrians and Sabines, with 4,000 horse, was destined to protect Etruria under a praetor, and was probably stationed in the north-eastern part, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Arretium or Faesulae. The second consul, Atilius Regulus, was engaged in Sardinia in the interminable petty wars with the natives. On the intelligence of the advance of the Gauls, he was, it appears, immediately recalled; and the rapid and glorious issue of the campaign may principally be attributed to his timely appearance on the scene of action.

The Gauls deceived all the calculations of the Roman generals. They took neither the road through Picenum, nor the road through north-eastern Etruria by Faesulae, but, marching close to the western coast, had arrived already in the neighbourhood of Clusium, only three days’ march from Rome, before the Romans really knew where they were. When the praetor followed them with the reserve corps, they turned suddenly round, enticed their enemy into an ambush, and completely defeated them. Six thousand men were cut down. The remainder took refuge in a strong position on a hill, where they wers surrounded by the Gauls, and would have been compelled to surrender if the consul Aemilius had not, in the meantime, come to their assistance from Picenum. The Gauls, heavily laden with spoil, and encumbered by the task of watching thousands of prisoners, gave up the idea of a further advance towards Rome. They endeavoured also to avoid meeting with the consular army. Their object was, first, to place their spoils in safety, to collect new forces, and then to renew the profitable raid. They marched, therefore, northwards along the coast on the same road by which they had come. The Roman army followed close upon their heels, but ventured 011 no serious attack. By a happy coincidence, the consul C. Atilius Regulus, who had brought back his legions from Sardinia, and had landed in Pisa, marched southwards on the same road which the Gauls were following on their retreat north­wards. Thus it happened that the enemies found themselves in the midst of the two Roman armies in the neighbourhood of Telamon. It was now no longer possible for them to evade a battle. They prepared to encounter both Roman armies at once. One front they directed northwards against the army of Regulus, the other southwards towards Aemilius. Thus they stood back to back, each flank covered by a barricade, the carriages, baggage, booty, and prisoners being separated from the combatants, and strongly guarded on a hill. In the front, which faced Aemilius, the place of honour was taken by the Transalpine Gaesatians, in comparison with whose ferocious bearing the appearance of the Gauls who were settled in Italy had a colouring of polish and civilisation. The Insubrians and Boians wore coats and trousers. The Gaesatians, on the other hand, cast aside all dress as an encumbrance and fought naked, retaining only their ornaments. Heavy collars and bracelets made of twisted gold wire distinguished the most valiant warriors, who stood in the foremost ranks challenging their foes to the fight. They presented a strange sight to the Roman soldiers, and by their savage manners and gestures, by their insufficient arms for offence and defence, and by the richness of their ornaments, inspired awe, confidence, and cupidity at the same time. At the beginning of the battle the hosts of Gauls uttered a tremendous war cry, mingled with the sound of horns and trumpets. A momentous hour had arrived, which might well fill the breast of many a brave Roman with not unmanly anxiety. A victory for the enemy would renew terrors that followed the day of the Allia, a day which was registered in the Roman calendar as a never-to-be-forgotten day of mourning.

The first encounter was between the horse. The consul Regulus led the Roman cavalry in person, but fell at the very onset, and his head was a fit trophy, though fortunately the only one, which the barbarians could boast of. Their horse drew back, and the fight between the infantry began. The superiority of Roman discipline and of Roman arms became immediately apparent. The shields of the Gauls were too small to protect them from the missiles with which the Romans assailed them from a safe distance. Their only weapon for attack was a sword, suitable for a blow but not for a stab, and of such bad steel that it bent at the first blow. Driven to despair they rushed madly against the Roman ranks, as if seeking a voluntary death, or cast themselves in wild flight on their hindmost ranks, thus throwing them into confusion. The legions now closed in on both sides, pressing the army of the Gauls nearer and nearer together, and then cut them down almost to the last man. Forty thousand were killed; ten thousand were taken prisoners; only the horse­men escaped. Of the two kings of the Gauls, Concolitanus fell alive into the hands of the conquerors; the other, Aneroestus, fell by his own hand. The whole of the booty, the herds of cattle, the prisoners which the Gauls had dragged with them, all came into the possession of the victors, who, as far as it was possible, restored the booty to the plundered.

After this glorious victory Aemilius invaded the country of the Boians, and marched through it, plundering and laying it waste in all directions. Then he led his troops to Rome laden with rich booty, and ascended in a well-deserved triumph the Capitol, to offer due thanks to the gods for their deliverance of Rome. This triumphal procession was made memorable by the captured arms, military ensigns, and golden chains of the Gauls, but above all by the line of captive chiefs who preceded the victor arrayed in complete armour. They had taken an oath not to lay down their arms till they had ascended the Capitol. This oath was now fulfilled amid the derisive shouts of the Roman people.

The victory at Telamon was one of the most important which the Romans had thus far gained. It put an end to the fiercest of all the attacks of the Gauls, and restored to the Roman soldiers that confidence in their own strength which they had almost lost when they faced these barbarous enemies. The ultimate results of this victory we can appreciate only when we bear in mind that but seven years later Hannibal with his Punic army stood in Cisalpine Gaul to organise the whole of the Gallic race for a war of extermination against Rome. With how much more brilliant success would this great general have borne down the Roman armies if the strength and courage of the Gauls had not first been broken! Apart from its influence on the progress of events, the battle of Telamon has for us an especial and peculiar interest, because we discern in the description of Polybius the impressions of an eyewitness and a combatant, who was no other than the venerable Fabius Pictor, the oldest Roman historian. The entire Roman forces, both the consular armies and the reserve army, were engaged in the battle of Telamon. We may therefore safely conclude that Fabius, who served in this war, was present, and that the impression which the Gallic warriors made on the Romans was drawn in so graphic a manner because he himself received it on the spot.

After the victory at Telamon, the Romans resolved to prevent any further invasions of the Gauls by the conquest of the whole region of the Po valley. In the year immediately following the Boians were without any difficulty reduced to complete subjection. In the next year (223 B.C.) the consuls crossed the Po, and attacked the most powerful Cisalpine people, the Insubrians, in their own country. One of these two consuls was C. Flaminius, the recognised leader of the popular party, who as tribune had effected the allotment of the territory of Picenum to Roman settlers, and who was now raised to the consulship and intrusted with the conduct of the war, to the great vexation of the nobility. Although he was not wanting in courage and ability, it appears that he was greater as a statesman than as a general. His first military undertakings were failures. In crossing the Po he buffered a defeat, and when he had, either by an armistice or by the offer of peace, extricated himself from his difficulty, he was obliged to seek refuge in the country of the Cenomanians. But from this region he very soon advanced again to the attack. The Insubrians, seeing that peace and friendship with Rome were an impossibility, summoned together all the fighting men of their country, and marched towards the enemy with an army of 50,000 warriors. Acquainted as they were with the peculiarities of the country, they had a great advantage over the Romans, to whom Cisalpine Gaul at that time was as unknown as Germany was to the legions at the time of Tiberius. Flaminius soon found himself in a very critical position. In his Gallic allies he had no confidence, and he separated himself from them by breaking down the bridges across a river which flowed between his army and their auxiliary force. In front of this river, which in case of defeat shut off all hopes of retreat, he was compelled to accept a battle; but the bravery of the Roman soldiers made good the faults of the general. Obliged to conquer or to perish, they gained a signal victory, and with this victory the war was practically at an end. The obstinate Insubrians, it is true, still refused to submit to the authority of Rome. They made one last effort, with the help of 30,000 mercenaries from Transalpine Gaul. But in the following year their capital, Mediolanum, was taken, and their subjection thus completed. Rome was now the mistress of the whole country from the Apennines to the Alps, and two new colonies, Placentia and Cremona, were destined permanently to secure the newly-conquered lands. The Cenomanians retained their nominal freedom and the friendship of the Roman people. The Veneti did the same. The Ligurians, with whom the Romans had since 238 almost year after year carried on petty warfare, remained, at least on their mountains, unconquered. But whatever measure of independence these tribes might still retain, it was certain that they could not retain it long. The thinly peopled country, once subdued by the Roman sword, was in the act of being made the seat of order and civilisation by the Roman plough when the war with Hannibal suddenly broke out, and threw back for many years the development of Northern Italy.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ILLYRIANS WARS