CHAP. VIII. SECOND PERIOD, 216-215 B.C. New levies M. Junius These remarks are suggested by the statements of the measures which the dictator M. Junius took after the battle of Cannæ for the defence of the country. In order to raise four new legions and one thousand horse, he was compelled to enrol young men who had only just entered on the military age; nay, he went even further, of the and took, probably as volunteers, boys below the age of dictator seventeen who had not yet exchanged their purple-bor- Pera. dered toga (the toga prætexta) the sign of childhood, for the white toga of manhood (the toga virilis). Thus the legions were completed.' For the present Rome had reached the end of her resources. But the man-devouring war claimed more victims, and the pride of the Romans stooped to the arming of slaves. Eight thousand of the most vigorous slaves, who professed their readiness to serve, were selected. They were bought by the state from. their owners, were armed and formed into a separate body destined to serve by the side of the legions of Roman citizens and allies. As a reward for brave conduct in the field, they received the promise of freedom.3 With these slaves, six thousand criminals and debtors were set free, and enrolled for military service.1 2 the The full significance of this measure can be appreciated Refusal of only if we bear in mind how the Roman government Romans to treated those unhappy citizens whom the fortune of war ransom the. prisoners had delivered into captivity. In the first Punic war it had been the practice of the belligerents to exchange or ransom the prisoners. It seemed a matter of course that the same practice should be observed now, provided that Livy, xxii. 57. 2 Livy, xxii. 57: Et aliam formam novi delectus inopia liberorum capitum ac necessitas dedit.' 3 once. Livy, xxiv. 14. According to Appian, vii. 27, the slaves were set free at Livy, xxiii. 14: Ad ultimum prope desperatæ rei publicæ auxilium, cum honesta utilibus cedunt, descendit.' This mentioning of prisoners for debt is strange, as, according to Livy (viii. 28), imprisonment for debt was abolished. Probably this abolition referred only to Roman citizens; and the debtors referred to by Livy as liberated from prison and enrolled were perhaps Italian allies. taken at Cannæ. BOOK IV. Hannibal was ready to waive the strict right of war which gave him permission to employ the prisoners or to sell them as slaves. From his point of view the last was evidently the most profitable, for it was his object to weaken Rome as much as possible, and Rome possessed nothing more precious than her citizens. But, as we have already noticed, he was led by higher considerations and by a wise policy to seek a favourable peace with a nation which, even after Cannæ, he despaired of crushing.1 He selected, therefore, from among the prisoners ten of the foremost men, and sent them to Rome, accompanied by an officer named Carthalo, with instructions not only to treat with the senate for the ransom of the prisoners, but to open at the same time negotiations for peace. But in Rome the genuine Roman spirit of stubborn defiance had so completely displaced the former fears that no man thought of even mentioning the possibility of peace; and Hannibal's messenger was warned not to approach the city. Thereupon the question was discussed in the senate, whether the prisoners of war should be ransomed. The mere possibility of treating this as an open question causes astonishment. The men whose liberty and lives were at the mercy of Hannibal were not purchased mercenaries nor strangers. They were the sons and brothers of those who had sent them forth to battle; they had obeyed the call of their country and of their duty, they had staked their lives in the field, had fought valiantly, and were guilty of no crime except this, that with arms in their hands they had allowed themselves to be overpowered by the enemy, as Roman soldiers had often done before. But in this war Rome wanted men who rated their lives as nothing, and were determined rather to die than to flee or surrender. In order to impress this necessity upon all Roman soldiers, the unfortunate prisoners of Cannæ were sacrificed. The senate refused to ransom them, and aban 1 Compare Hannibal's speech to the prisoners (Livy, xxii. 58): 'Romanos satis miti sermone alloquitur; non internecivum sibi esse cum Romanis bellum; de dignitate atque imperio certare,' &c. doned them to the mercy of the conqueror.' At the very time when Rome armed slaves in her defence, she handed over thousands of freeborn citizens to be sold in the slave-markets of Utica and Carthage, and to be kept to field labour under the burning sun of Africa. We may admire the grandeur of the Roman spirit, and from some points of view it is worthy of admiration; but we are bound to express our horror and detestation of the idol of national greatness to which the Romans sacrificed their own children in cold blood. CHAP. VIII. SECOND PERIOD, 216-215 B.C. slanders As if they could excuse or palliate the inhuman severity Roman of the Roman senate by painting in a still more odious against light the character of the Punic general, some among the Hannibal. Roman annalists related that Hannibal, from spite, vexation, and inveterate hatred of the Roman people, now began to vent his rage on his unfortunate prisoners, and to torment them with the most exquisite cruelty. Many of them, they said, he killed, and from the heaped up Polybius (vi. 58) and Livy (xxii. 58) give an interesting account of the sending of the ten deputies of the prisoners to Rome. According to them they had sworn to return to Hannibal if the negotiations failed; but one of their number, after leaving the camp, returned immediately, under the pretext of having forgotten something, thinking thus to comply with his promise, and he remained in Rome when the other nine returned into captivity, after the refusal of the senate to ransom the prisoners. But the Romans would not allow this subterfuge, and sent him back to Hannibal in chains. There was, however, another version of this story, which can be traced (see Cicero, De Offic. iii. 32, § 115) to C. Acilius, one of the oldest Roman annalists, a contemporary of the elder Cato. According to this version, all the ten deputies played the trick imputed in the first version to one only, and, what is of more importance, all of them remained at Rome after the breaking off of the negotiations, in consequence of a decree of the senate which sanctioned this perfidious sophistry. They were, indeed, afterwards degraded by the censors, and lived covered with infamy, so that some of them destroyed themselves, and others retired altogether from public life, but they were not compelled to return into captivity, as they had sworn to do. It can hardly be doubted that, of the two versions, this is the one more entitled to credence; for we cannot see how it would ever have obtained circulation if it had not been founded on truth, whereas the other version seems invented from patriotic motives. Livy gives some details which corroborate it: he mentions the names of three messengers dispatched by Hannibal on account of the delay caused by the conduct of the first ten. He also assumes its truth in a later account (xxiv. 18). So does Valerius Maximus (ii. 9, 8), whilst the story of Gellius (N. A. vii. 18) is an attempt to combine both versions. BOOK corpses he made dams for crossing rivers; some, who broke down under the weight of the baggage which they had to carry on the marches, he caused to be maimed by having their tendons cut; the noblest of them he compelled to fight with one another like gladiators, for the amusement of his soldiers, selecting, with genuine Punic inhumanity, the nearest relations-fathers, sons, and brothers-to shed each other's blood.' But, as Diodorus relates, neither blows, nor goads, nor fire could compel the noble Romans to violate the laws of nature, and impiously to imbrue their hands with the blood of those who were nearest and dearest to them. According to Pliny, the only survivor in these horrid combats was made to fight with an elephant, and when he had killed the brute, he received indeed his freedom, which was the price that Hannibal had promised for his victory, but shortly after he had left the Carthaginian camp, he was overtaken by Numidian horsemen and cut down. If such detestable cruelties were really within the range of possibility, we should have to accuse, not only those who inflicted them, but those also who, by refusing to ransom the prisoners, exposed them to such a fate. But the silence of Polybius,3 and still more the silence of Livy, who would have found in the sufferings of the Roman prisoners a most welcome opportunity for rhetorical declamations on Punic barbarity, are sufficient to prove that the alleged acts of cruelty are altogether without foundation, and that they were invented for the purpose of representing Hannibal in an odious light, and of raising the character of the Romans at the expense of that of the Carthaginians. 1 Appian, vii. 38; viii. 63. Diodorus, excerpt. De Virtut. 568, p. 101, Tauchnitz. Zonaras, ix. 2. Valerius Maximus, ix. 2, ext. 2: Hannibal cuius maiore ex parte virtus sævitia constabat in flumine Vergello corporibus Romanis ponte facto exercitum traduxit. Idem captivos nostros oneribus et itinere fessos infima pedum parte succisa relinquebat. Quos vero in castra perduxerat, paria fere fratrum et propinquorum iungens ferro decernere cogebat.' 2 Pliny, Hist. Nat. viii. 7. Polybius had twice occasion to speak of the alleged cruelties of Hannibal: vi. 58 and ix. 24. This contrast of the evoéßeia of the Romans, with the wuórns of the Car When, on the evening of the bloody day of Cannæ, Hannibal rode over the battle-field, he is reported by Appian to have burst into tears, and to have exclaimed, like Pyrrhus, that he did not hope for another victory like this. It is possible that credulous Romans may have found in this childish story some consolation for the soreness of their national feelings. But an impartial observer cannot but feel convinced that Hannibal's heart must have swelled with pride and hope when he surveyed the whole extent of his unparalleled victory, and that he considered it cheaply purchased by the loss of only 6,000 of his brave warriors. But he did not allow himself to be carried away by the natural enthusiasm which caused the impetuous Maharbal, the commander of his light Numidian cavalry, to urge an immediate advance upon Rome, and so to put an end to the war in one run. 'If,' said Maharbal, you will let me lead the horse forthwith, and follow quickly, you shall dine on the Capitol in five days.' We may be sure that Hannibal, without waiting for Maharbal's advice, had maturely considered the question whether the hostile capital, the final goal of his expedition, were within his reach at this moment. He decided that it was not, and we can scarcely presume to accuse the first general of antiquity of an error of judgment, and to maintain that he missed the favourable moment for crowning all his preceding victories. All thaginians is especially insisted upon by Diodorus (loc. cit.). It was even reported that Hannibal had trained his soldiers to feed on human flesh. Polybius (ix. 24) explains how this idle story arose. One of Hannibal's subordinate generals, called Hannibal Monomachos, is said to have advised his chief to accustom the soldiers to human flesh, so that they might, in case of necessity, have this food to fall back upon, when all other supplies failed. But Hannibal, it is said, rejected the odious idea. Upon such evidence as this Hannibal was accused of cruelty! Arnold (Hist. of Rome, iii. 154), though he says in a note that the remarks of Polybius should make us slow to believe stories of Hannibal's cruelties, which so soon became a theme for the invention of poets and rhetoricians,' nevertheless repeats in his text the charges brought against him. He says, When Hannibal found that his officer had not been allowed to enter the city, and that the Romans had refused to ransom their prisoners, his disappointment betrayed him into acts of the most inhuman cruelty.' If Arnold's note was an afterthought, it is a pity that he left his text unaltered. CHAP. VIII. SECOND PERIOD, 216-215 B.C. Position of Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ. |