A Short History of Spain

by Mary Platt Parmele

When his son Hannibal was nine years old, at his father's bidding he placed his hand upon the altar and swore eternal enmity to Rome. The fidelity of the boy to his oath made a great deal of history. He took up the task when his father laid it down, inaugurated the second Punic war (218-201 B.C.); and for forty years carried on one of the most desperate struggles the world has ever seen; the hoary East in struggle with the young West.

Saguntum was that ancient city in Valencia which was said to have been founded by the Greeks long before Homer sang of Troy, or, indeed, before Helen brought ruin upon that city. At all events its antiquity was greater even than that of the Phenician cities in Spain, and after being long forgotten by the Greeks it had drifted under Roman protection. It was the only spot in Spain which acknowledged allegiance to Rome; and for that reason was marked for destruction as an act of defiance.

The Saguntines sent an embassy to Rome. These men made a pitiful and passionate appeal in the Senate Chamber: "Romans, allies, friends! help! help! Hannibal is at the gates of our city. Hannibal, the sworn enemy of Rome. Hannibal the terrible. Hannibal who fears not the gods, neither keeps faith with men. ["Punic faith" was a byword.] O Romans, fathers, friends! help while there is yet time."

But they found they had a "protector" who did not protect. The senators sent an embassy to treat with Hannibal, but no soldiers. So, with desperate courage, the Saguntines defended their beleaguered city for weeks, hurling javelins, thrusting their lances, and beating down the besiegers from the walls. They had no repeating rifles nor dynamite guns, but they had the terrible falaric, a shaft of fir with an iron head a yard long, at the point of which was a mass of burning tow, which had been dipped in pitch. When a breach was made in the walls, the inflowing army would be met by a rain of this deadly falaric, which was hurled with telling power and precision. Then, in the short interval of rest this gave them, men, women, and children swiftly repaired the broken walls before the next assault.

But at last the resourceful Hannibal abandoned his battering rams, and with pickaxes undermined the wall, which fell with a crash. When asked to surrender, the chief men of the city kindled a great fire in the market-place, into which they then threw all the silver and gold in the treasury, their own gold and silver and garments and furniture, and then cast themselves headlong into the flames. This was their answer.

Saguntum, which for more than a thousand years had looked from its elevation out upon the sea, was no more, and its destruction was one of the thrilling tragedies of ancient history. On its site there exists to-day a town called Mur Viedro (old walls), and these old walls are the last vestige of ancient Saguntum.

In order to understand the indifference of Rome to the Spanish Peninsula at this time, it must be remembered that Spain was then the uttermost verge of the known world, beyond which was only a dread waste of waters and of mystery. To the people of Tyre and of Greece, the twin "Pillars of Hercules" had marked the limit beyond which there was nothing; and those two columns, Gibraltar and Ceuta, with the legend ne plus ultra entwined about them, still survive, as a symbol, in the arms of Spain and upon the Spanish coins; and what is still more interesting to Americans, in the familiar mark ($) which represents a dollar. (The English name for the Spanish peso is pillar-dollar.)

Now Rome was aroused from its apathy. It sent an army into Spain, led by Scipio the Elder, known as Scipio Africanus. When he fell, his son, only twenty-four years old, stood up in the Roman Forum and offered to fill the undesired post; and, in 210 B.C., Scipio "the Younger"—and the greater—took the command—as Livy eloquently says—"between the tombs of his father and his uncle", who had both perished in Spain within a month.

The chief feature of Scipio's policy was, while he was defeating Hannibal in battles, to be undermining him with his native allies; and to make that people realize to what hard taskmasters they had bound themselves; and by his own manliness and courtesy and justice to win them to his side.