Early European History

by Hutton Webster

58. ROMAN SUPREMACY IN THE WEST AND IN THE EAST, 201-133 B.C.

THIRD PUNIC WAR BEGUN, 148 B.C.

Carthage had been humbled, but not destroyed. She still enjoyed the advantages of her magnificent situation and continued to be a competitor of Rome for the trade of the Mediterranean. The Romans watched with jealousy the reviving strength of the Punic city and at last determined to blot it out of existence. In 149 B.C. a large army was landed in Africa, and the inhabitants of Carthage were ordered to remove ten miles from the sea. They resolved to perish in the ruins of their capital, rather than obey such a cruel command.

[Illustration: A TESTUDO A relief from the Column of Trajan, Rome. The name testudo a tortoise (shell) was applied to the covering made by a body of soldiers who placed their shields over their heads The shields fitted so closely together that men could walk on them and even horses and chariots could be driven over them.]

[Illustration: Map, THE EXPANSION OF ROMAN DOMINIONS 264-133 B. C.]

DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE, 146 B.C.

Carthage held out for three years. The doubtful honor of its capture belonged to Scipio Aemilianus, grandson, by adoption, of the victor of Zama. For seven days the legionaries fought their way, street by street, house by house, until only fifty thousand inhabitants were left to surrender to the tender mercies of the Romans. The Senate ordered that the city should be burned and that its site should be plowed up and dedicated to the infernal gods. Such was the end of the most formidable rival Rome ever met in her career of conquest. [7]

SICILY

The two European countries, Sicily and Spain, which Rome had taken from Carthage, presented to the conqueror very different problems. Sicily had been long accustomed to foreign masters. Its civilized and peace-loving inhabitants were as ready to accept Roman rule as, in the past, they had accepted the rule of Greeks and Carthaginians. Every year the island became more and more a part of Italy and of Rome.

SPAIN

Spain, on the contrary, gave the Romans some hard fighting. The wild Spanish tribes loved their liberty, and in their mountain fastnesses long kept up a desperate struggle for independence. It was not until the Romans sent Scipio Aemilianus to Spain that the Spanish resistance was finally overcome (133 B.C.).

ROMANIZATION OF SPAIN

All Spain, except the inaccessible mountain district in the northwest, now became Roman territory. Many colonists settled there; traders and speculators flocked to seaports; even the legionaries, quartered in Spain for long periods, married Spanish wives and, on retiring from active service, made their homes in the peninsula. Rome thus continued in Spain the process of Romanization which she had begun in Italy. [8] She was to repeat this process in Gaul and Britain. [9] Her way was prepared by the sword; but after the sword came civilization.

ROME AND MACEDONIA

While Rome was subduing the West, she was also extending her influence over the highly civilized peoples of the East. Roman interference in the affairs of Macedonia found an excuse in the attempt of that country, during the Second Punic War, to give aid to Hannibal. It was a fateful moment when, for the second time, the legion faced the phalanx. The easy victory over Macedonia showed that this Hellenistic kingdom was no match for the Italian republic. Macedonia was finally made into a subject state or province of Rome. Thus disappeared a great power, which Philip had founded and which Alexander had led to the conquest of the world.

[Illustration: STORMING A CITY (RECONSTRUCTION)]

ROME AND GREECE

Having subdued Macedonia, Rome proclaimed Greece a free state. But this "freedom" really meant subjection, as was amply proved when some of the Greek cities rose in revolt against Roman domination. The heavy hand of Roman vengeance especially descended on Corinth, at this time one of the most beautiful cities of the world. In 146 B.C., the same year in which the destruction of Carthage occurred, Corinth was sacked and burned to the ground. [10] The fall of Corinth may be said to mark the final extinction of Greek liberty. Though the Hellenic cities and states were allowed to rule themselves, they paid tribute and thus acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. A century later, Greece became in name, as well as in fact, a province of the Roman Empire. [11]

ROME AND SYRIA

Rome, in the meantime, was drawn into a conflict with the kingdom of Syria. That Asiatic power proved to be no more capable than Macedonia of checking the Roman advance. The Syrian king had to give up the greater part of his possessions in Asia Minor. The western part of the peninsula, together with the Greek cities on the coast, was formed in 133 B.C. into the province of Asia. Thus the same year that witnessed the complete establishment of Roman rule in Spain saw Rome gain her first possessions at the opposite end of the Mediterranean.

POLITICAL SITUATION IN 133 B.C.

Roman supremacy over the Mediterranean world was now all but complete. In 264 B.C. Rome had been only one of the five great Mediterranean states. In 133 B.C. no other power existed to match its strength with that of Rome. To her had fallen in the West the heritage of Carthage, in the East the heritage of Alexander. Rome had built up this mighty empire at a terrible cost in blood and treasure. Let us see what use she was to make of it.