The History of Rome, Book IV / The Revolution

by Theodor Mommsen

Chapter I

1. III. VII. The State of Culture in Spain.

2. Italica must have been intended by Scipio to be what was called in Italy forum et -conciliabulum civium Romanorum-; Aquae Sextiae in Gaul had a similar origin afterwards. The formation of transmarine burgess- communities only began at a later date with Carthage and Narbo: yet it is remarkable that Scipio already made a first step, in a certain sense, in that direction.

3. III. VII. Gracchus

4. The chronology of the war with Viriathus is far from being precisely settled. It is certain that the appearance of Viriathus dates from the conflict with Vetilius (Appian, Hisp. 61; Liv. lii.; Oros. v. 4), and that he perished in 615 (Diod. Vat. p. 110, etc.); the duration of his rule is reckoned at eight (Appian, Hisp. 63), ten (Justin, xliv. 2), eleven (Diodorus, p. 597), fifteen (Liv. liv.; Eutrop. iv. 16; Oros. v. 4; Flor. i. 33), and twenty years (Vellei. ii. 90). The first estimate possesses some probability, because the appearance of Viriathus is connected both in Diodorus (p. 591; Vat. p. 107, 108) and in Orosius (v. 4) with the destruction of Corinth. Of the Roman governors, with whom Viriathus fought, several undoubtedly belong to the northern province; for though Viriathus was at work chiefly in the southern, he was not exclusively so (Liv. lii.); consequently we must not calculate the number of the years of his generalship by the number of these names.

5. IV. I. Celtiberian War

6. III. VII. Massinissa

7. III. VI. Peace, III. VII. Carthage

8. The line of the coast has been in the course of centuries so much changed that the former local relations are but imperfectly recognizable on the ancient site. The name of the city is preserved by Cape Cartagena—also called from the saint's tomb found there Ras Sidi bu Said—the eastern headland of the peninsula, projecting into the gulf with its highest point rising to 393 feet above the level of the sea.

9. The dimensions given by Beule (Fouilles a Carthage, 1861) are as follows in metres and in Greek feet (1=0.309 metre):—

Outer wall 2 metres = 6 1/2 feet.
Corridor 1.9 " = 6 "
Front wall of casemates 1 " = 3 1/4 "
Casemate rooms 4.2 " = 14 "
Back wall of casemates 1 " = 3 1/4 "
————————————
Whole breadth of the walls 10.1 metres = 33 feet.

Or, as Diodorus (p. 522) states it, 22 cubits (1 Greek cubit = 1 1/2 feet), while Livy (ap. Oros. iv. 22) and Appian (Pun. 95), who seem to have had before them another less accurate passage of Polybius, state the breadth of the walls at 30 feet. The triple wall of Appian—as to which a false idea has hitherto been diffused by Floras (i. 31)—denotes the outer wall, and the front and back walls of the casemates. That this coincidence is not accidental, and that we have here in reality the remains of the famed walls of Carthage before us, will be evident to every one: the objections of Davis (Carthage and her Remains, p. 370 et seq.) only show how little even the utmost zeal can adduce in opposition to the main results of Beule. Only we must maintain that all the ancient authorities give the statements of which we are now speaking with reference not to the citadel-wall, but to the city-wall on the landward side, of which the wall along the south side of the citadel-hill was an integral part (Oros. iv. 22). In accordance with this view, the excavations at the citadel-hill on the east, north, and west, have shown no traces of fortifications, whereas on the south side they have brought to light the very remains of this great wall. There is no reason for regarding these as the remains of a separate fortification of the citadel distinct from the city wall; it may be presumed that further excavations at a corresponding depth—the foundation of the city wall discovered at the Byrsa lies fifty-six feet beneath the present surface—will bring to light like, or at any rate analogous, foundations along the whole landward side, although it is probable that at the point where the walled suburb of Magalia rested on the main wall the fortification was either weaker from the first or was early neglected. The length of the wall as a whole cannot be stated with precision; but it must have been very considerable, for three hundred elephants were stabled there, and the stores for their fodder and perhaps other spaces also as well as the gates are to be taken into account. It is easy to conceive how the inner city, within the walls of which the Byrsa was included, should, especially by way of contrast to the suburb of Magalia which had its separate circumvallation, be sometimes itself called Byrsa (App. Pun. 117; Nepos, ap. Serv. Aen. i. 368).

10. Such is the height given by Appian, l. c.; Diodorus gives the height, probably inclusive of the battlements, at 40 cubits or 60 feet. The remnant preserved is still from 13 to 16 feet (4-5 metres) high.

11. The rooms of a horse-shoe shape brought to light in excavation have a depth of 14, and a breadth of 11, Greek feet; the width of the entrances is not specified. Whether these dimensions and the proportions of the corridor suffice for our recognizing them as elephants' stalls, remains to be settled by a more accurate investigation. The partition-walls, which separate the apartments, have a thickness of 1.1 metre = 3 1/2 feet.

12. Oros. iv. 22. Fully 2000 paces, or—as Polybius must have said—16 stadia, are=about 3000 metres. The citadel-hill, on which the church of St. Louis now stands, measures at the top about 1400, half-way up about 2600, metres in circumference (Beule, p. 22); for the circumference at the base that estimate will very well suffice.

13. It now bears the fort Goletta.

14. That this Phoenician word signifies a basin excavated in a circular shape, is shown both by Diodorus (iii. 44), and by its being employed by the Greeks to denote a "cup." It thus suits only the inner harbour of Carthage, and in that sense it is used by Strabo (xvii. 2, 14, where it is strictly applied to the admiral's island) and Fest. Ep. v. -cothones-, p. 37. Appian (Pun. 127) is not quite accurate in describing the rectangular harbour in front of the Cothon as part of it.

15. —Oios pepnutai, toi de skiai aissousin—.

16. III. III. Acquisition of Territory in Illyria, III. IX. Macedonia

17. III. X. Macedonia Broken Up

18. This road was known already by the author of the pseudo- Aristotelian treatise De Mirabilibus as a commercial route between the Adriatic and Black seas, viz. As that along which the wine jars from Corcyra met halfway those from Thasos and Lesbos. Even now it runs substantially in the same direction from Durazzo, cutting through the mountains of Bagora (Candavian chain) near the lake of Ochrida (Lychnitis), by way of Monastir to Salonica.

19. III. X. Greek National Party

20. III. IX. The Achaeans

21. III. IX. The Achaeans

22. At Sabine townships, at Parma, and even at Italica in Spain (p. 214), several pediments marked with the name of Mummius have been brought to light, which once supported gifts forming part of the spoil.

23. III. III. Organization of the Provinces

24. III. VIII. Final Regulation of Greece

25. The question whether Greece did or did not become a Roman province in 608, virtually runs into a dispute about words. It is certain that the Greek communities throughout remained "free" (C. I. Gr. 1543, 15; Caesar, B. C. iii. 5; Appian, Mithr. 58; Zonar. ix. 31). But it is no less certain that Greece was then "taken possession of" by the Romans (Tac. Ann. xiv. 21; 1 Maccab. viii. 9, 10); that thenceforth each community paid a fixed tribute to Rome (Pausan. vii. 16, 6; comp. Cic. De Prov. Cons. 3, 5), the little island of Gyarus, for instance, paying 150 —drachmae— annually (Strabo, x. 485); that the "rods and axes" of the Roman governor thenceforth ruled in Greece (Polyb. xxxviii. l. c.; comp. Cic. Verr. l. i. 21, 55), and that he thenceforth exercised the superintendence over the constitutions of the cities (C. I. Gr. 1543), as well as in certain cases the criminal jurisdiction (C. I. Gr. 1543; Plut. Cim. 2), just as the senate had hitherto done; and that, lastly, the Macedonian provincial era was also in use in Greece. Between these facts there is no inconsistency, or at any rate none further than is involved in the position of the free cities generally, which are spoken of sometimes as if excluded from the province (e. g. Sueton. Cats., 25; Colum. xi. 3, 26), sometimes as assigned to it (e. g. Joseph. Ant. Jud. xiv. 4, 4). The Roman domanial possessions in Greece were, no doubt, restricted to the territory of Corinth and possibly some portions of Euboea (C. I. Gr. 5879), and there were no subjects in the strict sense there at all; yet if we look to the relations practically subsisting between the Greek communities and the Macedonian governor, Greece may be reckoned as included in the province of Macedonia in the same manner as Massilia in the province of Narbo or Dyrrhachium in that of Macedonia. We find even cases that go much further: Cisalpine Gaul consisted after 665 of mere burgess or Latin communities and was yet made a province by Sulla, and in the time of Caesar we meet with regions which consisted exclusively of burgess-communities and yet by no means ceased to be provinces. In these cases the fundamental idea of the Roman -provinicia- comes out very clearly; it was primarily nothing but a "command," and all the administrative and judicial functions of the commandant were originally collateral duties and corollaries of his military position.

On the other hand, if we look to the formal sovereignty of the free communities, it must be granted that the position of Greece was not altered in point of constitutional law by the events of 608. It was a difference de facto rather than de jure, when instead of the Achaean league the individual communities of Achaia now appeared by the side of Rome as tributary protected states, and when, after the erection of Macedonia as a separate Roman province, the latter relieved the authorities of the capital of the superintendence over the Greek client-states. Greece therefore may or may not be regarded as a part of the "command" of Macedonia, according as the practical or the formal point of view preponderates; but the preponderance is justly conceded to the former.

26. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War

27. A remarkable proof of this is found in the names employed to designate the fine bronze and copper wares of Greece, which in the time of Cicero were called indiscriminately "Corinthian" or "Delian" copper. Their designation in Italy was naturally derived not from the places of manufacture but from those of export (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 2, 9); although, of course, we do not mean to deny that similar vases were manufactured in Corinth and Delos themselves.

28. III. X. Course Pursued with Pergamus

29. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus

30. III. X. Course Pursued with Pergamus

31. Several letters recently brought to light (Munchener Sitzungsberichte, 1860, p. 180 et seq.) from the kings Eumenes II, and Attalus II to the priest of Pessinus, who was uniformly called Attis (comp. Polyb. xxii. 20), very clearly illustrate these relations. The earliest of these and the only one with a date, written in the 34th year of the reign of Eumenes on the 7th day before the end of Gorpiaeus, and therefore in 590-1 u. c. offers to the priest military aid in order to wrest from the Pesongi (not otherwise known) temple-land occupied by them. The following, likewise from Eumenes, exhibits the king as a party in the feud between the priest of Pessinus and his brother Aiorix. Beyond doubt both acts of Eumenes were included among those which were reported at Rome in 590 et seq. as attempts on his part to interfere further in Gallic affairs, and to support his partisans in that quarter (Polyb. xxxi. 6, 9; xxxii. 3, 5). On the other hand it is plain from one of the letters of his successor Attalus that the times had changed and his wishes had lowered their tone. The priest Attis appears to have at a conference at Apamea obtained once more from Attalus the promise of armed assistance; but afterwards the king writes to him that in a state council held for the purpose, at which Athenaeus (certainly the known brother of the king), Sosander, Menogenes, Chlorus, and other relatives (—anagkaioi—) had been present, after long hesitation the majority had at length acceded to the opinion of Chlorus that nothing should be done without previously consulting the Romans; for, even if a success were obtained, they would expose themselves to its being lost again, and to the evil suspicion "which they had cherished also against his brother" (Eumenes II.).

32. In the same testament the king gave to his city Pergamus "freedom," that is the —demokratia—, urban self-government. According to the tenor of a remarkable document that has recently been found there (Staatsrecht, iii(3). p. 726) after the testament was opened, but before its confirmation by the Romans, the Demos thus constituted resolved to confer urban burgess-rights on the classes of the population hitherto excluded from them, especially on the -paroeci- entered in the census and on the soldiers dwelling in town and country, including the Macedonians, in order thus to bring about a good understanding among the whole population. Evidently the burgesses, in confronting the Romans with this comprehensive reconciliation as an accomplished fact, desired, before the Roman rule was properly introduced, to prepare themselves against it and to take away from the foreign rulers the possibility of using the differences of rights within the population for breaking up its municipal freedom.

33. These strange "Heliopolites" may, according to the probable opinion which a friend has expressed to me, be accounted for by supposing that the liberated slaves constituted themselves citizens of a town Heliopolis—not otherwise mentioned or perhaps having an existence merely in imagination for the moment—which derived its name from the God of the Sun so highly honoured in Syria.

34. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus

35. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus

36. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus

37. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War

38. III. IX. Armenia

39. From him proceed the coins with the inscription "Shekel Israel," and the date of the "holy Jerusalem," or the "deliverance of Sion." The similar coins with the name of Simon, the prince (Nessi) of Israel, belong not to him, but to Bar-Cochba the leader of the insurgents in the time of Hadrian.

40. III. III. Illyrian Piracy

41. IV. I. New Organization of Spain

42. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War