The History Of Rome, Book III
by
Theodor Mommsen
Part 5 out of 11
with power to enforce their award, or to regulate the frontier anew
that they might at least learn once for all how much they were to
lose; otherwise it were better to make them Roman subjects at once
than thus gradually to deliver them over to the Libyans. But the
Roman government, which already in 554 had held forth a direct
prospect of extension of territory to their client, of course at the
expense of Carthage, seemed to have little objection that he should
himself take the booty destined for him; they moderated perhaps at
times the too great impetuosity of the Libyans, who now retaliated
fully on their old tormentors for their former sufferings; but it
was in reality for the very sake of inflicting this torture that the
Romans had assigned Massinissa as a neighbour to Carthage. All the
requests and complaints had no result, except either that Roman
commissions made their appearance in Africa and after a thorough
investigation came to no decision, or that in the negotiations at
Rome the envoys of Massinissa pretended a want of instructions and
the matter was adjourned. Phoenician patience alone was able to
submit meekly to such a position, and even to exhibit towards
the despotic victors every attention and courtesy, solicited or
unsolicited with unwearied perseverance. The Carthaginians
especially courted Roman favour by sending supplies of grain.
Hannibal
Reform Of The Carthaginian Constitution
Hannibal's Flight
This pliability on the part of the vanquished, however was not mere
patience and resignation. There was still in Carthage a patriotic
party, and at its head stood the man who, wherever fate placed him,
was still dreaded by the Romans. It had not abandoned the idea of
resuming the struggle by taking advantage of those complications that
might be easily foreseen between Rome and the eastern powers; and, as
the failure of the magnificent scheme of Hamilcar and his sons had
been due mainly to the Carthaginian oligarchy, the chief object was
internally to reinvigorate the country for this new struggle. The
salutary influence of adversity, and the clear, noble, and commanding
mind of Hannibal, effected political and financial reforms. The
oligarchy, which had filled up the measure of its guilty follies by
raising a criminal process against the great general, charging him
with having intentionally abstained from the capture of Rome and with
embezzlement of the Italian spoil--that rotten oligarchy was, on the
proposition of Hannibal, overthrown, and a democratic government was
introduced such as was suited to the circumstances of the citizens
(before 559). The finances were so rapidly reorganized by the
collection of arrears and of embezzled moneys and by the introduction
of better control, that the contribution due to Rome could be paid
without burdening the citizens in any way with extraordinary taxes.
The Roman government, just then on the point of beginning its critical
war with the great-king of Asia, observed the progress of these
events, as may easily be conceived, with apprehension; it was no
imaginary danger that the Carthaginian fleet might land in Italy and
a second war under Hannibal might spring up there, while the Roman
legions fighting in Asia Minor. We can scarcely, therefore, censure
the Romans for sending an embassy to Carthage (in 559) which was
presumably charged to demand the surrender of Hannibal. The spiteful
Carthaginian oligarchs, who sent letter after letter to Rome to
denounce to the national foe the hero who had overthrown them as
having entered into secret communications with the powers unfriendly
to Rome, were contemptible, but their information was probably
correct; and, true as it was that that embassy involved a humiliating
confession of the dread with which the simple shofete of Carthage
inspired so powerful a people, and natural and honourable as it was
that the proud conqueror of Zama should take exception in the senate
to so humiliating a step, still that confession was nothing but the
simple truth, and Hannibal was of a genius so extraordinary, that none
but sentimental politicians in Rome could tolerate him longer at the
head of the Carthaginian state. The marked recognition thus accorded
to him by the Roman government scarcely took himself by surprise.
As it was Hannibal and not Carthage that had carried on the last war,
so it was he who had to bear the fate of the vanquished. The
Carthaginians could do nothing but submit and be thankful that
Hannibal, sparing them the greater disgrace by his speedy and prudent
flight to the east, left to his ancestral city merely the lesser
disgrace of having banished its greatest citizen for ever from his
native land, confiscated his property, and razed his house. The
profound saying that those are the favourites of the gods, on whom
they lavish infinite joys and infinite sorrows, thus verified itself
in full measure in the case of Hannibal.
Continued Irritation In Rome Towards Carthage
A graver responsibility than that arising out of their proceedings
against Hannibal attaches to the Roman government for their
persistence in suspecting and tormenting the city after his removal.
Parties indeed fermented there as before; but, after the withdrawal
of the extraordinary man who had wellnigh changed the destinies of the
world, the patriot party was not of much more importance in Carthage
than in Aetolia or Achaia. The most rational of the various ideas
which then agitated the unhappy city was beyond doubt that of
attaching themselves to Massinissa and of converting him from
the oppressor into the protector of the Phoenicians. But neither
the national section of the patriots nor the section with Libyan
tendencies attained the helm; on the contrary the government remained
in the hands of the oligarchs friendly to Rome, who, so far as they
did not altogether renounce thought of the future, clung to the single
idea of saving the material welfare and the communal freedom of
Carthage under Roman protection. With this state of matters the
Romans might well have been content. But neither the multitude, nor
even the ruling lords of the average stamp, could rid themselves of
the profound alarm produced by the Hannibalic war; and the Roman
merchants with envious eyes beheld the city even now, when its
political power was gone, possessed of extensive commercial
dependencies and of a firmly established wealth which nothing could
shake. Already in 567 the Carthaginian government offered to pay up
at once the whole instalments stipulated in the peace of 553--an offer
which the Romans, who attached far more importance to the having
Carthage tributary than to the sums of money themselves, naturally
declined, and only deduced from it the conviction that, in spite of
all the trouble they had taken, the city was not ruined and was not
capable of ruin. Fresh reports were ever circulating through Rome as
to the intrigues of the faithless Phoenicians. At one time it was
alleged that Aristo of Tyre had been seen in Carthage as an emissary
of Hannibal, to prepare the citizens for the landing of an Asiatic
war-fleet (561); at another, that the council had, in a secret
nocturnal sitting in the temple of the God of Healing, given audience
to the envoys of Perseus (581); at another there was talk of the
powerful fleet which was being equipped in Carthage for the Macedonian
war (583). It is probable that these and similar reports were founded
on nothing more than, at most, individual indiscretions; but still
they were the signal for new diplomatic ill usage on the part of Rome,
and for new aggressions on the part of Massinissa, and the idea gained
ground the more, the less sense and reason there was in it, that the
Carthaginian question would not be settled without a third Punic war.
Numidians
While the power of the Phoenicians was thus sinking in the land of
their choice, just as it had long ago succumbed in their original
home, a new state grew up by their side. The northern coast of Africa
has been inhabited from time immemorial, and is inhabited still, by
the people, who themselves assume the name of Shilah or Tamazigt, whom
the Greeks and Romans call Nomades or Numidians, i. e. the "pastoral"
people, and the Arabs call Berbers, although they also at times
designate them as "shepherds" (Shawie), and to whom we are wont to
give the name of Berbers or Kabyles. This people is, so far as its
language has been hitherto investigated, related to no other known
nation. In the Carthaginian period these tribes, with the exception
of those dwelling immediately around Carthage or immediately on the
coast, had on the whole maintained their independence, and had also
substantially retained their pastoral and equestrian life, such as the
inhabitants of the Atlas lead at the present day; although they were
not strangers to the Phoenician alphabet and Phoenician civilization
generally,(2) and instances occurred in which the Berber sheiks had
their sons educated in Carthage and intermarried with the families of
the Phoenician nobility. It was not the policy of the Romans to have
direct possessions of their own in Africa; they preferred to rear a
state there, which should not be of sufficient importance to be able
to dispense with Roman protection, and yet should be sufficiently
strong to keep down the power of Carthage now that it was restricted
to Africa, and to render all freedom of movement impossible for the
tortured city. They found what they sought among the native princes.
About the time of the Hannibalic war the natives of North Africa were
subject to three principal kings, each of whom, according to the
custom there, had a multitude of princes bound to follow his banner;
Bocchar king of the Mauri, who ruled from the Atlantic Ocean to the
river Molochath (now Mluia, on the boundary between Morocco and the
French territory); Syphax king of the Massaesyli, who ruled from the
last-named point to the "Perforated Promontory," as it was called
(Seba Rus, between Jijeli and Bona), in what are now the provinces of
Oran and Algiers; and Massinissa king of the Massyli, who ruled from
the Tretum Promontorium to the boundary of Carthage, in what is now
the province of Constantine. The most powerful of these, Syphax king
of Siga, had been vanquished in the last war between Rome and Carthage
and carried away captive to Rome, where he died in captivity. His
wide dominions were mainly given to Massinissa; although Vermina the
son of Syphax by humble petition recovered a small portion of his
father's territory from the Romans (554), he was unable to deprive
the earlier ally of the Romans of his position as the privileged
oppressor of Carthage.
Massinissa
Massinissa became the founder of the Numidian kingdom; and seldom has
choice or accident hit upon a man so thoroughly fitted for his post.
In body sound and supple up to extreme old age; temperate and sober
like an Arab; capable of enduring any fatigue, of standing on the same
spot from morning to evening, and of sitting four-and-twenty hours on
horseback; tried alike as a soldier and a general amidst the romantic
vicissitudes of his youth as well as on the battle-fields of Spain,
and not less master of the more difficult art of maintaining
discipline in his numerous household and order in his dominions;
with equal unscrupulousness ready to throw himself at the feet of his
powerful protector, or to tread under foot his weaker neighbour; and,
in addition to all this, as accurately acquainted with the
circumstances of Carthage, where he was educated and had been on
familiar terms in the noblest houses, as he was filled with an African
bitterness of hatred towards his own and his people's oppressors,
--this remarkable man became the soul of the revival of his nation,
which had seemed on the point of perishing, and of whose virtues and
faults he appeared as it were a living embodiment. Fortune favoured
him, as in everything, so especially in the fact, that it allowed
him time for his work. He died in the ninetieth year of his age
(516-605), and in the sixtieth year of his reign, retaining to the
last the full possession of his bodily and mental powers, leaving
behind him a son one year old and the reputation of having been
the strongest man and the best and most fortunate king of his age.
Extension And Civilization Of Numidia
We have already narrated how purposely and clearly the Romans in
their management of African affairs evinced their taking part with
Massinissa, and how zealously and constantly the latter availed
himself of the tacit permission to enlarge his territory at the
expense of Carthage. The whole interior to the border of the desert
fell to the native sovereign as it were of its own accord, and even
the upper valley of the Bagradas (Mejerdah) with the rich town of Vaga
became subject to the king; on the coast also to the east of Carthage
he occupied the old Sidonian city of Great Leptis and other districts,
so that his kingdom stretched from the Mauretanian to the Cyrenaean
frontier, enclosed the Carthaginian territory on every side by land,
and everywhere pressed, in the closest vicinity, on the Phoenicians.
It admits of no doubt, that he looked on Carthage as his future
capital; the Libyan party there was significant. But it was not
only by the diminution of her territory that Carthage suffered injury.
The roving shepherds were converted by their great king into another
people. After the example of the king, who brought the fields
under cultivation far and wide and bequeathed to each of his sons
considerable landed estates, his subjects also began to settle and
to practise agriculture. As he converted his shepherds into settled
citizens, he converted also his hordes of plunderers into soldiers who
were deemed by Rome worthy to fight side by side with her legions;
and he bequeathed to his successors a richly-filled treasury, a well-
disciplined army, and even a fleet. His residence Cirta (Constantine)
became the stirring capital of a powerful state, and a chief seat of
Phoenician civilization, which was zealously fostered at the court of
the Berber king--fostered perhaps studiously with a view to the future
Carthagino-Numidian kingdom. The hitherto degraded Libyan nationality
thus rose in its own estimation, and the native manners and language
made their way even into the old Phoenician towns, such as Great
Leptis. The Berber began, under the aegis of Rome, to feel himself
the equal or even the superior of the Phoenician; Carthaginian envoys
at Rome had to submit to be told that they were aliens in Africa,
and that the land belonged to the Libyans. The Phoenico-national
civilization of North Africa, which still retained life and vigour
even in the levelling times of the Empire, was far more the work
of Massinissa than of the Carthaginians.
The State Of Culture In Spain
In Spain the Greek and Phoenician towns along the coast, such as
Emporiae, Saguntum, New Carthage, Malaca, and Gades, submitted to the
Roman rule the more readily, that, left to their own resources, they
would hardly have been able to protect themselves from the natives;
as for similar reasons Massilia, although far more important and more
capable of self-defence than those towns, did not omit to secure a
powerful support in case of need by closely attaching itself to the
Romans, to whom it was in return very serviceable as an intermediate
station between Italy and Spain. The natives, on the other hand, gave
to the Romans endless trouble. It is true that there were not wanting
the rudiments of a national Iberian civilization, although of its
special character it is scarcely possible for us to acquire any clear
idea. We find among the Iberians a widely diffused national writing,
which divides itself into two chief kinds, that of the valley of the
Ebro, and the Andalusian, and each of these was presumably subdivided
into various branches: this writing seems to have originated at a very
early period, and to be traceable rather to the old Greek than to the
Phoenician alphabet. There is even a tradition that the Turdetani
(round Seville) possessed lays from very ancient times, a metrical
book of laws of 6000 verses, and even historical records; at any rate
this tribe is described as the most civilized of all the Spanish
tribes, and at the same time the least warlike; indeed, it regularly
carried on its wars by means of foreign mercenaries. To the same
region probably we must refer the descriptions given by Polybius of
the flourishing condition of agriculture and the rearing of cattle
in Spain--so that, in the absence of opportunity of export, grain and
flesh were to be had at nominal prices--and of the splendid royal
palaces with golden and silver jars full of "barley wine." At least a
portion of the Spaniards, moreover, zealously embraced the elements of
culture which the Romans brought along with them, so that the process
of Latinizing made more rapid progress in Spain than anywhere else in
the transmarine provinces. For example, warm baths after the Italian
fashion came into use even at this period among the natives. Roman
money, too, was to all appearance not only current in Spain far
earlier than elsewhere out of Italy, but was imitated in Spanish
coins; a circumstance in some measure explained by the rich silver-
mines of the country. The so-called "silver of Osca" (now Huesca
in Arragon), i. e. Spanish -denarii- with Iberian inscriptions, is
mentioned in 559; and the commencement of their coinage cannot be
placed much later, because the impression is imitated from that of
the oldest Roman -denarii-.
But, while in the southern and eastern provinces the culture of the
natives may have so far prepared the way for Roman civilization and
Roman rule that these encountered no serious difficulties, the west
and north on the other hand, and the whole of the interior, were
occupied by numerous tribes more or less barbarous, who knew little of
any kind of civilization--in Intercatia, for instance, the use of gold
and silver was still unknown about 600--and who were on no better
terms with each other than with the Romans. A characteristic trait
in these free Spaniards was the chivalrous spirit of the men and, at
least to an equal extent, of the women. When a mother sent forth her
son to battle, she roused his spirit by the recital of the feats of
his ancestors; and the fairest maiden unasked offered her hand in
marriage to the bravest man. Single combat was common, both with
a view to determine the prize of valour, and for the settlement of
lawsuits; even disputes among the relatives of princes as to the
succession were settled in this way. It not unfrequently happened
that a well-known warrior confronted the ranks of the enemy and
challenged an antagonist by name; the defeated champion then
surrendered his mantle and sword to his opponent, and even entered
into relations of friendship and hospitality with him. Twenty years
after the close of the second Punic war, the little Celtiberian
community of Complega (in the neighbourhood of the sources of the
Tagus) sent a message to the Roman general, that unless he sent to
them for every man that had fallen a horse, a mantle, and a sword,
it would fare ill with him. Proud of their military honour, so that
they frequently could not bear to survive the disgrace of being
disarmed, the Spaniards were nevertheless disposed to follow any
one who should enlist their services, and to stake their lives in
any foreign quarrel. The summons was characteristic, which a Roman
general well acquainted with the customs of the country sent to a
Celtiberian band righting in the pay of the Turdetani against the
Romans--either to return home, or to enter the Roman service with
double pay, or to fix time and place for battle. If no recruiting
officer made his appearance, they met of their own accord in free
bands, with the view of pillaging the more peaceful districts and
even of capturing and occupying towns, quite after the manner of the
Campanians. The wildness and insecurity of the inland districts are
attested by the fact that banishment into the interior westward of
Cartagena was regarded by the Romans as a severe punishment, and that
in periods of any excitement the Roman commandants of Further Spain
took with them escorts of as many as 6000 men. They are still more
clearly shown by the singular relations subsisting between the Greeks
and their Spanish neighbours in the Graeco-Spanish double city of
Emporiae, at the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees. The Greek
settlers, who dwelt on the point of the peninsula separated on the
landward side from the Spanish part of the town by a wall, took care
that this wall should be guarded every night by a third of their civic
force, and that a higher official should constantly superintend the
watch at the only gate; no Spaniard was allowed to set foot in the
Greek city, and the Greeks conveyed their merchandise to the natives
only in numerous and well-escorted companies.
Wars Between the Romans And Spaniards
These natives, full of restlessness and fond of war--full of the
spirit of the Cid and of Don Quixote--were now to be tamed and, if
possible, civilized by the Romans. In a military point of view
the task was not difficult. It is true that the Spaniards showed
themselves, not only when behind the walls of their cities or under
the leadership of Hannibal, but even when left to themselves and in
the open field of battle, no contemptible opponents; with their short
two-edged sword which the Romans subsequently adopted from them, and
their formidable assaulting columns, they not unfrequently made even
the Roman legions waver. Had they been able to submit to military
discipline and to political combination, they might perhaps have
shaken off the foreign yoke imposed on them. But their valour was
rather that of the guerilla than of the soldier, and they were utterly
void of political judgment. Thus in Spain there was no serious war,
but as little was there any real peace; the Spaniards, as Caesar
afterwards very justly pointed out to them, never showed themselves
quiet in peace or strenuous in war. Easy as it was for a Roman
general to scatter a host of insurgents, it was difficult for the
Roman statesman to devise any suitable means of really pacifying and
civilizing Spain. In fact, he could only deal with it by palliative
measures; because the only really adequate expedient, a comprehensive
Latin colonization, was not accordant with the general aim of Roman
policy at this period.
The Romans Maintain A Standing Army In Spain
Cato
Gracchus
The territory which the Romans acquired in Spain in the course of the
second Punic war was from the beginning divided into two masses--the
province formerly Carthaginian, which embraced in the first instance
the present districts of Andalusia, Granada, Murcia, and Valencia, and
the province of the Ebro, or the modern Arragon and Catalonia, the
fixed quarters of the Roman army during the last war. Out of these
territories were formed the two Roman provinces of Further and Hither
Spain. The Romans sought gradually to reduce to subjection the
interior corresponding nearly to the two Castiles, which they
comprehended under the general name of Celtiberia, while they were
content with checking the incursions of the inhabitants of the western
provinces, more especially those of the Lusitanians in the modern
Portugal and the Spanish Estremadura, into the Roman territory;
with the tribes on the north coast, the Callaecians, Asturians,
and Cantabrians, they did not as yet come into contact at all.
The territories thus won, however, could not be maintained and secured
without a standing garrison, for the governor of Hither Spain had no
small trouble every year with the chastisement of the Celtiberians,
and the governor of the more remote province found similar employment
in repelling the Lusitanians. It was needful accordingly to maintain
in Spain a Roman army of four strong legions, or about 40,000 men,
year after year; besides which the general levy had often to be called
out in the districts occupied by Rome, to reinforce the legions. This
was of great importance for two reasons: it was in Spain first, at
least first on any larger scale, that the military occupation of the
land became continuous; and it was there consequently that the service
acquired a permanent character. The old Roman custom of sending
troops only where the exigencies of war at the moment required them,
and of not keeping the men called to serve, except in very serious
and important wars, under arms for more than a year, was found
incompatible with the retention of the turbulent and remote Spanish
provinces beyond the sea; it was absolutely impossible to withdraw
the troops from these, and very dangerous even to relieve them
extensively. The Roman burgesses began to perceive that dominion over
a foreign people is an annoyance not only to the slave, but to the
master, and murmured loudly regarding the odious war-service of Spain.
While the new generals with good reason refused to allow the relief of
the existing corps as a whole, the men mutinied and threatened that,
if they were not allowed their discharge, they would take it of
their own accord.
The wars themselves, which the Romans waged in Spain, were but of
a subordinate importance. They began with the very departure of
Scipio,(3) and continued as long as the war under Hannibal lasted.
After the peace with Carthage (in 553) there was a cessation of
arms in the peninsula; but only for a short time. In 557 a general
insurrection broke out in both provinces; the commander of the
Further province was hard pressed; the commander of Hither Spain was
completely defeated, and was himself slain. It was necessary to take
up the war in earnest, and although in the meantime the able praetor
Quintus Minucius had mastered the first danger, the senate resolved in
559 to send the consul Marcus Cato in person to Spain. On landing at
Emporiae he actually found the whole of Hither Spain overrun by the
insurgents; with difficulty that seaport and one or two strongholds
in the interior were still held for Rome. A pitched battle took place
between the insurgents and the consular army, in which, after an
obstinate conflict man against man, the Roman military skill at length
decided the day with its last reserve. The whole of Hither Spain
thereupon sent in its submission: so little, however, was this
submission meant in earnest, that on a rumour of the consul having
returned to Rome the insurrection immediately recommenced. But the
rumour was false; and after Cato had rapidly reduced the communities
which had revolted for the second time and sold them -en masse- into
slavery, he decreed a general disarming of the Spaniards in the Hither
province, and issued orders to all the towns of the natives from the
Pyrenees to the Guadalquivir to pull down their walls on one and the
same day. No one knew how far the command extended, and there was no
time to come to any understanding; most of the communities complied;
and of the few that were refractory not many ventured, when the Roman
army soon appeared before their walls, to await its assault.
These energetic measures were certainly not without permanent effect.
Nevertheless the Romans had almost every year to reduce to subjection
some mountain valley or mountain stronghold in the "peaceful
province," and the constant incursions of the Lusitanians into the
Further province led occasionally to severe defeats of the Romans.
In 563, for instance, a Roman army was obliged after heavy loss to
abandon its camp, and to return by forced inarches into the more
tranquil districts. It was not till after a victory gained by the
praetor Lucius Aemilius Paullus in 565,(4) and a second still more
considerable gained by the brave praetor Gaius Calpurnius beyond the
Tagus over the Lusitanians in 569, that quiet for some time prevailed.
In Hither Spain the hitherto almost nominal rule of the Romans over
the Celtiberian tribes was placed on a firmer basis by Quintus Fulvius
Flaccus, who after a great victory over them in 573 compelled at least
the adjacent cantons to submission; and especially by his successor
Tiberius Gracchus (575, 576), who achieved results of a permanent
character not only by his arms, by which he reduced three hundred
Spanish townships, but still more by his adroitness in adapting
himself to the views and habits of the simple and haughty nation.
He induced Celtiberians of note to take service in the Roman army,
and so created a class of dependents; he assigned land to the roving
tribes, and collected them in towns--the Spanish town Graccurris
preserved the Roman's name--and so imposed a serious check on their
freebooter habits; he regulated the relations of the several tribes
to the Romans by just and wise treaties, and so stopped, as far as
possible, the springs of future rebellion. His name was held in
grateful remembrance by the Spaniards, and comparative peace
henceforth reigned in the land, although the Celtiberians still
from time to time winced under the yoke.
Administration Of Spain
The system of administration in the two Spanish provinces was similar
to that of the Sicilo-Sardinian province, but not identical. The
superintendence was in both instances vested in two auxiliary consuls,
who were first nominated in 557, in which year also the regulation of
the boundaries and the definitive organization of the new provinces
took place. The judicious enactment of the Baebian law (573), that
the Spanish praetors should always be nominated for two years, was not
seriously carried out in consequence of the increasing competition for
the highest magistracies, and still more in consequence of the jealous
supervision exercised over the powers of the magistrates by the
senate; and in Spain also, except where deviations occurred in
extraordinary circumstances, the Romans adhered to the system of
annually changing the governors--a system especially injudicious in
the case of provinces so remote and with which it was so difficult to
gain an acquaintance. The dependent communities were throughout
tributary; but, instead of the Sicilian and Sardinian tenths and
customs, in Spain fixed payments in money or other contributions were
imposed by the Romans, just as formerly by the Carthaginians, on the
several towns and tribes: the collection of these by military means
was prohibited by a decree of the senate in 583, in consequence of the
complaints of the Spanish communities. Grain was not furnished in
their case except for compensation, and even then the governor might
not levy more than a twentieth; besides, conformably to the just-
mentioned ordinance of the supreme authority, he was bound to adjust
the compensation in an equitable manner. On the other hand, the
obligation of the Spanish subjects to furnish contingents to the Roman
armies had an importance very different from that which belonged to
it at least in peaceful Sicily, and it was strictly regulated in the
several treaties. The right, too, of coining silver money of the
Roman standard appears to have been very frequently conceded to the
Spanish towns, and the monopoly of coining seems to have been by no
means asserted here by the Roman government with the same strictness
as in Sicily. Rome had too much need of her subjects everywhere in
Spain, not to proceed with all possible tenderness in the introduction
and handling of the provincial constitution there. Among the
communities specially favoured by Rome were the great cities along
the coast of Greek, Phoenician, or Roman foundation, such as Saguntum,
Gades, and Tarraco, which, as the natural pillars of the Roman rule
in the peninsula, were admitted to alliance with Rome. On the whole,
Spain was in a military as well as financial point of view a burden
rather than a gain to the Roman commonwealth; and the question
naturally occurs, Why did the Roman government, whose policy at that
time evidently did not contemplate the acquisition of countries beyond
the sea, not rid itself of these troublesome possessions? The not
inconsiderable commercial connections of Spain, her important iron-
mines, and her still more important silver-mines famous from ancient
times even in the far east(5)--which Rome, like Carthage, took into
her own hands, and the management of which was specially regulated by
Marcus Cato (559)--must beyond doubt have co-operated to induce its
retention; but the chief reason of the Romans for retaining the
peninsula in their own immediate possession was, that there were no
states in that quarter of similar character to the Massiliot republic
in the land of the Celts and the Numidian kingdom in Libya, and that
thus they could not abandon Spain without putting it into the power
of any adventurer to revive the Spanish empire of the Barcides.
Notes For Chapter VII
1. According to the account of Strabo these Italian Boii were driven
by the Romans over the Alps, and from them proceeded that Boian
settlement in what is now Hungary about Stein am Anger and Oedenburg,
which was attacked and annihilated in the time of Augustus by the
Getae who crossed the Danube, but which bequeathed to this district
the name of the Boian desert. This account is far from agreeing with
the well-attested representation of the Roman annals, according to
which the Romans were content with the cession of half the territory;
and, in order to explain the disappearance of the Italian Boii,
we have really no need to assume a violent expulsion--the other
Celtic peoples, although visited to a far less extent by war and
colonization, disappeared not much less rapidly and totally from the
ranks of the Italian nations. On the other hand, other accounts
suggest the derivation of those Boii on the Neusiedler See from the
main stock of the nation, which formerly had its seat in Bavaria and
Bohemia before Germanic tribes pushed it towards the south. But it is
altogether very doubtful whether the Boii, whom we find near Bordeaux,
on the Po, and in Bohemia, were really scattered branches of one
stock, or whether this is not an instance of mere similarity of name.
The hypothesis of Strabo may have rested on nothing else than an
inference from the similarity of name--an inference such as the
ancients drew, often without due reason, in the case of the Cimbri,
Veneti, and others.
2. III. I. Libyphoenicians
3. III. VI. Gades Becomes Roman
4. Of this praetor there has recently come to light the following
decree on a copper tablet found in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar
and now preserved in the Paris Museum: "L. Aimilius, son of Lucius,
Imperator, has ordained that the slaves of the Hastenses [of Hasta
regia, not far from Jerez de la Frontera], who dwell in the tower of
Lascuta [known by means of coins and Plin. iii. i, 15, but uncertain
as to site] should be free. The ground and the township, of which
they are at the time in possession, they shall continue to possess and
hold, so long as it shall please the people and senate of the Romans.
Done in camp on 12 Jan. [564 or 565]." (-L. Aimilius L. f. inpeirator
decreivit utei qui Hastensium servei in turri Lascutana habitarent,
leiberei essent, Agrum oppidumqu[e], guod ea tempestate posedissent,
item possidere habereque ioussit, dum poplus senatusque Romanus
vettet. Act. in castreis a. d. XII. k. Febr.-) This is the oldest
Roman document which we possess in the original, drawn up three years
earlier than the well-known edict of the consuls of the year 568 in
the affair of the Bacchanalia.
5. 1 Maccab. viii. 3. "And Judas heard what the Romans had done
to the land of Hispania to become masters of the silver and gold
mines there."
Chapter VIII
The Eastern States And The Second Macedonian War
The Hellenic East
The work, which Alexander king of Macedonia had begun a century
before the Romans acquired their first footing in the territory which
he had called his own, had in the course of time--while adhering
substantially to the great fundamental idea of Hellenizing the east
--changed and expanded into the construction of a system of Hellene-
Asiatic states. The unconquerable propensity of the Greeks for
migration and colonizing, which had formerly carried their traders
to Massilia and Cyrene, to the Nile and to the Black Sea, now firmly
held what the king had won; and under the protection of the -sarissae-,
Greek civilization peacefully domiciled itself everywhere throughout
the ancient empire of the Achaemenidae. The officers, who divided the
heritage of the great general, gradually settled their differences,
and a system of equilibrium was established, of which the very
Oscillations manifest some sort of regularity.
The Great States.
Macedonia
Of the three states of the first rank belonging to this system
--Macedonia, Asia, and Egypt--Macedonia under Philip the Fifth, who
had occupied the throne since 534, was externally at least very much
what it had been under Philip the Second the father of Alexander
--a compact military state with its finances in good order. On its
northern frontier matters had resumed their former footing, after the
waves of the Gallic inundation had rolled away; the guard of the
frontier kept the Illyrian barbarians in check without difficulty,
at least in ordinary times. In the south, not only was Greece in
general dependent on Macedonia, but a large portion of it--including
all Thessaly in its widest sense from Olympus to the Spercheius and
the peninsula of Magnesia, the large and important island of Euboea,
the provinces of Locris, Phocis, and Doris, and lastly, a number of
isolated positions in Attica and in the Peloponnesus, such as the
promontory of Sunium, Corinth, Orchomenus, Heraea, the Triphylian
territory--was directly subject to Macedonia and received Macedonian
garrisons; more especially the three important fortresses of Demetrias
in Magnesia, Chalcis in Euboea, and Corinth, "the three fetters of
the Hellenes." But the strength of the state lay above all in its
hereditary soil, the province of Macedonia. The population, indeed,
of that extensive territory was remarkably scanty; Macedonia, putting
forth all her energies, was scarcely able to bring into the field as
many men as were contained in an ordinary consular army of two
legions; and it was unmistakeably evident that the land had not yet
recovered from the depopulation occasioned by the campaigns of
Alexander and by the Gallic invasion. But while in Greece proper
the moral and political energy of the people had decayed, the day of
national vigour seemed to have gone by, life appeared scarce worth
living for, and even of the better spirits one spent time over the
wine-cup, another with the rapier, a third beside the student's lamp;
while in the east and Alexandria the Greeks were able perhaps to
disseminate elements of culture among the dense native population and
to diffuse among that population their language and their loquacity,
their science and pseudo-science, but were barely sufficient in point
of number to supply the nations with officers, statesmen, and
schoolmasters, and were far too few to form even in the cities middle-
class of the pure Greek type; there still existed, or the other hand,
in northern Greece a goodly portion of the old national vigour, which
had produced the warriors of Marathon. Hence arose the confidence
with which the Macedonians, Aetolians, and Acarnanians, wherever they
made their appearance in the east, claimed to be, and were taken as,
a better race; and hence the superior part which they played at the
courts of Alexandria and Antioch. There is a characteristic story,
that an Alexandrian who had lived for a considerable time in Macedonia
and had adopted the manners and the dress of that country, on
returning to his native city, now looked upon himself as a man and
upon the Alexandrians as little better than slaves. This sturdy
vigour and unimpaired national spirit were turned to peculiarly good
account by the Macedonians, as the most powerful and best organized
of the states of northern Greece. There, no doubt, absolutism had
emerged in opposition to the old constitution, which to some extent
recognized different estates; but sovereign and subject by no means
stood towards each other in Macedonia as they stood in Asia and Egypt,
and the people still felt itself independent and free. In steadfast
resistance to the public enemy under whatever name, in unshaken
fidelity towards their native country and their hereditary government,
and in persevering courage amidst the severest trials, no nation in
ancient history bears so close a resemblance to the Roman people as
the Macedonians; and the almost miraculous regeneration of the state
after the Gallic invasion redounds to the imperishable honour of its
leaders and of the people whom they led.
Asia
The second of the great states, Asia, was nothing but Persia
superficially remodelled and Hellenized--the empire of "the king
of kings," as its master was wont to call himself in a style
characteristic at once of his arrogance and of his weakness--with the
same pretensions to rule from the Hellespont to the Punjab, and with
the same disjointed organization; an aggregate of dependent states in
various degrees of dependence, of insubordinate satrapies, and of
half-free Greek cities. In Asia Minor more especially, which was
nominally included in the empire of the Seleucidae, the whole north
coast and the greater part of the eastern interior were practically
in the hands of native dynasties or of the Celtic hordes that had
penetrated thither from Europe; a considerable portion of the west was
in the possession of the kings of Pergamus, and the islands and coast
towns were some of them Egyptian, some of them free; so that little
more was left to the great-king than the interior of Cilicia, Phrygia,
and Lydia, and a great number of titular claims, not easily made good,
against free cities and princes--exactly similar in character to the
sovereignty of the German emperor, in his day, beyond his hereditary
dominions. The strength of the empire was expended in vain endeavours
to expel the Egyptians from the provinces along the coast; in frontier
strife with the eastern peoples, the Parthians and Bactrians; in feuds
with the Celts, who to the misfortune of Asia Minor had settled within
its bounds; in constant efforts to check the attempts of the eastern
satraps and of the Greek cities of Asia Minor to achieve their
independence; and in family quarrels and insurrections of pretenders.
None indeed of the states founded by the successors of Alexander were
free from such attempts, or from the other horrors which absolute
monarchy in degenerate times brings in its train; but in the kingdom
of Asia these evils were more injurious than elsewhere, because, from
the lax composition of the empire, they usually led to the severance
of particular portions from it for longer or shorter periods.
Egypt
In marked contrast to Asia, Egypt formed a consolidated and united
state, in which the intelligent statecraft of the first Lagidae,
skilfully availing itself of ancient national and religious precedent,
had established a completely absolute cabinet government, and in which
even the worst misrule failed to provoke any attempt either at
emancipation or disruption. Very different from the Macedonians,
whose national attachment to royalty was based upon their personal
dignity and was its political expression, the rural population
in Egypt was wholly passive; the capital on the other hand was
everything, and that capital was a dependency of the court. The
remissness and indolence of its rulers, accordingly, paralyzed the
state in Egypt still more than in Macedonia and in Asia; while on
the other hand when wielded by men, like the first Ptolemy and Ptolemy
Euergetes, such a state machine proved itself extremely useful. It
was one of the peculiar advantages of Egypt as compared with its two
great rivals, that its policy did not grasp at shadows, but pursued
clear and attainable objects. Macedonia, the home of Alexander, and
Asia, the land where he had established his throne, never ceased to
regard themselves as direct continuations of the Alexandrine monarchy
and more or less loudly asserted their claim to represent it at least,
if not to restore it. The Lagidae never tried to found a universal
empire, and never dreamt of conquering India; but, by way of
compensation, they drew the whole traffic between India and the
Mediterranean from the Phoenician ports to Alexandria, and made Egypt
the first commercial and maritime state of this epoch, and the
mistress of the eastern Mediterranean and of its coasts and islands.
It is a significant fact, that Ptolemy III. Euergetes voluntarily
restored all his conquests to Seleucus Callinicus except the seaport
of Antioch. Partly by this means, partly by its favourable
geographical situation, Egypt attained, with reference to the two
continental powers, an excellent military position either for defence
or for attack. While an opponent even in the full career of success
was hardly in a position seriously to threaten Egypt, which was almost
inaccessible on any side to land armies, the Egyptians were able by
sea to establish themselves not only in Cyrene, but also in Cyprus
and the Cyclades, on the Phoenico-Syrian coast, on the whole south
and west coast of Asia Minor and even in Europe on the Thracian
Chersonese. By their unexampled skill in turning to account the
fertile valley of the Nile for the direct benefit of the treasury,
and by a financial system--equally sagacious and unscrupulous
--earnestly and adroitly calculated to foster material interests,
the court of Alexandria was constantly superior to its opponents even
as a moneyed power. Lastly, the intelligent munificence, with which
the Lagidae welcomed the tendency of the age towards earnest inquiry
in all departments of enterprise and of knowledge, and knew how to
confine such inquiries within the bounds, and entwine them with the
interests, of absolute monarchy, was productive of direct advantage to
the state, whose ship-building and machine-making showed traces of the
beneficial influence of Alexandrian mathematics; and not only so, but
also rendered this new intellectual power--the most important and the
greatest, which the Hellenic nation after its political dismemberment
put forth--subservient, so far as it would consent to be serviceable
at all, to the Alexandrian court. Had the empire of Alexander
continued to stand, Greek science and art would have found a state
worthy and capable of containing them. Now, when the nation had
fallen to pieces, a learned cosmopolitanism grew up in it luxuriantly,
and was very soon attracted by the magnet of Alexandria, where
scientific appliances and collections were inexhaustible, where kings
composed tragedies and ministers wrote commentaries on them, and where
pensions and academies flourished.
The mutual relations of the three great states are evident from
what has been said. The maritime power, which ruled the coasts and
monopolized the sea, could not but after the first great success
--the political separation of the European from the Asiatic continent
--direct its further efforts towards the weakening of the two great
states on the mainland, and consequently towards the protection of the
several minor states; whereas Macedonia and Asia, while regarding each
other as rivals, recognized above all their common adversary in Egypt,
and combined, or at any rate ought to have combined, against it.
The Kingdoms Of Asia Minor
Among the states of the second rank, merely an indirect importance,
so far as concerned the contact of the east with the west, attached
in the first instance to that series of states which, stretching from
the southern end of the Caspian Sea to the Hellespont, occupied the
interior and the north coast of Asia Minor: Atropatene (in the modern
Aderbijan, south-west of the Caspian), next to it Armenia, Cappadocia
in the interior of Asia Minor, Pontus on the south-east, and Bithynia
on the south-west, shore of the Black Sea. All of these were
fragments of the great Persian Empire, and were ruled by Oriental,
mostly old Persian, dynasties--the remote mountain-land of Atropatene
in particular was the true asylum of the ancient Persian system, over
which even the expedition of Alexander had swept without leaving a
trace--and all were in the same relation of temporary and superficial
dependence on the Greek dynasty, which had taken or wished to take
the place of the great-kings in Asia.
The Celts Of Asia Minor
Of greater importance for the general relations was the Celtic
state in the interior of Asia Minor. There, intermediate between
Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, three Celtic tribes
--the Tolistoagii, the Tectosages, and Trocmi--had settled, without
abandoning either their native language and manners or their
constitution and their trade as freebooters. The twelve tetrarchs,
one of whom was appointed to preside over each of the four cantons in
each of the three tribes, formed, with their council of 300 men, the
supreme authority of the nation, and assembled at the "holy place"
(-Drunemetum-), especially for the pronouncing of capital sentences.
Singular as this cantonal constitution of the Celts appeared to the
Asiatics, equally strange seemed to them the adventurous and marauding
habits of the northern intruders, who on the one hand furnished their
unwarlike neighbours with mercenaries for every war, and on the other
plundered on their own account or levied contributions from the
surrounding districts. These rude but vigorous barbarians were the
general terror of the effeminate surrounding nations, and even of the
great-kings of Asia themselves, who, after several Asiatic armies had
been destroyed by the Celts and king Antiochus I. Soter had even
lost his life in conflict with them (493), agreed at last to pay
them tribute.
Pergamus
In consequence of bold and successful opposition to these Gallic
hordes, Attalus, a wealthy citizen of Pergamus, received the royal
title from his native city and bequeathed it to his posterity. This
new court was in miniature what that of Alexandria was on a great
scale. Here too the promotion of material interests and the fostering
of art and literature formed the order of the day, and the government
pursued a cautious and sober cabinet policy, the main objects of
which were the weakening the power of its two dangerous continental
neighbours, and the establishing an independent Greek state in the
west of Asia Minor. A well-filled treasury contributed greatly to the
importance of these rulers of Pergamus. They advanced considerable
sums to the kings of Syria, the repayment of which afterwards formed
part of the Roman conditions of peace. They succeeded even in
acquiring territory in this way; Aegina, for instance, which the
allied Romans and Aetolians had wrested in the last war from Philip's
allies, the Achaeans, was sold by the Aetolians, to whom it fell in
terms of the treaty, to Attalus for 30 talents (7300 pounds). But,
notwithstanding the splendour of the court and the royal title,
the commonwealth of Pergamus always retained something of the urban
character; and in its policy it usually went along with the free
cities. Attalus himself, the Lorenzo de' Medici of antiquity,
remained throughout life a wealthy burgher; and the family life
of the Attalid house, from which harmony and cordiality were not
banished by the royal title, formed a striking contrast to the
dissolute and scandalous behaviour of more aristocratic dynasties.
Greece
Epirots, Acarnanians, Boeotians
In European Greece--exclusive of the Roman possessions on the west
coast, in the most important of which, particularly Corcyra, Roman
magistrates appear to have resided,(1) and the territory directly
subject to Macedonia--the powers more or less in a position to pursue
a policy of their own were the Epirots, Acarnanians, and Aetolians
in northern Greece, the Boeotians and Athenians in central Greece,
and the Achaeans, Lacedaemonians, Messenians, and Eleans in the
Peloponnesus. Among these, the republics of the Epirots, Acarnanians,
and Boeotians were in various ways closely knit to Macedonia--the
Acarnanians more especially, because it was only Macedonian protection
that enabled them to escape the destruction with which they were
threatened by the Aetolians; none of them were of any consequence.
Their internal condition was very various. The state of things may
to some extent be illustrated by the fact, that among the Boeotians
--where, it is true, matters reached their worst--it had become
customary to make over every property, which did not descend to heirs
in the direct line, to the -syssitia-; and, in the case of candidates
for the public magistracies, for a quarter of a century the primary
condition of election was that they should bind themselves not to
allow any creditor, least of all a foreign one, to sue his debtor.
The Athenians
The Athenians were in the habit of receiving support against Macedonia
from Alexandria, and were in close league with the Aetolians. But
they too were totally powerless, and hardly anything save the halo
of Attic poetry and art distinguished these unworthy successors of
a glorious past from a number of petty towns of the same stamp.
The Aetolians
The power of the Aetolian confederacy manifested a greater vigour.
The energy of the northern Greek character was still unbroken there,
although it had degenerated into a reckless impatience of discipline
and control. It was a public law in Aetolia, that an Aetolian might
serve as a mercenary against any state, even against a state in
alliance with his own country; and, when the other Greeks urgently
besought them to redress this scandal, the Aetolian diet declared that
Aetolia might sooner be removed from its place than this principle
from their national code. The Aetolians might have been of great
service to the Greek nation, had they not inflicted still greater
injury on it by this system of organized robbery, by their thorough
hostility to the Achaean confederacy, and by their unhappy antagonism
to the great state of Macedonia.
The Achaeans
In the Peloponnesus, the Achaean league had united the best elements
of Greece proper in a confederacy based on civilization, national
spirit, and peaceful preparation for self-defence. But the vigour
and more especially the military efficiency of the league had,
notwithstanding its outward enlargement, been arrested by the selfish
diplomacy of Aratus. The unfortunate variances with Sparta, and the
still more lamentable invocation of Macedonian interference in the
Peloponnesus, had so completely subjected the Achaean league to
Macedonian supremacy, that the chief fortresses of the country
thenceforward received Macedonian garrisons, and the oath of
fidelity to Philip was annually taken there.
Sparta, Elis, Messene
The policy of the weaker states in the Peloponnesus, Messene, and
Sparta, was determined by their ancient enmity to the Achaean league
--an enmity specially fostered by disputes regarding their frontiers
--and their tendencies were Aetolian and anti-Macedonian, because
the Achaeans took part with Philip. The only one of these states
possessing any importance was the Spartan military monarchy, which
after the death of Machanidas had passed into the hands of one Nabis.
With ever-increasing hardihood Nabis leaned on the support of
vagabonds and itinerant mercenaries, to whom he assigned not only the
houses and lands, but also the wives and children, of the citizens;
and he assiduously maintained connections, and even entered into an
association for the joint prosecution of piracy, with the great refuge
of mercenaries and pirates, the island of Crete, where he possessed
some townships. His predatory expeditions by land, and the piratical
vessels which he maintained at the promontory of Malea, were dreaded
far and wide; he was personally hated for his baseness and cruelty;
but his rule was extending, and about the time of the battle of Zama
he had even succeeded in gaining possession of Messene.
League Of The Greek Cities
Rhodes
Lastly, the most independent position among the intermediate states
was held by the free Greek mercantile cities on the European shore of
the Propontis as well as along the whole coast of Asia Minor, and on
the islands of the Aegean Sea; they formed, at the same time, the
brightest elements in the confused and multifarious picture which was
presented by the Hellenic state-system. Three of them, in particular,
had after Alexander's death again enjoyed their full freedom, and by
the activity of their maritime commerce had attained to respectable
political power and even to considerable territorial possessions;
namely, Byzantium the mistress of the Bosporus, rendered wealthy and
powerful by the transit dues which she levied and by the important
corn trade carried on with the Black Sea; Cyzicus on the Asiatic side
of the Propontis, the daughter and heiress of Miletus, maintaining
the closest relations with the court of Pergamus; and lastly and
above all, Rhodes. The Rhodians, who immediately after the death
of Alexander had expelled the Macedonian garrison had, by their
favourable position for commerce and navigation, secured the carrying
trade of all the eastern Mediterranean; and their well-handled fleet,
as well as the tried courage of the citizens in the famous siege of
450, enabled them in that age of promiscuous and ceaseless hostilities
to become the prudent and energetic representatives and, when occasion
required, champions of a neutral commercial policy. They compelled
the Byzantines, for instance, by force of arms to concede to the
vessels of Rhodes exemption from dues in the Bosporus; and they did
not permit the dynast of Pergamus to close the Black Sea. On the
other hand they kept themselves, as far as possible, aloof from land
warfare, although they had acquired no inconsiderable possessions on
the opposite coast of Caria; where war could not be avoided, they
carried it on by means of mercenaries. With their neighbours on
all sides they were in friendly relations--with Syracuse, Macedonia,
Syria, but more especially with Egypt--and they enjoyed high
consideration at these courts, so that their mediation was not
unfrequently invoked in the wars of the great states. But they
interested themselves quite specially on behalf of the Greek maritime
cities, which were so numerously spread along the coasts of the
kingdoms of Pontus, Bithynia, and Pergamus, as well as on the coasts
and islands of Asia Minor that had been wrested by Egypt from the
Seleucidae; such as Sinope, Heraclea Pontica, Cius, Lampsacus, Abydos,
Mitylene, Chios, Smyrna, Samos, Halicarnassus and various others. All
these were in substance free and had nothing to do with the lords of
the soil except to ask for the confirmation of their privileges and,
at most, to pay a moderate tribute: such encroachments, as from time
to time were threatened by the dynasts, were skilfully warded off
sometimes by cringing, sometimes by strong measures. In this case the
Rhodians were their chief auxiliaries; they emphatically supported
Sinope, for instance, against Mithradates of Pontus. How firmly
amidst the quarrels, and by means of the very differences, of the
monarchs the liberties of these cities of Asia Minor were established,
is shown by the fact, that the dispute between Antiochus and the
Romans some years after this time related not to the freedom of these
cities in itself, but to the question whether they were to ask
confirmation of their charters from the king or not. This league of
the cities was, in this peculiar attitude towards the lords of the
soil as well as in other respects, a formal Hanseatic association,
headed by Rhodes, which negotiated and stipulated in treaties for
itself and its allies. This league upheld the freedom of the cities
against monarchical interests; and while wars raged around their
walls, public spirit and civic prosperity were sheltered in
comparative peace within, and art and science flourished without
the risk of being crushed by a dissolute soldiery or corrupted
by the atmosphere of a court.
Philip, King Of Macedonia
Such was the state of things in the east, at the time when the wall of
political separation between the east and the west was broken down and
the eastern powers, Philip of Macedonia leading the way, were induced
to interfere in the relations of the west. We have already set forth
to some extent the origin of this interference and the course of the
first Macedonian war (540-549); and we have pointed out what Philip
might have accomplished during the second Punic war, and how little
of all that Hannibal was entitled to expect and to count on was really
fulfilled. A fresh illustration had been afforded of the truth, that
of all haphazards none is more hazardous than an absolute hereditary
monarchy. Philip was not the man whom Macedonia at that time
required; yet his gifts were far from insignificant He was a genuine
king, in the best and worst sense of the term. A strong desire to
rule in person and unaided was the fundamental trait of his character;
he was proud of his purple, but he was no less proud of other gifts,
and he had reason to be so. He not only showed the valour of a
soldier and the eye of a general, but he displayed a high spirit in
the conduct of public affairs, whenever his Macedonian sense of honour
was offended. Full of intelligence and wit, he won the hearts of all
whom he wished to gain, especially of the men who were ablest and most
refined, such as Flamininus and Scipio; he was a pleasant boon
companion and, not by virtue of his rank alone, a dangerous wooer.
But he was at the same time one of the most arrogant and flagitious
characters, which that shameless age produced. He was in the habit of
saying that he feared none save the gods; but it seemed almost as if
his gods were those to whom his admiral Dicaearchus regularly offered
sacrifice--Godlessness (-Asebeia-) and Lawlessness (-Paranomia-). The
lives of his advisers and of the promoters of his schemes possessed no
sacredness in his eyes, nor did he disdain to pacify his indignation
against the Athenians and Attalus by the destruction of venerable
monuments and illustrious works of art; it is quoted as one of his
maxims of state, that "whoever causes the father to be put to death
must also kill the sons." It may be that to him cruelty was not,
strictly, a delight; but he was indifferent to the lives and
sufferings of others, and relenting, which alone renders men
tolerable, found no place in his hard and stubborn heart. So abruptly
and harshly did he proclaim the principle that no promise and no moral
law are binding on an absolute king, that he thereby interposed the
most serious obstacles to the success of his plans. No one can deny
that he possessed sagacity and resolution, but these were, in a
singular manner, combined with procrastination and supineness; which
is perhaps partly to be explained by the fact, that he was called in
his eighteenth year to the position of an absolute sovereign, and that
his ungovernable fury against every one who disturbed his autocratic
course by counter-argument or counter-advice scared away from him all
independent counsellors. What various causes cooperated to produce
the weak and disgraceful management which he showed in the first
Macedonian war, we cannot tell; it may have been due perhaps to that
indolent arrogance which only puts forth its full energies against
danger when it becomes imminent, or perhaps to his indifference
towards a plan which was not of his own devising and his jealousy of
the greatness of Hannibal which put him to shame. It is certain that
his subsequent conduct betrayed no further trace of the Philip,
through whose negligence the plan of Hannibal suffered shipwreck.
Macedonia and Asia Attack Egypt
When Philip concluded his treaty with the Aetolians and Romans in
548-9, he seriously intended to make a lasting peace with Rome, and
to devote himself exclusively in future to the affairs of the east.
It admits of no doubt that he saw with regret the rapid subjugation of
Carthage; and it may be, that Hannibal hoped for a second declaration
of war from Macedonia, and that Philip secretly reinforced the last
Carthaginian army with mercenaries.(2) But the tedious affairs in
which he had meanwhile involved himself in the east, as well as the
nature of the alleged support, and especially the total silence of the
Romans as to such a breach of the peace while they were searching for
grounds of war, place it beyond doubt, that Philip was by no means
disposed in 551 to make up for what he ought to have done ten years
before. He had turned his eyes to an entirely different quarter.
Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt had died in 549. Philip and Antiochus,
the kings of Macedonia and Asia, had combined against his successor
Ptolemy Epiphanes, a child of five years old, in order completely
to gratify the ancient grudge which the monarchies of the mainland
entertained towards the maritime state. The Egyptian state was to be
broken up; Egypt and Cyprus were to fall to Antiochus Cyrene, Ionia,
and the Cyclades to Philip. Thoroughly after the manner of Philip,
who ridiculed such considerations, the kings began the war not merely
without cause but even without pretext, "just as the large fishes
devour the small." The allies, moreover, had made their calculations
correctly, especially Philip. Egypt had enough to do in defending
herself against the nearer enemy in Syria, and was obliged to leave
her possessions in Asia Minor and the Cyclades undefended when Philip
threw himself upon these as his share of the spoil. In the year in
which Carthage concluded peace with Rome (553), Philip ordered a fleet
equipped by the towns subject to him to take on board troops, and to
sail along the coast of Thrace. There Lysimachia was taken from the
Aetolian garrison, and Perinthus, which stood in the relation of
clientship to Byzantium, was likewise occupied. Thus the peace was
broken as respected the Byzantines; and as respected the Aetolians,
who had just made peace with Philip, the good understanding was
at least disturbed. The crossing to Asia was attended with no
difficulties, for Prusias king of Bithynia was in alliance with
Macedonia. By way of recompense, Philip helped him to subdue the
Greek mercantile cities in his territory. Chalcedon submitted.
Cius, which resisted, was taken by storm and levelled with the ground,
and its inhabitants were reduced to slavery--a meaningless barbarity,
which annoyed Prusias himself who wished to get possession of the town
uninjured, and which excited profound indignation throughout the
Hellenic world. The Aetolians, whose -strategus- had commanded
in Cius, and the Rhodians, whose attempts at mediation had been
contemptuously and craftily frustrated by the king, were
especially offended.
The Rhodian Hansa And Pergamus Oppose Philip
But even had this not been so, the interests of all Greek commercial
cities were at stake. They could not possibly allow the mild and
almost purely nominal Egyptian rule to be supplanted by the Macedonian
despotism, with which urban self-government and freedom of commercial
intercourse were not at all compatible; and the fearful treatment
of the Cians showed that the matter at stake was not the right of
confirming the charters of the towns, but the life or death of one and
all. Lampsacus had already fallen, and Thasos had been treated like
Cius; no time was to be lost. Theophiliscus, the vigilant -strategus-
of Rhodes, exhorted his citizens to meet the common danger by common
resistance, and not to suffer the towns and islands to become one by
one a prey to the enemy. Rhodes resolved on its course, and declared
war against Philip. Byzantium joined it; as did also the aged Attalus
king of Pergamus, personally and politically the enemy of Philip.
While the fleet of the allies was mustering on the Aeolian coast,
Philip directed a portion of his fleet to take Chios and Samos. With
the other portion he appeared in person before Pergamus, which however
he invested in vain; he had to content himself with traversing the
level country and leaving the traces of Macedonian valour on the
temples which he destroyed far and wide. Suddenly he departed and
re-embarked, to unite with his squadron which was at Samos. But the
Rhodo-Pergamene fleet followed him, and forced him to accept battle in
the straits of Chios. The number of the Macedonian decked vessels
was smaller, but the multitude of their open boats made up for this
inequality, and the soldiers of Philip fought with great courage.
But he was at length defeated. Almost half of his decked vessels,
24 sail, were sunk or taken; 6000 Macedonian sailors and 3000 soldiers
perished, amongst whom was the admiral Democrates; 2000 were taken
prisoners. The victory cost the allies no more than 800 men and six
vessels. But, of the leaders of the allies, Attalus had been cut off
from his fleet and compelled to let his own vessel run aground at
Erythrae; and Theophiliscus of Rhodes, whose public spirit had decided
the question of war and whose valour had decided the battle, died on
the day after it of his wounds. Thus while the fleet of Attalus went
home and the Rhodian fleet remained temporarily at Chios, Philip, who
falsely ascribed the victory to himself, was able to continue his
voyage and to turn towards Samos, in order to occupy the Carian towns.
On the Carian coast the Rhodians, not on this occasion supported by
Attalus, gave battle for the second time to the Macedonian fleet under
Heraclides, near the little island of Lade in front of the port of
Miletus. The victory, claimed again by both sides, appears to have
been this time gained by the Macedonians; for while the Rhodians
retreated to Myndus and thence to Cos, the Macedonians occupied
Miletus, and a squadron under Dicaearchus the Aetolian occupied the
Cyclades. Philip meanwhile prosecuted the conquest of the Rhodian
possessions on the Carian mainland, and of the Greek cities: had he
been disposed to attack Ptolemy in person, and had he not preferred to
confine himself to the acquisition of his own share in the spoil, he
would now have been able to think even of an expedition to Egypt. In
Caria no army confronted the Macedonians, and Philip traversed without
hindrance the country from Magnesia to Mylasa; but every town in that
country was a fortress, and the siege-warfare was protracted without
yielding or promising any considerable results. Zeuxis the satrap of
Lydia supported the ally of his master with the same lukewarmness as
Philip had manifested in promoting the interests of the Syrian king,
and the Greek cities gave their support only under the pressure
of fear or force. The provisioning of the army became daily more
difficult; Philip was obliged today to plunder those who but yesterday
had voluntarily supplied his wants, and then he had reluctantly to
submit to beg afresh. Thus the good season of the year gradually drew
to an end, and in the interval the Rhodians had reinforced their fleet
and had also been rejoined by that of Attalus, so that they were
decidedly superior at sea. It seemed almost as if they might cut off
the retreat of the king and compel him to take up winter quarters in
Caria, while the state of affairs at home, particularly the threatened
intervention of the Aetolians and Romans, urgently demanded his
return. Philip saw the danger; he left garrisons amounting together
to 3000 men, partly in Myrina to keep Pergamus in check, partly in
the petty towns round Mylasa--Iassus, Bargylia, Euromus and Pedasa
--to secure for him the excellent harbour and a landing place in
Caria; and, owing to the negligence with which the allies guarded the
sea, he succeeded in safely reaching the Thracian coast with his fleet
and arriving at home before the winter of 553-4.
Diplomatic Intervention Of Rome
In fact a storm was gathering against Philip in the west, which
did not permit him to continue the plundering of defenceless Egypt.
The Romans, who had at length in this year concluded peace on their
own terms with Carthage, began to give serious attention to these
complications in the east. It has often been affirmed, that after
the conquest of the west they forthwith proceeded to the subjugation
of the east; a serious consideration will lead to a juster judgment.
It is only dull prejudice which fails to see that Rome at this period
by no means grasped at the sovereignty of the Mediterranean states,
but, on the contrary, desired nothing further than to have neighbours
that should not be dangerous in Africa and in Greece; and Macedonia
was not really dangerous to Rome. Its power certainly was far from
small, and it is evident that the Roman senate only consented with
reluctance to the peace of 548-9, which left it in all its integrity;
but how little any serious apprehensions of Macedonia were or could be
entertained in Rome, is best shown by the small number of troops--who
yet were never compelled to fight against a superior force--with which
Rome carried on the next war. The senate doubtless would have gladly
seen Macedonia humbled; but that humiliation would be too dearly
purchased at the cost of a land war carried on in Macedonia with Roman
troops; and accordingly, after the withdrawal of the Aetolians, the
senate voluntarily concluded peace at once on the basis of the -status
quo-. It is therefore far from made out, that the Roman government
concluded this peace with the definite design of beginning the war at
a more convenient season; and it is very certain that, at the moment,
from the thorough exhaustion of the state and the extreme
unwillingness of the citizens to enter into a second transmarine
struggle, the Macedonian war was in a high degree unwelcome to the
Romans. But now it was inevitable. They might have acquiesced in
the Macedonian state as a neighbour, such as it stood in 549; but it
was impossible that they could permit it to acquire the best part of
Asiatic Greece and the important Cyrene, to crush the neutral
commercial states, and thereby to double its power. Further, the fall
of Egypt and the humiliation, perhaps the subjugation, of Rhodes would
have inflicted deep wounds on the trade of Sicily and Italy; and could
Rome remain a quiet spectator, while Italian commerce with the east
was made dependent on the two great continental powers? Rome had,
moreover, an obligation of honour to fulfil towards Attalus her
faithful ally since the first Macedonian war, and had to prevent
Philip, who had already besieged him in his capital, from expelling
him from his dominions. Lastly, the claim of Rome to extend her
protecting arm over all the Hellenes was by no means an empty phrase:
the citizens of Neapolis, Rhegium, Massilia, and Emporiae could
testify that that protection was meant in earnest, and there is no
question at all that at this time the Romans stood in a closer
relation to the Greeks than any other nation--one little more remote
than that of the Hellenized Macedonians. It is strange that any
should dispute the right of the Romans to feel their human, as well as
their Hellenic, sympathies revolted at the outrageous treatment of the
Cians and Thasians.
Preparations And Pretexts For Second Macedonian War
Thus in reality all political, commercial, and moral motives concurred
in inducing Rome to undertake the second war against Philip--one of
the most righteous, which the city ever waged. It greatly redounds
to the honour of the senate, that it immediately resolved on its
course and did not allow itself to be deterred from making the
necessary preparations either by the exhaustion of the state or by
the unpopularity of such a declaration of war. The propraetor Marcus
Valerius Laevinus made his appearance as early as 553 with the
Sicilian fleet of 38 sail in the eastern waters. The government,
however, were at a loss to discover an ostensible pretext for the war;
a pretext which they needed in order to satisfy the people, even
although they had not been far too sagacious to undervalue, as was the
manner of Philip, the importance of assigning a legitimate ground for
hostilities. The support, which Philip was alleged to have granted to
the Carthaginians after the peace with Rome, manifestly could not be
proved. The Roman subjects, indeed, in the province of Illyria had
for a considerable time complained of the Macedonian encroachments.
In 551 a Roman envoy at the head of the Illyrian levy had driven
Philip's troops from the Illyrian territory; and the senate had
accordingly declared to the king's envoys in 552, that if he sought
war, he would find it sooner than was agreeable to him. But these
encroachments were simply the ordinary outrages which Philip practised
towards his neighbours; a negotiation regarding them at the present
moment would have led to his humbling himself and offering
satisfaction, but not to war. With all the belligerent powers in the
east the Roman community was nominally in friendly relations, and
might have granted them aid in repelling Philip's attack. But Rhodes
and Pergamus, which naturally did not fail to request Roman aid, were
formally the aggressors; and although Alexandrian ambassadors besought
the Roman senate to undertake the guardianship of the boy king,
Egypt appears to have been by no means eager to invoke the direct
intervention of the Romans, which would put an end to her difficulties
for the moment, but would at the same time open up the eastern sea to
the great western power. Aid to Egypt, moreover, must have been in
the first instance rendered in Syria, and would have entangled Rome
simultaneously in a war with Asia and with Macedonia; which the
Romans were naturally the more desirous to avoid, as they were firmly
resolved not to intermeddle at least in Asiatic affairs. No course
was left but to despatch in the meantime an embassy to the east for
the purpose, first, of obtaining--what was not in the circumstances
difficult--the sanction of Egypt to the interference of the Romans in
the affairs of Greece; secondly, of pacifying king Antiochus by
abandoning Syria to him; and, lastly, of accelerating as much as
possible a breach with Philip and promoting a coalition of the minor
Graeco-Asiatic states against him (end of 553). At Alexandria they
had no difficulty in accomplishing their object; the court had no
choice, and was obliged gratefully to receive Marcus Aemilius Lepidus,
whom the senate had despatched as "guardian of the king" to uphold
his interests, so far as that could be done without an actual
intervention. Antiochus did not break off his alliance with Philip,
nor did he give to the Romans the definite explanations which they
desired; in other respects, however--whether from remissness, or
influenced by the declarations of the Romans that they did not wish to
interfere in Syria--he pursued his schemes in that direction and left
things in Greece and Asia Minor to take their course.
Progress Of The War
Meanwhile, the spring of 554 had arrived, and the war had recommenced.
Philip first threw himself once more upon Thrace, where he occupied
all the places on the coast, in particular Maronea, Aenus, Elaeus,
and Sestus; he wished to have his European possessions secured against
the risk of a Roman landing. He then attacked Abydus on the Asiatic
coast, the acquisition of which could not but be an object of
importance to him, for the possession of Sestus and Abydus would bring
him into closer connection with his ally Antiochus, and he would no
longer need to be apprehensive lest the fleet of the allies might
intercept him in crossing to or from Asia Minor. That fleet commanded
the Aegean Sea after the withdrawal of the weaker Macedonian squadron:
Philip confined his operations by sea to maintaining garrisons on
three of the Cyclades, Andros, Cythnos, and Paros, and fitting out
privateers. The Rhodians proceeded to Chios, and thence to Tenedos,
where Attalus, who had passed the winter at Aegina and had spent his
time in listening to the declamations of the Athenians, joined them
with his squadron. The allies might probably have arrived in time
to help the Abydenes, who heroically defended themselves; but they
stirred not, and so at length the city surrendered, after almost all
who were capable of bearing arms had fallen in the struggle before the
walls. After the capitulation a large portion of the inhabitants fell
by their own hand--the mercy of the victor consisted in allowing the
Abydenes a term of three days to die voluntarily. Here, in the camp
before Abydus. the Roman embassy, which after the termination of its
business in Syria and Egypt had visited and dealt with the minor Greek
states, met with the king, and submitted the proposals which it had
been charged to make by the senate, viz. that the king should wage no
aggressive war against any Greek state, should restore the possessions
which he had wrested from Ptolemy, and should consent to an
arbitration regarding the injury inflicted on the Pergamenes and
Rhodians. The object of the senate, which sought to provoke the king
to a formal declaration of war, was not gained; the Roman ambassador,
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, obtained from the king nothing but the polite
reply that he would excuse what the envoy had said because he was
young, handsome, and a Roman.
Meanwhile, however, the occasion for declaring war, which Rome
desired, had been furnished from another quarter. The Athenians
in their silly and cruel vanity had put to death two unfortunate
Acarnanians, because these had accidentally strayed into their
mysteries. When the Acarnanians, who were naturally indignant, asked
Philip to procure them satisfaction, he could not refuse the just
request of his most faithful allies, and he allowed them to levy men
in Macedonia and, with these and their own troops, to invade Attica
without a formal declaration of war. This, it is true, was no war
in the proper sense of the term; and, besides, the leader of the
Macedonian band, Nicanor, immediately gave orders to his troops to
retreat, when the Roman envoys, who were at Athens at the time, used
threatening language (in the end of 553). But it was too late. An
Athenian embassy was sent to Rome to report the attack made by Philip
on an ancient ally of the Romans; and, from the way in which the
senate received it, Philip saw clearly what awaited him; so that he
at once, in the very spring of 554, directed Philocles, his general
in Greece, to lay waste the Attic territory and to reduce the city
to extremities.
Declaration Of War By Rome
The senate now had what they wanted; and in the summer of 554 they
were able to propose to the comitia a declaration of war "on account
of an attack on a state in alliance with Rome." It was rejected on the
first occasion almost unanimously: foolish or evil-disposed tribunes
of the people complained of the senate, which would allow the citizens
no rest; but the war was necessary and, in strictness, was already
begun, so that the senate could not possibly recede. The burgesses
were induced to yield by representations and concessions. It is
remarkable that these concessions were made mainly at the expense of
the allies. The garrisons of Gaul, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia,
amounting in all to 20,000 men, were exclusively taken from the allied
contingents that were in active service--quite contrary to the former
principles of the Romans. All the burgess troops, on the other hand,
that had continued under arms from the Hannibalic war, were
discharged; volunteers alone, it was alleged, were to be enrolled for
the Macedonian war, but they were, as was afterwards found, for the
most part forced volunteers--a fact which in the autumn of 555
called forth a dangerous military revolt in the camp of Apollonia.
Six legions were formed of the men newly called out; of these two
remained in Rome and two in Etruria, and only two embarked at
Brundisium for Macedonia, led by the consul Publius Sulpicius Galba.
Thus it was once more clearly demonstrated, that the sovereign burgess
assemblies, with their shortsighted resolutions dependent often on
mere accident, were no longer at all fitted to deal with the
complicated and difficult relations into which Rome was drawn by her
victories; and that their mischievous intervention in the working of
the state machine led to dangerous modifications of the measures which
in a military point of were necessary, and to the still more dangerous
course of treating the Latin allies as inferiors.
The Roman League
The position of Philip was very disadvantageous. The eastern states,
which ought to have acted in unison against all interference of Rome
and probably under other circumstances would have so acted, had been
mainly by Philip's fault so incensed at each other, that they were
not inclined to hinder, or were inclined even to promote, the Roman
invasion. Asia, the natural and most important ally of Philip, had
been neglected by him, and was moreover prevented at first from active
interference by being entangled in the quarrel with Egypt and the
Syrian war. Egypt had an urgent interest in keeping the Roman fleet
out of the eastern waters; even now an Egyptian embassy intimated at
Rome very plainly, that the court of Alexandria was ready to relieve
the Romans from the trouble of intervention in Attica. But the treaty
for the partition of Egypt concluded between Asia and Macedonia threw
that important state thoroughly into the arms of Rome, and compelled
the cabinet of Alexandria to declare that it would only intermeddle in
the affairs of European Greece with consent of the Romans. The Greek
commercial cities, with Rhodes, Pergamus, and Byzantium at their head,
were in a position similar, but of still greater perplexity. They
would under other circumstances have beyond doubt done what they
could to close the eastern seas against the Romans; but the cruel and
destructive policy of conquest pursued by Philip had driven them to
an unequal struggle, in which for their self-preservation they were
obliged to use every effort to implicate the great Italian power.
In Greece proper also the Roman envoys, who were commissioned to
organize a second league against Philip there, found the way already
substantially paved for them by the enemy. Of the anti-Macedonian
party--the Spartans, Eleans, Athenians, and Aetolians--Philip might
perhaps have gained the latter, for the peace of 548 had made a deep,
and far from healed, breach in their friendly Alliance with Rome; but
apart from the old differences which subsisted between Aetolia and
Macedonia regarding the Thessalian towns withdrawn by Macedonia from
the Aetolian confederacy--Echinus, Larissa Cremaste, Pharsalus, and
Thebes in Phthiotis--the expulsion of the Aetolian garrisons from
Lysimachia and Cius had produced fresh exasperation against Philip
in the minds of the Aetolians. If they delayed to join the league
against him, the chief reason doubtless was the ill-feeling that
continued to prevail between them and the Romans.
It was a circumstance still more ominous, that even among the Greek
states firmly attached to the interests of Macedonia--the Epirots,
Acarnanians, Boeotians, and Achaeans--the Acarnanians and Boeotians
alone stood steadfastly by Philip. With the Epirots the Roman envoys
negotiated not without success; Amynander, king of the Athamanes, in
particular closely attached himself to Rome. Even among the Achaeans,
Philip had offended many by the murder of Aratus; while on the other
hand he had thereby paved the way for a more free development of the
confederacy. Under the leadership of Philopoemen (502-571, for the
first time -strategus- in 546) it had reorganized its military system,
recovered confidence in itself by successful conflicts with Sparta,
and no longer blindly followed, as in the time of Aratus, the policy
of Macedonia. The Achaean league, which had to expect neither profit
nor immediate injury from the thirst of Philip for aggrandizement,
alone in all Hellas looked at this war from an impartial and national-
Hellenic point of view. It perceived--what there was no difficulty in
perceiving--that the Hellenic nation was thereby surrendering itself
to the Romans even before these wished or desired its surrender, and
attempted accordingly to mediate between Philip and the Rhodians;
but it was too late. The national patriotism, which had formerly
terminated the federal war and had mainly contributed to bring about
the first war between Macedonia and Rome, was extinguished the Achaean
mediation remained fruitless, and in vain Philip visited the cities
and islands to rekindle the zeal of the nation--its apathy was the
Nemesis for Cius and Abydus. The Achaeans, as they could effect
no change and were not disposed to render help to either party,
remained neutral.
Landing Of The Romans In Macedonia
In the autumn of 554 the consul, Publius Sulpicius Galba, landed
with his two legions and 1000 Numidian cavalry accompanied even by
elephants derived from the spoils of Carthage, at Apollonia; on
receiving accounts of which the king returned in haste from the
Hellespont to Thessaly. But, owing partly to the far-advanced season,
partly to the sickness of the Roman general, nothing was undertaken
by land that year except a reconnaissance in force, in the course of
which the townships in the vicinity, and in particular the Macedonian
colony Antipatria, were occupied by the Romans. For the next year a
joint attack on Macedonia was concerted with the northern barbarians,
especially with Pleuratus, the then ruler of Scodra, and Bato, prince
of the Dardani, who of course were eager to profit by the favourable
opportunity.
More importance attached to the enterprises of the Roman fleet, which
numbered 100 decked and 80 light vessels. While the rest of the ships
took their station for the winter at Corcyra, a division under Gaius
Claudius Cento proceeded to the Piraeeus to render assistance to the
hard-pressed Athenians. But, as Cento found the Attic territory
already sufficiently protected against the raids of the Corinthian
garrison and the Macedonian corsairs, he sailed on and appeared
suddenly before Chalcis in Euboea, the chief stronghold of Philip in
Greece, where his magazines, stores of arms, and prisoners were kept,
and where the commandant Sopater was far from expecting a Roman
attack. The undefended walls were scaled, and the garrison was put
to death; the prisoners were liberated and the stores were burnt;
unfortunately, there was a want of troops to hold the important
position. On receiving news of this invasion, Philip immediately in
vehement indignation started from Demetrias in Thessaly for Chalcis,
and when he found no trace of the enemy there save the scene of ruin,
he went on to Athens to retaliate. But his attempt to surprise the
city was a failure, and even the assault was in vain, greatly as
the king exposed his life; the approach of Gaius Claudius from the
Piraeeus, and of Attalus from Aegina, compelled him to depart.
Philip still tarried for some time in Greece; but in a political and
in a military point of view his successes were equally insignificant.
In vain he tried to induce the Achaeans to take up arms in his behalf;
and equally fruitless were his attacks on Eleusis and the Piraeeus,
as well as a second attempt on Athens itself. Nothing remained for
him but to gratify his natural exasperation in an unworthy manner
by laying waste the country and destroying the trees of Academus,
and then to return to the north.
Attempt Of The Romans To Invade Macedonia
Thus the winter passed away. With the spring of 555 the proconsul
Publius Sulpicius broke up from his winter camp, determined to conduct
his legions from Apollonia by the shortest route into Macedonia
proper. This principal attack from the west was to be supported by
three subordinate attacks; on the north by an invasion of the Dardani
and Illyrians; on the east by an attack on the part of the combined
fleet of the Romans and allies, which assembled at Aegina; while
lastly the Athamanes, and the Aetolians also, if the attempt to induce
them to share in the struggle should prove successful, were to advance
from the south. After Galba had crossed the mountains pierced by the
Apsus (now the Beratind), and had marched through the fertile plain of
Dassaretia, he reached the mountain range which separates Illyria from
Macedonia, and crossing it, entered the proper Macedonian territory.
Philip had marched to meet him; but in the extensive and thinly-
peopled regions of Macedonia the antagonists for a time sought each
other in vain; at length they met in the province of Lyncestis, a
fertile but marshy plain not far from the north-western frontier,
and encamped not 1000 paces apart. Philip's army, after he had been
joined by the corps detached to occupy the northern passes, numbered
about 20,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry; the Roman army was nearly
as strong. The Macedonians however had the great advantage, that,
fighting in their native land and well acquainted with its highways
and byways, they had little trouble in procuring supplies of
provisions, while they had encamped so close to the Romans that
the latter could not venture to disperse for any extensive foraging.
The consul repeatedly offered battle, but the king persisted in
declining it; and the combats between the light troops, although
the Romans gained some advantages in them, produced no material
alteration. Galba was obliged to break up his camp and to pitch
another eight miles off at Octolophus, where he conceived that he
could more easily procure supplies. But here too the divisions sent
out were destroyed by the light troops and cavalry of the Macedonians;
the legions were obliged to come to their help, whereupon the
Macedonian vanguard, which had advanced too far, were driven back to
their camp with heavy loss; the king himself lost his horse in the
action, and only saved his life through the magnanimous self-devotion
of one of his troopers. From this perilous position the Romans were
liberated through the better success of the subordinate attacks which
Galba had directed the allies to make, or rather through the weakness
of the Macedonian forces. Although Philip had instituted levies
as large as possible in his own dominions, and had enlisted Roman
deserters and other mercenaries, he had not been able to bring into
the field (over and above the garrisons in Asia Minor and Thrace)
more than the army, with which in person he confronted the consul;
and besides, in order to form even this, he had been obliged to leave
the northern passes in the Pelagonian territory undefended. For the
protection of the east coast he relied partly on the orders which
he had given for the laying waste of the islands of Sciathus and
Peparethus, which might have furnished a station to the enemy's fleet,
partly on the garrisoning of Thasos and the coast and on the fleet
organized at Demetrias under Heraclides. For the south frontier
be had been obliged to reckon solely upon the more than doubtful
neutrality of the Aetolians. These now suddenly joined the league
against Macedonia, and immediately in conjunction with the Athamanes
penetrated into Thessaly, while simultaneously the Dardani and
Illyrians overran the northern provinces, and the Roman fleet
under Lucius Apustius, departing from Corcyra, appeared in the
eastern waters, where the ships of Attalus, the Rhodians, and
the Istrians joined it.
Philip, on learning this, voluntarily abandoned his position and
retreated in an easterly direction: whether he did so in order to
repel the probably unexpected invasion of the Aetolians, or to draw
the Roman army after him with a view to its destruction, or to take
either of these courses according to circumstances, cannot well be
determined. He managed his retreat so dexterously that Galba, who
adopted the rash resolution of following him, lost his track, and
Philip was enabled to reach by a flank movement, and to occupy, the
narrow pass which separates the provinces of Lyncestis and Eordaea,
with the view of awaiting the Romans and giving them a warm reception
there. A battle took place on the spot which he had selected; but the
long Macedonian spears proved unserviceable on the wooded and uneven
ground. The Macedonians were partly turned, partly broken, and lost
many men.
Return Of The Romans
But, although Philip's army was after this unfortunate action no
longer able to prevent the advance of the Romans, the latter were
themselves afraid to encounter further unknown dangers in an
impassable and hostile country; and returned to Apollonia, after they
had laid waste the fertile provinces of Upper Macedonia--Eordaea,
Elymaea, and Orestis. Celetrum, the most considerable town of Orestis
(now Kastoria, on a peninsula in the lake of the same name), had
surrendered to them: it was the only Macedonian town that opened its
gates to the Romans. In the Illyrian land Pelium, the city of the
Dassaretae, on the upper confluents of the Apsus, was taken by
storm and strongly garrisoned to serve as a future basis for a
similar expedition.
Philip did not disturb the Roman main army in its retreat, but turned
by forced marches against the Aetolians and Athamanians who, in the
belief that the legions were occupying the attention of the king, were
fearlessly and recklessly plundering the rich vale of the Peneius,
defeated them completely, and compelled such as did not fall to make
their escape singly through the well-known mountain paths. The
effective strength of the confederacy was not a little diminished by
this defeat, and not less by the numerous enlistments made in Aetolia
on Egyptian account. The Dardani were chased back over the mountains
by Athena-goras, the leader of Philip's light troops, without
difficulty and with severe loss. The Roman fleet also did not
accomplish much; it expelled the Macedonian garrison from Andros,
punished Euboea and Sciathus, and then made attempts on the Chalcidian
peninsula, which were, however, vigorously repulsed by the Macedonian
garrison at Mende. The rest of the summer was spent in the capture
of Oreus in Euboea, which was long delayed by the resolute defence of
the Macedonian garrison. The weak Macedonian fleet under Heraclides
remained inactive at Heraclea, and did not venture to dispute the
possession of the sea with the enemy. The latter went early to
winter quarters, the Romans proceeding to the Piraeeus and Corcyra,
the Rhodians and Pergamenes going home.
Philip might on the whole congratulate himself upon the results of
this campaign. The Roman troops, after an extremely troublesome
campaign, stood in autumn precisely on the spot whence they had
started in spring; and, but for the well-timed interposition of the
Aetolians and the unexpected success of the battle at the pass of
Eordaea, perhaps not a man of their entire force would have again seen
the Roman territory. The fourfold offensive had everywhere failed in
its object, and not only did Philip in autumn see his whole dominions
cleared of the enemy, but he was able to make an attempt--which,
however, miscarried--to wrest from the Aetolians the strong town of
Thaumaci, situated on the Aetolo-Thessalian frontier and commanding
the plain of the Peneius. If Antiochus, for whose coming Philip
vainly supplicated the gods, should unite with him in the next
campaign, he might anticipate great successes. For a moment it
seemed as if Antiochus was disposed to do so; his army appeared in
Asia Minor, and occupied some townships of king Attalus, who requested
military protection from the Romans. The latter, however, were not
anxious to urge the great-king at this time to a breach: they sent
envoys, who in fact obtained an evacuation of the dominions of
Attalus. From that quarter Philip had nothing to hope for.
Philip Encamps On The Aous
Flaminius
Philip Driven Back To Tempe
Greece In The Power Of The Romans
But the fortunate issue of the last campaign had so raised the courage
or the arrogance of Philip, that, after having assured himself afresh
of the neutrality of the Achaeans and the fidelity of the Macedonians
by the sacri fice of some strong places and of the detested admiral
Heraclides, he next spring (556) assumed the offensive and advanced
into the territory of the Atintanes, with a view to form a well-
entrenched camp in the narrow pass, where the Aous (Viosa) winds
its way between the mountains Aeropus and Asnaus. Opposite to him
encamped the Roman army reinforced by new arrivals of troops, and
commanded first by the consul of the previous year, Publius Villius,
and then from the summer of 556 by that year's consul, Titus Quinctius
Flamininus. Flamininus, a talented man just thirty years of age,
belonged to the younger generation who began to lay aside the
patriotism as well as the habits of their forefathers and, though not
unmindful of their fatherland, were still more mindful of themselves
and of Hellenism. A skilful officer and a better diplomatist, he was
in many respects admirably adapted for the management of the troubled
affairs of Greece. Yet it would perhaps have been better both for
Rome and for Greece, if the choice had fallen on one less full of
Hellenic sympathies, and if the general despatched thither had been
a man, who would neither have been bribed by delicate flattery nor
stung by pungent sarcasm; who would not amidst literary and
artistic reminiscences have overlooked the pitiful condition of the
constitutions of the Hellenic states; and who, while treating Hellas
according to its deserts, would have spared the Romans the trouble of
striving after unattainable ideals.
The new commander-in-chief immediately had a conference with the king,
while the two armies lay face to face inactive. Philip made proposals
of peace; he offered to restore all his own conquests, and to submit
to an equitable arbitration regarding the damage inflicted on the
Greek cities; but the negotiations broke down, when he was asked to
give up ancient possessions of Macedonia and particularly Thessaly.
For forty days the two armies lay in the narrow pass of the Aous;
Philip would not retire, and Flamininus could not make up his mind
whether he should order an assault, or leave the king alone and
reattempt the expedition of the previous year. At length the Roman
general was helped out of his perplexity by the treachery of some
men of rank among the Epirots--who were otherwise well disposed to
Macedonia--and especially of Charops. They conducted a Roman corps of
4000 infantry and 300 cavalry by mountain paths to the heights above
the Macedonian camp; and, when the consul attacked the enemy's army
in front, the advance of that Roman division, unexpectedly descending
from the mountains commanding the position, decided the battle.
Philip lost his camp and entrenchments and nearly 2000 men, and
hastily retreated to the pass of Tempe, the gate of Macedonia proper.
He gave up everything which he had held except the fortresses; the
Thessalian towns, which he could not defend, he himself destroyed;
Pherae alone closed its gates against him and thereby escaped
destruction. The Epirots, induced partly by these successes of the
Roman arms, partly by the judicious moderation of Flamininus, were the
first to secede from the Macedonian alliance. On the first accounts
of the Roman victory the Athamanes and Aetolians immediately invaded
Thessaly, and the Romans soon followed; the open country was easily
overrun, but the strong towns, which were friendly to Macedonia and
received support from Philip, fell only after a brave resistance or
withstood even the superior foe--especially Atrax on the left bank
of the Peneius, where the phalanx stood in the breach as a substitute
for the wall. Except these Thessalian fortresses and the territory
of the faithful Acarnanians, all northern Greece was thus in the hands
of the coalition.
The Achaeans Enter Into Alliance With Rome
The south, on the other hand, was still in the main retained under
the power of Macedonia by the fortresses of Chalcis and Corinth, which
maintained communication with each other through the territory of the
Boeotians who were friendly to the Macedonians, and by the Achaean
neutrality; and as it was too late to advance into Macedonia this
year, Flamininus resolved to direct his land army and fleet in the
first place against Corinth and the Achaeans. The fleet, which had
again been joined by the Rhodian and Pergamene ships, had hitherto
been employed in the capture and pillage of two of the smaller towns
in Euboea, Eretria and Carystus; both however, as well as Oreus,
were thereafter abandoned, and reoccupied by Philocles the Macedonian
commandant of Chalcis. The united fleet proceeded thence to
Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth, to threaten that strong
fortress. On the other side Flamininus advanced into Phocis and
occupied the country, in which Elatea alone sustained a somewhat
protracted siege: this district, and Anticyra in particular on the
Corinthian gulf, were chosen as winter quarters. The Achaeans, who
thus saw on the one hand the Roman legions approaching and on the
other the Roman fleet already on their own coast, abandoned their
morally honourable, but politically untenable, neutrality. After
the deputies from the towns most closely attached to Macedonia
--Dyme, Megalopolis, and Argos--had left the diet, it resolved to
join the coalition against Philip. Cycliades and other leaders of
the Macedonian party went into exile; the troops of the Achaeans
immediately united with the Roman fleet and hastened to invest Corinth
by land, which city--the stronghold of Philip against the Achaeans
--had been guaranteed to them on the part of Rome in return for
their joining the coalition. Not only, however, did the Macedonian
garrison, which was 1300 strong and consisted chiefly of Italian
deserters, defend with determination the almost impregnable city,
but Philocles also arrived from Chalcis with a division of 1500 men,
which not only relieved Corinth but also invaded the territory of
the Achaeans and, in concert with the citizens who were favourable
to Macedonia, wrested from them Argos. But the recompense of such
devotedness was, that the king delivered over the faithful Argives
to the reign of terror of Nabis of Sparta. Philip hoped, after the
accession of the Achaeans to the Roman coalition, to gain over Nabis
who had hitherto been the ally of the Romans; for his chief reason
for joining the Roman alliance had been that he was opposed to the
Achaeans and since 550 was even at open war with them. But the
affairs of Philip were in too desperate a condition for any one
to feel satisfaction in joining his side now. Nabis indeed accepted
Argos from Philip, but he betrayed the traitor and remained in
alliance with Flamininus, who, in his perplexity at being now
allied with two powers that were at war with each other, had in
the meantime arranged an armistice of four months between the
Spartans and Achaeans.
Vain Attempts To Arrange A Peace
Thus winter came on; and Philip once more availed himself of it to
obtain if possible an equitable peace. At a conference held at Nicaea
on the Maliac gulf the king appeared in person, and endeavoured to
come to an understanding with Flamininus. With haughty politeness he
repelled the forward insolence of the petty chiefs, and by marked
deference to the Romans, as the only antagonists on an equality with
him, he sought to obtain from them tolerable terms. Flamininus was
sufficiently refined to feel himself flattered by the urbanity of
the vanquished prince towards himself and his arrogance towards the
allies, whom the Roman as well as the king had learned to despise;
but his powers were not ample enough to meet the king's wishes. He
granted him a two months' armistice in return for the evacuation of
Phocis and Locris, and referred him, as to the main matter, to his
government. The Roman senate had long been at one in the opinion that
Macedonia must give up all her possessions abroad; accordingly, when
the ambassadors of Philip appeared in Rome, they were simply asked
whether they had full powers to renounce all Greece and in particular
Corinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias, and when they said that they had not,
the negotiations were immediately broken off, and it was resolved
that the war should be prosecuted with vigour. With the help of the
tribunes of the people, the senate succeeded in preventing a change
in the chief command--which had often proved so injurious--and in
prolonging the command of Flamininus; he obtained considerable
reinforcements, and the two former commanders-in-chief, Publius Galba
and Publius Villius, were instructed to place themselves at his
disposal. Philip resolved once more to risk a pitched battle.
To secure Greece, where all the states except the Acarnanians and
Boeotians were now in arms against him, the garrison of Corinth was
augmented to 6000 men, while he himself, straining the last energies
of exhausted Macedonia and enrolling children and old men in the ranks
of the phalanx, brought into the field an army of about 26,000 men,
of whom 16,000 were Macedonian -phalangitae-.
Philip Proceed To Thessaly
Battle Of Cynoscephalae
Thus the fourth campaign, that of 557, began. Flamininus despatched
a part of the fleet against the Acarnanians, who were besieged in
Leucas; in Greece proper he became by stratagem master of Thebes,
the capital of Boeotia, in consequence of which the Boeotians were
compelled to join at least nominally the alliance against Macedonia.
Content with having thus interrupted the communication between Corinth
and Chalcis, he proceeded to the north, where alone a decisive blow
could be struck. The great difficulties of provisioning the army in
a hostile and for the most part desolate country, which had often
hampered its operations, were now to be obviated by the fleet
accompanying the army along the coast and carrying after it supplies
sent from Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia. The decisive blow came,
however, earlier than Flamininus had hoped. Philip, impatient and
confident as he was, could not endure to await the enemy on the
Macedonian frontier: after assembling his army at Dium, he advanced
through the pass of Tempe into Thessaly, and encountered the army of
the enemy advancing to meet him in the district of Scotussa.
The Macedonian and Roman armies--the latter of which had been
reinforced by contingents of the Apolloniates and the Athamanes,
by the Cretans sent by Nabis, and especially by a strong band of
Aetolians--contained nearly equal numbers of combatants, each about
26,000 men; the Romans, however, had the superiority in cavalry.
In front of Scotussa, on the plateau of the Karadagh, during a gloomy
day of rain, the Roman vanguard unexpectedly encountered that of the
enemy, which occupied a high and steep hill named Cynoscephalae, that
lay between the two camps. Driven back into the plain, the Romans
were reinforced from the camp by the light troops and the excellent
corps of Aetolian cavalry, and now in turn forced the Macedonian
vanguard back upon and over the height. But here the Macedonians
again found support in their whole cavalry and the larger portion
of their light infantry; the Romans, who had ventured forward
imprudently, were pursued with great loss almost to their camp, and
would have wholly taken to flight, had not the Aetolian horsemen
prolonged the combat in the plain until Flamininus brought up his
rapidly-arranged legions. The king yielded to the impetuous cry of
his victorious troops demanding the continuance of the conflict, and
hastily drew up his heavy-armed soldiers for the battle, which neither
general nor soldiers had expected on that day. It was important to
occupy the hill, which for the moment was quite denuded of troops.
The right wing of the phalanx, led by the king in person, arrived
early enough to form without trouble in battle order on the height;
the left had not yet come up, when the light troops of the
Macedonians, put to flight by the legions, rushed up the hill. Philip
quickly pushed the crowd of fugitives past the phalanx into the middle
division, and, without waiting till Nicanor had arrived on the left
wing with the other half of the phalanx which followed more slowly,
he ordered the right phalanx to couch their spears and to charge
down the hill on the legions, and the rearranged light infantry
simultaneously to turn them and fall upon them in flank. The attack
of the phalanx, irresistible on so favourable ground, shattered the
Roman infantry, and the left wing of the Romans was completely beaten.
Nicanor on the other wing, when he saw the king give the attack,
ordered the other half of the phalanx to advance in all haste; by this
movement it was thrown into confusion, and while the first ranks were
already rapidly following the victorious right wing down the hill, and
were still more thrown into disorder by the inequality of the ground,
the last files were just gaining the height. The right wing of the
Romans under these circumstances soon overcame the enemy's left; the
elephants alone, stationed upon this wing, annihilated the broken
Macedonian ranks. While a fearful slaughter was taking place at this
point, a resolute Roman officer collected twenty companies, and with
these threw himself on the victorious Macedonian wing, which had
advanced so far in pursuit of the Roman left that the Roman right
came to be in its rear. Against an attack from behind the phalanx
was defenceless, and this movement ended the battle. From the
complete breaking up of the two phalanxes we may well believe that
the Macedonian loss amounted to 13,000, partly prisoners, partly
fallen--but chiefly the latter, because the Roman soldiers were not
acquainted with the Macedonian sign of surrender, the raising of the
-sarissae-. The loss of the victors was slight. Philip escaped to
Larissa, and, after burning all his papers that nobody might be
compromised, evacuated Thessaly and returned home.
Simultaneously with this great defeat, the Macedonians suffered other
discomfitures at all the points which they still occupied; in Caria
the Rhodian mercenaries defeated the Macedonian corps stationed there
and compelled it to shut itself up in Stratonicea; the Corinthian
garrison was defeated by Nicostratus and his Achaeans with severe
loss, and Leucas in Acarnania was taken by assault after a heroic
resistance. Philip was completely vanquished; his last allies, the
Acarnanians, yielded on the news of the battle of Cynoscephalae.
Preliminaries Of Peace
It was completely in the power of the Romans to dictate peace; they
used their power without abusing it. The empire of Alexander might be
annihilated; at a conference of the allies this desire was expressly
put forward by the Aetolians. But what else would this mean, than to
demolish the rampart protecting Hellenic culture from the Thracians
and Celts? Already during the war just ended the flourishing
Lysimachia on the Thracian Chersonese had been totally destroyed by
the Thracians--a serious warning for the future. Flamininus, who had
clearly perceived the bitter animosities subsisting among the Greek
states, could never consent that the great Roman power should be the
executioner for the grudges of the Aetolian confederacy, even if his
Hellenic sympathies had not been as much won by the polished and
chivalrous king as his Roman national feeling was offended by the
boastings of the Aetolians, the "victors of Cynoscephalae," as they
called themselves. He replied to the Aetolians that it was not the
custom of Rome to annihilate the vanquished, and that, besides, they
were their own masters and were at liberty to put an end to Macedonia,
if they could. The king was treated with all possible deference, and,
on his declaring himself ready now to entertain the demands formerly
made, an armistice for a considerable term was agreed to by Flamininus
in return for the payment of a sum of money and the furnishing of
hostages, among whom was the king's son Demetrius,--an armistice which
Philip greatly needed in order to expel the Dardani out of Macedonia.
Peace With Macedonia
The final regulation of the complicated affairs of Greece was
entrusted by the senate to a commission of ten persons, the head and
soul of which was Flamininus. Philip obtained from it terms similar
to those laid down for Carthage. He lost all his foreign possessions
in Asia Minor, Thrace, Greece, and in the islands of the Aegean Sea;
while he retained Macedonia proper undiminished, with the exception of
some unimportant tracts on the frontier and the province of Orestis,
which was declared free--a stipulation which Philip felt very keenly,
but which the Romans could not avoid prescribing, for with his
character it was impossible to leave him free to dispose of subjects
who had once revolted from their allegiance. Macedonia was further
bound not to conclude any foreign alliances without the previous
knowledge of Rome, and not to send garrisons abroad; she was bound,
moreover, not to make war out of Macedonia against civilized states
or against any allies of Rome at all; and she was not to maintain
any army exceeding 5000 men, any elephants, or more than five decked
ships--the rest were to be given up to the Romans. Lastly, Philip
entered into symmachy with the Romans, which obliged him to send a
contingent when requested; indeed, Macedonian troops immediately
afterwards fought side by side with the legions. Moreover, he paid
a contribution of 1000 talents (244,000 pounds).
Greece Free
After Macedonia had thus been reduced to complete political nullity
and was left in possession of only as much power as was needful to
guard the frontier of Hellas against the barbarians, steps were taken
to dispose of the possessions ceded by the king. The Romans, who just
at that time were learning by experience in Spain that transmarine
provinces were a very dubious gain, and who had by no means begun the
war with a view to the acquisition of territory, took none of the
spoil for themselves, and thus compelled their allies also to
moderation. They resolved to declare all the states of Greece,
which had previously been under Phillip free: and Flamininus was
commissioned to read the decree to that effect to the Greeks assembled
at the Isthmian games (558). Thoughtful men doubtless might ask
whether freedom was a blessing capable of being thus bestowed, and
what was the value of freedom to a nation apart from union and unity;
but the rejoicing was great and sincere, as the intention of the
senate was sincere in conferring the freedom.(2)
Scodra
The Achaean League Enlarged
The Aetolians
The only exceptions to this general rule were, the Illyrian provinces
eastward of Epidamnus, which fell to Pleuratus the ruler of Scodra,
and rendered that state of robbers and pirates, which a century before
had been humbled by the Romans,(3) once more one of the most powerful
of the petty principalities in those regions; some townships in
western Thessaly, which Amynander had occupied and was allowed to
retain; and the three islands of Paros, Scyros, and Imbros, which were
presented to Athens in return for her many hardships and her still
more numerous addresses of thanks and courtesies of all sorts. The
Rhodians, of course, retained their Carian possessions, and the
Pergamenes retained Aegina. The remaining allies were only indirectly
rewarded by the accession of the newly-liberated cities to the several
confederacies. The Achaeans were the best treated, although they were
the latest in joining the coalition against Philip; apparently for the
honourable reason, that this federation was the best organized and
most respectable of all the Greek states. All the possessions of
Philip in the Peloponnesus and on the Isthmus, and consequently
Corinth in particular, were incorporated with their league. With the
Aetolians on the other hand the Romans used little ceremony; they were
allowed to receive the towns of Phocis and Locris into their symmachy,
but their attempts to extend it also to Acarnania and Thessaly were in
part decidedly rejected, in part postponed, and the Thessalian cities
were organized into four small independent confederacies. The Rhodian
city-league reaped the benefit of the liberation of Thasos, Lemnos,
and the towns of Thrace and Asia Minor.
War Against Nabis Of Sparta
The regulation of the affairs of the Greek states, as respected both
their mutual relations and their internal condition, was attended with
difficulty. The most urgent matter was the war which had been carried
on between the Spartans and Achaeans since 550, in which the duty of
mediating necessarily fell to the Romans. But after various attempts
to induce Nabis to yield, and particularly to give up the city of
Argos belonging to the Achaean league, which Philip had surrendered to
him, no course at last was left to Flamininus but to have war declared
against the obstinate petty robber-chieftain, who reckoned on the
well-known grudge of the Aetolians against the Romans and on the
advance of Antiochus into Europe, and pertinaciously refused to
restore Argos. War was declared, accordingly, by all the Hellenes at
a great diet in Corinth, and Flamininus advanced into the Peloponnesus
accompanied by the fleet and the Romano-allied army, which included a
contingent sent by Philip and a division of Lacedaemonian emigrants
under Agesipolis, the legitimate king of Sparta (559). In order to
crush his antagonist immediately by an overwhelming superiority of
force, no less than 50,000 men were brought into the field, and,
the other towns being disregarded, the capital itself was at once
invested; but the desired result was not attained. Nabis had sent
into the field a considerable army amounting to 15,000 men, of whom
5000 were mercenaries, and he had confirmed his rule afresh by a
complete reign of terror--by the execution -en masse- of the officers
and inhabitants of the country whom he suspected. Even when he
himself after the first successes of the Roman army and fleet resolved
to yield and to accept the comparatively favourable terms of peace
proposed by Flamininus, "the people," that is to say the gang of
robbers whom Nabis had domiciled in Sparta, not without reason
apprehensive of a reckoning after the victory, and deceived by an
accompaniment of lies as to the nature of the terms of peace and as to
the advance of the Aetolians and Asiatics, rejected the peace offered
by the Roman general, so that the struggle began anew. A battle took
place in front of the walls and an assault was made upon them; they
were already scaled by the Romans, when the setting on fire of the
captured streets compelled the assailants to retire.
Settlement Of Spartan Affairs
At last the obstinate resistance came to an end. Sparta retained its
independence and was neither compelled to receive back the emigrants
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