THE WAR AGAINST THE LATINS. THE LAWS OF THE DICTATOR Q. PUBLIUS PHILO. FURTHER EVENTS.
The Romans now decided upon peace with the Samnites. They had already, on account of the past year, received from them an indemnity for pay and keep; or they then received it. The peace was made by the Romans in a selfish and base manner; as the war had been undertaken in conjunction with the Latins. They yielded Capua to the Samnites, and left them at liberty to conquer Teanum. The Sidicines, on the other hand, threw themselves into the arms of the Latins, and concluded with the Volscians, Auruncians, and Campanians, a separate league against the Samnites. The same thing has happened also in modern times; as for instance, the alliance between Prussia and Russia under Frederic the Great and Peter III., in the seven years’ war. The Latins now went on with the war suo Marte, which Livy in his way of viewing things deems an offence in them, as if they had violated the majestas populi Romani. They made war with the Pelignians; from which it may be seen that the Æquians belonged to them, as otherwise they could not have touched the Pelignians. The latter allied themselves with the Samnites, who in their turn applied to the Romans for help or mediation, as the peace had evidently been immediately followed by an alliance. The federal compact of Rome with the Latins and Hernicans had now come to a crisis: the Hernicans were either neutral, or, what is more likely, in a league with the Romans; as Livy and the Capitoline Fasti do not mention them among those over whom Mænius triumphed. Such confederacies may subsist between peoples, none of which is as ambitious and powerful as the Romans then were; but there were now only three ways open. Either they might part from each other and remain friends; or they might enter into a union, like that between Great Britain and Ireland; or lastly, the fortune of arms had to decide, which was to be master of the other: to stand side by side, as hitherto, was impossible. During the last year already, the war had no longer been carried on in common; the Latins had taken the field under their own standards. It was therefore now resolved to negociate. Latium had a more solid constitution than the Samnites; it was governed like Rome. It had two prætors, as Rome had two consuls; and it must have had a senate, as decem primi are mentioned, evidently the deputies of as many towns. These ten leaders betook themselves to Rome, and there they made the most just proposal that the two states should unite; that the senate from three hundred members should be doubled to six hundred; that the popular assembly should be increased,—in which case the seven and twenty Roman tribes would no doubt have been raised to thirty, and the Latin towns have voted as so many tribes; that Rome should be the seat of government, and a Roman and a Latin consul be elected every year. Had the Romans accepted these terms, Rome and Latium would in reality have been equal; but every Roman would have had his privileges lessened. The idea of a Latin consul was odious to the Romans; for, in all the republics, however democratically they may be disposed, there is a spirit of exclusiveness. Of this we find a striking instance in the history of the institutions of Geneva. In that republic there are bourgeois; natifs, that is to say, children of the μέτοικοι or habitans; and lastly, habitans; all of which have one after the other acquired the right of citizenship. Nothing is more oligarchical than the canton of Uri. Patricians as well as plebeians were discontented. If there was to be only one consul, who should it be, a patrician or a plebeian? They would rather have agreed to have four consuls. The embassy of the Latins, as Livy tells us, was received with general indignation; not that they had disguised from themselves that the impending struggle would be a war for life and death; but because vanity and selfishness outweighed this consideration. We are told, that the consul T. Manlius had declared that he would stab with his own hand the first Latin in the Roman senate. The story has besides the poetical addition, that while they were debating in the Capitol, a thunderstorm and a pelting shower came on; and that the Latin prætor, as he was retiring, fell down the centum gradus of the Tarpeian rock, and was taken up lifeless. In later narratives, “lifeless” was prosaically made out to mean “in a swoon.”
The Sabines, renowned as they were of old for uprightness, had been quite asleep, and they had no longer any importance whatever: the northern confederation, the Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, and Vestinians, in spite of their bravery, only wished to be left quiet in their mountains. The Romans passed through their territory, and were in alliance with the Samnites: the latter expected for themselves the conquest of Capua and Teanum as the result of the war. Had the Romans now been afraid of letting their open country be wasted by the Latins, they would have been obliged to keep themselves merely on the defensive, or else to carry on a tedious war of sieges against the Latin towns. But here the Roman generals showed themselves great, and the way in which they dealt with the whole matter, was masterly. Fixing upon the very boldest plan, they armed the reserve at Rome, and abandoned the fields, even to the very gates of the city, to the Latins; then they marched all the way round through the Sabine and the Marsian country, to join the Samnites; and when this was done, they advanced with a combined force against Capua. If the Latins had now left the Campanians to their fate, and had gone beforehand to meet the Romans, while they were still on their march through the country of the Æquians, they might have perhaps defeated them in these impassable regions. This daring enterprise of the Romans is a proof of high strategical talent; and great men were Manlius and Decius, who, like all great men, knew very well how to estimate their foes: it was on the strength of this knowledge that they ventured thus to lead their armies round in a semicircle. The Latins, by a quick movement, might have devastated the whole of the Roman territory; and then, eight days before the Romans could have returned, they might have made their appearance at the gates of Rome, with an easy retreat to their fortresses: but the Roman generals must have well known the want of spirit and the mediocrity of their enemy, and therefore have left the road to Rome open. The Latins listened to the complaints of the Campanians, and may perhaps have thought thus to destroy the whole of the Roman army with one blow, as it could not return. Their force also might have encouraged them in such a hope: a trifle would have turned the scale; they might have conquered, as well as have been conquered. The Romans, no doubt, had sent all that they could muster into the field, and were not even then equal to the Latins. That the Samnites joined them, is certain; but the Roman annalists try to deny it, as if the Samnites had arrived only after the battle. The Latins and their allies, the Volscians, Æquians, Sidicines, Campanians, and Auruncians, had pitched their camp on the eastern side of Vesuvius; whether Veseris, where the battle was fought, is the name of a town or a river, is not certain. Here the two armies stood for a long time over-against each other, anxiously awaiting the decisive day. If the Latins had had an able general, they would, after a defeat, have been far better off than the Romans: they could retreat to Capua, throw themselves behind the Liris, and there collect reinforcements from their own country. Nor were the Romans superior to the Latins in a military point of view. There had always been a Roman and a Latin century combined as a maniple in the legion, so that the organisation of the two armies was the same. Under these circumstances, the consul forbade all single combats on pain of death; and this he did on account of the moral effect,—as slight accidents may easily give birth to a prejudice concerning the issue of the battle,—not on account of the acquaintance with the enemy, as is stated by Livy. Thus it was forbidden in the Russian army to accept the challenge of the Turkish Spahis. The stricter the prohibition was, the louder was the defiance of the Latin knights; and it moreover happened that the Roman cavalry had always been the worst part of the army, worse, for instance, than that of the Ætolians. This gave rise to the duel between the Tusculan Geminius Metius and the son of consul Manlius. Livy has told this incident in a masterly style, with the heart of a Roman, and the soul of a poet: the father, in order to enforce obedience, had his son executed. There is another circumstance connected with it, which Livy mentions only cursorily.[135] In the old legend, it was certainly not the son of Manlius alone, but a centurion besides, who conquers for the pedites as the former did for the equites.
The long time which elapsed before the battle began, is a decisive proof that the Samnites did not stay away altogether. The Romans went into battle with gloomy forebodings; besides which, both of the consuls had had a dream, which announced a dismal issue, that one army and the general of the other were doomed to the infernal gods. On this, the two consuls agreed that the general of whichever wing[136] was hard pressed, should devote himself to the infernal gods. Both of them offered sacrifice; and that of Decius was of evil omen, that of Manlius propitious. It occurs here, as it often does in such cases, that the liver had no caput, which is, what in Italian is still called capo, the place where the liver is grown to the midriff; the seam was wanting. The liver exhibits the most varied features: quite healthy animals may have great differences of formation in their livers. In the heart and the lungs, no handle for divinations is to be found; the liver has nearly always some abnormities. Decius now went into battle with the resolution of sacrificing himself, a resolution which must have been formed already in Rome, as the pontifex accompanied the army in order to devote him.
The Roman legion then consisted of five bodies, hastati, principes, triarii, rorarii, accensi. Of these, there were three battalions of the line mixed up with light troops, and a battalion of light troops, the rorarii with a third of the hastati. Of the latter, nearly two-thirds were from early times armed with spears: the principes had at that time already pila; but the triarii had still lances. These were the troops of the line; but the ferentarii were light troops with slings, and one-third of the hastati, light soldiers with javelins. In the beginning of the battle, these skirmishers were thrown out like the ψιλοί of the Greeks, and afterwards retired through the lines to the rear; yet they always came forth again, as soon as the enemy retreated. These three battalions stood in detached maniples with intervals, as at Zama; but certainly not en échelons, such a large interval, as that stated by Livy, being practically impossible in a line, as the cavalry would have broken through it at once: probably they were drawn up in a quincunx, in which such intervals might exist. As the whole of the Roman array of battle was calculated to keep up the exertion of the individual, not, like the Greek, to form compact masses; the rule was this, that the two first battalions, covered by the skirmishers, approached the enemy as close as possible. Every Roman soldier was perfectly trained for fighting. In the later order of battle, the soldier began the onset with the pilum. The Roman soldiers stood in ten ranks with plenty of room for moving; if these were closed, the first battalion ran forward, halted, and then hurled those terrible pila which pierced through armour, and of which each man had several with him. When they thus halted, all was not yet over after the first throw; but the front ranks, after having discharged their pila, fell back two steps, and the rank close behind them came forward too, and took its place at the side of each, on the same line; the first rank then retired, and formed the tenth rank. Thus the whole ten advanced in their turn to use their pila. This mode of attack, the only possible and true one, was terrible to the enemy. From this quiet rotation it may also be conceived, how it was that the fights lasted a long while, and that the soldiers did not at once come to close quarters: an hour surely was taken up in merely throwing the pila. Then did the fight with swords begin, in which the ranks again relieved each other. The rear ranks were not idle in the meantime. If some of the front ranks fell, or were worn out, they took their places; and thus the Roman battle might last a good while. For this, armies must indeed have been trained and practised, as the Romans were. The dust and the shout of battle were not as confusing as the smoke and thunder of artillery. If the hastati had done fighting, they withdrew to the rear of the principes who now commenced; if the troops were overpowered, they fell back on the triarii, who, at that time, formed a reserve which, however, was always obliged to enter into the fight. Besides those four battalions, the three of the line and one of light troops, there was a fifth, the accensi, without armour, and merely intended to fill up the places of the slain, whose arms they were to take. The accensi and velati were the two centuries which were attached to the fifth class, though below its census.
It is evident that Manlius, in this instance, did a thing which had never been done before: he armed the accensi, used them to strengthen his line, instead of the triarii whom he reserved for the last decision. By this means he saved himself. Not that, as Livy says, the Latins mistook the accensi for triarii; this is not possible, though it may be that the accensi also were armed with spears, and advanced as phalangites. The Latins went on in the old routine; and even then, they had nothing but its common-place elements. In the meantime, at the wing of Decius the fight was disastrous; the Latins were conquering. On this, Decius caused himself to be devoted to death by the pontifex M. Valerius. This devotion had an inspiring effect upon the army, and one which to their ideas was magical; as the consul had atoned for the whole nation, which was now deemed invincible. And thus, according to the legend, the fortune of the battle turned at once; the legions rallied, and won the completest of victories.
If Rome had been overpowered in this struggle, the whole of her army would have been annihilated. The Latins, however, would not have been able to derive the same advantages from it which Rome did; for as Latium itself was wanting in that unity which is based upon a grand central point, the supremacy would have been left in abeyance between it and Samnium. There is every likelihood that Italy would then have fallen under a foreign yoke; it might perhaps have become the hopeless prey of Pyrrhus, or at least of the Carthaginians, and the Gauls would have incessantly wasted it. Had the Italian nations been wise, the same result would have been brought about without the destruction which now indeed accompanied it.
The battle must have been a complete defeat to the Latins; so decisive was it, that all were seized with panic. Capua evidently yielded at once; and those who had been beaten, did not even try to defend themselves behind the Vulturnus, but hurried away beyond the Liris. All fled. At Vescia, however, a new army was formed. Vescia is an Ausonian town near the Vescinian mountains, probably the present S. Agata di Goti: there are indeed no ruins there, but many tombs. It is situated on the natural road from the Liris to the Vulturnus; going to Naples, one has the mountains on the right hand. The flight of the Latins cannot then have been so disorderly as Livy describes it. Here those who had escaped assembled, and were reinforced by fresh contingents from the old Latin and Volscian towns; the Volscians on the sea coast, and on the Liris, the Auruncians and Sidicines, consequently the whole of the country between the Liris and the Vulturnus, were united. This army offered to the Romans a final battle near Trifanum on the Liris, between Sinuessa and Minturnæ. The Romans at once attacked, without resting from their march, and gained a decisive victory, though with a great loss of men; and this second overthrow of the Latins completed the destruction of all their resources, especially as they had the broad river Liris behind them. The contingents dispersed, each to defend its own town. The Romans quickly followed up the advantage which they had won, and went on towards Rome, passing through the very territory of the Latins. Whether Latium was then entirely subdued already, as Livy tells us, or yet later,—the Latins indeed are still open enemies the year after,—can only be decided according to probability. The Roman senate now pronounced judgment at once: perhaps these had laid down arms in their first fright, and had afterwards taken them up again; perhaps also the senate, with a grand confidence in the certainty of eventual success, passed the resolution that the ager publicus of the Latin state, the Falernian district of the Campanians, and part of the ager Privernas,—Privernum does not seem to have entered into the league of the Latins,—should be confiscated, and assigned to the Plebes viritim, that is to say, to every one who had put on the toga pura: assignments beyond the Vulturnus would not have been worth anything to the Romans. The assignation was, however, of very trifling extent, as the chief men among the plebeians intrigued with the patricians against the people. It was probably as a compensation for the ager Falernus, that to each of the Campanian knights a yearly revenue of four hundred and fifty denarii, to be paid by the commonalty of Capua, was adjudged: these, as was already remarked, were the Samnites of the old colony, who for the sake of their own interest had taken no share in the struggle. In the following year, after the Romans had received the submission of the Latins, that terrible punishment must have driven the latter to despair, and we see them again under arms. We know from more examples than one, with what cruelty the Romans dealt with a people that had revolted, for instance, Pleminius at Locri, during the war of Hannibal; so that we may believe that the garrisons in each of the towns were allowed to commit every crime, and such places had long to suffer all the horrors of a city taken by storm. The Romans now made war against the Latins from the nearest points of their territory. The insurrection was only in old Latium proper; in Tibur, Præneste, Pedum, on one side, and in Aricia, Lavinium, Antium, and Velitræ, on the other: this last town was originally Latin, then Volscian, at length it received a Roman colony; Tusculum and Ardea were Roman. These places formed two masses which defended themselves. The two consuls, Ti. Æmilius Mamercinus and Q. Publilius Philo, fought against them: Publilius had foiled an attempt of the Latins in the field;[137] Æmilius besieged Pedum. Here the united peoples of Tibur and Pedum had intrenched themselves, and the year passed away without any result. It was resolved to appoint a dictator; it is uncertain for what reason. Æmilius thence took occasion to name Publilius for that dignity.
There was now a suspension of arms, and attention was turned to domestic laws minuendo juri Patrum, the necessary results of the existing state of things, and not to be blamed, as Livy imagines. The first was, that one of the censors was now, of necessity, to be a plebeian. This in truth had already before been the case; C. Marcius, as we know, was the first plebeian censor; but it was only now that it became lawful, and was always done. The second, that to the laws which should be brought before the comitia centuriata, the patricians were to give a previous consent, whatever might be the resolution which the centuries should come to. Formerly the consuls had the initiative in the laws; afterwards also the prætor, as he too might preside in the senate, and make motions, his power having sprung from that of the consuls: the ædiles therefore had not this right, although they had the sella curulis. Yet the decree which the senate had passed on the motion of the magistrate, was not law; but it went to the centuries, and then to the curies. This circuitous method began when the comitia centuriata were added to the constitution. The senate was at first a patrician committee, and in fact even now the majority was still patrician; there was, however, already a very powerful plebeian element in it. Since the decemvirate, a hundred and ten years had elapsed; many patrician clans therefore must in that time have become extinct, and others have gone over to the Plebes. From Von Stetten’s history of the houses of Augsburg, we see that out of fifty-one houses in that city, thirty-eight became extinct in one hundred years; and that those which were left, then put forth the self-same claims which the fifty-one, a hundred years before, had not been able to make good. There was therefore no longer any reason whatever for allowing the patricians at Rome to have the veto as formerly; if it were taken away, it would only save a very great deal of unnecessary quarrelling. The more the patricians dwindled away, the more the ground was felt to be shaking beneath their feet, the more jealous they became, and the more they displayed their ill-humour in the weightiest business of the state. The change therefore made by Publilius, was a well-grounded one. Nothing, however, was ever formally abolished in Rome; but if old institutions were no more of use, they were allowed to continue as forms, so that they could do no harm: and thus it was enacted, that if the senate wanted anything to be decreed, the curies were to give their sanction to it beforehand. It is probable that, as in after days, only the lictors lent themselves to this farce. The third law is, ut plebiscita omnes Quirites tenerent; and it concerns, as was explained above, government decrees (ψηφίσματα), which were to be confirmed by the tribes, instead of by the centuries. This too was a mere formality; for if the tribunes, with whom the consul had previously conferred, agreed to them, the Plebs also always gave its consent.
The following year 417 is a decisive one: it is that in which the two hostile masses, the people of Pedum with their neighbours, and the inhabitants of the sea-coast, were utterly routed by L. Furius Camillus and C. Mænius, and Pedum taken by storm. C. Mænius is looked upon by the ancients as the one who decided the war. He conquered on the river Astura, the position of which is not known; a place of that name was situated between Circeii and Antium: certain it is, that he gained a victory on the coast, and Camillus another inland. To Mænius as the conqueror of the Latin people, an equestrian statue was erected. From henceforth no Latin army makes a stand any more in the field: the towns one by one capitulated. Livy’s account of it seems extremely satisfactory; but, if we compare it with other important notices, it is not so. He postdates events; some matters he omits, others he conceives but vaguely; and he makes no distinction between the free and the dependent municipium. Thus it happens, that we have only a general knowledge of these relations. The whole of the Latin state was broken up; the single towns, the senate resolved upon keeping, and making them of use to Rome, which, with extraordinary wisdom was done in different ways. Tusculum had had from of old the right of Roman citizenship, but not completely; its inhabitants now became full citizens. To the people of Lanuvium and of Nomentum, the freedom of Rome was granted, to become full citizens like the Tusculans; and at the same time, their population was enrolled in the census as plebeians, and admitted into the tribes. The Tusculans were put into the tribus Pupinia;[138] the Lanuvinians, and perhaps the Veliturnians, were formed into a new tribe, probably the Scaptia: whether the Nomentans formed the Mæcia, is uncertain. The Aricians also are mentioned by Livy among those who had received the citizenship; but according to an authentic account, they stood some years later in the position of a dependent municipium. Thus therefore these peoples attained to great honours. No place has given birth to so many renowned families as the little town of Tusculum, the cradle of the Fulvii, Porcii, Coruncanii, Curii, and others. This is a remark of Cicero’s, and as a general rule, a particularly large number of great men thus often come from certain places. Of Lanuvium hardly a family can be named.
Others also became citizens; but not optimo jure. From thence begins the class of citizens sine suffragio, which afterwards increases, and rises to a position of its own. The isopolites of old were municipes; and, if they settled in Rome, they could exercise the full rights of Roman citizens, a case like that of the freemen from the district of Florence before the year 1530. Into this relation of isopolity did those towns now enter, which had received the civitas sine suffragio. There was this difference, that formerly those only were municipes, who came to Rome, but whose native land enjoyed perfect independence in its political relations with other countries. This was now done away with. Single places became municipia; but were quite dependent with regard to foreign affairs; in the definition therefore in Festus, this is the second class of the municipia. Such municipia had connubium with Rome, and their own magistrates, and their inhabitants might acquire landed property there; but they were entirely dependent upon Rome, like an arrogated son on his father, or a wife quæ in manum convenerat: with regard to others they had no persona. Their right as regarded Rome, was to have equity at her hands. To that of Roman citizenship, they might be admitted as individuals by the censors; yet they did not serve in the legion, because they were not in the tribes; still they had to furnish troops, not as socii, but in fact as Romani, although in separate cohorts. The question may be mooted, whether they were liable to the tributum; that is to say, whether, if a tributum was levied at Rome, they had to pay according to the Roman census, and possessed the right of sharing burthens and advantages with the Roman people; or whether they were assessed at home. The latter was probably the case, as they raised and paid their troops themselves, and the tributum was also inherently connected with the tribus. To pay they had at all events; that was a thing of course. Without doubt, they had a share in the common land: if the Romans got a general assignation, these places also had a district assigned to them which they might dispose of in whatever way they chose. It is thus only, that Capua could have made such considerable acquisitions after the war of Pyrrhus.
Thus was this decision an important epoch for the Roman state. There sprang up quite a new class of municipia, the consequence of which was, that the Romans frequently bought estates in those districts. Soon, however, an inconvenience showed itself; as Romans had to appear before the tribunal of those who were by no means of so high a standing as themselves. This was afterwards remedied by the establishment of a præfectura; which the ancients, Livy in particular, misinterpreted, as if those towns had become quite subject when such an office was instituted. The province of the præfects (townwardens, reeves), was that of administering the law to the full citizens. Such places were then called fora or conciliabula, which was much the same thing as the townhouse in an American township: here was the court of law, and the markets also. The Roman who, for instance, bought at Capua a slave according to the law of that district, could not claim him as his property at Rome; if, however, the purchase had been made before the præfect according to Roman law, it could not be impugned on any account.
The fate of the other Latin towns was very hard. From Velitræ, the old senators, who were probably Volscians, together with a large part of the inhabitants, were led away across the Tiber into exile; and a new colony was sent into the place. To Antium, which was a sea-port, a marine colony was sent; the inhabitants received the inferior right of Roman citizenship, which the Roman settlers also entered into on going thither. The Antiates were deprived of their armed vessels (interdictum mare): the Romans detested piracy, and in this way got most easily out of it: whether the commerce of the Antiates suffered from it, was all the same to them. The other places were forbidden connubium and commercium among each other, and also common deliberations (concilia), as in Achaia, Phocis, Bœotia; from none of them could any thing be bought or sold to the other; besides which, each had its own burdens; so that, if once by any calamity the landed property in one of them fell in value, the distress was very great. They were limited to selling among themselves, or to Roman citizens, as they had commercium with Romans only. This was the cause of the decline of these towns; for in proportion as Romans settled there, their burthens became greater and greater, so that part of them vanished from the face of the earth. Præneste and Tibur only kept their footing. They were agro multati; but in Polybius’ times they again make their appearance in possession of the old jus municipii. According to Livy, it might seem as if none but the Laurentines had retained the old fœdus; but it is very possible that this was also the case with these two, and that, although they at that time lost their demesne, they still preserved the franchise of the municipium. Both of them had large and fruitful country districts, and they must have had peculiar vitality in them: Præneste indeed tried more than once to shake off the Roman yoke. In this isolation all those places were comprehended, which at the end of the fourth century were leagued with Latium. The prohibition of the concilia remained in force; for the feriæ Latinæ, the old diet, became a mere shadow, a conventus (πανήγυρις) solely for the celebration of the games. This isolation was also particularly extended to the Æquians, who doubtless had been in the Latin league.
This was an expedient which the Romans now invariably employed, wherever they wanted to break a conquered people, as they did afterwards in Achaia. By this means, the chief places were entirely severed; the feeling of unity died away; they looked on each other as strangers,—and such a separation generally brings on hostility after it, as in Northern and Southern Dittmarschen. As the Romans placed no garrisons in the towns, they were obliged to adopt this Machiavellian policy. In the same manner, the Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Tuscany, who likewise kept no troops, divided his subjects, and thereby made them bad.
The Latin colonies, as it seems, were severed from the rest of Latium; whereas formerly they had been attached in the first instance to Latium, and did not immediately depend upon Rome. They now became a peculiar class of subjects, the like of which had not existed before; as Rome from this time founds Latin colonies by her own absolute authority. These deserve the admiration with which Machiavel speaks of them; they are the device of a grand, statesmanlike spirit. They were increased to thirty, even as there had formerly been thirty Latin towns. These colonies have their origin in the treaty between the two peoples. A district conquered in common, was formerly shared between them both; but those which could not, or which were not to have been thus divided, were assigned as colonies. Rome also founded for herself several colonies, which received the Cærite franchise; but those were called Latin colonies. Here Roman citizens might settle, and thereby left the tribes; yet they could again become citizens, if they chose. Afterwards these colonies joined the Latin towns: in the list of the thirty Latin places, previous to the battle at the Regillus, in Dionysius, which are certainly those in the treaty of peace between Rome and Latium, there are some which were stated to have been founded as Latin colonies by Tarquin the Proud, and are mentioned as such in the war of Hannibal. With regard to these, there is no doubt but that those Romans who joined the Latins in them, acquired equal civil rights. In the Latin colonies, the number of citizens was much larger than in the Roman ones. Afterwards the Italians were admitted to take part in the colonies; they also sometimes got a share of the demesne; and thus the colonies became the great means for the spread of the Roman dominion, and by the Latin language, which became that of Roman policy, those of the old inhabitants were overpowered. They always were from the first dependent upon Rome, and quite unconnected with each other. Until then, the number of the Latin colonies was inconsiderable; from henceforth it increases. All these places were bound to military service, and Rome prescribed to them their contingent: they mainly contributed to the success of the Romans in the Samnite wars. The Romans surrounded themselves with colonies, as their border strongholds. A district was given over to several thousand men with the obligation to keep it; there were added to them from Rome as many as liked to join them, and others from Latium and other nations. The laws were established; the old inhabitants remained as a commonalty,—the mass of the tradesmen certainly consisted of them; they amalgamated before long with the coloni, and this germ grew up to be a stately tree. Rome first planted these colonies on the Liris, and in Campania; then drew this chain as high up as Umbria, and pushed it on further and further. This double plan of founding colonies, and of imparting the right of citizenship, without, and in some cases with the suffragium, became the means by which Rome, from a city-corporation, grew into a state which comprised the whole of Italy. The coloni were not charged with any personal taxes, which fell upon foreigners only; they had but to pay tithes from the Ager, ex formula.
The revolution which resulted from the conquest of the Latins, is immense in its consequences. Only two years before, Rome’s destruction by the Latins was quite a possible event; now all the resources of Latium had accrued to her, which had not been destroyed during the struggle. There follows, however, from the reasons mentioned above, an epoch of decline for the Latin towns.
Among the Campanians the Romans likewise created divisions: they made a distinction between the Populus and the Plebes, the former being the indemnified knights. The relation with the Hernicans was not changed; or if it were, they had now in the victories of the Romans got an equivalent in money. Capua, Cumæ, Suessula, Atella, Fundi, and Formiæ, receive the free municipium and isopolity; the Romans therefore nominally acknowledge their full equality.
We are hardly able to form a distinct idea of the then state of the Roman commonwealth at home, owing to the insufficiency of the accounts which we have. The war had cost Rome such heavy sacrifices, that although her sway reached from Sutrium and Nepete as far as Campania, she suffered from faintness and loss of blood for a long time after; and thus the calm which ensued is perfectly intelligible. The year after the decision of the war (418), the prætorship was imparted to the plebeian order, under certain conditions; so that from that time, the prætorship, in accordance with the rule laid down, alternated between patricians and plebeians. This may be historically proved: the exceptions are worth remarking, and they help to explain the law. The first plebeian prætor was Q. Publilius Philo; and therefore, perhaps, some connection between this law and three others which go by his name, may be surmised. When the second prætorship, the so-called prætura peregrina was added, one was always a patrician and the other a plebeian; just as afterwards, when there are four in number, two are patricians, and two plebeians. But when afterwards there were six of them, such an equal division could no longer take place, as the patricians had fast dwindled. The completion of the Licinian law was a great step in advance; the equality of the two orders had now become a reality; for the circumstance that the patricians still chose interreges exclusively from among themselves, is of no importance. The recurrence of the interregna at that period, indeed shows that the patricians were still dreaming of evading the law; the gain became the more tempting, as the number lessened of those who laid claim to it. Yet these attempts, as far as we can see, did not call forth any violent reaction: the force of circumstances and the reality of facts turned the scales.
Abroad there was no war of any consequence. The Romans had to carry on a petty warfare which was rather welcome to them, and which had for its object, to make their state a connected whole as far as the Liris and Campania. On both banks of the Liris dwelt the Auruncians (called Ausonians by the Greeks, and also in Livy, when he borrows from Greek sources, namely Fabius, or Dionysius), an Oscan people. These had taken part against the Romans in the Latin war; but had afterwards submitted to them as subjects, and were now under their protection. The Sidicines had been left by the Romans to be conquered by the Samnites, and must have come to terms with them: so that the Samnites allowed them to keep their ground, not wishing the barrier between themselves and the Romans to be pulled down. For this reason, there was now jealousy between the Romans and Samnites. Nor could it have been otherwise. It was especially owing to the Samnite conquests in those parts, that the Volscians had attached themselves to the Latins, and afterwards to the Romans; as the Samnites, at that time, were more dangerous to them than the Romans. The great states would let the small ones make war with each other; for by this means events might be brought about, in which they would find an opportunity for coming forth with all their might: these states, were as it were pour les coups d’épingles qui précèdent les coups de canon. The Sidicines, leagued with the Auruncians of Cales, attacked the other Auruncians; and therefore the Romans marched against them. The Romans carried on the war with much policy: they behaved lukewarmly, as it was far from their interest that the Sidicines should be hard pressed, lest they should throw themselves into the arms of the Samnites. They took Cales, between Teanum and Cassilinum, and occupied it by a strong colony. The system was now, by means of such settlements, to gain a firm footing in the country between the Liris and the Vulturnus, as far as the Samnites did not possess it: this course they pursued with great perseverance and great success. By the colony of Cales, Rome connected Campania, which was ever suspected, with her own empire. A second colony, founded soon afterwards, was Fregellæ, which in the seventh century became so remarkable for its pride and its misfortune: it was situated on the spot where the Liris is crossed by the Latin road, which leads through Tusculum to the Hernican towns, and thence by Teanum to Capua. The planting of this colony was a real usurpation: the Samnites were masters of the country as far as Monte Casino; they had subjected the Volscians there, and destroyed Fregellæ; by the treaty moreover, they were allowed to spread in those parts, and even if they had abandoned them, the Romans were not to take possession of them. The Samnites had also taken Sora, and established themselves there, with views certainly as ambitious as those of Rome. The Romans concluded isopolity with the Caudinians; nevertheless the two nations were convinced that war between them was inevitable. Under these circumstances, the Romans indeed were engaged in as troublous a policy as the interesting one of the sixteenth century was.
It is certainly not the mere result of chance, when we remark in history, that at certain periods, in countries far apart, the very same kind of changes take place, which, owing to the distance of space and time, cannot have been brought about one by the other, and from which a new order of things springs up. In this we trace the hand of Providence, which guides the fortunes of men, and the progress of all nations, as one whole. Such an epoch is the breaking up of the Latin league, and the spread of the power of Rome, quite similar to the state of things towards the end of the fifteenth century. An interesting parallel may be drawn between the two periods. It is as if the events which single nations and countries may work out by their own resources, had been achieved; and as if all the relations of life should now be changed according to new landmarks. Nations which had ever been strangers to each other, are now brought into contact; the states, which had hitherto been the most flourishing, begin to decay, and there only remains the yellow leaf of autumn; the intellectual brilliance of the most gifted races is waning fast, never to blaze forth again; inclinations and tastes take a new turn, as well as the whole of every day life with its animal wants and enjoyments: even the physical nature of man is changed, as new diseases make their appearance. Thus it was at the end of the fifteenth century. The bloom of the Italian towns had withered, even as, at the period of which we are treating, Greece was falling into decay. The cause of the prosperity of Greece, the balance of its many small states, was also that of its decline; for no single one of these was powerful enough to keep up the whole.—The very same were the relations of Italy at that time. Florence and Venice stood side by side with equal power; if Venice had been strong enough to have had the mastery, a new and better order of things would have arisen. The battle of Chæronea and the downfall of the Latins took place in the same year, and this coincidence shows us the hand of Providence working in secret. The Romans and Samnites, to all appearance, faced each other as equals; and it seemed as if the struggle must have ended in the destruction of both, of which foreigners and barbarians would then have reaped the advantage. For in the North, the Gauls already held a great part of Italy; and on the other side, the Carthaginians were threatening. It is true that a short time before, Timoleon had checked the spread of the latter in Sicily; yet sooner or later, they could not fail to take that island as well as Corsica, even as they had already got Sardinia, all but one mountain range. Thus it seemed, that after the Romans and Samnites had mutually ruined each other, these two peoples were to divide Italy between themselves.
As for the relations of Rome to the Greeks, there had been hitherto no political connexion between them. There seems indeed to have been some intercourse with the inhabitants of Magna Græcia and the Siceliotes; and I believe that even the learning and science of Magna Græcia exercised a much greater influence than is generally supposed, and that the knowledge also of the Greek language may not at that time have been anything unusual at Rome. Even though Pythagoras should not have become a Roman citizen, as perhaps he is not even an historical personage, the Pythagorean philosophy was from an early period known and admired by the Romans. In the case of some neighbouring places, communications with Greece are more than once spoken of. Cumæ gave occasion for this; the Sibylline books were also indeed reputed to have been kept at Rome. The first missions to Delphi are fabulous, though in fact the Romans did consult the oracle. What we know besides, is limited to the transactions with Massilia at the time that the city was taken by the Gauls, and with the Lipariotes, the guardians of the Tyrrhenian sea against the pirates. All the rest is grounded on legends. But the first political relation, by which Rome as a state comes at length to be connected with the Greeks, dates from that time; for the treaty with Massilia was in all likelihood nothing more than a treaty of commerce, which I am strongly led to believe from the circumstance of Massilia and Carthage being at enmity, on account of the fisheries, as Justin informs us. By these we are to understand either the coral fisheries on the African, or the tunny fisheries on the Italian coast: the inhabitants of Provence were during the whole of the middle ages in possession of the coral fisheries of Africa. That first connexion was the treaty between Rome and Alexander, king of Epirus;—for, one may indeed call the Epirotes Greeks, although they were of Pelasgian origin, as they were hellenized. Alexander was called over to Italy by the people of Tarentum, in the year of Rome 420, Ol. 112.
About this time, the glory of Magna Græcia had already vanished; most of the places, Posidonia, Pyxus, Caulonia, Hipponium, Terina, and others, had been conquered by the Lucanians and the Bruttians, who had only been able to keep part of them, and had abandoned the rest: a few only still held out, but had to struggle for their existence. Rhegium, Locri, and Croton once so flourishing, had been laid waste by the Dionysii of Syracuse: these indeed had left them alone again; but they lay half in ruins, having only been wretchedly patched up, just as Delhi and Ispahan are now. Thurii and Metapontum had much trouble to defend themselves against the Lucanians; their territory was almost entirely lost, and they were like the Italian towns in the sixth and seventh centuries, when they made head against the Lombards. The only Greek city which, amid the general calamity, was in the full pride of its bloom, was Tarentum. It is true that soon after the expedition of Xerxes, this place had suffered a great defeat from the neighbouring Messapians; yet it had recovered from it, and when the tyrants of Syracuse and the Lucanians threatened the other towns, Tarentum began to flourish. It was undoubtedly increased by the immigration of many Greeks from the other cities, some of which were ruined, and the rest in danger. A parallel to this may be found in the growing prosperity of the Netherlands, and of Switzerland, at the time of the thirty years’ war: the flourishing condition of these countries was chiefly owing to the misery in Germany, as industry and commerce had sought a refuge there. In the same way did Tarentum wax great; and it had the advantage besides, which is always enjoyed by a neutral state between countries at war, to which we are to add the wisdom of its government.
The Tarentines were much enriched by industry and commerce, by wool manufactures, by their skill in dyeing, and also by their salt pastures; and with the exception of Syracuse, none of the Greek cities in those days, not even Rhodes itself, were perhaps so wealthy as Tarentum. This town from its position was perfectly peaceful: its population consisted of excellent seamen. Navigation and fishing in all likelihood was their element then, as it is now: this life of busy laziness is the delight of the Greek and the southern Italian; the Neapolitan is perfectly happy when rocking himself about in his fishing boat. Nature has given everything in plenty to the country of Tarentum. Probably the sea is nowhere in Europe so rich in shell and other fish, as in the bay of Tarentum: the poor Tarentine in his idleness is indeed as happy as a prince; he lives only on bread, salt, and olives, which he can always easily procure. Tarentum had no large tracts of land belonging to it, in which there was room for tillage. The Latin race, the Etruscans, Umbrians, Sabellians, and the rest, are born husbandmen. The Italian peasant is an excellent being as long as he is hereditary owner of the soil: he is honest and respectable, whilst the townspeople are good for nothing. The Italian, unless he be of Greek extraction, is quite unfit for a sea life: the Roman coast is supplied with fish by the southern towns, which were still Greek in the middle ages. The Greek is a bad husbandman, even as in ancient times, and not to be compared to the Italian. Although there is a great deal of agricultural knowledge to be found in Theophrastus’ book, the Greek did not feel happy in this pursuit: he likes to cultivate the olive-tree, the vine, but not corn. The Greek soil is also in many places almost wholly unfit for growing corn, and is far more suited for olives. The Greek is a cheerful, happy fisherman, and a capital sailor.
The Tarentines were a thoroughly democratic people, like the Athenians of the Piræeus, as Aristotle already remarks; owing to the revenue from customs and a variety of other sources, it was a very rich state. With these vast means they were enabled to keep standing armies, like the Dutch in the seventeenth century, as it was also then customary throughout the whole of Greece. General opinion is unfavourable to the Tarentines. At the time when they were engaged in war with the Romans, they were indeed a luxurious, unwarlike people; but the blame which is generally heaped upon them, is in the true spirit of human nature, which when some one, formerly mighty, has fallen, chooses rather to trace to the man himself the causes of his own ruin, than to pity him. I am convinced that in Tarentum, next to Athens, the wisest and most eminently intellectual men have been bred, and that the commonwealth made an excellent use of them. A state, which reared Archytas, the Leibnitz of his age, and which did not look upon him with jealousy, as the Ephesians did upon Hermodorus, but called him seven times to the office of general, cannot be lightly thought of; the Grecian mind in the whole of its fullness must have dwelt there. The wretched anecdotes which Athenæus, for instance, tells of the Tarentines, are refuted by that single fact. They do not deserve censure any more than those great characters reviled in Schiller’s Mary Stuart; a thing which I can never forgive in that fine poem. It is indeed possible, that Archytas and the other statesmen of Tarentum looked too much to the interest of their own town, and were not sufficiently imbued with the spirit of general Greek patriotism. To such a feeling the Athenians alone have raised themselves. Archytas may have kept up a good understanding with the tyrants of Syracuse, having regard rather to the advantage than to the honour of his city; yet this is a course from which, in unhappy times, the most worthy men of all countries, when they were at the helm of the state, have not kept altogether clear. The Tarentines are reproached with having employed foreign soldiers, and that in whole armies; first of all, Archidamus of Sparta; then Alexander of Epirus; then Cleonymus, Agathocles, and at last Pyrrhus. For this, Strabo taxes them with cowardice, charging them besides with having shown themselves unthankful to their protectors. Yet it was a general evil of the times after the Peloponnesian war, that militia soldiers were no longer brought into the field, but that standing armies came into use: this was owing to the circumstance, that wars were on a larger scale, and had become more bloody, so that the old stock of citizens was destroyed. The devastations which had attended them, had now made numbers of men homeless, who, especially in Greece, as in modern times in Switzerland, roved about by thousands, being the greatest of nuisances. There had indeed for a long time existed in Greece the fine custom, that the inhabitants of a town which had been conquered and destroyed, remained free, and were not sold for slaves; but all that they had was taken from them, and thus they were obliged to live by robbery. In the thirty years’ war, it also became more easy every year to find troops, πόλεμος πόλεμον τρέφει. These soldiers, who were always under arms, were far superior to the militia; and when once it was begun to employ them, the militia were soon no more able to stand against them at all. A town like Tarentum could raise no legions. This can only be done where there is a respectable and numerous peasantry; whence it happens that there are countries where no other choice is left but to enlist soldiers, as at Florence when the militia had got out of practice, whilst the same thing is ruinous for others. The people of Tarentum would thus have to employ mercenaries, and to keep a standing army would have been injurious to their freedom; if therefore they could do without troops, they were quite right in contenting themselves with their town militia. But if ever it became necessary to enlist troops, there was in Greece at Tænarus the gathering place of the men without a home (latrones, μισθοφόροι). These, however, were untrustworthy and faithless, as they followed him who paid the most, like the condotti in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and a condottiere was very apt to be guilty of treachery, or he became a tyrant. It was therefore much better to take princes with their well-trained armies into their service, the honour of the prince being a pledge to them. Besides which, why should the Tarentines put themselves out of their way in their trade and business, if they could do otherwise? It might become dangerous; but they wisely took care of themselves, as long as they could. In their dealings with Alexander, they were gainers; with Pyrrhus, however, this was not the case. The English system of enlistment also has been blamed without any insight into the merits of it.
The Tarentines got into a quarrel with the Lucanians, by whom Heraclea and Metapontum, which were in a manner under their protection, had been attacked. The Lucanians had at that time already lost again that part of Calabria which was afterwards called Bruttium: the population there, which was made up of the Pelasgian serfs of the Greek towns, had collected into a people, and had renounced their allegiance; on which the former had wisely recognised them, and made them their friends. In order to indemnify themselves, the Lucanians turned their arms against Tarentum, and tried to conquer Heraclea. In this strait, the Tarentines had sent for Archidamus of Sparta, who, with the unfortunate Phocian refugees, had engaged himself in the service of Crete; but he was killed on the very day that the battle of Chæronea was lost. After some years, they called in Alexander the Molossian, of Epirus, brother to Olympias, the queen of Philip, who also had given him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage. He had been an appanaged prince, and his dominions were very small. At first, he had been presented by Philip with three little towns in Cassopia on the Thesprotian coast; afterwards the latter, who spread his rule in Epirus, and everywhere took the strong places, raised him to the throne of the Molossians; yet Alexander, as king of that people, found that he was hardly able to do any thing. Philip followed the same line of policy with his relations, which Napoleon did with his brothers; they were to be kings, but without power; for which reason, Philip kept a stronghold like Ambracia for himself. In the times of Alexander of Macedon, our Alexander had to obey the commands of that old, insolent Antipater; he was not on good terms with Alexander, and according to the account of the ancients, it was jealousy of the glory of his nephew which moved him to go to Italy: he is said to have bitterly complained, that it had been his fate to fight against men, whilst the other had only women to withstand him. He went to Italy with views quite different from those of the Tarentines when they called him in. These had engaged him as a petty prince with a well trained army, for their protection; but Alexander went over with the intention of conquering for himself a kingdom, and thus there could not of course be any good understanding long kept up between them. He was successful: he overcame the Sallentines; made a diversion to Posidonia; freed the Greek towns, and united them in a confederacy of which he naturally became the στρατηγός and ἡγεμών. He was of course never at a loss for subsidies from the Tarentines, any more than the belligerent nations of the last century, who had them from England under Walpole; but the memory of his achievements has almost entirely past away: we find but a few stray notices in Tzetzes. His success was brilliant as long as he was on good terms with the Tarentines; but he betrayed his ambitious views and wanted to assume the title of a king of Italy (no doubt in the strict sense of the word). This stirred up the Tarentines, and caused a breach between the two parties. Whether they concluded a separate peace with the Lucanians, is uncertain; but as the assembly of the Greek towns was now held at Heraclea, although Tarentum was the most powerful and distinguished among them, it would seem that this change was made by Alexander, which clearly shows a quarrel with the Tarentines. As, however, the power of Alexander was now too inconsiderable, he seems to have carried on the war as an adventurer, like Charles XII.: he made roving expeditions. Pandosia, in the heart of Lucania, where he was surrounded by Lucanians and Bruttians, became his Pultawa: his army was divided, both divisions of it annihilated, and he himself slain. He had before that concluded a treaty with the Romans, which Livy mentions cursorily, but certainly from Roman annals. This is a proof how the Romans calculated circumstances; they had nothing to fear from him, and wanted to unite with him for no other reason than to overawe the Samnites, who had made a treaty with Tarentum. Real alliance between Rome and Alexander, there was none; for the treaty with the Samnites was still in force. As far as we can get an insight into these matters, we must blame the Romans for having taken the part of foreigners against a native and kindred people. The Samnites are not mentioned among those who at last made war against Alexander; but he had come into collision with them by his excursions: at Posidonia they fought against each other.
What would have been the consequence, had Alexander founded a kingdom of Italy, is a very interesting speculation. Probably it would only have made the victories of the Romans more easy; and therefore, also, their treaty with him was an act of farsighted policy.
In the state of things which now existed between Rome and Samnium, it was not difficult for the ancient historians, to bring the circumstances most vividly before their minds; which we particularly find to be the case with Dionysius, in the excerpta de Legationibus. Both parties saw in each other’s doings arch-knavery and malignity, and on the whole they may not have been mistaken. The Romans had kept the peoples who dwelt on the side towards Campania, partly in a position of isopolity, as the Fundanians and Formians; partly in one of dependence, as the Privernates. These last tried to shake off their yoke, as the civitas sine suffragio was only a burthen to them, the advantages which they enjoyed from it being trifling in proportion; that they could possess land in the Roman territory, was no great gain when their own town itself had a fruitful soil. The Romans beheld in this rebellion an instigation which came from Samnium; and without doubt, any one who was discontented with the Roman rule, met with fellow-feeling among the Samnites. The Privernates were joined by the Fundanians: Vitruvius Vaccus, a Fundanian of high rank, had led his countrymen into this undertaking; yet they did not follow it up, but drew out of it. On the Privernates the Romans passed a severe judgment, of which Livy and Valerius Maximus tell a very pretty story. The ambassadors were to answer on their conscience, what punishment they had deserved; and they said that they deserved that punishment which he ought to have, who has struggled for freedom. The consuls took this answer in good part, and then asked whether they would keep the peace? “If you give us a good peace,” they replied, “we will keep it; if you give us a bad one, we will break it.” The Romans then gave them the right of citizenship. Dionysius has the same story in the excerpta de Legationibus; but he dates it many years earlier, and it has perhaps no foundation whatever. Valerius Maximus is really no authority at all: he is nothing but the echo of Livy. The tale has perhaps originated with the Gens Æmilia, or the Plautia, who were the patrons of Privernum, and had the surname of Privernas; the annalists then foisted it in where it seemed best to tally.[139] A few years afterwards, the Privernates, according to an unimpeachable statement in a plebiscitum,[140] again revolted. This is, however, struck out, in order to maintain the old tradition with all its interest. At a later period, we find Privernum in possession of the right of citizenship, and that a much more ample one, than the bare Cærite franchise, as its people constituted the Tribus Ufentina. Fundi and Formiæ were likewise severely punished. This is the natural course of those events which Livy relates so pathetically; the magnanimity which is there ascribed to the senate, is quite incredible, and mere declamation.
There is no doubt that the Samnites secretly fomented the disturbances among the subjects of Rome: they openly demanded the evacuation of Fregellæ. Justice was undeniably on their side. The Romans had no right to found a colony on the territory which the Samnites had conquered, although these were not in possession of Fregellæ at the time that they took it: such indeed was the state of the case, as otherwise it is not likely that this would have happened. Yet in matters like these justice cannot always be done;—want of right and injustice are often very different things. I would not throw a stone at the leading men among the Romans for not having given up a place which they had occupied on a waste soil, although they had positively no business to do so. The Samnites were spreading rapidly in that neighbourhood; Fregellæ was a tête-de-pont and a point of defence on the upper Liris against them, and the advantage which the Romans would have derived from its possession, was much less than the disadvantage of its being in the hands of the Samnites. The Latin road would have been laid open as soon as they gave it up; and their allies, the Hernicans, Latins, and without doubt, the Æquians also, would have been left at the mercy of the enemy. It was very like the case which occurred in the year 1803, after the peace of Amiens, when every one called for the evacuation of Malta by the English: they could not give it up, notwithstanding their promise to do so, which indeed they ought never to have made. The sluggishness of the Samnite senate might have perhaps afforded a guarantee against any ill use being made of Fregellæ.
The Romans were so prepared for the breaking out of the war, that as early as two years before, they had an army in cantonments on the frontier; because they dreaded an attack against Fregellæ. At that time, the Romans had not only secured a friend by the treaty with Alexander of Epirus, but they also tried to guard against the enemy by means of a peace with the Gauls. These had now had their abode in Italy for more than sixty years. The national migration had stopped; and as they had nowhere been quite a savage people, they had not failed to adopt a certain degree of civilization. They betook themselves to the tilling of land, and became a meek race of peasants; like the Goths under Vitigis, who were likewise a set of unwarlike husbandmen, so that the great Totila had to train them anew into soldiers. The Gauls had two roads to Southern Italy,—the marshes on the Arno; and the Apennine country, which was grown quite wild, being the bulwark of Etruria,—the one down the Tiber, through Umbria, to Latium and Campania; the other through Picenum, along the Adriatic, to Apulia. By the latter of these they must have advanced more than once; but there they were withstood by the northern Sabellian peoples in the Abruzzi; and it is also more difficult than the former. Now, in order not to be troubled by an attack of the Gauls, which the Samnites might easily have brought about, the Romans concluded a formal peace with them, which is passed over in silence by Livy, but is positively mentioned by Polybius, and which there is no doubt that they bought with a sum of money.
This carefulness of the Romans also makes it highly probable, in my opinion, that the old account of their having, in common with other Italian peoples, sent an embassy to Alexander at Babylon, is not a mere fiction. Alexander had put a limit to his conquests in the East; to go southwards against the Ethiopian nations would have been folly; that he would settle down to rest, no one could believe: it was therefore to be expected that he would turn to the West. People generally fancy the places in the west to have been much more isolated than they were; and they will suppose for instance, that the Romans had known nothing whatever of Alexander. But surely they must have had at Rome some knowledge of Alexander’s campaigns, just as Clapperton and Denham, in the interior of Soudan, heard of the insurrection in Greece, and of the part which individual Europeans took in it. When my father was at Sana, in the time of the seven years’ war, there they had quite positive news of what was going on, especially of the struggle between the English and French; an Arab showed him a map of Europe: and yet these modern Arabs are people quite lost to the world. The communication was also much easier in those days, than it was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though even then there was some intercourse with the interior of Asia. In Rome there must have been at that period, maps of the world, as in Greece; individuals among the Romans may also have been imbued with Greek learning, as the cognomen of P. Sempronius Sophus seems to prove. That the Samnites and Lucanians sent ambassadors to Alexander, is disputed by no one; that this was done by the Romans, the later writers have doubted. The Lucanians did it, to turn aside from themselves his anger at the death of his uncle; the Samnites, that they might be good friends with him should he come to Italy; the Romans, in like manner, so as at least not to offend him, even though they might not have hoped to gain him for their friend. Even the Iberians sent to him, when they heard of his warlike preparations against Carthage. Livy takes it in his head, that the Romans had perhaps never heard of him. Either they may have suppressed the above-mentioned notice from pride, or the Greeks have invented it from vanity; which, however, must have been done at a time when the Romans were already so powerful, that the homage of Rome heightened the glory of Alexander. But Clitarchus, by whom that statement has been handed down to us, was an elegant author who wrote immediately after the death of Alexander, when the Romans were still engaged in the doubtful struggle with the Samnites. Aristobulus and Ptolemy Lagus, who in historical truth stand far above him, speak of Tyrrhenians and Samnites: in this case, the Romans are comprehended under the former name, even as all the Sabellian peoples are meant by the term Samnites. If Alexander had lived, he would first have turned his arms against Sicily, and from thence have gone against Carthage, which would certainly have fallen; then to Italy, where the Greeks would have received him with the same enthusiasm as in Asia Minor; for he was δεινὸς παρέλκειν. He would have gained them over, have made leagues with them, and have so weakened those who opposed him, that the whole of the peninsula would have been his. Livy has on this subject a discussion which is very finely written, but quite a failure. Altogether blinded by national vanity, he is grievously mistaken in his estimate of the contending forces, and likewise, when he thinks that the whole of Italy would have united in withstanding Alexander. Had Alexander lived, Rome would have fallen: his death was a necessary dispensation of Providence in order that Rome might become great.