READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM 2025

HISTORY OF ROME. THE WAR FOR SUPREMACY IN THE WEST

CHAPTER VIII.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE HANNIBALIAN WAR AND THE CORRESPONDING PERIOD.

The second Punic or Hannibalian war has always justly attracted the special attention of historians. Apart from the thrilling events, the grand military operations and efforts both of the Romans and of the Carthaginians, and of the surprising vicissitudes of this great war—apart from the personal sympathy which Hannibal’s deeds and sufferings inspire, and the dramatic interest which is thus imparted to the narrative, we cannot fail to see that this struggle has been of the greatest importance in the history of human civilization, and therefore deserves the most careful study. Not only did this war, the second of the three waged between Rome and Carthage, bring about the irrevocable decision, but by this decision the question was settled whether the states of the ancient world were to continue to exist separately, in continual rivalry, in local independence and jealousy, or whether they should be welded into one great empire, and whether this empire should be founded by the Graeco-Italic or by the Semitic-Oriental race. It cannot be doubted that, if Rome instead of Carthage had been completely humiliated, the Punic empire and Punic civilization would have spread to Sicily, to Sardinia, and probably even to Italy, and that for centuries it would have determined the history of Europe.

What would have been the result of this consummation, whether the development of the human race would have been impeded or advanced, we cannot attempt to decide. Our imperfect knowledge of the national mind and character of the Carthaginians prevents us from giving an opinion. Historians are generally satisfied with the supposition that the victory of Rome was equivalent to the deliverance of the Graeco-Italic mind from Oriental stagnation and intellectual oppression, and this conviction, which at any rate is consoling, may make our sympathy with a great and glorious nation less painful; but it can in no way diminish the importance which we justly ascribe to the Hannibalian war. We must pronounce Livy right in his opinion, that, of all wars that had ever been waged, this was the most noteworthy; and, as Heeren justly remarks, the nineteen centuries that have passed since Livy wrote have not deprived it of its interest.

This interest is owing in great part to the fortunate circumstance that for the Hannibalian war the continuous narrative of Livy and the valuable fragments of Polybius enable us, more than hitherto in Roman history, to examine the inner working of the powers which this war put in motion. Having parted with Livy before the close of the third Samnite war, at the end of his tenth book, we have missed his not always trustworthy, but still useful, guidance during the war with Pyrrhus, and also during the first Punic and the Gallic and Illyrian wars, where we found a most valuable substitute in the short sketches of Polybius. Then with the siege of Saguntum, we take up again the narrative of Livy in the twenty-first book of his voluminous work, ten books of which relate the events of every year to the conclusion of peace, sometimes with unnecessary breadth and with rhetorical verbosity, and not without omissions and errors, but still with conscientious use of such historical evidence as he had at his command, and in language the beauty of which is unsurpassed in the historical literature of Rome. For the first two years of the war we have, in addition to Livy’s narrative, that of Polybius, which leaves hardly anything to he desired as regards clearness, credibility, and sound judgment, but of which, unfortunately, for the remainder of the war, only a few detached fragments are preserved. There are also many particulars to be gleaned from the fragments of Dion Cassius and the abridgment of his work by Zonaras. Even Appian’s narrative, though based on false views and full of the grossest exaggeration, is not useless when critically considered.

In addition to these, Diodorus, Frontinus, and others occasionally help us; but, in spite of this comparative abundance of authorities, we are conscious that in the Hannibalian war there remain many unsolved problems and difficulties with respect to numbers, places, and secondary events, and also that we are in the dark as to many of the conditions of success, and as to the intentions and plans which determined on a large scale the action of both the belligerent powers.

The main cause of the superiority of Rome over Carthage we have found in the firm geographical and ethnographical unity of the Roman state as compared with the chequered character of the nationalities ruled over by Carthage, and in the disjointed configuration of its territory, scattered over long lines of coast and islands. The history of the war shows us clearly how these fundamental conditions acted. Whilst Carthage, by the genius of her general and by the boldness of her attack, thwarted the Roman plans and destroyed one army after another, the fountain of the Roman power, the warlike population of Italy, remained unexhausted, and flowed more freely in proportion as Carthage found it more and more difficult to replenish her armies. Thus the war was in reality decided, not on the field of battle, as the Persian war was decided at Salamis and at Plataea, nor through the genius of a general and the enthusiastic bravery of the troops, by which small nations have often triumphed over far superior foes. It was decided long before the battle of Zama by the inherent momentum of these two states, which entered the lists and continued to fight, not with a part of their forces only, but with their whole strength. As, often, between two equally matched pugilists, the victory is decided not by one blow or by a succession of blows—the question being who can keep his breath longest and remain longest on his legs—so, in the conflict between Rome and Carthage, not skill and courage, but nerve and sinew, won the victory.

The advantage involved in the geographical conformation of Italy was increased by the surprising number of strong places, and by the circumstance that the capital of the country, the heart of the Roman power, was situated, not at one extremity, but in the centre of the long peninsula. The difficulties which the Italian fortresses opposed to Hannibal’s progress appear on every page of the history of the war. These difficulties were the more serious as the art of siege was comparatively unknown in antiquity, and particularly in Carthage. Thus we see how, even in Gaul, the cities of Placentia, Cremona, and Mutina, though hardly fortified, defied the enemy during the whole course of the war, and formed a barrier towards the north. Of the many Etruscan cities, not one, fell into Hannibal’s power. After the battle at the lake Thrasymenus even the small colony at Spoletium could resist him. In Apulia, in Samnium, Lucania, and Bruttium we hear of a great number of fortified places, otherwise unknown, but which in this war, if they did not fall by treason, were able to disturb the march of the victorious enemy. We know more of the Greek towns, and of the fortresses in Campania; and if we remember how Hannibal’s attacks on Naples, on Cumae, Nola, and Puteoli failed, and how the little place of Casilinum could for months oppose a desperate resistance to the besieging army, we can easily understand that the conquest of Italy was a very different undertaking from that of the Carthaginian territory, where, with the exception of a few seaports, there were only open towns, a rich and easy spoil for any aggressor.

The importance of the central position of Rome is self-evident. That position prevented Hannibal from cutting off the whole of Italy at once from Rome, and at the same time uniting all the peoples against Rome. He had to choose either the northern or the southern part of the peninsula as a basis of operations; and when he took up a position in Apulia and Bruttium he lost his communication with Gaul.

The maintenance of this communication was rendered extremely difficult by the narrowness of the peninsula; and thus we see why the transport of Gallic auxiliaries for Hannibal’s army ceased after the first years of the war, and how Hannibal had then to rely upon the resources of the south of Italy alone. We need hardly remark how useful this central position of Rome was in the decisive moment of the war, during Hasdrubal’s invasion, nor how it facilitated the victory on the Metaurus. The same circumstances were repeated after Mago’s landing at Genoa, and it may well be doubted whether, even under the most favourable conditions, Mago would have been able to effect a junction with Hannibal for the purpose of making a combined attack on Rome.

If we can hardly suppose that the Carthaginians were ignorant of these circumstances, which were all in favour of Rome, the undeviating persistency with which they continued to attack Rome from the north of Italy is the more surprising. That it was impossible, or even dangerous, to transport an army by sea to the south of Italy we cannot suppose. The landing of Mago on the coast of Liguria would completely invalidate such a supposition, and still more the landing of Scipio’s army in the immediate neighbourhood of Utica. The ships of the ancients drew so little water that they could approach almost any part of the coast, and it was by no means necessary to be in possession of a fortified harbour before they could venture to disembark troops. The ships could be drawn on shore and protected from attacks of the enemy; and, indeed, the Roman fleet had, during the three years’ war in Africa, no other protection but that which was afforded by such a fortified camp of ships. We can think of no other reason for the attacks of Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago from the north of Italy but the hope of gaining Gallic auxiliaries, and this very circumstance betrays the scantiness of the resources upon which Carthage drew for the recruiting of her armies.

It is more difficult to understand why she almost entirely abstained from vigorously carrying on the war at sea. In the first war several great naval battles were fought, and the decision was brought about by the victory of Catulus near the Aegatian Islands; but in the second Punic war the importance of the fleet appears surprisingly diminished, both on the Roman and on the Carthaginian side. Not one great battle was fought at sea. Even the number of ships which Rome employed on the wide battle­field on the coasts of Spain, Gaul, Liguria, Italy, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and in the East, was in no year equal to the number of those that, fought at Ecnomus alone. Further, whilst in the Sicilian war the quinqueremes had almost entirely taken the place of the triremes, we now again find triremes frequently mentioned. Repeatedly we hear of the ships being withdrawn from service, and the troops that manned them being employed for the war on land. If we are surprised to hear this of the Romans, who owed so much to their former success at sea, and who were so justly proud of it, it is still more surprising with regard to Carthage. The Romans had been attacked and could not determine whether land or sea should be the theatre of the war. They were obliged to meet Hannibal on land, and as long as they remained on the defensive they could not pay much attention to the naval war; but why Carthage neglected her fleet, and did not make better use of her superiority as mistress of the seas, the absence of Carthaginian historians makes it impossible for us to explain. It must have been possible, we might suppose, to intercept the Roman transports of troops and materials of war that were sent from Italy to Sardinia and to Spain, and particularly those that were destined for Africa, or at any rate to make this conveyance very difficult. Yet we hear but little of the capture of Roman convoys by Carthaginian ships. The Roman fleets sailed in every direction almost unmolested. In the decisive operations of the war, the Carthaginian navy made no attempt to take an active part. In fact during the siege of Syracuse their fleet actually declined a battle with the Romans, and thus brought about the loss of that important town. Further, we find Scipio landing unopposed almost within sight of Carthage, and if the Roman transports sometimes suffered from storms, they were never attacked by Carthaginian cruisers. They sailed with the greatest regularity, almost as in times of peace, and during the first winter provided the Roman army with all necessaries at a time when it must have perished without such supplies. The minute description of unimportant naval conflicts, as for instance that of one Carthaginian quinquereme and eight triremes against one Roman quinquereme and seven triremes, is an indirect proof of the decay of both navies. Nor is this an exceptional case. In the Greek states the old naval superiority had long disappeared. The Achaeans and the royal successors of Alexander could launch no fleet that would bear comparison with those of the Hellenic republics when at the height of their power. It produces a melancholy impression when we read how the Achaean league sent out a fleet of ten ships against the pirates of Illyria, and that King Philip, having borrowed five war ships of them, at length determined to build a fleet of a hundred ships. Whilst the old rulers of the sea retired exhausted, the barbarian pirates became bolder and bolder, and their armed boats swept the seas and the coasts where once the proud triremes of the free Greeks had reigned supreme.

In the absence of all information which might enable us to account for the diminished importance of the Carthaginian fleet, this neglect of their naval force may perhaps be explained partly by the feet that Hannibal and his brothers, and even, before them, Hamilcar Barcas, the chief movers and leaders of the war, had devoted themselves by preference to the war by land, and excelled in this branch of military science. They were persuaded that Rome must be attacked and subdued in Italy. They therefore naturally advocated the application of all the national resources to the army, and their advice was always followed in Carthage. No doubt they were right in this, and Carthage would probably have been exhausted much sooner if she had divided her strength between the army and the fleet more than she actually did.

The military system and organisation of the Romans underwent no important changes during the Hannibalian war; but a war which put so great a strain on the national resources could not fail to bring about, some innovations. We see more clearly than before the first signs of a standing and of a mercenary army, and the gradual formation of a class of professional soldiers distinct from the civil population; and, in connexion with this, we find serious symptoms of moral decay. In the first Punic war it was still the rule to disband and dismiss the legions at the end of the summer campaign. This system, rendered inconvenient by the great distance of the theatre of the war in Sicily, could not be universally carried out without abandoning the island during the winter to the Carthaginian armies and garrisons. But still the Roman military system, which required every citizen to serve in turn, made it necessary periodically to reconstitute the legions; and, in the absence of higher considerations, the peasants and artisans were not withdrawn from their families for more than one or two campaigns.

The carrying out of this arrangement became more and more difficult during the Hannibalian war, first because the military levies made it impossible regularly to relieve the troops, then because the peril of the republic whilst Hannibal was in Italy called for a standing army, and lastly because the regular renewal of the legions in distant Spain would have caused too much expense. In addition to this, the legions defeated at Cannae and at Herdonea were sent to Sicily with the intention of punishing them for their conduct, by retaining them under arms until the end of the war. Whilst the legions stationed in Italy were less frequently relieved than formerly, the armies of Spain and Sicily consisted chiefly of veterans, of whom many had served as much as fourteen years. These soldiers were, evidently, very different from the old militia.

They had become estranged from civil life; war had become their profession, and from war alone they derived their support and hoped for gain. The Roman pay was not, as with a mercenary army, a remuneration intended to induce men to enlist and to reward them for their services. It was only a compensation, and a very insufficient compensation, paid by the state to the citizen who was taken from his calling and burdened with a public duty. Even the troops levied only for a short time reckoned more upon the booty than on their pay, and as a rule the movable booty was appropriated by a victorious army.

Though the Roman soldiery were thus accustomed from the very beginning to rely on plunder, the demoralization which necessarily resulted from this practice remained within narrow limits so long as the soldiers did not make inadequate the service a profession, and so long as they fought only against foreign enemies, and not against rebellious subjects or allies. All this was changed in the Hannibalian war. The Roman soldiers, now serving for years together, became naturally more and more estranged from a life of labour, and adopted the habits ot soldiers, which naturally lead to the destruction and violent seizure of property. For the indulgence of such propensities Italy during the Hannibalian war offered the most favourable terms. A great number of Roman subjects had joined the invader. All these revolted towns and villages were gradually reoccupied by the Romans, and the soldiers could at the same time indulge in their desire for pillage and inflict chastisement on a rebellions population.

In what manner this was done we learn from the disgraceful scenes that took place in Locri—scenes which were certainly no isolated instances of such ferocity, but which probably owe their notoriety to the mutiny to which the pillage gave rise. At that time the prosperity of whole districts of Italy was destroyed for many years—a prelude to that desolation which continued down to the imperial epoch. That the havoc made by the Roman soldiery in Sicily was even greater, the horrors of Leontini, of Enna, and of Syracuse are sufficient evidence. In Spain the same rapacity led to insubordination and mutiny. What Appian relates of the conquest of the town of Locha in Africa shows that the Roman soldiers ventured to satisfy their thirst for blood and love of plunder in utter defiance of military discipline, and under the eyes of the commander himself. If this could happen with troops levied from the population of Rome and of the Latin and allied towns, and serving in the Roman legions, how much more reckless must have been the conduct of the irregular troops to whom Rome had recourse under the pressure of her disasters? When, after the fall of Syracuse, the praetor Valerius Laevinus endeavoured to restore Sicily to order and to the occupations of peace, he collected all the bands of marauders that were devastating Sicily, and sent them over to Italy, in order to molest the Bruttians as much as possible. In like manner, the two notorious publicans and swindlers Pomponius and Postumius waged war on their own account, but with the sanction of the senate. Then, again, the slaves who had been enlisted as soldiers, and dispersed after the death of Gracchus, can have lived only by plunder, and must have contributed to the misery and wretchedness into which years of war had plunged the whole population of Italy.

That the mercenaries and foreign troops, employed in great numbers by the Romans, exercised a pernicious influence on the discipline and bearing of the Roman soldiers, it is a fact which cannot be doubted. The first traces of foreign mercenaries in the Roman armies we have noticed already in the first Punic war. In the second war the instances are very numerous. These troops were partly Greek mercenaries sent by Hiero, partly deserters from the Punic armies, partly Gallic, Spanish, and Numidian auxiliaries, and partly genuine mercenaries enlisted by Roman agents. All these troops were animated, not by patriotism or a sense of duty, but by the hope of gain; and if we are justified in assuming that the Roman, Latin, and Sabellic soldiers were originally inspired by higher motives, still they could not fail to be affected by the character of their mercenary comrades.

But it was by no means the common soldiers alone who became more and more habituated to plunder. It seems that even the superior officers set the example to their men. In Locri, Pleminius conducted himself as a bare­faced robber, and his quarrel with the two military tribunes arose only from their having disputed the booty with the commander-in-chief. When Scipio had taken New Carthage, his friends, as we are told, brought him the most beautiful maiden they could find as a choice article of booty, and his refusal of this present was deemed an act of exceeding magnanimity and self-denial. How Marcellus acted in Syracuse we can judge from the complaints of the Syracusans. In fact it was an inveterate vice of the Roman aristocracy, that they always surpassed the populace in greed, and in skill in plundering. Hence, in the old times, the charge that Camillus illegally appropriated the spoil of Veii, whilst the exceptional praise bestowed upon Fabricius for his abstinence only proves the general rule. But the most striking proof of the systematic robbery of the Roman nobility is their wealth. This wealth was gained, not by labour and economy, not by commerce and enterprise, but by plunder. It grew with every new conquest; and since Rome had possessions out of Italy, the wealth accumulated in certain hands attained princely dimensions, and raised its possessors higher and higher above republican equality and above the laws. Whilst the commanders of armies openly and by force seized upon whatever they chose, another class of men carried on the same craft with quite as much skill under the protection of legal forms. These were the contractors and merchants who followed in the wake of the armies, as the jackal follows the lion, to gather up the fragments left by the haste or satiety of those who had gone before them. The soldiers could seldom make use of the booty that fell into their hands, and they sought to convert it into ready money as quickly as possible. For this purpose they had recourse to the traders, who, it seems, regularly accompanied them, and knew how to take advantage of the ignorance or impatience of the troops. These men bought valuables and all kinds of plunder, but particularly the prisoners, and for what they had purchased at a low figure in the camp they found a good market in Rome and elsewhere. Their business was of course most lucrative, as they were obliged to share danger and hardships with the soldiers. That they should be, as a rule, consummate rascals is natural, and this circumstance contributed to brand the merchants of Rome as a set of unprincipled impostors and as a species of thieves.

Another class of traders were the usurers and speculators, who settled everywhere in the conquered countries, and brought down the curse of the provinces on the name of Italians. The worst of these were the farmers of the customs and revenues; but their practices belong more to the long years of peace, and their system of oppression could not be fully developed during the continuation of the war. On the other hand it was precisely during the war that the army contractors flourished. These speculators formed joint-stock companies and carried on a most lucrative trade. There may have been honest people among them who became rich without stealing; but when we think of the infamous acts of which a Postumius could be guilty, we cannot doubt that the practice of robbing the state was then as general with these people as it has been with the same class in modern times in all cases where they have not been subjected to strict control.

The consequence of every war is an increased inequality in the distribution of property. Whilst war greatly enriches a few, it impoverishes the mass of the people. The two principal conditions of peace—productive labour and legal order—are in every war, more or less set aside by destruction and violence. The former reduces the total amount of capital, and the latter brings about an unequal and unfair distribution of it. This is the case particularly in a predatory war; and in a certain sense all the wars of antiquity, and particularly the wars waged by the Romans, were predatory. A war so great as that which Hannibal waged against the Romans, and which, after long suffering and privation, bestowed upon the victors so immense a booty, could not but exercise a momentous influence upon Roman society and the Roman state. On the one hand pauperism, and thereby the democratic element, were increased; on the other hand, the power and wealth of the reigning families grew more and more; and we already see the predecessors of those men whose personal ambition and love of power could no longer be kept within bounds by the laws of the republic.

We can form only an approximate idea of the devastation of Italy at the close of the Hannibalian war, as we do not know the thousandth part of the detail. Surely the dream Lad come to pass which, according to the narrative of Livy, Hannibal bad dreamt before his departure from Spain. On his march from the north of the peninsula to its southern extremity he had been followed by the dreadful serpent which crushed plantations and fields in its coils, and which was called the ‘desolation of Italy’. The southern portion in particular had been visited most dreadfully by the scourge of war. In Samnium, in Apulia, Campania, Lucania, and Bruttium there was hardly a village that had not been burnt down or plundered, hardly a town that had not been besieged or stormed. Those fared worst that fell alternately into the hands of the Romans and of the Carthaginians. The most flourishing cities, and especially almost all the Greek towns, were in this position, on which the fate of Capua is a memorable commentary. But the great sufferings of this town must not divert our attention from the misfortunes that befell other less prominent communities. Great tracts of land were entirely deserted, whole populations of certain towns were transplanted to other abodes. Forfeitures and executions followed upon the reconquest of every rebellious township. A great part of Italy was for the second time confiscated by the conquerors, and considerable tracts of land became the property of the Roman people. Yet it was by no means the rebellious Italians alone that felt the scourge of war. The trusty allies, the Latins, and the Roman citizens themselves suffered as they had never suffered before. Whilst the lands remained untilled, and the hands of the husband­man grasped the sword instead of the plough, whilst the workshops stood empty, the families were necessarily exposed to want, even if they had not had to suffer under the pressure of an increased taxation. The decrease of the population is the surest sign of the effect of the war on the citizens of Rome. Whilst in the year 220 the number of citizens un the census lists amounted to 270,213, it had fallen in 204 to 214,000. We may certainly assume that the Hannibalian war cost Italy a million of lives.

It seems strange, at first sight, that the great sufferings of the Roman people should have been the cause of new festivities and popular rejoicings. But festivals and games were religious ceremonies, designed to pacify the gods. The plague of the year 364 had been the cause of the introduction of scenic games, and thus, in the course of the Hannibalian war, the number of public festivals increased, in apparent contradiction to the public distress.

To the ancient ‘Roman’ or ‘great games,’ which had originated in the regal period, and to the ‘plebeian games’ introduced at the commencement of the republic, there were added in the year 212 the ‘Apollinarian games’ celebrated every year from 208 downwards; and in the year 204 the ‘Megalesian games’ were introduced, in honour of the great mother of the gods. Besides these the celebration of games of Ceres is mentioned in the year 202, and very frequently the several games were renewed and extended for longer periods.

Naturally such festivals, even if at first they bore a religious character, could not fail to encourage the love of pleasure. The numerous processions, the gorgeous funerals, and the funeral games arranged by private persons at their own expense had the same tendency. For this latter purpose the inhuman combats of gladiators, which seemed destined to root out all the nobler and tenderer sympathies of man and to extinguish all respect for the dignity of the human race, had been imported from Etruria as early as the year 261, the first year of the war in Sicily. This element of demoralisation was introduced simultaneously with the humanising art and poetry of Greece, as if it had been intended to counteract its influence; and thus grew the taste for the most abominable and disgusting sights by which men have ever corrupted and killed within themselves all the higher instincts of humanity.

A people that revelled in the dying agonies of a man, murdered for their brutal pleasure before their eyes, could not really feel the ennobling influence of pure art. We cannot therefore wonder that Greek poetry never took deep root in the Roman mind, but only covered its coarseness with outward ornament, just as the Greek mythology was patched on to the unimaginative religion of Italy as an external addition. It is eminently characteristic of the literature now developed among the Romans, that it was transplanted and never fully acclimatised on the foreign soil. Instead of passing through a natural growth, as in Greece, and advancing gradually from epic to lyric poetry, and from lyric poetry to the drama, poetry was imported into Italy complete, and all its branches were cultivated at the same time. We may consider Livius Andronicus, from Tarentum, of whom we have already mentioned a lyric composition, as the oldest poet of Rome. His chief strength lay in the drama, and at the same time he also made the Romans acquainted with the epic poetry of Greece by a translation of the Odyssey. It is surprising that the Romans, from the very beginning, received with such favour those Greek subjects which their poets treated in the Latin tongue. They were certainly not acquainted with the overflowing wealth of Greek myths and fables which formed the subject of the poems now transplanted to Italy; yet they listened with breathless attention not only to the adventures and sufferings of Ulysses, which in their simplicity are easy to understand, but also to the tragic fate of the sons of Atreus and of Laios, and to the crimes of Thyestes, Aigisthos, and Tereus, which, in their dramatic form, roused the deepest emotion of the Greeks simply because they were so generally known. We see here most clearly how the marvellous influence of Greek fancy prevailed even over barbarians, and took by storm an intellectual field hitherto uncultivated. Almost from the first moment that the Romans were touched with the magic wand of Greek poetry, they had lost their taste and affection for the first rude beginnings of their own poetic literature.

The Saturnian and Fescennine verses and the Atellanian plays were cast aside and despised by the educated. The Latin language was forced into Greek rhythms, and the whole Greek apparatus of poetical conceptions, phrases, and rules was slavishly adopted. A confusion of ideas was the consequence. The simple Romans were often unable fully to understand what filled them with wonder and astonishment. It was not possible for them to absorb and assimilate at once the varied products of a foreign civilization, which had been the growth of centuries, and to master at once the different philosophical systems from the old simple mythology down to Epicurism and Enemerism. It was long before they found their way in this flowery maze; but from the beginning their delight was great, and the victory of the Hellenic mind over the Italian was decided.

The successor of the Greek Livius Andronicus was Naevius, most likely a native of Campania. He also pursued the same path, but he seems to have given to his poems a more national colouring. Like his predecessor, he wrote tragedies and comedies according to the Greek pattern and filled with Greek subjects; but he also selected materials from the national history, and chose the first Punic war as the subject of an epic poem. In thus entering upon the domain of real life and leaving that of mythology, he acted in accordance with the tendency of the Italian mind, which had based the oldest dramatic poetry on experience, and retained this principle in the satires, the only branch of poetic literature which is native on Italian soil. Naevius was also a satirist; he persecuted with venomous irony the powerful nobles destined by fate to become consuls in Rome, and paid for his audacity by exile. The third and most eminent of those men who endeavoured to acclimatize Greek poetry in Rome was the half-Greek Ennius, born at Rudiae in Calabria, a district which, from its nearness to Tarentum, had become partly Greek. Like his predecessors, Ennius was versed in several kinds of poetry. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and heroic poems, and it was he who first introduced the Greek hexameter for the latter, and thus finally banished the old Saturnian verse from Roman poetry. His Annals, in which he treats of the history of Rome from the foundation of the town down to his own time, in eighteen books, have been of great importance to the historians. As in England many, even educated, people derive their views of English history in the middle ages from Shakespeare’s ‘Histories,’ so the Romans, who read the ‘Annals of Ennius’ much more diligently than those of the pontifices, often derived their first impressions of the old times and heroes from his poetical descriptions; and even the annalists, who undertook to write the history of the Roman people in the period intervening between the Punic wars and the time of Livy, could not free themselves from the influence which a popular poet like Ennius exercised upon them. This is most striking in those parts of the second Punic war in which Scipio plays a prominent part. Evidently a considerable portion of this so-called history belongs to the domain of fiction. Unfortunately, however, we are unable to ascertain from the scanty fragments of the poems of Ennius whether the chief source of these poetic ingredients was his Annals or a separate heroic poem which he composed to the glory of Scipio.

Like literature, religion also felt the influence of Greece during the Punic wars. The direct evidence of this is found in the adoption of Greek deities, as for instance the great mother of the gods, in the increasing importance of the worship of Apollo, of the Sibylline books, and of the Delphic oracle, and in the decline of ancient superstitions under the influence of free-thought. It is true the old auguries and the yoke of ceremonial law, with its thousand restrictions and annoyances, were not yet cast off, but they ceased to trouble the consciences of the Romans. Scepticism had reached a considerable height when a Roman consul could venture to say that "if the sacred fowls refused to feed, they should be cast into the water, that they might drink". What Livy relates about C. Valerius Flaccus is also very significant. This man had in his youth quarrelled with his brothers and other kins­folk, owing to his own irregular and dissolute mode of life, and was considered altogether a man lost to decent society. But in order to save him from utter perdition, the chief pontifex, P. Licinius, ordained him, against his wish, to the office of priest of Jupiter (flamen dialis), and under the influence of the sacred office this rake became not only a respectable but even an exemplary man, and succeeded in regaining the official seat in the senate which his predecessors in office had lost through their unworthiness. Nothing can be more characteristic of the spirit of the Roman religion, and of the total absence of a morally sanctifying element, than this appointment of a notorious profligate as priest of the supreme god. It was a fabric of formulae without meaning, a dish without meat. The religious cravings were not satisfied, and men were carried either to the schools of Greek philosophy or to the grossest and meanest superstition. Hence it ceases to be a matter of wonder that in times of danger, as in the Gallic (225 B.C.) and in the Hannibalian war (210 B.C.), the Roman people should return to the barbarous rite of human sacrifices, that the town should be filled with magicians and prophets, that every form of superstition should be readily received by the common people, and that religion and morals should cease to make an effectual stand against selfishness and vice.

The increasing love of pleasure in Rome, and the growing splendour of the public festivals and games, cannot be considered as a proof of a general increase of wealth in the capital, and still less in the whole empire. The treasures collected in Rome had not been earned by labour, but captured by force of arms. The peaceful exchange of goods, which is the result of productive labour and legitimate commerce, enriches the buyer and the seller, and encourages both to renewed exertion. But when brute force takes the place of a free exchange, both the robbed and the robber become enervated. The curse of barrenness cleaves to stolen goods. Who would gladly toil in the field or in the workshop, and earn a scanty livelihood in the sweat of his brow, if he has once revelled in the spoils of a conquered foe? The Roman soldiers lost in the long war the virtues of citizens. What they had gained, they rapidly squandered, and they returned home to swell the impoverished crowd that daily increased in the capital, attracted by the amusements and still more by the hope of sharing the profits of the sovereign people through the exercise of their sovereignty. Whilst, on the one hand, the love of sight-seeing was nourished, we hear already of those demoralising distributions of corn which destroyed, more than anything else, the spirit of honourable independence and of self-help. Already, in the year 203, a quantity of corn, that had been sent from Spain, was distributed at a low price by the curule aediles. This was the most convenient way of keeping the populace in good humour, and opposing those reformers who advocated the restoration of a free peasantry by means of assignments of land on a large scale. At the close of the Hannibalian war there was the best opportunity, and at the same time the most urgent necessity, for a radical agrarian reform.

Great tracts ot land in Italy were deserted, while thousands of people were impoverished and without employment. It was possible and even easy to remedy both evils at once, and to spread over Italy a free and vigorous population, such as had existed at the beginning of the war. If this was now neglected, a future revolution and the fall of the republic became inevitable.

That it was neglected was the fault of the nobility. A few colonies, it is true, were founded, and a certain number of veterans received grants of land. But these measures were not carried out in the spirit of the Flaminian distribution of lands in Picenum. The estates of the nobility grew larger, and slaves took the place of a free peasantry. The Licinian law, restricting the right of inclosure and of using the common pasture—a law which had always been infringed more or less—now became gradually obsolete. By degrees these various causes brought about that state of things which two generations later converted the Gracchi into demagogues, and which, after the failure of reform, led to the establishment of the monarchy. The course which the development of the Roman state thus took, can be ascribed neither to particular men nor to a particular class. It was the necessary consequence of the fundamental form of the political and social institutions of Rome. The growth of the republic involved the emancipation of the ruling class from all public control.

The periodical admission of all citizens to the public offices, which constitutes the real essence of republican freedom and equality, was naturally checked by the supremacy of one city over great districts; while the inequality in the division of wealth, which impoverished and cowed the mass of the sovereign people, raised the ruling classes above the authority of the laws. At the time of the Hannibalian war this process was completed, and the theory of the constitution no longer agreed with the practice. The senate had ceased to be merely a deliberative body, and the people had only a nominal control of the legislative and executive power. The senate reigned exactly as a sovereign reigns in a state which has only a sham constitution. The officers of the state were its submissive servants, and the people were used as a tool to give the stamp of legality to the edicts of the senate. The ruling nobility was fully developed. The government was in the hands of a small number of noble families, to which it was all but impossible to gain admission. During the whole course of the Hannibalian war we find no instance of a ‘new man’ having been chosen for any high republican office. The names of the Cornelii, Valerii, Fabii, Sempronii, Servilii, Atilii, Aemilii, Claudii, Fulvii, Sulpicii, Livii, Caecilii, Licinii fill the consular fasti of the period. Even the most brilliant personal merit no longer sufficed to admit a man who was not a member of the nobility to the higher offices of state. The knight L. Marcius, who after the fall of Cn. and Publius Scipio, had saved the remainder of the Roman army in Spain, and had afterwards been employed by the younger Scipio in the most important operations of the war, was shut out, in spite of his merits, from all high office, because he was not of noble descent, and this was at a time when military ability was more important than any other. Even Laelius, Scipio’s staunch friend and confidant, obtained admittance to the high offices of state with great difficulty, after he had failed in his first candidature for the consulship, in spite of the intercession of his powerful friends (192 B.C.). This jealousy of the nobility with regard to interlopers was by no means due only to ambition and to a desire to serve the state. The extension of the Roman republic had rendered the honorary public offices sources of profit to their holders to an extent which the old patricians had never anticipated when they consented to share them with their plebeian rivals. There can be no doubt that it was even then chiefly the prospect of pecuniary profit that increased the obstinacy of the conflict for the possession of office. But in the olden time religious conservatism, and the fear of the profanation of the auspices by the plebeians, had also exercised a considerable influence. Now there was no longer any pretext for religious scruples, and the families that were once in office excluded all outsiders chiefly because they did not feel inclined to share the booty with them.

One of the most effectual means of excluding new candidates was the burden laid on the aediles, who were now required to furnish in part the cost of the public games. At first the state had borne the expenses, and these had remained within reasonable limits. But when the passion for public amusements increased, whilst at the same time the conduct of the wars and the administration of the provinces brought immense wealth to the noble houses, the younger members of the nobility used this wealth to win popularity for themselves, by increasing the splendour and prolonging the duration of the games at their own expense, and thus acquiring a claim to the consulship and proconsulship, and the means of enriching themselves. There is no economy more pernicious or more costly than that of paying the public servants badly or not at all. The consequence is that they indemnify themselves, and that they cease to consider fraud, theft, and robbery as serious crimes. Thus the political life of Rome moved continually in a narrowing and destructive circle, and approached more and more to the fatal catastrophe. Corruption led to office and to wealth, and this wealth again made corruption possible.

The calculating avarice of the great, and the venality of the impoverished mass, were both engaged in bringing about the ruin of the state, at first timidly and on a small scale, but with constantly increasing boldness and recklessness. Even in the Hannibalian war we find traces of that cynical spirit which a dominant party does not exhibit until it has lost both the fear of rivalry and the fear of disgrace. It was even then not customary to measure by the same standard the crimes of the nobility and those of the common people. Whilst the soldiers who fled at Cannae were punished with the greatest severity and condemned to serve in Sicily without pay, the young nobles, who had certainly not behaved with exceptional gallantry, had risen step by step to the highest offices of the republic. Cn. Cornelius Lentulus had been military tribune in the battle, and had escaped through the fleetness of his horse: he became quaestor in the year 212, then curule aedile, and at last even consul in 201. P. Sempronius Tuditanus, who had also been military tribune at Cannae, became curule aedile in 214, praetor in 211, censor in 209, proconsul in 205, and consul in 204. Q. Fabius Maximus, the son of the celebrated Cunctator, was in a similar position; he became successively curule aedile, praetor, and consul. Even L. Caecilius Metellus, who was said to have formed the plan of leaving Italy after the battle of Cannae, and was therefore the object of violent attacks from those who, like Scipio and Tuditanus, claimed for themselves the credit of greater bravery, became, after his return, quaestor and tribune of the people. But, above all others, P. Cornelius Scipio himself, the conqueror of Zama, was, in spite of his flight at Cannae, loaded with honours and distinctions. It would surely have been natural if the really ill-treated soldiers of Cannae had, in the prayer for justice which they addressed to Marcellus, made use of the words put into their mouth by Livy: ‘We have heard that our comrades in misfortune in that defeat, who were then our legionary tribunes, are now candidates for honours, and gain them. Will you then pardon yourselves and your sons, Conscript Fathers, and only vent your rage against men of lower station? Is it no disgrace for the consul and the other members of the nobility to take to flight when no other hope is left? and have you sent us alone into battle for certain death?’

If this contemptuous and overbearing spirit of the nobility had been general at that time, the Roman people would certainly not have borne the struggle with Carthage as bravely and as successfully as they did. But these instances of political degeneracy were as yet isolated. In the year 212, for instance, the nobility did not dare to protect the incapable praetor Cn. Fulvius Flaccus, who had lost the second battle of Herdonea, from an accusation and from condemnation, after the fugitive troops had been punished by being sent to serve in Sicily. In spite of the intercession of his brother Quintus, who had already been three times consul, and who was at that moment besieging Capua as proconsul, a capital charge was brought against him, and he escaped the sentence only by going, as a voluntary exile, to Tarquinii.

In spite therefore of some marks of decay already visible in the political and social life of Rome, the period of the Hannibalian war was still the zenith of the republican constitution and the heroic age of the Roman people. From this time conquest followed upon conquest with surprising rapidity. Within two generations Rome had attained an undisputed sovereignty over all countries bordering on the Mediterranean. But the increase of wealth and the decay of the old republican virtues kept pace with the extension of the Roman power. We turn now to the consideration of the easy victories over the degenerate Hellenic states, before describing the great struggles that preceded the transition of the republic into the monarchy.