[235-229 B.C.]

to cross the Adriatic, not so much for the purpose of advancing their own dominion as to render a service to all who frequented these seas for the purposes of traffic. The far side of the Adriatic, then called Illyricum, consists of a narrow ledge of coast land flanked by parallel mountain chains. Many islands appear off the shore, and several large creeks afford safe anchorage for ships. These natural advantages made the Illyrians of the coast skilful seamen. Their light barks (lembi) issued from behind the islands or out of the creeks, and practised piracy on their neighbours. Their main stronghold was Scodra (Scutari). In 231 B.C., Teuta, a woman of bold and masculine spirit, became chief of this piratical race during the infancy of her son Pinnes, and in 230 B.c. had made herself supreme over all the islands except Issa, which she blockaded in person in that year. The senate had not hitherto found leisure to check the progress of these pirates. But in the year just named, they sent C. and L. Coruncanius as envoys to remonstrate with Teuta. But Teuta was little disposed to listen to remonstrance. It was not, she said, customary for the chiefs of Illyricum to prevent their subjects from making use of the sea. The younger Coruncanius, indignant at this avowal of national piracy, replied that if such were the institutions of the Illyrians, the Romans would lose no time in helping her to mend them. Exasperated by this sarcasm, Teuta ordered the envoys to be pursued and the younger one to be put to death. The Romans at once declared war against the Illyrians.

After the surrender of Issa, the Illyrian queen pursued her success by the capture not only of Dyrrhachium, but also of Corcyra; and Demetrius, a clever and unscrupulous Greek of Pharos (a place on the coast of upper Illyricum), the chief counsellor of Teuta, was made governor of this famous island. The Epirots now sent ambassadors to crave protection from Rome; and the senate gladly took advantage of this opening. Early in the next spring both consuls appeared at Corcyra with a powerful fleet and army. Demetrius quickly discerned to which side fortune would incline, and surrendered Corcyra to the Romans without a blow. This treachery paralysed Teuta's spirit; and Demetrius enabled the Roman commanders to overpower her forces with little trouble. She was obliged to surrender the greater part of her dominions to the traitor, who now became chief of Corcyra and southern Illyricum, under the protection of Rome. The Illyrians were not to appear south of Lissus with more than two barks at a time.

STANDARD BEARER

The suppression of Illyrian piracy was even more advantageous to the commerce of Greece than that of Rome. The leading men of the senate began, even at this time, to show a strong disposition to win the good opinion of the Greeks, who, degenerate as they were, were still held to be the centre of civilisation and the dispensers of fame. Postumius the consul, therefore, sent envoys to various Greek states to explain the appearance of a Roman force in those quarters. They were received with high

[229-223 B.C.] distinction. The Athenians and Corinthians, especially, paid honour to Rome; and the latter people recognised her Greek descent by voting that her citizens should be admitted to the Isthmian games (228 B.C.). This short war was scarcely ended, when Rome saw a conflict impending, which

filled her with alarm.

It will be remembered that just before the war with Pyrrhus, the Senonian Gauls had been extirpated, and the Boians defeated with great slaughter in two battles near Lake Vadimo in Etruria (283 B.C.). From that time the Gauls had remained quiet within their own boundaries. But in 232 B.C., the tribune C. Flaminius, a man who will hereafter claim more special notice, proposed to distribute all the public land held by Rome on the Picenian and Umbrian coasts to a number of poor citizens; a law which was put into effect four years afterwards. When the colonies of Sena Gallica and Ariminum had been planted on that same coast, the Boians were too much weakened by their late defeats to offer any opposition. But in two generations their strength was recruited, and they were encouraged to rise against Rome by the promised support of the Insubrians, a powerful tribe who occupied the trans-Padane district about Milan. The arrival of large bodies of Gauls from beyond the Alps completed their determination, and increased the terror which the recollections of the Allia still wrought upon the Roman mind. Report exaggerated the truth, and the Romans made larger preparations for this Gallic war than they had made against Pyrrhus or the Carthaginians. Active preparations were seconded by superstitious rites. The Sibylline books were consulted, and in them it was found written that the soil of Rome must be twice occupied by a foreign foe. To fulfil this prediction, the government barbarously ordered a Gaulish man and woman, together with a Greek woman, to be buried alive in the Forum.

The campaign opened in northern Etruria. The Gauls crossed the Apennines into the vale of the Arno and fell suddenly upon the prætor stationed with an army at Fæsulæ. Him they overpowered, and defeated with great slaughter. The consul Æmilius now, with great promptitude, crossed the Umbrian hills into Etruria; and on his approach the Gauls retired northwards along the coast, wishing to secure their booty; while Æmilius hung upon their rear, without venturing to engage in a general action. But near Pisa they found that the other consul, Atilius, had landed from Sardinia; and thus hemmed in by two consular armies, they were obliged to give battle at a place called Telamon. The conflict was desperate; but the Romans were better armed and better disciplined than of old, while the Gauls had remained stationary. Their large heavy broadswords, forged of ill-tempered iron, bent at the first blow, and while they stooped to straighten them with the foot, they were full exposed to the thrust of the short Roman sword. The victory of Telamon was as signal as that of Sentinum or of Vadimo (225 B.C.).

The consuls of the next year (224 B.C.) again invaded the Boian country, and received the complete submission of all the tribes on the left bank of the Po. In the following year C. Flaminius, the reputed cause of the war, was consul, and pushed across the Po, with the resolution of punishing the Insubrians (Milanese) for the part they had taken in the invasion of Etruria. The place at which he crossed the great river was somewhere above Mantua; and here he formed a league with the Cenomani, who were at deadly feud with the Insubrians. Assisted by these auxiliaries, he moved westward across the Adda, the boundary of the Insubrian

[235-219 B.C.]

district. At this moment Flaminius received despatches from the senate, forbidding him to invade the Insubrian country. But he laid them aside unopened, and at once gave battle to the enemy. He gained a signal victory; and then, opening the despatches, he laughed at the caution of the senate.

During the winter the Insubrians sued for peace; but the new consuls, Cn. Cornelius Scipio and M. Claudius Marcellus, afterwards so celebrated, persuaded the senate to undertake a fourth campaign. The consuls both marched north, and entered the Insubrian territory. But Marcellus, hearing that Viridomarus, the Insubrian chief, had crossed the Po to ravage the country lately occupied by the Romans, left his colleague to reduce the principal towns of the Insubrians, while he pursued the chief with his army. He came up with him near Clastidium, and attacked him with his cavalry alone. A smart action ensued, in which Marcellus encountered Viridomarus, and slew him with his own hand; and the Gauls fled in disorder. Thus were won the third and last spolia opima. Meanwhile Scipio had taken Mediolanum (Milan), the chief city of the Insubrian Gauls, and the war was concluded (221 B.C.).

Soon after this it was resolved, probably at the instance of Flaminius, to plant two colonies, Cremona and Placentia, on opposite sides of the Po, so as to secure the territory lately won in the Boian and Insubrian territories. But the execution of this project did not take place till three years later, when Hannibal was on his march. Some years afterwards we hear this district spoken of as the province of Ariminum. Communication was secured between Rome and Ariminum by a road constructed in the censorship of Flaminius, which bore his name (220 B.C.).

During this great disturbance in Italy, Demetrius of Pharos proved as false to his new patrons as he had been to Teuta. Relying on the support of Philip, king of Macedon, he assumed the air of an independent chief, and encouraged his subjects in their old piratical practices. In 219 B.C. L. Æmilius Paulus, the patrician consul, received orders from the senate to put a stop to these proceedings. In one short campaign he reduced Corcyra, took Pharos, and forced Demetrius to take refuge at the court of Philip, where we shall find him at a later time active in promoting hostilities against Rome. Illyricum again fell into the hands of native chiefs; the Romans, however, kept possession of the island of Corcyra, together with the strong towns of Oricum and Apollonia-positions of great service in the Macedonian Wars.

Thus triumphant on all sides and on all sides apparently secure, the Roman government had no presentiment of the storm that had long been gathering in the west. We must now return to Hamilcar.

HAMILCAR AND HANNIBAL

With him went his son

He crossed the straits of Gibraltar in 235 B.C. in-law Hasdrubal, and his son Hannibal, then a boy of nine years old, but even then giving promise of those qualities which afterwards made him the terror of Rome. Hamilcar had not intended to take him to Spain; but the boy pleaded so earnestly, that the father yielded on condition that he should swear eternal enmity to Rome and the Romans. Hannibal himself, in his old age, told the tale to Antiochus, king of Syria, how he was led to the altar of his country's gods, and took this direful oath. Nothing

[236-219 B.C.] can more strongly show the feelings with which Hamilcar left his country. He went, not as the servant of Carthage but as the enemy of Rome, with feelings of personal hostility, not to be appeased save by the degradation of his antagonist.

His first object was to conquer Spain, and thus put Carthage in possession of a province which might itself become a great kingdom, and was worth many Sicilies and Sardinias. One of the chief advantages he proposed to himself in this conquest was the supply of hardy soldiers, which would be given by the possession of Spain. But he was well aware that for this purpose conquest was not sufficient; he must enlist the feelings of the Spaniards in his cause, he must teach them to look up to himself and his family as their friends and benefactors. Accordingly he married a Spanish lady of Castulo; he lived among the natives like one of themselves; he taught them to work their rich silver mines; and in all ways opened out the resources of the country. Meanwhile he collected and disciplined an excellent army, with which he reduced many of the ruder tribes to the northward of the modern Andalusia and Murcia. Thus he reigned (this is the best word to express his power) with vigour and wisdom for eight years; and in the ninth he fell in battle, admired and regretted by all southern Spain.

Hannibal was yet only in his eighteenth year, too young to take up the work which his father had left unfinished. But Hasdrubal, the son-in-law of the great commander, proved his worthy successor. He at once assumed supreme authority. By the gentler arts of conciliation he won over a great number of tribes; and in order to give a capital to this new realm, he founded the city of New Carthage, now Carthagena, on the coast of Murcia. The successes of Hamilcar had already attracted the notice of the senate; and in the year 227 B.C., presently after his death, they concluded a league with Hasdrubal, whereby the river Ebro was fixed as the northern boundary of the Carthaginian empire in Spain. Hasdrubal fell by the knife of an assassin in the year 221 B.C., the seventh of his command.

Hannibal was now in his twenty-fourth year. He was at once elected by the acclamations of the army to stand in his great father's place. Nor did the government venture to brave the anger of a young general at the head of an army devoted to his cause. Hannibal remained as ruler of Carthaginian Spain. The office was becoming hereditary in his family.

Hamilcar had enlarged the Carthaginian rule in Spain from a few trading settlements to a great province. Hasdrubal had carried the limits of this province as far as the sierra of Toledo. Hannibal immediately crossed this range into the valley of the Tagus, and reduced the Celtiberian tribes which then occupied Castille. He even passed the Castilian Mountains which form the upper edge of the basin of the Tagus, and made the name of Carthage feared among the Vaccæans of the Douro, by taking their chief town, Helmantica (Salamanca). At the close of the year 220 B.C., all Spain south of the Ebro was in subjection to Carthage, or in alliance with her. The great qualities of the three men through whom they knew her made them not unwilling vassals.

But there was one city south of the Ebro which still maintained independence. This was Saguntum, an ancient colony from the Greek island of Zacynthus. Its site on the coast of modern Valencia is marked by the present town of Murviedro (Muri Veteres), rather more than halfway between New Carthage and the mouth of the Ebro. Saguntum had been for some time in alliance with Rome; and therefore, though it was on the Carthaginian side of the Ebro, was by Roman custom entitled to support. In the

[219-218 B.C.]

year 219 B.C. this city was at war with a neighbouring tribe, and Hannibal eagerly accepted an invitation to destroy the ally of his enemy. He surrounded Saguntum with a large army; but the people held out for eight months with that heroic obstinacy which seems to distinguish all dwellers on Spanish ground, when engaged in defensive warfare. In many respects the siege of Saguntum brings that of Saragossa to mind.

While the siege yet lasted, the Roman senate had sent envoys to Hannibal, requiring him to desist from attacking their ally. He replied coldly, that "he could not answer for their safety in his camp; they had better seek redress at Carthage." They went on their way; but meantime the news of the fall of Saguntum reached Rome, and an embassy was sent to Carthage to demand that Hannibal, the author of the mischief, should be given up. There was a large party, that of Hanno and the government, which would probably have complied with this demand. But Rome was hated at Carthage, and the government did not dare to oppose the general feeling. They replied that Saguntum was not mentioned in the treaty of Hasdrubal; even if it were, that treaty had never been ratified by the government, and therefore was of no authority. Then Q. Fabius Buteo, chief of the Roman envoys, doubling his toga in his hand, held it up and said: "In this fold I carry peace and war: choose ye which ye will have." "Give us which you will," replied the suffet. "Then take war," said the Roman, letting his toga fall loose. "We accept the gift," cried the senators of Carthage, "and welcome."

Thus war was formally declared against Rome. But before we pass on to the narrative of this war, it will be well to form some idea of the extraordinary man who, by his sole genius, undertook and supported it with success for so many years.

Hannibal was now in his twenty-eighth year, nearly of the same age at which Napoleon Bonaparte led the army of the French republic into Italy. And when we have named Napoleon, we have named, perhaps, the only man, ancient or modern, who can claim to be superior, or even equal, to Hannibal as a general. Bred in the camp, he possessed every quality necessary to gain the confidence of his men. His personal strength and activity were such that he could handle their arms and perform their exercises, on foot or on horseback, more skilfully than themselves. His endurance of heat and cold, of fatigue and hunger, excelled that of the hardiest soldier in the camp. He never required others to do what he could not and would not do himself. To these bodily powers he added an address as winning as that of Hasdrubal his brother-in-law, talents for command fully as great as those of his father Hamilcar. His frank manners and genial temper endeared him to the soldiery; his strong will swayed them like one man. The different nations who made up his motley arms-Africans and Spaniards, Gauls and Italians looked upon him each as their own chief.

Amid the hardships which his mixed army underwent for sixteen years in a foreign land, there never was a mutiny in his camp. This admirable versatility of the man was seconded by qualities required to make the general. His quick perception and great sagacity led him to marvellously correct judgment of future events and distant countries- which in those days, when travellers were few and countries unknown, must have been a task of extraordinary difficulty. He formed his plans after patient inquiry, and kept them profoundly secret till it was necessary to make them known. But with this caution in designing was united marvellous promptness in executing. "He was never deceived himself," says Polybius, "but never failed