BOOK IV. and faithful to Rome; Nola was guarded by a Roman garrison, and the Roman partisans among the citizens; and a renewed attempt of Hannibal to take this town is said to have been thwarted, like the first attack, the year before, by a sally of the Romans under Marcellus, and to have resulted in a defeat of the Carthaginian army.' On the other hand the Romans took several towns in Campania and Samnium,3 punished their revolted subjects with merciless severity, and so devastated the country of the Hirpinians and Caudinians that they piteously implored the help of Hannibal. But Hannibal had not sufficient forces to protect the Italians who had joined his cause and who now felt the fatal consequences of their step. Hanno, one of Hannibal's subordinate officers, being beaten at Grumentum in Lucania by Tiberius Sempronius Longus, an officer of the prætor M. Valerius Lævinus, who commanded in Apulia, was obliged to retreat into Bruttium. A reinforcement of 12,000 foot, 1,500 horse, 20 elephants, and 1,000 talents of silver, which Mago Sempronius Gracchus, in conjunction with the people of Cumæ, laid a trap for the Capuans. The various towns of Campania, it appears, celebrated a common festival at Hama (as the Latins celebrated theirs on the Mons Albanus). During one of these festivals, the Roman consul Sempronius Gracchus and the Cumanians surprised and killed the unarmed and unresisting Capuaus. They afterwards justified this act of treachery by saying that the Capuans had intended to surprise them, and were caught in their own snare. But, as Arnold remarks (Hist. of Rome, iii. 184), this could only be a suspicion, whilst the overt act of violence was their own. According to all appearance, this alleged victory is but another version of that of the preceding year. In all essential parts the same circumstances are related, only on a larger scale. Instead of 2,800 Carthaginians, 5,000 are slain in the second fight, together with four elephants. Plutarch (Marcell. 11) relates only one victory of Marcellus; but we cannot appeal to his authority, as his account seems to be the result of a confusion. Livy relates (xxiv. 17) actually a third victory of Marcellus over Hannibal at Nola, in which 2,000 Carthaginians are killed. It is precisely the same story over again. The plebeians at Nola send for Hannibal, the nobility for Marcellus; the march of Marcellus is identical with that related xxiii. 17. The panegyrists of the house of Marcellus, it seems, had great faith in the credulity of the public; nor did they see any improbability in a story which makes the people of Nola call in the aid of Hannibal a second time, shortly after a first attempt had been punished by the execution of seventy of the conspirators. 2 Compulteria, Trebula, and Saticula.-Livy, xxiii. 39. Livy, xxiii. 37. was to have brought to his brother in Italy, had been directed to Spain after the victory of the Scipios at Ibera; and Hannibal had accordingly, in the year 215 B.C., not only calculated in vain on being joined by his brother Hasdrubal and the Spanish army, but he was also deprived of the reinforcements which ought to have been sent to him straight from Africa. As at the same time the revolt of the Roman allies did not spread further, and as the Romans gradually recovered from the effects of the defeat at Cannæ, the fact that Hannibal was not able to accomplish much is easily explained. CHAP. VIII. SECOND PERIOD, 216-215 B.C. the Carthaginians at Illiturgi and in Spain, 215 B.C. As in Italy, so in the other theatres of war, the Cartha- Defeat of ginian arms were not very successful during this year, 215 B.C. In Spain, the victory of the Scipios at Ibera was followed by a decided preponderance of Roman influence. Intibili The native tribes became more and more disinclined to submit to Carthaginian dominion, thinking that the Romans would help them to regain their independence. It seems that the battle of Ibera was lost chiefly by the defection of the Spanish troops. Hasdrubal had thereupon tried to reduce some of the revolted tribes, but was prevented by the Scipios, and driven back with great loss. According to the reports which the Scipios. sent home, they had gained victories which almost counterbalanced the disaster of Cannæ. With only 16,000 men they had totally routed at Illiturgi a Carthaginian army of 60,000 men, had killed more of the enemy than they themselves numbered combatants, had taken 3,000 prisoners, nearly 1,000 horses, and seven elephants, had captured fifty-nine standards, and stormed three hostile camps. Soon after, when the Carthaginians were besieging Intibili, they were again defeated and suffered almost as heavily. Most of the Spanish tribes now joined Rome. Livy, xxiii. 49. It is a great pity that we have no more detailed report of these two splendid victories than the dry narrative which Livy gives in half a chapter. But the meagreness of the report might be excused if its truth were beyond suspicion. We shall find in the sequel that all the statements that have reference to the affairs of Spain, and especially to the exploits of the Scipios in that country, are tainted with laudato y exaggeration on an BOOK Success of Alliance of These victories threw into the shade all the military events which took place in Italy this year. Equal success attended the Roman arms in Sardinia. In the preceding year the proprætor Aulus Cornelius Mammula had been left in that island without supplies for his troops, and had exacted the necessary sums and contributions by a species of forced loans from the natives.' The discontent engendered by this measure, in connexion with the news of the battle of Cannæ, had the effect of inflaming the national spirit of the Sardinians, who, from the time of their subjection to Rome, had hardly allowed a year to pass without an attempt to shake off the galling yoke. The Carthaginians had contributed to fan this flame,' and now dispatched a force to Sardinia to support the insurgents. Unfortunately the fleet which had the troops on board was overtaken by a storm and compelled to take refuge in the Balearic Islands, where the ships had to be laid up for repair.3 Meanwhile, the son of the Sardinian chief Hampsicoras, impatient of delay, had attacked the Romans in the absence of his father, and had been defeated with great loss. When the Carthaginians appeared in the island, the force of the insurrection was already spent. The prætor Titus Manlius Torquatus had arrived from Rome with a new legion, which raised the Roman army in the island to 22,000 foot and 1,200 horse. He defeated the united forces of the Carthaginians and revolted Sardinians in a decisive battle, whereupon Hampsicoras put an end to his life, and the insurrection in the island was eventually suppressed. While thus the sky was clearing in the west, a new unusually large scale. Arnold (History of Rome, iii. 260) says: 'The Roman 2 Livy, xxiii. 41: Hanno, auctor rebellionis Sardis, bellique eius haud dubie concitor.' Livy, xxiii. 34. storm seemed to be gathering in the east. Since the pened to be the time of the Nemean games, with which, This was the real beginning of that revolution which Polybius (v. 105) places in the year 217 B.C., and traces to the peace of Naupactos. See p. 278, note 1. * See above, p. 138 ff. CHAP. VIII. SECOND PERIOD, 216-215 B.C. Philip of Macedonia with Han nibal. BOOK Mistaken policy of Philip. in Illyria. At his suggestion Philip resolved to end the war in Greece as soon as possible, and to prepare for a war with Rome. He hastened to conclude peace at Naupactos with the Etolians, and forthwith began hostilities by land and sea against the allies and dependents of Rome in Illyria. But he displayed neither promptness, energy, nor courage. He took a few insignificant places from the Illyrian prince Skerdilaidas, an ally of the Romans; but when he had reached the Ionian Sea with his fleet of one hundred small undecked galleys of Illyrian construction (lembi), in the hope of being able to take Apollonia by surprise, he was so frightened by a false report of the approach of a Roman fleet, that he made a precipitate and ignominious retreat. Perhaps he was already disheartened, and beginning to repent the step which he had taken, when in 216 B.C. the news of the battle of Cannæ and of the revolt of Capua and other Roman allies inspired him with new hope, and induced him to conclude with Hannibal a formal alliance, by which he promised his active co-operation in the war in Italy, on condition that Hannibal, after the overthrow of the Roman power, should assist him to establish the Macedonian supremacy in the eastern peninsula and islands. Thus the calculations and expectations with which Hannibal had began the war seemed on the point of being realised, and the fruits of his great victories to be gradually maturing. The Romans had watched the movements of Philip with increasing anxiety. As long as he was implicated in the Greek Social War, he was unable to do any mischief. But when he brought this war to a hasty conclusion to have his hands free against Illyria and Rome, the senate made an attempt to frighten him by demanding the extradition of Demetrius of Pharos.3 When Philip refused Polybius (v. 105) dates from this peace the complication of the politics of the eastern and western states of the Mediterranean, which had formerly been independent of each other, but were henceforward determined by Rome. Tàs μὲν οὖν Ἑλληνικὰς καὶ τὰς Ἰταλικάς, ἔτι δὲ τὰς Λιβυκὰς πράξεις οὗτος ὁ καιρὸς καὶ τοῦτο τὸ διαβούλιον συνέπλεξε πρώτον, κ.τ.λ. 2 Polybius, vii. 9. Livy, xxiii. 33. Zonaras, ix. 4. See above, p. 226 |