IV. BOOK especially as it engaged the whole Roman fleet. But it was more especially the long threatened war with the Gauls (225 B.C.) which procured for Carthage a temporary respite and a continuance of the peace with Rome. This war lasted for four years. It came to an end just before the death of Hasdrubal, and even then it was ended only in appearance. The resistance of the Gauls in the valley of the Po was broken in 221 B.C., and the Romans set about securing the possession of the land by establishing the two colonies of Placentia and Cremona on the Po. Now, at last, the time seemed to have arrived when Rome could devote herself to the settlement of her old dispute with her rival for supremacy in the western Mediterranean. Alliance of Saguntum with Rome. Prepara tions of Hannibal. During the last few years the attention of the Romans had been drawn to the progress of the Carthaginians in Spain. Spanish tribes and towns which dreaded annexation to the Carthaginian province applied for assistance to Rome. The result of this application was the treaty by which Hasdrubal had pledged himself to confine his conquests within the Ebro. Another result was the alliance between Rome and Saguntum. According to the conditions of the peace of 241 B.C. the allies of either of the two contracting states were not to be molested by the other. It is true that Saguntum' was not the ally of Rome at the time when that peace was concluded. But, nevertheless, it was evident that Rome could not be debarred from concluding new alliances, and it appeared a matter of course that she must and would afford her protection no less to her new allies than to the old. If the Carthaginians questioned or disregarded this claim of Rome, the peace was broken, and no appeal was left but to arms. No doubt could exist on this subject either at Rome or at Carthage. Immediately upon his appointment to the command of the army, Hannibal was anxious to begin the war with Rome, and the time would have been extremely favourable, as in the year 221 B.C. Rome was still sufficiently occupied with the Gauls. But he was obliged to make ample pre 1 See p. 147. parations before undertaking so serious an enterprise, and moreover the Carthaginian possessions in Spain had to be enlarged and secured, so as to serve as a proper basis for his operations. He also wished, no doubt, to feel and try the extent of his power over the army and of his authority at home; to familiarize himself with the troops who were destined to carry out his bold conceptions—to seat himself firmly in the saddle and to try the mettle of his steed. He therefore devoted the years 221 and 220 to the task of subduing some tribes south of the Ebro, training his army, inspiring his men with confidence in his command, enriching them with booty and thus heightening their zeal, and finally of providing for the security of Spain and Africa during his absence. CHAP. VIII. FIRST PERIOD. 218-216 B.C. tance of All these preparations were made by the beginning of the Impor year 219 B.C. The first object of his attack was Saguntum, Saguntum. the rich, powerful, and well-fortified town to the south of the Ebro, which had lately sought and obtained the Roman alliance. The Saguntines boasted of Greek origin, and called themselves descendants of colonists from the island of Zakynthos--an assertion for which, in all probability, they had no authority beyond the similarity of the two names. They appear to have been genuine Iberians, like the other nations in Spain, and to have had no more affinity with the Greeks than could be claimed by the Romans. At that time, when the Romans acted as protectors and liberators of the Greeks in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, and when they began to pride themselves. on their assumed descent from Homeric heroes, the Grecian name was a welcome pretext and a means for obtaining political advantages. But even without this pretext the alliance of Saguntum was of sufficient importance to Rome. It was admirably situated and adapted for a base of operations against the Carthaginian possessions in Spain, and could answer the purpose which Messana had served in Sicily. At any rate it might be made a barrier against the further advance of the Carthaginians, and with this view it had been received into Roman protection while Hasdrubal commanded in Spain. BOOK IV. Roman embassy to The Roman senate felt convinced that a warning would at once be followed by an abandonment of the Carthaginian designs on Saguntum, which of late had become more manifest, and of which the Saguntines had repeatedly Hannibal. informed the senate.' It accordingly dispatched an embassy to Hannibal (in 219 B.C.) to point out the consequences if he persisted in hostilities against the friends and clients of the Roman people. But Hannibal made no secret of his intentions. He told the ambassadors that the alliance between Saguntum and Rome was no reason why he should not treat the former as an independent state; that he had as much right as the Romans to interfere in the internal affairs of Saguntum, and in case of necessity to defend that town from the usurped protectorate of Rome. A similar answer was given to the ambassadors by the senate of Carthage, whither they had proceeded from Hannibal's camp.3 Siege of The Romans knew now that they had no longer to deal by with the peace-loving, yielding Hasdrubal, nor with a Hannibal. broken-spirited people who recoiled with terror from even the threat of war. Now was the time, if they meant seriously to stand up for their new allies, to send forthwith a fleet and an army to Spain, and this was demanded by their own interest as well as by that of the Saguntines. But they did not stir during the whole of this year, and left the despairing Saguntines to their fate. Hannibal, at no loss for a pretext to declare war against Saguntum, laid regular siege to the town in the spring of the year Livy, xxi. 6. 1 Polybius, iii. 15, § 1. 2 Polybius, iii. 14, 15. The Romans had put an end to a civil war in Saguntum, and had killed the leaders of the party opposed to them. There can be no doubt that this party was a Carthaginian party. The situation in Saguntum was therefore similar to that which had existed in Messana at the commencement of the first Punic war, when a Roman and a Carthaginian party divided the town. Perhaps Hannibal hoped by means of his adherents to get possession of Saguntum, without employing force. If he had been successful in this, he might have begun his campaign a whole year earlier, whilst the Romans were still occupied in Illyria, and whilst the situation in the north of Italy was far more favourable for Carthage than afterwards. Livy, xxi. 11. Polybius, iii. 15, § 12. VIII. FIRST PERIOD, 218-216 B.C. 219 B.C. But the Saguntines resisted with the obstinacy CHAP. and determination which have at all times characterised Spanish towns. For eight months all the efforts of the besiegers were in vain. Hannibal's military genius was of little avail in the slow operations of a regular siege, where success depends not so much on rapid resolutions and bold combinations as on stubborn perseverance in a methodical plan. The eight months of tedious, harassing, and bloody fighting for the possession of Saguntum were calculated to disgust Hannibal with all siege operations, and we find that during all his campaigns in Italy he undertook them unwillingly, and persevered only in one with any degree of firmness. It is probable that the hope of Roman succour braced the courage of the Saguntines and protracted their defence. But as this hope in the end proved vain, the resistance of the brave defenders of the doomed town was borne down. Saguntum was taken by storm, and suffered the fate of the conquered. The surviving inhabitants were distributed as slaves among the soldiers of the victorious army, the articles of value were sent to Carthage, the ready money was applied to the preparations for the impending campaign.' embassy of the Romans to the Car thaginians. Now that the war had in fact begun, the Romans sent Second another embassy to Carthage, as if they still thought it possible to preserve peace. But their demands were such that they might safely have dispatched an army at the same time, for they could not expect that the Carthaginians would listen to them. The Roman ambassadors required that Hannibal and the committee of senators which accompanied the army should be given up to them as a sign that the Carthaginian commonwealth had taken no part in, and did not approve of, the violence done to the allies of Rome. But the authorities at Carthage were far from ignominiously sacrificing their general, and submitting themselves to Roman mercy and generosity. They endeavoured to show that the attack on Saguntum did not involve a rupture of the peace with Rome, because, when Polybius, iii. 17, § 10. Livy, xxi. 15. BOOK Character of the second that Thus the war was resolved upon and declared on both sides a war which stands forth in the annals of the Punic war. ancient world without a parallel. It was not a war about a disputed boundary, about the possession of a province, or some partial advantage; it was a struggle for existence,2 for supremacy or destruction. It was to decide whether the Greco-Roman civilisation of the West or the Semitic civilisation of the East was to be established in Europe, and to determine its history for all future time. The war was one of those in which Asia struggled with Europe, like the war of the Greeks and Persians, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the wars of the Arabs, the Huns, and the Tartars. Whatever may be our admiration of Hannibal, and our sympathy with heroic and yet defeated Carthage, we shall nevertheless be obliged to acknowledge that the victory of Rome-the issue of this trial by battle -was the most essential condition for the healthy development of the human race. 1 Polybius, iii. 20, 33. Livy, xxi. 18. 2 Polybius, ii. 14: Αννίβας ἐπεβάλετο καταλύειν τὴν Ῥωμαίων δυναστείαν, K.T.λ. Appian (vi. 4) erroneously calls the second Punic war a war for the possession of Spain. See Vincke, Der zweite punische Krieg, pp. 16, 124. |