CHAP. VIII. SEVENTH PERIOD, B.C. Conditions of a peace and those of an armistice have been mixed up together. The demand of pay for the Roman troops for the duration of a truce had long been customary. This money was paid immediately by the Carthaginians.' In 204-201 the same manner the evacuation of Italy by the Carthaginian army was certainly a condition preliminary to the of the negotiations for peace, i.e. a condition of the armistice. It armistice. could not possibly be the intention of the Romans that, while the armies were at rest in Africa, the war should still be carried on in Italy. We know very well that the greatest desire of the Roman people was the withdrawal of Hannibal from Italy. We also know that the senate, on principle, negotiated with no enemy for peace so long as hostile troops were in Italy. It is therefore certain that the recall of Hannibal and Mago, which in a treaty of peace was a matter of course, belonged not to the conditions of peace but to those of an armistice, and this supposition is absolutely necessary if we wish to understand the conduct of the Carthaginians on the renewal of hostilities, which took place soon after. dors at Rome. When the Carthaginian ambassadors reached Rome, Reception Lælius had just been there with the captive Syphax and an of the Carthaginian embassy from Masinissa, and both senate and people had ambassaconvinced themselves, by personal observation, that Carthage, deprived of her most powerful ally, would not be in a position to carry on the war much longer. This accounts for the contemptuous treatment which the Carthaginians met with in the senate. Although the Roman prisoners had been already released, in the expectation that the conditions was demanded. Such a payment was the usual condition of an armistice.—— See Livy, viii. 2; viii. 36; ix. 41. 1 Appian, viii. 31. 2 When Hannibal did leave Italy, a thank-offering of 120 large animals was made, and a festival of five days celebrated (Livy, xxx. 21), and the senate and people voted to the old Fabius a crown of grass.-Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxii. 5, 10. According to Zonaras (ix. 13) the senate refused to admit the Carthaginian ambassadors until this condition should be complied with.- Compare Dion Cassius, frgm. ix. 153. BOOK Recall and death of Mago. of peace would be accepted,' the ambassadors were not admitted before the senate till after the departure of Hannibal and Mago from Italy.' Then new difficulties were raised. According to the report of Livy the peace was not ratified, and the Carthaginian ambassadors returned home almost without an answer.3 Polybius says that the senate and people in Rome approved the conditions of peace. If this last report be true, some alterations in the treaty must have been proposed in Rome, on the acceptance of which by Carthage the peace depended. On this supposition only can we understand how in Rome and in the Scipionic camp the peace could be considered to be concluded, while in point of fact the war continued up to the time when Carthage would have consented to the proposed alterations. 6 In Carthage there had been for some time past a growing opinion that Hannibal ought to be recalled from Italy,5 but before entering into negotiations for peace with Scipio the senate had adhered strictly to its old plan of keeping the enemy occupied in his own country. When the Roman expedition to Africa was in contemplation, Mago had received a considerable reinforcement, had marched from Genoa over the Apennines, and had again roused the Gauls to renew the war against Rome. He met in the country of the Insubrians a Roman army of four legions, under the prætor P. Quintilius Varus and the proconsul M. Cornelius Cethegus; and in the battle which ensued the Romans could hardly have been victorious, as they own to heavy losses and do not boast of having taken any prisoners. Mago, however, was severely wounded, and this mishap was sufficient to cripple his movements. Under these circumstances the order reached him from Carthage to leave Italy. He returned to Genoa and embarked his 'According to Livy (xxx. 16) the Carthaginians restored only 200 prisoners; according to Dion Cassius (frgm. 153) they sent them all back. 2 This is particularly evident from the narrative of Dion Cassius (frgm. 153) 3 Livy, xxx. 23: 'Legati pace infecta ac prope sine responso dimissi.' Polybius, xv. 1, 4, 8. • Livy, xxx. 9. See above, p. 426. VIII. army, but died, in consequence of his wounds, before he CHAP. reached Africa.1 His army, however, arrived, without hindrance or loss, clearly under the protection of the armistice. SEVENTH PERIOD, 204-201 B.C. of Hanni of Mace The time had now come when Hannibal was at last obliged to renounce his long-cherished hopes of over- Relations throwing the Roman power on Italian soil. The last bal with three years brought him one bitter disappointment after the king another. After the defeat and death of Hasdrubal and the donia. loss of Spain, one faint hope still remained—a vigorous participation in the war on the part of Macedonia. But this hope also disappeared. King Philip did nothing to carry the war into Italy, and confined himself to keeping the chief power in Greece and conquering a part of Illyria. The Romans had since 207 devoted but little attention to affairs on the east of the Adriatic Sea, and when, in the year 205, they could not prevent the hard-pressed Ætolians from concluding a peace with Philip,' they did the same, and in order to satisfy the Macedonian king, they resigned to him a part of their possessions in Illyria.3 After this, a new prospect opened for Hannibal. The march of Mago to the north of Gaul was the last attempt which Carthage made to carry out Hannibal's original plan. It was undertaken with great energy, and seemed to promise success, when the negotiations for peace put an end to it. As for Hannibal's strategy in the last years of the war, it Whoever is tolerably familiar with the character of Roman descriptions of battles cannot fail to see that Mago was victorious in his last engagement with the Roman legions. Livy (xxx. 18) finishes with the remark that the battle would have lasted longer if, by the wound of the Carthaginian leader, victory had not been acknowledged to be on the Roman side.' No lost battle ends like this. If the severely wounded Mago had been defeated, it is quite evident that the four legions must have pursued and overtaken him on the long march from the Milanese to Genoa. But the Carthaginians were not even harassed on their march. This can be explained only by the circumstance that their march was undertaken in consequence of an order from home, and not of a defeat. According to Livy's narrative, it happened by the merest chance that the order to return reached Mago, when he had already determined to return, and was actually engaged in embarking his troops. Such a coincidence is possible, but hardly probable. 2 See above, p. 414. 3 9 Livy, xxix. 12. BOOK The bronze tablets of was confined to defending that corner of Italy which he still occupied, and the area of which was growing less from year to year. How Locri was lost has already been related. Hannibal's last stronghold was Croton. From that place he still defied the Roman legions, and succeeded, when hard pressed, in inflicting serious losses.' At no period does the generalship of Hannibal appear in a more brilliant light. How he succeeded, with the scanty remnants of his victorious army, with the pressed Italian recruits, emancipated slaves and fugitives, without any other resources than those which the small exhausted land of the Bruttians afforded, in keeping together an armed force, animated with warlike spirit, severely trained to discipline and obedience, supplied with arms and other necessaries of war—an army which was capable not only of steady resistance, but which repeatedly inflicted on the enemy bloody repulses-this the Roman annalists have not related. If they had been honest enough to represent in true colours the greatness of their most formidable enemy in his adversity, they would have been obliged also to paint the incompetence of their own consuls and prætors, and to confess with shame that they had not one single man able to cope with the great Punian. Hannibal, as if he had had a foreboding of his enemies' Hannibal, love of detraction, made use of the leisure which their fear granted him to record his exploits in Italy. Like all great men, he was not indifferent to the judgment of posterity, and he foresaw that this judgment must be unfavourable to him if it rested on Roman reports alone. 1 Livy, xxix. 36, 4. The Roman writers have recorded victories over Hannibal too mendacious for themselves to believe' (Arnold, Hist. of Rome, iii. 443). A sample of such lies is found in Livy xxx. 19, where the author is honest enough to remark: 'Obscura eius pugnæ fama est. Valerius Antias quinque millia hostium cæsa ait, quæ tanta res est, ut aut impudenter ficta sit, aut negligenter prætermissa.' In the spirit of the oldest annals, the same event is related several times; for instance, the taking of Consentia three times (Livy, xxv. 1; xxix. 38; xxx. 19); that of Clampetia twice (Livy, xxix. 38; xxx. 19). Livy does not say a word too much in the beautiful passage (xxviii. 12) in which he expresses this opinion. CHAP. VIII. SEVENTH PERIOD, B.C. He therefore caused to be engraved on bronze tablets in the temple of Juno on the Lacinian promontory, near Croton, an account of the principal events of the war, in the Greek and Punic languages. These bronze tablets 204-201 Polybius saw and made use of, and we may be sure that the most trustworthy accounts of the second Punic war were taken from this source. Unfortunately the history of Polybius is completely preserved only for the period ending with the battle at Cannæ. Of the latter books of Polybius we have mere fragments, the only complete and connected account of the Hannibalian war being that of Livy, who unhesitatingly made use of the most mendacious Roman annalists, such, for instance, as the impudent Valerius of Antium. Thus the memoirs of Hannibal are for the most part lost to us, owing to the same cruel fate which persecuted him to his death and even after his death; and Rome not only prevailed over her most formidable enemy in the field, but her historians were enabled to obtain for themselves alone the ear of posterity, and thus to perpetuate to their liking the national triumph. Thus alone can it be explained that historians, even up Slanderous to the present day, have recorded, as Hannibal's last act in charges against Italy, a crime, which, if it deserved credit, would place Hannibal. him among the most execrable monsters of all times. It is affirmed that he ordered those Italian soldiers' who declined to follow him into Africa to be murdered in the sanctuary of the Lacinian Juno, and that he thus violated with equal scorn all human feelings and the sanctity of the temple. We have had already an opportunity of refuting charges such as these, and we do not hesitate to call this accusation a gross calumny. The act cannot be reconciled with Hannibal's character. He was not capable of 3 1 According to Diodorus (xxvii. p. 111, Tauchnitz) their number was 2,000. Livy (xxx. 20) says they were 'many.' 2 Appian (vii. 58) adds that Hannibal caused those Italian towns which were still in his possession to be plundered, for the purpose of satisfying his army, and that this gave occasion to murders, violation of women, the capture of men, and all the horrors to which towns taken by storm are exposed. See above, p. 252. |