BOOK Roman for the sack of towns. On the occasion of the taking of New Carthage, Polybius relates the Roman custom observed in the plundering of a town taken by storm.' He tells us that for a time the regulations soldiers used to cut down every living creature they met, not men only, but even brute animals. When this butchery had lasted as long as the commander thought proper, a signal was given to call the soldiers back from it, and then the plundering began. Only a portion of the army, never more than one-half, was allowed to plunder, lest during the inevitable disorder the safety of the whole might be compromised. But the men selected for plundering a town were not allowed to keep anything for themselves. They were obliged to give up what they had taken, and the booty was equally distributed among all the troops, including even the sick and wounded. Disposal of the booty. Plunder of thage. The commanding general had a right of disposing of the whole of the booty as he deemed proper. He could, if he liked, reserve the whole, or a part of it, for the public treasury. If he did so, he made himself of course obnoxious, like Camillus in the old legend, to the soldiers; and it seems that, in the time of the Punic wars, it was the general practice to leave the booty to the troops. Only a portion of it-more especially the military chest, magazines, materials of war, works of art, and captives-was taken possession of by the quæstor for the benefit of the state. The rest was given to the soldiers, and served as a compensation and reward for the dangers and hardships of the service, which were very inadequately rewarded by the military pay. The booty made at New Carthage was very considerable. This town had been the principal military storehouse of the Carthaginians in Spain, and contained hundreds of ballista, catapults, and other engines of war with projectiles, large sums of money, and quantities of gold and silver, eighteen ships, besides materials for building and 1 Polybius, x. 15, § 4: Ὁ δὲ Πόπλιος ἐπεὶ τοὺς εἰσεληλυθότας ἀξιοχρέως ὑπελάμβανε εἶναι, τοὺς μὲν πλείστους ἐφῆκε κατὰ τὸ παρ' αὐτοῖς ἔθος ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐν τῇ πόλει παραγγείλας κτείνειν τὸν παρατυχόντα καὶ μηδενός φείδεσθαι μηδὲ πρὸς τὰς ὠφελείας ὁρμᾶν μέχρις ἂν ἀποδοθῇ τὸ σύνθημα κ.τ.λ. equipping ships. The prisoners were of especial value. The garrison, it is true, was not numerous, and had no doubt been reduced by the fight;2 but among the prisoners was Hanno, the commander, two members of the smaller Carthaginian council or executive board, and fifteen of the senate, who represented the Carthaginian government in the field. All these were sent to Rome. The inhabitants of the town who had escaped the massacre, 10,000 in number, as it is stated, might have been sold as slaves, according to the ancient right of war, but were allowed by Scipio to retain their liberty; several thousand skilled workmen, who had been employed in the dockyards and arsenals, as ship-carpenters, armourers, or otherwise, were kept in the same capacity, and were promised their freedom if they served the republic faithfully and effectually. The strongest of the prisoners Scipio mixed up with the crews of his fleet, and was thus enabled to man the eighteen captured vessels. These men also received the promise that, if they conducted themselves well, they should receive their freedom at the end of the war. But the most precious part of the booty consisted of the hostages of several Spanish tribes, who had been kept in custody in New Carthage. Scipio hoped by their means to gain the friendship of those subjects or allies of Carthage for whose fidelity they were to be a pledge. He treated them therefore with the greatest kindness, and told them that their fate depended entirely on the conduct As usual there is a great divergence in the numbers given by the different writers. According to Silenus, the Romans took sixty scorpions (a kind of ballista). Valerius Antias raises this number to 19,000. No wonder that Livy, who could digest a good deal of exaggeration, exclaims (xxvi. 49): Adeo nullus mentiendi modus est!'-Compare Livy, xxvi. 47; Polybius, x. 17. The same uncertainty as to numbers meets us here again. Polybius states the number to have been 1,000, others 2,000, 7,000, and even as many as 10,000.-Livy, xxvi. 49. * Polybius, x. 17, § 8: οὗτοι μὲν οὖν ἅμα δακρύοντες καὶ χαίροντες ἐπὶ τῷ παραδόξῳ τῆς σωτηρίας προσκυνήσαντες τὸν στρατηγὸν διελύθησαν. ✦ Polybius, x. 18. According to Livy (xxvi. 49), the number of these hostages varies in different authors between 300 and 3,724! No wonder that Livy says, 'Quantus numerus fuerit piget scribere.' CHAP. VIII. FIFTH PERIOD, 211-207 B.C. BOOK Personal anecdotes of Scipio. of their countrymen, and that he would send them all home if he could be assured of the good disposition of the Spanish peoples.' The narrative of the conquest of New Carthage is adorned with some anecdotes, the object of which is to extol the generosity, the delicacy of feeling, and the self-control of the great Scipio. According to one of these stories, there was among the hostages a venerable matron, the wife of the Spanish chief Mandonius, the brother of Indibilis, king of the Пlergetes, and several of the youthful daughters of the latter. These ladies had been treated with indignity by the Carthaginians, but the sense of female modesty at first kept the noble matron from expressing in distinct words her wish that the Romans would treat them more as became their rank, age, and sex. Scipio, with fine discrimination, guessed what she hardly ventured to pray for, and granted the request. Again, when his soldiers, bringing to him a Spanish lady, remarkable for her dazzling beauty, desired him to take her as a prize worthy of himself alone, he caused the damsel to be restored to her father, subduing a passion which had often triumphed over the greatest heroes, and from which he himself was by no means exempt. This story, related in its credible simplicity by Polybius, was further enlarged and adorned by Livy, who speaks of the lady as the betrothed of a powerful Spanish prince, to whom Scipio, like the hero in a play, restores her unharmed, with all the pathos of conscious virtue and youthful enthusiasm. The rich presents which her parents had brought for her ransom Scipio gives to the happy bridegroom, as an addition to her dowry. The Spaniard reveres Scipio like a god, and finally ' Livy (xxvi. 49) makes Scipio address the hostages in the following words: Venisse eos in populi Romani potestatem qui beneficio quam metu obligare homines malit exterasque gentes fide ac societate vinctas habere quam tristi subiectas servitio.' How could any Roman, who knew and composed the history of his country, write these words! Had Livy forgotten, what he himself so often relates, that the Romans were in the habit of taking hostages, not only from recently conquered barbarians, but from their old Italian allies? (Compare Livy, xxv. 7; xxix. 3); and what else was it but a triste servitium' that drove the subjected people of Sicily and Sardinia to rebellion? 2 Polybius, x. 18. Livy, xxvi. 49. joins the Roman army as a faithful ally, at the head of a picked body of 1,400 horse. If we compare the simple story of Polybius with the little novel into which it is worked up by Livy, we may in some measure understand how many stories were expanded by a natural process of gradual growth and development. The characteristics of fiction are often unmistakable, but it is not often possible to lay them bare by documentary evidence. If our sources could be traced even beyond Polybius, we should perhaps find that the whole story of Scipio's generosity towards captured ladies emanates from the desire of comparing him with Alexander the Great, who in a similar manner treated the family of Darius after the battle of Issos.' CHAP. VIII. FIFTH PERIOD, 211-207 B.C. Effects of the fall of In the narrative of the great Hannibalian war, which was carried on simultaneously in so many different parts, we cannot sometimes avoid shifting the scenes suddenly, and thage. turning our attention away from events before they have reached a sort of natural conclusion. The taking of New Carthage determined the fate of the Carthaginian dominion in Spain, which now rested on the distant town of Gades That this comparison is at the bottom of the whole story seems to result from a passage of Gellius (vi. 8, 3): 'Lepida quæstio agitari potest, utrum videri continentiorem par sit, Publiumne Africanum Superiorem, qui Carthagine, ampla civitate in Hispania, expugnata, virginem tempestivam forma egregia, nobilis viri Hispani filiam, captam perductamque ad se, patri inviolatam reddidit; an regem Alexandrum, qui Darii regis uxorem, eandemque eiusdem sororem, prælio magno captam, quam esse audiebat exsuperanti forma, videre noluit, producique ad se prohibuit.' That the alleged occurrence is not a historical fact, but a mere fiction, follows from the freedom with which Valerius Antias (not a very trustworthy author, it is true) relates (according to Gellius, loc. cit.) the very opposite, viz.: Eam puellam non redditam patri, sed retentam a Scipione atque in deliciis amoribusque ab eo usurpatam.' It appears that Scipio's virtue was, even in his own lifetime, not in good odour. If his friends tried to give vouchers for it, by such stories as the one in question, his enemies gave them a wrong turn, which made them prove the very opposite; and they could refer as to an admitted fact, pıroyivnv elvai тdν пóñλιov (Polybius, x. 19, § 3; compare Gellius, vi. 8), a circumstance without which the whole story would be without a point. In conclusion, let us remark that it is difficult to see where and how the Roman youths' got possession of the noble Spanish lady. If she was one of the hostages, as we may infer, she could not, as a chance captive, fall into the hands of some chance captors, but was, by her position, secured from the brutal treatment to which Scipio's young friends destined her. BOOK IV. Disposi tion of the Italian towns. Difficulties of Hannibal's posi tion. Betrayal of Marcellus. alone; but before we can trace the sequel of events which led to the total expulsion of the Carthaginians, we must watch the progress of the war in Italy, where, as long as Hannibal commanded an unconquered Punic army, the Romans had still most to fear and the Carthaginians to hope. The re-conquest of Capua in 211 B.c. was by far the most decisive success which the Roman arms had gained in the whole course of the war. With Capua Hannibal lost the most beautiful fruit of his greatest victory. He had now no longer any stronghold in Campania, and was in consequence obliged to retire into the southern parts of the peninsula. It became more and more difficult for him. to maintain the Italian towns that had joined him. The Italians had lost confidence in his star. Everywhere the adherents of Rome gained ground, and the temptation became greater to purchase her forgiveness by a timely return to obedience, coupled, if possible, with a betrayal of the Punic garrisons. Thus Hannibal's ingenious plan of overpowering Rome with the aid of her allies had failed. How could he now hope, after the fall and dreadful punishment of Capua, to win over the smaller Italian towns which had hitherto remained faithful to Rome? Those who had previously rebelled he could protect only by strong detachments of his army from internal treason and from the attacks of enemies without. But he could not spare the men necessary for such a service, and he did not like to expose his best troops to the danger of being betrayed and cut off in detail. It seemed, therefore, advisable rather to give up untenable towns voluntarily than to risk the safety of valuable troops in their defence. The necessity of such measures became apparent by the treason which in the year 210 delivered Salapia into the hands of the Romans. Salapia, one of the larger towns of Apulia, had joined the cause of Hannibal soon after the battle of Cannæ. It contained a garrison of five hundred picked Numidians. After the fall of Capua, the Roman |