General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 25

THE ROMANS GAIN THEIR FIRST NAVAL VICTORY (260 B.C.).--Their experience during the past campaigns had shown the Romans that if they were to cope successfully with the Carthaginians, they must be able to meet them upon the sea as well as upon the land. So they determined to build a fleet. A Carthaginian galley that had been wrecked upon the sh.o.r.es of Italy, served as a pattern. It is affirmed that, within the almost incredibly short s.p.a.ce of sixty days, a growing forest was converted into a fleet of one hundred and twenty war galleys.

The consul C. Duillius was entrusted with the command of the fleet. He met the Carthaginian squadron near the city and promontory of Mylae, on the northern coast of Sicily. Now, distrusting their ability to match the skill of their enemy in naval tactics, the Romans had provided each of their vessels with a drawbridge. As soon as a Carthaginian ship came near enough to a Roman vessel, this gangway was allowed to fall upon the approaching galley; and the Roman soldiers, rushing along the bridge, were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their enemies, in which species of encounter the former were unequalled. The result was a complete victory for the Romans.

The joy at Rome was unbounded. It inspired in the more sanguine splendid visions of maritime command and glory. The Mediterranean should speedily become a Roman lake, in which no vessel might float without the consent of Rome.

THE ROMANS CARRY THE WAR INTO AFRICA.--The results of the naval engagement at Mylae encouraged the Romans to push the war with redoubled energy. They resolved to carry it into Africa. An immense Carthaginian fleet that disputed the pa.s.sage of the Roman squadron was almost annihilated, and the Romans disembarked near Carthage. Regulus, one of the consuls who led the army of invasion, sent word to Rome that he had sealed up the gates of Carthage with terror. Finally, however, Regulus suffered a crushing defeat, and was made prisoner. A fleet which was sent to bear away the remnants of the shattered army was wrecked in a terrific storm off the coast of Sicily, and the sh.o.r.es of the island were strewn with the wreckage of between two and three hundred ships and with the bodies of one hundred thousand men.

Undismayed at the terrible disaster that had overtaken the transport fleet, the Romans set to work to build another, and made a second descent upon the African coast. The expedition, however, accomplished nothing of importance; and the fleet on its return voyage was almost destroyed, just off the coast of Italy, by a tremendous storm.

REGULUS AND THE CARTHAGINIAN EMBa.s.sY.--For a few years the Romans refrained from tempting again the hostile powers of the sea, and Sicily became once more the battle-ground of the contending rivals. At last, having lost a great battle (battle of Panormus, 251 B.C.), the Carthaginians became dispirited, and sent an emba.s.sy to Rome, to negotiate for peace, or, if that could not be reached, to effect an exchange of prisoners. Among the commissioners was Regulus, who since his capture, five years before, had been held a prisoner in Africa. Before setting out from Carthage he had promised to return if the emba.s.sy were unsuccessful.

For the sake of his own release, the Carthaginians supposed he would counsel peace, or at least urge an exchange of prisoners. But it is related, that upon arrival at Rome, he counselled war instead of peace, at the same time revealing to the Senate the enfeebled condition of Carthage.

As to the exchange of prisoners, he said, "Let those who have surrendered when they ought to have died, die in the land which has witnessed their disgrace."

The Roman Senate, following his counsel, rejected all the proposals of the emba.s.sy; and Regulus, in spite of the tears and entreaties of his wife and friends, turned away from Rome, and set out for Carthage to bear such fate as he well knew the Carthaginians, in their disappointment and anger, would be sure to visit upon him.

The tradition goes on to tell how, upon his arrival at Carthage, he was confined in a cask driven full of spikes, and then left to die of starvation and pain. This part of the tale has been discredited, and the finest touches of the other portions are supposed to have been added by the story-tellers.

LOSS OF TWO MORE ROMAN FLEETS.--After the failure of the Carthaginian emba.s.sy, the war went on for several years by land and sea with varying vicissitudes. At last, on the coast of Sicily, one of the consuls, Claudius, met with an overwhelming defeat. Almost a hundred vessels of his fleet were lost. The disaster caused the greatest alarm at Rome.

Superst.i.tion increased the fears of the people. It was reported that just before the battle, when the auspices were being taken, and the sacred chickens would not eat, Claudius had given orders to have them thrown into the sea, irreverently remarking, "At any rate, they shall drink."

Imagination was free to depict what further evils the offended G.o.ds might inflict upon the Roman state.

The gloomiest forebodings might have found justification in subsequent events. The other consul just now met with a great disaster. He was proceeding along the southern coast of Sicily with a squadron of eight hundred merchantmen and over one hundred war galleys, the former loaded with grain for the Roman army on the island. A severe storm arising, the squadron was beaten to pieces upon the rocks. Not a single ship escaped.

The coast for miles was strewn with broken planks, and with bodies, and heaped with vast windrows of grain cast up by the waves.

CLOSE OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.--The war had now lasted for fifteen years.

Four Roman fleets had been destroyed, three of which had been sunk or broken to pieces by storms. Of the fourteen hundred vessels which had been lost, seven hundred were war galleys,--all large and costly quinqueremes, that is, vessels with five banks of oars. Only one hundred of these had fallen into the hands of the enemy; the remainder were a sacrifice to the malign and hostile power of the waves. Such successive blows from an invisible hand were enough to blanch the faces even of the st.u.r.dy Romans.

Neptune manifestly denied to the "Children of Mars" the realm of the sea.

It was impossible for the six years following the last disaster to infuse any spirit into the struggle. In 247 B.C., Hamilcar Barcas, the father of the great Hannibal, a.s.sumed the command of the Carthaginian forces, and for several years conducted the war with great ability on the island of Sicily, even making Rome tremble for the safety of her Italian possessions.

Once more the Romans determined to commit their cause to the element that had been so unfriendly to them. A fleet of two hundred vessels was built and equipped, but entirely by private subscription; for the Senate feared that public sentiment would not sustain them in levying a tax for fitting up another costly armament as an offering to the insatiable Neptune. This people's squadron, as we may call it, was intrusted to the command of the consul Catulus. He met the Carthaginian fleet under the command of the Admiral Hanno, near the aegatian islands, and inflicted upon it a crushing defeat.

The Carthaginians now sued for peace. A treaty was at length arranged, the terms of which required that Carthage should give up all claims to the island of Sicily, surrender all her prisoners, and pay an indemnity of 3200 talents (about $4,000,000), one-third of which was to be paid down, and the balance in ten yearly payments. Thus ended (241 B.C.), after a continuance of twenty-four years, the first great struggle between Carthage and Rome.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

(2l8-201 B.C.)

ROME BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

THE FIRST ROMAN PROVINCE.--For the twenty-three years that followed the close of the first struggle between Rome and Carthage, the two rivals strained every power and taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal of the contest.

The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing all of it, save the lands belonging to Syracuse, as a province of the republic. This was the first territory beyond the limits of Italy that Rome had conquered, and the Sicilian the first of Roman provinces. But as the imperial city extended her conquests, her provincial possessions increased in number and size until they formed at last a perfect cordon about the Mediterranean.

Each province was governed by a magistrate sent out from the capital, and paid an annual tribute, or tax, to Rome.

ROME ACQUIRES SARDINIA AND CORSICA.--The first acquisition by the Romans of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have created in them an insatiable ambition for foreign conquests. They soon found a pretext for seizing the island of Sardinia, the most ancient and, after Sicily, the most prized of the possessions of the Carthaginians. The island, in connection with Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman province. With her hands upon these islands, the authority of Rome in the Western, or Tuscan Sea, was supreme.

THE ILLYRIAN CORSAIRS ARE PUNISHED.--At about the same time, the Romans also extended their influence over the seas that wash the eastern sh.o.r.es of Italy. For a long time the Adriatic and Ionian waters had been infested with Illyrian pirates, who issued from the roadsteads of the northeastern coasts of the former sea. The Roman fleet chased these corsairs from the Adriatic, and captured several of their strongholds. Rome now a.s.sumed a sort of protectorate over the Greek cities of the Adriatic coasts. This was her first step towards final supremacy in Macedonia and Greece.

WAR WITH THE GAULS.--In the north, during this same period, Roman authority was extended from the Apennines and the Rubicon to the foot of the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of the Romans, who were pushing northward their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling with discharged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of that race, stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, besides their kinsmen who were yet beyond the mountains, for an a.s.sault upon Rome. Intelligence of this movement among the northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of excitement. At Rome the terror was great; for not yet had died out of memory what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors of these same barbarians that were now again gathering their hordes for sack and pillage. An ancient prediction, found in the Sibylline books, declared that a portion of Roman territory must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping sufficiently to fulfil the prophecy and satisfy Fate, the Roman Senate caused two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of the capital.

Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravaging the country as they moved southward. After gathering a large amount of booty, they were carrying this back to a place of safety, when they were surrounded by the Roman armies at Telamon, and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The Romans, taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of the Po, captured the city which is now known as Milan, and extended their authority to the foot-hills of the Alps.

CARTHAGE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

THE TRUCELESS WAR.--Scarcely had peace been concluded with Rome at the end of the First Punic War, before Carthage was plunged into a still deadlier struggle, which for a time threatened her very existence. The mercenary troops, upon their return from Sicily, revolted, on account of not receiving their pay. Their appeal to the native tribes of Africa was answered by a general uprising throughout the dependencies of Carthage.

The extent of the revolt shows how hateful and hated was the rule of the great capital over her subject states.

The war was unspeakably bitter and cruel. It is known in history as "The Truceless War." At one time Carthage was the only city remaining in the hands of the government. But the genius of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barcas at last triumphed, and the authority of Carthage was everywhere restored.

THE CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN.--After the disastrous termination of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians determined to repair their losses by new conquests in Spain. Hamilcar Barcas was sent over into that country, and for nine years he devoted his commanding genius to organizing the different Iberian tribes into a compact state, and to developing the rich gold and silver mines of the southern part of the peninsula. He fell in battle 228 B.C.

Hamilcar Barcas was the greatest general that up to this time the Carthaginian race had produced. As a rule, genius is not heritable; but in the Barcine family the rule was broken, and the rare genius of Hamilcar reappeared in his sons, whom he himself, it is said, was fond of calling the "lion's brood." Hannibal, the oldest, was only nineteen at the time of his father's death, and being thus too young to a.s.sume command, Hasdrubal, [Footnote: Not to be confounded with Hannibal's own brother Hasdrubal.]

the son-in-law of Hamilcar, was chosen to succeed him. He carried out the unfinished plans of Hamilcar, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian power in Spain, and upon the eastern coast founded New Carthage as the centre and capital of the newly acquired territory. The native tribes were conciliated rather than conquered. The Barcine family knew how to rule as well as how to fight.

HANNIBAL'S VOW.--Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which occurred 221 B.C., Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by the unanimous voice of the army called to be their leader. When a child of nine years he had been led by his father to the altar; and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice, the little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race. He was driven on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard fate, not only by the restless fires of his warlike genius, but, as he himself declared, by the sacred obligations of a vow that could not be broken.

HANNIBAL ATTACKS SAGUNTUM.--In two years Hannibal extended the Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a Greek city upon the east coast of Spain, alone remained unsubdued. The Romans, who were jealously watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and taken it, with other Greek cities in that quarter of the Mediterranean, under their protection. Hannibal, although he well knew that an attack upon this place would precipitate hostilities with Rome, laid siege to it in the spring of 219 B.C. He was eager for the renewal of the old contest. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding his making war upon a city which was a friend and ally of the Roman people; but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, continued the siege, and, after an investment of eight months, gained possession of the town.

The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to demand of the Senate that they should give up Hannibal to them, and by so doing repudiate the act of their general. The Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of the emba.s.sy, gathering up his toga, said: "I carry here peace and war; choose, men of Carthage, which ye will have." "Give us whichever ye will,"

was the reply. "War, then," said Fabius, dropping his toga. The "die was now cast; and the arena was cleared for the foremost man of his race and his time, perhaps the mightiest military genius of any race and of any time."

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

HANNIBAL'S Pa.s.sAGE OF THE ALPS.--The Carthaginian empire was now stirred with preparations for the impending struggle. Hannibal was the life and soul of every movement. His bold plan was to cross the Pyrenees and the Alps and descend upon Rome from the north.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HANNIBAL]

With his preparations completed, Hannibal left New Carthage early in the spring of 218 B.C., with an army numbering about one hundred thousand men, and including thirty-seven war elephants. Crossing the Pyrenees and the Rhone, he reached the foot-hills of the Alps. Nature and man joined to oppose the pa.s.sage. The season was already far advanced--it was October-- and snow was falling upon the higher portions of the trail. Day after day the army toiled painfully up the dangerous path. In places the narrow way had to be cut wider for the monstrous bodies of the elephants. Often avalanches of stone were hurled upon the trains by the hostile bands that held possession of the heights above. At last the summit was gained, and the shivering army looked down into the warm haze of the Italian plains.

The sight alone was enough to rouse the drooping spirits of the soldiers; but Hannibal stirred them to enthusiasm by addressing them with these words: "Ye are standing upon the Acropolis of Italy; yonder lies Rome."

The army began its descent, and at length, after toils and losses equalled only by those of the ascent, its thinned battalions issued from the defiles of the mountains upon the plains of the Po. Of the fifty thousand men and more with which Hannibal had begun the pa.s.sage, barely half that number had survived the march, and these "looked more like phantoms than men."

BATTLES OF THE TICINUS, THE TREBIA, AND LAKE TRASIMENUS.--The Romans had not the remotest idea of Hannibal's plans. With war determined upon, the Senate had sent one of the consuls, L. Semp.r.o.nius Longus, with an army into Africa by the way of Sicily; while the other, Publius Cornelius Scipio, they had directed to lead another army into Spain.

While the Senate were watching the movements of these expeditions, they were startled with the intelligence that Hannibal, instead of being in Spain, had crossed the Pyrenees and was among the Gauls upon the Rhone.

Semp.r.o.nius was hastily recalled from his attempt upon Africa, to the defence of Italy. Scipio, on his way to Spain, had touched at Ma.s.silia, and there learned of the movements of Hannibal. He turned back, hurried into Northern Italy, and took command of the levies there. The cavalry of the two armies met upon the banks of the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po.

The Romans were driven from the field by the fierce onset of the Numidian hors.e.m.e.n. Scipio now awaited the arrival of the other consular army, which was hurrying up through Italy by forced marches.

In the battle of the Trebia the united armies of the two consuls were almost annihilated. The Gauls, who had been waiting to see to which side fortune would incline, now flocked to the standard of Hannibal, and hailed him as their deliverer.

The spring following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led his army, now recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, and moved southward. At Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the Romans under Flaminius in a mountain defile, where, bewildered by a fog that filled the valley, the greater part of the army was slaughtered, and the consul himself was slain.