These men, fired with loyalty to their native city, were imbued with a bitter hatred of Rome, and swore to devote their lives to the work of gaining back prestige for Carthage and to the destruction of her enemy. In the end their effort was not successful; yet the struggle in which they participated was one of the most wonderful and picturesque episodes in all history, and it has bequeathed us the name of Hannibal as that of one of the three or four greatest generals of all time. The story of how he precipitated the Second Punic War through the destruction of Saguntum; how he crossed the Alps with his army, invading the territory of Italy itself, and there defeating the Romans again and again until their very national existence seemed threatened; and of how, finally, recalled from Italy to protect Carthage herself against the invasion of the Roman Scipio Africanus, Hannibal was defeated before Carthage, all his labour of years coming to nought—must be told in detail. Suffice it here to say that this story, fascinating in itself, is of double interest, because it relates not merely to the prowess of individual warriors, of individual hosts, but to the evolution of that world-power through which Rome was to stamp her influence for all time on European history.
Yet a Third Punic War was necessary before Carthage was finally removed for all time from the stage of important history. Another Scipio, called Africanus Minor, the adopted son of his great predecessor, was the leader of the Roman arms in that final assault upon Carthage, and the somewhat unwilling officer who carried out the mandate of the Roman senate, which declared that Carthage should be absolutely destroyed. That mandate was put into effect. No rival remained to Rome in the West, and, as we shall see, steps had been taken which resulted almost simultaneously in the final subjugation of those powers that hitherto had disputed the influence of Rome in the East.[a]
CAUSES OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR
[326-289 B.C.]
Nothing is more remarkable in the history of Rome than the manner in which she was brought into contact with only one enemy at a time. During the heat of her contest with the Samnites, Alexander of Macedon was terminating his career. The Second Samnite War broke out in 326 B.C.; and in the following year the great king died at the untimely age of thirty-two. The possibility that he might have turned his course westward occurred to Roman minds. Livy[c] broaches the question, whether Rome would have risen superior to the contest or not, and decides it in the affirmative. But his judgment is that of a patriot, rather than of a historian. Scarcely did Rome prevail over the unassisted prowess of the Samnites. Scarcely did she drive the adventurous Pyrrhus from her shores. If a stronger than Pyrrhus—a man of rarest ability both for war and peace—had joined his power to that of C. Pontius the Samnite, it can hardly be doubted that the history of the world would have been changed.
The same good fortune attended Rome in her collision with Carthage. The adventurous temper of Pyrrhus led him from Italy to Sicily, and threw the Carthaginians into alliance with the Romans. What might have been the result of the Tarentine War, if the diplomacy of Cineas had been employed to engage the great African city against Rome? Now that Italy was prostrate, it was plain that a collision between the two governments was inevitable. As Pyrrhus left the soil of Italy forever, he said regretfully: “How fair a battle-field we are leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians!”
It was by means of her fleets that Carthage was brought into connection and collision with other countries. In early days she had established commercial settlements in the south of Spain and in Sicily. It was in the latter country that she came in contact first with the Greeks, and afterwards with the Romans. In early times the Carthaginians contented themselves with obtaining possession of three factories or trading marts on the coast of Sicily—Panormus, Motya, and Lilybæum, which they fortified very strongly. But after the great overthrow of the Athenian power by the Syracusans (413 B.C.), the Carthaginian government formed the design of becoming masters of this fertile and coveted island. But their successes were checked by Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse, whose long reign of thirty-eight years (405-367 B.C.) comprises the time of Rome’s great depression by the Gallic invasion, while the year of his death is coincident with that of the Licinian laws, the era from which dates the constant advance of the great Italian city. After many vicissitudes he was obliged to conclude a peace by which the river Halycus was settled as the boundary between Grecian and Carthaginian Sicily, and the territory of Agrigentum was added to Syracusan rule (383 B.C.).
In 317 B.C. Agathocles made himself king of Syracuse, and in 310 B.C. the Carthaginians declared war against him. Reduced to great straits, he took the bold step of transporting the troops which remained for the defence of the capital into Africa, so as to avail himself of the known disaffection of the Libyan subjects of Carthage. His successes were marvellous. One of the suffets fell in battle, the other acted as a traitor. All the Libyan subjects of Carthage supported the Sicilian monarch, but he was obliged to return to Sicily by an insurrection there. The remainder of his life was spent in vain attempts in Sicily, in Corcyra, and in southern Italy. He died in 289 B.C., less than ten years before the appearance of that other fearless adventurer Pyrrhus in Italy.