CHAPTER VIII
ROMAN DOMINATION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN; THE FIRST PHASE—THE STRUGGLE WITH CARTHAGE; 265–201 B. C.
I. The Mediterranean World in 265 b. c.
Rome a world power. With the unification of the Italian peninsula Rome entered upon a new era in her foreign relations. She was now one of the great powers of the Mediterranean world and was inevitably drawn into the vortex of world politics. She could no longer rest indifferent to what went on beyond the confines of Italy. She assumed new responsibilities, opened up new diplomatic relations, developed a new outlook and new ambitions. At this time the other first-class powers were, in the east, the three Hellenistic monarchies—Egypt, Syria, and Macedon,—which had emerged from the ruins of the empire of Alexander the Great, and, in the west, the city state of Carthage.
Egypt. The kingdom of Egypt, ruled by the dynasty of the Ptolemies, comprised the ancient kingdom of Egypt in the Nile valley, Cyrene, the coast of Syria, Cyprus, and a number of cities on the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea. In Egypt the Ptolemies ruled as foreigners over the subject native population. They maintained their authority by a small mercenary army recruited chiefly from Macedonians and Greeks, and by a strongly centralized administration, of which the offices were in Greek hands. As the ruler was the sole proprietor of the land of Egypt, the native Egyptians, the majority of whom were peasants who gained their livelihood by tilling the rich soil of the Nile valley, were for the most part tenants of the crown, and the restrictions and obligations to which they were subject rendered their status little better than that of serfs. A highly developed but oppressive system of taxation and government monopolies, largely an inheritance from previous dynasties, enabled the Ptolemies to wring from their subjects the revenues with which they maintained [pg 69]a brilliant court life at their capital, Alexandria, and financed their imperial policy.
The aim of this policy was to secure Egyptian domination in the Aegean, among the states of Southern Greece, and in Phoenicia, whose value lay in the forests of the Lebanon mountains. To carry it into effect the Ptolemies were obliged to support a navy which would give them the command of the sea in the eastern Mediterranean. However, the occupation of their outlying possessions brought Egypt into perpetual conflict with Macedon and Syria, whose rulers made continued efforts to oust the Ptolemies from the Aegean and from the Syrian coast.
Syria. Syria, the kingdom of the Seleucids, with its capital at Antioch on the Orontes, was by far the largest of the Hellenistic monarchies in extent and population, and in wealth it ranked next to Egypt. It stretched from the Aegean to the borders of India, and included the southern part of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Persia, and northern Syria. But the very size of this kingdom was a source of weakness, because of the distances which separated its various provinces and the heterogeneous racial elements which it embraced. The power of the dynasty was upheld, as in Egypt, by a mercenary army, and also by the Greek cities which had been founded in large numbers by Alexander the Great and his successors. However, these islands of Greek culture did not succeed to any great extent in Hellenizing the native populations which remained in a state of subjection, indifferent or hostile to their conquerors. Furthermore the strength of the Seleucid empire was sapped by repeated revolts in its eastern provinces and dissensions between the members of the dynasty itself.
Macedon. The kingdom of Macedon, ruled by the house of the Antigonids, was the smallest of the three in extent, population and resources, but possessed an internal strength and solidarity lacking in the others. For in Macedon, the Antigonids, by preserving the traditional character of the patriarchal monarchy, kept alive the national spirit of the Macedonians and made them loyal to the dynasty. They also retained a military system which fostered the traditions of the times of Philip II and Alexander, and which, since the Macedonian people had not lost its martial character, furnished a small but efficient national army. Outside of Macedon, the Antigonids held sway over Thessaly and the eastern part of Greece as far south as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their attempts to dominate the whole [pg 70]peninsula were thwarted by the opposition of the Aetolian and Achaian Confederacies, who were supported in this by the Ptolemies.