If what Hanno said in the speech above-mentioned, had been his real sentiments from any consciousness of the superior power of the Romans, and the imprudence of engaging in a war of that consequence before his country had recovered her former strength, he would have acted upon principles worthy of an honest and prudent patriot. For Polybius,[236] after enumerating the superior excellencies of Hannibal as a general, is strongly of opinion, that if he had begun with other nations, and left the Romans for his last enterprise, he would certainly have succeeded in whatever he had attempted against them, but he miscarried by attacking those first, whom he ought to have reserved for his last enterprise. The subsequent behaviour of Hanno, during the whole time that Italy was the seat of war, evidently proves, that his opposition to this war proceeded entirely from party motives, and his personal hatred to the Barcan family, consequently is by no means to be ascribed to any regard for the true interest of his country. Appian informs us,[237] that when Fabius had greatly streightened Hannibal by his cautious conduct, the Carthaginian general sent a pressing message to Carthage for a supply both of men and money. But according to that author, he was flatly refused, and could obtain neither, by the influence of his enemies, who were averse to that war, and cavilled perpetually at every enterprise which Hannibal undertook. Livy,[238] in his relation of the account, which Hannibal sent to the Carthaginian senate of his glorious victory at Cannæ by his brother Mago, with the demand for a large re-enforcement of men as well as money, introduces Hanno (in a speech of his own which he gives us on that occasion) strongly opposing that motion, and persisting still in his former sentiments in respect both to the war and to Hannibal. But the Carthaginians, elated with that victory, which was the greatest blow the Romans ever received in the field since the foundation of their republick, and thoroughly sensible (as Livy informs us) of the enmity which Hanno and his faction bore to the Barcan family, immediately decreed a supply of forty thousand Numidians, and twenty-four thousand foot and horse to be immediately levied in Spain, besides elephants, and a very large sum of money. Though Hanno at that time had not weight enough in the senate to prevent that decree, yet he had influence enough by his intrigues to retard the supply then voted, and not only to get it reduced to twelve thousand foot and twenty-five hundred horse, but even to procure that small number to be sent to Spain upon a different service. That Hanno was the true cause of this cruel disappointment, and the fatal consequences which attended it, is equally evident from the same historian. For Livy tells us,[239] “that when orders were sent to him by the Carthaginian senate to quit Italy, and hasten to the immediate defence of his own country, Hannibal inveighed bitterly against the malice of his enemies, who now openly and avowedly recalled him from Italy, out of which they had long before endeavoured to drag him, when they tied up his hands by constantly refusing him any supply either of men or money. That Hannibal affirmed he was not conquered by the Romans, whom he had so often defeated, but by the calumny and envy of the opposite faction in the senate. That Scipio would not have so much reason to plume himself upon the ignominy of his return, as his enemy Hanno, who was so implacably bent upon the destruction of the Barcan family, that since he was not able to crush it by any other means, he had at last accomplished it, though by the ruin of Carthage itself.”
Had that large supply been sent to Hannibal with the same unanimity and despatch with which it was voted, it is more than probable, that so consummate a general would have soon been master of Rome, and transferred the empire of the world to Carthage. For the Romans were so exhausted after the terrible defeat at Cannæ, that Livy is of opinion, that Hannibal would have given the finishing blow to that republick, if he had marched directly to Rome from the field of battle, as he was advised to do by his general of horse Maherbal.[240] That many of the nobility upon the first news of this fatal event, were in actual consultation about the means of quitting Italy, and looking out for a settlement in some other part of the world, and he affirms, that the safety both of the city and empire of Rome must be attributed (as it was then firmly believed at Rome) to the delay of that single day only, on which Maherbal gave that advice to Hannibal. Appian confirms the distressful situation of the Roman affairs at that juncture, and informs us, that including the slaughter at Cannæ, in which the Romans had lost most of their ablest officers, Hannibal had put to the sword two hundred and fifty thousand of their best troops in the space of two years only, from the beginning of the second Punick war inclusive.[241] It is easy, therefore, to imagine how little able the Roman armies, consisting chiefly of new levies, would have been to face such a commander as Hannibal, when supported by the promised re-enforcement of sixty-four thousand fresh men, besides money and elephants in proportion. For Hannibal, though deprived of all supplies from Carthage by the malice of the Hannonian faction, maintained his ground above fourteen years more after his victory at Cannæ, in spite of the utmost efforts of the Romans. A truth which Livy himself acknowledges with admiration and astonishment at his superior military capacity. From that period therefore, after the battle of Cannæ, when Hannibal was first disappointed of the promised supplies from Carthage, we ought properly to date the fall of that republick, which must be wholly imputed to the inveterate malice of the profligate Hanno and his impious faction, who were determined, as Hannibal observed before, to ruin the contrary party, though by means which must be inevitably attended with the destruction of their country. Appian insinuates,[242] that Hannibal first engaged in this war more from the importunity of his friends, than even his own passion for military glory and hereditary hatred to the Romans. For Hanno and his faction (as Appian tells us) no longer dreading the power of Hamilcar and Asdrubal his son-in-law,[243] and holding Hannibal extremely cheap upon account of his youth, began to persecute and oppress the Barcan party with so much rage and hatred, that the latter were obliged by letter to implore assistance from Hannibal, and to assure him that his own interest and safety was inseparable from theirs. Hannibal (as Appian adds) was conscious of the truth of this remark, and well knew that the blows, which seemed directed at his friends, were levelled in reality at his own head, and judged that a war with the Romans, which would be highly agreeable to the generality of his countrymen, might prove the surest means of counter-working his enemies, and preserving himself and his friends from the fury of a pliant and fickle populace, already inflamed against his party by the intrigues of Hanno. He concluded therefore, according to Appian, that a war with so formidable and dangerous a power, would divert the Carthaginians from all inquiries relative to his friends, and oblige them to attend wholly to an affair, which was of the last importance to their country. Should Appian’s account of the cause of this war be admitted as true, it would be a yet stronger proof of the calamitous effects of party disunion; though it would by no means excuse Hannibal. For Hanno and his party would be equally culpable for driving a man of Hannibal’s abilities to such a desperate measure, purely to screen himself and his party from their malice and power. But the blame for not supporting Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ, when such support would have enabled him to crush that power, which by their means recovered strength sufficient to subvert their own country, must be thrown entirely upon Hanno and his party. It was a crime of the blackest dye, and an act of the highest treason against their country, and another terrible proof of the fatal effects of party disunion. Nor was this evil peculiar to Carthage only, but was equally common in the Roman and Grecian republicks. Nay, could we trace all our publick measures up to their first secret springs of action, I do not doubt (notwithstanding the plausible reasons which might have been given to the publick to palliate such measures) but we should find our own country rashly engaged in wars detrimental to her true interests, or obliged to submit to a disadvantageous peace, just as either was conducive to the private interest of the prevailing party. Will not our own annals furnish us with some memorable instances of the truth of this assertion too recent to be denied? was not the treatment which the great duke of Marlborough received from Bolingbroke, the English Hanno, parallel to that which the victorious Hannibal met with from the Carthaginian, after the battle of Cannæ? did not Bolingbroke, from the worst of party motives, displace that ever victorious general, desert our allies, and sacrifice the brave and faithful Catalans, and the city of Barcelona, in at least as shameful a manner as the Romans did their unhappy friends at Saguntum? did not the same minister by the fatal treaty of Utrecht, rob the nation of all those advantages, which she had reason to hope for from a long and successful war? did he not by the same treaty, give our mortal enemy France time to retrieve her affairs, and recover from that low state to which the duke of Marlborough had reduced her, and even to arrive at that power, at present so terrible to us and to all Europe?
To what can we attribute the late ill conducted war with Spain, but to the ambition of party. How was the nation stunned with the noise of Spanish depredations from the press! how loudly did the same outcry resound in parliament! yet when the leaders of that powerful opposition had carried their point by their popular clamours; when they had pushed the nation into that war; when they had drove an overgrown minister from the helm, and nestled themselves in power, how quickly did they turn their backs upon the honest men of their party, who refused to concur in their measures! how soon did they convince the nation, by screening that very minister who had been so many years the object of their resentment, and by carrying on their own war (as I may term it) with the same or greater lukewarmness than what they had so lately exclaimed against in the same minister. They convinced, I say, the whole nation, that the welfare of the publick, and the protection of our trade, had not the least share in the real motives of their conduct.
But as the Carthaginian history, during this period, is intimately blended with the Roman, to avoid repetition, I am obliged to defer my farther remarks upon the conduct of this people, until I speak of the difference between the civil and military polity, and manners of both those nations.
CHAPTER V.
OF ROME.
Though there is a concurrence of several causes which bring on the ruin of a state, yet where luxury prevails, that parent of all our fantastick imaginary wants, ever craving and ever unsatisfied, we may justly assign it as the leading cause: since it ever was and ever will be the most baneful to publick virtue. For as luxury is contagious from its very nature, it will gradually descend from the highest to the lowest ranks, until it has ultimately infected a whole people. The evils arising from luxury have not been peculiar to this or that nation, but equally fatal to all wherever it was admitted. Political philosophy lays this down as a fundamental and incontestable maxim,[244] that all the most flourishing states owed their ruin, sooner or later, to the effects of luxury; and all history, from the origin of mankind, confirms this truth by the evidence of facts to the highest degree of demonstration. In the great despotick monarchies it produced avarice, dissipation, rapaciousness, oppression, perpetual factions amongst the great, whilst each endeavoured to engross the favour of the prince wholly to himself; venality, and a contempt of all law and discipline both in the military and civil departments. Whilst the people, following the pernicious example of their superiors, contracted such a dastardly effeminacy, joined to an utter inability to support the fatigues of war, as quickly threw them into the hands of the first resolute invader. Thus the Assyrian empire sunk under the arms of Cyrus with his poor but hardy Persians. The extensive and opulent empire of Persia fell an easy conquest to Alexander and a handful of Macedonians; and the Macedonian empire, when enervated by the luxury of Asia, was compelled to receive the yoke of the victorious Romans.
Luxury, when introduced into free states, and suffered to be diffused without controul through the body of the people, was ever productive of that degeneracy of manners, which extinguished publick virtue, and put a final period to liberty. For as the incessant demands of luxury quickly induced necessity, that necessity kept human invention perpetually on the rack to find out ways and means to supply the demands of luxury. Hence the lower classes at first sold their suffrages in privacy and with caution; but as luxury increased, and the manners of the people grew daily more corrupt, they openly set them up to sale to the best bidder. Hence too the ambitious amongst the higher classes, whose superior wealth was frequently their only qualification, first purchased the most lucrative posts in the state by this infamous kind of traffick, and then maintained themselves in power by that additional fund for corruption, which their employments supplied, until they had undone those they had first corrupted.
But of all the ancient republicks, Rome in the last period of her freedom was the scene where all the inordinate passions of mankind operated most powerfully and with the greatest latitude. There we see luxury, ambition, faction, pride, revenge, selfishness, a total disregard to the publick good, and an universal dissoluteness of manners, first make them ripe for, and then complete their destruction. Consequently that period, by showing us more striking examples, will afford us more useful lessons than any other part of their history.