IV. 241-238 the B.C. greatest stains on their history. The conditions of peace CHAP. which had terminated the Sicilian war had not been equal to their expectations. They had tried to get more out of the Carthaginians, but were obliged to content themselves with raising the contribution of war by 1,000 talents. Romans. There was now an opportunity of repairing their neglect, and Rome was not slow in making use of this opportunity. The Roman senate seems to have thought it unnecessary to interfere and to take part in the war of the mercenaries. It was enough to assist the rebels with the requisites of war. This was done by mercantile adventurers. Perhaps the Roman officials, even if they had wished it, would have found it difficult to prevent the sailing of ships which had provisions on board for the enemies of Carthage. But what view the senate took of such private speculations we shall soon see. A great number of blockade-runners' were captured by the Carthaginians. Rome had no plea or justification for interceding on behalf of these people. Nevertheless she did so, and there was nothing left for Carthage to do in her difficulty but to set the prisoners free. In acknowledgment of this the Roman senate gave up all the Carthaginian prisoners who were still in Italy,2 and allowed its subjects in future to send the necessaries of war only to the Carthaginians, not to their enemies-a concession which one would suppose was a matter of course. It was expected that if Carthage had opposed the demands of Rome for the release of the blockade-breakers, the Romans would at once have declared war. Carthage yielded, and the Romans were thus debarred from following up their hostile policy; they were even obliged to permit their friend and ally King Hiero of Syracuse to come forward of his own accord to the assistance of the Carthaginians. This wise statesman 3 saw plainly that the Carthaginians, after their expulsion from Sicily, were no longer his natural enemies-that they were on the contrary 1 Polybius, i. 83, § 7, states that there were 500. 2 Polybius, i. 83, § 8. 3 Polybius, i. 83, § 3: πάνυ φρονίμως καὶ νουνεχῶς λογιζόμενος. BOOK IV. Revolt of the Carthaginian mercenaries in Sardinia. able to render him the most valuable services by keeping in check to some extent the excessive power of Rome. He therefore supported them with necessaries at a time when the mutineers blockaded Carthage by land and all supplies were cut off. Perhaps he also sent troops or allowed the Carthaginians to enlist mercenaries in his kingdom,'1 and his aid doubtless contributed materially to the final overthrow of the rebels. But while the insurrection was still raging in Africa, the Carthaginian mercenaries in Sardinia had imitated the example of their comrades, had murdered their officers, and had taken possession of the island. Unable to keep their position among the natives, they sought aid from Rome. At first, as it is said, the Romans resisted this temptation; they disdained to unite themselves with the mutinous troops, and to make use of the momentary distress of Carthage for violating the conditions of peace which they had just sworn to observe. But when Carthage came out victorious from the doubtful struggle, the old jealousy of the Romans revived, and they decided to take the mutinous mercenaries of Sardinia under their protection. Roman politicians justified themselves probably with the sophistry that Sardinia no longer belonged to Carthage, since Carthaginian authority in the island had come to an end, and there was no longer a Carthaginian garrison in it. War therefore was not carried on against Carthage, when the island was taken, but against the Sardinian natives, who were now an independent nation. But Carthage protested against this view of the case, and made preparations for the reduction of the revolted island. The Romans now openly declared their intentions. They interpreted the Carthaginian armaments as a menace of 'This is probably the extent of the concession reported by Appian, v. 3: kal ξενολογίαν ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἐς μόνον τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον ἐπέτρεψαν.—Appian, viii. 5. No more than this is implied by Zonaras, viii. 17: καὶ μισθοφόρους ἐκ τῆς οἰκείας συμμαχίδος αὐτοῖς ἐπαγαγέσθαι ἐπέτρεψαν. The Romans could never have allowed any foreign power, least of all the Carthaginians, to raise troops in their own immediate dominions in Italy, and this was expressly stipulated in the treaty of peace.-Polybius, iii. 27, § 4; Appian, viii. 5. war and complained of the interruption of Italian com- CHAP. merce by Carthaginian cruisers. IV. 241-238 B.C. Interfer Romans in Sardinia. These complaints probably show that smuggling and the blockade-running of Italian traders had not been discontinued, in spite of the promise of Rome.' For Car- ence of the thage there was left no choice, but either to engage in a war with Rome, or to agree to such conditions as Rome, in contempt of all justice and relying on her superior power, thought fit to propose. Carthage was too much exhausted to take the former alternative. She was obliged to purchase peace by resigning Sardinia, and by the payment of twelve hundred talents. Thus did the Romans of the old time show, as Sallust remarks in tones of praise, that they understood how to restrain their passions, and listened to the demands of right and justice; that especially in the Punic wars, in spite of the repeated treachery of the Carthaginians, they never allowed themselves to act in a similar way, and were alone guided in their actions by a sense of what was worthy of them.'2 of Sardinia The revolting treatment of her humbled rival was an Surrender evil seed destined to spring up soon in a luxuriant crop, to the and to bear as its fatal fruit the devastation of Italy in the Romans. Hannibalian war. The bitterness of soul with which the noble Hamilcar submitted indignantly to unjustifiable wrong explains the inextinguishable hatred of Rome which he cherished as long as he lived, and bequeathed as a sacred trust to his great son Hannibal.3 For the present 1 According to Appian (viii. 5), the Carthaginians took Roman merchant vessels and drowned the crews to escape detection. If there is any truth in this statement, the merchant vessels so treated must have carried supplies to the rebels or attempted to run the blockade. But in their present helpless condition, the Carthaginians, unless they were demented, could not have committed acts so foolish and so calculated to give the Romans provocation for war. Sallust, Catil., 51. Very different is the opinion of Polybius (iii. 28), who says that for the proceedings of the Romans, οὔτε πρόφασιν οὔτ ̓ αἰτίαν εὕροι τις ἂν εὔλογον· ἀλλ ̓ ὁμολογουμένως τοὺς Καρχηδονίους ἠναγκασμένους παρὰ πάντα τὰ δίκαια διὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκχωρῆσαι μὲν Σαρδόνος, ἐξενεγκεῖν δὲ τὸ προειρημένον πλῆθος τῶν χρημάτων. 3 Compare Polybius, iii. 9, § 6; and 10, §§ 4, 5. IV. BOOK might triumphed over right. The island of Sardinia became a Roman province. But it was a long time before the wild inhabitants of the mountains were subdued and in some measure became accustomed to an orderly government. For many years Sardinia was the scene of the most savage wars and the most terrible civil strife, in which the descendants of the Roman nobility obtained inglorious triumphs, and slaves for their ever-increasing estates. The neighbouring island of Corsica had never been permanently in the possession of the Carthaginians. The Romans now established themselves there, and united it to the province of Sardinia. But here, as in Sardinia, the natives withdrew into the impenetrable mountains of the interior, beyond the reach of Roman dominion, and resisted Roman customs and political order. The resources of the two islands remained undeveloped. It was only in the small coast towns and near the sea that the original barbarism gave way to civilisation and the dominion of Roman law. The interior remained barbarous; and among the many islands of the Mediterranean, Sardinia and Corsica alone, up to almost the present time, have never been the seats of political order and prosperity. Even bloodhounds were employed to hunt down the natives.-Zonaras, viii. 18. CHAPTER V. THE WAR WITH THE GAULS, 225–222 B.C. CHAP. V. 225-222 B.C. Destruc Falerii. THE twenty-four years of war with the great power of Carthage were followed by a six days' war with Falerii, if the collision between the colossal power of Rome and the puny town of Falerii can really be termed a war. How it happened that the Faliscans provoked the Romans, how tion of they could venture to think of opposition, we cannot understand. The town, which, even at the time of Camillus, was constrained to submit to the superior strength of Rome, was without difficulty taken and destroyed. The Roman consuls were not ashamed to make this event the subject of a triumph, which is chronicled in the Roman Fasti by the side of the triumphs of Catulus and the Scipios. Putting aside this incident, the period between the first and the second Punic wars (from 241 till 218 B.C.) was occupied with wars of a more serious character-one in Italy with the Gauls, and two on the opposite side of the Adriatic with the Illyrians. In the order of time the first Illyrian war preceded the war with the Gauls; but for the sake of greater clearness we will follow in our narrative a geographical rather than a chronological order, and speak first of the war waged in Italy against the Gauls, and then of the two Illyrian wars conjointly. After the defeat of the Senonian Gauls in the year 283 B.C., and after the establishment of the colony of Sena in their desolated territory, the Gallic races in Northern Italy remained quiet for forty-five years. This long pause, which was most advantageous to the Romans during the wars with Pyrrhus and the Carthaginians, may in part be Gallic and Illyrian wars. Causes for the long inaction of the Gauls in Italy. |