Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks / Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain

by Edward Wortley Montagu

As to religion, both nations were equally superstitious. If many of the religious ceremonies amongst the Romans were absurd and childish, it must be owned that the Carthaginian worship, like that of their ancestors the Canaanites, from whom they received it, was truly diabolical.[339] But it is by no means candid to judge of the natural bent and temper of a people, from effects produced in their minds by superstition. For the same superstition which enjoins such horrid rites, will naturally place the chief efficacy of the sacrifice in the zeal and sincerity of the offerer. Consequently the highest degree of merit in such oblations, will consist in stifling every human affection, and over-ruling nature. Thus in the Carthaginian idolatry, the softer sex, as more susceptible of tenderness for their offspring, were required to attend in person. They were even compelled,[340] upon this dreadful occasion, to affect all the joy and cheerfulness of festivity, because, as Plutarch informs us, if a sigh or a tear escaped them, the merit of the offering would be absolutely lost, and themselves liable to a fine. That the Carthaginians were no more void of parental affection than other nations, is evident from that pious fraud they had so long practised,[341] of secretly buying up poor children, whom they substituted as victims to their bloody deity instead of their own. But after a great defeat which they received from Agathocles, they attributed their ill fortune to the resentment of their god for their repeated sacrilege. They sacrificed two hundred children of the first families in Carthage,[342] and three hundred other persons offered themselves as voluntary victims to atone for a crime, to which the highest degree of guilt was affixed by their impious religion. The Roman superstition must in general be acquitted of the charge of inhumanity. The only tendency towards it, was in the custom of inhuming alive such of the vestal virgins, as had violated their vow of chastity.[343] But the bloody and frequent shows of the gladiators, which were the delight of the Romans, fix an indelible blot on the character of a brave people.[344] Historians in general brand the Carthaginians with cruelty and inhumanity. If the charge is just, it must be chiefly attributed to that execrable custom of human sacrifices, which always prevailed amongst that people. Nor do I in the least doubt, but that savage ferocity, which the Romans were so guilty of in war, was in a great measure owing to those barbarous spectacles, where wounds, and murder in cold blood, made the most agreeable part of the entertainment.

As to publick virtue or love of their country, the Carthaginians were no way inferior to the Romans. The intrepid behaviour of the Philæni,[345] two Carthaginian brothers, who consented to be buried alive to enlarge the boundaries of their country, equals the most heroick instance of that kind of enthusiasm, which the Roman story can boast of. The fate of Macheus, Bomilcar, Hanno, and others, afford undeniable proof, that neither birth, dignity, nor the greatest services, could screen that man from the most ignominious death, who made the least attempt to subvert the liberty of his country. I have before taken notice of the punica fides, or that proverbial want of sincerity, which has been so often objected by the Roman historians: but I cannot help observing with the more impartial Montesquieu,[346] “that the Romans never made peace with sincerity and good faith, but always took care to insert such conditions as, in the end, proved the ruin of the people with whom they treated: that the peace they granted was no more than a politick suspension of arms, until an opportunity offered of completing their conquests: that it was their invariable maxim to foment divisions among the neighbouring powers, and by siding alternately with either party, as they found it most conducive to their own interest, play one against the other, until they had reduced all equally into provinces: that they frequently employed the subtilty and ambiguity of terms in their own language, to finesse and chicane in their treaties.” Thus they cheated the Ætolians by the ambiguous phrase of yielding themselves up to the faith of the Roman people.[347] The poor Ætolians imagined, that the term implied only alliance. But the Romans soon convinced them, that what they meant by it, was absolute subjection. They destroyed Carthage under sanction of the most vile equivocation,[348] pretending, “that though they promised that deluded people to preserve their state, they did not mean to grant them their city, which word they had purposely omitted.” Maxims which the French have steadily and too successfully pursued, and are still pursuing!... Montesquieu very judiciously observes “... that the Romans were ambitious from the lust of domination: the Carthaginians from the lust of gain.” This accounts for the different reception which commerce met with in the two nations. At Carthage commerce was esteemed the most honourable of all employments. At Rome commerce was held in contempt. It was there looked upon as the proper occupation of slaves only, and disgraceful to a free citizen. Thus the one loved war for the sake of glory and acquiring dominion; the other looked upon war as a means of acquiring wealth, and extending commerce. The Romans plundered the vanquished enemy to make a parade with their wealth in the triumphal procession. The Carthaginians fleeced not only their enemies, but their tributary provinces, and oppressed their allies, to feed their own private avarice, as well as that of the publick. The oppressions of the Carthaginian generals in Spain lost them all their allies. The wiser policy of Scipio attached those allies unalterably to the Romans. The exactions of their rapacious governors in the African provinces, were the sources of perpetual revolts, upon the approach of any invader, from a desire of changing masters. When Scipio landed, he was joined by all those provinces, who looked upon the Romans as their deliverers. As soon as luxury had introduced avarice and corruption amongst the Romans, their generals and governours pursued the same destructive maxims, which was one leading cause of the final ruin of both the western and eastern empires.

There cannot be a stronger proof of a weak or a corrupt administration, than when indigent and necessitous men are appointed to the government of distant provinces, from no other motive than party merit, and with no other view than to raise a fortune at the expense of the people. Whether the wretched and defenceless condition in which the French found our colonies at the beginning of this war, ought not to be ascribed chiefly to this cause, is a question I shall wave at present. Because the evils we have already suffered from former misconduct, will, I hope, be now removed, by a total alteration of measures under an able and honest administration.

It is remarkable, that not one of the historians who reproach the Carthaginians with corruption, were ever able to accuse them of luxury and effeminacy. The Carthaginians, to their immortal honour, stand single upon the records of history, “the only people in the universe, upon whom immense wealth was never able to work its usual effects.” The Romans, corrupted by wealth, quickly lost all pretensions both to publick and private virtue, and from a race of heroes, degenerated into a nation of the most abject slaves. The Carthaginian virtue was so far from degenerating that it shone brighter in the last period of their history, than in any of the former. Even the behaviour of their women in that long and brave defence of their city against the whole Roman power, equalled, or rather exceeded, that of the Roman matrons in those times, when they were most celebrated for publick virtue. When the Romans were masters of the city, one small part only excepted, and that part actually in flames, the generous wife of Asdrubal the chief commander,[349] closed the scene by as desperate an act of heroick bravery, as can be met with in history. After she had upbraided her husband as a coward and a traitor for submitting to Scipio, she declared her determined resolution of dying free, and not surviving the fate of her country. She first stabbed both her children, and threw them into the flames; then leaped in after their bodies, and buried herself in the ruins of Carthage.

The sententious Montesquieu remarks,[350] “that when Carthage made war with her opulence against the Roman poverty, her great disadvantage arose from what she esteemed her greatest strength, and on which she placed her chief dependence. The reason, as he judiciously observes, is evident. Gold and silver may be easily exhausted, but publick virtue, constancy, and firmness of mind, fortitude and poverty, are inexhaustible.” The Carthaginians in their wars employed foreign mercenaries. The Roman armies were composed of their own natives. A defeat or two at sea obstructed the Carthaginian commerce, and stopped the spring which supplied their publick exchequer. The loss of a battle in Africa, where their country was quite open, and destitute of fortresses, and the natives as much strangers to the use of arms as our own country people, reduced them to submit to whatever terms the victors thought proper to impose. Regulus, in the first Punick war, cooped up the Carthaginians in their capital, after he had given them one defeat by sea, and one by land. The Romans, after receiving four successive defeats from Hannibal, the last of which was the fatal battle of Cannæ, where they lost most of their best officers, and all their veteran troops, would hearken to no terms of accommodation, and even sent re-enforcements to Spain and other places, though Hannibal was at their gates. The reason is plain. The citizens of Carthage consisted chiefly of unarmed, and undisciplined tradesmen. The citizens of Rome, without distinction, composed a regular body of disciplined militia.... A short comparison between the Roman and Carthaginian polity, with respect to the military of each people, will easily point out to us the true cause which gave the Romans their manifest superiority.

I have already taken notice of some capital defects of the Carthaginians, both in their marine and military departments. Montesquieu imputes several capital errors to the Romans, but he attributes their preservation after the defeat at Cannæ, when they were at the very brink of ruin, to the force of their institution. He seems to place this force in the superior wisdom and firmness of the Roman senate. A short inquiry into their conduct, during the second Punick war, will show that the cause of their preservation at that time must be ascribed to a very different principle, and that Montesquieu too hastily adopted that opinion from the Greek and Roman historians.

If we examine the boasted behaviour of the Roman senate, from the first attack of Saguntum to the memorable battle of Cannæ, we shall find it to consist of one continued series of blunders, which carry all the marks of weak, factious, and divided counsels. The Romans had certain intelligence of Hannibal's design of attacking them in Italy. This was no secret in Spain, where every preparation, and every motion of Hannibal’s was directed to that point of view. The Romans were certainly jealous of such a design, when they sent ambassadours to Hannibal, to inform him, that if he passed the Iberus, and attacked the Saguntines, they should look upon it as a declaration of war. When they had received an evasive answer from Hannibal, they crossed over to Africa, and made the same declaration to the Carthaginian senate. When Hannibal laid siege to Saguntum, did the Romans act up to their formidable declaration, or did they send a single man to the assistance of those faithful allies? just the reverse; they wasted nine months, the time the siege lasted, in useless debates, and fruitless embassies. They sacrificed that faithful and heroick people, together with their own interest and character, by their folly and irresolution.[351] For if they had sent a powerful army at first, they might have saved Saguntum, or at least confined the war to Spain, and prevented it from penetrating into their own bowels. After Hannibal had laid Saguntum in ashes, did the boasted wisdom and firmness of the Roman senate appear in more vigorous, or more politick measures? They again employed a whole winter in a wise embassy to Carthage, to just as little purpose as the former, and gave Hannibal all the time he could wish to prepare for his expedition. When Hannibal was on his march for Italy, instead of shutting up the passages of the Alps, which would easily have defeated that daring enterprise, they ordered the consul Scipio, with his army, to oppose his passage over the Rhone. The consul came just in time enough to learn, that such dilatory measures would never check the progress of so active and vigilant an enemy, who had already passed that river, and was on his march for the Alps.[352] The consul immediately re-embarked his troops, and hastened to meet him in his descent from those mountains. But Hannibal was already near the banks of the Po, where the consul attacked him, but was defeated and dangerously wounded. The senate, alarmed at Hannibal’s passage over the Alps, which they had taken no precaution to prevent, sent in a great fright for the other consul Sempronius, with his army, out of Sicily. He arrived, and joined his wounded colleague Scipio, who was an able officer, and having learnt, by experience, how dangerous an enemy they had to cope with, advised caution and prudence in all their operations. But Sempronius, vain, rash and ignorant, was deaf to all salutary advice, which he ridiculed as the effect of fear. Hannibal, who never inquired into the number of his enemies, but studied only the foibles of their commanders, directed all his operations upon that principle. He applied therefore to the foible of Sempronius, which he was soon master of, drew him into a snare, and cut off almost his whole army. The senate was dreadfully frighted at this second defeat; but to mend the matter, they suffered Flaminius, a man more vain, more headstrong, and more rash than Sempronius, to be chosen consul, and sent against Hannibal. As he acted upon the same principles, he ran headlong into the trap laid for him by his artful enemy, and lost his life together with his whole army. Though this terrible blow threw the Romans into inexpressible consternation, yet it seems to have brought them to their senses. For they at last created the celebrated Fabius dictator, who was the only Roman commander capable of opposing Hannibal. Yet even here they could not help giving another instance of their folly, by forcing Minucius upon him for his general of horse, a man of the same character with Sempronius or Flaminius. Fabius acted upon a quite different plan. He knew the danger and folly of opposing new raised troops to veterans, flushed with repeated victories, and commanded by so consummate a general. He therefore opposed art to art, watched every motion of his enemy, and cut off his foragers. Hannibal, whose army was composed chiefly of soldiers of fortune out of different nations, connected to him by no other tie than the hopes of plunder, and their esteem for his personal abilities, was sensible, that such a conduct in his enemy would quickly put an end to all his hopes in Italy. He tried therefore every art he was master of to bring Fabius to a battle; but the wary Roman convinced him, that he knew his trade too well to deviate from that plan, which alone could save his country. Though Hannibal did justice to those fine strokes of his antagonist, yet they were too delicate for the eyes of the Romans. They were disgusted at his conduct, because they wanted capacity to understand it, and gave credit to the idle boasts of Minucius, though they had already suffered so severely by trusting men of his genius. Yet, by the most unaccountable folly, they raised Minucius to an equality of power with Fabius; and Rome, for the first time, saw two dictators vested with unlimited authority. The wiser Fabius, though amazed at the stupidity of his countrymen, adhered steadily to his first plan. He gave up half the army to the command of his new colleague, but was determined to preserve the other moiety at least, upon which so much depended. Hannibal was sensible that the Romans could not have done him a more essential piece of service, unless they had recalled Fabius. He immediately threw out a bait for Minucius, which that rash, unthinking commander as greedily bit at. He fell into the trap laid for him by the crafty Hannibal; was enveloped by the Carthaginians, and must inevitably have perished, with all the troops under his command, if Fabius had not flown to his assistance, repulsed the enemy, and rescued him from the most imminent danger of death or captivity. Though Fabius had been so ill used by his countrymen in general, and by his colleague Minucius in particular, yet he showed, by this generous action, a greatness of soul superior to private resentment, and every selfish passion, which he was always ready to sacrifice to the publick welfare. Minucius indeed felt the force of the obligation, as well as of his own incapacity: he nobly acknowledged it in the strongest terms, and returned to his former post and duty to his abler commander. But this heroick behaviour of Fabius seems to have made no more impression upon his countrymen, than his masterly conduct. Two new consuls were chosen, to whom he resigned his authority and army, and retired to Rome neglected and unemployed. The new consuls followed the advice of Fabius, and avoided coming to action, which distressed Hannibal extremely. But the following year exhibits such a masterpiece of folly and stupidity in that Roman senate, whose firmness and wisdom are so much boasted of by historians, and such infatuation in the body of the Roman people as would seem incredible, if the facts, as handed down to us by their own historians themselves, did not prove it beyond a possibility of doubt or contradiction. Determined to drive Hannibal out of Italy, and put a speedy end to so ruinous a war, they raised one of the mightiest armies they had ever yet brought into the field, and employed in it every officer of note or distinction at that time in Rome, the great Fabius alone excepted. This was the last stake of the Romans, upon which their all was ventured. But where does the boasted wisdom of the senate appear in the management of this affair, which was of the last importance? Of the two consuls, Paulus Æmilius, the one, was a respectable man, and an experienced officer: Terentius Varro, the other, was a fellow of the lowest extraction, who, by noise and impudence, had raised himself to the tribuneship, was afterwards made prætor, and, by the assistance of one Bebius, his relation, at that time a tribune of the people, had forced himself into the consular dignity. This wretch, who had but just talents sufficient for a captain of the mob, who had never seen an action (nor perhaps an army) in his life, had the impudence to censure the conduct of Fabius, and to boast in the senate, that he would immediately drive Hannibal out of Italy. The wise senate were not only so weak as to believe, but, in opposition to all the remonstrances of Fabius, even to trust such an empty coxcomb with an equal share in the command. They even gave the consuls orders to fight the enemy without delay, so great was their confidence in the gasconading Varro. Hannibal at that time was so greatly distressed for want of provisions, that his Spanish troops begun to mutiny, and talked openly of revolting to the Romans, and he himself had thoughts of retiring into Gaul for his own personal safety. Æmilius, who endeavoured in every point to follow the advice of Fabius, declined fighting, and was convinced by his intelligence, that Hannibal could not subsist his troops above ten days longer. But Varro was alike deaf to reason or persuasion. Debates at last run so high between the consuls, that repeated expresses were sent to the senate by Æmilius for fresh orders. Had the senate acted with that prudence, which has been so loudly celebrated by historians, they would certainly have created Fabius dictator at that critical juncture, which would have put an end to the differences and authority of the consuls. For how could they reasonably hope for success, whilst the army was commanded by two generals, vested with equal power, who differed as widely in opinion as in temper? But their chief view at that time seems to have been to mortify Fabius, and to that favourite point they wilfully sacrificed the publick honour and safety.[353] Æmilius at last returned to Rome, and laid the whole affair before the senate. But Varro’s party proved the majority, and orders were renewed for fighting, but not immediately. Æmilius still declined fighting, and followed the advice of Fabius, but the alternate command of the two consuls, which took place every day, defeated all his measures. Varro, on the day of his command, marched the army so close to the enemy, that it was impossible to retire without fighting. This imprudent step brought on the famous battle of Cannæ, where Hannibal, whose whole force scarce equalled the moiety of the Romans, gave them the most remarkable defeat we ever read of in their history. Polybius, and after him the rest of the historians, impute this defeat to the great superiority of the Carthaginian army in horse, and the ignorance of Varro in pitching upon a plain open country for the field of battle, where Hannibal could employ his cavalry to the best advantage. That the Carthaginian horse was superior to the Roman in goodness, is readily admitted. But if we compute the number of the cavalry of the Romans, and that of their allies, as given us by Polybius himself, we shall find the difference in each army amounted but to four thousand; so small an advantage therefore, in point of number, could never possibly have turned the scale in favour of Hannibal when the Romans had such prodigious odds in the number of their infantry, who showed themselves no way inferior to Hannibal's foot, either in bravery or intrepidity. The true reason was, the infinite superiority of Hannibal in point of generalship. That consummate leader, by a most exquisite disposition of his troops, a manœuvre much too fine for the eyes of the Roman generals, caught their whole infantry fairly in a trap (though in a plain level country) where they were almost to a man cut to pieces, or taken. Æmilius, and all the other general officers, with seventy thousand Romans, lay dead upon the field of battle after a brave and obstinate resistance.[354] The infamous Varro, that base minded fellow, as Polybius terms him,[355] who commanded the cavalry of the allies on the left wing, behaved like a true bully in the face of danger. He fled almost at the first attack, and rather chose to live with infamy than die with honour. When the fatal news reached the city of Rome, both senate and people gave up all hopes of safety. Fabius alone took the lead, and acted with his usual firmness and calmness upon this occasion. He placed guards at the gates to prevent the desertion of the citizens, who were flying in great numbers to escape the conquerors, whom they expected every moment. He confined the women to their houses, who had filled the city with lamentations. He manned the walls and outworks, and took every other precaution which the shortness of the time would admit of. All resigned themselves implicitly to his conduct, and he acted for the time as sole governor. Many of the senators, and principal of the Roman nobility, were in actual consultation about leaving Italy, and retiring elsewhere for safety. But they were prevented, as Livy informs us, by the terrible threats of young Scipio, and compelled to stay and share the fate of their country.[356] Hannibal has been greatly censured for not attacking Rome itself immediately after the battle, and is accused of not knowing how to make the proper use of a victory, though he knew so well how to conquer. The candid Montesquieu acquits him of this charge. His reasons are, that though Rome at that time was in the highest degree of consternation, yet the effects of fear upon a warlike people, inured to arms like the Romans, and a low undisciplined rabble, who are strangers to the use of arms, are very different. In the former, who are conscious of their own strength, it almost always changes into the most desperate courage. In the latter, who feel their own weakness too sensibly, it dispirits so much as to render them incapable of resistance. Hence he gives it as his real opinion, that Hannibal would have failed of success if he had undertaken the siege of that city. His proof is, because the Romans at that very time were able to send sufficient succours, drawn from their own citizens, to every part where they were then wanted. Thus Rome was saved, not by the wisdom or firmness of the senate, but the prudence and magnanimity of one old officer, whom they despised and hated, and the intrepidity of a boy of eighteen, joined, as I observed before from Dionysius, to the force of that part of their institution, which formed the whole body of their citizens into a militia, ever ready, and capable of taking the field as soldiers. All the Roman armies, which were opposed to Hannibal, were drawn out of this militia. Nor do we meet with one instance of cowardice, or ill-behaviour amongst the men, but rather of intrepidity even to rashness, which used to be the characteristick of the British nation. Polybius, who was at least as able a judge of the military as any man of that age, and who lived very near the time of the Hannibalick war (as he terms it) is loud in his praises of the Roman troops, whose infantry he prefers greatly to the Carthaginian mercenaries.[357] Nor does he once impute any of their defeats to the fault of their men, but invariably to the folly and incapacity of their commanders.

Upon the whole, the great defect in the Carthaginian military institution consisted in the want of a national militia, which, as Polybius observes, was the reason of their employing foreign mercenaries. The capital defects in the Romans lay in that equality of power with which each consul was vested in the field, and the short duration of their command, as their office was only annual. Every battle which the Romans lost to Hannibal except the first, may be fairly ascribed to the former of these causes. The defeats of Trebia and Thrasymene were plainly occasioned by the jealousy of one of the consuls, lest the other should share with him in the glory of beating Hannibal; as the want of harmony, and difference of opinion between the two consuls, was the primary cause of the dreadful defeat at Cannæ. To the latter cause we may justly attribute the long duration of the Hannibalick war. When the great man, who entered Italy with no more than twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse, maintained his ground above sixteen years, without any assistance from Carthage, against the whole united force and efforts of the Romans, by the mere strength of his own extraordinary genius. For as every man, who had interest sufficient to obtain the consulship, was immediately vested with the command of an army, however qualified or not, so he was obliged to resign his command at the end of the year, before he had well time to be thoroughly acquainted with the true method of dealing with his enemy. Thus every new successive commander, amongst the Romans, had the same task to begin afresh at the opening of every campaign. I know that political writers ascribe this mistaken policy to that jealousy, and fear of lodging so much power in so few hands for any length of time, which is so natural to all republican governments. And that the office of dictator was contrived as a remedy against any abuse, or inconveniency, which might at any time arise from the consular power. But the event showed, that the remedy was much worse than the disease. Whilst publick virtue existed, the office of dictator was frequently useful. But when luxury had introduced corruption, the pro tempore dictator soon came to be perpetual, and the perpetual dictator terminated in a perpetual and despotick emperor.

At Carthage their military institution was entirely different. The power of the generals in the field was absolute and unlimited; and, if their conduct was approved of, generally continued to the end of whatever war they were engaged in. They had no occasion for the dangerous resource of a dictator. The watchful eye of their standing court-martial, the committee of one hundred and four of their ablest senators, was a perpetual, and never-failing check upon their ambition, or ill behavior of their generals.[358] The sacred cohort amongst the Carthaginians, consisted of a large body of volunteers of the richest and greatest families of the nation. This wise and noble institution was one of the chief supports of the Carthaginian state; and as it was the constant seminary of their officers and commanders, might very probably be one cause why luxury and effeminacy could never obtain footing in that warlike republick. For we always find this generous body giving the most signal instances of bravery and conduct,[359] and bearing down all before them.... Nor did they ever quit the field of battle, until they were deserted by the rest of the army, and even then generally retired in excellent order.