A History of Rome to 565 A. D Part 6

But since the power of the G.o.ds could affect the community as well as the individual, it was necessary for the state to observe with the same scrupulous care as the latter its obligations towards them. The knowledge of these obligations and how they were to be performed const.i.tuted the sacred law of Rome, which became a very important part of the public law.

This sacred law was guarded by the priesthood, and here we have the source of the power of the pontiffs in the Roman state. The pontiffs not only preserved the sacred traditions and customs but they also added to them by interpretation and the establishment of new precedents. The pontiffs themselves performed or supervised the performance of all public acts of a purely religious nature, and likewise prescribed the ritual to be observed by the magistrate in initiating public acts.

On the other hand the power of the augurs rested upon the belief that the G.o.ds issued their warnings to men through natural signs, and that it was possible to discover the att.i.tude of the G.o.ds towards any contemplated human action by the observation of natural phenomena. For the augurs were the guardians of the science of the interpretation of such signs or auspices in so far as the state was concerned. The magistrate initiating any important public act had to take the auspices, and if the augurs declared any flaw therein or held that any unfavorable omen had occurred during the performance of the said act, they could suspend the magistrate's action or render it invalid.

So we see that the Roman priests were not intermediaries between the individual Roman and his G.o.ds, but rather, as has been pointed out before, officers in charge of one branch of the public administration. They were responsible for the due observance of the public religious acts, just as the head of the household supervised the performance of the family cult.

*The cult of the household.* It is in the cult of the household that we can best see the true Roman religious ideas. The chief divinities of the household were: Ja.n.u.s, the spirit of the doorway; Vesta, the spirit of the fire on the hearth; the Penates, the guardian spirits of the store-chamber; the Lar Familiaris, which we may perhaps regard as the spirit of the cultivated land; and the Genius of the head of the house, originally, it is probable, the spirit of his generative powers, which became symbolic of the life of the family as a whole.

The Romans, strictly speaking, did not practice ancestor-worship. But they believed that the spirits of the departed were affected by the ministrations of the living, and, in case these were omitted, might exercise a baneful influence upon the fortunes of their descendants. Hence came the obligation to remember the dead with offerings at stated times in the year.

*The cult of the fields.* As early Rome was essentially an agricultural community, most of its divinities and festivals had to do with the various phases of agricultural life. Festivals of the sowing, the harvest, the vineyard and the like, were annually celebrated in common, at fixed seasons, by the households of the various _pagi_.

*The state cult.* The public or state cult of Rome consisted mainly in the performance of certain of the rites of the household and of the _pagi_ by or for the people as a whole. The state cult of Vesta and of the Penates, as well as the festival of the Ambarvalia, the annual solemn purification of the fields, are of this nature. But, in addition, the state religion included the worship of certain divinities whose personalities and powers were conceived with greater distinctness. At the beginning of the Republic the chief of these G.o.ds were the triad Juppiter, Juno, and Minerva.

Juppiter Optimus Maximus, called also Capitolinus from his place of worship, was originally a G.o.d of the sky. But, adorned with various other attributes, he was finally worshipped as the chief protecting divinity of the Roman State. Juno was the female counterpart of Juppiter and was the great patron G.o.ddess of women. Another important deity was Mars, at one time an agricultural divinity, who in the state religion developed into the G.o.d of warlike, "martial," activities.

*Foreign influences.* It was in connection with the state worship that foreign influences were first felt. Indeed, it is probable that the a.s.sociation of Juppiter with Juno and Minerva was due to contact with Etruria. It was from the Etruscans also that the Romans derived their knowledge of temple construction, the earliest example of which was probably the temple of Juppiter on the Capitoline said to have been dedicated in 508 B. C. The use of images was likewise due to Etruscan influences, although here as in other respects Greek ideas may have been at work. In general the Romans did not regard the G.o.ds of strange people with hostility, but rather admitted their power and sought to conciliate them. Thus they frequently transferred to Rome the G.o.ds of states that they had conquered or absorbed. Other foreign divinities, too, on various grounds were added to the circle of the divine protectors of the Roman state.

*Religion and morality.* From the foregoing sketch it will be seen that the Roman religion did not have profound moral and elevating influences.

Its hold upon the Roman people was chiefly due to the fact that it symbolized the unity of the various groups whose members partic.i.p.ated in the same worship; i. e. the unity of the family and the unity of the state. Nevertheless, the idea of obligation inherent in the Roman conception of the relation between G.o.ds and men and the stress laid upon the exact performance of ritual inevitably developed among the Romans a strong sense of duty, a moral factor of considerable value. Further, the power of precedent and tradition in their religion helped to develop and strengthen the conservatism so characteristic of the Roman people.

II. EARLY ROMAN SOCIETY

*The household.* The cornerstone of the Roman social structure was the household (_familia_). That is to say, the state was an a.s.sociation of households, and it was the individual's position in a household that determined his status in the early community. The Roman household was a larger unit than our family. It comprised the father or head of the household (_pater familias_), his wife, his sons with their wives and children, if they had such, his unmarried daughters, and the household slaves.

*The patria potestas.* The _pater familias_ possessed authority over all other members of the household. His power over the free members was called _patria potestas_, "paternal authority"; over the slaves it was _dominium_, "lordship." This paternal authority was in theory unrestricted and gave the father the right to inflict the death penalty upon those under his power. But, in practice, the exercise of the _patria potestas_ was limited by custom and by the habit of consulting the older male members of the household before any important action was taken.

The household estate (_res familiaris_) was administered by the head of the household. At the death of a _pater familias_ his sons in turn became the head of _familiae_, dividing the estate. The mother and unmarried daughters, if surviving, now pa.s.sed into the power of a son or the next nearest male relative of the deceased. Although the Roman women were thus continually in the position of wards, they nevertheless took a prominent part in the life of the household and did not live the restricted and secluded lives of the women of Athens and the Greek cities of Asia.

Membership in the household was reckoned only through male descent, for daughters when they married pa.s.sed out of the _ma.n.u.s_ or "power" of the head of their own household into that of the head of the household to which their husbands belonged.

*Education.* The training of the Roman youth at this time was mainly of a practical nature. There was as yet little interest in intellectual pursuits and no Roman literature had been developed. The art of writing, it is true, had long been known and was employed in the keeping of records and accounts. Such instruction as there was, was given by the father to his sons. It consisted probably of athletic exercises, of practical training in agricultural pursuits, in the traditions of the state and of the Roman heroes, and in the conduct of public business through attendance at places where this was transacted.

At the age of eighteen the young Roman entered upon a new footing in relation to the state. He was now liable to military service and qualified to attend the _comitia_. In these respects he was emanc.i.p.ated from the paternal authority. If he attained a magistracy, his father obeyed him like any other citizen.

The discipline and respect for authority which was acquired in the family life was carried with him by the Roman into his public relations, and this sense of duty was perhaps the strongest quality in the Roman character. It was supplemented by the characteristic Roman seriousness (_gravitas_), developed under the stress of the long struggles for existence waged by the early Roman state. In the Roman the highest virtue was piety (_pietas_), which meant the dutiful performance of all one's obligations, to the G.o.ds, to one's kinsmen, and to the state. The Romans were preeminently a practical people, and their practical virtues laid the foundation for their political greatness.

*The mos maiorum.* We have already referred to the conservatism of the Romans, and have seen how this characteristic was affected by their religious beliefs. It was further strengthened by the respect paid to parental authority and by the absence of intellectual training. In public affairs this conservatism was shown by the influence of ancestral custom-the _mos maiorum_. In the Roman government this became a very potent factor, since the Roman const.i.tution was not a single comprehensive doc.u.ment but consisted of a number of separate enactments supplemented by custom and precedent and interpreted in the light thereof.

CHAPTER VIII

ROMAN DOMINATION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN; THE FIRST PHASE-THE STRUGGLE WITH CARTHAGE; 265201 B. C.

I. THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN 265 B. C.

*Rome a world power.* With the unification of the Italian peninsula Rome entered upon a new era in her foreign relations. She was now one of the great powers of the Mediterranean world and was inevitably drawn into the vortex of world politics. She could no longer rest indifferent to what went on beyond the confines of Italy. She a.s.sumed new responsibilities, opened up new diplomatic relations, developed a new outlook and new ambitions. At this time the other first-cla.s.s powers were, in the east, the three h.e.l.lenistic monarchies-Egypt, Syria, and Macedon,-which had emerged from the ruins of the empire of Alexander the Great, and, in the west, the city state of Carthage.

*Egypt.* The kingdom of Egypt, ruled by the dynasty of the Ptolemies, comprised the ancient kingdom of Egypt in the Nile valley, Cyrene, the coast of Syria, Cyprus, and a number of cities on the sh.o.r.es and islands of the Aegean Sea. In Egypt the Ptolemies ruled as foreigners over the subject native population. They maintained their authority by a small mercenary army recruited chiefly from Macedonians and Greeks, and by a strongly centralized administration, of which the offices were in Greek hands. As the ruler was the sole proprietor of the land of Egypt, the native Egyptians, the majority of whom were peasants who gained their livelihood by tilling the rich soil of the Nile valley, were for the most part tenants of the crown, and the restrictions and obligations to which they were subject rendered their status little better than that of serfs.

A highly developed but oppressive system of taxation and government monopolies, largely an inheritance from previous dynasties, enabled the Ptolemies to wring from their subjects the revenues with which they maintained a brilliant court life at their capital, Alexandria, and financed their imperial policy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Expansion of Rome in the Mediterranean World 26544 B. C.]

The aim of this policy was to secure Egyptian domination in the Aegean, among the states of Southern Greece, and in Phoenicia, whose value lay in the forests of the Lebanon mountains. To carry it into effect the Ptolemies were obliged to support a navy which would give them the command of the sea in the eastern Mediterranean. However, the occupation of their outlying possessions brought Egypt into perpetual conflict with Macedon and Syria, whose rulers made continued efforts to oust the Ptolemies from the Aegean and from the Syrian coast.

*Syria.* Syria, the kingdom of the Seleucids, with its capital at Antioch on the Orontes, was by far the largest of the h.e.l.lenistic monarchies in extent and population, and in wealth it ranked next to Egypt. It stretched from the Aegean to the borders of India, and included the southern part of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Persia, and northern Syria. But the very size of this kingdom was a source of weakness, because of the distances which separated its various provinces and the heterogeneous racial elements which it embraced. The power of the dynasty was upheld, as in Egypt, by a mercenary army, and also by the Greek cities which had been founded in large numbers by Alexander the Great and his successors. However, these islands of Greek culture did not succeed to any great extent in h.e.l.lenizing the native populations which remained in a state of subjection, indifferent or hostile to their conquerors. Furthermore the strength of the Seleucid empire was sapped by repeated revolts in its eastern provinces and dissensions between the members of the dynasty itself.

*Macedon.* The kingdom of Macedon, ruled by the house of the Antigonids, was the smallest of the three in extent, population and resources, but possessed an internal strength and solidarity lacking in the others. For in Macedon, the Antigonids, by preserving the traditional character of the patriarchal monarchy, kept alive the national spirit of the Macedonians and made them loyal to the dynasty. They also retained a military system which fostered the traditions of the times of Philip II and Alexander, and which, since the Macedonian people had not lost its martial character, furnished a small but efficient national army. Outside of Macedon, the Antigonids held sway over Thessaly and the eastern part of Greece as far south as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their attempts to dominate the whole peninsula were thwarted by the opposition of the Aetolian and Achaian Confederacies, who were supported in this by the Ptolemies.

*The minor Greek states.* In addition to these three great monarchies we should note as powers of minor importance the Confederacies mentioned before, the kingdom of Pergamon on the northwest coast of Asia Minor, the island republic of Rhodes, which was a naval power of considerable strength, and the kingdom of Syracuse in Sicily, the last of the independent Greek cities on that island.

*Carthage.* The fourth world power was Carthage, a city state situated on the northern coast of Africa, opposite the western end of the island of Sicily, which had created for itself an empire that controlled the western half of the Mediterranean. Carthage was founded as a colony of the Phoenician city of Tyre about 814 B. C. In the sixth century, with the pa.s.sing of the cities of Phoenicia under the domination, first of Babylon, and later of the Persian Empire, their colonies in the western Mediterranean severed political ties with their mother land and had henceforth to maintain themselves by their own efforts.

*The Carthaginian Empire.* Their weakness was the opportunity of Carthage, which, in the sixth and following centuries, brought under her control the other Phoenician settlements, in addition to founding new colonies of her own. She also extended her sway over the native Libyan population in the vicinity of Carthage. These Libyans were henceforth tributary and under the obligation of rendering military service to the Carthaginians: similar obligations rested upon the dependent Phoenician allies. In the third century the Carthaginian empire included the northern coast of Africa from the Gulf of Syrtis westwards beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, the southern and eastern coasts of Spain as far north as Cape Nao, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, with the exception of Messana in the extreme northeast and the Kingdom of Syracuse in the southeastern part of the island. The smaller islands of the western Mediterranean were likewise under Carthaginian control.

*The government of Carthage.* At this time the government of Carthage itself was republican in form and strongly aristocratic in tone. There was a primary a.s.sembly for all Carthaginian citizens who could satisfy certain age and property requirements. This body annually elected the two chief magistrates or suffetes, and likewise the generals. For the former qualifications of wealth and merit were prescribed. There was also a Senate, and a Council, whose organization and powers are uncertain. The Council, the smaller body, prepared the matters to be discussed in the Senate, which was consulted by the Suffetes on all matters and usually gave the final decision, although the a.s.sembly was supposed to be consulted in case the Senate and Suffetes disagreed. The Suffetes exercised judicial, financial and religious functions, and presided over the council and senate. The Carthaginian aristocracy, like that of Venice, was a group of wealthy families whose fortunes, made in commercial ventures, were handed down for generations in the same houses. From this circle came the members of the council and senate, who directed the policy of the state. The aristocracy itself was split into factions, struggling to control the offices and through them the public policy, which they frequently subordinated to their own particular interests.

*The commercial policy of Carthage.* The prosperity of Carthage depended upon her empire and the maintenance of a commercial monopoly in the western Mediterranean. This policy of commercial exclusiveness had caused Carthage to oppose Greek colonial expansion in Spain, Sardinia and Sicily, and had led to treaties which placed definite limits upon the trading ventures of the Romans and their allies, and of the Greeks from Ma.s.salia and her colonies in France and northern Spain.

*Carthaginian naval and **military** strength.* Such a policy could only be maintained by a strong naval power, and, in fact, Carthage was the undisputed mistress of the seas west of the straits of Messana. Unlike Rome, however, Carthage had no organized national army but relied upon an army of mercenaries recruited from all quarters of the Mediterranean, among such warlike peoples as the Gauls, Spaniards, Libyans and Greeks.

Although brave and skillful fighters, these, like all troops of the type, were liable to become dispirited and mutinous under continued reverses or when faced by shortage of pay and plunder.

Such was the state with which Rome was now brought face to face by the conquest of South Italy and which was the first power she was to challenge in a war for dominion beyond the peninsula. As we have seen, Rome had long ere this come into contact with this great maritime people.(4) Two treaties, one perhaps dating from the close of the sixth century, and the other from 348 B. C., regulated commercial intercourse between the two states and their respective subjects and allies. A third, concluded in 279, had provided for military cooperation against Pyrrhus, but this alliance had ceased after the defeat of the latter, and with the removal of this common enemy a feeling of coolness or mutual suspicion seems to have arisen between the erstwhile allies.

II. THE FIRST PUNIC WAR: 264241 B. C.

*The origins of the war.* The first war between Rome and Carthage arose out of the political situation in the island of Sicily. There the town of Messana was occupied by the Mamertini, a band of Campanian mercenaries, who had been in the service of Syracuse but who had deserted and seized this town about 284 B. C. Because of their perpetual acts of brigandage they were a menace to their neighbors, the Syracusans. The latter, now under an energetic ruler, Hiero, who had a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of king, in 265 succeeded in blockading Messana and its ultimate capture seemed certain.

In despair the Mamertini sought help from the Carthaginians who sent a garrison to Messana, for they looked with jealousy upon any extension of Syracusan territory. However, the majority of the Mamertini sought to be taken under the protection of Rome and appealed to the Roman Senate for aid. The senators on the one hand saw that to espouse the cause of the Mamertini would be to provoke a war with Carthage, an eventuality before which they shrank, but on the other hand they recognized that the Carthaginian occupation of Messana would give them the control of the Straits of Messana and const.i.tute a perpetual threat against southern Italy. The strength of these conflicting considerations made them unwilling to a.s.sume responsibility for a decision and they referred the matter to the a.s.sembly of the Centuries. Here the people, elated, apparently, by their recent victorious wars in Italy, and led on by hopes of pecuniary advantage to be derived from the war, decided to admit the Mamertini to the Roman alliance. One consul, Appius Claudius, was sent with a small force to relieve the town (264).

The Mamertini induced the Carthaginian garrison to withdraw, and then admitted the Roman force which crossed the straits with the aid of vessels furnished by their Greek allies in Italy. Thereupon the Carthaginians made an alliance with the Syracusans, but the Romans defeated each of them.

*Alliance of Rome and Syracuse.* In the next year the Romans sent a larger army into Sicily to attack Syracuse and met with such success that Hiero became alarmed, and, making peace upon easy terms, concluded an alliance with them for fifteen years.(5) Aided by Hiero the Romans now began an attack upon Agrigentum, the Carthaginian stronghold which threatened Syracuse. When this was taken in 262, they determined to drive the Carthaginians from the whole island.

*Rome builds a fleet.* However, Roman operations in Sicily could only be conducted at considerable risk and the coasts of Italy remained exposed to continued raids as long as Carthage had undisputed control of the sea.

Consequently the Romans decided to build a fleet that would put an end to the Carthaginian naval supremacy. They constructed 120 vessels, of which 100 were of the type called quinquiremes, the regular first cla.s.s battleships of the day. The complement of each was three hundred rowers and one hundred and twenty fighting men.(6) With this armament, and some vessels from the Roman allies, the consul, Gaius Duilius, put to sea in 260 B. C. and won a decisive battle off Mylae on the north coast of Sicily. As a result of this battle in the next year the Romans were able to occupy Corsica and attack Sardinia, and finding it impossible to force a decision in Sicily, they were in a position to attack Carthage in Africa itself.

*The Roman invasion of Africa, 256 B. C.* Another naval victory, off Ecnomus, on the south coast of Sicily, cleared the way for the successful landing of an army under the consul Marcus Atilius Regulus. He defeated the Carthaginians in battle and reduced them to such extremities that they sought to make peace. But the terms which Atilius proposed were so harsh that in desperation they resumed hostilities. At this juncture there arrived at Carthage, with other mercenaries, a Spartan soldier of fortune, Xantippus, who reorganized the Carthaginian army. By the skilful use of cavalry and war elephants he inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Romans and took Atilius prisoner. A Roman fleet rescued the remnants of the expedition, but was almost totally lost in a storm off the southern Sicilian coast (255).