[265 B.C.]

or the Right of Latium (Jus Latii). This right, at the later time we speak of, we know to have consisted in the power of obtaining the full rights of a Roman burgess, but in a limited and peculiar manner. Any citizen of a Latin community, whether one of the free cities of Latium or a Latin colony, was allowed to emigrate to Rome and be enrolled in one of the Roman tribes, on two conditions: first, that he had held a magistracy in his native town; secondly, that he left a representative of his family in that native town. Thus was formed that large body of half-Roman citizens throughout Italy, who are so well known to readers of Livy under the appellation of "the Latin name." Socii et nomen Latinum—the allies and the Latin name was the technical expression for all those Italian communities who were bound to supply soldiers for her armies.

Besides the mass of the Italian communities which were in a condition of greater or less dependence upon Rome, -the prefectures in a state of absolute subjection, the colonies bound by ties of national feeling and interest, the municipal towns by articles of alliance, there remain to be noticed, fourthly, the cities which remained wholly independent of Rome, but bound to her by treaties of equal alliance. Of the Latin cities, Tibur and Præneste alone were in this condition; in Campania, most of the cities, till, after the Hannibalic War, Capua and others were reduced to the condition of prefectures; of the Hellenic cities in the south, Neapolis, Rhegium, and others; in Umbria, Camerium; in Etruria, Iguvium; with all the cities of the Frentanians. But as Roman power increased, most of these communities were reduced to the condition of simple municipal towns.

Whatever is known of the internal constitution of these various communities belongs to later times, when by the Julian law they all obtained the Roman franchise, and became part and parcel of the Roman state. There can, however, be little doubt that in the colonies a constitution was adopted similar to that of Rome herself. The colonists formed a kind of patriciate or aristocracy, and the heads of their leading families constituted a senate. There were two chief magistrates, called duumviri, representing the consuls, to whom (in the more important towns) were added one or two men to fulfil the duties of censor and quæstor. In course of time similar constitutions were introduced into the municipal towns also.

Thus, by placing the Italian cities in every possible relation to herself, from real independence to complete subjection, and by planting colonies, some with full Roman rights, some with a limited power of obtaining these rights, Rome wove her net of sovereignty over the peninsula, and covered every part with its entangling meshes. The policy of Rome, as has been said, may be summed up in the two words-isolation and self-government.c

Carthage clears the Alps, Rome traverses the seas, the two peoples, personified in two men Hannibal and Scipio, wrestle and are desperate to terminate the struggle. "Tis a duel à outrance, a fight to the death. Rome totters, she utters a cry of anguish: Hannibal ad portas! But she rises again, uses the limits of her strength in a last blow, throws herself on Carthage and effaces her from the world. - VICTOR HUGO.

A TASTE of blood whets the appetite of a nation no less than of an animal. It is notorious that the love of power grows with its acquisition. It was inevitable then that the Romans, after beating off their eastern enemy, should turn their eyes more and more jealously towards their one remaining rival in the west-namely, Carthage. A certain amount of antagonism there had doubtless been all along between Rome and Carthage, but there was a long time during which the Italian city had hardly achieved strength enough to excite a real jealousy on the part of a community of such recognised power as Carthage. And even now there was no possibility that Rome could claim to compete with her rival on the sea. Inheriting the traditions of her mother city, Tyre, Carthage was pre-eminently a commercial city. She occupied that pre-eminence of the western Mediterranean that Tyre so long held in the East, and she was little disposed to accept without a struggle the rivalry of a people of another land and race. It was inevitable then that a war to the death must sooner or later determine the question of mastery so soon as Rome had achieved a degree of power which enforced her recognition as an actual rival of Carthage. The contest was precipitated-as might have been expected-by the condition of things in Sicily, an island which lay intermediate between the territories of the two powers, and thus almost of necessity became a bone of contention between them. In the early days, indeed, it was the Greeks and Carthaginians who disputed over Sicily, and perpetually quarrelled there, but now after the death of Agathocles, the powerful tyrant of Syracuse, and the defeat of Pyrrhus, it became clear that Syracuse and the other Greek cities of Sicily must look for aid in future to Rome rather than to Greece. But the acceptance of such an alliance on the part of Rome virtually implied war with Carthage, and such a war broke out actively only a few years after the expulsion of Pyrrhus from Italy. It required indeed a series of three most memorable wars, extending over a period of more than a century, finally to decide the fate of Carthage.

The first of these wars-in some sense perhaps the most important, yet as regards its results by far the least striking in itself - lasted some twenty

three years. It was fought out largely in Sicily itself by the Romans who were, for the most part, successful and in the end entirely victorious; and on the sea, where the fleets of the Romans were for a long time quite unable to compete with their rivals; the same dogged pertinacity, however, that had made Rome mistress of Italy and that had brought about the final triumph over Pyrrhus, stood them in good stead in the new effort to create a powerful navy - an effort which was at last crowned with such complete success that in the final decisive battle at the Ægatian Islands, the fleet of Carthage was entirely destroyed and dispersed. At last Carthage sued for peace, acknowledging the supremacy of Rome in Sicily and giving up all claim to that island.

The events that followed illustrate not merely the inertia of long-established institutions in the way in which Carthage rallied from her defeat and returned again and again to the contest, but they illustrate even more strikingly the influence which individual great men have in history. There have been philosophers who have contended that great statesmen and great warriors are rather the result of the opportunity of their times than a directing influence; but it is hard for any one who attentively considers the course of history to overlook the fact that the great man, even though in some sense called forth by the necessities of the time, yet may put his stamp in a most definitive way upon the trend of future events. So it was, for example, with Alexander; so it was with Pyrrhus; and so it was now with a group of great Carthaginians including Hamilcar Barca, his son-in-law Hasdrubal, and most notably of all, the son of Hamilcar, the famous but illfated warrior Hannibal.

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 worldpower 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

[326-289 B.C.]

CAUSES OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR

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.

[289-264 B.C.]

After the death of Agathocles, the Carthaginians and Greeks of Sicily rested quiet till Pyrrhus undertook to expel the former from the island. The appearance of Carthaginian fleets off Ostia, and in the Gulf of Tarentum, roused the jealousy of the Italian republic, and an opportunity only was wanting to give rise to open war between the two states.

The occupation of Messana by the Campanian mercenaries of Agathocles, calling themselves Mamertines, has been noticed. From this place they became dangerous neighbours of Syracuse. A young man named Hiero, who had won distinction in the Sicilian campaigns of Pyrrhus, defeated these marauders at Centuripe, and was by his grateful compatriots proclaimed king about the year 270 B.C. In 265 B.C. the new king resolved to destroy this nest of robbers, and advanced against Messana with a force superior to any they could bring into the field against him. The Mamertines, in this peril, were divided; one party wished to call in the Carthaginians, another preferred alliance with Rome. The latter prevailed, and envoys were despatched to demand immediate aid. The senate were well inclined to grant what was asked; for that Messana, a town with a good harbour, and separated from Italy by a narrow strait, should pass into the hands of Carthage, might have given alarm to a less watchful government. Yet shame restrained them. It was barely six years since Hiero had assisted them in punishing the Campanian legion which had seized Italian Rhegium, as the Mamertines had seized Sicilian Messana, and the senate declined to entertain the question. But the consuls, eager for military glory, brought the matter before the centuriate assembly, which straightway voted that support should be given to the Mamertines, or in other words, that the Carthaginians should not be allowed to gain possession of Messana. The consul Appius Claudius, son of the old censor, was to command the army.

During this delay, however, the Carthaginian party among the Mamertines had prevailed, and Hanno, with a party of Carthaginian soldiers, had been admitted into the town. But Appius succeeded in landing his troops to the south of the town,1 and defeated Hiero with such loss that the prudent king retired to Syracuse. Next day the Romans fell upon Hanno, and also defeated him. The consul pursued his successes by plundering the Syracusan dominions up to the very gates of the city.

The Romans, having now set foot in Sicily, determined to declare war against Carthage. It is probable that the senate, recollecting the rapid success of Pyrrhus, who in two years almost swept the Carthaginians out of the island, reckoned on a speedy conquest; else, after their late exhausting wars, they would hardly have engaged in this new and terrible conflict. But they were much deceived. The First Punic War, which began in 264 B.C., did not end till 241, having dragged out its tedious length for three-andtwenty years. The general history of it is most uninteresting. All the great men of Rome, who had waged her Italian wars with so much vigour and ability, were in their graves; we hear no more of Decius, or Curius, or Fabricius, and no worthy successors had arisen. The only men of note who appear on the Roman side are Duilius and Regulus. But the generals of Carthage are no less obscure, except the great Hamilcar.2

[In the words of Polybius,d "App. Claudius with unspeakable bravery passing the strait by night, got at length into Messana."]

The

[2 Hamilcar took command of an army in Sicily six years before the close of the war. story of his brilliant achievements reads like a romance; but all his energy, skill, and daring did not save his city from defeat.]