BOOK IV. Proclama. tion of Hannibal to the Tarentines. to give as soon as he had reached the neighbourhood. When they saw the signal they fell upon the guards at a gate, cut down the Roman soldiers, and admitted a troop of Gauls and Numidians into the town. At the same moment Philodemos, pretending to return from hunting, presented himself before the postern of another gate, whose guards had been accustomed, for some time past, to open when they heard his whistle. Two men who were with him carried a huge boar. The guard, whilst admiring and feeling the animal, was instantly pierced by the spear of Philodemos. About thirty men were ready outside. They entered by the postern-gate, killed the other guards, opened the main gates, and admitted a whole column of Libyans, who advanced in regular order, under the guidance of the conspirators, towards the market-place. On both points the enterprise had succeeded, and the empty space between the walls and the town was soon filled with Hannibal's soldiers. The Roman garrison had not received the slightest warning. The commanding officer, M. Livius Macatus, an indolent, self-indulgent man, had been spending the evening in revelry, and was in his bed, overpowered with wine and sleep, when the stillness of the night was broken by the noise of arms and by a strange sound of Roman trumpets. The conspirators had procured some of these trumpets, and, although they blew them very unskilfully, they yet succeeded in drawing the Roman soldiers, who were quartered in all parts of the town, into the streets just as Hannibal was advancing in three columns. Thus a great number of Romans were cut down in the first confusion and disorder, without being able to make any resistance, and almost without knowing what the tumult was all about. A few reached the citadel, and among them was the commander Livius, who at the first alarm had rushed to the harbour and succeeded in jumping into a boat. When the morning dawned, the whole of Tarentum, with the exception of the citadel, was in Hannibal's hands. He caused the Tarentines to be called to an assembly, and made known to them that they had nothing to fear for themselves and their families; on the contrary, that he had come to deliver them from the Roman yoke. Only the houses and the property of the Romans were given up to plunder. Every house marked as the property of a citizen of Tarentum was to be spared; but those who made a false statement were threatened with capital punishment. Probably the Romans were quartered in houses of their own, or in houses of men who were partisans of Rome. The latter were now made to suffer for their attachment to Rome, which was a crime in the eyes of their political opponents. CHAP. VIII. FOURTH PERIOD, 212-211 B.C. the citadel of Taren The citadel of Tarentum being situated on a hill Siege of of small elevation at the western extremity of the tongue of land occupied by the town, could only be tum. taken by a regular siege, and such a siege was hopeless without the co-operation of the fleet. In order, therefore, to secure the town in the meantime from any attacks of the Roman garrison, Hannibal caused a line of defences, consisting of a ditch, mound, and wall, to be made between the citadel and the town. The Romans attempted to interrupt the work. Hannibal encouraged them by a simulated flight of his men, and when he had drawn them far enough into the town, attacked them from all sides, and drove them back into the citadel with great slaughter. The Roman garrison was now so much reduced that Hannibal hoped to be able to take the citadel by force, and he prepared a regular assault by erecting the necessary machines. But the Romans, reinforced by the garrison of Metapontum, sallied forth in the night, and destroying Hannibal's siege-works, compelled him to desist from his enterprise. Thus the citadel of Tarentum remained in the possession of the Romans; and as it commanded the entrance to the harbour, the ships of the Tarentines would have been locked up, if Hannibal had not contrived to drag them across the tongue of land on which the town lay, right through the streets running from the inner harbour to the open sea. The Tarentine fleet was now BOOK Alliance of other Greek Hannibal. 1 1 able to blockade the citadel, whilst a wall and ditch closed The example of Tarentum was soon followed by Metapontum from which the Roman garrison had been cities with withdrawn-by Thurii-out of revenge for the murdered hostages and by Heraclea.' Thus the Romans lost by their own fault these Greek towns, which had remained faithful to them for so many years after the battle of Cannæ. The only towns that stood out against Carthage were Rhegium and Elea (Velia), with Posidonia or Pæstum-which in 263 had become a Roman colony-and Neapolis in Campania.2 Hannibal had reason to be satisfied with the first results of the campaign of 212. Leaving a small garrison in Tarentum, he now turned northwards. Roman designs against Capua. Three years had passed since Capua had revolted to the Carthaginians. Rome had succeeded in preventing the other larger towns of Campania from following her example. Nola, Neapolis, Cumæ, Puteoli had remained faithful and were safe; Casilinum had been retaken; and Capua was hemmed in on all sides, partly by these towns, partly by fortified Roman camps. The time was approaching when the attempt could be made to retake Capua. This was now the principal aim of the Romans in Italy, and the defection of the Greek towns, so far from inducing them to give up this plan, contributed rather to confirm them in it. If Capua could be re-conquered and severely 1 1 1 CHAP. VIII. FOURTH punished, they might hope to put an end to all further attempts at revolt on the part of their allies, and they would have destroyed the prestige of Hannibal and the confidence which the Italians might be tempted to place 212-211 in the power and protection of Carthage. Since their defection the Capuans had had little cause to approve the bold step which they had taken and to rejoice over the results. If at any time they had really entertained the hope of obtaining the dominion over Italy in the place of Rome, they were soon disabused of so vain a notion. They had not been able even to subject the towns of Campania, or to induce them to enter into the alliance of Carthage, and as, in consequence of their own defection, Campania had become the principal theatre of war, they saw themselves exposed to the unremitting attacks of the Romans. Whenever Hannibal left Campania, the Roman armies approached the town from all sides, returning immediately into their strong positions as soon as Hannibal drew near. Such a war as this, while it drained the resources of the country, and interfered with the regular tillage of the land and the commercial intercourse with her neighbours, could not fail soon to reduce to distress a town whose wealth consisted chiefly in the produce of her fruitful soil. People began to repent the step which they had taken. There had always been a Roman party at Capua. With the continued pressure of which this party had endeavoured to prevent, the split among the Capuan citizens became wider every day. As early as the year 213 we hear of a body of one hundred and twelve Capuan horsemen deserting to the Romans with all their arms and accoutrements.1 Moreover the three hundred horsemen who had been serving in Sicily at the time of the revolt of their native town, and who were looked upon in the light of hostages, abjured their allegiance to the revolutionary government of Capua, and were admitted as Roman citizens to the full franchise. PERIOD, B.C. Condition of Capua. BOOK IV. Request of the Capuans to Hannibal for sup plies. Even if the Carthaginian garrison was not found irksome and onerous to the people of Capua, it was natural that a revulsion of feeling should take place among them. In the beginning of the year 212 the Capuans perceived that the Romans were about to draw the net round them. As the populous town was not supplied with provisions to resist a long siege, they sent in all haste to Hannibal, who was at that time in the neighbourhood of Tarentum, and conjured him to come to their aid. In truth Hannibal's task was not easy. Being stationed at one extremity of the hostile country, and fully occupied in the enterprise against a strong and important city; having to bestow his constant attention to the feeding and recruiting of his army; called upon to defend a number of allies, more troublesome than useful to him; obliged, moreover, to survey and conduct the whole war in Italy, Spain, and Sicily, to advise the home government, to urge on the tardy resolutions of his ally the king of Macedonia-he was now required to provide for the victualling of Capua. The supplies with which this could be effected he was not able to send for from Africa, and to direct by a safe and easy road to the threatened town. They had to be collected in Italy by violence, or by the good services of exhausted allies; and, being collected, they had to be conveyed by land, on bad and difficult roads, past hostile armies and fortresses. In spite of all these difficulties, if Hannibal had been able personally to undertake this task, it would have sucCapua by ceeded without any doubt, for wherever he appeared the Capture of the convoys for the Ro mans. Romans slunk back into their hiding-places. But he was not able to leave Tarentum, and therefore intrusted the victualling of Capua to Hanno, who commanded in Bruttium. Hanno too was an able general. He collected the supplies in the neighbourhood of Beneventum, and if the Capuans had equalled him in energy and dispatch, and had furnished means of transport in sufficient quantity and in proper time, the hard problem would have been solved before any Roman force would have had time to interfere. But, owing to the remissness of the Capuans, |