The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic - Arthur Gilman (top 20 books to read txt) 📗

of the first Punic war, on the occasion of the funeral of D. Junius Brutus, and were given afterward on such occasions, because it was believed that the manes, the spirits of the departed, loved blood. Persons began to leave money for this purpose in their wills, and by degrees a fondness for the frightful sport increased, for the Romans had no leaning towards the ideal, and delighted only in those pursuits which appealed to their coarse, strong, and, in its way, pious nature. Humor and comedy with them became burlesque, sometimes repulsive in its grotesqueness. Dramatic art grew up during this period. We have seen that dramatic exhibitions were introduced in the year 363, from Etruria, at a time of pestilence, but they were mere pantomimes. Now plays began to be written.

Trustworthy history begins at the time of the Punic wars, and the annals of Fabius Pictor commence with the year 216, after the battle of Cannæ.

 

Rome itself was changed by the increased wealth of these times. The streets were made wider; temples were multiplied; and aqueducts were built to bring water from distant sources; the same Appius who constructed the great road which now bears his name, having built the first, which, however, disappeared long ago. Another, forty-three miles in length, was paid for out of the spoils of the war with Pyrrhus, and portions of it still remain. With the increase of wealth and luxury came also improvement in language and in its use, and in the year 254, studies in law were formally begun in a school established for the purpose.

 

[Figure: ACTORS MASKS.]

 

The Romans had conquered Italy and Carthage, and the next step was to make them masters of the East. Philip V., King of Macedon, was, as we have seen, one of the most eminent of monarchs of that country. His treaty with Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ, involved him in war with the Romans, which continued, with intermissions, until Scipio was about to go over into Africa. Then the Romans were glad to make peace, though no considerable results followed the struggle, and it had indeed been pursued with little vigor for much of the time. By the year 200, Philip had been able to establish himself in Greece, and the Romans were somewhat rested from the war with Carthage. The peace of 205 had been considered but a cessation of hostilities, and both people were therefore ready for a new war. There were pretexts enough. Philip had made an alliance with Antiochus the Great, of Syria, against Ptolemy Epiphanes, of Egypt, who applied to Rome for assistance; and he had sent aid to soldiers to help Hannibal, who had fought at the battle of Zama. Besides this he had attempted to establish his supremacy in the Ægean Sea at the expense of the people of Rhodes, allies of Rome, who were assisted by Attalus, King of Pergamus, likewise in league with Rome.

 

The senate proposed that war should be declared against Philip, but the people longed for rest after their previous struggles, and were only persuaded to consent by being told that if Philip, then at the pitch of his greatness, were not checked, he would follow the example of Hannibal, as he had been urged to follow that of Pyrrhus. No great progress was made in the war until the command of the Roman army in Greece was taken by a young man of high family and noble nature, well acquainted with Greek culture, in the year 197. Flamininus, for this was the name of the new commander, met the army of Philip that year on a certain morning when, after a rain, thick clouds darkened the plain on which they were. The armies were separated by low hills known as the Dog-heads (Cynocephalæ), and when at last the sun burst out it showed the Romans and Macedonians struggling on the uneven ground with varying success. The Macedonians were finally defeated, with the loss of eight thousand slain and five thousand prisoners. In 196 peace was obtained by Philip, who agreed to withdraw from Greece, to give up his fleet, and to pay a thousand talents for the expenses of the war.

 

At the Isthmian games, the following summer, Flamininus caused a trumpet to command silence, and a crier to proclaim that the Roman senate and he, the proconsular general, having vanquished Philip, restored to the Grecians their lands, laws, and liberties, remitting all impositions upon them and withdrawing all garrisons. So astonished were the people at the good news that they could scarcely believe it, and asked that it might be repeated. This the crier did, and a shout rose from the people (who all stood up) that was heard from Corinth to the sea, and there was no further thought of the entertainment that usually engrossed so much attention. Plutarch says gravely that the disruption of the air was so great that crows accidentally flying over the racecourse at the moment fell down dead into it! Night only caused the people to leave the circus, and then they went home to carouse together. So grateful were they that they freed the Romans who had been captured by Hannibal and had been sold to them, and when Flamininus returned to Rome with a reputation second only, in the popular esteem, to Scipio Africanus, these freed slaves followed in the procession on the occasion of his triumph, which was one of the most magnificent, and lasted three days.

 

Scarcely had Flamininus left Greece before the Ætolians, who claimed that the victory at Cynocephalæ was chiefly due to their prowess, made a combination against the Romans, and engaged Antiochus to take their part. This monarch had occupied Asia Minor previously, and would have passed into Greece but for Flamininus. This was while Hannibal was at the court of Antiochus. The Romans declared war, and sent an army into Thessaly, which overcame the Syrians at the celebrated pass of Thermopylæ, on the spot where Leonidas and his brave three hundred had been slaughtered by the Persians two hundred and eighty-nine years before (B.C. 191). Lucius Cornelius Scipio, brother of Africanus, closed the war by defeating Antiochus at Magnesia, in Asia Minor, at the foot of Mount Sipylus (B.C. 190). The Syrian monarch is said to have lost fifty-three thousand men, while but four hundred of the Romans fell. Antiochus resigned to the Romans all of Asia west of the Taurus mountains, agreed to pay them fifteen thousand talents, and to surrender Hannibal. The great Carthaginian, however, escaped to the court of Prusias, King of Bithynia, where, as we have already seen, he took his own life. Scipio carried immense booty to Rome, where he celebrated a splendid triumph, and, in imitation of his brother Africanus, added the name Asiaticus to his others.

 

The succeeding year, the Ætolians were severely punished, their land was ravaged, and they were required to accept peace upon humiliating terms. Never again were they to make war without the consent of Rome, whose supremacy they acknowledged, and to which they paid an indemnity of five hundred talents. At this time the most famous hero of later Grecian history comes before us indirectly, just as the greatness of his country was sinking from sight forever. Philopoemen, who was born at Megalopolis in Arcadia (not far from the spot from which old Evander started for Italy), during the first Punic war, just before Hamilcar appeared upon the scene, raised himself to fame, first by improving the armor and drill of the Achæan soldiers, when he became chief of the ancient league, and then by his prowess at the battle of Mantinea, in the year 207, when Sparta was defeated. He revived the ancient league, which had been dormant during the Macedonian supremacy; but in 188, he took fierce revenge upon Sparta, for which he was called to account by the Romans; and five years later, in 183, he fell into the hands of the Messenians, who had broken from the league, and was put to death by poison. It was in the same year that both Hannibal and Scipio, the two other great soldiers of the day died. [Footnote: See the Student’s Merivale, ch. xxv., for remarks about these three warriors.]

 

Philip V. of Macedon followed these warriors to the grave five years later, after having begun to prepare to renew the war with Rome. His son Perseus continued these preparations, but war did not actually break out until 171, and then it was continued for three years without decisive result. In 168 the Romans met the army of Perseus at Pydna, in Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus, on the 22d June, [Footnote: This date is proved by an eclipse of the sun which occurred at the time. It had been foretold by a scientific Roman so that the army should not see in it a bad omen.] and utterly defeated it. Perseus was afterward taken prisoner and died at Alba. From the battle of Pydna the great historian Polybius, who was a native of Megalopolis, dates the complete establishment of the universal empire of Rome, since after that no civilized state ever confronted her on an equal footing, and all the struggles in which she engaged were rebellions or wars with “barbarians” outside of the influence of Greek or Roman civilization, and since all the world recognized the senate as the tribunal of last resort in differences between nations; the acquisition of Roman language and manners being henceforth among the necessary accomplishments of princes. Rome had never before seen so grand a triumph as that celebrated by Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Macedonia, after his return. Plutarch gives an elaborate account of it.

 

In pursuance of its policy of conquest a thousand of the noblest citizens of Achæa were sent to Italy to meet charges preferred against them. Among them was the historian Polybius, who became well acquainted with Scipio Æmilianus, son by adoption of a son of the conqueror of Hannibal. For seventeen years these exiles were detained, their numbers constantly decreasing, until at last even the severe Cato was led to intercede for them and they were returned to their homes. Exasperated by their treatment they were ready for any desperate enterprise against their conquerors, but Polybius endeavored to restrain them. The historian went to Carthage, however, and while he was away disputes were stirred up which gave Rome an excuse for interfering. Corinth was taken with circumstances of barbarous cruelty, and plundered of its priceless works of art, the rough and ignorant Roman commander sending them to Italy, after making the contractors agree to replace any that might be lost with others of equal value! With Corinth fell the liberties of Greece; a Roman province took the place of the state that for six centuries had been the home of art and eloquence, the intellectual sovereign of antiquity; but though overcome and despoiled she became the guide and teacher of her conqueror.

 

When Carthage had regained some of its lost riches and population, Rome again became jealous of her former rival, and Cato gave voice to the feeling that she ought to be destroyed. One day in the senate he drew from his toga a bunch of early figs, and, throwing them on the floor, exclaimed: “Those figs were gathered but three days ago in Carthage; so close is our enemy to our walls!” After that, whenever he expressed himself on this subject, or any other, in the senate, he closed with the words “Delenda est Carthago,”—“Carthage ought to be destroyed!”

Internal struggles gave Rome at last an opportunity to interfere, and in 149 a third Punic war was begun, which closed in 146 with the utter destruction of Carthage. The city was taken by assault, the inhabitants fighting with desperation from street to street. Scipio Æmilianus, who commanded in this war,