Yet we cannot deny that there is a certain grandeur in the political aims represented by the senate. Nor did it fail of success; indeed, its achievements were marvellous.

In the year 390 B.C. the city of Rome was in the hands of the Gauls, and the Roman body politic had to all appearance perished. Exactly a hundred years later, at the end of the Second Samnite War, Rome was mistress of nearly the whole of Italy. A few years more, and she occupied Tarentum (272) and Rhegium (270). What is the explanation of this prodigious change?

It would be unjust not to assign its due share in the matter to the admirable temper of the Roman people. The self-sacrificing patriotism they invariably displayed, their stubborn endurance in perilous times, their manly readiness to hazard everything, even their very lives, if the welfare of the city so required—these qualities marked the Romans of that age, and they are capable of accomplishing great things. By them the admirable military system of Rome was first fitted for the great part it had to play in the history of the world, and became a weapon which never turned back before the most formidable of foes, and gave the assurance of lasting success.

In process of time the ancient Servian phalanx had been superseded by an admirably organised and mobile disposition of the troops in maniples of 160 men each. Ranged in three files, with lateral spaces between, these bodies relieved one another during the fight, and thus were able to quell the most vehement onslaught of the enemy by constantly bringing forward fresh troops, which first hurled their long javelins and then charged with their short swords.

It became more and more the practice of the Roman state to extend to the lower classes the obligation of military service, which in all other parts of Italy was a privilege of the assidui or freeholders. Large numbers of landless men and freedmen were enrolled in the recruiting districts (tribus) in war times by the famous censor Appius Claudius Cæcus.

Opportune political changes favoured the development of Roman supremacy in Italy. The Etruscan dominion had fallen into utter decay during the course of the fifth century. Rome's victorious struggle for liberty, the advance of the Samnites in southern Italy, and the immigration of the Gauls into northern Italy, had reduced Etruria to a second-class power. In the south the power of the wealthy Greek cities had been broken by Dionysius of Syracuse. Step by step Roman colonists made their way into lower Italy. Where the sword was of no avail Rome had recourse to road-making, the occupation and cultivation of waste land, and fresh settlements. Above all, the Latin colonies which she established in concert with the Latin league were of the utmost importance in securing the supremacy of Rome in middle Italy. These colonies served as fortresses, the colonists were a garrison always ready to stand on the defensive. The colonies themselves were established in such a way as to obstruct the coalition of the various races of Italy. They spread abroad Latin law and the Latin language among foreigners. They once more united the Romans and Latins in a common work of civilisation, after the two peoples had so hotly fought against each other in what is known as the Great Latin War (340-338 B.C.).

The skilful diplomatic negotiations and settlements by which Rome contrived either to gain over her former adversaries or reduce them to neutrality before she engaged in the struggle with the Samnites for the hegemony of Italy (342-340 and 326-304) are particularly worthy of note. She protected her rear by concluding armistices for many years with the Etruscans (351–

311) and Gauls (329-299). She entered into friendly relations with the Greek cities, and won over many communities in Campania and Lucania which had put themselves under the protection of the Samnites. Nay, she did not shrink from purchasing the friendship of Carthage by allowing her to take and plunder the seaboard cities of middle Italy which had revolted against Roman dominion. And she further displayed remarkable skill in securing her tenure of the possessions won in the Samnite wars. Only a small part of them was incorporated with Roman territory. Many cities received an accession of Latin colonists and so retained their municipal autonomy under new conditions. On the other hand the connection between the recalcitrant cantons of the Sabellian, Etruscan, and Middle Italian tribes was completely broken. Isolated and deprived of the right of intercourse (commercium) the various small cities and communities ceased to be of any importance either economically or politically.

The Romans had hardly completed the conquest of Etruria and the Samnite confederacy in the Third Samnite War (298-290 B.C.), and subjugated the kindred districts of Lucania and Bruttium when they found themselves involved in the struggles which then agitated the Greek world.

After 301 the several parts of the empire of Alexander the Great had become independent kingdoms. But the quarrels among the various diadochi went on and ultimately led to the expulsion of Demetrius Poliorcetes from Macedonia and the fall of Lysimachus of Thrace.

The unsettled state of these kingdoms inspired hordes of Gauls, athirst for plunder, with the idea of crossing the Alps and conquering both the Apennine and Balkan peninsulas. Italy owed her salvation to the vigorous defence made by the Romans at the Vadimonian Lake (283 B.C.); but Macedonia was occupied for several years and the swarms of Gauls spread as far as Delphi, and finally settled in Asia Minor under the name of Galatians.

Even before the Gallic invasion, Pyrrhus of Epirus, who had taken possession of Macedonia for a while, had withdrawn to his own home, and he and his army of mercenaries turned their eyes westward, eager for action. The wished-for opportunity of there regaining the influence and reputation he had lost in the west was not slow to present itself. Tarentum, the last independent city of any importance in Italy, had provoked Rome to hostilities and was endeavouring to enlist mercenaries for the war. Pyrrhus went to the help of the Tarentines, even as Alexander of Epirus, a cousin of Alexander the Great, had gone before him (334 B.C.). After some initial successes the latter had lost his life in battle against the Lucanians (331 B.C.). His nephew did not fare much better. The generalship of Roman mayors, elected afresh every year, was at first no match for that of Pyrrhus, who had great military successes to look back upon. Up to this time the Macedonian phalanx had invariably proved the instrument of victory, especially in the opening encounters of a campaign, and even the men of Rome gave ground before the elephants, the "heavy artillery" of the Epirots. But the second victory which the king gained over the Romans was a "Pyrrhic victory," for his gains did not compensate his losses. On this occasion Rome owed the victory mainly to the inflexible courage of her statesmen. The blind Appius Claudius, who thirty years before had borne an honourable part in the successful struggle with the Samnites, caused himself to be led into the senate and by his arguments induced the Romans inflexibly to refuse all offers of peace on less than favourable terms. "Never have the Romans concluded peace with a victorious foe." These proud words contain the secret of the ultimate success of Rome in all her wars of that century.

H. W.-VOL, V. C

Fortunately for the Romans, at that very time the Greeks of Sicily urgently craved the aid of the king of Epirus. They had been defeated by the Carthaginians and their independence was menaced. Pyrrhus accordingly departed from Italy for more than two years, to gain some initial successes in Sicily and end in failure. When he returned to Italy it was too late. The Romans had established their dominion over the Italian rebels and were once more harassing Tarentum. Pyrrhus suffered a disastrous defeat at Beneventum in Samnium (275 B.C.), and Tarentum submitted soon after (272 B.C.). Pyrrhus himself was slain in Greece about the same

time.

The subjugation of Italy was now complete. After Rhegium, the southernmost city in Italy, had been wrested from the hands of mutinous mercenaries (270 B.C.), Rome likewise took upon herself the economic administration of Italy by introducing a silver coinage (269 B.C.).

The war with Pyrrhus had clearly shown that Rome could not stop and rest content with the successes she had already gained, but would presently be forced into a struggle for all the countries about the Mediterranean, that is to say, for the dominion of the world as then known.

She contrived, it is true, very quickly to resume friendly relations with the Greek cities of Italy, whose sympathies had in some cases been on the other side in the war with Tarentum. The autonomous administration she allowed them to enjoy on condition of furnishing her with ships, and the protection which they, for their part, received from the leading power in Italy, could not but dispose them favourably to a continuance of her suzerainty.

With Carthage the case was different. Down to the time of the war with Pyrrhus the interests of Rome and Carthage had gone hand in hand to a great extent, or at worst had led to compromises in the three treaties of alliance (348, 343, and 306 B.C.). But in the wars against Pyrrhus it was in the interests of Carthage that Pyrrhus should be kept busy in Italy, while the Romans had contrived to turn his energies against the Carthaginians. And when the Romans were preparing to occupy Tarentum, a Carthaginian fleet hove in sight and manifested a desire to seize upon that city, the most important port of southern Italy. A power which had one foot in Rhegium, as Rome had, was bound presently to set the other down in Messana, and that would be a casus belli under any circumstances. How could the Carthaginians endure to see the island for the possession of which they had striven for two hundred years pass into the hands of the Romans?

The actual pretext for the war is too dramatic to be passed over. The mutinous mercenaries of Agathocles (317-289 B.C.) had taken possession of the city of Messana. They were attacked by Hiero of Syracuse with such success that they appealed alternately to the Carthaginians and Romans for help. The Carthaginians came to the rescue first and put a garrison in the citadel of Messana. But the commander was so foolish as to enter into negotiations with the Roman legate, who had crossed the straits of Messana with a small body of troops, and in the course of them was taken prisoner -through his own perfidious treachery it must be acknowledged. Thus the key of Sicily fell into Roman hands, and war was declared. The history of the next hundred and twenty years is wholly occupied with the great struggle between these two cities, till at length, in 146 B.C., Carthage was laid level with the ground.

Thus the state of Rome, which had won for itself a leading position in Italy in the Wars of Liberation waged with the Etruscans and Sabellians,

and had then been forced by the Samnites into a contest for the sovereignty of Italy, found itself driven almost involuntarily into a decisive struggle for dominion over all the coasts of the Mediterranean. The perseverance with which Rome strove towards the goal of ever higher ambitions commands our admiration, and we admire no less the government of the manyheaded senate which kept one constant aim in view and consistently pursued it; which, moreover, steered the ship of state safely through all dangers, when the incompetency of its annually elected chief magistrates resulted in the gravest catastrophes. There lay the weakness of the Roman commonwealth. How could Roman consuls, elected annually by the people, usually on political grounds, acquire the capacity to command armies, to master the art of strategy, or to lead troops and fleets in regions to which they themselves were strangers? To the ill effects of this preposterous system Rome owed the severe reverses of the First Punic War (264-241 B.C.) and the beginning of the Second. The situation began to improve when two capable leaders, Marcellus and the Scipios, were left in command for several consecutive years.

Nevertheless, the Roman armies were frequently led by gallant and judicious men, and won some lasting successes even in the First Punic War, one of the most protracted and sanguinary wars of ancient times.

Hiero, king of Syracuse, was defeated at the outset, and compelled to conclude an alliance with Rome, which he loyally observed till his death in 216. Agrigentum and many other Sicilian towns fell into the hands of Roman generals. The famous victory (Mylæ, 260) won by the Romans with their first real navy over the most famous sea power of ancient times is absolutely astonishing. But Rome could be conquered only in Italy, Carthage only in Africa, and the Romans therefore proceeded to cross over to Africa after another brilliant naval victory near Ecnomus in the south of Sicily (256 B.C.). Fortune favoured them in their first engagements. The position of Carthage itself became grave. But after one of the consuls (Manlius) had gone home at the conclusion of his year of office and the Carthaginians had enlisted a sufficient number of Greek mercenaries and Numidian horsemen, the Roman army was annihilated, and its commander, Regulus, taken prisoner. The Roman fleet, which had been created afresh within the space of a few months, did indeed succeed in destroying that of Carthage off the headland of Mercury (Cape Bon), and taking the remnant of the defeated army on board, only to be wrecked itself by tempest off Camarina on the south coast of Sicily (255 B.C.). A like fate befell many another Roman fleet in the years 253 and 249 B.C. The Romans were neither sufficiently versed in the periodic recurrence of storms a knowledge indispensable to a maritime nation nor familiar enough with the character of the coast, and the rocks and shallows, to anticipate lasting success in naval warfare with any confidence. The taking of Panormus (Palermo) in the year 254 B.C., and the great victory won by Metellus over a large army of the enemy under the walls of the city in 250, did not suffice to compensate for the naval disasters. In the year 249 B.C. the severe defeat of Publius Claudius Pulcher and his fleet at Drepanum (in the west of Sicily) and the wreck of another fleet forced the Romans definitively to abandon hostilities at sea. Once more the fleets of Carthage swept the Mediterranean, plundered the coasts of Italy, and even endangered Rome's hold upon Sicily. In the west of the island Hamilcar Barca, the ablest of Carthaginian generals, had established himself upon Mount Eryx. From that

base he made successful raids into Roman Sicily. The war dragged on until it was ended at length by a fleet which the Romans built by voluntary contributions. By a brilliant naval victory in the Ægatian Islands, Lutatius Catulus destroyed the last considerable Punic fleet; and so forced the Carthaginians to come to terms. Sicily was ceded to Rome and a moderate war-indemnity exacted from the vanquished city. But the twenty-four years of hostilities in which she had strained her financial capacity to the utmost had exhausted the resources of Carthage, and she could no longer pay her mercenaries. The result was a formidable mutiny, which proclaimed to the world the bankruptcy of the whole body politic. Rome took advantage of her adversary's embarrassment in a most perfidious fashion. In spite of the fact that peace had been restored she made a compact with the mutineers and prevailed upon them to hand Corsica and Sardinia over to her.

Generally speaking, indeed, the interval between the First Punic War (264-241) and the Second (218-201) can only be regarded as an armed truce. Both parties were fully aware that the decisive struggle was yet to come and must be fought out at no distant period. We stand amazed at the genius, energy, and success of Hamilcar Barca, who, after successfully suppressing the mutiny of the mercenaries, won for his country, even in the hour of her profoundest humiliation, new provinces, new resources, and new armies in Spain. But the Romans, on their part, likewise made good use of the time. In the Illyrian War (229-228) they assumed the character of patrons of the Greek cities and of Greek commerce, they insured maritime traffic against molestation in the Adriatic and curbed the power of the Illyrian pirate state to the best of their ability. They endeavoured energetically to repel the Celts in Picenum and Umbria (236 and 232). But the Cisalpine Gauls poured in countless hordes through the passes of the Alps to the aid of their fellowtribesmen, and forced Rome into one of the most sanguinary wars Italy has ever witnessed (225–222 B.C.). Rome endeavoured to enlist all Italians in her defence. Her register of Italians capable of bearing arms amounted to a grand total of seven hundred thousand foot and seventy thousand horse. The Gauls, defeated in Etruria on the Po, and at Milan, sued for peace, although their territory north of the Po was yet unconquered. The military colonies of Placentia (Piacenza) and Cremona (established in 218) made some attempt at least to secure for the Romans part of the territory they had won. But when Hannibal, after taking Saguntum, pressed forward across the Pyrenees and the Alps and summoned the Gauls to revolt, the whole valley of the Po was lost once more. In the Second Punic War (218– 201 B.C.) the genius and energy of Hannibal brought Rome to the verge of ruin, and we know not which to admire most, the force of character that enabled the son of Hamilcar Barca to win the personal devotion of an army composed of the most incongruous elements and so to inspire them with enthusiasm for the cause of Carthage, or the generalship which, in the most critical situations, invariably made choice of the best expedient and carried it out in the best possible manner. In all the fifteen years which he spent in Italy (218-203 B.c.) Hannibal was never once defeated, nor did his army ever rebel against the measures he took, and his deadliest enemies could lay nothing to his charge unless it were his "more than Punic perfidy" (plus quam Punica perfidia) — a brilliant testimony not only to his constant superiority in state-craft but also to his personal integrity. And yet the stubborn perseverance and self-sacrificing patriotism of the Romans was