BOOK IV. Campanians, fellow-countrymen of the Messanian freebooters, imitated their example, and by a similar act of by Roman atrocity took possession of Rhegium on the Italian side of mutineers. the straits. United by relationship and common interests, the pirate states of Messana and Rhegium mutually defended themselves against their common enemies, and were for a time the terror of all surrounding countries, and especially of the Greek towns. Hiero, tyrant of After Rhegium had been conquered by the Romans,2 the Syracuse. day of punishment seemed to be approaching also for the Mamertines of Messana. Apart from the consideration that the possession of Messana would be a great acquisition to the state of Syracuse, that city, as the foremost Greek community in Sicily, was called upon to avenge the fate of the murdered Messanians, and to exterminate that band of robbers, which made the whole island unsafe. Hiero, the leader of the Syracusan army, was sent against them. He began by ridding himself of a number of his mercenaries who were troublesome or whom he suspected of treason. He placed them in a position where they were exposed to a hostile attack from the enemy, and left them without support, so that they were all cut down. He then enlisted new mercenaries, equipped the militia of Syracuse, and gained a decisive victory over the Mamertines in the field, after which they gave up their predatory excursions and retired within the walls of Messana. The success of Hiero made him master of Syracuse, whose citizens had no means of keeping a victorious general in subjection to the laws of the state. Fortunately, Hiero was not a tyrant like Agathokles. On the whole, he governed as a mild and sagacious politician, and succeeded, under the most difficult circumstances, when placed between the two great belligerent powers of Rome and Carthage, in maintaining 1 Vol. i. p. 518. 2 Vol. i. p. 540. 3 3 It was not the first time that mercenary troops were exposed to such treason at the hands of Syracusan generals. During the siege of Syracuse by the Carthaginians, the first Dionysius had acted in the same manner (Diodorus, xiv. 72). Afterwards, the Carthaginians, and even the Romans, did the same. -Plutarch, Fab. Max. 22. CHAP. III. FIRST PERIOD, B.C. the independence of Syracuse, and in securing for his native town during his reign of fifty years a period of reviving prosperity. First of all, he aimed at expelling the Italian barbarians from Sicily, and at establishing his 264-262 power in the east of the island by the conquest of Messana. The Mamertines had taken the part of the Carthaginians during the invasion of Pyrrhus in Sicily, and with their assistance had successfully defended Messana. The attack of Hiero, who in some measure was at the head of the Greeks, as the successor of Pyrrhus, forced the Mamertines to seek aid from a foreign power, after their most faithful confederates, the mutineers of Rhegium, had perished by the sword of the Romans or the axe of the executioner. They had only the choice between Carthage and Rome. Each of these states had its party in Messana. The Romans were further off than the Carthaginians, and perhaps the Mamertines were afraid to ask for protection from those who had so severely punished the Campanian freebooters of Rhegium. A troop of Carthaginians under Hanno was therefore admitted into the citadel of Messana, and thus the long-cherished wish of Carthage for the dominion over the whole of Sicily seemed near its fulfilment. Relations of Car thage to Of the three strongest and most important places in Sicily, they had now Lilybæum and Messana in their possession, and thus their communication with Africa and Rome. Italy was secured. Syracuse, the third town of importance, was very much reduced and weakened, and seemed incapable of any protracted resistance. Carthage had long been in friendly relations with Rome, and these relations had during the war of Pyrrhus taken the form of a complete military alliance. Carthage and Rome had, apparently, the same interests, the same friends, and the same enemies. On the continent of Italy, Rome had subjected to herself all the Greek settlements. What could be more natural or more fair than that the fruits of the victory over Pyrrhus in Sicily should be reaped by Carthage? The straits of Messana were the natural boundary between the commercial city, the mistress of the seas and islands, and the BOOK Jealousy of Rome for Carthage. continental empire of the Romans, whose dominion seemed to have found its legitimate termination in Tarentum and Rhegium. But the friendship between Rome and Carthage, which had arisen out of their common danger, was weakened after their common victory and was shaken after the defeat of Pyrrhus at Beneventum. It was by no means clear that Carthage was free from all desire of gaining possessions in Italy. The Romans at least were jealous of their allies, and had stipulated in the treaty with Carthage, in the year 348 B.C.,' that the Carthaginians should not found or hold any fortresses in Latium or indeed in any part of the Roman dominions. They showed the same jealousy when in the war with Pyrrhus a Carthaginian fleet entered the Tiber, ostensibly for the assistance of Rome, by declining the proffered aid. When a Carthaginian fleet showed itself before Tarentum in 272 B.C., and seemed about to anticipate the Romans in the occupation of this town, they complained formally of a hostile intention on the part of the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians denied having this intention, but the Romans nevertheless had good reason to be on their guard, and to entertain fear of Carthaginian interference in the affairs of Italy as well as jealousy of their powerful neighbour, who had now got a firm footing in Spain and governed all the islands of the Sardinian and Tyrrhenian seas.3 While this feeling was prevalent in Rome, an embassy came from the Mamertines, commissioned to deliver over to Rome Messana and the territory belonging to it, a present which indeed involved the necessity of first clearing the town of the This oldest commercial treaty between Rome and Carthage is erroneously placed by Polybius (iii. 22) in the year 509 B.C. See Mommsen's Chronologie, 320 f. The treaty was a kind of international navigation act, intended to keep down foreign competition. The second treaty shows this intention still more clearly. It seems that the Romans looked upon or pretended to look upon this interference of the Carthaginian fleet as a breach of the treaty of friendship between the two nations, and that they made use of it to justify their war against Carthage. Livy (xxi. 10) makes Hanno say, in the Carthaginian senate: Tarento, id est, Italia non abstinueramus ex fædere.' CHAP. III. FIRST PERIOD, B.C. of the aid the Mamer tines of Messana. Carthaginians and then of defending it against them.' The Carthaginians, it appears, had made themselves obnoxious since they had had possession of the citadel of Messana, and the Roman party felt itself strong enough 264-262 to take the bold step of invoking the aid of the Romans. But for Rome the decision was a difficult one. There Resolution could hardly be any doubt that to grant the request of Romans to the Mamertines would be to declare war against Carthage and Syracuse, and that such a war would tax the resources of the nation to the utmost. In addition to this the proposal of the Mamertines was by no means honourable to Rome. A band of robbers offered dominion over a town which they had seized by the most outrageous act of violence; and this offer was made to the Romans, who so recently had put to death the accomplices of the Mamertines for a similar treachery towards Rhegium. Moreover, the assistance of the Romans was called in against Hiero of Syracuse, to whom they were indebted for aid in the siege of Rhegium, and at the same time against the Carthaginians, their allies in the scarcely terminated war with Pyrrhus. Long and earnest were the deliberations in the Roman senate; and when at length the prospect of extension of power outweighed all moral considerations, the people also voted for an undertaking which seemed to promise abundant spoils and gain." According to Zonaras (viii. 9), the Mamertines had first applied to the Romans for aid, and had not received the Carthaginians into their town until they despaired of assistance being sent from Rome. There are great discrepancies in the accounts of Polybius and Zonaras, from which it is evident that they followed different authorities. Zonaras, or rather Dio Cassius, whom he copied, perhaps followed Philinus, whilst Polybius made use of this writer chiefly for the purpose of testing the diverging statements of Fabius Pictor. The two historians, Philinus and Fabius, had written the history of the First Punic War respectively from the Carthaginian and the Roman point of view, and had thereby become one-sided and partial. Polybius was more independent in his judgment; still we may reasonably doubt that he always succeeded in disentangling the truth from the conflicting evidence which was accessible to him. 2 Polybius (i. 11) reports that the senate did not finally resolve upon war, but left the decision to the people. This statement is unintelligible, for according to the constitutional law and practice the final decision always rested BOOK IV. Change in the character of Roman history. Relative strength of However, if the decision was not exactly honourable, neither could it, from the Roman point of view, be condemned. The surprise of Messana by the Mamertines was, as far as Rome was concerned, different from the act of the Campanian legion in Rhegium; the latter, being in the service of the Romans, had broken their military oath, and had been guilty of mutiny and open rebellion. On the other hand, the Mamertines in Sicily were, as regarded the Romans, an independent foreign people. They had wronged neither Rome nor Roman allies or subjects. However atrocious their act had been, the Romans were not entitled to take them to account for it, nor called upon to forego any political advantages merely because they disapproved of the deed. The unblushing desire for extension and conquest needed no excuse or justification in antiquity; and Rome in particular, by reason of her former history and organisation, could not stop short in her career of conquest, and pause for moral scruples at the Sicilian straits. A new era begins in the history of Rome with the first crossing of the legions into Sicily. The obscurity which rested on the wars of Rome with Sabellians and Greeks disappears not gradually but suddenly. The Arcadian Polybius, one of the most trustworthy of ancient writers, and at the same time an experienced politician, has left us a history of the First Punic War drawn from contemporary sources, especially Philinus and Fabius Pictor, written with so much fulness that now, for the first time, we feel a confidence in the details of Roman history which imparts. true interest to the events related and a real worth to the narrative. The first war with Carthage lasted twenty-three years, with the people. In no case could the senate resolve upon war without the consent of the people. Polybius does not say that the majority of the senate was against the war. He wished only to convey the impression that the discredit, inseparable from the Roman policy, was attributable not to the It is the old story over again. The dirty work is class of people, not by the nobility. Compare senate, but to the people. |