WAR WITH THE LIGURIANS; WITH THE CELTIBERIANS. THE THIRD MACEDONIAN WAR. PEACE WITH THE RHODIANS. FURTHER WARS IN SPAIN. STATE OF AFFAIRS AT HOME.
During these changes, when on all points a sudden and thorough revolution had taken place in the manners of the people, the Romans were not backward in widening their sway: whilst the state was falling to pieces, they did not know what to do, unless they were making conquests. The evil had become so deep-rooted, that it could hardly have been got rid of; but as it was, nothing was done to heal it, and the degeneracy quickly increased.
The war against the Ligurians is not only insignificant, when measured by the standard of other wars, but it is also obscure, owing to our very defective knowledge of the geography of the country. It has some resemblance to undertakings against the Caucasian tribes of which we now (1829) read; and although the Apennines are not such a high mountain-range as the Caucasus, they yet likewise give great advantages to the inhabitants. As is always the case when a powerful state has once determined upon subjugating a people, the Ligurians also were crushed. Their tribes in fact had their abodes as far as the Rhone; but the Romans, who were chiefly anxious to secure the Tuscan frontier, reduced only the Genoese territory. These wars did not reach beyond the borders of Provence; the hostilities against the Salyans in the neighbourhood of Marseilles belong to a later period.[46] These tribes fought for their freedom with such determination, that the Romans had no other course but to drive them out of their fastnesses,—booty there was none to be got there,—and the consuls Cornelius and Bæbius[47] led away fifty thousand Ligurians from their homes into Samnium where Frontinus,[48] as late as in the second century met with their descendants under the names of the Cornelian and Bæbian Ligurians. The war was ended before that of Perseus. For the especial purpose of commanding Gaul, the highway of Flaminius, which went as far as Ariminum, was now lengthened as the via Æmilia to Placentia; and the whole country south of the Po was filled with colonies, so that the Celtic population disappeared.
All this time, the Romans were likewise establishing their rule in Spain, where they regularly kept troops. This beginning of standing armies had a decided influence, not only upon warfare, but also on all the relations of civil life. In former days, the real burthens of war had fallen upon all ranks alike: every one who was able to bear arms, had served for a time, and he became a citizen again, when the legion was disbanded at the end of the contest; which had this advantage, that the soldier was not separated from the citizen. But now the men remained for a long term of years in Spain, married Spanish women, and became estranged from Italy: many of them never returned. The Roman sway spread itself over Catalonia, Valencia, and Andalusia, as far as the Sierra Morena; for when they waged war with the Celtiberians, the latter had traversed the country of the neighbouring tribes. These wars were therefore not so much for acquisition as for consolidation. Their rule over the nations seems to have become somewhat slippery; but Cato, during his consulate in 557, gained them back by his uprightness. Roman generals who behaved in this way, always won the confidence of the Spaniards; and these would submit, until the injustice of the Romans again drove them to shake off the yoke: the people always appears in a very noble light. Cato, however, was also cunning, this being a feature in his character, as well as in that of the Romans as a nation. He strengthened the power of Rome by circulars which he sent to seventy or eighty Spanish towns, all of which were strongly fortified, and in case of rebellion hard to take, so that they were apt to combine with their neighbours. In these letters, which were all of them to be opened on one and the same day, as containing a secret of very high importance, was the command to pull down their walls forthwith under the threat of a siege and of bondage. The order was generally obeyed; and before they became aware that it was a stratagem, the work of demolition had already made considerable progress.
In the year 575, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, a son of him who in the war with Hannibal had won a brilliant victory over Hanno and had nobly fallen, and also the father of the two ill-fated brothers, became consul, and went to Spain. (It was he who had deeply deplored that P. Scipio tried to set himself above the law, but who did not wish him to be punished like any other citizen; and Scipio had afterwards chosen him for his son-in-law.) At that time, the feeling of hostility had already been more widely kindled. The Celtiberians, who had spread from the sources of the Ebro to the threefold border of the Mancha, Andalusia, and Valencia, and chiefly dwelt in New Castile and Western Aragon, in the provinces of Soria and Cuença, had never been subject to the Carthaginians, but had furnished them with mercenaries, as they also did the Romans: they now got involved in war with the Romans, who endeavoured to reduce them. They were the bravest people in Spain. With them Gracchus concluded a peace, the conditions of which are unknown to us; but they were so fair, that these tribes, who in reality had no wish whatever for war, ever afterwards looked upon it as the greatest good which could befall them, if they were only allowed to have them. The whole family of the Gracchi is distinguished for an extraordinary mildness and kindness, which otherwise are quite foreign to the Roman character. Had his successors kept the peace, the Celtiberians would have become as true and as useful allies to the Romans as the Marsians and Pelignians. Other generals, however, extended the Roman rule in the west of Spain: the Vaccæans north of the Tagus and the Lusitanians must have been brought under subjection between 570 and 580; yet this was not for long, owing to the extortions of the generals.
In the meantime, a new thunderstorm gathered in the east. Philip’s reign had lasted a long while; but he made an excellent use of his time to strengthen his kingdom. His expectations from the war against Antiochus had not been fulfilled; but he had considerably enlarged his dominions: he was again in possession of Demetrias and of part of Magnesia, so that he hemmed in Thessaly; the Dolopians had remained under his sway (although they were detached from his country); he also had Athamania; and he had gotten again the Greek towns on the Thracian coast, Ænos, Maronea, Abdera, and others, which had formerly been Egyptian. The Romans had let him go on quietly for a while; but now they began craftily to undermine his rule. They gave their encouragement when Amynander drove the Macedonian garrisons from Athamania; they received embassies which they themselves had set on foot, from Thessaly and the towns on the Thracian coast, bearing complaints of Philip’s encroachments. They must have held the conviction, that he had no other object, but thus to strengthen himself until he should be able to regain his former might; but Philip, in all his preparations, was too cautious to run foul upon the treaty. Particularly hostile to Philip was Eumenes, who longed to have the towns on the Thracian coast, that he might extend his territory to the frontiers of Macedon. Philip heard that many ambassadors were gathering in Rome, and he sent his son Demetrius thither, who had formerly been with the Romans as a hostage, and in that way had made a good many connexions there. These transactions—as was always managed by the Romans at that time with ruthless dexterity—led to nothing; the decision was to be given in Macedonia by Roman commissioners. During that time, there was now a great anxiety not to do anything that might have seemed unfriendly to the Romans. These commissioners were received by Philip with great bitterness: some things he yielded which he could not help; in others, he made evasions, and sought to gain time; misfortune had taught him wisdom. He had carried on the first war with the Romans, in which he might have done them much harm, sluggishly, and without having his heart in it; he had also engaged quite unprepared in that which had been directed against himself, so that after one defeat, every thing was lost for him; but from 555, during the eighteen years which elapsed to his death, he was always preparing himself. On both sides, they vied with each other in faithlessness. Philip set on the Thracians to surprise the Roman army which was coming from Asia, and to rob it of its impedimenta: the Romans tried to strip him of his possessions. He therefore strove to make himself as unassailable as possible; and as he was not allowed to have a fleet, and therefore was exposed to constant attacks by sea, he formed the plan of abandoning the sea-port towns, which were by no means strong, and of drawing the inhabitants into the interior: he also directed his whole attention to getting money. For this purpose, he settled in Thrace, where he worked the mines with redoubled activity, and the arsenals were filled with arms: on the other hand, he caused Thracians to emigrate to the wasted Macedonian countries. At the same time, he negotiated with other nations; yet he did not turn his eyes towards the powerless East, but to the Getæ and Bastarnians. The latter then dwelt in Dacia, the present Moldavia and Wallachia: the great move of the Sarmatian peoples on the Dnieper, had made those tribes inclined to leave their abodes. Philip therefore tried to get them to fall upon Italy, a scheme which was carried out seventy years afterwards by the Cimbrians. These transactions had already gone very far, nor would they have been abortive but for the death of the king; and in fact this would have been the only means of assailing Rome. The Romans were universally hated, and they deserved it. The people among whom in former days justice had been the corner-stone of religion, had not even a spark left of their ancient virtue: they tried to stir up infamous intrigues in the free states, and in the families of princes; they everywhere took the bad under their protection, and cheered them on to venture everything on the strength of it. Thus, in the royal house of Macedon, there arose a quarrel between the two sons of Philip, the elder of whom was Perseus, and the younger, Demetrius; the former being the son of a concubine, the latter begotten in lawful wedlock. Demetrius became suspected by the king of being a partisan of the Romans; and the hatred between the two brothers broke out with so much the greater fierceness—Perseus being maddened against the Romans—the more Demetrius took their part. After years of horrid accusations and treacherous wiles, Perseus at last carried the day, and had Demetrius poisoned by his father. Whether Demetrius really engaged in guilty plots, or whether there was nothing more than a passing impulse, cannot be made out now; if we judge from the morality of those times, his complete innocence is not likely: that the charges against the father and Perseus in Livy, according to which Perseus tells false-hearted slanders against his brother to the king, are highly exaggerated, however beautifully they read, may be asserted with the greatest probability. Thus it is no doubt one of those unjust insinuations which we meet with but too often, when the mors opportuna of Philip is spoken of. How frequently, when such a mors opportuna happened, was it represented as having been intentionally brought about! Philip had reached the age when he might very well have died a natural death; he was sixty years old when he died (573): he is said to have deeply rued the foul deed which he had committed against Demetrius, and to have died of a broken heart. And it still remains a question, whether, and how far, he could have had the thought of passing over his son, who was no fool, and bequeathing the kingdom to his cousin, a son of Antigonus Doson. In short, the country was left to his son Perseus in a state of power and greatness, which no one could have dreamed of at the beginning of his reign, and still less at the time of the disadvantageous peace with Rome.
It is difficult to form a correct opinion of Perseus, who was an inconsistent character. A marked feature in his disposition was avarice: he could not tear himself away from his treasures, even when there was the strongest necessity for it, and he grudged them when they might have gotten him the most formidable troops; and this is particularly the case when he promises subsidies to foreign peoples. Moreover, he showed himself wavering in war, which indeed was partly the result of circumstances, but was also deep-rooted in his nature. He was no general; for he had no presence of mind in an emergency: as long as circumstances were not appalling, he was very clever in hitting upon and doing the right thing; with regard to his courage the ancients themselves differed in their judgment. In his first years, it was his endeavour to win the hearts of the Greeks, in which he was signally successful: he gained over the Achæans, Bœotians, Acarnanians, Epirotes, and Thessalians, one after another, and besides these, even the Rhodians and other islanders. Here he did not indeed show his avarice: he remitted taxes, recalled convicted persons from banishment, and opened Macedon as a refuge for unfortunate and exiled Greeks. Thus he got adherents among all the Greeks, and we meet everywhere with a Roman and a Macedonian party. Among the Achæans there even arose three factions, a Roman, a Macedonian, and a third one of the patriots, which was hated by the other two. Thus Perseus came to Greece, and was welcomed with enthusiasm, as the Roman rule grew more oppressive every day. The Greeks looked upon him as the man who would restore the old Macedonian sway, and drive the Romans back again across the Adriatic. With Carthage also he entered into negociations: but things had already come to that pass that there was not much to be expected any more even from a general coalition; for although Rome’s moral power was blighted, yet she had acquired the influence of a wealthy state, being able to hire and to arm troops in distant lands.
The Rhodians stood quite free: having entered into no league with the Romans, they might, if they chose, ally themselves with Perseus. The latter married a Syrian princess, daughter of Antiochus Epiphanes, a crazy tyrant, but who displayed no common energy: (he is very correctly described in the book of the Maccabees, and in the fragments of Polybius.) Perseus’ sister was married to Prusias. He also went on with the negociations with the Bastarnians, and even entered into new ones with the Illyrians. But Eumenes became suspicious of these connexions of Perseus with Rhodes, Antiochus, and Prusias; for he saw fast enough, that he could not but fall a victim, if Perseus should be successful against the Romans: Perseus held out as a bait to the other powers the kingdom of Pergamus, which would be the natural prey for them to share. Eumenes therefore complained to the Romans; and these listened to him, and took up all sorts of other grievances against Perseus and the Rhodians, which had been set forth against the former by the Thracian petty princes, and against the latter by the Carians and Lycians, who had rather be independent than have to pay heavy taxes to the Rhodians. To these ambassadors they gave the most encouraging answers, without, however, committing themselves by any thing positive. In this way, they irritated the Rhodians, but did not break with them: their policy at that time was truly Macchiavellian. The peace-party, although indeed very weak in Rhodes, had yet sufficiently the upperhand to prevent their fellow citizens from declaring against the Romans. Eumenes himself came to Rome and got a splendid reception, the Romans wishing even by this very means to display their hostile dispositions. Perseus, however, kept quiet: he was acknowledged by the Romans, having been termed the friend and ally of the Roman people, and his ambassadors were received and rewarded.
On his return from Rome, Eumenes was attacked by assassins in Delphi. This plot may have been laid by Perseus; it was very like him, although he positively disavowed it: perhaps also it was a farce of Eumenes himself, intended to give the Romans a handle for war; yet it would, after all, have been too bad. The demand of the Romans, that Perseus should deliver up persons who stood highest in his estimation, because they were accused of having been the instigators of that attack, met with a flat refusal, and thence arose the war, which lasted until the fourth year, from 581-584. This war took a different turn from what the Romans had expected. They had hoped to be able to bring it to an end, like the second Macedonian one and that against Antiochus, in one campaign; besides which, they wished to crush Macedon, and to reconstruct the whole state of things in the eastern countries. But Perseus began the struggle with extraordinary resources: Macedon, for the first time, had enjoyed a twenty-five years’ peace, and it was thriving; so that besides his auxiliaries and four thousand horse, he had an army of forty thousand foot. The last books of Livy are mutilated, and thus we are without any clear view of part of the operations. The duration of the war, considering the disproportion between the two powers, is very great; but indeed the Roman generals carried it on at first in the worst way that could be, and strategical talent seems to have very much fallen off just then among the Romans. P. Licinius Crassus appeared in Thessaly, where Perseus advanced to meet him, and gained a pretty considerable advantage over his cavalry: the Romans had many killed and taken prisoners. The king, in waging the war, did it with the wish to obtain a favourable peace; and he believed that by showing himself resolute, he would get it on better terms. Yet this was contrary to the settled maxim of the Romans; in fact, it was exactly a case in which they felt that they must humble him. Perseus immediately began to negociate; but it was answered, that he was to make his submission, and to await the decision of the senate. This led to the battle in Thessaly, the result of which was favourable to the king. This victory threw such lustre on the arms of Perseus, that the whole of Greece was ready to go over to him. Yet the Romans had a vast advantage in their fleet, which was a dreadful scourge to the Greek sea-port towns; and though indeed it was now opposed by a Macedonian squadron, which did more than any one expected, they had still the best of it. Only some few party-leaders in Greece, such as Charops in Epirus (who had been brought up in Rome, and made it his boast that he was able to speak Latin), Lyciscus in Ætolia, and Callicrates in Achaia, were for the Romans: the public opinion was altogether against them. Whilst men like Polybius, who certainly hated the Romans as bitterly as his father Lycortas did,—but this was a different hatred from that of the common herd,—and like Philopœmen, now saw plainly that Perseus would not be able to stand his ground against the Romans, and only supported him with pious wishes and prayers, the many dreamt that he could not fail to be victorious. They egregiously exaggerated trifling successes, such as the battle in Thessaly, and were guilty of the worst outrages and insolence against the Romans; just as was done in Germany, when the French were at the height of their power. Such men also as Polybius had a very strong feeling against the Romans: it was not till afterwards, when he was living among them, that he became aware of the good that was in them. The state of affairs at that time is clearly shown by the fragments of his history. The Romans now also, on their side, everywhere looked upon the Greeks as enemies; and this gave rise to the most cruel deeds, for which the prætor Lucretius was particularly notorious. A number of Greek towns on the sea-coast were taken and utterly destroyed, under the command of this Lucretius and of Hostilius, and the inhabitants were led away as slaves: in Bœotia, Haliartus and Coronea were burned to ashes. If Perseus had taken advantage of these circumstances, and had pressed the consul hard, the whole country on the other side of the Adriatic would have risen in revolt: but he was irresolute and narrow-minded; he had made out for himself a petty plan, within the range of which alone he could do any thing, and of those great enterprises, which would have been needed to overthrow the Roman empire, he was utterly incapable. Thus he listened to the delusive offers of the Roman consul to make a lasting peace; and in the meanwhile Crassus got himself out of his wretched plight, and the negociations were, of course, broken off. In the same way, when Marcius Philippus subsequently opposed Perseus again with insufficient means, he was allowed to offer the king a truce, which, it was given out, was to lead to a peace, whereas the Romans merely availed themselves of it to send the consul the reinforcements which he wanted. In the second and third years of the war, Perseus was very successful; he even drove back the Romans out of Macedon into Illyria, and also gained time to protect his empire against the attacks of the savage Dardanians.
In the third year of the war, Perseus had withdrawn from Thessaly; but he kept Magnesia, his army held Tempe, and thus he lay safely in winter-quarters in Pieria. Here Q. Marcius Philippus undertook a bold piece of daring. He stood at the entrance of Tempe, and as he was not able to force the pass, he endeavoured with an immense effort to cross the huge heights of Olympus, so as to turn the army of the Macedonians, who did not dream of the enemy having thus gone round them. Yet this enterprise of the Romans ought only to be blamed; for their army got into a position, in which, if Perseus had only had common presence of mind and attacked them, they might have been cut off to a man. Perseus abandoned Dium, having set fire to part of the town; evacuated Pieria, that narrow strip of beautiful land along the coast, extending from Olympus to the Thermaic gulf; and retired to Pydna. The Roman general himself, finding his own situation to be a very dangerous one, retreated, and the Macedonians, in their turn, advanced again. This undertaking, however, ended in the Macedonians evacuating Tempe.
The state of opinion with regard to the issue of the war shifted more and more, though the Romans were slowly creeping on. It was thought that a formidable coalition would be made; and that fortune would turn against the Romans, as Rome had reached the crowning height of her power, and now must needs sink down, as all the Greek states had done. The Rhodians believed that they might now set up an independent system, as they hoped, if the wars ended unfavourably for Rome, to consolidate their own rule over Caria and Lycia: they too allowed themselves to be beguiled by their wishes. The connexion of Perseus with Prusias and Antiochus became more active; Antiochus, however, entered with less spirit into these affairs, as he wished first of all to take advantage of the crisis to gain Egypt. Since he therefore no longer threatened Asia Minor, even old Eumenes changed his policy, and likewise espoused the interests of Perseus; so that not only was he backward in supporting the Romans, but he even entered into secret negociations with Perseus: these, however, could not be kept altogether concealed, and for this the Romans afterwards bore him a bitter grudge. The Bastarnians also were stirring again; and there was likewise a closer alliance with Genthius, king of Illyricum, of whose kingdom and descent we have no distinct accounts, though this we know for certain, that Scutari (Scodra) was his residence; (his country seems to have very nearly comprised what is now Upper Albania.) He was not a great prince, yet, if he took a determined part, a dangerous neighbour to the Romans. But the Illyrians and Bastarnians reckoned upon getting subsidies from Perseus: his not granting them to the Bastarnians was downright madness; he ought at any price to have induced them to invade Italy. The three hundred talents which he had agreed upon for Genthius, he kept back, after having drawn him in to commit an outrage against the Roman ambassadors at his court; for he thought that he had thus bound him fast to himself by a tie which could not be broken. This was a pitiful trick!
In 584, the Romans chose L. Æmilius Paullus, the son of the general who was killed at Cannæ, to be consul for the second time; and as they saw that considerable efforts were needed to finish the war, they furnished him with every possible means for it. The Rhodians, most unfortunately for themselves, had wished to act as mediators: the war interfered with their trade, and they by no means wanted the Romans to conquer, as they owed their own independence to the balance of the different states. They came forward, using violent language, and engaged to get Perseus to make peace; but the Romans, though hard pressed by the war, did not desire peace, and the speech of the Rhodians even offended them. At home, and among their neighbours, the Rhodians felt strong, and there by their weight they could turn the scales, which indeed they had done in the war of Antiochus by means of their fleet; but they forgot the immense disproportion between the power of the Romans and their own. Perseus opened the campaign without any further increase of force, except that Genthius declared himself for him. The king had taken up his winter-quarters in Macedonia, and when the Romans broke up theirs, he retreated behind the Cambunian hills and Olympus, the lofty ridge of mountains which separates Thessaly from the Macedonian coast, a country which is one of the most beautiful on earth. Yet this time also the Romans succeeded in going round the mountains. Between the Peneus and Pieria, there is the high and broad range of Olympus, the peaks of which are almost all covered with everlasting snow. The chief pass was through Tempe, which was fortified; besides this, there were several ways across Olympus, and these also were most of them so well secured, that Æmilius did not expect any good from an attack. But he discovered a road, just over one of the most towering summits of the mountains, which, inasmuch as it seemed to be inaccessible, was less strongly guarded. Thither he sent the son-in-law of Scipio Africanus, young Scipio Nasica, with eight thousand men, so as to go round the camp. This enterprise could not have succeeded, had Perseus been a great general; the aggressor, however, has always an advantage. The impassable mountain was got over; the Macedonian army saw the Roman detachment in its rear; the vanguard was defeated by Scipio Nasica, and Perseus was obliged to change his position. He now took up another at the back of Pydna, behind a deep torrent: for in this narrow strip of coast, in which a number of deep mountain streams run down alongside of each other from Olympus to the sea, lines were thrown up behind every one of these, so that a stand might be made at every point successively, in case the enemy should force the pass at Tempe. But now that the Romans had crossed the mountains on the extreme left wing of the Macedonians, these entrenchments were useless; and the Macedonians had then to retreat behind the last of them near Pydna. Thus the Romans were in Pieria, the country of Orpheus, which was a great advance. Yet the Macedonian power was still unshaken. Near Pydna, the final battle was fought, in which the Macedonian monarchy ingloriously fell; it was decided in one hour, and with it the fate of Macedon: the infantry was cut to pieces, the cavalry saved itself without much loss, but with disgrace. The loss of the Romans was trifling: according to some, it was only ninety-one, according to others, one hundred men; and moreover the former of these estimates is that of a man, who was no friend of the Romans, namely Posidonius,—not the celebrated one, but a writer who lived at the time of this war, and who wished to justify Perseus.[49] The king had no hope of a rising; for he had drained the resources of the country to the utmost, and the great fault of the Macedonians was want of faithfulness to their princes in the day of need: he fled, and, escorted by some Cretans, tried to escape with what treasures he had left, as if there had been a place where they were safe from the Romans. Part of these he therefore offered to give up to his followers; yet when he had taken breath at Amphipolis, with the madness of avarice, he repented of his promise, and cheated them of their due. He ought to have gone to Thrace where he had allies, and from thence to some Greek town on the Black sea, as these would not have delivered him up; but he was utterly blinded, and betook himself to Samothrace, where there was an inviolable temple, which he may have looked upon as so much safer an asylum, as indeed the worship of the penates at Lavinium, and that of the Samothracian gods, were akin. He would doubtless have been safe in that island as a private person; but it could not possibly have been expected, that the Romans would let him alone there in his present capacity. His chief motive was certainly the thought, that he might then also have saved his money; yet he soon found out that he could not trust those who were about him, and he even went so far as to have one of them put to death, on which the others treacherously left him. He now wished to embark for Crete, or, according to others, to go to Cotys in Thrace; but the master of the ship, whom he had paid beforehand, deceived him, and all that he could do was to take away his own life, as the Roman prætor had already made his appearance, either to seize or to starve him. From a cowardly love of life, he was led to surrender himself to the Roman admiral Cn. Octavius; and he was kept as a prisoner for the triumph of Æmilius Paullus, as was also the case with Genthius.[50]
Æmilius now executed the commission of regulating affairs according to the instructions which he had from Rome, and this he did in a way which is shocking to our ideas. The Epirotes were involved in the fate of Perseus: although they were not faithful to the treaties which bound them to Rome, yet the dreadful revenge which the Romans took upon them, can never be justified. The Roman soldiers were quartered upon the Molossians, and the senate determined to reward them with the plundering of the Epirote towns: it was undoubtedly meant to requite them for the calamities which formerly had been brought upon the Romans by Pyrrhus. Æmilius was charged with the business of exterminating the Epirote nation. In seventy places, the Roman army was stationed, and the Epirotes were ordered to gather together and deliver up all their gold and valuables, having already been obliged before that to yield up their arms. When in this manner everything was collected which in a general plunder might have been spoilt and wasted, all the troops on the self-same day turned their arms against the inhabitants. One hundred and fifty thousand Epirotes are said to have been either slain or led away as slaves, and seventy places to have been destroyed. This is horrible; it shows the rank degeneracy of the Roman people, as there is no longer in it any balance of its different elements, but only the dead weight of one promiscuous mass. Slavery strips man of half of his virtue, but absolute liberty to do what one lists creates double vice: as rulers of the world, the Romans thought themselves privileged to do any thing and everything. After such a deed as this, we cannot agree with Plutarch in ranking Æmilius among great and virtuous men. Throughout the whole of Greece, and particularly in Bœotia, things were just as bad: the sword was put into the hands of the partisans of the Romans, and their rage was ruthless. In Ætolia, as in all Greek countries, there were two factions, the one devoted, and the other hostile to the Romans; the Roman party ruled without any one to control it, and the lengths to which it went in its outrages, beggar all belief. Besides other atrocities, it broke into the senate house, and butchered all the senators who were accused of being friendly to the Macedonians. Roman troops were sent thither under the command of A. Bæbius. This frightful state of things extended likewise to the Achæans: there the party of Perseus had not been very strong, but so much the stronger was that which had striven to uphold that dignity, which had been injured by the Romans. These had kept none of the treaties with them, and they had received separate embassies from some of the towns, which they had even encouraged; as in the case of Lacedæmon and Messene, which brought complaints against the Achæans, whilst, according to the treaty, none were to be listened to but those which came from the whole of the Achæan league. It was seen how much the Romans were endeavouring to disturb the peace of the people; they even required that the exiles should be reinstated. There was among the Achæans a traitor, Callicrates, who had entirely sold himself to the Romans, and who was so detested and execrated, that people were loth to go near him, or even to touch his garment: the more he became an object of contempt, the deeper he sank in his infamy. After the victory over Perseus, ten Roman commissioners appeared in Greece, two of whom, C. Claudius and Cn. Domitius, went to the Achæans. They asserted that among the papers of Perseus clear proofs had been discovered of the treachery of many eminent Achæans, and they now demanded that the Achæans should pronounce sentence of death upon all whom the Romans had found guilty. This the senate at once refused to do, declaring most properly, that the names must be given, the evidence produced, and the parties regularly tried; those who were brought in guilty should then be punished without mercy. But the envoys would have nothing to say to this, they wanted to give in the list after the executions only; and when they were urged to mention names, they said, that all those who had been strategi were guilty. Then Xeno, who had formerly been strategus, got up, and declared that he was so conscious of his innocence, that he would take his trial before a tribunal in Achaia, and, if this were not sufficient, he would even defend himself at Rome. The Roman commissioners eagerly caught at this, and they had a list drawn up by Callicrates of those who were to be sent to Italy and judged there. There were more than a thousand of these; some of them made their escape, for which they were denounced as convicted offenders, and the punishment of death was inflicted upon them when they were taken. The rest were not brought before a court of justice at all, but were distributed as hostages in the municipal towns: it was only after the lapse of seventeen years, that the three hundred who were still alive, were let go. On this occasion, Polybius also came to Rome: his lot was soon bettered; for he got intimate with several families of high rank, and Æmilius Paullus himself made him the companion of his sons, that he might guide them into Greek learning.
Macedon was nominally declared free; but half the taxes were laid upon it, which had been formerly paid to the kings,—an example, how the Romans still exacted tribute from those countries which they did not convert into Roman provinces. The country was divided into four states. This splitting into cantons of the strangest shape; the taking away of all connubium and commercium between them; and the geographical division of these districts, by which tribes belonging to the same stock were torn asunder, and others which were quite distinct were united, are masterpieces of Macchiavellian policy: those which suited each other were disjoined, and those which clashed were jumbled together, in order that no moral strength and unity might ever grow up in the whole. The consequence of this was, that the power of the Macedonians was completely broken. And yet the Romans were behaving all the time as if they were giving them a republican constitution: to every one of these quarters they granted a synedrium, and on pretext of removing those who were dangerous to this new equality, they drove all the men of rank and distinction out of the country. The advantage of this arrangement showed itself afterwards in the rebellion of the pseudo-Philip.
The triumph of Æmilius Paullus is the most brilliant of any which had been seen until then, owing to the quantity of costly things displayed in it. The life of Paullus by Plutarch is very well worth reading, and the account also of the triumph is very instructive: twelve millions of dollars in hard money were carried in the procession. Yet the people did not find itself the better for all these riches; its condition, on the contrary, became worse and worse: the bane of downright poverty was showing itself; the rabble and beggars were increasing fast. We likewise now see, and even somewhat earlier already, traces of a debased moral state: at times, a series of the most monstrous crimes makes its appearance. Even before the war with Perseus, frightful atrocities are met with, which have the most incredible ramifications. In the beginning of the seventh century, two Roman matrons of the highest rank, the wives of men who had been consuls, were accused of having poisoned their husbands, and were put to death by their cousins. Whilst the moral condition grew worse every day, the wealth of the republic became greater. During the war with Perseus, taxes had still been paid, which was done no longer, except, no doubt, in the Social War, when everything was turned into money. This is indeed mentioned nowhere. Historians talk as if the Macedonian booty, which Æmilius Paullus brought with him, had been inexhaustible; but the fact is rather, that the permanent revenues from Macedonia, Illyricum, and elsewhere, made it now quite superfluous to lay on direct taxes. The indirect duties only, as the customs for instance, were still paid: they were part of them rather high, at least in after times, and they had this peculiarity, that they were raised in a number of harbours as an excise, whilst in the interior of the country everything circulated quite freely.
The Rhodians, who had aroused the wrath of the Romans by their pride, were still left: to these the Romans now turned their attention, and declared war against them. They on the other hand, being well aware that resistance was impossible, stooped to the lowest humiliations to appease the Romans. Those who had actually corresponded with Perseus, made the negotiations more easy for the republic by laying hands on their own lives, on which their dead bodies were given up. Others fled, but could nowhere find a refuge, and were likewise forced to kill themselves. Polyaratus and Dinon, unfortunately, were really guilty; they were banished, and they fell into the power of the Romans. Dealing one blow after another, the Romans now took from the Rhodians all that they had formerly granted them; nay, even places of which they had long before been masters: Stratonicea had belonged to them for seventy years. With great difficulty, by the skill of the Rhodian ambassador, and through the intercession of Cato who interested himself for the Rhodians, the war was prevented. The Romans got Caria and Lycia, hardly leaving to them their nearest possessions on the coast; and the Rhodians, who for so long a time had lived in friendship with Rome, had to think themselves lucky in obtaining an alliance, in which they had to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, and to support it in war. They, however, still kept their independent government; and they showed their sound judgment in confining themselves to their small but noble island, making themselves everywhere respected by their commerce.
Now follows a period, from the end of the Macedonian to the beginning of the third Punic war, which is quite barren of events. Polybius had concluded the first edition of his history with the destruction of the Macedonian empire, and the reconciliation of the Rhodians. When, after the fall of Carthage and of Corinth, he once more took his work in hand, he wrote the wars by which this was achieved, separately; but he prefixed to them an introduction connecting this account with his first history, which also contained in a short summary all that happened in the times between. They are therefore two different works, a fact which has been frequently overlooked.[51] We follow his example, giving only what is absolutely indispensable.
Towards the end of the sixth century, the Romans began to attack the Gauls in the Alps; and soon after the war with Perseus, they took the Massaliote colonies of Antibes and Nizza from the Ligurians. It now was their object to bring the coast as far as Spain under their own rule (601). About the same time, they also tried on the other side of the Adriatic to subdue the Dalmatians, from Zara to about as far as Ragusa. They compelled them to acknowledge their supremacy, though not for long. In Corsica likewise, they made some progress.
The two kings, Prusias and Eumenes, were each of them compromised, yet in a different way; the former, owing to his connexion by marriage with Perseus, the latter by his breach of faith. Prusias disgusted his contemporaries by his abject baseness. In Roman attire, with his head shaved, and wearing the cap of a slave made free, he came humbly to Rome, prostrated himself in the senate, and declared himself a freedman of the Romans. He attained his end so far, that the Romans did not curtail his territory: he had to give his son Nicomedes as an hostage, by whom he was afterwards to be overthrown. Eumenes was forbidden to come to Rome, when his brother Attalus implored for him the mercy of the Romans.
At the same time, Antiochus Epiphanes waged war against the two infant princes of Egypt, Ptolemy Philometor and Euergetes II. (Physcon), and their sister Cleopatra: Cœlesyria was lost; they still possessed only Egypt, Cyprus, and Cyrene. All these likewise, Antiochus made successful attempts to conquer; he had advanced as far as Memphis, and, as the Egyptian towns were nearly all of them open places, he was all but sure of victory: Alexandria alone could have withstood him. But the Romans did not wish to let him grow powerful; they sent the celebrated embassy of M. Popillius, who with his staff drew a circle round the king, within which he forced him to decide upon evacuating Egypt. The Romans now mediated between the two princes, giving to Physcon, the younger of the two, Cyrene, and afterwards Cyprus also, on which he made up, and then again quarrelled with his brother, who had all the rest. The details do not belong to Roman history.
In the meanwhile, the Parthians had begun to spread. They had taken the country east of the desert, and ancient Hyrcania which bordered on the Caspian sea; nor did the Syrian kings keep Media, Susiana, and Persia long (until 620). The great Parthian empire was then founded, and in the year 630, the Parthians had already taken Babylon.
In Spain, the wars still lasted. Most of the undertakings there were directed against the Celtiberians, whom the Romans tried to bring under subjection. The terms granted by Gracchus were not kept with them, and thus insurrections and wars sprang up, the history of which is a dismal one. The Romans had laid upon the Celtiberians the condition not to build any new towns; at the end of the sixth century therefore, the war broke out anew, because they had considerably enlarged the circuit of the walls of Segida, that they might gather together thither. With this the Romans interfered, and thence the first Celtiberian war arose. The Romans at first made some progress; but on many occasions they were also soundly beaten. The small tribes in the mountains of eastern Castile, and western Aragon, were on the whole an heroic race; there were four peoples altogether, of which the Arevaci were the most important: in former days they might indeed have been dangerous also to their neighbours; but now, all their efforts were only put forth for the maintenance of their independence. Yet the Romans had so much the superiority in force, that the wars generally turned out in their favour, although they did not bring on any final decision. A Roman general, M. Claudius Marcellus,—the grandson of the great Marcellus of the second Punic war, and well worthy of him, who also was thrice consul, a thing which is without example in those times,—in some measure brought back to the Spaniards the days of Gracchus: he was quite a man of the old virtue and humanity, and he honoured and respected these people who were struggling for their freedom, and tried to mediate for them. But the senate would have it, that the honour of the republic did not allow of a peace being made with them as with equals: they must surrender at discretion; then only could one deal mildly with them. Marcellus, who well knew that a successor might treat these poor creatures much more harshly, won their confidence in a way which is so often seen in ancient Spanish history. He concluded a very fair peace, making them send hostages to him whom he gave back: they were merely bound to furnish the Romans with horsemen for their wars in Spain, and perhaps also in Africa. Other generals followed quite a different course, as, for instance, L. Lucullus, who, after Marcellus, commanded in Spain: he had flattered himself with the hope of conquering the Celtiberians, and as he was now hindered from doing this by the peace of Marcellus, he picked up a war against the Vaccæans who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Salamanca. He carried it on with varying success. Had the Spanish nations trusted each other, and had they chosen to go forth as one man to fight the Romans, they might have stood their ground against them, and have pent them to the sea-coast. But they were utterly wanting in unity. So long, for instance, as the Lusitanians were not attacked, they were glad to be able to till their fields, nor did they mind if the Romans waged war against another people. Hence it was, that the Romans gradually made their way. With the Lusitanians also, a war had arisen about the same time as that with the Vaccæans: these did not inhabit the whole of Portugal, as they had only a little land to the north of the Tagus, but the southern part, all but Algarve; and they were in a league with the Vettones in Spanish Estremadura. The Lusitanians were a race of robbers, and were just as troublesome to the ancient Spaniards themselves as to the Romans; but they had not yet the great leader, who soon afterwards arose among them. They plundered the subjects of Rome in Andalusia, and thereby drew down upon themselves the vengeance of the Romans. How horribly the Romans were wont to act in those times, is shown by the fate of Cauca. The men of that town had been bidden by Lucullus, as a condition of his pardon, to yield up their arms; and when they relied upon his word, all were put to the sword. This breach of faith made the resistance of the Spaniards so desperate. The Lusitanians, who were excellent light troops, were, owing to their forays, very dangerous to the Romans; nothing, however, can justify the conduct of the latter towards them. Sulpicius Galba, a distinguished rhetorician and lawyer, who belonged to one of the first patrician houses, and was a pillar of the aristocracy, by such behaviour sullied his own fair fame, and that of his forefathers. He vanquished the Lusitanians, and they sought for mercy, gave hostages, and surrendered their horses: they were not, however, the whole of the nation, but only part of it, and as they were inclined for peace, he declared to them, that he was quite aware that distress had driven them into war, and that therefore he would assign them abodes in more fruitful lands. They agreed to this, on which he made them gather together in three bodies into three different places; then, under a lying pretext, he got them to deliver up their weapons, which were to be returned to them in their new dwellings; and now, whilst they were divided and unarmed, he had them massacred, perhaps from sheer ferocity, or indeed because he did not trust them. Among those who escaped was Viriathus, who, by a war of several years in which they had nothing but shame, made the Romans smart for their faithlessness. This, however, belongs to a later period. Unhappily, the crime of Galba had not at Rome the consequences for him which it deserved. Honest old Cato brought an impeachment against him, and he was tried for his life, and would have been condemned, had he not raised the pity of the people by leading forth his own infant children and those of a cousin.
Of organic changes in the constitution, none can be mentioned as having taken place at this period: it remains quite the same in its outward form as it had been since the first Punic war. Some laws are given, and some little attempts made to remedy existing evils, but without any effect. Thus the lex Voconia was passed, which forbids the leaving of property to females either by will or by legacy, except in the case of an only daughter and child: this clause respecting the only daughter (ἐπίκληρος) had its reason in the relations of the clans, such a daughter being bound, just as in Attica, to marry within her own gens, so that the fortune did not go out of it. Yet the law proves that the spirit of family had already died away: Cicero, in his Republic, is wrong in judging of it according to the standard of his own times. The Romans had already gone so far downhill, that no single law, like the lex Voconia, could any longer have staved off the impending crash. It was then, as forty years ago in England, a time in which a thorough-going, deep-searching legislation might still have checked the wayward course of the state. But such timely and thorough reforms are very rare indeed in history. Fate leads states onward towards their downfall; and thus I prophesy of the English state, that within fifty years it will be radically changed.[52] In Rome also, single laws were now brought in, which were carried against the wishes of individuals; yet one always made shift to find some quibble by which it might be evaded. The lex Ælia et Fufia is another remarkable law: when, and how it was passed, is very obscure; it is generally considered as one law, but according to Cicero, it is probable that there were two: they must have been of great importance. As far as we know of its contents, it enacted that the proceedings of the tribunes might be interrupted by auguries which had been observed. This shows in what estimation, even at that time, the old forms still were. To us, who, of course, look upon the whole system of auguries as a tissue of lies, this has only the appearance of an extension of priestcraft, and we wonder how this could have been done in an enlightened age. Yet it was meant as a mere form. The power of the tribunes had risen to a fearful height, and now that the augurs received authority to set forth what might break up an assembly of the people called together by the tribunes, no one thought in this of signs given by the powers above: it was only a means for the optimates, to check the unbounded encroachments of the tribunes. By the Lex Hortensia the tribunes might have laws passed without the consent of the senate; but now the augurs, who were chosen, half of them from the patricians, and the other half from the plebeians, but from the most eminent families, might oppose these enactments, and restrain that unbridled power. The form indeed is unworthy and offensive, as the augurs evidently were obliged to tell a lie; yet the meaning of the law, to create a counter-tribunate in matters of legislation, was a good one. The law is to be met with in Cicero only; Clodius repealed it.
Among the events which show how greatly the state of things at Rome had changed, is the circumstance that in the year 600, either a tribune, or the whole college, ordered the consuls to be led to prison for having been guilty of unfairness at the enlistment, particularly L. Licinius Lucullus.[53] Such a decree of the tribunes is so much against the spirit of the ancient constitution, that this is of itself enough to show the completeness of the change. This change is a proof that personal conscientiousness could no more be relied upon. In early times, the consuls designated every one singly who was to serve in war, and this had continued to be the custom ever since: at first, nearly all were taken; afterwards, those who were most able-bodied, and who were already well trained in war, were picked out. As the legions were now stationed longer and longer in distant provinces, the burthen of military service grew more and more oppressive, and many tried to screen themselves from it by making interest; for the tribunes would, without giving any reason, get off those whom they favoured. Moreover, the enlistments, owing to the wide extent of the empire, must have been fraught with still greater difficulties, as the men had to appear in person. The system of selection was now done away with, and the general conscription so managed, that the lot decided the obligation to serve, and the grounds for exemption were to be considered afterwards. This was not a change for the worse, but it was still a change. The tribunes, however, on this demanded that each of them should have the right of liberating ten, and when the consuls would not allow this, they arrested them.[54] Still more significant is the fact, that even before the end of the sixth century, it became necessary to make laws against canvassing which were directly aimed at venality; for the form of the organization by centuries was now changed, and attempts at bribery had become possible. Whether the Lex Cornelia against ambitus is that of Cornelius Cethegus, or of Sulla, cannot be ascertained, although it has been held to be the former beyond a doubt; certain it is, however, that as early as in the year 570 a law was passed against ambitus, a circumstance which has become somewhat better known from the Milan scholia on Cicero.[55]