The Comic History of Rome Part 15

Having visited the Isthmian games, he interrupted the herald who was about to open the proceedings with the usual proclamation, and putting into the hands of the officer a scroll, desired him to "read it out"

before proceeding with the programme. The doc.u.ment was an announcement of the freedom of the Greek cities over which Macedonia had domineered; and the people, finding that Flaminius had made them free, resolved on making him welcome. Frantic with joy, they nearly deafened him with cheers, and almost buried him in flowers; nor could he keep at bay those who pressed forward to crown him with laurel. So dense was the throng, that he must have felt a smothered satisfaction, if he felt any at all; and even if he could have found words to return thanks, he could find no breath to give them utterance.

In order that the Greeks might be shown the use of their new freedom, Flaminius remained behind, to give an ill.u.s.tration of the method of taking a liberty. Calling to his aid ten commissioners from Rome, he proceeded to apportion the free cities of Greece in the manner most agreeable to his own views; for it is a peculiarity of all freedom imported from abroad, that it must be a freedom in conformity with the taste of the importers, and not of those for whose use the article is required. It thus frequently happens that what is recommended as a luxury from abroad proves far from palatable to a people not accustomed to the new commodity; and, though efforts may be made to force it down their throats, at the point of the sword, the morsel is not easy of digestion, and is only revolting to those whom it may have been intended to satisfy.

After completing the independence of Greece, by forcing republics on some of its cities, taking possession of some others, and establishing internal discord in nearly all, Flaminius returned to Rome in the year of the City 559, and enjoyed the honours of a triumph.

As no one is at times louder in his denunciations of dishonesty than the practised rogue, so the Romans, who were for enslaving and plundering all the world, found it convenient, occasionally, to protest against the rapacity of such as were rivals in the game of conquest. Philip had already been dealt with on the principle that it is impossible for two of a trade to agree; and a quarrel was now picked with Antiochus, who was doing a somewhat extensive business as a wholesale appropriator of what did not rightly belong to him. Flaminius, therefore, while declaring, after his own fashion, the independence of Greece, stipulated that freedom should be restored by Antiochus to all the Greek cities in Asia,--an arrangement that would have left the cities at liberty to be made free with by Rome in her usual manner. Antiochus justified his own wrong by denying the right of any one else to interfere, and continued appropriating to himself other places to which he had no legal or equitable t.i.tle. He seized on the Thracian Chersonesus, on the ground that one of his ancestors had seized it once before,--a principle about as just as if the grandson of a thief, who had been transported for stealing a watch, should, on the strength of his ancestral crime, rob the owner anew of the same property.

Finding Lysimachia deserted, he took it as his own desert; when the Romans, growing jealous of his success in the predatory line, declared that they should regard, as a direct opposition to Rome, any further acts of plunder.

While matters were in this state, Hannibal was living in scarcely any state at all, as an ordinary member of the Carthaginian Senate. He had taken the opposition side of the house; and though he was a proposer of many useful reforms, he was frequently coughed down, and in a minority always. Finding little sympathy amongst his own countrymen, who were all for peace and quietness, he entered into a negotiation with Antiochus, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they could arrange to create a joint disturbance, and thus weaken the Roman power. Treachery was, however, going on in all directions; for, while Hannibal was plotting with Antiochus against Rome, some of the Carthaginians were plotting with Rome against Hannibal; and a further breach of trust in some other quarter made him acquainted with his danger. He accordingly resolved to escape; and having a small tower--or marine residence--on the coast, he sent orders that a ship should be ready to sail, and a berth secured for him. He walked about the streets of Carthage all day, as if nothing had happened, and nothing was likely to occur; for the Roman amba.s.sadors were continually d.o.g.g.i.ng his footsteps; and he led them about so perseveringly all day, that when the evening arrived they had scarcely a leg to stand upon. Hannibal had, however, ordered his horse, which flew with him across the country to the spot where the ship was in waiting; and, after a difficult pa.s.sage, by land as well as by sea, he arrived at the Court of Antiochus.

True to his infantine oath, Hannibal did his utmost to excite hostility against the Romans; and asked Antiochus to lend him a trifle, in the shape of 10,000 men, as if they were so many counters, that the game of war required. Antiochus, however, like a boy jealous of his toys, refused to hand over the 10,000 men, whose lives might be required as playthings for himself; and he was not long in making use of them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hannibal leads the Amba.s.sadors rather a fatiguing Walk round Carthage.]

The Greeks, being unable to appreciate the sort of independence they had received at the hands of Rome, sent an invitation to Antiochus; for it is the characteristic of slavery, as a moral disease, to seek relief from the existing cause of oppression by the introduction of some more violent form of the same malady.[55]

As the interference of strangers will usually lead to family quarrels, so the effect of foreign influence on Greece was to keep the people continually involved in disputes with each other. Part of the population would have welcomed Antiochus warmly, while others received him coldly; and the king, who had penetrated into Thessaly, had sufficient penetration to see that he had better go a considerable part of the way back again.

By way of narrowing the ground of dispute, he took his position in the Pa.s.s of Thermopylae, and had, for some time, maintained an advantage over the Romans, when M. Porcius Cato, ascending the heights, ran round to the rear, and, by a decisive blow on the enemy's back, changed the whole face of the engagement. Antiochus fled in dismay, and never stopped to look behind him, until he reached Asia Minor, when he sat down, and took a gloomy retrospect of all that had happened. While he met with reverses on land, he heard of the reverse, or rather the same thing, that had happened to his fleet at sea; and he fairly gave up, not only his cause, but the Chersonesus, Lysimachia, Sestos, and Abydos, with all their contents and non-contents; the latter of which included the inhabitants.

Antiochus, though subdued in spirit, was not quite beaten in form; and a large army was sent to Asia, under the command of the two consuls, L.

Cornelius Scipio and C. Laelius. L. C. Scipio, though without any acknowledged merit of his own, had the good fortune to be the brother of the celebrated Scipio Africa.n.u.s, who got him the place; but it is manifest that such an illegitimate step to an appointment will often end in a grievous disappointment of one kind or another. To provide against the ill consequences of this flagrant job, the celebrated Scipio went out in the capacity of legate, to counteract the consequences of his brother's general incapacity in the capacity of general. The Romans had 20,000 men, who, having arrived in Asia, met 70,000 soldiers of Antiochus, at Magnesia, where the latter received a dose from which they never recovered. Peace was granted to them on very humiliating terms; but, however bitter the cup prescribed for Antiochus, so disagreeable was the recollection of Magnesia, that he was obliged to swallow almost anything that came after it.

Rome continued her system of giving independence to various places and people, many of whom seemed so little to appreciate the proffered boon, that in some cases money was tendered and accepted as the price of exemption from the proposed advantages. The Cappadocians were so alarmed at the prospect of their new freedom, that, being still free to confess their dislike to it, they sent 200 talents to the Romans, who, no doubt, mentally impressed with the proverbial baseness of the "slave who pays,"

quietly pocketed the money.

While the principles of independence were being promulgated in the East, the Romans were also employed in carrying their notions of emanc.i.p.ation into the North, where several tribes were cut to pieces, in order that they might feel the interest which Rome condescended to take in them.

In some places the old inhabitants were rooted up like old trees, while the younger branches were transplanted to other soils; and a large quant.i.ty of Ligurian offshoots were carried off from their parent stems to fill some vacant ground at Samnium. Many places were thoroughly destroyed; and among others, Cremona was so unmercifully played upon, that it was utterly broken up, and the lamentations of its inhabitants were regarded no more than the moanings of a set of old fiddle-strings.

Not satisfied with being the masters of Italy and the tyrants of Greece, the Romans aimed at establishing their dominion in Spain, which was partly achieved by the treachery of some of the inhabitants, and the cowardice of others. Some of its most powerful men entered into an alliance with Rome, and were treated as insurgents or rebels, when they dared to revolt against the foreign authority that had either cowed or corrupted them.

The subjugation of Spain was mainly effected by M. Porcius Cato, who took a rather remarkable way of reducing the country to submission; for he induced several places to commit a sort of moral suicide; and after condemning them in his own mind, he arranged that they should become, as it were, their own executioners. He sent circulars to a large number of fortified towns in Spain, with instructions that the communications were not to be looked into before a certain day; and the inhabitants of every town experienced the agony of suspense, in the fear that their doom was sealed in a letter they were not allowed to open. At length, when the day arrived for penetrating the envelope in which the mystery was enclosed, every circular was found to contain a command that the walls of the town to which it was addressed should be razed to the ground, or, in case of disobedience, that the heaviest punishment should light on its inhabitants. The authorities not being able to communicate with each other, fancied their own town the only one that was doomed, and proceeded to pull the place about their own ears, until it was reduced to a heap of dry rubbish.

When the mischief was done, it was too late to discover that it need not have been done at all; and though unity is in ordinary cases strength, the unity with which the Spaniards had acted in demolishing their own towns, had reduced them to a condition of utter feebleness.

For some time they lived in peace, though their homes were knocked to pieces; but a war broke out again, in the year of the City 572 (B.C.

181). The Spaniards, however, were not thoroughly reduced until four years after, though they were being continually killed, beaten, cut to pieces, and otherwise dealt with, in a manner from which their reduction would seem to flow as a natural consequence. It was Tib. Semp.r.o.nius Gracchus--the father of the two great Gracchi, of whom we shall have something to say hereafter--that concluded peace with several of the Spanish tribes, who were brought down so low, that their being otherwise than peaceable was almost impossible.

The Romans continued to intrude themselves and their system on different parts of Europe, and planted a colony at Aquileia, in Istria, which caused the Istrians to try and put a full stop to the disposition which Rome had shown to colon-ise. A war ensued, which resulted in the loss of three towns and one king, when the Istrians came to the conclusion that they had had enough of it, and immediately submitted to the Roman authority.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hannibal requesting the Cretan Priests to become his Bankers.]

Having, for a time, lost sight of the ill.u.s.trious Hannibal, we begin to look about for him once more, and find him living in a Court, kept by one Prusias, the greedy and needy king of Bithynia. After the treaty made by Antiochus and the Romans, Hannibal had fled to Crete, where he could not long remain; and, though history is silent as to the cause, we may conjecture something from the fact, that he effected a clandestine removal of all his wealth, though he pretended to leave behind him a vast amount of treasure. Tradition states that, having procured a number of earthen jars, he filled them with lead, and, strewing a little gold, or loose silver, over the top, he carried them to the temple of Diana, and requested the Cretan priests to become his bankers, for the purpose of his entrusting to them this valuable deposit. The priests a.s.sured him, with many protestations, that he would find it all right on his return; and Hannibal, having previously packed all his real gold into the hollow insides of some statues of bra.s.s, which he pretended to carry with him, in his character of an admirer of the arts, got clear off with all his money.

He continued to travel from place to place, and had spent the contents of nearly all his statues, except a small one, so that his means had literally come down to the lowest figure. In this dilemma he found himself at Bithynia, where Prusias gave him house-room for a short time; taking advantage of the visit, to render his guest useful in a war that was being carried on against Eumenes, king of Pergamus. Hannibal, however, could not persuade the parsimonious Prusias to go to the expense of conducting hostilities in an effective style; and, indeed, there being no money to carry on the war, it was impossible to do so with credit; for n.o.body would make any advance on the security of a bad sovereign. The Romans regarding Hannibal as a dangerous agitator, which he had indeed proved himself to be, required that he should be given up; but Prusias, declining to be at the expense of carriage, intimated that whoever wanted Hannibal had better come for him. The Carthaginian general, foreseeing his fate, endeavoured to make his escape by one of seven secret pa.s.sages leading from his house; but his enemies had found them out, and were therefore certain of finding him at home; for they had taken care to bar his egress.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hannibal makes the usual neat and appropriate Speech previous to killing himself.]

Though possessing all the courage of a soldier, he was miserably dest.i.tute of a superior kind of fort.i.tude, and he always carried a bottle of poison about with him. Finding escape impossible, he drew the fatal phial from his pocket, and, as he shook it up, he indulged in one of those speeches which are usually attributed by cla.s.sical historians to men on the point of suicide. "I will," he said--or is said to have said, for n.o.body could have heard him, as he was quite alone, and n.o.body could have been listening, or the bottle would have been s.n.a.t.c.hed out of his hand; "I will deliver the Romans from the dread which has so long tormented them, since they think it too long to wait for the decease of a worn-out old man." Here he may be supposed to have paused; and, after giving the bottle another final shake, to have continued as follows: "Flaminius's victory over a foe, unarmed and betrayed, will not redound much to his honour;" and, with a mental once, twice, thrice, and away, the wretched Hannibal may be imagined to have raised the nauseous draught to his lips, and to have tossed it off with desperate energy.

Hannibal had certainly, in his lifetime, shown proofs of greatness, though, in the manner of his death, he gave evidence of lamentable littleness. On the admirable principle of "look to the end," we are unable to agree with those cla.s.sical enthusiasts who regard Hannibal as one of the most ill.u.s.trious of mankind, because he was more daring and more skilful in the art of exterminating his fellow-creatures than many of his compet.i.tors. His personal ambition brought misery on his own, as well as other countries, and his obstinate hatred to Rome was not justified by his juvenile oath, for the taking of which he deserved rather the birch than the laurel. The first public act of his life was to swear when he was too young to have known what he was about, and the last act was to poison himself at the age of sixty-two, when he was quite old enough to have known better. He made a bad beginning, but a worse ending, and he proved that, though aspiring to rule over others, he was unable to command himself, and was in nearly every respect a melancholy specimen of ill-regulated humanity.

Within about a year of Hannibal's death, Scipio Africa.n.u.s also died in exile. This great man, as it has been customary to call him, because he was a large destroyer of the human race, was taken up before the Senate on a charge of embezzlement. The case happened to be appointed for hearing on the anniversary of some battle he had won, when he declared the day was ill-suited for litigation, and the people, who are always ready for an excuse for a holiday, immediately agreed with him. His brother Lucius was involved in the same accusation, which he met by producing his accounts; but, the popular idol seizing the books, declared it was shabby for a nation to be too particular with those who had served it so well, and tore up the whole of the financial statement.

Lucius Scipio remained in Rome; but Africa.n.u.s ran away to a villa in Campania, leaving his brother to undergo the confiscation of the whole of his property. The innocence of Lucius was subsequently established, and, though no "money returned," is generally the motto of the law, he succeeded in getting back a part of what he had been unjustly deprived of. He, however, having lived without his income, had no sooner got the means restored to him of living within it, than he died, with the melancholy satisfaction of having had justice done when it was too late to be of the smallest earthly use to him.

The merits and demerits of Scipio Africa.n.u.s have been differently estimated by different authorities; and though it is charitable to give to any man the benefit of a doubt, no one would be thankful for the admission that his was a doubtful character. Scipio Africa.n.u.s was a great patron of letters; but he seems to have been a despiser of figures, if the story relating to his contempt for the accuracy of his accounts is to be relied upon. Cicero has spoken eloquently of the simple habits of Scipio Africa.n.u.s, in his marine retirement, throwing stones into the sea, and skimming with them the surface of the water; but this innocent pastime does not relieve him from the accusation of making "ducks and drakes" of the public money, which was the charge that Cato had endeavoured to bring home to him.

He is said to have been generous to his relatives; but to help them, after freely helping himself, may have been nothing more than nepotism, under the disguise of a domestic virtue. It is stated that he showed his disregard for wealth by relinquishing to his brother his own share of his patrimony; but there is little merit in his having despised the comparatively mean contents of his family purse, if he was unscrupulous during the time that he had the public pocket to dip into.

FOOTNOTE:

[55] This is, in fact, the h.o.m.opathic principle applied to politics; the counteracting of like by like, _similia similibus_.

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

PUBLIC AMUs.e.m.e.nTS. MORALS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND STATE OF THE DRAMA AND LITERATURE AMONG THE ROMANS.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

It is customary with the grandiloquent to declare that the page of history is stained with gore; but we limit ourselves to ink, which perhaps, after all, furnishes a decent type of mourning over the deeds we are compelled to chronicle. It is true that history has too often wars for her princ.i.p.al facts, and the numbers of dead for her figures; but she is apt to speak rather figuratively in estimating the thousands upon thousands who are said to have fallen, sword in hand, or to have been terribly put to it.

The weapon of war cuts, however, both ways; and a nation cannot play with edged tools more safely than an individual can indulge in such dangerous pastime.

The state of war in which Rome habitually lived, had encouraged the worst pa.s.sions of the people; and nearly every vice had taken an iron hold of them. By continually fighting, they had become familiar with murder and violence, while the practice of plunder had accustomed them to robbery. Military stratagem--which was the very essence of strategy--had taught them to regard cunning as a virtue; and he was a hero, in their opinion, who would face the swords and spears of a foe, but sought in poison a cowardly refuge from the "slings and arrows" of his own conscience. The wealth taken by force was often appropriated by fraud; and a successful leader thought nothing of putting into his own pocket an enormous sum, declaring that it was unreasonable to expect a general to be particular.[56] The few became enormously rich, while the many were miserably poor. The higher orders grasped everything, leaving nothing to those beneath, and the consequence was a state of top-heaviness, which, when existing in the social column, exposes base and capital--but especially the latter--to extreme danger. Money had been acquired by some, who did not know its use; and its abuse was the inevitable result; for the improper employment of gold leads to every kind of guilt on the part of those who are possessed of it.

With the wealth of other nations, foreign fashions were imported, and Roman simplicity was superseded by the art and cunning of the Grecian craftsmen. The pleasures of the table were carried to a gluttonous excess; and a slave who, in the capacity of a cook, could set before his master an agreeable kind of sauce, was often allowed impunity for insolence.

Extravagance began to prevail to such an extent among the Roman women, that those females whose wardrobe was of a gaudy hue, were virtually condemned to dye, for a law was pa.s.sed by the tribune Appius, prohibiting them from wearing dresses of a gay colour. The same law limited them to half-an-ounce of gold; but this was unnecessary; for the extravagantly-disposed would spend all they had; and they were further restricted from riding at or near Rome, or any other city, in a carriage drawn by two horses; for it was considered that with one the road to ruin could be quite rapidly enough travelled. This law occasioned some violent agitation among the Roman women, who manifested the force of female influence so effectually, that in a few years the law was repealed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Roman Lady "Shopping."]

The stern necessities of historical truth compel us to attribute to what is termed the gentler s.e.x, the introduction, among the Romans, of some vices so foul, as to be at variance with all our notions of the fair.

One of the worst of these enormities was the celebration of the Baccha.n.a.lia, introduced from Etruria; and recent discoveries[57] in that locality have initiated us into the secret of what are usually termed the Bacchic mysteries. The mystification of the votaries was accomplished by drink; under the influence of which they wound up their festivities with a reel, such as may be traced in ancient paintings; and round every such reel there is twined some important thread of history.

Imitation is seldom respectable in any case; for even merit loses half its value when it is not original; but nothing can be more contemptible than a people putting on bad habits at second-hand. Such, however, was the practice of the Romans, who borrowed nearly all their iniquities from Athens or other cities, and who wilfully brought upon themselves the moral stain of Greece. Cruelty, which goes hand in hand with depravity, had reached such an infamous excess, that it was practised openly by those whom the people delighted to honour. Among other instances, may be cited the example of the Consul L. Quinctius Flaminius, who, while encamped in Gaul, happened to be feasting with one of his degraded creatures, when the latter lamented he had never seen a gladiator killed. A n.o.ble Boian entering at the moment, to ask for shelter, Flaminius observed that, though unable to treat his friend to the sight of a dying gladiator, he might satisfy his appet.i.te for cruelty by the exhibition of a dying Gaul. The "creature" had no sooner expressed his readiness to accept the lighter relish as a subst.i.tute for the more substantial meal, than Flaminius, drawing his sword, smote the unfortunate Boian on the head, and ran him through the body. So brutalised had the people become by continual war, that no notice was taken of this occurrence until eight years afterwards, when Cato, the Censor, brought up the charge, with a variety of others, more or less weighty, against Flaminius, and caused his expulsion from the Senate.

The name of Cato the Censor, naturally induces a few observations on the character of this ancient specimen of the

"Fine old Roman gentleman all of the olden time."

He was the son of a respectable Sabine farmer, and pa.s.sed his earliest years in the country, where he followed the plough--a peaceful pursuit, which imprints no early furrows on the forehead, but leaves many on the earth it at once improves and lacerates. At seventeen, every Roman became, of necessity, a soldier; and though in the game of life fortune had dealt him a spade, he was obliged to throw it out of his hand. Such was the lot of young Marcus Porcius Priscus; for that was in reality his name, though he afterwards had the t.i.tle of Cato, or the "knowing one,"

bestowed on him. His military duties were performed with credit, though he preferred cultivating any other seeds than the seeds of dissension; and he was more at home in a trench dug for celery, than in one designed for undermining a fort.