BOOK IV. Probable causes of the success of the Romans. hitherto been on their side, joined the Romans. Even Segesta, the old and faithful ally of Carthage in Sicily, made use of its alleged Trojan origin, to ask favourable conditions from Rome, and killed the Carthaginian garrison as a proof of its attachment to its new ally. Thus, in a short time, and without much exertion, the Romans gained a position in Sicily which the Carthaginians had for centuries aimed at in vain. Compared with the rapid and successful action of the Romans in the beginning of the war, the movements of the Carthaginians appear to have been singularly slow and weak. Before the breaking out of hostilities, the advantage had been decidedly on their side. They had military possession of Messana; with their fleet they so completely commanded the straits that in the conscious pride of their superiority their admiral declared that the Romans should not without his permission even wash their hands in the sea. The resources of almost the whole of Sicily were at their disposal, and the communication with Africa was at all times secure. Whether the important city of Messana was lost by the incapacity or timidity of Hanno, who paid with his life for his evacuation of the citadel, or through an exaggerated fear of a breach with Rome, or by confidence in Roman moderation, it is not possible to decide. Nor do we know how the Romans the memory of events had faded away, and until fiction had gradually acquired credence enough, by dint of frequent repetition in the family circle, to venture into publicity. There cannot be any doubt, therefore, that the date given by Pliny for the public exhibition of the picture is false. Pliny thought he could not go wrong in naming the year of the consulship of Valerius as that in which the picture was painted, and put up in the senate-house; and he showed here, as on many other occasions, his want of judgment. His statement is of no value whatever for the history of art. Like the lying epitaph of Scipio Barbatus (see vol. i. p. 459), this alleged historical painting originated many years after the death of the man whose glory it was intended to perpetuate. It is one of the proofs of the worthlessness of the Capitoline fasti, that they record a triumph of Valerius over the Punians and Hiero, king of the Siculi. After this proof of the unscrupulous vanity of the Valerii it is no matter of surprise that they ascribe the first application of the name Messala to the consul of the year 263, though he neither took the place nor (as Seneca says: De Brevitate Vite, 13) had the honour of defending it. 2 Zonaras, viii. 9. CHAP. III. FIRST B.C. were able, in the face of a hostile fleet, to cross the straits with an army of 10,000 men, and in the year after with double that number. It seems that this could not have been PERIOD, easy even with the assistance of the ships of Rhegium, 264-262 Tarentum, Neapolis, Locri, and other Greek towns in Italy, for even the assembling of these ships in the straits might have been prevented. The small strip of water which separates Sicily from Italy was sufficient in modern times to limit the French power to the continent, and, under the protection of the English fleet, to save Sicily for the Bourbons. How was it that the same straits, even at the first trial, caused the Romans no greater difficulties than any broad river? Was the Carthaginian fleet too small. to prevent their crossing by force? Was it the result simply of negligence, or of one of the innumerable circumstances which place warlike operations by sea so far beyond all calculation? Apparently, Carthage did not expect a war with Rome, and was wholly unprepared for it. This may be inferred with tolerable certainty, not only from the result of their first encounter with the Romans in Messana, but also from the fact that in the second year of the war they left Hiero unsupported, and thus compelled him to throw himself into the arms of the Romans.' effort of 262 B.C. The gravity of their position was now apparent, and Renewed induced them to make preparations for the third campaign the Caron a more extensive scale. For the basis of their opera- thaginians, tions they chose Agrigentum. This town, which since its conquest and destruction by the Carthaginians in the year 405, had alternately been under Carthaginian and Syracusan dominion, had by the aid of Timoleon acquired a precarious independence, but had never recovered its 1 One cause of their weakness we learn accidentally from Zonaras (viii. 9). On the breaking out of hostilities, the Carthaginians caused the Italian mercenaries who served in their army to be massacred. We are not informed of the strength of this body of troops. If the Punic garrison of Messana consisted of such men, who, as countrymen of the Mamertines, were favourably disposed towards them, the loss of Messana is easily explained. At any rate, the position of the Carthaginian generals was very precarious if they had recourse to such a desperate measure as the massacre of their own troops. Polybius, i. 17, § 3. BOOK IV. The Romans besiege Agrigen tum. former splendour. Situated on a rocky plateau surrounded by steep precipices at the confluence of the brooks Hypsos and Akragas, it was naturally so strong as to appear impregnable at a time when the art of besieging cities was so little advanced; but as it was not immediately on the coast' and had no harbour, it was impossible to supply it with provisions by sea. It is therefore strange that the Carthaginians should choose just this town for their basis, instead of their strongest fortress, Lilybæum. Probably, the choice was determined by the closer vicinity of Syracuse and Messana, the conquest of which they had by no means ceased to hope for. The consuls for the year 262, L. Postumius Megellus and Q. Mamilius Vitulus, marched with all their forces' against Agrigentum, where Hannibal was stationed for the protection of the magazines with an army of mercenaries so inferior in numbers that he could not hazard a battle. They set to work in the slow and tedious mode of attack which they had learnt in Latium and Samnium, and which, when they had superior numbers at their command, could not fail eventually to lead to success.3 Outside the town they established two fortified camps in the east and the west, and united these by a double line of trenches, so that they were secured against sallies from the besieged as well as from any attacks of an army that might come to relieve the town. After they had cut off all communications, See Haltaus, Röm. Gesch. i. 160. 1845. Siefert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, 2 The army must have consisted of two consular armies or four legions, although after the conclusion of the peace with Hiero in the preceding year the Romans had hoped that two legions would suffice for carrying on the war in Sicily (Polybius, i. 17, § 1). Moreover, we may presume that all their allies, especially the Syracusans and Mamertines, sent auxiliaries. To blockade so large a town as Agrigentum a much larger force was necessary than four legions. According to the Agrigentine historian Philinus (quoted by Diodorus, xxiii. ff. 7), the army of the Romans and their allies consisted of 100,000 men. Fours years later, at the siege of Camarina, the Romans tried their own national mode of attack, and when this failed, they employed Greek engines of siege, supplied by Hiero, and thus succeeded in taking Camarina.-Diodorus, xxiii. ff. 9. CHAP. III. FIRST they quietly awaited the effects of hunger, which could not fail soon to show themselves. By the prompt assistance of their Sicilian allies, especially of Hiero, they were amply supplied with provisions, which were collected by 264-262 them in the neighbouring town of Erbessus. PERIOD, B.C. Hanno. But when, after five months' siege, a Carthaginian army Defeat of under Hanno marched from Heraclea to relieve the town, the situation of the Romans began to be serious, especially after Hanno had succeeded in taking the town of Erbessus with all the stores in it. The besiegers now experienced almost as much distress as the besieged. They began to suffer want and privation, although Hiero did all that was possible to send them new supplies. An attack on the town promised as little success as one on the army of Hanno, who had taken up a strong position on a hill in the immediate neighbourhood of the Romans. The consuls already thought of raising the siege, which had lasted almost seven months, when fire signals from the town, giving notice of the increasing distress of the besieged, induced Hanno to offer battle. With the courage of despair, the Romans accepted it, and obtained a decisive and brilliant victory. The Carthaginians, it appears, now for the first time made use of elephants, which they had learnt to apply to the purposes of war during either the invasion of Agathokles in Africa or of Pyrrhus in Sicily. But these animals seem on this occasion, as on many others, to have done more harm than good. Almost all fell into the hands of the Romans. The fragments of the Carthaginian army fled to Heraclea, leaving their camp, with rich spoils, to the victorious army. the Carthaginian under In the night following this victory, Hannibal took Escape of advantage of the exhaustion and confusion in the Roman army secretly to leave Agrigentum and to slip away un- garrison noticed over the Roman lines. In this manner, he saved Hannibal. at least a part of his army, after it had been materially weakened by hunger and desertion. But the miserable inhabitants of the town, who doubtless had unwillingly shared in the struggle and in the horrors of a seven BOOK Historical value of the narra tive. months' siege, were doomed to pay the penalty for the escape of the Carthaginians. They were all sold as slaves, and so for the second time the splendid city of Akragas perished, after it had nearly recovered from the devastation caused by the Carthaginians. But new settlers soon gathered again on this favoured spot. Even in the course of the same war, Agrigentum became again the theatre of some hardly-contested struggles between Carthaginians and Romans; and not until it had been conquered and laid waste in the wars with Hannibal for the third time did it cease to exist as a Greek town. With such persistent energy did the Greeks cling to the spots where they had set up their household hearths and their temples, and where they had intrusted to the mother earth the ashes of their dead. The siege of Agrigentum is the first event in the military history of Rome which is historically authenticated not only in its final result but to some extent also in the details of its progress.2 The earlier descriptions of According to Diodorus (xxiii. ff. 9), 25,000 in number. 2 Nevertheless, much remains obscure, and the numbers especially are by no means to be trusted. That the Romans employed not one but two consular armies is certain beyond dispute, as it is admitted that both consuls took part in the siege. Yet Polybius does not distinctly state this, and even suggests the contrary by saying (i. 17) that the senate had resolved to carry on the war in Sicily with only one consular army. He omitted to relate that this resolution was subsequently modified. He also neglects altogether to mention the Sicilian auxiliaries of the Romans, who, according to Diodorus (xxiii. ff. 7), swelled the whole army to 100,000 men. Moreover, we cannot ascertain the strength of the Carthaginian garrison of Agrigentum under Hannibal. Polybius (i. 18), speaking of the sufferings caused by famine, says that not less than 50,000 men were shut up in the town. Did he include in this number the inhabitants of Agrigentum, or only the men capable of bearing arms? or did he estimate the Carthaginian garrison alone at this figure? The army of Hanno, which came to the relief of the town, numbered, according to Philinus (quoted by Diodorus, xxiii. ff. 8), 50,000 foot and 6,000 horse; according to Orosius (iv. 7), only 30,000 foot and 1,500 horse. Polybius says that but few escaped of this army, while according to Diodorus its loss amounted only to 7,200 men. These discrepancies, which betray their origin in the writings of Philinus and Fabius Pictor respectively, cannot now be reconciled. We should like also to be authentically informed of the extent of the Roman losses, which Diodorus (xxiii. ff. 9) no doubt exaggerates by making them amount to 30,000 foot and 540 horse. |