posed this invasion; but the former, more alarmed by the ambitious encroachinents of the Carthaginians on Sicily, soon repented of this rash alliance, and joined the Romans in the purpose of expelling the Carthaginians entirely from the island. In fact, the Sicilians seem to have had only the desperate choice of final submission either to Rome or Carthage. They chose the former as the alternative least dishonourable. The Romans had ever been their friends, the Carthaginians their enemies. 2. Agrigentum, possessed by the Carthaginians, was taken, after a long siege, by the joint forces of Rome and Syracuse, and a Roman fleet, the first they ever had [consisting of 120 vessels, formed after the model of a Carthaginian vessel, said to have been stranded on the coast of Italy], and equipped in a few weeks, gained a complete. victory over that of Carthage, at this time the greatest maritime power in the world, 260 B.C. These successes were followed by the reduction of Corsica and Sardinia. In a second naval engagement, the Romans took from the Carthaginians 60 of their ships of war, and now resolutely prepared for the invasion of Africa. The consul Regulus commanded the expedition. He advanced to the gates of Carthage and such was the general_consternation, that the enemy proposed a capitulation. Inspirited, however, by a timely aid of Greek troops under Xantippus, the Carthaginians made a desperate effort, and defeating the Roman army, made Regulus their prisoner. But repeatedly defeated in Sicily, they were at length seriously desirous of a peace; and the Roman general was sent with their ambassadors to Rome to aid the negotiation, under a solemn oath to return to Carthage as a prisoner, should the treaty fail. It was rejected at the urgent desire of Regulus himself, who thus sacrificed his life to what he judged the interest of his country.* 3. Lilyhæum, the strongest of the Sicilian towns belonging to Carthage, was taken after a siege of nine years. After some alternate successes, two naval battles won by the Romans, terminated the war; and Carthage at last obtained a peace, on the humiliating terms of abandoning to the Romans all her possessions in Sicily, the payment Many of the ancient authors have asserted, that the Carthaginians put Regulus to death in a cruel manner; but the truth of this statement is now much doubted; most recent writers attribute his death to the miseries of imprisonment. -ED. of 3,200 talents of silver, the restitution of all prisoners 4. The peace between Rome and Carthage was of 23 years' duration. The latter power was recruiting her strength and meditating to revenge her losses and disgrace. The second Punic war began on the part of the Carthaginians, who besieged Saguntum, a city of Spain in alliance with the Romans. The young Hannibal took Saguntum, after a siege of seven months; the desperate inhabitants setting fire to the town, and perishing amidst the flames. Hannibal now formed the bold design of carrying the war into Italy. He provided against every difficulty, gained to his interest a part of the Gallic tribes, passed the Pyrenees, and finally the Alps,* in a toilsome march of five months and a half from his leaving Carthagena; and arrived in Italy with 20,000 foot and 6000 horse.† Han 5. In the first engagement the Romans were defeated, and they lost two other important battles at Trébia and the lake Thrasymenus. In the latter of these the consul Flaminius was killed, and his army cut to pieces. nibal advanced to Cannæ, in Apulia; and the Romans there opposing him with their whole force, a memorable defeat ensued, in which 40,000 were left dead upon the field, and amongst these the consul Æmilius, and almost the whole body of the Roman Knights. Had Hannibal taken advantage of this victory, by instantly attacking The passage of Hannibal over the Alps has been lately illustrated, in most learned and ingenious essay, by Mr. Whittaker (the celebrated istorian of Manchester, and vindicator of Queen Mary), who has, with reat acuteness, traced every step of the Carthaginian general, from his ossing the Rhone to his final arrival in Italy. The numerical force is stated differently by other authorities.-Ed Rome the fate of the republic would have been inevitable; but he deliberated, and the occasion was lost. The Romans concentrated all their strength; even the slaves armed in the common cause, and victory once more attended the standards of the republic. Philip [the second,] king of Macedon, joined his forces to the Carthaginians, but, defeated by Lævinus, speedily withdrew his assistance. Hannibal retreated before the brave Marcellus. Syracuse had now taken part with Carthage, and thus paved the way for the loss of her own liberty. Marcellus besieged the city, which was long defended by the inventive genius of Archimedes, but taken in the third year by escalade in the night [and Archimédes was slain by a common soldier]. This event put an end to the kingdom of Syracuse, which now became a part of the Roman province of Sicily, A.U.C. 542; B.C. 212, 6. While the war in Italy was prosperously conducted by the great Fabius, who, by constantly avoiding a general engagement, found the true method of weakening his enemy, the younger Scipio accomplished the entire reduction of Spain. Asdrubal was sent into Italy to the aid of his brother Hannibal, but was defeated by the consul Claudius, and slain in battle. Scipio, triumphant in Spain, passed over into Africa, and carried havoc and devastation to the gates of Carthage. Alarmed for the fate of their empire, the Carthaginians hastily recalled Hannibal from Italy. The battle of Záma decided the fate of the war, by the utter defeat of the Carthaginians. They en treated a peace, which the Romans gave on the condi tions:-That the Carthaginians should abandon Spain Sicily, and all the islands [lying between Italy and Africa], surrender all their prisoners, give up the whole of their fleet except ten galleys, pay [within the period of fifty years] ten thousand talents, and, in future, undertake no war without the consent of the Romans, A.U.C. 552, B.c. 202. 7. Every thing now concurred to swell the pride of the conquerors, and to extend their dominion. A war with Philip [II.] of Macedon, was terminated by his defeat; and his son Demétrius was sent to Rome as a hostage for the payment of a heavy tribute imposed on the vanquished. [Philip died shortly after this war, and was succeeded by his son Perseus, whose first act was to form an alliance with several of the Grecian states, to free themselves from the yoke of the Romans. A war en sued, which terminated in the total defeat of Perseus, and the reduction of Macedon into a. Roman province]. A war with Antiochus, king of Syria, ended in his ceding to the Romans the whole of the Lesser Asia. But these splendid conquests, while they enlarged the empire, were fatal to its virtues, and subversive of the pure and venerable simplicity of ancient times. The 8. The third Punic war began A.U.C. 605, B.C. 149, and ended in the ruin of Carthage. An unsuccessful war with the Numidians had reduced the Carthaginians to great weakness, and the Romans meanly laid hold of that opportunity to invade Africa. Conscious of their utter inability to resist this formidable power, the Carthaginians offered every submission, and consented even to acknowledge themselves the subjects of Rome. The Romans demanded 300 hostages, for the strict performance of every condition that should be enjoined by the senate. hostages were given; and the condition required was, that Carthage itself should be rased to its foundation. Despair gave courage to this miserable people, and they determined to die in defence of their native city, B.C. 168. But the noble effort was in vain. Carthage [which at one time contained 700,000 inhabitants and had flourished for 1,000 years] was taken by storm, its inhabitants massacred, and the city burnt to the ground, [under Scipio, by birth, the son of Emilianus Paullus, and by adoption, the grandson of Scipio Africanus], A.U.C. 607, B.c. 146. 9. The same year was signalized ly the entire reduction of Greece under the dominion of the Romans. This was the era of the dawn of luxury and taste at Rome, the natural fruit of foreign wealth, and an acquaintance with foreign manners. In the unequal distribution of this important wealth, the vices to which it gave rise, the corruption and venality of which it became the instrument, we see the remoter causes of those fatal disorders to which the republic owed its dissolution. XXXIII.-The Gracchi and the Corruption of the Commonwealth. 1. At this period arose Tibérius and Caius Gracchus, two noble youths, whose zeal to reform the growing corruptions of the state, precipitated them at length into measures destructive of all government and social order, Tibérius, the elder of the brothers, urged the people to assert by force the revival of an ancient law, for limiting property in land, and thus abridging the overgrown estates of the patricians. [During this tribuneship he procured the constitution of the triumviri or public officers appointed to enquire into the state of the public lands applicable for agrarian division, and to report upon the violations of the Licinian law, which prohibited the occupation by any one person of more than 500 acres of public land, B.C. 132, and on the occasion of his seeking to be re-elected,] a tumult was the consequence, in which Tiberius, with 300 of his friends, were killed in the forum. This fatal example did not deter his brother Caius Gracchus from pursuing a similar career of zeal or of ambition. After some successful experiments of his power, while in the office of tribune, he directed his scrutiny into the corruptions of the senate, and prevailed in depriving that body of its constitutional control over all the inferior magistrates of the state. Employing, like his brother, the dangerous engine of tumultuary force, he fell a victim to it himself, with 3000 of his partisans, who were slaughtered in the streets of Rome [B.c. 120.] The tumults attending the sedition of the Gracchi were the prelude to those civil disorders which now followed in quick succession to the end of the commonwealth. 2. The circumstances attending the war with Jugurtha gave decisive proof of the corruption of the Roman manners. Jugurtha, grandson of Masinissa, sought to usurp the crown of Numidia by destroying his cousins, Hiempsal and Adherbal, the sons of the last king. He murdered the elder of the brothers; and the younger applying for aid to Rome, Jugurtha bribed the senate, who declared him innocent of all culpable act or design, and decreed to him the sovereignty of half the kingdom. This operated only as an incentive to his criminal ambition. He declared open war against his cousin, besieged him in his capital of Cirta, and finally put him to death. To avert a threatened war, Jugurtha went in person to Rome, pleaded his own cause in the senate, and once more by bribery secured his acquittal from all charge of crimi * On his leaving Rome, by command of the senate, who were indignant at his having caused Massiva to be assassinated, Sallust describes Jugurtha as remarking Rome to be " A venal city, and ready to fall if it could find a purchaser." |