General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

THE CLOSE OF THE WAR.—Carthage was now completely exhausted, and sued for peace. Even Hannibal himself could no longer counsel war. The terms of the treaty were much severer than those imposed upon the city at the end of the First Punic War. She was required to give up all claims to Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean; to surrender her war elephants, and all her ships of war save ten galleys; to pay an indemnity of five thousand talents at once, and two hundred and fifty talents annually for fifty years; and not to engage in any war without the consent of Rome. Five hundred of the costly Phoenician war galleys were towed out of the harbor of Carthage and burned in the sight of the citizens.

Such was the end of the Second Punic, or Hannibalic War, as called by the Romans, the most desperate struggle ever maintained by rival powers for empire.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. (149-146 B.C.)

EVENTS BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.

The terms imposed upon Carthage at the end of the Second Punic War left Rome mistress of the Western Mediterranean. During the fifty eventful years that elapsed between the close of that struggle and the breaking-out of the last Punic war, her authority became supreme also in the Eastern seas. In a preceding chapter (see p. 170), while narrating the fortunes of the most important states into which the great empire of Alexander was broken at his death, we followed them until one after another they fell beneath the arms of Rome, and were successively absorbed into her growing kingdom. We shall therefore speak of them here only in the briefest manner, simply indicating the connection of their several histories with the series of events which mark the advance of Rome to universal empire.

THE BATTLE OF CYNOSCEPHALÆ (197 B.C.).—During the Hannibalic War, Philip V. (III.) of Macedonia had aided the Carthaginians, or at least had entered into an alliance with them. He was now troubling the Greek cities which were under the protection of Rome. For these things the Roman Senate determined to punish him. An army under Flamininus was sent into Greece, and on the plains of Cynoscephalæ, in Thessaly, the Roman legion demonstrated its superiority over the unwieldy Macedonian phalanx by subjecting Philip to a most disastrous defeat (197 B.C.). The king was forced to give up all his conquests, and Rome extended her protectorate over Greece.

THE BATTLE OF MAGNESIA (190 B.C.).—Antiochus the Great of Syria had at this time not only overrun all Asia Minor, but had crossed the Hellespont into Europe, and was intent upon the conquest of Thrace and Greece. Rome, that could not entertain the idea of a rival empire upon the southern shores of the Mediterranean, could much less tolerate the establishment in the East of such a colossal kingdom as the ambition of Antiochus proposed to itself. Just as soon as intelligence was carried to Italy that the Syrian king was leading his army into Greece, the legions of the republic were set in motion. Some reverses caused Antiochus to retreat in haste across the Hellespont into Asia, whither he was followed by the Romans, led by Scipio, a brother of Africanus.

At Magnesia, Antiochus was overthrown, and a large part of Asia Minor fell into the hands of the Romans. Not yet prepared to maintain provinces so distant from the Tiber, the Senate conferred the new territory, with the exception of Lycia and Caria, which were given to the Rhodians, upon their friend and ally Eumenes, King of Pergamus (see p. 171). This "Kingdom of Asia," as it was called, was really nothing more than a dependency of Rome, and its nominal ruler only a puppet-king in the hands of the Roman Senate.

Scipio enjoyed a magnificent triumph at Rome, and, in accordance with a custom that had now become popular with successful generals, erected a memorial of his deeds in his name by assuming the title of Asiaticus.