THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS

VOLUME II

A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY. EMPHASIZINGTHE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVESIN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS

 NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL

ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOSTDISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEFINTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATEDNARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES, BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL. D. 

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph. D. JOHN RUDD, LL. D. 

1905

BINDING

Vol. II

The binding of this volume is a facsimile of the original on exhibitionin the Bibliothèque Nationale. 

It was executed by the Royal Binder, Clovis Eve, for Marie de' Médicis, Queen Consort of Henry IV of France. She was a great lover of fine arts, and especially of rich bindings. The one here shown was her specialpride. It shows her arms--the arms of France and Tuscany--surroundedwith the cordelière, the sign of her widowhood, accompanied by themonogram M. M. (Marie Médicis). She was exiled by Cardinal Richelieu in1631. 

CONTENTS

VOLUME II

An Outline Narrative of the Great Events, CHARLES F. HORNE

Institution and Fall of the Decemvirate in Rome (B. C. 450), HENRY G. LIDDELL

Pericles Rules in Athens (B. C. 444), PLUTARCH

Great Plague at Athens (B. C. 430), GEORGE GROTE

Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse (B. C. 413), SIR EDWARD S. CREASY

Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks (B. C. 401-399), XENOPHON

Condemnation and Death of Socrates (B. C. 399), PLATO

Brennus Burns Rome (B. C. 388), BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR

Tartar Invasion of China by Meha (B. C. 341), DEMETRIUS CHARLES BOULGER

Alexander Reduces Tyre, Later Founds Alexandria (B. C. 332), OLIVER GOLDSMITH

The Battle of Arbela (B. C. 331), SIR EDWARD S. CREASY

First Battle Between Greeks and Romans (B. C. 280-279), PLUTARCH

The Punic Wars (B. C. 264-219-149), FLORUS

Battle of the Metaurus (B. C. 2O7), SIR EDWARD S. CREASY

Scipio Africanus Crushes Hannibal at Zama and Subjugates Carthage (B. C. 202), LIVY

Judas Maccabaeus Liberates Judea (B. C. 165-141), JOSEPHUS

The Gracchi and Their Reforms (B. C. 133), THEODOR MOMMSEN

Caesar Conquers Gaul (B. C. 58-50), NAPOLEON III

Roman Invasion and Conquest of Britain (B. C. 55-A. D. 79), OLIVER GOLDSMITH

Cleopatra's Conquest of Caesar and Antony (B. C. 51-30), JOHN P. MAHAFFY

Assassination of Caesar (B. C. 44), NIEBUHR PLUTARCH

Rome Becomes a MonarchyDeath of Antony and Cleopatra (B. C. 44-30), HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL

Germans under Arminius Revolt Against Rome (A. D. 9), SIR EDWARD S. CREASY

Universal Chronology (B. C. 450-A. D. 12), JOHN RUDD

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME II

Blind Appius Claudius led into the Roman Senate Chamber to vote on theproposition of peace or war with Pyrrhus (page 174), Painting by Prof, A. Maccari. 

Oracle of Delphi, Painting by Claudius Harper. 

Death of Alexander the Great after a prolonged debauch, Painting by Carl von Piloty. 

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE GREAT EVENTS

(FROM THE RISE OF GREECE TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA)

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph. D. 

Earth's upward struggle has been baffled by so many stumbles thatcritics have not been lacking to suggest that we do not advance at all, but only swing in circles, like a squirrel in its cage. Certain it isthat each ancient civilization seemed to bear in itself the seeds of itsown destruction. Yet it may be held with equal truth that each newpower, rising above the ruins of the last, held something nobler, wasborne upward by some truth its rival could not reach. 

At no period is this more evident than in the five centuries immediatelypreceding the Christian era. Persia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, each inturn was with some justice proclaimed lord of the world; each in turnfelt the impulse of her glory and advanced rapidly in culture andknowledge of the arts; and each in turn succumbed to the temptationsthat beset unlimited success. They degenerated not only in physicalstrength, but in moral honesty. 

Let us recognize, however, that the term "world-ruler" as applied toeven the greatest of these nations has but a restricted sense. When thePersian monarch called himself lord of the sun and moon, he only meantin a figurative way that he was acquainted with no other king sopowerful as himself; that beyond his own dominions he heard only offeeble colonies, and beyond those the wilderness. Alexander, when hesighed for more worlds to conquer, had in reality made himself lord ofless than a quarter of Asia and of about one-sixtieth part of Europe. 

No man and no nation has ever yet been intrusted with the government ofthe entire globe. None has proved sufficiently fitted for the gianttask. Each empire has been, as it were, but an experiment; and beyondthe border line of seas and deserts which ringed each boastfulconqueror, there were always other races developing along slower, and itmay be surer, lines. 

In those old days our world was in truth too big for conquest. Armiesmarched on foot. Provisions could not be carried in any quantity, unlessa general clung to the sea-shore and depended on his ships. WhatAlexander might with more truth have sighed for, was some modern meansof swift transportation, possessed of which he might still have enjoyedmany interesting, bloody battles in more distant lands. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEKS

Taking the idea "world power" in the restricted sense suggested, Persialost it to Greece at Salamis. As the Asiatic hordes fled behind theirpanic-stricken king, the Greeks, looking round their limited horizon, could see no power that might vie with them. The idea of pressing hometheir success and overthrowing the entire unwieldy Persian empire was atonce conceived. 

But the Greeks were of all races least like to weld earth into onedominion. They could not even unite among themselves. In short it cannotbe too emphatically pointed out that the work of Greece was not toconsolidate, but to separate, to teach the value of each individual man. Asia had made monarchies in plenty. King after king had passed insplendid, glittering pomp across her plains, circled by a crowd ofobsequious courtiers, trampling on a nameless multitude of slaves. Europe was to make democracies, or at least to try her hand at them. 

It has been well said that a democracy is the strongest government fordefence, the weakest for attack. Every little Greek city clung jealouslyto its own freedom, and to its equally obvious right to dominate itsneighbors. The supreme danger of the Persian invasion united them for amoment; but as soon as safety was assured, they recommenced theirbickering. Sparta with her record of ancient leadership, Athens with hernew-won glory against the common foe, each tried to draw the othercities in her train. There was no one man who could dominate them alland concentrate their strength against the enemy. So for a time Persiacontinued to exist; she even by degrees regained something of her formerinfluence over the divided cities. 

Among these Athens held the foremost rank. She was, as we havepreviously seen, far more truly representative of the Greek spirit thanher rival. Sparta was aristocratic and conservative; Athens democraticand progressive. The genius of her leaders gathered the lesser townsinto a great naval league, in which she grew ever more powerful. Herallies sank to be dependent and unwilling vassals, forced to contributelarge sums to the treasury of their overlord. 

This was the age of Pericles. [1] As Athens became wealthy, her citizensbecame cultured. Statues, temples, theatres made the city beautiful. Dramatists, orators, and poets made her intellectually renowned. Amarvellous outburst, this of Athens! Displaying for the first time inhistory the full capacity of the human mind! Had there been similarflowerings of genius amid forgotten Asiatic times? One doubts it; doubtsif such brilliancy could ever anywhere have passed, and left no clearerrecord of its triumphs. 

[Footnote 1: See _Pericles Rules in Athens_, page 12. ]

Amid such splendor it seems captious to point out the flaw. Yet Athenianand all Greek civilization did ultimately decline. It representedintellectual, but not moral culture. The Greeks delighted intensely inthe purely physical life about them; they had small conception ofanything beyond. To enjoy, to be successful, that was all their goal;the means scarce counted. The Athenians called Aristides the Just; butso little did they honor his high rectitude that they banished him for adecade. His title, or it may have been his insistence on the subject, bored them. 

His rival, Themistocles, was more suited to their taste, a clever scamp, who must always be dealing with both sides in every quarrel, andoutwitting both. Athens was driven to banish him also at last, at histoo flagrant treachery. But he was not dismissed with the scathing scornour modern age would heap upon a traitor. He was sent regretfully, asone turns from a charming but too persistently lawless friend. Thebanishment was only for ten years, and he had his nest already preparedwith the Persian King. If you would understand the Greek spirit in itsfullest perfection, study Themistocles. Rampant individualism, seekingpersonal pleasure, clamorous for the admiration of its fellows, but notrestrained from secret falsity by any strong moral sense--that was whatthe Greeks developed in the end. 

Neither must Athens be regarded as a democracy in the modern sense. Shewas only so by contrast with Persia or with Sparta. Not every man in thebeautiful city voted, or enjoyed the riches that flowed into hercoffers, and could thus afford, free from pecuniary care, to devotehimself to art. Athens probably had never more than thirty thousand"citizens. " The rest of the adult male population, vastly outnumberingthese, were slaves, or foreigners attracted by the city's splendor. 

But those thirty thousand were certainly men. "There were giants inthose days. " One sometimes stands in wonder at their boldness. What allGreece could not do, what Persia had completely failed in, theyundertook. Athens alone should conquer the world. By force of arms theywould found an empire of intellect. They fought Persia and Sparta, bothat once. Plague swept their city, yet they would not yield. [2] Their ownsubject allies turned against them; and they fought those too. They sentfleets and armies against Syracuse, the mightiest power of the West. Itwas Athens against all mankind!

[Footnote 2: See _Great Plague at Athens_, page 34. ]

She was unequal to the task, superbly unequal to it. The destruction ofher army at Syracuse[3] was only the foremost of a series of inevitabledisasters, which left her helpless. After that, Sparta, and then Thebes, became the leading city of Greece. Athens slowly regained her fightingstrength; her intellectual supremacy she had not lost. Socrates, [4]greatest of her sons, endeavored to teach a morality higher than earthhad yet received, higher than his contemporaries could grasp. Plato gaveto thought a scientific basis. 

[Footnote 3: See _Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse_, page 48. ]

[Footnote 4: See _Condemnation and Death of Socrates_, page 87. ]

Then Macedonia, a border kingdom of ancient kinship to the Greeks, butnot recognized as belonging among them, began to obtrude herself intheir affairs, and at length won that leadership for which they had allcontended. A hundred and fifty years had elapsed since the Greeks hadstood united against Persia. During all that time their strength hadbeen turned against themselves. Now at last the internecine wars werechecked, and all the power of the sturdy race was directed by one man, Alexander, King of Macedon. Democracy had made the Greeks intellectuallyglorious, but politically weak. Monarchy rose from the ruin they hadwrought. 

As though that ancient invasion of Xerxes had been a crime of yesterday, Alexander proclaimed his intention of avenging it; and the Greeksapplauded. They understood Persia now far better than in the elder days;they saw what a feeble mass the huge heterogeneous empire had become. Its people were slaves, its soldiers mercenaries. The Greeks themselveshad been hired to suppress more than one Persian rebellion, [5] and tofoment these also. They had learned the enormous advantage theirstronger personality gave them against the masses of sheeplike Asiatics. 

[Footnote 5: See _Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks_, page 68. ]

So it was in holiday mood that they followed Alexander, and in schoolboyroughness that they trampled on the civilization of the East. In fact, it is worth noting that the most vigorous resistance they encounteredwas not from the Persians, but from a remnant of the Semites, themerchants of the Phoenician city of Tyre. [6] In less than eight years, B. C. 331-323, Alexander overran the whole known world of the East, [7]only stopping when, on the border of India, his soldiers broke into openrevolt, not against fighting, but against further wandering. 

[Footnote 6: See _Alexander Reduces Tyre_, page 133. ]

[Footnote 7: See _The Battle of Arbela_, page 141. ]

If this invasion had been the mere outcome of one man's ambition, itmight scarce be worth recording. But Alexander was only the topmost wavein the surging of a long imminent, inevitable racial movement. Itseffect upon civilization, upon the world, was incalculably vast. Alexander and his successors were city-builders, administrators. As suchthey spread Greek culture, the Greek idea of individualism, over alltheir world. 

How deep was the change, made upon the imbruted Asiatics, we may perhapsquestion. Our own age has seen how much of education may be lavished onan inferior race without materially altering the brute instincts within. The building-up of the soul in man is not a matter of individuals, butof centuries. Yet in at least a superficial way Greek thought became thethought of all mankind. We may dismiss Alexander's savage conquests witha sigh of pity; but we cannot deny him recognition as a most potentteacher of the world. 

His empire did not last. It was in too obvious opposition to all that wehave recognized as the Grecian spirit. At his death the same impulseseems to have stirred each one of his subordinates, to snatch forhimself a kingdom from the confusion. Instead of one there were soonthree, four, and then a dozen semi-Grecian states in Asia. The Greekelement in each grew very faint. 

From this time onward Asia takes a less prominent place in worldaffairs. Her ancient leadership in the march of civilization had longbeen yielded to the Greeks. Now her semblance of military powerdisappeared as well. Only two further happenings in all Asia seem worthnoting, down to the birth of Christ. One of these was the Tartarconquest of China, an event which coalesced the Tartars, helped makethem a nation. [8] It was thus fraught with most disastrous consequencesfor the Europe of the future. The other was the revolt of the Hebrewsunder Judas Maccabaeus, against their Grecian rulers. This was areligious revolt, a religious war. Here for the first time we find apeople who will believe, who can believe, in no god but their own, whowill die sooner than give worship to another. We approach the borders ofan age where the spirit is more valued than the body, where the mentalis stronger than the physical, where facts are dominated by ideas. [9]

[Footnote 8: See _Tartar Invasion of China_, page 126. ]

[Footnote 9: See _Judas Maccabaeus Liberates Judea_, page 245. ]

Had Alexander even at the moment of his greatest strength directed hisforces westward instead of east, he would have found a different worldand encountered a sturdier resistance. He himself recognized this, andduring his last years was gathering all the resources of his unwieldyempire, to hurl them against Carthage and against Italy. What the issuemight have been no man can say. Alexander's death ended forever theimpossible attempt to unite his race. Once more and until the end, Grecian strength was wasted against itself. 

This gave opportunity to the growing powers of the West. Alexander isscarce gone ere we hear Carthage boasting that the Mediterranean is buta private lake in her possession. She rules all Western Africa andSpain, Sardinia and Corsica. She masters the Greeks of Sicily, againstwhom Athens failed. Rome is compelled to sign treaties with her as aninferior. 

THE GROWTH OF ROME

Rome was only husbanding her strength; the little republic of B. C. 510had grown much during the two centuries of Grecian splendor. Her peoplehad become far better fitted for conquest than their eastern kinsmen. Itis presumable that here too it was the difference of surroundings whichhad differentiated the race. The ancient Etrurian (non-Aryan)civilization on which the Latins intruded, was apparently more advancedthan their own. For centuries their utmost prowess scarce sufficed tomaintain their independence. Thus it was not possible for them to becometoo self-satisfied, to stand afar off and look down on their neighborswith Grecian scorn. The _ego_ was less prominently developed; thenecessity of mutual dependence and united action was more deeply taught. Their records display less of brilliancy, but more of patientpersistency, than those of Greece, less of spectacular individualism, more of truly patriotic self-suppression. In Rome, even more than inSparta, the "State" was everything. During the early days men foundtheir highest glory in making their city glorious; their proudest boastwas to be "citizens of Rome. "

To trace the slow steps by which the tiny republic grew to be mistressof all Italy would take too long. She settled her internal difficultiesas all such difficulties must be settled, if the race is to progress;that is, she became more democratic. [10] As the lower classes advancedin knowledge and intelligence they insisted on a share of thegovernment. They fought their way to it. They united Rome, mastered theother Latin cities, and admitted them to partnership in her power. Sheconquered the Etruscans and the Samnites. For a moment we find heralmost overwhelmed by an inroad of the wild Celtic tribes from theforests of Central Europe;[11] but, fortunately for her, the otherItalian states were equally crushed. It was weakness against weakness, and the Romans retained their foremost place. 

[Footnote 10: See _Institution and Fall of the Decemvirate in Rome_, page 1. ]

[Footnote 11: See _Brennus Burns Rome_, page 110. ]

Not till more than a century later were they brought into seriousconflict with the Greeks. In the year B. C. 280, Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, who had won a temporary leadership over a portion of the Grecian land, undertook the conquest of the West. [12] Fifty years before, Alexanderwith far greater power might have been victorious over a feebler Rome. Pyrrhus failed completely. If the Romans had less dash and a less wideexperience of varied warfare than his followers, they had far more oftrue, heroic endurance. The Greeks had reached that stage of individualculture where they were much too selfishly intelligent to be willing todie in battle. Pyrrhus withdrew from Italy. Grecian brilliancy washelpless against Roman strength of union. 

[Footnote 12: See _First Battle between Greeks and Romans_, page 166. ]

Then came the far more serious contest between Rome and Carthage. [13]Carthage was a Phoenician, a Semite state; and hers was the last, themost gigantic struggle made by Semitism to recover its waningsuperiority, to dominate the ancient world. Three times in threetremendous wars did she and Rome put forth their utmost strength againsteach other. Hannibal, perhaps the greatest military genius who everlived, fought upon the side of Carthage. At one time Rome seemedcrushed, helpless before him. [14] Yet in the end Rome won. [15] It wasnot by the brilliancy of her commanders, not by the superiority of herresources. It was the grim, cool courage of the Aryan mind, showingstrongest and calmest when face to face with ruin. 

[Footnote 13: See _The Punic Wars_, page 179. ]

[Footnote 14: See _Battle of the Metaurus_, page 195. ]

[Footnote 15: See _Scipio Africanus Crushes Hannibal at Zama andSubjugates Carthage_, page 224. ]

Our modern philosophers, being Aryan, assure us that the victory ofCarthage would have been an irretrievable disaster to mankind; that herfalsity, her narrow selfishness, her bloody inhumanity, would havestifled all progress; that her dominion would have been the tyranny of afew heartless masters over a world of tortured slaves. On the otherhand, Rome up to this point had certainly been a generous mistress toher subjects. She had left them peace and prosperity among themselves;she had given them as much political freedom as was consistent with hersovereignty; she had wellnigh succeeded in welding all Italy into aRoman nation. It is noteworthy that the large majority of the Italiancities clung to her, even in the darkest straits to which she wasreduced by Hannibal. 

Yet when the fall of her last great rival left Rome irresistible abroad, her methods changed. It is hard to see how even Carthaginians could havebeen more cruel, more grasping, more corrupt than the Roman rulers ofthe provinces. Having conquered the governments of the world, Rome hadto face outbreak after outbreak from the unarmed, unsheltered masses ofthe people. Her barbarity drove them to mad despair. "Servile" wars, slave outbreaks are dotted over all the last century of the RomanRepublic. 

The good, if there was any good, that Roman dominion brought the worldat that period was the spreading of Greek culture across the westernhalf of the world. As Rome mastered the Greek states one by one, theirgenius won a subtler triumph over the conqueror. Her generals recognizedand admired a culture superior to their own. They carried off thestatues of Greece for the adornment of their villas, and with equaleagerness they appropriated her manners and her thought, her literatureand her gods. 

But this superficial culture could not save the Roman Republic from thedry-rot that sapped her vitals from within. As a mere matter of numbers, the actual citizens of Rome or even of the semi-Roman districts closearound her were too few to continue fighting over all the vast empirethey controlled. The sturdy peasant population of Italy slowlydisappeared. The actual inhabitants of the capital came to consist of afew thousand vastly wealthy families, who held all the power, a fewthousand more of poorer citizens dependent on the rich, and then a vastswarm of slaves and foreigners, feeders on the crumbs of the Romantable. 

In the battles against Carthage, the mass of Rome's armies had consistedof her own citizens or of allies closely united to them in blood andfortune. Her later victories were won by hired troops, men gathered fromevery clime and every race. Roman generals still might lead them, Romanlaws environ them, Roman gold employ them. Yet the fact remained, thatin these armies lay the strength of the Republic, no longer within herown walls, no longer in the stout hearts of her citizens. 

Perhaps the world itself was slow in seeing this degeneration. TheGracchi brothers tried to stem the tide, and they were slain, sacrificedby the nation they sought to save. [16] Cornelius Sulla was the man whocompleted, and at the same time made plain to all, the change that hadbeen growing up. Having bitter grievances against his enemies in thecapital, he appealed for redress, not to the Roman senate, not to thevotes of the populace, but to the swords of the legions he commanded. Twice he marched his soldiers against Rome. He brushed aside the feebleresistance that was offered, and entered the city like a conqueror. Theblood of those who had opposed his wishes flowed in streams. Threethousand senators and knights, the flower of the Roman aristocracy, wereslain at his nod. Of the common folk and of the Italians throughout thepeninsula, the slaughter was immeasurable. And when his bloody vengeancewas at last glutted, Sulla ruled as an extravagant, conscienceless, licentious dictator. Rome had found a fitting master. 

[Footnote 16: See _The Gracchi and Their Reforms_, page 259. ]

THE STRUGGLE OF INDIVIDUALS FOR SUPREMACY

The Roman people, the mighty race who had defied a Hannibal at theirgates, were clearly come to an end. Sulla had proved the power of theRepublic to be an empty shell. After his death, men used the empty formsawhile; but the surviving aristocrats had learned their awful lesson. They put no further faith in the strength of the city; they watched thearmies and the generals; they intrigued for the various commands. It wasan exciting game. Life and fortune were the stakes they risked; theprize--the mastery of a helpless world, waiting to be plundered. 

Pompey and Caesar proved the ablest players. Pompey overthrew what wasleft of the Greek Asiatic kingdoms and returned to Rome the idol of histroops, wellnigh as powerful as had been Sulla. Caesar, looking in histurn for a place to build up an army devoted to himself, selected Gauland spent eight years in subduing and civilizing what was in a way themost important of all Rome's conquests. In Gaul he came in contact withanother, fresher Aryan race. [17] Rome received new soldiers for herlegions, new brains fitted to understand and carry on the work ofcivilizing the world. 

[Footnote 17: See _Caesar Conquers Gaul_, page 267. ]

When Caesar, turning away from Britain, [18] marched these new-formedlegions back against Rome, even as Sulla had done, it was almost likeanother Gallic invasion of the South. Pompey fled. He gathered hislegions from Asia; and the world resounded once more to the clash ofarms. 

[Footnote 18: See _Roman Invasion and Conquest of Britain_, page 285. ]

This, then, was the third and final stage of the huge struggle forempire. War was still the business of the world. Rome had first defeatedforeign nations; then she had to defeat the uprisings of the subjectpeoples; now her chiefs, finding her exhausted, fought among themselvesfor the supreme power. Armies of Asiatics, armies of Gauls, eachclaiming to represent Rome, battled over her helpless body. 

Caesar was victorious. But when the conquering power which had oncebelonged to the united nation became embodied in a single man, there wasa new way by which it might be checked. The government of Rome, likethat of the Greek and Asiatic tyrannies, became a "despotism tempered byassassination"; and Caesar was its foremost victim. [19]

[Footnote 19: See _Assassination of Caesar_, page 313. ]

His death did not stop the fascinating gamble for empire. It only addedone more move to the possible complexities of the game. The lesserplayers had their chance. They intrigued and they fought. Egypt, thelast remaining civilized state outside of Rome, was drawn into thewhirlpool also. [20] Cleopatra and Antony acted their reckless parts, andat length out of the world-wide tumult emerged "young Octavius, " toassume his _rôle_ as "Augustus Caesar, " acknowledged emperor of theworld. [21]

[Footnote 20: See _Cleopatra's Conquest of Caesar and Antony_, page295. ]

[Footnote 21: See _Rome Becomes a Monarchy_, page 333. ]

Note, however, that the term "world" is still one of boast, not truth. Emperor over many men, Augustus was; but the powers of nature still shutmany races safe beyond his mastery. The ocean bounded his dominion onthe west; the deserts to the south and east; the German forests to thenorth. These last he did essay to conquer, but they proved beyond him. The wild German tribes having no cities, which they must defend at anycost, could afford to flee or hide. Choosing their own time and placethey rose suddenly, smote the legions of Augustus, and melted into thewilderness again. [22]

[Footnote 22: See _Germans Under Arminius Revolt against Rome_, page362. ]

Rome was checked at last. No civilized nation had been able to standagainst her; but the wild tribes of the Germans and the Parthians did. Barbarism had still by far the larger portion of the world wherein tolive and develop, and gather brain and brawn. Rome could not conquer thewilderness. 

(For the next section of this general survey see Volume III. )

INSTITUTION AND FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATE IN ROME

B. C. 450

HENRY G. LIDDELL

(When wars and pestilence had laid a heavy burden upon the Roman people, there appears to have been a period in which internal commotions andcivil strife were stilled, and the quarrels of patricians and plebeiansgave way to temporary truce. On the inevitable renewal of the oldstruggle the college of tribunes adopted a measure favorable to theplebeians in so far as it provided means for checking the abuse of poweron the part of consuls in punishing members of that class in connectionwith the prosecution of suits against them. 

The passage of this measure had the effect of reopening formerconflicts, the patrician elements becoming greatly alarmed at what theyregarded as a fresh encroachment upon their hereditary rights. Thecontest was long and bitter, each side either bringing forward orrejecting again and again the same measures or the same representatives. 

Finally, compromises were made, and in the year B. C. 452 a commission often men, called _decemvirs_, constituting the _Decemvirate_, was chosen, consisting wholly of patricians, who entered with great efficiency uponthe discharge of legislative duties which resulted in the production ofa new code. This was approved by the senate and by the popularrepresentatives, and was published in the form of ten copper plates ortables, which were affixed to the speaker's pulpit in the Forum. Amongthe new decemvirs appointed in the year B. C. 450 were several plebeians, the first official representatives of the entire people who were chosenfrom that class. )

The patrician burgesses endeavored to wrest independence from the"plebs" after the battle of Lake Regillus; and the latter, ruined byconstant wars with the neighboring nations, being compelled to make goodtheir losses by borrowing money from patrician creditors, and liable tobecome bondsmen in default of payment, at length deserted the city, andonly returned on condition of being protected by tribunes of their own;they then, by the firmness of Publilius Volero and Lætorius, obtainedthe right of electing these tribunes at their own assembly, the "Comitiaof the Tribes. " Finally the great consul Spurius Cassius endeavored torelieve the commonalty by an agrarian law, so as to better theircondition permanently. 

The execution of the Agrarian law was constantly evaded. But on theconquest of Antium from the Volscians, in the year B. C. 468, a colonywas sent thither, and this was one of the first examples of adistribution of public land to poorer citizens; which answered twopurposes--the improvement of their condition, and the defence of theplace against the enemy. 

Nor did the tribunes, now made altogether independent of the patricians, fail to assert their power. One of the first persons who felt the forceof their arm was the second Appius Claudius. This Sabine noble, following his father's example, had, after the departure of the Fabii, led the opposition to the Publilian law. When he took the field againstthe Volscians, his soldiers would not fight, and the stern commander putto death every tenth man in his legions. For the acts of his consulshiphe was brought to trial by the tribunes M. Duillius and C. Sicinius. Seeing that conviction was certain, the proud patrician avoidedhumiliation by suicide. 

Nevertheless the border wars still continued, and the plebeians sufferedmuch. To the evils of debt and want were added about this time thehorrors of pestilential disease, which visited the Roman territoryseveral times at that period. In one year (B. C. 464) the two consuls, two of the four augurs, and the curio Maximus, who was the head of allthe patricians, were swept off--a fact which implies the death of a vastnumber of less distinguished persons. The government was administered bythe plebeian aediles, under the control of senatorial interreges. TheVolscians and Aequians ravaged the country up to the walls of Rome; andthe safety of the city must be attributed to the Latins and Hernici, notto the men of Rome. 

Meantime the tribunes had in vain demanded a full execution of theAgrarian law. But in the year B. C. 462, one of the Sacred College, byname C. Terentilius Harsa, came forward with a bill, the object of whichwas to give the plebeians a surer footing in the state. This manperceived that as long as the consuls retained their almost despoticpower, and were elected by the influence of the patricians, this orderhad it in its power to thwart all measures, even after they were passed, which tended to advance the interests of the plebeians. He therefore nolonger demanded the execution of the Agrarian law, but proposed that acommission of ten men (_decemviri_) should be appointed to draw upconstitutional laws for regulating the future relations of thepatricians and plebeians. 

The Reform Bill of Terentilius was, as might be supposed, vehementlyresisted by the patrician burgesses. But the plebeians supported theirchampion no less warmly. For five consecutive years the same tribuneswere reelected and in vain endeavored to carry the bill. This was thetime which least fulfils the character which we have claimed for theRoman people--patience and temperance, combined with firmness in theirdemands. To prevent the tribunes from carrying their law, the youngerpatricians thronged to the assemblies and interfered with allproceedings; Terentilius, they said, was endeavoring to confound alldistinction between the orders. Some scenes occurred which seem to showthat both sides were prepared for civil war. 

In the year B. C. 460 the city was alarmed by hearing that the Capitolhad been seized by a band of Sabines and exiled Romans, under thecommand of one Herdonius. Who these exiles were is uncertain. But weknow, by the legend of Cincinnatus, that Cæso Quinctius, the son of thatold hero, was an exile. It has been inferred, therefore, that he wasamong them, that the tribunes had succeeded in banishing from the citythe most violent of their opponents, and that these persons had notscrupled to associate themselves with Sabines to recover their homes. The consul Valerius, aided by the Latins of Tusculum, levied an army toattack the insurgents, on condition that after success the law should befully considered. The exiles were driven out and Herdonius was killed. But the consul fell in the assault, and the patricians, led by oldCincinnatus, refused to fulfil his promises. 

Then followed the danger of the Æquian invasion, to which the legend ofCincinnatus, as given above, refers. The stern old man used hisdictatorial power quite as much to crush the tribunes at home as toconquer the enemies abroad. 

One of the historians tells us that in this period of seditious violencemany of the leading plebeians were assassinated (as the tribune Genuciushad been), and to this time only can be attributed the horrible story, mentioned by more than one writer, that nine tribunes were burned aliveat the instance of their colleague Mucius. Society was utterlydisorganized. The two orders were on the brink of civil war. It seemedas if Rome was to become the city of discord, not of law. Happily, therewere moderate men in both orders. Now, as at the time of the secession, their voices prevailed, and a compromise was arranged. 

In the eighth year after the first promulgation of the Terentilian law, this compromise was made (B. C. 454). The law itself was no longerpressed by the tribunes. The patricians, on the other hand, so far gaveway as to allow three men (_triumviri_) to be appointed, who were totravel into Greece, and bring back a copy of the laws of Solon, as wellas the laws and institutes of any other Greek states which they mightdeem good and useful. These were to be the groundwork of a new code oflaws, such as should give fair and equal rights to both orders andrestrain the arbitrary power of the patrician magistrates. 

Another concession made by the patrician lords was a small installment ofthe Agrarian law. L. Icilius, tribune of the plebs, proposed that allthe Aventine hill, being public land, should be made over to the plebs, to be their quarter forever, as the other hills were occupied by thepatricians and their clients. This hill, it will be remembered, wasconsecrated to the goddess Diana (Jana), and though included in thewalls of Servius, was yet not within the sacred limits (_pomoerium_) ofthe patrician city. After some opposition the patricians suffered thisIcilian law to pass, in hopes of soothing the anger of the plebeians. The land was parcelled out into building-sites. But as there was notenough to give a separate plot to every plebeian householder that wishedto live in the city, one allotment was assigned to several persons, whobuilt a joint house _flats_ or stories, each of which was inhabited--asin Edinburgh and in most foreign towns--by a separate family. 

The three men who had been sent into Greece returned in the third year(B. C. 452). They found the city free from domestic strife, partly fromthe concessions already made, partly from expectation of what was now tofollow, and partly from the effect of a pestilence which had broken outanew. 

So far did moderate counsels now prevail among the patricians, thatafter some little delay they agreed to suspend the ordinary governmentby the consuls and other officers, and in their stead to appoint acouncil of ten, who were, during their existence, to be intrusted withall the functions of government. But they were to have a double duty:they were not only an administrative, but also a legislative council. Onthe one hand, they were to conduct the government, administer justice, and command the armies. On the other, they were to draw up a code oflaws by which equal justice was to be dealt out to the whole Romanpeople, to patricians and plebeians alike, and by which especially theauthority to be exercised by the consuls, or chief magistrates, was tobe clearly determined and settled. 

This supreme council of ten, or decemvirs, was first appointed in theyear B. C. 450. They were all patricians. At their head stood AppiusClaudius and T. Genucius, who had already been chosen consuls for thismemorable year. This Appius Claudius (the third of his name) was son andgrandson of those two patrician chiefs who had opposed the leaders ofthe plebeians so vehemently in the matter of the tribunate. But heaffected a different conduct from his sires. He was the most popular manof the whole council, and became in fact the sovereign of Rome. At firsthe used his great power well, and the first year's government of thedecemvirs was famed for justice and moderation. 

They also applied themselves diligently to their great work oflaw-making, and before the end of the year had drawn up a code of tentables, which were posted in the Forum, that all citizens might examinethem and suggest amendments to the decemvirs. After due time thus spent, the ten tables were confirmed and made law at the Comitia of theCenturies. By this code equal justice was to be administered to bothorders without distinction of persons. 

At the close of the year the first decemvirs laid down their office, just as the consuls and other officers of state had been accustomed todo before. They were succeeded by a second set of ten, who, for the nextyear at least, were to conduct the government like their predecessors. The only one of the old decemvirs reelected was Appius Claudius. Thepatricians, indeed, endeavored to prevent even this, and to this end hewas himself appointed to preside at the new elections; for it was heldimpossible for a chief magistrate to return his own name, when he washimself presiding. But Appius scorned precedents. He returned himself aselected, together with nine others, men of no name, while two of thegreat Quinctian gens, who offered themselves, were rejected. 

Of the new decemvirs, it is certain that three--and it is probable thatfive--were plebeians. Appius, with the plebeian Oppius, held thejudicial office, and remained in the city; and these two seem to havebeen regarded as the chiefs. The other six commanded the armies anddischarged the duties previously assigned to the quæstors and ædiles. 

The first decemvirs had earned the respect and esteem of theirfellow-citizens. The new Council of Ten deserved the hatred which hasever since cloven to their name. Appius now threw off the mask which hehad so long worn, and assumed his natural character--the same as haddistinguished his sire and grandsire, of unhappy memory. He became anabsolute despot. His brethren in the council offered no hinderance tohis will; even the plebeian decemvirs, bribed by power, fell into hisway of action and supported his tyranny. They each had twelve lictors, who carried fasces with the axes in them the symbol of absolute power, as in the times of the kings; so that it was said, "Rome had now twelveTarquins instead of one, and one hundred and twenty armed lictorsinstead of twelve!" All freedom of speech ceased. The senate was seldomcalled together. The leading men, patricians and plebeians, left thecity. The outward aspect of things was that of perfect calm and peace, but an opportunity only was wanting for the discontent which wassmouldering in all men's hearts to break out and show itself. 

By the end of the year the decemvirs had added two more tables to thecode, so that there were now twelve tables. But these two last were of amost oppressive and arbitrary kind, devoted chiefly to restore theancient privileges of the patrician caste. Of these tables, it should beobserved that they were made laws not by the vote of the people, but bythe simple edict of the decemvirs. 

It was, no doubt, expected that the second decemvirs also would haveheld _comitia_ for the election of successors. But Appius and hiscolleagues showed no such intention, and when the year came to a closethey continued to hold office as if they had been reelected. So firmlydid their power seem to be established that we hear of no endeavor beingmade to induce them to resign. 

In the course of this next year (B. C. 449), the border wars wererenewed. On the north the Sabines, and the Æquians on the northeast, invaded the Roman country at the same time. The latter penetrated as faras Mount Algidus, as in B. C. 458, when they were routed by oldCincinnatus. The decemvirs probably, like the patrician burgesses informer times, regarded these inroads not without satisfaction; for theyturned away the mind of the people from their sufferings at home. Yetfrom these very wars sprung the events which overturned their power anddestroyed themselves. 

Two armies were levied, one to check the Sabines, the other to opposethe Æquians, and these were commanded by the six military decemvirs. Appius and Oppius remained to administer affairs at home. But there wasno spirit in the armies. Both were defeated; and that which was opposedto the Æquians was compelled to take refuge within the walls ofTusculum. 

Then followed two events which were preserved in well-known legends, andwhich give the popular narrative of the manner in which the power of thedecemvirs was at last overthrown. 

LEGEND OF SICCIUS DENTATUS

In the army sent against the Sabines, Siccius Dentatus was known as thebravest man. He was then serving as a centurion; he had fought in onehundred and twenty battles; he had slain eight champions in singlecombat; had saved the lives of fourteen citizens; had received fortywounds, all in front; had followed in nine triumphal processions, andhad won crowns and decorations without number. This gallant veteran hadtaken an active part in the civil contests between the two orders, andwas now suspected, by the decemvirs commanding the Sabine army, ofplotting against them. Accordingly they determined to get rid of him;and for this end they sent him out as if to reconnoitre, with a party ofsoldiers, who were secretly instructed to murder him. Having discoveredtheir design, he set his back against a rock and resolved to sell hislife dearly. More than one of his assailants fell and the rest stood atbay around him, not venturing to come within sword's length, when onewretch climbed up the rock behind and crushed the brave old man with amassive stone. But the manner of his death could not be hidden from thearmy, and the generals only prevented an outbreak by honoring him with amagnificent funeral. 

Such was the state of things in the Sabine army. 

LEGEND OF VIRGINIA[23]

[Footnote 23: Dionysius is the authority for this legend. ]

The other army had a still grosser outrage to complain of. In this therewas a notable centurion, Virginius by name. His daughter Virginia, justripening into womanhood, beautiful as the day, was betrothed to L. Icilius, the tribune who had carried the law for allotting the Aventinehill to the plebeians. Appius Claudius, the decemvir, saw her and lustedto make her his own. And with this intent he ordered one of his clients, M. Claudius by name, to lay hands upon her as she was going to herschool in the Forum, and to claim her as his slave. The man did so; andwhen the cries of her nurse brought a crowd round them, M. Claudiusinsisted on taking her before the decemvir, in order, as he said, tohave the case fairly tried. Her friends consented; and no sooner hadAppius heard the matter than he gave judgment that the maiden should bedelivered up to the claimant, who should be bound to produce her in caseher alleged father appeared to gainsay the claim. Now this judgment wasdirectly against one of the laws of the twelve tables, which Appiushimself had framed; for therein it was provided that any person being atfreedom should continue free till it was proved that such person was aslave. Icilius, therefore, with Numitorius, the uncle of the maiden, boldly argued against the legality of the judgment, and at lengthAppius, fearing a tumult, agreed to leave the girl in their hands oncondition of their giving bail to bring her before him next morning; andthen, if Virginius did not appear, he would at once, he said, give herup to her pretended master. To this Icilius consented, but he delayedgiving bail, pretending that he could not procure it readily; and in themean time he sent off a secret message to the camp on Algidus, to informVirginius of what had happened. As soon as the bail was given, Appiusalso sent a message to the decemvirs in command of that army, orderingthem to refuse leave of absence to Virginius. But when this last messagearrived, Virginius was already halfway on his road to Rome; for thedistance was not more than twenty miles, and he had started atnightfall. 

Next morning, early, Virginius entered the Forum, leading his daughterby the hand, both clad in mean attire. A great number of friends andmatrons attended him, and he went about among the people entreating themto support him against the tyranny of Appius. So when Appius came totake his place on the judgment seat he found the Forum full of people, all friendly to Virginius and his cause. But he inherited the boldnessas well as the vices of his sires, and though he saw Virginius standingthere ready to prove that he was the maiden's father, he at once gavejudgment, against his own law, that Virginia should be given up to M. Claudius till it should be proved that she was free. The wretch came upto seize her, and the lictors kept the people from him. Virginius, nowdespairing of deliverance, begged Appius to allow him to ask the maidenwhether she were indeed his daughter or not. "If, " said he, "I find I amnot her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter. " Under this pretencehe drew her aside to a spot upon the northern side of the Forum, afterward called the "_Nova Tabernce_" and here, snatching up a knifefrom a butcher's stall, he cried: "In this way only can I keep theefree!"--and so saying, stabbed her to the heart. Then he turned to thetribunal and said, "On thee, Appius, and on thy head be this blood!"Appius cried out to seize "the murderer, " but the crowd made way forVirginius, and he passed through them holding up the bloody knife, andwent out at the gate and made straight for the army. There, when thesoldiers had heard his tale, they at once abandoned their decemviralgenerals and marched to Rome. They were soon followed by the other armyfrom the Sabine frontier; for to them Icilius had gone, and Numitorius;and they found willing ears among men who were already enraged by themurder of old Siccius Dentatus. So the two armies joined their banners, elected new generals, and encamped upon the Aventine hill, the quarterof the plebeians. 

Meantime the people at home had risen against Appius, and after drivinghim from the Forum they joined their armed fellow-citizens upon theAventine. There the whole body of the commons, armed and unarmed, hunglike a dark cloud ready to burst upon the city. 

Whatever may be the truth of the legends of Siccius and Virginia, therecan be no doubt that the conduct of the decemvirs had brought matters tothe verge of civil war. At this juncture the senate met, and themoderate party so far prevailed as to send their own leaders, M. Horatius Barbatus and L. Valerius Potitus, to negotiate with theinsurgents. The plebeians were ready to listen to the voices of thesemen; for they remembered that the consuls of the first year of theRepublic, when the patrician burgesses were friends to the plebeians, were named Valerius and Horatius; and so they appointed M. Duillius, aformer tribune, to be their spokesman. But no good came of it; andDuillius persuaded the plebeians to leave the city, and once more tooccupy the Sacred Mount. 

Then remembrances of the great secession came back upon the minds of thepatricians, and the senate, observing the calm and resolute bearing ofthe plebeian leaders, compelled the decemvirs to resign, and sent backValerius and Horatius to negotiate anew. 

The leaders of the plebeians demanded: First, that the tribuneshipshould be restored, and the _Comitia Tributa_ recognized; secondly, thata right of appeal to the people against the power of the suprememagistrate should be secured; thirdly, that full indemnity should begranted to the movers and promoters of the late secession; fourthly, that the decemvirs should be burnt alive. 

Of these demands the deputies of the senate agreed to the three first;but the fourth, they said, was unworthy of a free people; it was a pieceof tyranny, as bad as any of the worst acts of the late government; andit was needless, because anyone who had reason of complaint against thelate decemvirs might proceed against them according to law. Theplebeians listened to these words of wisdom, and withdrew their savagedemand. The other three were confirmed by the fathers, and the plebeiansreturned to their quarters on the Aventine. Here they held an assemblyaccording to their tribes, in which the pontifex Maximus presided; andthey now, for the first time, elected ten tribunes--first Virginius, Numitorius, and Icilius, then Duillius and six others: so full weretheir minds of the wrong done to the daughter of Virginius; so entirelywas it the blood of young Virginia that overthrew the decemvirs, even asthat of Lucretia had driven out the Tarquins. 

The plebeians had now returned to the city, headed by their tentribunes, a number which was never again altered so long as thetribunate continued in existence. It remained for the patricians toredeem the pledges given by their agents Valerius and Horatius on theother demands of the plebeian leaders. 

The first thing to settle was the election of the supreme magistrates. The decemvirs had fallen, and the state was without any executivegovernment. 

It has been supposed, as we have said above, that the government of thedecemvirs was intended to be perpetual. The patricians gave up theirconsuls, and the plebeians their tribunes, on condition that each orderwas to be admitted to an equal share in the new decemviral college. Butthe tribunes were now restored in augmented number, and it was butnatural that the patricians should insist on again occupying all placesin the supreme magistracy. By common consent, as it would seem, theComitia of the Centuries met and elected to the consulate the twopatricians who had shown themselves the friends of both orders: L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus. Thus ended the government ofthe decemvirate. 

PERICLES RULES IN ATHENS

B. C. 444

PLUTARCH

(Under the sway of Pericles many changes occurred in the civil affairsof Athens affecting the constitution of the state and the character andadministration of its laws. Events of magnitude marked the struggles ofthe Athenians with other powers. The development of art and learning wascarried to an unprecedented height, and the Age of Pericles is the mostillustrious in ancient history. 

Pericles began his career by opposing the aristocratic party of Athens, led by Cimon. In this policy he was aided by complications arising withSparta and Argos. Directing his attack particularly against theAreopagus, he succeeded in greatly modifying the composition of thatbody and diminishing its powers. The exile of Cimon, the strengtheningof Athens by new alliances, and the vigorous prosecution of wars againstPersia and Corinth combined to establish his supremacy, which was stillfurther confirmed by the building of the long walls connecting Athenswith the sea, and by the acquisition of neighboring territory. 

A favorable convention was concluded with Persia, Athens resumed a stateof general peace, and Pericles found himself at the head of a powerfulempire formed out of a confederacy previously existing. The strength ofthis empire was indeed soon impaired by ill-judged military movements, against the advice of Pericles himself, but during six years of peacewhich followed he succeeded in perfecting a state whose preeminence inintellectual, political, and artistic development has had no rival. 

In the later wars of Athens the renown of Pericles was still furtherenhanced; but his chief glory arose from the architectural adornment ofthe city, and especially from the building of the Parthenon and thesplendid decoration of the Acropolis; while his work of judicial reformremains an added monument to his fame, and among the masters ofeloquence his orations preserve for him a foremost place. )

Pericles was of the tribe Acamantis, and of the township of Cholargos, and was descended from the noblest families in Athens, on both hisfather's and mother's side. His father, Xanthippus, defeated the Persiangenerals at Mycale, while his mother, Agariste, was a descendant ofClisthenes, who drove the sons of Pisistratus out of Athens, put an endto their despotic rule, and established a new constitution admirablycalculated to reconcile all parties and save the country. She dreamedthat she had brought forth a lion, and a few days afterward wasdelivered of Pericles. His body was symmetrical, but his head was long, out of all proportion; for which reason, in nearly all his statues he isrepresented wearing a helmet, as the sculptors did not wish, I suppose, to reproach him with this blemish. The Attic poets called himsquill-head, and the comic poet Cratinus, in his play _Chirones_, says;

 "From Chronos old and faction Is sprung a tyrant dread, And all Olympus calls him The man-compelling head. "

And again in the play of _Nemesis_:

 "Come, hospitable Zeus, with lofty head. "

Teleclides, too, speaks of him as sitting

 "Bowed down With a dreadful frown, Because matters of state have gone wrong, Until at last, From his head so vast, His ideas burst forth in a throng. "

And Eupolis, in his play of _Demoi_, asking questions about each of thegreat orators as they come up from the other world one after the other, when at last Pericles ascends, says:

 "The great headpiece of those below. "

Most writers tell us that his tutor in music was Damon, whose name theysay should be pronounced with the first syllable short. Aristotle, however, says that he studied under Pythoclides. This Damon, it seems, was a sophist of the highest order, who used the name of music toconceal this accomplishment from the world, but who really trainedPericles for his political contests just as a trainer prepares anathlete for the games. However, Damon's use of music as a pretext didnot impose upon the Athenians, who banished him by ostracism, as abusybody and lover of despotism. 

Pericles greatly admired Anaxagoras, and became deeply interested ingrand speculations, which gave him a haughty spirit and a lofty style oforatory far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, and also animperturbable gravity of countenance and a calmness of demeanor andappearance which no incident could disturb as he was speaking, while thetone of his voice never showed that he heeded any interruption. Theseadvantages greatly impressed the people. The poet Ion, however, saysthat Pericles was overbearing and insolent in conversation, and that hispride had in it a great deal of contempt for others, while he praisesCimon's civil, sensible, and polished address. But we may disregard Ionas a mere dramatic poet who always sees in great men something uponwhich to exercise his satiric vein; whereas Zeno used to invite thosewho called the haughtiness of Pericles a mere courting of popularity andaffectation of grandeur, to court popularity themselves in the samefashion, since the acting of such a part might insensibly mould theirdispositions until they resembled that of their model. 

Pericles when young greatly feared the people. He had a certain personallikeness to the despot Pisistratus; and as his own voice was sweet, andhe was ready and fluent in speech, old men who had known Pisistratuswere struck by his resemblance to him. He was also rich, of noble birth, and had powerful friends, so that he feared he might be banished byostracism, and consequently held aloof from politics, but proved himselfa brave and daring soldier in the wars. But when Aristides was dead, Themistocles banished, and Cimon generally absent on distant campaigns, Pericles engaged in public affairs, taking the popular side, that of thepoor and many, against that of the rich and few; quite contrary to hisown feelings, which were entirely aristocratic. He feared, it seems, that he might be suspected of a design to make himself despot, andseeing that Cimon took the side of the nobility, and was much beloved bythem, he betook himself to the people, as a means of obtaining safetyfor himself, and a strong party to combat that of Cimon. He immediatelyaltered his mode of life; was never seen in any street except that whichled to the market-place and the national assembly, and declined allinvitations to dinner and such like social gatherings. But Periclesfeared to make himself too common even with the people, and onlyaddressed them after long intervals; not speaking upon every subject, and not constantly addressing them, but, as Critolaus says, keepinghimself like the Salaminian trireme for great crises, and allowing hisfriends and the other orators to manage matters of less moment. 

Wishing to adopt a style of speaking consonant with his haughty mannerand lofty spirit, Pericles made free use of the instrument whichAnaxagoras, as it were, put into his hand, and often tinged his oratorywith natural philosophy. He far surpassed all others by using this"lofty intelligence and power of universal consummation, " as the divinePlato calls it; in addition to his natural advantages, adorning hisoratory with apt illustrations drawn from physical science. For thisreason some think that he was nicknamed the Olympian; though some referthis to his improvement of the city by new and beautiful buildings, andothers from his power both as a politician and a general. It is not byany means unlikely that these causes all combined to produce the name. 

Pericles was very cautious about his words, and, whenever he ascendedthe tribune to speak, used first to pray to the gods that nothingunfitted for the present occasion might fall from his lips. He left nowritings, except the measures which he brought forward, and very few ofhis sayings are recorded. 

Thucydides represents the constitution under Pericles as a democracy inname, but really an aristocracy, because the government was all in thehands of one leading citizen. But as many other writers tell us that, during his administration, the people received grants of land abroad, and were indulged with dramatic entertainments, and payments for theirservices, in consequence of which they fell into bad habits, and becameextravagant and licentious, instead of sober hard-working people as theyhad been before, let us consider the history of this change, viewing itby the light of the facts themselves. First of all, Pericles had tomeasure himself with Cimon, and to transfer the affections of the peoplefrom Cimon to himself. As he was not so rich a man as Cimon, who usedfrom his own ample means to give a dinner daily to any poor Athenian whorequired it, clothe aged persons, and take away the fences round hisproperty, so that anyone might gather the fruit, Pericles, unable to viewith him in this, turned his attention to a distribution of the publicfunds among the people, at the suggestion, we are told by Aristotle, ofDamonides of Oia. By the money paid for public spectacles, for citizensacting as jurymen, and other paid offices, and largesses, he soon wonover the people to his side, so that he was able to use them in hisattack upon the senate of the Areopagus, of which he himself was not amember, never having been chosen _archon_, or _thesmothete_, or _kingarchon_, or _polemarch_. These offices had from ancient times beenobtained by lot, and it was only through them that those who hadapproved themselves in the discharge of them were advanced to theAreopagus. For this reason it was that Pericles, when he gained strengthwith the populace, destroyed this senate, making Ephialtes bring forwarda bill which restricted its judicial powers, while he himself succeededin getting Cimon banished by ostracism, as a friend of Sparta and ahater of the people, although he was second to no Athenian in birth orfortune, and won most brilliant victories over the Persians, and hadfilled Athens with plunder and spoils of war. So great was the power ofPericles with the common people. 

One of the provisions of ostracism was that the person banished shouldremain in exile for ten years. But during this period the Lacedæmonianswith a great force invaded the territory of Tanagra, and, as theAthenians at once marched out to attack them, Cimon came back fromexile, took his place in full armor among the ranks of his own tribe, and hoped by distinguishing himself in the battle among hisfellow-citizens to prove the falsehood of the Laconian sympathies withwhich he had been charged. However, the friends of Pericles drove himaway, as an exile. On the other hand, Pericles fought more bravely inthat battle than he had ever fought before, and surpassed everyone inreckless daring. The friends of Cimon also, whom Pericles had accused ofLaconian leanings, fell, all together, in their ranks; and the Atheniansfelt great sorrow for their treatment of Cimon, and a great longing forhis restoration, now that they had lost a great battle on the frontier, and expected to be hard pressed during the summer by the Lacedaemonians. Pericles, perceiving this, lost no time in gratifying the popular wish, but himself proposed the decree for his recall; and Cimon on his returnreconciled the two states, for he was on familiar terms with theSpartans, who were hated by Pericles and the other leaders of the commonpeople. Some say that, before Cimon's recall by Pericles, a secretcompact was made with him by Elpinice, Cimon's sister, that Cimon was toproceed on foreign service against the Persians with a fleet of twohundred ships, while Pericles was to retain his power in the city. It isalso said that, when Cimon was being tried for his life, Elpinicesoftened the resentment of Pericles, who was one of those appointed toimpeach him. When Elpinice came to beg her brother's life of him, heanswered with a smile, "Elpinice, you are too old to meddle in affairsof this sort. " But, for all that, he spoke only once, for form's sake, and pressed Cimon less than any of his other prosecutors. How, then, canone put any faith in Idomeneus, when he accuses Pericles of procuringthe assassination of his friend and colleague Ephialtes, because he wasjealous of his reputation? This seems an ignoble calumny which Idomeneushas drawn from some obscure source to fling at a man who, no doubt, wasnot faultless, but of a generous spirit and noble mind, incapable ofentertaining so savage and brutal a design. Ephialtes was disliked andfeared by the nobles, and was inexorable in punishing those who wrongedthe people; wherefore his enemies had him assassinated by means ofAristodicus of Tanagra. This we are told by Aristotle. Cimon died inCyprus while in command of the Athenian forces. 

The nobles now perceived that Pericles was the most important man in thestate, and far more powerful than any other citizen; wherefore, as theystill hoped to check his authority, and not allow him to be omnipotent, they set up Thucydides, of the township of Alopecae, as his rival, a manof good sense and a relative of Cimon, but less of a warrior and more ofa politician, who, by watching his opportunities, and opposing Periclesin debate, soon brought about a balance of power. He did not allow thenobles to mix themselves up with the people in the public assembly asthey had been wont to do, so that their dignity was lost among themasses; but he collected them into a separate body, and by thusconcentrating their strength was able to use it to counterbalance thatof the other party. From the beginning these two factions had been butimperfectly welded together, because their tendencies were different;but now the struggle for power between Pericles and Thucydides drew asharp line of demarcation between them, and one was called the party ofthe Many, the other that of the Few. Pericles now courted the people inevery way, constantly arranging public spectacles, festivals, andprocessions in the city, by which he educated the Athenians to takepleasure in refined amusements; and also he sent out sixty triremes tocruise every year, in which many of the people served for hire for eightmonths, learning and practising seamanship. Besides this he sent athousand settlers to the Chersonese, five hundred to Naxos, half as manyto Andros, a thousand to dwell among the Thracian tribe of the Bisaltae, and others to the new colony in Italy founded by the city of Sybaris, which was named Thurii. By this means he relieved the state of numerousidle agitators, assisted the necessitous, and overawed the allies ofAthens by placing his colonists near them to watch their behavior. 

The building of the temples, by which Athens was adorned, the peopledelighted, and the rest of the world astonished, and which now aloneprove that the tales of the ancient power and glory of Greece are nofables, was what particularly excited the spleen of the oppositefaction, who inveighed against him in the public assembly, declaringthat the Athenians had disgraced themselves by transferring the commontreasury of the Greeks from the island of Delos to their own custody. "Pericles himself, " they urged, "has taken away the only possible excusefor such an act--the fear that it might be exposed to the attacks of thePersians when at Delos, whereas it would be safe at Athens. Greece hasbeen outraged, and feels itself openly tyrannized over, when it sees ususing the funds--which we extorted from it for the war against thePersians--for gilding and beautifying our city as if it were a vainwoman, and adorning it with precious marbles and statues and templesworth a thousand talents. " To this Pericles replied that the allies hadno right to consider how their money was spent, so long as Athensdefended them from the Persians; while they supplied neither horses, ships, nor men, but merely money, which the Athenians had a right tospend as they pleased, provided they afforded them that security whichit purchased. It was right, he argued, that after the city had providedall that was necessary for war, it should devote its surplus money tothe erection of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages, while these works would create plenty by leaving no man unemployed, andencouraging all sorts of handicraft, so that nearly the whole city wouldearn wages, and thus derive both its beauty and its profit from itself. For those who were in the flower of their age, military service offereda means of earning money from the common stock; while, as he did notwish the mechanics and lower classes to be without their share, nor yetto see them receive it without doing work for it, he had laid thefoundations of great edifices which would require industries of everykind to complete them; and he had done this in the interests of thelower classes, who thus, although they remained at home, would have justas good a claim to their share of the public funds as those who wereserving at sea, in garrison, or in the field. The different materialsused, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress-wood, and soforth, would require special artisans for each, such as carpenters, modelers, smiths, stone-masons, dyers, melters and moulders of gold, and ivory painters, embroiderers, workers in relief; and also men tobring them to the city, such as sailors and captains of ships and pilotsfor such as came by sea; and, for those who came by land, carriagebuilders, horse breeders, drivers, ropemakers, linen manufacturers, shoemakers, road menders, and miners. Each trade, moreover, employed anumber of unskilled laborers, so that, in a word, there would be workfor persons of every age and every class, and general prosperity wouldbe the result. 

These buildings were of immense size, and unequalled in beauty andgrace, as the workmen endeavored to make the execution surpass thedesign in beauty; but what was most remarkable was the speed with whichthey were built. All these edifices, each of which one would havethought it would have taken many generations to complete, were allfinished during the most brilliant period of one man's administration. In beauty each of them at once appeared venerable as soon as it wasbuilt; but even at the present day the work looks as fresh as ever, forthey bloom with an eternal freshness which defies time, and seems tomake the work instinct with an unfading spirit of youth. 

The overseer and manager of the whole was Phidias, although there wereother excellent architects and workmen, such as Callicrates and Ictinus, who built the Parthenon on the site of the old Hecatompedon, which hadbeen destroyed by the Persians, and Coroebus, who began to build theTemple of Initiation at Eleusis, but who only lived to see the columnserected and the architraves placed upon them. On his death, Metagenes, of Xypete, added the frieze and the upper row of columns, and Xenocles, of Cholargos, crowned it with the domed roof over the shrine. As to thelong wall, about which Socrates says that he heard Pericles bringforward a motion, Callicrates undertook to build it. The Odeum, whichinternally consisted of many rows of seats and many columns, andexternally of a roof sloping on all sides from a central point, was saidto have been built in imitation of the king of Persia's tent, and wasbuilt under Pericles' direction. 

The Propylaea, before the Acropolis, were finished in five years byMnesicles the architect; and a miraculous incident during the workseemed to show that the goddess did not disapprove, but ratherencouraged and assisted the building. The most energetic and active ofthe workmen fell from a great height, and lay in a dangerous condition, given over by his doctors. Pericles grieved much for him; but thegoddess appeared to him in a dream, and suggested a course of treatmentby which Pericles quickly healed the workman. In consequence of this, heset up the brazen statue of Athene the Healer, near the old altar in theAcropolis. The golden statue of the goddess was made by Phidias, and hisname appears upon the basement in the inscription. Almost everything wasin his hands, and he gave his orders to all the workmen--as has beensaid before--because of his friendship with Pericles. 

When the speakers of Thucydides' party complained that Pericles hadwasted the public money, and destroyed the revenue, he asked the peoplein the assembly whether they thought he had spent much. When theyanswered, "Very much indeed, " he said in reply; "Do not, then, put itdown to the public account, but to mine; and I will inscribe my nameupon all the public buildings. " When Pericles said this, the people, either in admiration of his magnificence of manner, or being eager tobear their share in the glory of the new buildings, shouted to him withone accord to take what money he pleased from the treasury, and spend itas he pleased, without stint. And finally, he underwent the trial ofostracism with Thucydides, and not only succeeded in driving him intoexile, but broke up his party. 

As now there was no opposition to encounter in the city, and all partieshad been blended into one, Pericles undertook the sole administration ofthe home and foreign affairs of Athens, dealing with the public revenue, the army, the navy, the islands and maritime affairs, and the greatsources of strength which Athens derived from her alliances, as wellwith Greek as with foreign princes and states. Henceforth he becamequite a different man: he no longer gave way to the people, and ceasedto watch the breath of popular favor; but he changed the loose andlicentious democracy which had hitherto existed, into a stricteraristocratic, or rather monarchical, form of government. This he usedhonorably and unswervingly for the public benefit, finding the people, as a rule, willing to second the measures which he explained to them tobe necessary and to which he asked their consent, but occasionallyhaving to use violence, and to force them, much against their will, todo what was expedient; like a physician dealing with some complicateddisorder, who at one time allows his patient innocent recreation, and atanother inflicts upon him sharp pains and bitter though salutarydraughts. Every possible kind of disorder was to be found among a peoplepossessing so great an empire as the Athenians, and he alone was able tobring them into harmony by playing alternately upon their hopes andfears, checking them when overconfident, and raising their spirits whenthey were cast down and disheartened. Thus, as Plato says, he was ableto prove that oratory is the art of influencing men's minds, and to useit in its highest application, when it deals with men's passions andcharacters, which, like certain strings of a musical instrument, requirea skilful and delicate touch. The secret of his power is to be found, however, as Thucydides says, not so much in his mere oratory as in hispure and blameless life, because he was so well known to beincorruptible, and indifferent to money; for though he made the city, which was a great one, into the greatest and richest city of Greece, andthough he himself became more powerful than many independent sovereigns, who were able to leave their kingdoms to their sons, yet Pericles didnot increase by one single drachma the estate which he received from hisfather. For forty years he held the first place among such men asEphialtes, Leocrates, Myronides, Cimon, Tolmides, and Thucydides; and, after the fall and banishment of Thucydides by ostracism, he united inhimself for five-and-twenty years all the various offices of state, which were supposed to last only for one year; and yet during the wholeof that period proved himself incorruptible by bribes. 

As the Lacedaemonians began to be jealous of the prosperity of theAthenians, Pericles, wishing to raise the spirit of the people and tomake them feel capable of immense operations, passed a decree, invitingall the Greeks, whether inhabiting Europe or Asia, whether living inlarge cities or small ones, to send representatives to a meeting atAthens to deliberate about the restoration of the Greek temples whichhad been burned by the barbarians, about the sacrifices which were duein consequence of the vows which they had made to the gods on behalf ofGreece before joining battle, and about the sea, that all men might beable to sail upon it in peace and without fear. To carry out this decreetwenty men, selected from the citizens over fifty years of age, weresent out, five of whom invited the Ionian and Dorian Greeks in Asia andthe islands as far as Lesbos and Rhodes, five went to the inhabitants ofthe Hellespont and Thrace as far as Byzantium, and five more proceededto Boeotia, Phocis, and Peloponnesus, passing from thence through Locristo the neighboring continent as far as Acarnania and Ambracia; while theremainder journeyed through Euboea to the Oetaeans and the Malian Gulf, and to the Achaeans of Phthia and the Thessalians, urging them to jointhe assembly and take part in the deliberations concerning the peace andwell-being of Greece. However, nothing was effected, and the citiesnever assembled, in consequence it is said of the covert hostility ofthe Lacedaemonians, and because the attempt was first made inPeloponnesus and failed there: yet I have inserted an account of it inorder to show the lofty spirit and the magnificent designs of Pericles. 

In his campaigns he was chiefly remarkable for caution, for he wouldnot, if he could help it, begin a battle of which the issue wasdoubtful; nor did he wish to emulate those generals who have wonthemselves a great reputation by running risks and trusting to goodluck. But he ever used to say to his countrymen, that none of themshould come by their deaths through any act of his. Observing thatTolmides, the son of Tolmaeus, elated by previous successes and by thecredit which he had gained as a general, was about to invade Boeotia ina reckless manner, and had persuaded a thousand young men to follow himwithout any support whatever, he endeavored to stop him, and made thatmemorable saying in the public assembly, that if Tolmides would not takethe advice of Pericles, he would at any rate do well to consult thatbest of advisers, Time. This speech had but little success at the time;but when, a few days afterward, the news came that Tolmides had fallenin action at Coronea, and many noble citizens with him, Pericles wasgreatly respected and admired as a wise and patriotic man. 

His most successful campaign was that in the Chersonesus, which provedthe salvation of the Greeks residing there: for he not only settled athousand colonists there, and thus increased the available force of thecities, but built a continuous line of fortifications reaching acrossthe isthmus from one sea to the other, by which he shut off theThracians, who had previously ravaged the peninsula, and put an end to aconstant and harassing border warfare to which the settlers wereexposed, as they had for neighbors tribes of wild plundering barbarians. 

But that by which he obtained most glory and renown was when he startedfrom Pegae, in the Megarian territory, and sailed round the Peloponnesuswith a fleet of a hundred triremes; for he not only laid waste much ofthe country near the coast, as Tolmides had previously done, but heproceeded far inland, away from his ships, leading the troops who wereon board, and terrified the inhabitants so much that they shutthemselves up in their strongholds. The men of Sicyon alone ventured tomeet him at Nemea, and them he overthrew in a pitched battle, anderected a trophy. Next he took on board troops from the friendlydistrict of Achaia, and, crossing over to the opposite side of theCorinthian Gulf, coasted along past the mouth of the river Achelous, overran Acarnania, drove the people of Oeneadae to the shelter of theircity walls, and after ravaging the country returned home, having madehimself a terror to his enemies, and done good service to Athens; fornot the least casualty, even by accident, befell the troops under hiscommand. 

When he sailed into the Black Sea with a great and splendidly equippedfleet, he assisted the Greek cities there, and treated them withconsideration, and showed the neighboring savage tribes and their chiefsthe greatness of his force, and his confidence in his power, by sailingwhere he pleased, and taking complete control over that sea. He left atSinope thirteen ships, and a land force under the command of Lamachus, to act against Timesileon, who had made himself despot of that city. When he and his party were driven out, Pericles passed a decree that sixhundred Athenian volunteers should sail to Sinope, and become citizensthere, receiving the houses and lands which had formerly been in thepossession of the despot and his party. But in other cases he would notagree to the impulsive proposals of the Athenians, and he opposed themwhen, elated by their power and good fortune, they talked of recoveringEgypt and attacking the seaboard of the Persian empire. Many, too, wereinflamed with that ill-starred notion of an attempt on Sicily, which wasafterward blown into a flame by Alcibiades and other orators. Some evendreamed of the conquest of Etruria and Carthage, in consequence of thegreatness which the Athenian empire had already reached, and the fulltide of success which seemed to attend it. 

Pericles, however, restrained these outbursts, and would not allow thepeople to meddle with foreign states, but used the power of Athenschiefly to preserve and guard her already existing empire, thinking itto be of paramount importance to oppose the Lacedaemonians, a task towhich he bent all his energies, as is proved by many of his acts, especially in connection with the Sacred War. In this war theLacedaemonians sent a force to Delphi, and made the Phocians, who heldit, give it up to the people of Delphi: but as soon as they were gonePericles made an expedition into the country, and restored the temple tothe Phocians; and as the Lacedaemonians had scratched the oracle whichthe Delphians had given them, on the forehead of the brazen wolf there, Pericles got a response from the oracle for the Athenians, and carved iton the right side of the same wolf. 

Events proved that Pericles was right in confining the Athenian empireto Greece. First of all Euboea revolted, and he was obliged to lead anarmy to subdue that island. Shortly after this, news came that theMegarians had become hostile, and that an army, under the command ofPlistoanax, king of the Lacedaemonians, was menacing the frontier ofAttica. Pericles now in all haste withdrew his troops from Euboea, tomeet the invader. He did not venture on an engagement with the numerousand warlike forces of the enemy, although repeatedly invited by them tofight: but, observing that Plistoanax was a very young man, and entirelyunder the influence of Cleandrides, whom the _ephors_ had sent to act ashis tutor and counsellor because of his tender years, he opened secretnegotiations with the latter, who at once, for a bribe, agreed towithdraw the Peloponnesians from Attica. When their army returned anddispersed, the Lacedaemonians were so incensed that they imposed a fineon their king, and condemned Cleandrides, who fled the country, to beput to death. This Cleandrides was the father of Gylippus, who causedthe ruin of the Athenian expedition in Sicily. Avarice seems to havebeen hereditary in the family, for Gylippus himself, after brilliantexploits in war, was convicted of taking bribes, and banished fromSparta in disgrace. 

When Pericles submitted the accounts of the campaign to the people, there was an item of ten talents, "for a necessary purpose, " which thepeople passed without any questioning, or any curiosity to learn thesecret. Some historians, among whom is Theophrastus the philosopher, saythat Pericles sent ten talents annually to Sparta, by means of which hebribed the chief magistrates to defer the war, thus not buying peace, but time to make preparations for a better defence. He immediatelyturned his attention to the insurgents in Euboea, and proceeding thitherwith a fleet of fifty sail, and five thousand heavy armed troops, hereduced their cities to submission. He banished from Chalcis the"equestrian order, " as it was called, consisting of men of wealth andstation; and he drove all the inhabitants of Hestiaea out of theircountry, replacing them by Athenian settlers. He treated these peoplewith this pitiless severity, because they had captured an Athenian ship, and put its crew to the sword. After this, as the Athenians andLacedaemonians made a truce for thirty years, Pericles decreed theexpedition against Samos, on the pretext that they had disregarded thecommands of the Athenians to cease from their war with the Milesians. 

Pericles is accused of going to war with Samos to save the Milesians. These states were at war about the possession of the city of Priene, andthe Samians, who were victorious, would not lay down their arms andallow the Athenians to settle the matter by arbitration, as they orderedthem to do. For this reason Pericles proceeded to Samos, put an end tothe oligarchical form of government there, and sent fifty hostages andas many children to Lemnos, to insure the good behavior of the leadingmen. It is said that each of these hostages offered him a talent for hisown freedom, and that much more was offered by that party which wasloath to see a democracy established in the city. Besides all this, Pissuthnes the Persian, who had a liking for the Samians, sent andoffered him ten thousand pieces of gold if he would spare the city. Pericles, however, took none of these bribes, but dealt with Samos as hehad previously determined, and returned to Athens. The Samians now atonce revolted, as Pissuthnes managed to get them back their hostages, and furnished them with the means of carrying on the war. Pericles nowmade a second expedition against them, and found them in no mind tosubmit quietly, but determined to dispute the empire of the seas withthe Athenians. Pericles gained a signal victory over them in a sea-fightoff the Goats' Island, beating a fleet of seventy ships with onlyforty-four, twenty of which were transports. 

Simultaneously with his victory and the flight of the enemy he obtainedcommand of the harbor of Samos, and besieged the Samians in their city. They, in spite of their defeat, still possessed courage enough to sallyout and fight a battle under the walls; but soon a larger force arrivedfrom Athens, and the Samians were completely blockaded. 

Pericles now with sixty ships sailed out of the Archipelago into theMediterranean, according to the most current report intending to meetthe Phoenician fleet which was coming to help the Samians, but, according to Stesimbrotus, with the intention of attacking Cyprus, whichseems improbable. Whatever his intention may have been, his expeditionwas a failure, for Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a man of culture, whowas then in command of the Samian forces, conceiving a contempt for thesmall force of the Athenians and the want of experience of their leadersafter Pericles' departure, persuaded his countrymen to attack them. Inthe battle the Samians proved victorious, taking many Atheniansprisoners, and destroying many of their ships. By this victory theyobtained command of the sea, and were able to supply themselves withmore warlike stores than they had possessed before. Aristotle even saysthat Pericles himself was before this beaten by Melissus in a sea-fight. The Samians branded the figure of an owl on the foreheads of theirAthenian prisoners, to revenge themselves for the branding of their ownprisoners by the Athenians with the figure of a _samaina_. This is aship having a beak turned up like a swine's snout, but with a roomyhull, so as both to carry a large cargo and sail fast. This class ofvessel is called _samaina_ because it was first built at Samos byPolycrates, the despot of that island. 

When Pericles heard of the disaster which had befallen his army, hereturned in all haste to assist them. He beat Melissus, who came out tomeet him, and, after putting the enemy to rout, at once built a wallround their city, preferring to reduce it by blockade to risking thelives of his countrymen in an assault. In the ninth month of the siegethe Samians surrendered. Pericles demolished their walls, confiscatedtheir fleet, and imposed a heavy fine upon them, some part of which waspaid at once by the Samians, who gave hostages for the payment of theremainder at fixed periods. 

Pericles, after the reduction of Samos, returned to Athens, where heburied those who had fallen in the war in a magnificent manner, and wasmuch admired for the funeral oration which, as is customary, was spokenby him over the graves of his countrymen. Ion says that his victory overthe Samians wonderfully flattered his vanity. Agamemnon, he was wont tosay, took ten years to take a barbarian city, but he in nine months hadmade himself master of the first and most powerful city in Ionia. Andthe comparison was not an unjust one, for truly the war was a very greatundertaking, and its issue quite uncertain, since, as Thucydides tellsus, the Samians came very near to wresting the empire of the sea fromthe Athenians. 

After these events, as the clouds were gathering for the Peloponnesianwar, Pericles persuaded the Athenians to send assistance to the peopleof Corcyra, who were at war with the Corinthians, and thus to attach totheir own side an island with a powerful naval force, at a moment whenthe Peloponnesians had all but declared war against them. 

When the people passed this decree, Pericles sent only ten ships underthe command of Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, as if he designed adeliberate insult; for the house of Cimon was on peculiarly friendlyterms with the Lacedaemonians. His design in sending Lacedaemonius out, against his will, and with so few ships, was that if he performednothing brilliant he might be accused, even more than he was already, ofleaning to the side of the Spartans. Indeed, by all means in his power, he always threw obstacles in the way of the advancement of Cimon'sfamily, representing that by their very names they were aliens, one sonbeing named Lacedaemonius, another Thessalus, another Elius. Moreover, the mother of all three was an Arcadian. 

Now Pericles was much reproached for sending these ten ships, which wereof little value to the Corcyreans, and gave a great handle to hisenemies to use against him, and in consequence sent a larger force afterthem to Corcyra, which arrived there after the battle. The Corinthians, enraged at this, complained in the congress of Sparta of the conduct ofthe Athenians, as did also the Megarians, who said that they wereexcluded from every market and every harbor which was in Athenian hands, contrary to the ancient rights and common privileges of the Hellenicrace. The people of Aegina also considered themselves to be oppressedand ill-treated, and secretly bemoaned their grievances in the ears ofthe Spartans, for they dared not openly bring any charges against theAthenians. At this time, too, Potidaea, a city subject to Athens, but acolony of Corinth, revolted, and its siege materially hastened theoutbreak of the war. Archidamus, indeed, the king of the Lacedaemonians, sent ambassadors to Athens, was willing to submit all disputed points toarbitration, and endeavored to moderate the excitement of his allies, sothat war probably would not have broken out if the Athenians could havebeen persuaded to rescind their decree of exclusion against theMegarians, and to come to terms with them. And, for this reason, Pericles, who was particularly opposed to this, and urged the people notto give way to the Megarians, alone bore the blame of having begun thewar. 

Pericles passed a decree for a herald to be sent to the Megarians, andthen to go on to the Lacedaemonians to complain of their conduct. Thisdecree of Pericles is worded in a candid and reasonable manner; but theherald, Anthemocritus, was thought to have met his death at the hands ofthe Megarians, and Charinus passed a decree to the effect that Athensshould wage war against them to the death, without truce or armistice;that any Megarian found in Attica should be punished with death, andthat the generals, when taking the usual oath for each year, shouldswear in addition that they would invade the Megarian territory twiceevery year; and that Anthemocritus should be buried near the city gateleading into the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate. How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all writers agree inthrowing on Pericles the blame of refusing to reverse the decree. 

Now, as the Lacedaemonians knew that if he could be removed from powerthey would find the Athenians much more easy to deal with, they badethem "drive forth the accursed thing, " alluding to Pericles' descentfrom the Alcmaeonidae by his mother's side, as we are told by Thucydidesthe historian. But this attempt had just the contrary effect to thatwhich they intended; for, instead of suspicion and dislike, Pericles metwith much greater honor and respect from his countrymen than before, because they saw that he was an object of especial dislike to the enemy. For this reason, before the Peloponnesians, under Archidamus, invadedAttica, he warned the Athenians that if Archidamus, when he laid wasteeverything else, spared his own private estate because of the friendlyprivate relations existing between them, or in order to give hispersonal enemies a ground for impeaching him, he should give both theland and the farm buildings upon it to the state. 

The Lacedaemonians invaded Attica with a great host of their own troopsand those of their allies, led by Archidamus, their king. Theyproceeded, ravaging the country as they went, as far as Acharnae (closeto Athens), where they encamped, imagining that the Athenians wouldnever endure to see them there, but would be driven by pride and shameto come out and fight them. However, Pericles thought that it would be avery serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens againstsixty thousand Peloponnesian and Boeotian heavy-armed troops, and so hepacified those who were dissatisfied at his inactivity by pointing outthat trees when cut down quickly grow again, but that when the men of astate are lost, it is hard to raise up others to take their place. Hewould not call an assembly of the people, because he feared that theywould force him to act against his better judgment, but, just as thecaptain of a ship, when a storm comes on at sea, places everything inthe best trim to meet it, and trusting to his own skill and seamanship, disregarding the tears and entreaties of the seasick and terrifiedpassengers, so did Pericles shut the gates of Athens, place sufficientforces to insure the safety of the city at all points, and calmly carryout his own policy, taking little heed of the noisy grumblings of thediscontented. Many of his friends besought him to attack, many of hisenemies threatened him and abused him, and many songs and offensivejests were written about him, speaking of him as a coward, and one whowas betraying the city to its enemies. Cleon too attacked him, using theanger which the citizens felt against him to advance his own personalpopularity. 

Pericles was unmoved by any of these attacks, but quietly endured allthis storm of obloquy. He sent a fleet of a hundred ships to attackPeloponnesus, but did not sail with it himself, remaining at home tokeep a tight hand over Athens until the Peloponnesians drew off theirforces. He regained his popularity with the common people, who sufferedmuch from the war, by giving them allowances of money from the publicrevenue, and grants of land; for he drove out the entire population ofthe island of Aegina, and divided the land by lot among the Athenians. Acertain amount of relief also was experienced by reflecting upon theinjuries which they were inflicting on the enemy; for the fleet as itsailed round Peloponnesus destroyed many small villages and cities, andravaged a great extent of country, while Pericles himself led anexpedition into the territory of Megara and laid it all waste. By thisit is clear that the allies, although they did much damage to theAthenians, yet suffered equally themselves, and never could haveprotracted the war for such a length of time as it really lasted, but, as Pericles foretold, must soon have desisted had not Providenceinterfered and confounded human counsels. For now the pestilence fellamong the Athenians, and cut off the flower of their youth. Sufferingboth in body and mind they raved against Pericles, just as people whendelirious with disease attack their fathers or their physicians. Theyendeavored to ruin him, urged on by his personal enemies, who assuredthem that he was the author of the plague, because he had brought allthe country people into the city, where they were compelled to liveduring the heat of summer, crowded together in small rooms and stiflingtents, living an idle life too, and breathing foul air instead of thepure country breeze to which they were accustomed. The cause of this, they said, was the man who, when the war began, admitted the masses ofthe country people into the city, and then made no use of them, butallowed them to be penned up together like cattle, and transmit thecontagion from one to another, without devising any remedy oralleviation of their sufferings. 

Hoping to relieve them somewhat, and also to annoy the enemy, Periclesmanned a hundred and fifty ships, placed on board, besides the sailors, many brave infantry and cavalry soldiers, and was about to put to sea. The Athenians conceived great hopes, and the enemy no less terror fromso large an armament. When all was ready, and Pericles himself had justembarked in his own trireme, an eclipse of the sun took place, producingtotal darkness, and all men were terrified at so great a portent. Pericles sailed with the fleet, but did nothing worthy of so great aforce. He besieged the sacred city of Epidaurus, but, although he hadgreat hopes of taking it, he failed on account of the plague, whichdestroyed not only his own men, but every one who came in contact withthem. After this he again endeavored to encourage the Athenians, to whomhe had become an object of dislike. However, he did not succeed inpacifying them, but they condemned him by a public vote to be general nomore, and to pay a fine which is stated at the lowest estimate to havebeen fifteen talents, and at the highest fifty. This was carried, according to Idomeneus, by Cleon, but, according to Theophrastus, bySimmias; while Heraclides of Pontus says that it was effected byLacratides. 

He soon regained his public position, for the people's outburst of angerwas quenched by the blow they had dealt him, just as a bee leaves itssting in the wound; but his private affairs were in great distress anddisorder, as he had lost many of his relatives during the plague, whileothers were estranged from him on political grounds. Yet he would notyield, nor abate his firmness and constancy of spirit because of theseafflictions, but was not observed to weep or mourn, or attend thefuneral of any of his relations, until he lost Paralus, the last of hislegitimate offspring. Crushed by this blow, he tried in vain to keep uphis grand air of indifference, and when carrying a garland to lay uponthe corpse he was overpowered by his feelings, so as to burst into apassion of tears and sobs, which he had never done before in his wholelife. 

Athens made trial of her other generals and public men to conduct heraffairs, but none appeared to be of sufficient weight or reputation tohave such a charge intrusted to him. The city longed for Pericles, andinvited him again to lead its counsels and direct its armies; and he, although dejected in spirits and living in seclusion in his own house, was yet persuaded by Alcibiades and his other friends to resume thedirection of affairs. 

After this it appears that Pericles was attacked by the plague, notacutely or continuously, as in most cases, but in a slow wastingfashion, exhibiting many varieties of symptoms, and graduallyundermining his strength. As he was now on his death-bed, the mostdistinguished of the citizens and his surviving friends collected roundhim and spoke admiringly of his nobleness and immense power, enumeratingalso the number of his exploits, and the trophies which he had set upfor victories gained; for while in chief command he had won no less thannine victories for Athens. 

Events soon made the loss of Pericles felt and regretted by theAthenians. Those who during his lifetime had complained that his powercompletely threw them into the shade, when after his death they had madetrial of other orators and statesmen, were obliged to confess that withall his arrogance no man ever was really more moderate, and that hisreal mildness in dealing with men was as remarkable as his apparentpride and assumption. His power, which had been so grudged and envied, and called monarchy and despotism, now was proved to have been thesaving of the State; such an amount of corrupt dealing and wickednesssuddenly broke out in public affairs, which he before had crushed andforced to hide itself, and so prevented its becoming incurable throughimpunity and license. 

GREAT PLAGUE AT ATHENS

B. C. 430

GEORGE GROTE

(Almost at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when the prosperityof Athens had placed her at the height of her power and given herunquestioned supremacy among the Grecian states, her strength wasgreatly impaired by a visitation against which there was nothing inmilitary prowess or patriotic pride and devotion that could prevail. 

It is one of the tragic contrasts of history--the picture of Athens, inher full triumph and glory, smitten, at a moment when she needed to putforth her full strength, by a deadly foe against whose might mortal armswere vain. Her citizens were rejoicing in her social no less than hermilitary preëminence, and they had already been trained in the hardshipsnecessary to be endured in defence of an invaded country. Again theywere prepared to undergo whatever service might be laid upon them in herbehalf. They could foresee the arduous tasks and inevitable sufferingsof a great war, but had no warning of an impending calamity far worsethan those which even war, though always attended with horrors, usuallyentails. Pericles had lately delivered his great funeral oration at thepublic interment of soldiers who had fallen for Athens. "The brightcolors and tone of cheerful confidence, " says Grote, whose account ofthe plague follows, "which pervaded the discourse of Pericles, appearthe more striking from being in immediate antecedence to the awfuldescription of this distemper. "

The death of Pericles himself, who directly or indirectly fell a victimto the prevailing pestilence, marked a grievous crisis for Athens inwhat was already become a measureless public woe. During the autumn ofthe year B. C. 427 the epidemic again broke out, after a considerableintermission, and for one year continued, "to the sad ruin both of thestrength and the comfort of the city. ")

At the close of one year after the attempted surprise of Plataea by theThebans, the belligerent parties in Greece remained in an unalteredposition as to relative strength. Nothing decisive had been accomplishedon either side, either by the invasion of Attica or by the flyingdescents round the coast of Peloponnesus. In spite of mutual damageinflicted--doubtless in the greatest measure upon Attica--no progresswas yet made toward the fulfilment of those objects which had inducedthe Peloponnesians to go to war. Especially the most pressing among alltheir wishes--the relief of Potidaea--was in no way advanced; for theAthenians had not found it necessary to relax the blockade of that city, The result of the first year's operations had thus been to disappointthe hopes of the Corinthians and the other ardent instigators of war, while it justified the anticipations both of Pericles and of Archidamus. 

A second devastation of Attica was resolved upon for the commencement ofspring; and measures were taken for carrying it all over that territory, since the settled policy of Athens, not to hazard a battle with theinvaders, was now ascertained. About the end of March or beginning ofApril the entire Peloponnesian force--two-thirds from each confederatecity as before--was assembled under the command of Archidamus andmarched into Attica. This time they carried the work of systematicdestruction not merely over the Thriasian plain and the plainimmediately near to Athens, as before; but also to the more southerlyportions of Attica, down even as far as the mines of Laurium. Theytraversed and ravaged both the eastern and the western coast, remainingnot less than forty days in the country. They found the territorydeserted as before, all the population having retired within the walls. 

In regard to this second invasion, Pericles recommended the samedefensive policy as he had applied to the first; and apparently thecitizens had now come to acquiesce in it, if not willingly, at leastwith a full conviction of its necessity. But a new visitation had nowoccurred, diverting their attention from the invader, though enormouslyaggravating their sufferings. A few days after Archidamus enteredAttica, a pestilence or epidemic sickness broke out unexpectedly atAthens. 

It appears that this terrific disorder had been raging for some timethroughout the regions round the Mediterranean; having begun, as wasbelieved, in Ethiopia--thence passing into Egypt and Libya, andoverrunning a considerable portion of Asia under the Persian government. About sixteen years before, there had been a similar calamity in Romeand in various parts of Italy. Recently it had been felt in Lemnos andsome other islands of the Aegean, yet seemingly not with such intensityas to excite much notice generally in the Grecian world: at length itpassed to Athens, and first showed itself in the Piraeus. The progressof the disease was as rapid and destructive as its appearance had beensudden; while the extraordinary accumulation of people within the cityand long walls, in consequence of the presence of the invaders in thecountry, was but too favorable to every form of contagion. Familiescrowded together in close cabins and places of temporaryshelter--throughout a city constructed, like most of those in Greece, with little regard to the conditions of salubrity and in a state ofmental chagrin from the forced abandonment and sacrifice of theirproperties in the country, transmitted the disorder with fatal facilityfrom one to the other. Beginning as it did about the middle of April, the increasing heat of summer further aided the disorder, the symptomsof which, alike violent and sudden, made themselves the more remarkedbecause the year was particularly exempt from maladies of every otherdescription. 

Of this plague--or, more properly, eruptive typhoid fever, distinctfrom, yet analogous to, the smallpox--a description no less clear thanimpressive has been left by the historian Thucydides, himself not only aspectator but a sufferer. It is not one of the least of his merits, thathis notice of the symptoms, given at so early a stage of medical scienceand observation, is such as to instruct the medical reader of thepresent age, and to enable the malady to be understood and identified. The observations with which that notice is ushered in deserve particularattention. "In respect to this distemper (he says), let every man, physician or not, say what he thinks respecting the source from whenceit may probably have arisen, and respecting the causes which he deemssufficiently powerful to have produced so great a revolution. But I, having myself had the distemper, and having seen others suffering underit, will state _what it actually was_, and will indicate in additionsuch other matters as will furnish any man, who lays them to heart, withknowledge and the means of calculation beforehand, in case the samemisfortune should ever occur again. "

To record past facts, as a basis for rational prevision in regard to thefuture--the same sentiment which Thucydides mentions in his preface, ashaving animated him to the composition of his history--was at that timea duty so little understood that we have reason to admire not less themanner in which he performs it in practice than the distinctness withwhich he conceives it in theory. We infer from his language thatspeculation in his day was active respecting the causes of this plague, according to the vague and fanciful physics, and scanty stock ofascertained facts, which was all that could then be consulted. Byresisting the itch of theorizing from one of those loose hypotheseswhich then appeared plausibly to explain everything, he probablyrenounced the point of view from which most credit and interest would bederivable at the time. But his simple and precise summary of observedfacts carries with it an imperishable value, and even affords groundsfor imagining that he was no stranger to the habits and training of hiscontemporary Hippocrates, and the other Asclepiads of Cos. 

It is hardly within the province of a historian of Greece to repeatafter Thucydides the painful enumeration of symptoms, violent in theextreme and pervading every portion of the bodily system, which markedthis fearful disorder. Beginning in Piraeus, it quickly passed into thecity, and both the one and the other was speedily filled with sicknessand suffering, the like of which had never before been known. Theseizures were sudden, and a large proportion of the sufferers perishedafter deplorable agonies on the seventh or on the ninth day. Others, whose strength of constitution carried them over this period, foundthemselves the victims of exhausting and incurable diarrhoea afterward;with others again, after traversing both these stages, the distemperfixed itself in some particular member, the eyes, the genitals, thehands, or the feet, which were rendered permanently useless, or in somecases amputated, even where the patient himself recovered. 

There were also some whose recovery was attended with a total loss ofmemory, so that they no more knew themselves or recognized theirfriends. No treatment or remedy appearing, except in accidental cases, to produce any beneficial effect, the physicians or surgeons whose aidwas invoked became completely at fault. While trying their accustomedmeans without avail, they soon ended by catching the malady themselvesand perishing. The charms and incantations, to which the unhappy patientresorted, were not likely to be more efficacious. While some assertedthat the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns of water, othersreferred the visitation to the wrath of the gods, and especially toApollo, known by hearers of the _Iliad_ as author of pestilence in theGreek host before Troy. It was remembered that this Delphian god hadpromised the Lacedaemonians, in reply to their application immediatelybefore the war, that he would assist them whether invoked or uninvoked;and the disorder now raging was ascribed to the intervention of theirirresistible ally; while the elderly men further called to mind anoracular verse sung in the time of their youth: "The Dorian war willcome, and pestilence along with it. " Under the distress which suggested, and was reciprocally aggravated by these gloomy ideas, prophets wereconsulted, and supplications with solemn procession were held at thetemples, to appease the divine wrath. 

When it was found that neither the priest nor the physician could retardthe spread or mitigate the intensity of the disorder, the Atheniansabandoned themselves to despair, and the space within the walls became ascene of desolating misery. Every man attacked with the malady at oncelost his courage--a state of depression itself among the worst featuresof the case, which made him lie down and die, without any attempt toseek for preservatives. And although at first friends and relatives lenttheir aid to tend the sick with the usual family sympathies, yet soterrible was the number of these attendants who perished, "like sheep, "from such contact, that at length no man would thus expose himself;while the most generous spirits, who persisted longest in the dischargeof their duty, were carried off in the greatest numbers. The patient wasthus left to die alone and unheeded. Sometimes all the inmates of ahouse were swept away one after the other, no man being willing to gonear it: desertion on the one hand, attendance on the other, both tendedto aggravate the calamity. There remained only those who, having had thedisorder and recovered, were willing to tend the sufferers. 

These men formed the single exception to the all-pervading misery of thetime--for the disorder seldom attacked anyone twice, and when it did thesecond attack was never fatal. Elate with their own escape, they deemedthemselves out of the reach of all disease, and were full ofcompassionate kindness for others whose sufferings were just beginning. It was from them too that the principal attention to the bodies ofdeceased victims proceeded: for such was the state of dismay and sorrowthat even the nearest relatives neglected the sepulchral duties, sacredbeyond all others in the eyes of a Greek. Nor is there any circumstancewhich conveys to us so vivid an idea of the prevalent agony and despairas when we read, in the words of an eyewitness, that the deaths tookplace among this close-packed crowd without the smallest decencies ofattention--that the dead and the dying lay piled one upon another notmerely in the public roads, but even in the temples, in spite of theunderstood defilement of the sacred building--that half-dead suffererswere seen lying round all the springs, from insupportable thirst--thatthe numerous corpses thus unburied and exposed were in such a conditionthat the dogs which meddled with them died in consequence, while novultures or other birds of the like habits ever came near. 

Those bodies which escaped entire neglect were burnt or buried withoutthe customary mourning, and with unseemly carelessness. In some casesthe bearers of a body, passing by a funeral pile on which another bodywas burning, would put their own there to be burnt also; or perhaps, ifthe pile was prepared ready for a body not yet arrived, would deposittheir own upon it, set fire to the pile, and then depart. Such indecentconfusion would have been intolerable to the feelings of the Atheniansin any ordinary times. 

To all these scenes of physical suffering, death, and reckless despairwas superadded another evil, which affected those who were fortunateenough to escape the rest. The bonds both of law and morality becamerelaxed, amid such total uncertainty of every man both for his own lifeand that of others. Men cared not to abstain from wrong, undercircumstances in which punishment was not likely to overtake them, norto put a check upon their passions, and endure privations, in obedienceeven to their strongest conviction, when the chance was so small oftheir living to reap reward or enjoy any future esteem. An interval, short and sweet, before their doom was realized--before they becameplunged in the widespread misery which they witnessed around, and whichaffected indiscriminately the virtuous and the profligate--was all thatthey looked to enjoy; embracing with avidity the immediate pleasures ofsense, as well as such positive gains, however ill-gotten, as could bemade the means of procuring them, and throwing aside all thought both ofhonor and of long-sighted advantage. Life and property being alikeephemeral, there was no hope left but to snatch a moment of enjoyment, before the outstretched hand of destiny should fall upon its victims. 

The picture of society under the pressure of a murderous epidemic, withits train of physical torments, wretchedness, and demoralization, hasbeen drawn by more than one eminent author, but by none with moreimpressive fidelity and conciseness than by Thucydides, who had nopredecessor, nor anything but the reality, to copy from. We may remarkthat amid all the melancholy accompaniments of the time there are nohuman sacrifices, such as those offered up at Carthage during pestilenceto appease the anger of the gods--there are no cruel persecutionsagainst imaginary authors of the disease, such as those against theUntori (anointers of doors) in the plague of Milan in 1630. 

Three years altogether did this calamity desolate Athens: continuously, during the entire second and third years of the war--after whichfollowed a period of marked abatement for a year and a half; but it thenrevived again, and lasted for another year, with the same fury as atfirst. The public loss, over and above the private misery, which thisunexpected enemy inflicted upon Athens, was incalculable. Out of twelvehundred horsemen, all among the rich men of the state, three hundreddied of the epidemic; besides forty-four hundred _hoplites_ out of theroll formally kept, and a number of the poorer population so great as todefy computation. No efforts of the Peloponnesians could have done somuch to ruin Athens, or to bring the war to a termination such as theydesired: and the distemper told the more in their favor, as it neverspread at all into Peloponnesus, though it passed from Athens to some ofthe more populous islands. The Lacedaemonian army was withdrawn fromAttica somewhat earlier than it would otherwise have been, for fear oftaking the contagion. 

But it was while the Lacedaemonians were yet in Attica, and during thefirst freshness of the terrible malady, that Pericles equipped andconducted from Piraeus an armament of one hundred triremes and fourthousand hoplites to attack the coasts of Peloponnesus; three hundredhorsemen were also carried in some horse-transports, prepared for theoccasion out of old triremes. To diminish the crowd accumulated in thecity was doubtless of beneficial tendency, and perhaps those who wentaboard might consider it as a chance of escape to quit an infected home. But unhappily they carried the infection along with them, whichdesolated the fleet not less than the city, and crippled all itsefforts. Reenforced by fifty ships of war from Chios and Lesbos, theAthenians first landed near Epidaurus in Peloponnesus, ravaging theterritory and making an unavailing attempt upon the city; next they madelike incursions on the most southerly portions of the Argolicpeninsula--Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione--and lastly attacked andcaptured Prasiae, on the eastern coast of Laconia. On returning toAthens, the same armament was immediately conducted under Agnon andCleopompus, to press the siege of Potidaea, the blockade of which stillcontinued without any visible progress. On arriving there an attack wasmade on the walls by battering engines and by the other aggressivemethods then practised; but nothing whatever was achieved. In fact, thearmament became incompetent for all serious effort, from the aggravatedcharacter which the distemper here assumed, communicated by the soldiersfresh from Athens even to those who had before been free from it atPotidaea. So frightful was the mortality that out of the four thousandhoplites under Agnon no fewer than one thousand and fifty died in theshort space of forty days. The armament was brought back in thisdistressed condition to Athens, while the reduction of Potidaea was leftas before, to the slow course of blockade. 

On returning from the expedition against Peloponnesus, Pericles foundhis countrymen almost distracted with their manifold sufferings. Overand above the raging epidemic they had just gone over Attica andascertained the devastations committed by the invaders throughout allthe territory--except the Marathonian Tetrapolis and Deceleia, districtsspared, as we are told, through indulgence founded on an ancientlegendary sympathy--during their long stay of forty days. The rich hadfound their comfortable mansions and farms, the poor their modestcottages, in the various _demes_, torn down and ruined. Death, sickness, loss of property, and despair of the future now rendered the Atheniansangry and intractable to the last degree. They vented their feelingsagainst Pericles as the cause not merely of the war, but also of allthat they were now enduring. Either with or without his consent, theysent envoys to Sparta to open negotiations for peace, but the Spartansturned a deaf ear to the proposition. This new disappointment renderedthem still more furious against Pericles, whose long-standing politicalenemies now doubtless found strong sympathy in their denunciations ofhis character and policy. That unshaken and majestic firmness, whichranked first among his many eminent qualities, was never moreimperiously required and never more effectively manifested. 

In his capacity of _strategus_, or general, Pericles convoked a formalassembly of the people, for the purpose of vindicating himself publiclyagainst the prevailing sentiment, and recommending perseverance in hisline of policy. The speeches made by his opponents, assuredly verybitter, are not given by Thucydides; but that of Pericles himself is setdown at considerable length, and a memorable discourse it is. Itstrikingly brings into relief both the character of the man and theimpress of actual circumstances--an impregnable mind conscious not onlyof right purposes, but of just and reasonable anticipations, and bearingup with manliness, or even defiance, against the natural difficulty ofthe case, heightened by an extreme of incalculable misfortune. He hadforeseen, while advising the war originally, the probable impatience ofhis countrymen under its first hardships, but he could not foresee theepidemic by which that impatience had been exasperated into madness: andhe now addressed them not merely with unabated adherence to his owndeliberate convictions, but also in a tone of reproachful remonstranceagainst their unmerited change of sentiment toward him--seeking at thesame time to combat that uncontrolled despair which for the momentoverlaid both their pride and their patriotism. Far from humblinghimself before the present sentiment, it is at this time that he setsforth his titles to their esteem in the most direct and unqualifiedmanner, and claims the continuance of that which they had so longaccorded, as something belonging to him by acquired right. 

His main object, through this discourse, is to fill the minds of hisaudience with patriotic sympathy for the weal of the entire city, so asto counterbalance the absorbing sense of private woe. If the collectivecity flourishes, he argues, private misfortunes may at least be borne;but no amount of private prosperity will avail if the collective cityfalls--a proposition literally true in ancient times and under thecircumstances of ancient warfare, though less true at present. "Distracted by domestic calamity, ye are now angry both with me whoadvised you to go to war, and with yourselves who followed the advice. Ye listened to me, considering me superior to others in judgment, inspeech, in patriotism, and in incorruptible probity--nor ought I now tobe treated as culpable for giving such advice, when in point of fact thewar was unavoidable and there would have been still greater danger inshrinking from it. I am the same man, still unchanged--but ye in yourmisfortunes cannot stand to the convictions which ye adopted when yetunhurt. Extreme and unforeseen, indeed, are the sorrows which havefallen upon you: yet inhabiting as ye do a great city, and brought up indispositions suitable to it, ye must also resolve to bear up against theutmost pressure of adversity, and never to surrender your dignity. Ihave often explained to you that ye have no reason to doubt of eventualsuccess in the war, but I will now remind you, more emphatically thanbefore, and even with a degree of ostentation suitable as a stimulus toyour present unnatural depression, that your naval force makes youmasters not only of your allies, but of the entire sea--one-half of thevisible field for action and employment. Compared with so vast a poweras this, the temporary use of your houses and territory is a meretrifle, an ornamental accessory not worth considering: and this too, ifye preserve your freedom, ye will quickly recover. It was your fatherswho first gained this empire, without any of the advantages which ye nowenjoy; ye must not disgrace yourselves by losing what they acquired. 

"Delighting as ye all do in the honor and empire enjoyed by the city, yemust not shrink from the toils whereby alone that honor is sustained:moreover, ye now fight, not merely for freedom instead of slavery, butfor empire against loss of empire, with all the perils arising out ofimperial unpopularity. It is not safe for you now to abdicate, even ifye chose to do so; for ye hold your empire like a despotism--unjustperhaps in the original acquisition, but ruinous to part with when onceacquired. Be not angry with me, whose advice ye followed in going towar, because the enemy have done such damage as might be expected fromthem: still less on account of this unforeseen distemper: I know thatthis makes me an object of your special present hatred, though veryunjustly, unless ye will consent to give me credit also for anyunexpected good-luck which may occur. Our city derives its particularglory from unshaken bearing up against misfortune: her power, her name, her empire of Greeks over Greeks, are such as have never before beenseen; and if we choose to be great, we must take the consequence of thattemporary envy and hatred which is the necessary price of permanentrenown. Behave ye now in a manner worthy of that glory: display thatcourage which is essential to protect you against disgrace at present, as well as to guarantee your honor for the future. Send no furtherembassy to Sparta, and bear your misfortunes without showing symptoms ofdistress. "

The irresistible reason, as well as the proud and resolute bearing ofthis discourse, set forth with an eloquence which it was not possiblefor Thucydides to reproduce--together with the age and character ofPericles--carried the assent of the assembled people, who when in thePnyx, and engaged according to habit on public matters, would for amoment forget their private sufferings in considerations of the safetyand grandeur of Athens. Possibly, indeed, those sufferings, though stillcontinuing, might become somewhat alleviated when the invaders quittedAttica, and when it was no longer indispensable for all the populationto confine itself within the walls. Accordingly, the assembly resolvedthat no further propositions should be made for peace, and that the warshould be prosecuted with vigor. 

But though the public resolution thus adopted showed the ancient habitof deference to the authority of Pericles, the sentiments of individualstaken separately were still those of anger against him as the author ofthat system which had brought them into so much distress. His politicalopponents--Cleon, Simmias, or Lacratidas, perhaps all three inconjunction--took care to provide an opportunity for this prevalentirritation to manifest itself in act, by bringing an accusation againsthim before the _dicastery_. The accusation is said to have beenpreferred on the ground of pecuniary malversation, and ended by hisbeing sentenced to pay a considerable fine, the amount of which isdifferently reported--fifteen, fifty, or eighty talents, by differentauthors. The accusing party thus appeared to have carried their point, and to have disgraced, as well as excluded from reelection, the veteranstatesman. The event, however, disappointed their expectations. Theimposition of the fine not only satiated all the irritation of thepeople against him, but even occasioned a serious reaction in his favor, and brought back as strongly as ever the ancient sentiment of esteem andadmiration. It was quickly found that those who had succeeded Periclesas generals neither possessed nor deserved in an equal degree the publicconfidence. He was accordingly soon reelected, with as much power andinfluence as he had ever in his life enjoyed. 

But that life, long, honorable, and useful, had already been prolongedconsiderably beyond the sixtieth year, and there were but too manycircumstances, besides the recent fine, which tended to hasten as wellas to embitter its close. At the very moment when Pericles was preachingto his countrymen, in a tone almost reproachful, the necessity of manfuland unabated devotion to the common country in the midst of privatesuffering, he was himself among the greatest of sufferers, and mosthardly pressed to set the example of observing his own precepts. Theepidemic carried off not merely his two sons--the only two legitimate, Xanthippus and Paralus--but also his sister, several other relatives, and his best and most useful political friends. Amid this train ofdomestic calamities, and in the funeral obsequies of so many of hisdearest friends, he remained master of his grief, and maintained hishabitual self-command, until the last misfortune--the death of hisfavorite son Paralus, which left his house without any legitimaterepresentative to maintain the family and the hereditary sacred rites. On this final blow, though he strove to command himself as before, yetat the obsequies of the young man, when it became his duty to place awreath on the dead body, his grief became uncontrollable, and he burstout, for the first time in his life, into profuse tears and sobbing. 

In the midst of these several personal trials he received theintimation, through Alcibiades and some other friends, of the restoredconfidence of the people toward him, and of his reelection to the officeof strategus. But it was not without difficulty that he was persuaded topresent himself again at the public assembly and resume the direction ofaffairs. The regret of the people was formally expressed to him for therecent sentence--perhaps, indeed, the fine may have been repaid to him, or some evasion of it permitted, saving the forms of law--in the presenttemper of the city; which was further displayed toward him by the grantof a remarkable exemption from a law of his own original proposition. 

He had himself, some years before, been the author of that law wherebythe citizenship of Athens was restricted to persons born both ofAthenian fathers and Athenian mothers, under which restriction severalthousand persons, illegitimate on the mother's side, are said to havebeen deprived of the citizenship, on occasion of a public distributionof corn. Invidious as it appeared to grant, to Pericles singly, anexemption from a law which had been strictly enforced against so manyothers, the people were now moved not less by compassion than by anxietyto redress their own previous severity. Without a legitimate heir, thehouse of Pericles, one branch of the great Alcmaeonid gens by hismother's side, would be left deserted, and the continuity of the familysacred rites would be broken--a misfortune painfully felt by everyAthenian family, as calculated to wrong all the deceased members, andprovoke their posthumous displeasure toward the city. Accordingly, permission was granted to Pericles to legitimize, and to inscribe in hisown gens and phratry, his natural son by Aspasia, who bore his own name. 

It was thus that Pericles was reinstated in his post of strategus aswell as in his ascendency over the public counsels--seemingly aboutAugust or September, B. C. 430. He lived about one year longer, and seemsto have maintained his influence as long as his health permitted. Yet wehear nothing of him after this moment, and he fell a victim, not to theviolent symptoms of the epidemic, but to a slow and wearing fever, whichundermined his strength as well as his capacity. To a friend who came toask after him when in this disease, Pericles replied by showing a charmor amulet which his female relations had hung about his neck--a proofhow low he was reduced, and how completely he had become a passivesubject in the hands of others. 

And according to another anecdote which we read--yet more interestingand equally illustrative of his character--it was during his lastmoments, when he was lying apparently unconscious and insensible, thatthe friends around his bed were passing in review the acts of his life, and the nine trophies which he had erected at different times for somany victories. He heard what they said, though they fancied that he waspast hearing, and interrupted them by remarking: "What you praise in mylife belongs partly to good fortune--and is, at best, common to me withmany other generals. But the peculiarity of which I am most proud, youhave not noticed--no Athenian has ever put on mourning through anyaction of mine. "

DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE

B. C. 413

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

(That great writer of the history of the Romans, Thomas Arnold, says ofthe defeat of the Athenian fleet at Syracuse: "The Romans knew not, andcould not know, how deeply the greatness of their own posterity, and thefate of the whole western world, were involved in the destruction of thefleet of Athens in the harbor of Syracuse. Had that great expeditionproved victorious, the energies of Greece during the next eventfulcentury would have found their field in the West no less than in theEast; Greece, and not Rome; might have conquered Carthage; Greek insteadof Latin might have been at this day the principal element of thelanguage of Spain, of France, and of Italy; and the laws of Athens, rather than of Rome, might be the foundation of the law of the civilizedworld. "

The foregoing, the author's own selection, really sums up all that needbe said as to the importance of the great event so finely treated byCreasy. )

Few cities have undergone more memorable sieges during ancient andmediaeval times than has the city of Syracuse. Athenian, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Saracen, and Norman have in turns beleagueredher walls; and the resistance which she successfully opposed to some ofher early assailants was of the deepest importance, not only to thefortunes of the generations then in being, but to all the subsequentcurrent of human events. To adopt the eloquent expressions of Arnoldrespecting the check which she gave to the Carthaginian arms, "Syracusewas a breakwater which God's providence raised up to protect the yetimmature strength of Rome. " And her triumphant repulse of the greatAthenian expedition against her was of even more widespread and enduringimportance. It forms a decisive epoch in the strife for universalempire, in which all the great states of antiquity successively engagedand failed. 

The present city of Syracuse is a place of little or no militarystrength, as the fire of artillery from the neighboring heights wouldalmost completely command it. But in ancient warfare its position, andthe care bestowed on its walls, rendered it formidably strong againstthe means of offence which were then employed by besieging armies. 

The ancient city, in its most prosperous times, was chiefly built on theknob of land which projects into the sea on the eastern coast of Sicily, between two bays; one of which, to the north, was called the Bay ofThapsus, while the southern one formed the great harbor of the city ofSyracuse itself. A small island, or peninsula (for such it soon wasrendered), lies at the southeastern extremity of this knob of land, stretching almost entirely across the mouth of the great harbor, andrendering it nearly land-locked. This island comprised the originalsettlement of the first Greek colonists from Corinth, who foundedSyracuse two thousand five hundred years ago; and the modern city hasshrunk again into these primary limits. But, in the fifth century beforeour era, the growing wealth and population of the Syracusans had ledthem to occupy and include within their city walls portion after portionof the mainland lying next to the little isle, so that at the time ofthe Athenian expedition the seaward part of the land between the twobays already spoken of was built over, and fortified from bay to bay, and constituted the larger part of Syracuse. 

The landward wall, therefore, of this district of the city traversedthis knob of land, which continues to slope upward from the sea, andwhich, to the west of the old fortifications, that is, toward theinterior of Sicily, rises rapidly for a mile or two, but diminishes inwidth, and finally terminates in a long narrow ridge, between which andMount Hybla a succession of chasms and uneven low ground extends. Oneach flank of this ridge the descent is steep and precipitous from itssummits to the strips of level land that lie immediately below it, bothto the southwest and northwest. 

The usual mode of assailing fortified towns in the time of thePeloponnesian war was to build a double wall round them sufficientlystrong to check any sally of the garrison from within or any attack of arelieving force from without. The interval within the two walls of thecircumvallation was roofed over, and formed barracks, in which thebesiegers posted themselves, and awaited the effects of want ortreachery among the besieged in producing a surrender; and in everyGreek city of those days, as in every Italian republic of the MiddleAges, the rage of domestic sedition between aristocrats and democratsran high. Rancorous refugees swarmed in the camp of every invadingenemy; and every blockaded city was sure to contain within its walls abody of intriguing malcontents, who were eager to purchase a partytriumph at the expense of a national disaster. Famine and faction werethe allies on whom besiegers relied. The generals of that time trustedto the operation of these sure confederates as soon as they couldestablish a complete blockade. They rarely ventured on the attempt tostorm any fortified post, for the military engines of antiquity werefeeble in breaching masonry before the improvements which the firstDionysius effected in the mechanics of destruction; and the lives ofspearmen the boldest and most high-trained would, of course, have beenidly spent in charges against unshattered walls. 

A city built close to the sea, like Syracuse, was impregnable save bythe combined operations of a superior hostile fleet and a superiorhostile army; and Syracuse, from her size, her population, and hermilitary and naval resources, not unnaturally thought herself securefrom finding in another Greek city a foe capable of sending a sufficientarmament to menace her with capture and subjection. But in the spring ofB. C. 414 the Athenian navy was mistress of her harbor and the adjacentseas; an Athenian army had defeated her troops, and cooped them withinthe town; and from bay to bay a blockading wall was being rapidlycarried across the strips of level ground and the high ridge outside thecity (then termed Epipolae), which, if completed, would have cut theSyracusans off from all succor from the interior of Sicily, and haveleft them at the mercy of the Athenian generals. The besiegers' workswere, indeed, unfinished; but every day the unfortified interval intheir lines grew narrower, and with it diminished all apparent hope ofsafety for the beleaguered town. 

Athens was now staking the flower of her forces, and the accumulatedfruits of seventy years of glory, on one bold throw for the dominion ofthe western world. As Napoleon from Mount Coeur de Lion pointed to St. Jean d'Acre, and told his staff that the capture of that town woulddecide his destiny and would change the face of the world, so theAthenian officers, from the heights of Epipolae, must have looked onSyracuse, and felt that with its fall all the known powers of the earthwould fall beneath them. They must have felt also that Athens, ifrepulsed there, must pause forever from her career of conquest, and sinkfrom an imperial republic into a ruined and subservient community. 

At Marathon, the first in date of the great battles of the world, webeheld Athens struggling for self-preservation against the invadingarmies of the East. At Syracuse she appears as the ambitious andoppressive invader of others. In her, as in other republics of old andof modern times, the same energy that had inspired the most heroicefforts in defence of the national independence soon learned to employitself in daring and unscrupulous schemes of self-aggrandizement at theexpense of neighboring nations. In the interval between the Persian andthe Peloponnesian wars she had rapidly grown into a conquering anddominant state, the chief of a thousand tributary cities, and themistress of the largest and best-manned navy that the Mediterranean hadyet beheld. The occupations of her territory by Xerxes and Mardonius, inthe second Persian war, had forced her whole population to becomemarines; and the glorious results of that struggle confirmed them intheir zeal for their country's service at sea. 

The voluntary suffrage of the Greek cities of the coasts and islands ofthe Aegean first placed Athens at the head of the confederation formedfor the further prosecution of the war against Persia. But this titularascendency was soon converted by her into practical and arbitrarydominion. She protected them from piracy and the Persian power, whichsoon fell into decrepitude and decay, but she exacted in return implicitobedience to herself. She claimed and enforced a prerogative of taxingthem at her discretion, and proudly refused to be accountable for hermode of expending their supplies. Remonstrance against her assessmentswas treated as factious disloyalty, and refusal to pay was promptlypunished as revolt. Permitting and encouraging her subject allies tofurnish all their contingents in money, instead of part consisting ofships and men, the sovereign republic gained the double object oftraining her own citizens by constant and well-paid service in herfleets, and of seeing her confederates lose their skill and disciplineby inaction, and become more and more passive and powerless under heryoke. Their towns were generally dismantled, while the imperial cityherself was fortified with the greatest care and sumptuousness; theaccumulated revenues from her tributaries serving to strengthen andadorn to the utmost her havens, her docks, her arsenals, her theatres, and her shrines, and to array her in that plenitude of architecturalmagnificence the ruins of which still attest the intellectual grandeurof the age and people which produced a Pericles to plan and a Phidias toexecute. 

All republics that acquire supremacy over other nations rule themselfishly and oppressively. There is no exception to this in eitherancient or modern times. Carthage, Rome, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Pisa, Holland, and republican France, all tyrannized over every province andsubject state where they gained authority. But none of them openlyavowed their system of doing so upon principle with the candor which theAthenian republicans displayed when any remonstrance was made againstthe severe exactions which they imposed upon their vassal allies. Theyavowed that their empire was a tyranny, and frankly stated that theysolely trusted to force and terror to uphold it. They appealed to whatthey called "the eternal law of nature, that the weak should be coercedby the strong. " Sometimes they stated, and not without some truth, thatthe unjust hatred of Sparta against themselves forced them to be unjustto others in self-defence. To be safe, they must be powerful; and to bepowerful, they must plunder and coerce their neighbors. They neverdreamed of communicating any franchise, or share in office, to theirdependants, but jealously monopolized every post of command and allpolitical and judicial power; exposing themselves to every risk withunflinching gallantry; embarking readily in every ambitious scheme; andnever suffering difficulty or disaster to shake their tenacity ofpurpose: in the hope of acquiring unbounded empire for their country, and the means of maintaining each of the thirty thousand citizens whomade up the sovereign republic, in exclusive devotion to militaryoccupations, and to those brilliant sciences and arts in which Athensalready had reached the meridian of intellectual splendor. 

Her great political dramatist speaks of the Athenian empire ascomprehending a thousand states. The language of the stage must not betaken too literally; but the number of the dependencies of Athens, atthe time when the Peloponnesian confederacy attacked her, wasundoubtedly very great. With a few trifling exceptions, all the islandsof the Aegean, and all the Greek cities which in that age fringed thecoasts of Asia Minor, the Hellespont, and Thrace, paid tribute toAthens, and implicitly obeyed her orders. The Aegean Sea was an Atticlake. Westward of Greece, her influence, though strong, was not equallypredominant. She had colonies and allies among the wealthy and populousGreek settlements in Sicily and South Italy, but she had no organizedsystem of confederates in those regions; and her galleys brought her notribute from the Western seas. The extension of her empire over Sicilywas the favorite project of her ambitious orators and generals. Whileher great statesman, Pericles, lived, his commanding genius kept hiscountrymen under control, and forbade them to risk the fortunes ofAthens in distant enterprises, while they had unsubdued and powerfulenemies at their own doors. He taught Athens this maxim; but he alsotaught her to know and to use her own strength; and when Pericles haddeparted, the bold spirit which he had fostered overleaped the salutarylimits which he had prescribed. 

When her bitter enemies, the Corinthians, succeeded, B. C. 431, ininducing Sparta to attack her, and a confederacy was formed offive-sixths of the continental Greeks, all animated by anxious jealousyand bitter hatred of Athens; when armies far superior in numbers andequipment to those which had marched against the Persians were pouredinto the Athenian territory, and laid it waste to the city walls, thegeneral opinion was that Athens would be reduced, in two or three yearsat the furthest, to submit to the requisitions of her invaders. But herstrong fortifications, by which she was girt and linked to her principalhaven, gave her, in those ages, almost all the advantages of an insularposition. Pericles had made her trust to her empire of the seas. EveryAthenian in those days was a practised seaman. A state, indeed, whosemembers, of an age fit for service, at no time exceeded thirty thousand, could only have acquired such a naval dominion as Athens once held bydevoting and zealously training all its sons to service in its fleets. In order to man the numerous galleys which she sent out, she necessarilyemployed large numbers of hired mariners and slaves at the oar; but thestaple of her crews was Athenian, and all posts of command were held bynative citizens. It was by reminding them of this, of their longpractice in seamanship, and the certain superiority which theirdiscipline gave them over the enemy's marine, that their great ministermainly encouraged them to resist the combined power of Lacedaemon andher allies. He taught them that Athens might thus reap the fruit of herzealous devotion to maritime affairs ever since the invasion of theMedes; "she had not, indeed, perfected herself; but the reward of hersuperior training was the rule of the sea--a mighty dominion, for itgave her the rule of much fair land beyond its waves, safe from the idleravages with which the Lacedaemonians might harass Attica, but nevercould subdue Athens. "

Athens accepted the war with which her enemies threatened her ratherthan descend from her pride of place; and though the awful visitation ofthe plague came upon her, and swept away more of her citizens than theDorian spear laid low, she held her own gallantly against her enemies. If the Peloponnesian armies in irresistible strength wasted every springher corn-lands, her vineyards, and her olive groves with fire and sword, she retaliated on their coasts with her fleets; which, if resisted, wereonly resisted to display the preëminent skill and bravery of her seamen. Some of her subject allies revolted, but the revolts were in generalsternly and promptly quelled. The genius of one enemy had indeedinflicted blows on her power in Thrace which she was unable to remedy;but he fell in battle in the tenth year of the war, and with the loss ofBrasidas the Lacedaemonians seemed to have lost all energy and judgment. Both sides at length grew weary of the war, and in 421 a truce for fiftyyears was concluded, which, though ill kept, and though many of theconfederates of Sparta refused to recognize it, and hostilities stillcontinued in many parts of Greece, protected the Athenian territory fromthe ravages of enemies, and enabled Athens to accumulate large sums outof the proceeds of her annual revenues. So also, as a few years passedby, the havoc which the pestilence and the sword had made in herpopulation was repaired; and in 415 Athens was full of bold and restlessspirits, who longed for some field of distant enterprise wherein theymight signalize themselves and aggrandize the state, and who looked onthe alarm of Spartan hostility as a mere old-woman's tale. When Spartahad wasted their territory she had done her worst; and the fact of itsalways being in her power to do so seemed a strong reason for seeking toincrease the transmarine dominion of Athens. 

The West was now the quarter toward which the thoughts of every aspiringAthenian were directed. From the very beginning of the war Athens hadkept up an interest in Sicily, and her squadron had, from time to time, appeared on its coasts and taken part in the dissensions in which theSicilian Greeks were universally engaged one against the other. Therewere plausible grounds for a direct quarrel, and an open attack by theAthenians upon Syracuse. 

With the capture of Syracuse, all Sicily, it was hoped, would besecured. Carthage and Italy were next to be attacked. With large leviesof Iberian mercenaries she then meant to overwhelm her Peloponnesianenemies. The Persian monarchy lay in hopeless imbecility, inviting Greekinvasion; nor did the known world contain the power that seemed capableof checking the growing might of Athens, if Syracuse once should behers. 

The national historian of Rome has left us an episode of his great work, a disquisition on the probable effects that would have followed ifAlexander the Great had invaded Italy. Posterity has generally regardedthat disquisition as proving Livy's patriotism more strongly than hisimpartiality or acuteness. Yet, right or wrong, the speculations of theRoman writer were directed to the consideration of a very remotepossibility. To whatever age Alexander's life might have been prolonged, the East would have furnished full occupation for his martial ambition, as well as for those schemes of commercial grandeur and imperialamalgamation of nations in which the truly great qualities of his mindloved to display themselves. With his death the dismemberment of hisempire among his generals was certain, even as the dismemberment ofNapoleon's empire among his marshals would certainly have ensued if hehad been cut off in the zenith of his power. Rome, also, was far weakerwhen the Athenians were in Sicily than she was a century afterward inAlexander's time. There can be little doubt but that Rome would havebeen blotted out from the independent powers of the West, had she beenattacked at the end of the fifth century B. C. By an Athenian army, largely aided by Spanish mercenaries, and flushed with triumphs overSicily and Africa, instead of the collision between her and Greecehaving been deferred until the latter had sunk into decrepitude, and theRoman Mars had grown into full vigor. 

The armament which the Athenians equipped against Syracuse was in everyway worthy of the state which formed such projects of universal empire, and it has been truly termed "the noblest that ever yet had been sentforth by a free and civilized commonwealth. " The fleet consisted of onehundred and thirty-four war-galleys, with a multitude of storeships. Apowerful force of the best heavy-armed infantry that Athens and herallies could furnish was sent on board it, together with a smallernumber of slingers and bowmen. The quality of the forces was even moreremarkable than the number. The zeal of individuals vied with that ofthe republic in giving every galley the best possible crew and everytroop the most perfect accoutrements. And with private as well as publicwealth eagerly lavished on all that could give splendor as well asefficiency to the expedition, the fated fleet began its voyage for theSicilian shores in the summer of 415. 

The Syracusans themselves, at the time of the Peloponnesian war, were abold and turbulent democracy, tyrannizing over the weaker Greek citiesin Sicily, and trying to gain in that island the same arbitrarysupremacy which Athens maintained along the eastern coast of theMediterranean. In numbers and in spirit they were fully equal to theAthenians, but far inferior to them in military and naval discipline. When the probability of an Athenian invasion was first publiclydiscussed at Syracuse, and efforts were made by some of the wisercitizens to improve the state of the national defences and prepare forthe impending danger, the rumors of coming war and the proposal forpreparation were received by the mass of the Syracusans with scornfulincredulity. The speech of one of their popular orators is preserved tous in Thucydides. 

The Syracusan orator told his countrymen to dismiss with scorn thevisionary terrors which a set of designing men among themselves stroveto excite, in order to get power and influence thrown into their ownhands. He told them that Athens knew her own interest too well to thinkof wantonly provoking their hostility: "Even if the enemies were tocome, " said he, "so distant from their resources, and opposed to such apower as ours, their destruction would be easy and inevitable. Theirships will have enough to do to get to our island at all, and to carrysuch stores of all sorts as will be needed. They cannot therefore carry, besides, an army large enough to cope with such a population as ours. They will have no fortified place from which to commence theiroperations, but must rest them on no better base than a set of wretchedtents, and such means as the necessities of the moment will allow them. But, in truth, I do not believe that they would even be able to effect adisembarkation. Let us, therefore, set at naught these reports asaltogether of home manufacture; and be sure that if any enemy does come, the state will know how to defend itself in a manner worthy of thenational honor. "

Such assertions pleased the Syracusan assembly; but the invaders ofSyracuse came, made good their landing in Sicily; and if they hadpromptly attacked the city itself, instead of wasting nearly a year indesultory operations in other parts of Sicily, the Syracusans must havepaid the penalty of their self-sufficient carelessness in submission tothe Athenian yoke. But, of the three generals who led the Athenianexpedition, two only were men of ability, and one was most weak andincompetent. Fortunately for Syracuse, Alcibiades, the most skilful ofthe three, was soon deposed from his command by a factious and fanaticvote of his fellow-countrymen, and the other competent one, Lamachus, fell early in a skirmish; while, more fortunately still for her, thefeeble and vacillating Nicias remained unrecalled and unhurt, to assumethe undivided leadership of the Athenian army and fleet, and to mar, byalternate over-caution and over-carelessness, every chance of successwhich the early part of the operations offered. Still, even under him, the Athenians nearly won the town. They defeated the raw levies of theSyracusans, cooped them within the walls, and, as before mentioned, almost effected a continuous fortification from bay to bay overEpipolae, the completion of which would certainly have been followed bya capitulation. 

Alcibiades--the most complete example of genius without principle thathistory produces; the Bolingbroke of antiquity, but with high militarytalents superadded to diplomatic and oratorical powers--on beingsummoned home from his command in Sicily to take his trial before theAthenian tribunal, had escaped to Sparta, and had exerted himself therewith all the selfish rancor of a renegade to renew the war with Athensand to send instant assistance to Syracuse. 

When we read his words in the pages of Thucydides--who was himself anexile from Athens at this period, and may probably have been at Sparta, and heard Alcibiades speak--we are at a loss whether most to admire orabhor his subtle counsels. After an artful exordium, in which he triedto disarm the suspicions which he felt must be entertained of him, andto point out to the Spartans how completely his interests and theirswere identified, through hatred of the Athenian democracy, he thusproceeded:

"Hear me, at any rate, on the matters which require your graveattention, and which I, from the personal knowledge that I have of them, can and ought to bring before you. We Athenians sailed to Sicily withthe design of subduing, first the Greek cities there, and next those inItaly. Then we intended to make an attempt on the dominions of Carthage, and on Carthage itself. [24] If all these projects succeeded--nor did welimit ourselves to them in these quarters--we intended to increase ourfleet with the inexhaustible supplies of ship timber which Italyaffords, to put in requisition the whole military force of the conqueredGreek states, and also to hire large armies of the barbarians, of theIberians, [25] and others in those regions, who are allowed to make thebest possible soldiers. _Then_, when we had done all this, we intendedto assail Peloponnesus with our collected force. Our fleets wouldblockade you by sea and desolate your coasts, our armies would be landedat different points and assail your cities. Some of these we expected tostorm, [26] and others we meant to take by surrounding them withfortified lines. We thought that it would thus be an easy matterthoroughly to war you down; and then we should become the masters of thewhole Greek race. As for expense, we reckoned that each conquered statewould give us supplies of money and provisions sufficient to pay for itsown conquest, and furnish the means for the conquest of its neighbors. "

[Footnote 24: Arnold, in his notes on this passage, well reminds thereader that Agathocles, with a Greek force far inferior to that of theAthenians at this period, did, some years afterward, very nearly conquerCarthage. ]

[Footnote 25: It will be remembered that Spanish infantry were thestaple of the Carthaginian armies. Doubtless Alcibiades and otherleading Athenians had made themselves acquainted with the Carthaginiansystem of carrying on war, and meant to adopt it. With the marvellouspowers which Alcibiades possessed of ingratiating himself with men ofevery class and every nation, and his high military genius, he wouldhave been as formidable a chief of an army of _condottieri_ as Hannibalafterward was. ]

[Footnote 26: Alcibiades here alluded to Sparta itself, which wasunfortified. His Spartan hearers must have glanced round them at thesewords with mixed alarm and indignation. ]

"Such are the designs of the present Athenian expedition to Sicily, andyou have heard them from the lips of the man who, of all men living, ismost accurately acquainted with them. The other Athenian generals, whoremain with the expedition, will endeavor to carry out these plans. Andbe sure that without your speedy interference they will all beaccomplished. The Sicilian Greeks are deficient in military training;but still, if they could at once be brought to combine in an organizedresistance to Athens, they might even now be saved. But as for theSyracusans resisting Athens by themselves, they have already, with thewhole strength of their population, fought a battle and been beaten;they cannot face the Athenians at sea; and it is quite impossible forthem to hold out against the force of their invaders. And if this cityfalls into the hands of the Athenians, all Sicily is theirs, andpresently Italy also; and the danger, which I warned you of from thatquarter, will soon fall upon yourselves. You must, therefore, in Sicily, fight for the safety of Peloponnesus. Send some galleys thitherinstantly. Put men on board who can work their own way over, and who, assoon as they land, can do duty as regular troops. But, above all, letone of yourselves, let a man of Sparta, go over to take the chiefcommand, to bring into order and effective discipline the forces thatare in Syracuse, and urge those who at present hang back to come forwardand aid the Syracusans. The presence of a Spartan general at this crisiswill do more to save the city than a whole army. "

The renegade then proceeded to urge on them the necessity of encouragingtheir friends in Sicily, by showing that they themselves were in earnestin hostility to Athens. He exhorted them not only to march their armiesinto Attica again, but to take up a permanent fortified position in thecountry; and he gave them in detail information of all that theAthenians most dreaded, and how his country might receive the mostdistressing and enduring injury at their hands. 

The Spartans resolved to act on his advice, and appointed Gylippus tothe Sicilian command. Gylippus was a man who, to the national braveryand military skill of a Spartan united political sagacity that wasworthy of his great fellow-countryman Brasidas; but his merits weredebased by mean and sordid vices; and his is one of the cases in whichhistory has been austerely just, and where little or no fame has beenaccorded to the successful but venal soldier. But for the purpose forwhich he was required in Sicily, an abler man could not have been foundin Lacedaemon. His country gave him neither men nor money, but she gavehim her authority; and the influence of her name and of his own talentswas speedily seen in the zeal with which the Corinthians and otherPeloponnesian Greeks began to equip a squadron to act under him for therescue of Sicily. As soon as four galleys were ready, he hurried overwith them to the southern coast of Italy, and there, though he receivedsuch evil tidings of the state of Syracuse that he abandoned all hope ofsaving that city, he determined to remain on the coast, and do what hecould in preserving the Italian cities from the Athenians. 

So nearly, indeed, had Nicias completed his beleaguering lines, and soutterly desperate had the state of Syracuse seemingly become, that anassembly of the Syracusans was actually convened, and they werediscussing the terms on which they should offer to capitulate, when agalley was seen dashing into the great harbor, and making her way towardthe town with all the speed which her rowers could supply. From hershunning the part of the harbor where the Athenian fleet lay, and makingstraight for the Syracusan side, it was clear that she was a friend; theenemy's cruisers, careless through confidence of success, made noattempt to cut her off; she touched the beach, and a Corinthian captain, springing on shore from her, was eagerly conducted to the assembly ofthe Syracusan people just in time to prevent the fatal vote being putfor a surrender. 

Providentially for Syracuse, Gongylus, the commander of the galley, hadbeen prevented by an Athenian squadron from following Gylippus to SouthItaly, and he had been obliged to push direct for Syracuse from Greece. 

The sight of actual succor, and the promise of more, revived thedrooping spirits of the Syracusans. They felt that they were not leftdesolate to perish, and the tidings that a Spartan was coming to commandthem confirmed their resolution to continue their resistance. Gylippuswas already near the city. He had learned at Locri that the first reportwhich had reached him of the state of Syracuse was exaggerated, and thatthere was unfinished space in the besiegers' lines through which it wasbarely possible to introduce reënforcements into the town. Crossing theStraits of Messina, which the culpable negligence of Nicias had leftunguarded, Gylippus landed on the northern coast of Sicily, and therebegan to collect from the Greek cities an army, of which the regulartroops that he brought from Peloponnesus formed the nucleus. Such wasthe influence of the name of Sparta, and such were his own abilities andactivity, that he succeeded in raising a force of about two thousandfully armed infantry, with a larger number of irregular troops. Nicias, as if infatuated, made no attempt to counteract his operation, nor, whenGylippus marched his little army toward Syracuse, did the Atheniancommander endeavor to check him. The Syracusans marched out to meet him;and while the Athenians were solely intent on completing theirfortifications on the southern side toward the harbor, Gylippus turnedtheir position by occupying the high ground in the extreme rear ofEpipolae. He then marched through the unfortified interval of Nicias'lines into the besieged town, and joining his troops with the Syracusanforces, after some engagements with varying success, gained the masteryover Nicias, drove the Athenians from Epipolae, and hemmed them into adisadvantageous position in the low grounds near the great harbor. 

The attention of all Greece was now fixed on Syracuse, and every enemyof Athens felt the importance of the opportunity now offered of checkingher ambition, and, perhaps, of striking a deadly blow at her power. Larger reinforcements from Corinth, Thebes, and other cities now reachedthe Syracusans, while the baffled and dispirited Athenian generalearnestly besought his countrymen to recall him, and represented thefurther prosecution of the siege as hopeless. 

But Athens had made it a maxim never to let difficulty or disaster driveher back from any enterprise once undertaken, so long as she possessedthe means of making any effort, however desperate, for itsaccomplishment. With indomitable pertinacity, she now decreed, insteadof recalling her first armament from before Syracuse, to send out asecond, though her enemies near home had now renewed open warfareagainst her, and by occupying a permanent fortification in her territoryhad severely distressed her population, and were pressing her withalmost all the hardships of an actual siege. She still was mistress ofthe sea, and she sent forth another fleet of seventy galleys, andanother army, which seemed to drain almost the last reserves of hermilitary population, to try if Syracuse could not yet be won, and thehonor of the Athenian arms be preserved from the stigma of a retreat. Hers was, indeed, a spirit that might be broken, but never would bend. At the head of this second expedition she wisely placed her bestgeneral, Demosthenes, one of the most distinguished officers that thelong Peloponnesian war had produced, and who, if he had originally heldthe Sicilian command, would soon have brought Syracuse to submission. 

The fame of Demosthenes the general has been dimmed by the superiorlustre of his great countryman, Demosthenes the orator. When the name ofDemosthenes is mentioned, it is the latter alone that is thought of. Thesoldier has found no biographer. Yet out of the long list of great menwhom the Athenian republic produced, there are few that deserve to standhigher than this brave, though finally unsuccessful leader of her fleetsand armies in the first half of the Peloponnesian war. In his firstcampaign in Aetolia he had shown some of the rashness of youth, and hadreceived a lesson of caution by which he profited throughout the rest ofhis career, but without losing any of his natural energy in enterpriseor in execution. He had performed the distinguished service of rescuingNaupactus from a powerful hostile armament in the seventh year of thewar; he had then, at the request of the Acarnanian republics, taken onhimself the office of commander-in-chief of all their forces, and attheir head he had gained some important advantages over the enemies ofAthens in Western Greece. His most celebrated exploits had been theoccupation of Pylos on the Messenian coast, the successful defence ofthat place against the fleet and armies of Lacedaemon, and thesubsequent capture of the Spartan forces on the isle of Sphacteria, which was the severest blow dealt to Sparta throughout the war, andwhich had mainly caused her to humble herself to make the truce withAthens. 

Demosthenes was as honorably unknown in the war of party politics atAthens as he was eminent in the war against the foreign enemy. We readof no intrigues of his on either the aristocratic or democratic side. Hewas neither in the interest of Nicias nor of Cleon. His privatecharacter was free from any of the stains which polluted that ofAlcibiades. On all these points the silence of the comic dramatist isdecisive evidence in his favor. He had also the moral courage, notalways combined with physical, of seeking to do his duty to his country, irrespective of any odium that he himself might incur, and unhampered byany petty jealousy of those who were associated with him in command. There are few men named in ancient history of whom posterity wouldgladly know more or whom we sympathize with more deeply in thecalamities that befell them than Demosthenes, the son of Alcisthenes, who, in the spring of the year 413, left Piraeus at the head of thesecond Athenian expedition against Sicily. 

His arrival was critically timed; for Gylippus had encouraged theSyracusans to attack the Athenians under Nicias by sea as well as byland, and by one able stratagem of Ariston, one of the admirals of theCorinthian auxiliary squadron, the Syracusans and their confederates hadinflicted on the fleet of Nicias the first defeat that the Athenian navyhad ever sustained from a numerically inferior enemy. Gylippus waspreparing to follow up his advantage by fresh attacks on the Athenianson both elements, when the arrival of Demosthenes completely changed theaspect of affairs and restored the superiority to the invaders. Withseventy-three war-galleys in the highest state of efficiency, andbrilliantly equipped, with a force of five thousand picked men of theregular infantry of Athens and her allies, and a still larger number ofbowmen, javelin-men, and slingers on board, Demosthenes rowed round thegreat harbor with loud cheers and martial music, as if in defiance ofthe Syracusans and their confederates. His arrival had indeed changedtheir newly born hopes into the deepest consternation. 

The resources of Athens seemed inexhaustible, and resistance to herhopeless. They had been told that she was reduced to the lastextremities, and that her territory was occupied by an enemy; and yethere they saw her sending forth, as if in prodigality of power, a secondarmament, to make foreign conquests, not inferior to that with whichNicias had first landed on the Sicilian shores. 

With the intuitive decision of a great commander, Demosthenes at oncesaw that the possession of Epipolae was the key to the possession ofSyracuse, and he resolved to make a prompt and vigorous attempt torecover that position while his force was unimpaired and theconsternation which its arrival had produced among the besieged remainedunabated. The Syracusans and their allies had run out an outwork alongEpipolae from the city walls, intersecting the fortified lines ofcircumvallation which Nicias had commenced, but from which he had beendriven by Gylippus. Could Demosthenes succeed in storming this outwork, and in reëstablishing the Athenian troops on the high ground, he mightfairly hope to be able to resume the circumvallation of the city andbecome the conqueror of Syracuse; for when once the besiegers' lineswere completed, the number of the troops with which Gylippus hadgarrisoned the place would only tend to exhaust the stores of provisionsand accelerate its downfall. 

An easily repelled attack was first made on the outwork in the daytime, probably more with the view of blinding the besieged to the nature ofthe main operations than with any expectation of succeeding in an openassault, with every disadvantage of the ground to contend against. But, when the darkness had set in, Demosthenes formed his men in columns, each soldier taking with him five days' provisions, and the engineersand workmen of the camp following the troops with their tools and allportable implements of fortification, so as at once to secure anyadvantage of ground that the army might gain. Thus equipped andprepared, he led his men along by the foot of the southern flank ofEpipolae, in a direction toward the interior of the island, till he cameimmediately below the narrow ridge that forms the extremity of the highground looking westward. He then wheeled his vanguard to the right, sentthem rapidly up the paths that wind along the face of the cliff, andsucceeded in completely surprising the Syracusan outposts, and inplacing his troops fairly on the extreme summit of the all-importantEpipolae. Thence the Athenians marched eagerly down the slope toward thetown, routing some Syracusan detachments that were quartered in theirway, and vigorously assailing the unprotected side of the outwork. 

All at first favored them. The outwork was abandoned by its garrison, and the Athenian engineers began to dismantle it. In vain Gylippusbrought up fresh troops to check the assault; the Athenians broke anddrove them back, and continued to press hotly forward, in the fullconfidence of victory. But, amid the general consternation of theSyracusans and their confederates, one body of infantry stood firm. Thiswas a brigade of their Boeotian allies, which was posted low down theslope of Epipolae, outside the city walls. Coolly and steadily theBoeotian infantry formed their line, and, undismayed by the current offlight around them, advanced against the advancing Athenians. This wasthe crisis of the battle. But the Athenian van was disorganized by itsown previous successes; and, yielding to the unexpected charge thus madeon it by troops in perfect order, and of the most obstinate courage, itwas driven back in confusion upon the other divisions of the army thatstill continued to press forward. When once the tide was thus turned, the Syracusans passed rapidly from the extreme of panic to the extremeof vengeful daring, and with all their forces they now fiercely assailedthe embarrassed and receding Athenians. In vain did the officers of thelatter strive to reform their line. Amid the din and the shouting of thefight, and the confusion inseparable upon a night engagement, especiallyone where many thousand combatants were pent and whirled together in anarrow and uneven area, the necessary manoeuvres were impracticable; andthough many companies still fought on desperately, wherever themoonlight showed them the semblance of a foe, they fought withoutconcert or subordination; and not infrequently, amid the deadly chaos, Athenian troops assailed each other. Keeping their ranks close, theSyracusans and their allies pressed on against the disorganized massesof the besiegers, and at length drove them, with heavy slaughter, overthe cliffs, which an hour or two before they had scaled full of hope andapparently certain of success. 

This defeat was decisive of the event of the siege. The Atheniansafterward struggled only to protect themselves from the vengeance whichthe Syracusans sought to wreak in the complete destruction of theirinvaders. Never, however, was vengeance more complete and terrible. Aseries of sea-fights followed, in which the Athenian galleys wereutterly destroyed or captured. The mariners and soldiers who escapeddeath in disastrous engagements, and a vain attempt to force a retreatinto the interior of the island, became prisoners of war. Nicias andDemosthenes were put to death in cold blood, and their men eitherperished miserably in the Syracusan dungeons or were sold into slaveryto the very persons whom, in their pride of power, they had crossed theseas to enslave. 

All danger from Athens to the independent nations of the West was nowforever at an end. She, indeed, continued to struggle against hercombined enemies and revolted allies with unparalleled gallantry, andmany more years of varying warfare passed away before she surrendered totheir arms. But no success in subsequent contests could ever haverestored her to the preëminence in enterprise, resources, and maritimeskill which she had acquired before her fatal reverses in Sicily. Noramong the rival Greek republics, whom her own rashness aided to crushher, was there any capable of reorganizing her empire, or resuming herschemes of conquest. The dominion of Western Europe was left for Romeand Carthage to dispute two centuries later, in conflicts still moreterrible, and with even higher displays of military daring and geniusthan Athens had witnessed either in her rise, her meridian, or her fall. 

RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS

B. C. 401-399

XENOPHON

(The expedition of the Greeks, generally known as the "Retreat of theTen Thousand, " was conducted by Xenophon, a Greek historian, essayist, and military commander. Xenophon was a pupil of Socrates, of whom heleft a famous memoir. In B. C. 401 he accepted the invitation of hisfriend Proxenus of Boeotia, a general of Greek mercenaries, to takeservice under Cyrus the Younger, brother of Artaxerxes Mnemon, king ofPersia. 

Cyrus had considered himself as deeply wronged by his elder brother, whohad thrown him into prison on the death of their father, Darius. Escaping from prison, he formed a design to wrest the throne fromArtaxerxes. For this purpose he engaged the forces of Proxenus, and tothis army Xenophon attached himself. The rendezvous was Sardis, fromwhich the army marched east under the pretext of chastising therevolting mountaineers of Pisidia. Instead of attacking the Pisidians, the followers of Cyrus proceeded east through Asia and Babylonia tillthey met the forces of Artaxerxes at Cunaxa. A furious battle tookplace, and the rout of the king's army had begun when Cyrus, elated withthe victory that seemed just within his grasp, challenged his brother tosingle combat. In the duel that ensued Cyrus was slain. Proxenus hadalready fallen, and the virtual command of the Greek army soon devolvedupon Xenophon, who thereupon began the famous retreat. 

A vivid account of battles, and of hardships endured from the cold, inthe struggle through mountain snows, through almost impassable forests, and across bridgeless rivers, is given in Xenophon's _Anabasis_, thecelebrated work, in seven books, which forms the classical narrative ofthe campaign and the retreat. Soon after the death of Cyrus, inSeptember, B. C. 401, the seizure and murder of the leading Greekgenerals by the treacherous Persian satrap, Tissaphernes, placed theGreek army in great peril. Xenophon, who now took practical command, counselled and exhorted the surviving leaders, and on the next day theGreeks formed in a hollow square, the baggage in the centre, and begantheir retreat, which led them along the Tigris to the territory of theCarduchi [Kurds], through Armenia, and across Georgia, the enemy oftenharassing them. 

At the point where the climax of the story, which is presented here, maybe said to begin, the Greeks have entered Armenia, passed the sources ofthe Tigris, and reached the Teleboas. Having made a treaty withTiribazus, governor of the province, and discovered his insincerity, andthat he was ready to attack them in their passage over the mountains, they resolved upon a quick resumption of their march. 

When, in the fifth month of the retreat the Greeks at last from ahilltop beheld the Euxine, they sent up a cry, "The sea! the sea!" whichhas echoed through succeeding ages as one of the great historicjubilations of humanity. At the end of the retreat their numbers werereduced to about six thousand, and from the starting-point at Cunaxa tothe middle of the southern coast of the Black Sea they had travelled asmuch as two thousand miles. From Ephesus to Cunaxa and thence to theBlack Sea region they had marched in fifteen months [February, B. C. 401, to June, 400], and nine months more passed before they joined theSpartan army in Asia Minor, and their task was fully accomplished. Theirgreat performance is regarded as having prepared the way for Alexander'striumphant advances in the East. The young conqueror, on the eve of thebattle of Issus, declared that he owed inspiration to the feat of theTen Thousand. )

It was thought necessary to march away as fast as possible, before theenemy's force should be reassembled, and get possession of the pass. 

Collecting their baggage at once, therefore, they set forward through adeep snow, taking with them several guides, and, having the same daypassed the height on which Tiribazus had intended to attack them, theyencamped. Hence they proceeded three days' journey through a deserttract of country, a distance of fifteen _parasangs_, to the riverEuphrates, and passed it without being wet higher than the middle. Thesources of the river were said not to be far off. From hence theyadvanced three days' march, through much snow and a level plain, adistance of fifteen parasangs; the third day's march was extremelytroublesome, as the north wind blew full in their faces, completelyparching up everything and benumbing the men. One of the augurs, inconsequence, advised that they should sacrifice to the wind, and asacrifice was accordingly offered, when the vehemence of the windappeared to everyone manifestly to abate. The depth of the snow was afathom, so that many of the baggage cattle and slaves perished, withabout thirty of the soldiers. 

They continued to burn fires through the whole night, for there wasplenty of wood at the place of encampment. But those who came up latecould get no wood; those, therefore, who had arrived before and hadkindled fires would not admit the late comers to the fire unless theygave them a share of the corn or other provisions that they had brought. Thus they shared with each other what they respectively had. In theplaces where the fires were made, as the snow melted, there were formedlarge pits that reached down to the ground, and here there wasaccordingly opportunity to measure the depth of the snow. 

From hence they marched through snow the whole of the following day, andmany of the men contracted the _bulimia_. [28] Xenophon, who commanded inthe rear, finding in his way such of the men as had fallen down with it, knew not what disease it was. But as one of these acquainted with ittold him that they were evidently affected with bulimia, and that theywould get up if they had something to eat, he went round among thebaggage and wherever he saw anything eatable he gave it out, and sentsuch as were able to run to distribute it among those diseased, who, assoon as they had eaten, rose up and continued their march. As theyproceeded, Chirisophus came, just as it grew dark, to a village, andfound, at a spring in front of the rampart, some women and girlsbelonging to the place fetching water. The women asked them who theywere, and the interpreter answered, in the Persian language, that theywere people going from the king to the satrap. They replied that he wasnot there, but about a parasang off. 

[Footnote 28: Spelman quotes a description of the bulimia from Galen, inwhich it is said to be "a disease in which the patient frequently cravesfor food, loses the use of his limbs, falls down, turns pale, feels hisextremities become cold, his stomach oppressed, and his pulse feeble. "Here, however, it seems to mean little more than a faintness from longfasting. ]

However, as it was late, they went with the water-carriers within therampart, to the head man of the village, and here Chirisophus and asmany of the troops as could come up encamped; but of the rest, such aswere unable to get to the end of the journey spent the night on the waywithout food or fire, and some of the soldiers lost their lives on thatoccasion. Some of the enemy too, who had collected themselves into abody, pursued our rear, and seized any of the baggage-cattle that wereunable to proceed, fighting with one another for the possession of them. Such of the soldiers also as had lost their sight from the effects ofthe snow, or had their toes mortified by the cold, were left behind. Itwas found to be a relief to the eyes against the snow, if the soldierskept something black before them on the march, and to the feet, if theykept constantly in motion, and allowed themselves no rest, and if theytook off their shoes in the night. But as to such as slept with theirshoes on, the straps worked into their feet, and the soles were frozenabout them, for when their old shoes had failed them, shoes of raw hideshad been made by the men themselves from the newly skinned oxen. 

From such unavoidable sufferings some of the soldiers were left behind, who, seeing a piece of ground of a black appearance, from the snowhaving disappeared there, conjectured that it must have melted, and ithad in fact melted in the spot from the effect of a fountain, which wassending up vapor in a wooded hollow close at hand. Turning asidethither, they sat down and refused to proceed farther. Xenophon, who waswith the rear-guard, as soon as he heard this tried to prevail on themby every art and means not to be left behind, telling them, at the sametime, that the enemy were collected and pursuing them in great numbers. At last he grew angry, and they told him to kill them, as they werequite unable to go forward. He then thought it the best course to strikea terror, if possible, into the enemy that were behind, lest they shouldfall upon the exhausted soldiers. It was now dark, and the enemy wereadvancing with a great noise, quarrelling about the booty that they hadtaken, when such of the rear-guard as were not disabled started up andrushed toward them, while the tired men, shouting as loud as they could, clashed their spears against their shields. The enemy, struck withalarm, threw themselves among the snow into the hollow, and no one ofthem afterward made himself heard from any quarter. 

Xenophon and those with him, telling the sick men that a party shouldcome to their relief next day, proceeded on their march, but before theyhad gone four _stadia_ they found other soldiers resting by the way inthe snow, and covered up with it, no guard being stationed over them. They roused them up, but they said that the head of the army was notmoving forward. Xenophon, going past them and sending on some of theablest of the _peltasts_, ordered them to ascertain what it was thathindered their progress. They brought word that the whole army was inthat manner taking rest. Xenophon and his men, therefore, stationingsuch a guard as they could, took up their quarters there without fire orsupper. When it was near day, he sent the youngest of his men to thesick, telling them to rouse them and oblige them to proceed. At thisjuncture Chirisophus sent some of his people from the village to see howthe rear were faring. The young men were rejoiced to see them, and gavethem the sick to conduct to the camp, while they themselves wentforward, and, before they had gone twenty stadia, found themselves atthe village in which Chirisophus was quartered. When they came together, it was thought safe enough to lodge the troops up and down in thevillage. Chirisophus accordingly remained where he was, and the otherofficers, appropriating by lot the several villages that they had insight, went to their respective quarters with their men. 

Here Polycrates, an Athenian captain, requested leave of absence, andtaking with him the most active of his men, and hastening to the villageto which Xenophon had been allotted, surprised all the villagers andtheir head man in their houses, together with seventeen colts that werebred as a tribute for the king, and the head man's daughter, who hadbeen but nine days married; her husband was gone out to hunt hares, andwas not found in any of the villages. Their houses were underground, theentrance like the mouth of a well, but spacious below; there werepassages dug into them for the cattle, but the people descended byladders. In the houses were goats, sheep, cows, and fowls, with theiryoung; all the cattle were kept on fodder within the walls. [29] Therewere also wheat, barley, leguminous vegetables, and barley wine[30] inlarge bowls; the grains of barley floated in it even with the brim ofthe vessels, and reeds also lay in it, some larger and some smaller, without joints; and these, when any one was thirsty, he was to take inhis mouth and suck. [31] The liquor was very strong, unless one mixedwater with it, and a very pleasant drink to those accustomed to it. 

[Footnote 29: This description of a village on the Armenian uplandsapplies itself to many that I visited in the present day. The descent bywells is now rare, but is still to be met with; but in exposed andelevated situations the houses are uniformly semi-subterraneous andentered by as small an aperture as possible, to prevent the cold gettingin. Whatever the kind of cottage used, cows, sheep, goats, and fowlsparticipate with the family in the warmth and protection thereof. ]

[Footnote 30: Something like our ale. ]

[Footnote 31: The reeds were used, says Krueger, that none of the grainsof barley might be taken into the mouth. ]

Xenophon made the chief man of his village sup with him, and told him tobe of good courage, assuring him that he should not be deprived of hischildren, and that they would not go away without filling his house withprovisions in return for what they took, if he would but prove himselfthe author of some service to the army till they should reach anothertribe. This he promised, and, to show his good-will, pointed out wheresome wine[32] was buried. This night, therefore, the soldiers rested intheir several quarters in the midst of great abundance, setting a guardover the chief, and keeping his children at the same time under theireye. The following day Xenophon took the head man and went with him toChirisophus, and wherever he passed by a village he turned aside tovisit those who were quartered in it, and found them in all partsfeasting and enjoying themselves; nor would they anywhere let them gotill they had set refreshments before them; and they placed everywhereupon the same table lamb, kid, pork, veal, and fowl, with plenty ofbread, both of wheat and barley. Whenever any person, to pay acompliment, wished to drink to another, he took him to the large bowl, where he had to stoop down and drink, sucking like an ox. The chief theyallowed to take whatever he pleased, but he accepted nothing from them;where he found any of his relatives, however, he took them with him. 

[Footnote 32: Xenophon seems to mean _grape_ wine, rather than to referto the barley wine just before mentioned, of which the taste does notappear to have been much liked by the Greeks. Wine from grapes was notmade, it is probable, in these parts, on account of the cold, but Strabospeaks of the fruit wine of Armenia Minor as not inferior to any of theGreek wines. --_Schneider_. ]

When they came to Chirisophus, they found his men also feasting in theirquarters, crowned with wreaths made of hay, and Armenian boys, in theirbarbarian dress, waiting upon them, to whom they made signs what theywere to do as if they had been deaf and dumb. When Chirisophus andXenophon had saluted one another, they both asked the chief man, throughthe interpreter who spoke the Persian language, what country it was. Hereplied that it was Armenia. They then asked him for whom the horseswere bred, and he said that they were a tribute for the king, and addedthat the neighboring country was that of Chalybes, and told them in whatdirection the road lay. Xenophon then went away, conducting the chiefback to his family, giving him the horse that he had taken, which wasrather old, to fatten and offer in sacrifice (for he had heard that ithad been consecrated to the sun), being afraid, indeed, that it mightdie, as it had been injured by the journey. He then took some of theyoung horses, and gave one of them to each of the other generals andcaptains. The horses in this country were smaller than those of Persia, but far more spirited. The chief instructed the men to tie little bagsround the feet of the horses and other cattle when they drove themthrough the snow, for without such bags they sunk up to their bellies. 

When the eighth day was come, Xenophon committed the guide toChirisophus. He left the chief[33] all the members of his family, excepthis son, a youth just coming to mature age; him he gave in charge toEpisthenes of Amphipolis, in order that if the father should conductthem properly he might return home with him. At the same time theycarried to his house as many provisions as they could, and then broke uptheir camp and resumed their march. The chief conducted them through thesnow, walking at liberty. When he came to the end of the third day'smarch, Chirisophus was angry at him for not guiding them to somevillages. He said that there was none in that part of the country. Chirisophus then struck him, but did not confine him, and in consequencehe ran off in the night, leaving his son behind him. This affair, theill-treatment and neglect of the guide, was the only cause of dissensionbetween Chirisophus and Xenophon during the march. Episthenes conceivedan affection for the youth, and, taking him home, found him extremelyattached to him. 

[Footnote 33: This is rather oddly expressed, for the guide and thechief were the same person. ]

After this occurrence they proceeded seven days' journey, five parasangseach day, till they came to the river Phasis, the breadth of which is a_plethrum_. Hence they advanced two days' journey, ten parasangs, when, on the pass that led over the mountains into the plain, the Chalybes, Taochi, and Phasians were drawn up to oppose their progress. Chirisophus, seeing these enemies in possession of the height, came to ahalt, at the distance of about thirty stadia, that he might not approachthem while leading the army in a column. He accordingly ordered theother officers to bring up their companies, that the whole force mightbe formed in line. 

When the rear-guard was come up, he called together the generals andcaptains and spoke to them as follows: "The enemy, as you see, is inpossession of the pass over the mountains, and it is proper for us toconsider how we may encounter them to the best advantage. It is myopinion, therefore, that we should direct the troops to get their dinnerand that we ourselves should hold a council, in the mean time, whetherit is advisable to cross the mountain to-day or to-morrow. "

"It seems best to me, " exclaimed Cleanor, "to march at once, as soon aswe have dined and resumed our arms, against the enemy; for if we wastethe present day in inaction the enemy, who are now looking down upon us, will grow bolder, and it is likely that, as their confidence isincreased, others will join them in greater numbers. "

After him Xenophon said: "I am of opinion that if it be necessary tofight, we ought to make our arrangements so as to fight with thegreatest advantage; but that if we propose to pass the mountains aseasily as possible, we ought to consider how we may incur the fewestwounds and lose the fewest men. The range of hills, as far as we see, extends more than sixty stadia in length; but the people nowhere seem tobe watching us except along the line of road; and it is, therefore, better, I think, to endeavor to try to seize unobserved some part of theunguarded range, and to get possession of it, if we can, beforehand, than to attack a strong post and men prepared to resist us, for it isfar less difficult to march up a steep ascent without fighting thanalong a level road with enemies on each side; and in the night, if menare not obliged to fight, they can see better what is before them thanby day if engaged with enemies; while a rough road is easier to the feetto those who are marching without molestation than a smooth one to thosewho are pelted on the head with missiles. Nor do I think it at allimpracticable for us to steal a way for ourselves, as we can march bynight, so as not to be seen, and can keep at such a distance from theenemy as to allow no possibility of being heard. We seem likely, too, inmy opinion, if we make a pretended attack on this point, to find therest of the range still less guarded, for the enemy will so much themore probably stay where they are. But why should I speak doubtfullyabout stealing? For I hear that you Lacedaemonians, O Chirisophus, suchof you at least as are of the better class, practise stealing from yourboyhood, and it is not a disgrace, but an honor, to steal whatever thelaw does not forbid; while, in order that you may steal with the utmostdexterity, and strive to escape discovery, it is appointed by law that, if you are caught stealing, you are scourged. It is now high time foryou, therefore, to give proof of your education, and to take care thatwe may not receive many stripes. "

"But I hear that you Athenians also, " rejoined Chirisophus, "are veryclever at stealing the public money, though great danger threatens himthat steals it; and that your best men steal it most, if indeed yourbest men are thought worthy to be your magistrates; so that it is timefor you likewise to give proof of your education. "

"I am then ready, " exclaimed Xenophon, "to march with the rear-guard, assoon as we have supped, to take possession of the hills. I have guidestoo, for our light-armed men captured some of the marauders followingus, by lying in ambush, and from them I learn that the mountains are notimpassable, but are grazed over by goats and oxen, so that if we oncegain possession of any part of the range, there will be tracks also forour baggage cattle. I expect also that the enemy will no longer keeptheir ground, when they see us upon a level with them on the heights, for they will not now come down to be upon a level with us. " Chirisophusthen said: "But why should you go, and leave the charge of the rear?Rather send others, unless some volunteers present themselves. " Uponthis Aristonymus of Methydria came forward with his heavy-armed men, andAristeas of Chios and Nichomachus of Oeta with their light-armed; andthey made an arrangement that as soon as they should reach the top theyshould light a number of fires. Having settled these points, they wentto dinner; and after dinner Chirisophus led forward the whole army tenstadia toward the enemy, that he might appear to be fully resolved tomarch against them on that quarter. 

When they had taken their supper, and night came on, those appointed forthe service went forward and got possession of the hills; the othertroops rested where they were. The enemy, when they saw the heightsoccupied, kept watch and burned a number of fires all night. As soon asit was day, Chirisophus, after having offered sacrifice, marched forwardalong the road; while those who had gained the heights advanced by theridge. Most of the enemy, meanwhile, stayed at the pass, but a part wentto meet the troops coming along the heights. But before the main bodiescame together, those on the ridge closed with one another, and theGreeks had the advantage, and put the enemy to flight. At the same timethe Grecian peltasts ran up from the plain to attack the enemy drawn upto receive them, and Chirisophus followed at a quick pace with theheavy-armed men. The enemy at the pass, however, when they saw thoseabove defeated, took to flight. Not many of them were killed, but agreat number of shields were taken, which the Greeks, by hacking themwith their swords, rendered useless. As soon as they had gained theascent, and had sacrificed and erected a trophy, they went down into theplain before them, and arrived at a number of villages stored withabundance of excellent provisions. 

From hence they marched five days' journey, thirty parasangs, to thecountry of the Taochi, where provisions began to fail them; for theTaochi inhabited strong fastnesses, in which they had laid up all theirsupplies. Having at length, however, arrived at one place which had nocity or houses attached to it, but in which men and women and a greatnumber of cattle were assembled, Chirisophus, as soon as he came beforeit, made it the object of an attack; and when the first division thatassailed it began to be tired, another succeeded, and then another, forit was not possible for them to surround it in a body, as there was ariver about it. When Xenophon came up with his rear-guard, peltasts, andheavy-armed men, Chirisophus exclaimed: "You come seasonably, for wemust take this place, as there are no provisions for the army unless wetake it. "

They then deliberated together, and Xenophon asking what hindered themfrom taking the place, Chirisophus replied: "The only approach to it isthe one which you see; but when any of our men attempt to pass along it, the enemy roll down stones over yonder impending rock, and whoever isstruck is treated as you behold;" and he pointed, at the same moment, tosome of the men who had had their legs and ribs broken. "But if theyexpend all their stones, " rejoined Xenophon, "is there anything else toprevent us from advancing? For we see, in front of us, only a few men, and but two or three of them armed. The space, too, through which wehave to pass under exposure to the stones is, as you see, only about ahundred and fifty feet in length; and of this about a hundred feet iscovered with large pine trees in groups, against which, if the men placethemselves, what would they suffer either from the flying stones or therolling ones? The remaining part of the space is not above fifty feet, over which, when the stones cease, we must pass at a running pace. "

"But, " said Chirisophus, "the instant we offer to go to the part coveredwith trees, the stones fly in great numbers. "

"That, " cried Xenophon, "would be the very thing we want, for thus theywill exhaust their stones the sooner. Let us then advance, if we can, tothe point whence we shall have but a short way to run, and from which wemay, if we please, easily retreat. "

Chirisophus and Xenophon, with Callimachus of Parrhasia, one of thecaptains, who had that day the lead of all the other captains of therear-guard, then went forward, all the rest of the captains remainingout of danger. Next, about seventy of the men advanced under the trees, not in a body, but one by one, each sheltering himself as he could. Agasias of Stymphalus, and Aristonymus of Methydria, who were alsocaptains of the rear-guard, with some others were at the same timestanding behind, without the trees, for it was not safe for more thanone company to stand under them. Callimachus then adopted the followingstratagem: he ran forward two or three paces from the tree under whichhe was sheltered, and when the stones began to be hurled, hastily drewback; and at each of his sallies more than ten cartloads of stones werespent. 

Agasias, observing what Callimachus was doing, and that the eyes of thewhole army were upon him, and fearing that he himself might not be thefirst to enter the place, began to advance alone--neither calling toAristonymus who was next him, nor to Eurylochus of Lusia, both of whomwere his intimate friends, nor to any other person--and passed by allthe rest. Callimachus, seeing him rushing by, caught hold of the rim ofhis shield, and at that moment Aristonymus of Methydria ran past themboth, and after him Eurylochus of Lusia, for all these soughtdistinction for valor, and were rivals to one another; and thus, inmutual emulation, they got possession of the place, for when they hadonce rushed in, not a stone was hurled from above. But a dreadfulspectacle was then to be seen; for the women, flinging their childrenover the precipice, threw themselves after them; and the men followedtheir example. Æneas of Stymphalus, a captain, seeing one of them, whohad on a rich garment, running to throw himself over, caught hold of itwith intent to stop him. But the man dragged him forward, and they bothwent rolling down the rocks together, and were killed. Thus very fewprisoners were taken, but a great number of oxen, asses, and sheep. 

Hence they advanced, seven days' journey, a distance of fifty parasangs, through the country of the Chalybes. These were the most warlike peopleof all that they passed through, and came to close combat with them. They had linen cuirasses, reaching down to the groin, and, instead ofskirts, thick cords twisted. They had also greaves and helmets, and attheir girdles a short falchion, as large as a Spartan crooked dagger, with which they cut the throats of all whom they could master, and then, cutting off their heads, carried them away with them. They sang anddanced when the enemy were likely to see them. They carried also a spearof about fifteen cubits in length, having one spike. [34] They stayed intheir villages till the Greeks had passed by, when they pursued andperpetually harassed them. They had their dwellings in strong places, inwhich they had also laid up their provisions, so that the Greeks couldget nothing from that country, but lived upon the cattle which they hadtaken from the Taochi. 

[Footnote 34: Having one iron point at the upper end, and no point atthe lower for fixing the spear in the ground. ]

The Greeks next arrived at the river Harpasus, the breadth of which wasfour _plethra_. Hence they proceeded through the territory of theScythini, four days' journey, making twenty parasangs, over a leveltract, until they came to some villages, in which they halted three daysand collected provisions. From this place they advanced four days'journey, twenty parasangs, to a large, rich and populous city, calledGymnias, from which the governor of the country sent the Greeks a guideto conduct them through a region at war with his own people. The guide, when he came, said that he would take them in five days to a placewhence they should see the sea; if not, he would consent to be put todeath. When, as he proceeded, he entered the country of their enemies, he exhorted them to burn and lay waste the lands; whence it was evidentthat he had come for this very purpose, and not from any good-will tothe Greeks. 

On the fifth day they came to the mountain; and the name of it wasTheches. When the men who were in the front had mounted the height, andlooked down upon the sea, a great shout proceeded from them; andXenophon and the rearguard, on hearing it, thought that some new enemieswere assailing the front, for in the rear, too, the people from thecountry that they had burned were following them, and the rear-guard, byplacing an ambuscade, had killed some, and taken others prisoners, andhad captured about twenty shields made of raw ox-hides with the hair on. But as the noise still increased, and drew nearer, and as those who cameup from time to time kept running at full speed to join those who werecontinually shouting, the cries becoming louder as the men became morenumerous, it appeared to Xenophon that it must be something of verygreat moment. Mounting his horse, therefore, and taking with him Lyciusand the cavalry, he hastened forward to give aid, when presently theyheard the soldiers shouting, "The sea, the sea!" and cheering on oneanother. They then all began to run, the rear-guard as well as the rest, and the baggage-cattle and horses were put to their speed; and when theyhad all arrived at the top, the men embraced one another and theirgenerals and captains, with tears in their eyes. Suddenly, whoever itwas that suggested it, the soldiers brought stones, and raised a largemound, on which they laid a number of raw ox-hides, staves, and shieldstaken from the enemy. The shields the guide himself hacked in pieces, and exhorted the rest to do the same. Soon after, the Greeks sent awaythe guide, giving him presents from the common stock: a horse, a silvercup, a Persian robe, and ten _darics_; but he showed most desire for therings on their fingers, and obtained many of them from the soldiers. Having then pointed out to them a village where they might take up theirquarters, and the road by which they were to proceed to the Macrones, when the evening came on he departed, pursuing his way during the night. 

Hence the Greeks advanced three days' journey, a distance of tenparasangs, through the country of the Macrones. On the first day theycame to a river which divides the territories of the Macrones from thoseof the Scythini. On their right they had an eminence extremely difficultof access, and on their left another river, into which the boundaryriver, which they had to cross, empties itself. This stream was thicklyedged with trees, not indeed large, but growing closely together. Thesethe Greeks, as soon as they came to the spot, cut down, [35] being inhaste to get out of the country as soon as possible. The Macrones, however, equipped with wicker shields, and spears, and hair tunics, weredrawn up on the opposite side of the crossing-place; they were animatingone another and throwing stones into the river. [36] They did not hit ourmen or cause them any inconvenience. 

[Footnote 35: The Greeks cut down the trees in order to throw them intothe stream, and form a kind of bridge on which they might cross. ]

[Footnote 36: They threw stones into the river that they might stand onthem and approach nearer to the Greeks, so as to use their weapons withmore effect. ]

At this juncture one of the peltasts came up to Xenophon, saying that hehad been a slave at Athens, and adding that he knew the language ofthese men. "I think, indeed, " said he, "that this is my country, and, ifthere is nothing to prevent, I should wish to speak to the people. "

"There is nothing to prevent, " replied Xenophon; "so speak to them, andfirst ascertain what people they are. " When he asked them, they saidthat they were the Macrones. "Inquire, then, " said Xenophon, "why theyare drawn up to oppose us and wish to be our enemies. " They replied, "Because you come against our country. " The generals then told him toacquaint them that we were not come with any wish to do them injury, butthat we were returning to Greece after having been engaged in war withthe king, and that we were desirous to reach the sea. They asked if theGreeks would give pledges to this effect; and the Greeks replied thatthey were willing both to give and receive them. The Macronesaccordingly presented the Greeks with a barbarian lance, and the Greeksgave them a Grecian one; for they said that such were their usualpledges. Both parties called the gods to witness. 

After these mutual assurances, the Macrones immediately assisted them incutting away the trees and made a passage for them as if to bring themover, mingling freely among the Greeks; they also gave such facilitiesas they could for buying provisions, and conducted them through theircountry for three days, until they brought them to the confines of theColchians. Here was a range of hills, high, but accessible, and uponthem the Colchians were drawn up in array. The Greeks, at first, drew upagainst them in a line, with the intention of marching up the hill inthis disposition; but afterward the generals thought proper to assembleand deliberate how they might engage with the best effect. 

Xenophon then said it appeared to him that they ought to relinquish thearrangement in line, and to dispose the troops in columns; "for a line, "pursued he, "will be broken at once, as we shall find the hills in someparts impassable, though in others easy of access; and this disruptionwill immediately produce despondency in the men, when, after beingranged in a regular line, they find it dispersed. Again, if we advancedrawn up very many deep, the enemy will stretch beyond us on both sides, and will employ the parts that outreach us in any way they may thinkproper; and if we advance only a few deep, it would not be at allsurprising if our line be broken through by showers of missiles and menfalling upon us in large bodies. If this happen in any part, it will beill for the whole extent of the line. I think, then, that having formedour companies in columns, we should keep them so far apart from eachother as that the last companies on each side may be beyond the enemy'swings. Thus our extreme companies will both outflank the line of theenemy, and, as we march in file, the bravest of our men will close withthe enemy first, and wherever the ascent is easiest, there each divisionwill direct its course. Nor will it be easy for the enemy to penetrateinto the intervening spaces when there are companies on each side, norwill it be easy to break through a column as it advances; while, if anyone of the companies be hard pressed, the neighboring one will supportit; and if but one of the companies can by any path attain the summit, the enemy will no longer stand their ground. "

This plan was approved, and they threw the companies into columns. Xenophon, riding along from the right wing to the left, said: "Soldiers, the enemy whom you see before you is now the only obstacle to hinder usfrom being where we have long been eager to be. These, if we can, wemust eat up alive. "

When the men were all in their places, and they had formed the companiesinto columns, there were about eighty companies of heavy-armed men, andeach company consisted of about eighty men. The peltasts and archersthey divided into three bodies, each about six hundred men, one of whichthey placed beyond the left wing, another beyond the right, and thethird in the centre. The generals then desired the soldiers to maketheir vows to the gods; and having made them, and sung the paean, theymoved forward. Chirisophus and Xenophon, and the peltasts that they hadwith them, who were beyond the enemy's flanks, pushed on; and the enemy, observing their motions, and hurrying forward to receive them, was drawnoff, some to the right and others to the left, and left a great void inthe centre of the line; when the peltasts in the Arcadian division, whomAeschines the Acarnanian commanded, seeing the Colchians separate, ranforward in all haste, thinking that they were taking to flight; andthese were the first that reached the summit. The Arcadian heavy-armedtroop, of which Clearnor the Orchomenian was captain, followed them. Butthe enemy, when once the Greeks began to run, no longer stood itsground, but went off in flight, some one way and some another. 

Having passed the summit, the Greeks encamped in a number of villagescontaining abundance of provisions. As to other things here, there wasnothing at which they were surprised; but the number of bee-hives wasextraordinary, and all the soldiers that ate of the combs lost theirsenses, vomited, and were affected with purging, and not any of them wasable to stand upright; such as had eaten a little were like men greatlyintoxicated, and such as had eaten much were like madmen, and some likepersons at the point of death. They lay upon the ground, in consequence, in great numbers, as if there had been a defeat; and there was generaldejection. The next day no one of them was found dead; and theyrecovered their senses about the same hour that they had lost them onthe preceding day; and on the third and fourth days they got up as ifafter having taken physic. [37]

[Footnote 37: That there was honey in these parts, with intoxicatingqualities, was well known to antiquity. Pliny mentions two sorts of it, one produced at Heraclea in Pontus, and the other among the Sanni orMacrones. The peculiarities of the honey arose from the herbs to whichthe bees resorted; the first came from the flower of a plant called_oegolethron_, or goatsbane; the other from a species of rhododendron. Tournefort, when he was in that country, saw honey of this description. Ainsworth found that the intoxicating honey had a bitter taste. Thishoney is also mentioned by Dioscorides. ]

From hence they proceeded two days' march, seven parasangs, and arrivedat Trebizond, a Greek city, of large population, on the Euxine Sea; acolony of Sinope, but lying in the territory of the Colchians. Here theystayed about thirty days, encamping in the villages of the Colchians, whence they made excursions and plundered the country of Colchis. Thepeople of Trebizond provided a market for the Greeks in the camp, andentertained them in the city; and made them presents of oxen, barley-meal, and wine. They negotiated with them also on behalf of theneighboring Colchians, those especially who dwelt in the plain, and fromthem too were brought presents of oxen. 

Soon after, they prepared to perform the sacrifice which they had vowed. Oxen enough had been brought them to offer to Jupiter the Preserver, andto Hercules, for their safe conduct, and whatever they had vowed to theother gods. They also celebrated gymnastic games upon the hill wherethey were encamped, and chose Dracontius, a Spartan--who had become anexile from his country when quite a boy, for having involuntarily killeda child by striking him with a dagger--to prepare the course and presideat the contests. When the sacrifice was ended, they gave the hides[38]to Dracontius, and desired him to conduct them to the place where he hadmade the course. Dracontius, pointing to the place where they werestanding, said, "This hill is an excellent place for running, inwhatever direction the men may wish. "

[Footnote 38: Lion and Kuehner have a notion that these skins were to begiven as prizes to the victors, referring to Herodotus, who says thatthe Egyptians, in certain games which they celebrate in honor ofPerseus, offer as prizes cattle, cloaks, and hides. Krueger doubtswhether they were intended for prizes, or were given as a present toDracontius. ]

"But how will they be able, " said they, "to wrestle on ground so roughand bushy?"

"He that falls, " said he, "will suffer the more. " Boys, most of themfrom among the prisoners, contended in the short course, and in the longcourse above sixty Cretans ran; while others were matched in wrestling, boxing, and the _pancratium_. It was a fine sight; for many entered thelists, and as their friends were spectators, there was great emulation. Horses also ran; and they had to gallop down the steep, and, turninground in the sea, to come up again to the altar. In the descent, manyrolled down; but in the ascent, against the exceedingly steep ground, the horses could scarcely get up at a walking pace. There wasconsequently great shouting and laughter and cheering from the people. 

CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SOCRATES

B. C. 399

PLATO

(The death of Socrates was brought about under the restored democracy bythree of his enemies--Lycon, Meletus, and Anytus, the last a man of highrank and reputation in the state. Socrates was accused by them ofdespising the ancient gods of the state, introducing new divinities andcorrupting the youth of Athens. He was charged with having taught hisfollowers, young men of the first Athenian families, to despise theestablished government, to be turbulent and seditious, and his accusorspointed to Alcibiades and Critias, notorious for their lawlessness, asexamples of the fruits of his teaching. 

It is quite certain that Socrates disliked the Athenian government andconsidered democracy as tyrannical as despotism. But there was no law atAthens by which he could be put to death for his words and actions, andthe vague charge could never have been made unless the whole trial ofthe philosopher had been a party movement, headed by men like Lycon andAnytus, whose support of the unjust measure made the condemnation ofSocrates a foregone conclusion. Xenophon, the pupil and admirer of thephilosopher, expresses in his _Memorabilia of Socrates_ his surprisethat the Athenians should have condemned to death a man of such exaltedcharacter and transparent innocence. But the influence of the teacherwith his pupils, most of them sons of the wealthiest citizens, mightwell have been dreaded by those in office and engaged in the conduct ofpublic business. By them, the common politicians of the day, Socrates, with his keen and witty criticism of political corruption anddemagogism, must have been considered a formidable adversary. 

Accordingly, by the decision of the Athenian court, the philosopher wassentenced to death by drinking a cup of hemlock. Although it was usualfor criminals to be executed the day following their condemnation, heenjoyed a respite of thirty days, during which time his friends hadaccess to his prison cell. It was the time when the ceremonial galleywas crowned and sent on her pilgrimage to the holy Isle of Delos, and nocriminal could be executed until her return. Socrates exhibited heroicconstancy and cheerfulness during this interval, and repudiated theoffers of his friends to aid in his escape, though they had chartered aship to carry him to Thessaly. With calm composure he reasoned on theimmortality of the soul, and cheered his visitors with words of hope. 

The literary portraits of Socrates furnished by himself, and thewritings of Plato, are among the most precious monuments of antiquity, and the life and death of such a man form a memorable era in the moraland intellectual history of mankind. 

Plato, in his _Phædo, or the Immortality of the Soul_, gives thefollowing dialogue between Echecrates and Phædo--two friends anddisciples of the late philosopher--evidently with no other purpose inview than to lend to the account of the great teacher's last hours, andthe last words his followers were to hear from his lips, the additionalforce and dramatic value of a personal narrative in the mouth of aloving pupil and an actual eyewitness of his death. )

Echecrates. Were you personally present, Phaedo, with Socrates on thatday when he drank the poison in prison? or did you hear an account of itfrom someone else?

_Phæd. _ I was there myself, Echecrates. 

_Ech. _ What then did he say before his death? and how did he die? for Ishould be glad to hear; for scarcely any citizen of Phlius[39] evervisits Athens now, nor has any stranger for a long time come fromthence, who was able to give us a clear account of the particulars, except that he died from drinking poison; but he was unable to tell usanything more. 

[Footnote 39: Phlius, to which Echecrates belonged, was a town ofSicyonia in Peloponnesus. ]

_Phæd. _ And did you not hear about the trial how it went off?

_Ech. _ Yes; some one told me this; and I wondered, that as it took placeso long ago, he appears to have died long afterward. What was the reasonof this, Phaedo?

_Phæd. _ An accidental circumstance happened in his favor, Echecrates:for the poop of the ship which the Athenians send to Delos, chanced tobe crowned on the day before the trial. 

_Ech. _ But what is this ship?

_Phæd. _ It is the ship, as the Athenians say, in which Theseus formerlyconveyed the fourteen boys and girls to Crete and saved both them andhimself. They, therefore, made a vow to Apollo on that occasion, as itis said, that if they were saved they would every year despatch a solemnembassy to Delos; which, from that time to the present, they send yearlyto the god. When they begin the preparations for this solemn embassy, they have a law that the city shall be purified during this period, andthat no public execution shall take place until the ship has reachedDelos, and returned to Athens: and this occasionally takes a long time, when the winds happen to impede their passage. The commencement of theembassy is when the priest of Apollo has crowned the poop of the ship. And this was done, as I said, on the day before the trial: on thisaccount Socrates had a long interval in prison between the trial and hisdeath. 

_Ech. _ And what, Phædo, were the circumstances of his death? what wassaid and done? and who of his friends were with him? or would not themagistrates allow them to be present, but did he die destitute offriends?

_Phæd. _ By no means; but some, indeed several, were present. 

_Ech. _ Take the trouble, then, to relate to me all the particulars asclearly as you can, unless you have any pressing business. 

_Phæd. _ I am at leisure, and will endeavor to give you a full account:for to call Socrates to mind, whether speaking myself or listening tosome one else, is always most delightful to me. 

_Ech. _ And indeed, Phaedo, you have others to listen to you who are ofthe same mind. However, endeavor to relate everything as accurately asyou can. 

_Phæd. _ I was indeed wonderfully affected by being present, for I wasnot impressed with a feeling of pity, like one present at the death of afriend; for the man appeared to me to be happy, Echecrates, both fromhis manner and discourse, so fearlessly and nobly did he meet his death:so much so that it occurred to me that in going to Hades he was notgoing without a divine destiny, but that when he arrived there he wouldbe happy, if anyone ever was. For this reason I was entirelyuninfluenced by any feeling of pity, as would seem likely to be the casewith one present on so mournful an occasion; nor was I affected bypleasure from being engaged in philosophical discussions, as was ourcustom; for our conversation was of that kind. But an altogetherunaccountable feeling possessed me, a kind of unusual mixture compoundedof pleasure and pain together, when I considered that he was immediatelyabout to die. And all of us who were present were affected in much thesame manner, at one time laughing, at another weeping one of usespecially, Apollodorus, for you know the man and his manner. 

_Ech. _ How should I not?

_Phæd. _ He, then, was entirely overcome by these emotions; and I too wastroubled, as well as the others. 

_Ech. _ But who were present, Phaedo?

_Phæd. _ Of his fellow-countrymen, this Apollodorus was present, andCritobulus, and his father Crito, moreover Hermogenes, Epigenes, Æschines, and Antisthenes; Ctesippus the Pæanian, Menexenus, and someother of his countrymen were also there: Plato I think was sick. 

_Ech. _ Were any strangers present?

_Phæd. _ Yes: Simmias the Theban, Cebes, and Phaedondes: and from Megara, Euclides and Terpsion. 

_Ech. _ But what! were not Aristippus and Cleombrotus present?

_Phæd. _ No: for they were said to be at Ægina. 

_Ech. _ Was anyone else there?

_Phæd. _ I think that these were nearly all who were present. 

_Ech. _ Well, now, what do you say was the subject of conversation?

_Phæd. _ I will endeavor to relate the whole to you from the beginning. On the preceding days I and the others were constantly in the habit ofvisiting Socrates, meeting early in the morning at the court-house wherethe trial took place, for it was near the prison. Here then we waitedevery day till the prison was opened, conversing with each other; for itwas not opened very early, but, as soon as it was opened we went in toSocrates, and usually spent the day with him. On that occasion, however, we met earlier than usual; for on the preceding day, when we left theprison in the evening, we heard that the ship had arrived from Delos. Wetherefore urged each other to come as early as possible to theaccustomed place; accordingly we came, and the porter, who used to admitus, coming out, told us to wait, and not enter until he called us. "For, " he said, "the Eleven are now freeing Socrates from his bonds, andannouncing to him that he must die to-day. " But in no long time hereturned, and bade us enter. 

When we entered, we found Socrates just freed from his bonds, andXantippe (you know her), holding his little boy and sitting by him. Assoon as Xantippe saw us, she wept aloud and said such things as womenusually do on such occasions, as, "Socrates, your friends will nowconverse with you for the last time, and you with them. " But Socrates, looking toward Crito, said, "Crito, let some one take her home. " Uponwhich some of Crito's attendants led her away, wailing and beatingherself. 

But Socrates, sitting up in bed, drew up his leg and rubbed it with hishand, and as he rubbed it said: "What an unaccountable thing, myfriends, that seems to be which men call pleasure; and how wonderfullyis it related toward that which appears to be its contrary, pain; inthat they will not both be present to a man at the same time, yet, ifanyone pursues and attains the one, he is almost always compelled toreceive the other, as if they were both united together from one head. 

"And it seems to me, " he said, "that if Æsop had observed this he wouldhave made a fable from it, how the Deity, wishing to reconcile thesewarring principles, when he could not do so, united their headstogether, and from hence whomsoever the one visits the other attendsimmediately after; as appears to be the case with me, since I sufferedpain in my leg before from the chain, but now pleasure seems to havesucceeded. "

Hereupon Cebes, interrupting him, said: "By Jupiter, Socrates, you havedone well in reminding me. With respect to the poems which you made, byputting into metre those Fables of Æsop and the hymn to Apollo, severalother persons asked me, and especially Evenus recently, with what designyou made them after you came here, whereas before, you had never madeany. If, therefore, you care at all that I should be able to answerEvenus when he asks me again--for I am sure he will do so--tell me whatI must say to him. "

"Tell him the truth then, Cebes, " he replied, "that I did not make themfrom a wish to compete with him, or his poems, for I knew that thiswould be no easy matter; but that I might discover the meaning ofcertain dreams, and discharge my conscience, if this should happen to bethe music which they have often ordered me to apply myself to. For theywere to the following purport: often in my past life the same dreamvisited me, appearing at different times in different forms, yet alwayssaying the same thing. 'Socrates, ' it said, 'apply yourself to andpractise music. ' And I formerly supposed that it exhorted and encouragedme to continue the pursuit I was engaged in, as those who cheer onracers, so that the dream encouraged me to continue the pursuit I wasengaged in, namely, to apply myself to music, since philosophy is thehighest music, and I was devoted to it. But now since my trial tookplace, and the festival of the god retarded my death, it appeared to methat, if by chance the dream so frequently enjoined me to apply myselfto popular music, I ought not to disobey it but do so, for that it wouldbe safer for me not to depart hence before I had discharged myconscience by making some poems in obedience to the dream. Thus, then, Ifirst of all composed a hymn to the god whose festival was present, andafter the god, considering that a poet, if he means to be a poet, oughtto make fables and not discourses, and knowing that I was not skilled inmaking fables, I therefore put into verse those fables of Æsop, whichwere at hand, and were known to me, and which first occurred to me. 

"Tell this then to Evenus, Cebes, and bid him farewell, and, if he iswise, to follow me as soon as he can. But I depart, as it seems, to-day;for so the Athenians order. "

To this Simmias said: "What is this, Socrates, which you exhort Evenusto do? for I often meet with him; and from what I know of him, I ampretty certain that he will not at all be willing to comply with youradvice. "

"What then, " said he, "is not Evenus a philosopher?"

"To me he seems to be so, " said Simmias. 

"Then he will be willing, " rejoined Socrates, "and so will everyone whoworthily engages in this study; perhaps indeed he will not commitviolence on himself, for that they say is not allowable. " And as he saidthis he let down his leg from the bed on the ground, and in this posturecontinued during the remainder of the discussion. 

Cebes then asked him: "What do you mean, Socrates, by saying that it isnot lawful to commit violence on one's self, but that a philosophershould be willing to follow one who is dying?"

"What, Cebes, have not you and Simmias, who have conversed familiarlywith Philolaus[40] on this subject, heard?"

[Footnote 40: A Pythagorean of Crotona. ]

"Nothing very clearly, Socrates. "

"I however speak only from hearsay; what then I have heard I have noscruple in telling. And perhaps it is most becoming for one who is aboutto travel there, to inquire and speculate about the journey thither, what kind we think it is. What else can one do in the interval beforesunset?"

"Why, then, Socrates, do they say that it is not allowable to kill one'sself? for I, as you asked just now, have heard both Philolaus, when helived with us, and several others say that it was not right to do this;but I never heard anything clear upon the subject from anyone. "

"Then you should consider it attentively, " said Socrates, "for perhapsyou may hear: probably, however, it will appear wonderful to you, ifthis alone of all other things is an universal truth, [41] and it neverhappens to a man, as is the case in all other things, that at some timesand to some persons only it is better to die than to live; yet thatthese men for whom it is better to die--this probably will appearwonderful to you--may not, without impiety, do this good to themselves, but must await another benefactor. "

[Footnote 41: Namely, "that it is better to die than live. "]

Then Cebes, gently smiling, said, speaking in his own dialect, "Jove bewitness. "

"And indeed, " said Socrates, "it would appear to be unreasonable, yetstill perhaps it has some reason on its side. The maxim indeed given onthis subject in the mystical doctrines, [42] that we men are in a kind ofprison, and that we ought not to free ourselves from it and escape, appears to me difficult to be understood, and not easy to penetrate. This however appears to me, Cebes, to be well said, that the gods takecare of us, and that we men are one of their possessions. Does it notseem so to you?"

[Footnote 42: Of Pythagoras. ]

"It does, " replied Cebes. 

"Therefore, " said he, "if one of your slaves were to kill himself, without your having intimated that you wished him to die, should you notbe angry with him, and should you not punish him if you could?"

"Certainly, " he replied. 

"Perhaps then, in this point of view, it is not unreasonable to assert, that a man ought not to kill himself before the deity lays him under anecessity of doing so, such as that now laid on me. "

"This, indeed, " said Cebes, "appears to be probable. But what you saidjust now, Socrates, that philosophers should be very willing to die, appears to be an absurdity, if what we said just now is agreeable toreason, that it is God who takes care of us, and that we are hisproperty. For that the wisest men should not be grieved at leaving thatservice in which they govern them who are the best of all masters, namely, the gods, is not consistent with reason. For surely he cannotthink that he will take better care of himself when he has become free:but a foolish man might perhaps think thus, that he should fly from hismaster, and would not reflect that he ought not to fly from a good one, but should cling to him as much as possible, therefore he would flyagainst all reason; but a man of sense would desire to be constantlywith one better than himself. Thus, Socrates, the contrary of what youjust now said is likely to be the case; for it becomes the wise to begrieved at dying, but the foolish to rejoice. "

Socrates, on hearing this, appeared to me to be pleased with thepertinacity of Cebes, and looking toward us said: "Cebes, you see, always searches out arguments, and is not at all willing to admit atonce anything one has said. "

Whereupon Simmias replied: "But indeed, Socrates, Cebes appears to me, now, to say something to the purpose; for with what design should menreally wise fly from masters who are better than themselves, and soreadily leave them? And Cebes appears to me to direct his argumentagainst you, because you so easily endure to abandon both us and thosegood rulers--as you yourself confess--the gods. "

"You speak justly, " said Socrates, "for I think you mean that I ought tomake my defence to this charge, as if I were in a court of justice. "

"Certainly, " replied Simmias. 

"Come then, " said he, "I will endeavor to defend myself moresuccessfully before you than before the judges. For, " he proceeded, "Simmias and Cebes, if I did not think that I should go first of allamong other deities who are both wise and good, and next among men whohave departed this life better than any here, I should be wrong in notgrieving at death: but now be assured, I hope to go among good men, though I would not positively assert it; that, however, I shall go amonggods who are perfectly good masters, be assured I can positively assertthis, if I can anything of the kind. So that, on this account, I am notso much troubled, but I entertain a good hope that something awaitsthose who die, and that, as was said long since, it will be far betterfor the good than the evil. "

"What then, Socrates, " said Simmias, "would you go away keeping thispersuasion to yourself, or would you impart it to us? For this goodappears to me to be also common to us; and at the same time it will bean apology for you, if you can persuade us to believe what you say. "

"I will endeavor to do so, " he said. "But first let us attend to Critohere, and see what it is he seems to have for some time wished to say. "

"What else, Socrates, " said Crito, "but what he who is to give you thepoison told me some time ago, that I should tell you to speak as littleas possible? For he says that men become too much heated by speaking, and that nothing of this kind ought to interfere with the poison, andthat, otherwise, those who did so were sometimes compelled to drink twoor three times. "

To which Socrates replied: "Let him alone, and let him attend to his ownbusiness, and prepare to give it me twice, or, if occasion requires, even thrice. "

"I was almost certain what you would say, " answered Crito, "but he hasbeen some time pestering me. "

"Never mind him, " he rejoined. 

"But now I wish to render an account to you, my judges, of the reasonwhy a man who has really devoted his life to philosophy, when he isabout to die appears to me, on good grounds, to have confidence, and toentertain a firm hope that the greatest good will befall him in theother world, when he has departed this life. How then this comes topass, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavor to explain. 

"For as many as rightly apply themselves to philosophy seem to have leftall others in ignorance, that they aim at nothing else than to die andbe dead. If this then is true, it would surely be absurd to be anxiousabout nothing else than this during their whole life, but when itarrives, to be grieved at what they have been long anxious about andaimed at. "

Upon this, Simmias, smiling, said: "By Jupiter, Socrates, though I amnot now at all inclined to smile, you have made me do so; for I thinkthat the multitude, if they heard this, would think it was very wellsaid in reference to philosophers, and that our countrymen particularlywould agree with you, that true philosophers do desire death, and thatthey are by no means ignorant that they deserve to suffer it. "

"And indeed, Simmias, they would speak the truth, except in assertingthat they are not ignorant; for they are ignorant of the sense in whichtrue philosophers desire to die, and in what sense they deserve death, and what kind of death. But, " he said, "let us take leave of them, andspeak to one another. Do we think that death is anything?"

"Certainly, " replied Simmias. 

"Is it anything else than the separation of the soul from the body? andis not this to die, for the body to be apart by itself separated fromthe soul, and for the soul to subsist apart by itself separated from thebody? Is death anything else than this?"

"No, but this, " he replied. 

"Consider then, my good friend, whether you are of the same opinion asme; for thus I think we shall understand better the subject we areconsidering. Does it appear to you to be becoming in a philosopher to beanxious about pleasures, as they are called, such as meats and drinks?"

"By no means, Socrates, " said Simmias. 

"But what? about the pleasures of love?"

"Not at all"

"What then? does such a man appear to you to think other bodilyindulgences of value? for instance, does he seem to you to value ordespise the possession of magnificent garments and sandals, and otherornaments of the body, except so far as necessity compels him to usethem?"

"The true philosopher, " he answered, "appears to me to despise them. "

"Does not, then, " he continued, "the whole employment of such a manappear to you to be, not about the body, but to separate himself from itas much as possible, and be occupied about his soul?"

"It does. "

"First of all, then, in such matters, does not the philosopher, aboveall other men, evidently free his soul as much as he can from communionwith the body?"

"It appears so. "

"And it appears, Simmias, to the generality of men, that he who takes nopleasure in such things, and who does not use them, does not deserve tolive; but that he nearly approaches to death who cares nothing for thepleasures that subsist through the body. "

"You speak very truly. "

"But what with respect to the acquisition of wisdom, is the body animpediment or not, if anyone takes it with him as a partner in thesearch? What I mean is this: Do sight and hearing convey any truth tomen, or are they such as the poets constantly sing, who say that weneither hear nor see anything with accuracy? If, however, these bodilysenses are neither accurate nor clear, much less can the others be so:for they are all far inferior to these. Do they not seem so to you?"

"Certainly, " he replied. 

"When, then, " said he, "does the soul light on the truth? for, when itattempts to consider anything in conjunction with the body, it is plainthat it is then led astray by it. "

"You say truly. "

"Must it not then be by reasoning, if at all, that any of the thingsthat really are become known to it?"

"Yes. "

"And surely the soul then reasons best when none of these thingsdisturbs it, neither hearing, nor sight, nor pain, nor pleasure of anykind, but it retires as much as possible within itself, taking leave ofthe body, and, as far as it can, not communicating or being in contactwith it, it aims at the discovery of that which is. "

"Such is the case. "

"Does not then the soul of the philosopher, in these cases, despise thebody, and flee from it, and seek to retire within itself?"

"It appears so. "

"But what as to such things as these, Simmias? Do we say that justiceitself is something or nothing?"

"We say it is something, by Jupiter. "

"And that beauty and goodness are something?"

"How not?"

"Now, then, have you ever seen anything of this kind with your eyes?"

"By no means, " he replied. 

"Did you ever lay hold of them by any other bodily sense? but I speakgenerally, as of magnitude, health, strength, and, in a word, of theessence of everything, that is to say, what each is. Is then the exacttruth of these perceived by means of the body, or is it thus, whoeveramong us habituates himself to reflect most deeply and accurately oneach several thing about which he is considering, he will make thenearest approach to the knowledge of it?"

"Certainly. "

"Would not he, then, do this with the utmost purity, who should in thehighest degree approach each subject by means of the mere mentalfaculties, neither employing the sight in conjunction with thereflective faculty, nor introducing any other sense together withreasoning; but who, using pure reflection by itself, should attempt tosearch out each essence purely by itself, freed as much as possible fromthe eyes and ears, and, in a word, from the whole body, as disturbingthe soul, and not suffering it to acquire truth and wisdom, when it isin communion with it. Is not he the person, Simmias, if any one can, whowill arrive at the knowledge of that which is?"

"You speak with wonderful truth, Socrates, " replied Simmias. 

"Wherefore, " he said, "it necessarily follows from all this, that somesuch opinion as this should be entertained by genuine philosophers, sothat they should speak among themselves as follows: 'A by-path, as itwere, seems to lead us on in our researches undertaken by reason, 'because as long as we are encumbered with the body, and our soul iscontaminated with such an evil, we can never fully attain to what wedesire; and this, we say, is truth. For the body subjects us toinnumerable hinderances on account of its necessary support, andmoreover if any diseases befall us, they impede us in our search afterthat which is; and it fills us with longings, desires, fears, all kindsof fancies, and a multitude of absurdities, so that, as it is said inreal truth, by reason of the body it is never possible for us to makeany advances in wisdom. 

"For nothing else but the body and its desires occasions wars, seditions, and contests; for all wars among us arise on account of ourdesire to acquire wealth; and we are compelled to acquire wealth onaccount of the body, being enslaved to its service; and consequently onall these accounts we are hindered in the pursuit of philosophy. But theworst of all is, that if it leaves us any leisure, and we applyourselves to the consideration of any subject, it constantly obtrudesitself in the midst of our researches, and occasions trouble anddisturbance, and confounds us so that we are not able by reason of it todiscern the truth. It has then in reality been demonstrated to us, thatif we are ever to know anything purely, we must be separated from thebody, and contemplate the things themselves by the mere soul. And then, as it seems, we shall obtain that which we desire, and which we professourselves to be lovers of, wisdom, when we are dead, as reason shows, but not while we are alive. For if it is not possible to know anythingpurely in conjunction with the body, one of these two things mustfollow, either that we can never acquire knowledge, or only after we aredead; for then the soul will subsist apart by itself, separate from thebody, but not before. And while we live, we shall thus, as it seems, approach nearest to knowledge, if we hold no intercourse or communion atall with the body, except what absolute necessity requires, nor sufferourselves to be polluted by its nature, but purify ourselves from it, until God himself shall release us. And thus being pure, and freed fromthe folly of body, we shall in all likelihood be with others likeourselves, and shall of ourselves know the whole real essence, and thatprobably is truth; for it is not allowable for the impure to attain tothe pure. Such things, I think, Simmias, all true lovers of wisdom mustboth think and say to one another. Does it not seem so to you?"

"Most assuredly, Socrates. "

"If this, then, " said Socrates, "is true, my friend, there is great hopefor one who arrives where I am going, there, if anywhere, to acquirethat perfection for the sake of which we have taken so much pains duringour past life; so that the journey now appointed me is set out upon withgood hope, and will be so by any other man who thinks that his mind hasbeen as it were purified. 

"This earth and the whole region here are decayed and corroded, asthings in the sea by the saltness; for nothing of any value grows in thesea, nor, in a word, does it contain anything perfect, but there arecaverns, and sand, and mud in abundance, and filth in whatever parts ofthe sea there is earth, nor are they at all worthy to be compared withthe beautiful things with us. But, on the other hand, those things inthe upper regions of the earth would appear far more to excel the thingswith us. For, if we may tell a beautiful fable, it is well worthhearing, Simmias, what kind the things are on the earth beneath theheavens. "

"Indeed, Socrates, " said Simmias, "we should be very glad to hear thatfable. "

"First of all, then, my friend, " he continued, "this earth, if anyoneshould survey it from above, is said to have the appearance of ballscovered with twelve different pieces of leather, variegated anddistinguished with colors, of which the colors found here, and whichpainters use, are as it were copies. But there the whole earth iscomposed of such, and far more brilliant and pure than these; for onepart of it is purple, and of wonderful beauty, part of a golden color, and part of white, more white than chalk or snow, and in like mannercomposed of other colors, and those more in number and more beautifulthan any we have ever beheld. And those very hollow parts of the earth, though filled with water and air, exhibit a certain species of color, shining among the variety of other colors, so that one continuallyvariegated aspect presents itself to the view. In this earth, beingsuch, all things that grow grow in a manner proportioned to itsnature--trees, flowers, and fruits; and again, in like manner, itsmountains and stones possess, in the same proportion, smoothness andtransparency and more beautiful colors; of which the well-known stoneshere that are so highly prized are but fragments, such as sardin-stones, jaspers, and emeralds, and all of that kind. But there, there is nothingsubsists that is not of this character, and even more beautiful thanthese. 

"But the reason of this is, because the stones there are pure, and noteaten up and decayed, like those here, by rottenness and saltness, whichflow down hither together, and which produce deformity and disease inthe stones and the earth, and in other things, even animals and plants. But that earth is adorned with all these, and moreover with gold andsilver, and other things of the kind: for they are naturallyconspicuous, being numerous and large, and in all parts of the earth; sothat to behold it is a sight for the blessed. There are also many otheranimals and men upon it, some dwelling in mid-earth, others about theair, as we do about the sea, and others in islands which the air flowsround, and which are near the continent: and in one word, what water andthe sea are to us for our necessities, the air is to them; and what airis to us, that ether is to them. 

"But their seasons are of such a temperament that they are free fromdisease, and live for a much longer time than those here, and surpass usin sight, hearing, and smelling, and everything of this kind, as much asair excels water, and ether air, in purity. Moreover, they have abodesand temples of the gods, in which gods really dwell, and voices andoracles, and sensible visions of the gods, and such-like intercoursewith them; the sun, too, and moon, and stars, are seen by them such asthey really are, and their felicity in other respects is correspondentwith these things. 

"And such, indeed, is the nature of the whole earth and the parts aboutthe earth; but there are many places all round it throughout itscavities, some deeper and more open than that in which we dwell: butothers that are deeper have less chasm than in our region, and other areshallower in depth than they are here, and broader. 

"But all these are in many places perforated one into another under theearth, some with narrower and some with wider channels, and havepassages through, by which a great quantity of water flows from one intoanother, as into basins, and there are immense bulks of ever-flowingrivers under the earth, both of hot and cold water, and a great quantityof fire, and mighty rivers of fire, and many of liquid mire, some purerand some more miry, as in Sicily there are rivers of mud that flowbefore the lava, and the lava itself, and from these the several placesare filled, according as the overflow from time to time happens to cometo each of them. But all these move up and down as it were by a certainoscillation existing in the earth. And this oscillation proceeds fromsuch natural cause as this: one of the chasms of the earth isexceedingly large, and perforated through the entire earth, and is thatwhich Homer[43] speaks of, 'very far off, where is the most profoundabyss beneath the earth, ' which elsewhere both he and many other poetshave called Tartarus. For into this chasm all rivers flow together, andfrom it flow out again, but they severally derive their character fromthe earth through which they flow. "

[Footnote 43: _Iliad_, lib. Viii. , v. 14. ]

"And the reason why all streams flow out from thence and flow into it isbecause this liquid has neither bottom nor base. Therefore it oscillatesand fluctuates up and down, and the air and the wind around it do thesame; for they accompany it, both when it rushes to those parts of theearth, and when to these. And as in respiration the flowing breath iscontinually breathed out and drawn in, so there the wind, oscillatingwith the liquid, causes certain vehement and irresistible winds both asit enters and goes out. When, therefore, the water rushing in descendsto the place which we call the lower region, it flows through the earthinto the streams there and fills them, just as men pump up water. Butwhen again it leaves those regions and rushes hither, it again fills therivers here, and these, when filled, flow through channels and throughthe earth, and having severally reached the several places to which theyare journeying, they make seas, lakes, rivers, and fountains. 

"Then sinking again from thence beneath the earth, some of them havinggone round longer and more numerous places, and others round fewer andshorter, they again discharge themselves into Tartarus, some much lowerthan they were drawn up, others only a little so, but all of them flowin again beneath the point at which they flowed out. And some issue outdirectly opposite the place by which they flow in, others on the sameside: there are also some which having gone round altogether in acircle, folding themselves once or several times round the earth, likeserpents, when they had descended as low as possible, dischargethemselves again; and it is possible for them to descend on either sideas far as the middle, but not beyond; for in each direction there is anacclivity to the streams both ways. 

"Now there are many other large and various streams, and among thisgreat number there are four certain streams, of which the largest, andthat which flows most outwardly round the earth, is called Ocean, butdirectly opposite this, and flowing in a contrary direction, is Acheron, which flows through other desert places, and moreover passing under theearth, reaches the Acherusian lake, where the souls of most who diearrive, and having remained there for certain destined periods, somelonger and some shorter, are again sent forth into the generations ofanimals. A third river issues midway between these, and near its sourcefalls into a vast region, burning with abundance of fire, and forms alake larger than our sea, boiling with water and mud; from hence itproceeds in a circle, turbulent and muddy, and folding itself round itreaches both other places and the extremity of the Acherusian lake, butdoes not mingle with its water; but folding itself oftentimes beneaththe earth, it discharges itself into the lower parts of Tartarus. Andthis is the river which they call Pyriphlegethon, whose burning streamsemit dissevered fragments in whatever part of the earth they happen tobe. Opposite to this again the fourth river first falls into a placedreadful and savage, as it is said, having its whole color like_cyanus_: this they call Stygian, and the lake which the river forms byits discharge, Styx. This river having fallen in here, and receivedawful power in the water, sinking beneath the earth, proceeds, foldingitself round, in an opposite course to Pyriphlegethon, and meets it inthe Acherusian lake from a contrary direction. Neither does the water ofthis river mingle with any other, but it, too, having gone round in acircle, discharges itself into Tartarus opposite to Pyriphlegethon. Itsname, as the poets say, is Cocytus. 

"These things being thus constituted, when the dead arrive at the placeto which their demon leads them severally, first of all they are judged, as well those who have lived well and piously as those who have not. Andthose who appear to have passed a middle kind of life, proceeding toAcheron, and embarking in the vessels they have, on these arrive at thelake, and there dwell, and when they are purified, and have sufferedpunishment for the iniquities they may have committed, they are setfree, and each receives the reward of his good deeds, according to hisdeserts: but those who appear to be incurable, through the magnitude oftheir offences, either from having committed many and great sacrileges, or many unjust and lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these asuitable destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth. 

"But those who appear to have been guilty of curable yet great offences, such as those who through anger have committed any violence againstfather or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life in a stateof penitence, or they who have become homicides in a similar manner, these must of necessity fall into Tartarus, but after they have fallen, and have been there for a year, the wave casts them forth, the homicidesinto Cocytus, but the parricides and matricides into Pyriphlegethon: butwhen, being borne along, they arrive at the Acherusian lake, there theycry out to and invoke, some those whom they slew, others those whom theyinjured, and invoking them they entreat and implore them to suffer themto go out into the lake, and to receive them, and if they persuade themthey go out and are freed from their sufferings; but if not, they areborne back to Tartarus, and thence again to the rivers, and they do notcease from suffering this until they have persuaded those whom they haveinjured, for this sentence was imposed on them by the judges. 

"But those who are found to have lived an eminently holy life, these arethey who, being freed and set at large from these regions in the earth, as from a prison, arrive at the pure abode above, and dwell on the upperparts of the earth. And among these, they who have sufficiently purifiedthemselves by philosophy shall live without bodies, throughout allfuture time, and shall arrive at habitations yet more beautiful thanthese, which it is neither easy to describe nor at present is theresufficient time for the purpose. 

"But for the sake of these things which we have described, we should useevery endeavor, Simmias, so as to acquire virtue and wisdom in thislife; for the reward is noble, and the hope great. 

"To affirm positively, indeed, that these things are exactly as I havedescribed them does not become a man of sense; that however either thisor something of the kind takes place with respect to our souls and theirhabitations--since our soul is certainly immortal--this appears to memost fitting to be believed, and worthy the hazard for one who trusts inits reality; for the hazard is noble, and it is right to allureourselves with such things, as with enchantments; for which reason Ihave prolonged my story to such a length. 

"On account of these things, then, a man ought to be confident about hissoul who during this life has disregarded all the pleasures andornaments of the body as foreign from his nature, and who, havingthought that they do more harm than good, has zealously applied himselfto the acquirement of knowledge, and who having adorned his soul notwith a foreign but its own proper ornament--temperance, justice, fortitude, freedom, and truth--thus waits for his passage to Hades, asone who is ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him. You, then, " he continued, "Simmias and Cebes, and the rest, will each of youdepart at some future time; but now 'destiny summons me, ' as a tragicwriter would say, and it is nearly time for me to betake myself to thebath; for it appears to me to be better to drink the poison after I havebathed myself, and not to trouble the women with washing my dead body. "

When he had thus spoken, Crito said: "So be it, Socrates, but whatcommands have you to give to these or to me, either respecting yourchildren or any other matter, in attending to which we can most obligeyou?"

"What I always say, Crito, " he replied, "nothing new; that by takingcare of yourselves you will oblige both me and mine and yourselves, whatever you do, though you should not now promise it; but if youneglect yourselves, and will not live as it were in the footsteps ofwhat has been now and formerly said, even though you should promise muchat present, and that earnestly, you will do no good at all. "

"We will endeavor then so to do, " he said; "but how shall we bury you?"

"Just as you please, " he said, "if only you can catch me, and I do notescape from you. " And at the same time smiling gently, and looking roundon us, he said: "I cannot persuade Crito, my friends, that I am thatSocrates who is now conversing with you, and who methodizes each part ofthe discourse; but he thinks that I am he whom he will shortly beholddead, and asks how he should bury me. But that which I some time sinceargued at length, that when I have drunk the poison I shall no longerremain with you, but shall depart to some happy state of the blessed, this I seem to have urged to him in vain, though I meant at the sametime to console both you and myself. Be ye then my sureties to Crito, "he said, "in an obligation contrary to that which he made to the judges;for he undertook that I should remain; but do you be sureties that, whenI die, I shall not remain, but shall depart, that Crito may more easilybear it, and when he sees my body either burnt or buried, may not beafflicted for me, as if I suffered some dreadful thing, nor say at myinterment that Socrates is laid out, or is carried out, or is buried. 

"For be well assured, " he said, "most excellent Crito, that to speakimproperly is not only culpable as to the thing itself, but likewiseoccasions some injury to our souls. You must have a good courage, then, and say that you bury my body, and bury it in such a manner as ispleasing to you, and as you think is most agreeable to our laws. "

When he had said thus he rose and went into a chamber to bathe, andCrito followed him, but he directed us to wait for him. We waited, therefore, conversing among ourselves about what had been said, andconsidering it again, and sometimes speaking about our calamity, howsevere it would be to us, sincerely thinking that, like those who aredeprived of a father, we should pass the rest of our life as orphans. When he had bathed, and his children were brought to him, for he had twolittle sons, and one grown up; and the women belonging to his familywere come, having conversed with them in the presence of Crito and giventhem such injunctions as he wished, he directed the women and childrento go away, and then returned to us. And it was now near sunset; for hespent a considerable time within. 

But when he came from bathing he sat down, and did not speak muchafterward; then the officer of the Eleven came in, and standing nearhim, said: "Socrates, I shall not have to find that fault with you thatI do with others, that they are angry with me and curse me, when, byorder of the archons, I bid them drink the poison. But you, on all otheroccasions during the time you have been here, I have found to be themost noble, meek, and excellent man of all that ever came into thisplace; and therefore I am now well convinced that you will not be angrywith me (for you know who are to blame) but with them. Now, then, foryou know what I came to announce to you, farewell; and endeavor to bearwhat is inevitable as easily as possible. " And at the same time, bursting into tears, he turned away and withdrew. 

And Socrates, looking after him, said: "And thou too, farewell; we willdo as you direct. " At the same time turning to us, he said: "Howcourteous the man is; during the whole time I have been here he hasvisited me, and conversed with me sometimes, and proved the worthiest ofmen; and now how generously he weeps for me. But come, Crito, let usobey him, and let some one bring the poison, if it is ready pounded, butif not, let the man pound it. "

Then Crito said: "But I think, Socrates, that the sun is still on themountains and has not yet set. Besides, I know that others have drunkthe poison very late, after it had been announced to them, and havesupped and drunk freely, and some even have enjoyed the objects of theirlove. Do not hasten, then, for there is yet time. "

Upon this Socrates replied: "These men whom you mention, Crito, do thesethings with good reason, for they think they shall gain by so doing, andI too with good reason shall not do so; for I think I shall gain nothingby drinking a little later, except to become ridiculous to myself, inbeing so fond of life, and sparing of it when none any longer remains. Go, then, " he said, "obey, and do not resist. "

Crito having heard this, nodded to the boy that stood near. And the boyhaving gone out, and stayed for some time, came, bringing with him theman that was to administer the poison, who brought it ready pounded in acup. And Socrates, on seeing the man, said: "Well, my good friend, asyou are skilled in these matters, what must I do?"

"Nothing else, " he replied, "than when you have drunk it walk aboutuntil there is a heaviness in your legs, then lie down; thus it will doits purpose. " And at the same time he held out the cup to Socrates. Andhe having received it very cheerfully, Echecrates, neither trembling norchanging at all in color or countenance, but, as he was wont, lookingsteadfastly at the man, said: "What say you of this potion, with respectto making a libation to anyone, is it lawful or not?"

"We only pound so much, Socrates, " he said, "as we think sufficient todrink. "

"I understand you, " he said; "but it is certainly both lawful and rightto pray to the gods, that my departure hence thither may be happy; whichtherefore I pray, and so may it be. " And as he said this he drank it offreadily and calmly. Thus far, most of us were with difficulty able torestrain ourselves from weeping, but when we saw him drinking, andhaving finished the draught, we could do so no longer; but in spite ofmyself the tears came in full torrent, so that, covering my face, I weptfor myself, for I did not weep for him, but for my own fortune, in beingdeprived of such a friend. But Crito, even before me when he could notrestrain his tears, had risen up. 

But Apollodorus, even before this, had not ceased weeping, and thenbursting into an agony of grief, weeping and lamenting, he pierced theheart of everyone present except Socrates himself. But he said: "Whatare you doing, my admirable friends? I indeed, for this reason chiefly, sent away the women that they might not commit any folly of this kind. For I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be quiet, therefore, and bear up. "

When we heard this we were ashamed and restrained our tears. But he, having walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, laiddown on his back; for the man so directed him. And at the same time hewho gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short intervalexamined his feet and legs; and then having pressed his foot hard, heasked if he felt it. 

He said that he did not. 

And after this he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher, he showedus that he was growing cold and stiff. 

Then Socrates touched himself, and said that when the poison reached hisheart he should then depart. 

But now the parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when, uncovering himself (for he had been covered over), he said, and theywere his last words: "Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it!"

"It shall be done, " said Crito; "but consider whether you have anythingelse to say?"

To this question he gave no reply; but shortly after he gave aconvulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed;and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes. 

This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend, a man, as we may say, thebest of all of his time that we have known, and, moreover, the most wiseand just. 

BRENNUS BURNS ROME

B. C. 388

BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR

(Julius Caesar is the first writer who gives us an authentic andenlightening account of the Gauls, whom he divided into three groups. The Gauls were the chief branch of the great original stock of Celts. They were a nomadic people, and from their home in Western Europe theyspread to Britain, invaded Spain, and swarmed over the Alps into Italy, and it is from the latter event that this tall, fair, and fightingnation first came into the region of history. 

Before the Gauls had come within the borders of Italy, Camillus, theDictator, had dealt the death-blow to the Etruscan League through hiscapture and destruction of its stronghold, Veii. But at the very summitof his triumph he lost the grace of his countrymen by demanding a tenthof their spoil taken at Veii, and which he claimed to have vowed toApollo. It was popularly considered a ruse to increase his privatefortune. Furthermore, a counter-claim was brought against him forappropriating bronze gates, which in Rome at that time were nothing lessthan actual money--bronze being the medium of currency. Camillus wentinto exile in consequence of the accusation. His parting prayer was thathis country might feel his need and call him back. His desire wasfulfilled, for soon after "the Gaul was at the gates" under theleadership of the haughty Brennus, who had come upon the Romans at amost opportune moment. This event of the overthrow of the Romans on theAlia has been the occasion for the well-known tale of the cackling ofthe geese in the temple of Juno, which alarmed the garrison. The episodealso gave rise to the saying of the conqueror, Brennus, who, whenreproached by his antagonists with using false weights, cast his swordinto the scale, crying, "Woe to the conquered!")

At that time no Roman foresaw the calamity which was threatening theempire. Rome had become great, because the country which she hadconquered was weak through its oligarchical institutions; the subjectsof the other states gladly joined the Romans, because under them theirlot was more favorable, and probably because they were kindred nations. But matters went with the Romans as they did with Basilius, who subduedthe Armenians when they were threatened by the Turks, and who soon afterattacked the whole Greek empire and took away far more than had beengained before. 

The expedition of the Gauls into Italy must be regarded as a migration, and not as an invasion for the purpose of conquest: as for thehistorical account of it, we must adhere to Polybius and Diodorus, whoplace it shortly before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. We can attachno importance to the statement of Livy that they had come into Italy asearly as the time of Tarquinius Priscus, having been driven from theircountry by a famine. It undoubtedly arose from the fact that some Greekwriter, perhaps Timaeus, connected this migration with the settlement ofthe Phocians at Massilia. It is possible that Livy even here made use ofDionysius; and that the latter followed Timaeus; for as Livy made use ofDionysius in the eighth book, why not also in the fifth? He himself knewvery little of Greek history;[44] but Justin's account is here evidentlyopposed to Livy. 

[Footnote 44: Comp. _Hist. Of Rome_, vol. Iii. N. 485. ]

Trogus Pompeius was born in the neighborhood of Massilia, and in writinghis forty-third book he obviously made use of native chronicles, forfrom no other source could he derive the account of the _decretahonorifica_ of the Romans to the Massilians for the friendship which thelatter had shown to the Romans during the Gallic war; and from the samesource must he have obtained his information about the maritime wars ofMassilia against Carthage. Trogus knows nothing of the story that theGauls assisted the Phocians on their arrival; but according to him, theymet with a kind reception among the Ligurians, who continued to inhabitthose parts for a long time after. Even the story of the _lucumo_ who issaid to have invited the Gauls is opposed to him, and if it werereferred to Clusium alone it would be absurd. Polybius places thepassage of the Gauls across the Alps about ten or twenty years beforethe taking of Rome; and Diodorus describes them as advancing toward Romeby an uninterrupted march. It is further stated that Melpum in thecountry of the Insubrians was destroyed on the same day as Veii: withoutadmitting this coincidence, we have no reason to doubt that thestatement is substantially true; and it is made by Cornelius Nepos, who, as a native of Gallia Transpadana, might possess accurate information, and whose chronological accounts were highly esteemed by the Romans. 

There was no other passage for the Gauls except either across the LittleSt. Bernard or across the Simplon; it is not probable that they took theformer road, because their country extended only as far as the Ticinus, and if they had come across the Little St. Bernard, they would naturallyhave occupied also all the country between that mountain and theTicinus. The Salassi may indeed have been a Gallic people, but it is byno means certain; moreover, between them and the Gauls who had comeacross the Alps the Laevi also lived; and there can be no doubt that atthat time Ligurians still continued to dwell on the Ticinus. 

Melpum must have been situated in the district of Milan. The latterplace has an uncommonly happy situation: often as it has been destroyed, it has always been restored, so that it is not impossible that Melpummay have been situated on the very spot afterward occupied by Milan. TheGallic migration undoubtedly passed by like a torrent with irresistiblerapidity: how then is it possible to suppose that Melpum resisted themfor two centuries, or that they conquered it and yet did not disturb theEtruscans for two hundred years? It would be absurd to believe it, merely to save an uncritical expression of Livy. According to the commonchronology, the Triballi, who in the time of Herodotus inhabited theplains, and were afterward expelled by the Gauls, appeared in Thracetwelve years after the taking of Rome--according to a more correctchronology it was only nine years after that event. It was the samemovement assuredly which led the Gauls to the countries through whichthe middle course of the Danube extends, and to the Po; and could thepeople who came in a few days from Clusium to Rome, and afterwardappeared in Apulia, have been sitting quiet in a corner of Italy for twohundred years? If they had remained there because they had not the powerto advance, they would have been cut to pieces by the Etruscans. We musttherefore look upon it as an established fact, that the migration tookplace at the late period mentioned by Polybius and Diodorus. 

These Gauls were partly Celts, and partly (indeed principally) Belgae orCymri, as may be perceived from the circumstance that their king, aswell as the one who appeared before Delphi, is called Brennus. _Brenin_, according to Adelung, in his _Mithridates_, signifies in the language ofWales and Lower Brittany a _king_. But what caused this wholeemigration? The statement of Livy, that the Gauls were compelled byfamine to leave their country, is quite in keeping with the nature ofall traditions about migrations, such as we find them in SaxoGrammaticus, in Paul Warnefried from the sagas of the Swedes, in theTyrrhenian traditions of Lydia, and others. However, in the case of apeople like the Celts, every specific statement of this kind, in whicheven the names of their leaders are mentioned, is of no more value thanthe traditions of other barbarous nations which were unacquainted withthe art of writing. It is indeed, well known that the Celts in writingused the Greek alphabet, but they probably employed it only in thetransactions of daily life; for we know that they were not allowed tocommit their ancient songs to writing. 

During the Gallic migration we are again made aware how little we knowof the history of Italy generally: our knowledge is limited to Rome, sothat we are in the same predicament there, as if of all the historicalauthorities of the whole German empire we had nothing but the annals ofa single imperial city. According to Livy's account, it would seem as ifthe only object of the Gauls had been to march to Rome; and yet thisimmigration changed the whole aspect of Italy. After the Gauls had oncecrossed the Apennines, there was no further obstacle to prevent theirmarching to the south of Italy by any road they pleased; and it is infact mentioned that they did proceed farther south. The Umbrians stillinhabited the country on the lower Po, in the modern Romagna and Urbino, parts of which were occupied by Liburnians. Polybius says that manypeople there became tributary to the Gauls, and that this was the casewith the Umbrians is quite certain. 

The first historical appearance of the Gauls is at Clusium, whither anoble Clusine is said to have invited them for the purpose of takingvengeance on his native city. Whether this account is true, however, must remain undecided, and if there is any truth in it, it is moreprobable that the offended Clusine went across the Apennines and fetchedhis avengers. Clusium has not been mentioned since the time of Porsena;the fact of the Clusines soliciting the aid of Rome is a proof howlittle that northern city of Etruria was concerned about the fate of thesouthern towns, and makes us even suspect that it was allied with Rome;however, the danger was so great that all jealousy must have beensuppressed. The natural road for the Gauls would have been along theAdriatic, then through the country of Umbrians who were tributary tothem and already quite broken down, and thence through the Romagnaacross the Apennines. 

But the Apennines which separate Tuscany from the Romagna are verydifficult to cross, especially for sumpter-horses; as therefore theGauls could not enter Etruria on that side--which the Etruscans hadintentionally allowed to grow wild--and as they had been convinced ofthis in an unsuccessful attempt, they crossed the Apennines in theneighborhood of Clusium, and appeared before that city. Clusium was thegreat bulwark of the valley of the Tiber; and if it were taken, theroads along the Tiber and the Arno would be open, and the Gauls mightreach Arezzo from the rear: the Romans therefore looked upon the fate ofClusium as decisive of their own. The Clusines sued for a treaty withthe mighty city of Rome, and the Romans were wise enough readily toaccept the offer: they sent ambassadors to the Gauls, ordering them towithdraw. According to a very probable account, the Gauls had demandedof the Clusines a division of their territory as the condition of peace, and not, as was customary with the Romans, as a tax upon a peoplealready subdued: if this is correct, the Romans sent the embassyconfiding in their own strength. But the Gauls scorned the ambassadors, and the latter, allowing themselves to be carried away by their warlikedisposition, joined the Etruscans in a fight against the Gauls. This wasprobably only an insignificant and isolated engagement. Such is theaccount of Livy, who goes on to say that the Gauls, as soon as theyperceived this violation in the law of nations, gave the signal for aretreat, and, having called upon the gods to avenge the wrong, marchedagainst Rome. 

This is evidently a mere fiction, for a barbarous nation like the Gaulscannot possibly have had such ideas, nor was there in reality anyviolation of the law of nations, as the Romans stood in no kind ofconnection with the Gauls. But it was a natural feeling with the Romansto look upon the fall of their city as the consequence of a _nefas_which no human power could resist. Roman vanity also is at work here, inasmuch as the Roman ambassadors are said to have so distinguishedthemselves that they were recognized by the barbarians among the hostsof Etruscans. Now, according to another tradition directly opposed tothese statements, the Gauls sent to Rome to demand the surrender ofthose ambassadors: as the senate was hesitating and left the decision tothe people, the latter not only rejected the demand, but appointed thesame ambassadors to the office of military tribunes, whereupon the Gaulswith all their forces at once marched toward Rome. 

Livy here again speaks of the _populus_ as the people to whom the senateleft the decision: this must have been the patricians only, for theyalone had the right to decide upon the fate of the members of their ownorder. It is not fair to accuse the Romans on that occasion ofdishonesty; but this account assuredly originated with later writers, who transferred to barbarians the right belonging to a nation standingin a legal relation to another. The statement that the threeambassadors, all of whom were Fabii, were appointed military tribunes, is not even the usual one, for there is another in Diodorus, who musthere have used Roman authorities written in Greek, that is, Fabius;since he calls the Cærites [Greek: Kairioi] and not [Greek: Agullaioi]. He speaks of a single ambassador, who being a son of a military tribunefought against the Gauls. This is at least a sign how uncertain historyyet is. The battle on the Alia was fought on the 16th of July; themilitary tribunes entered upon their office on the first of that month;and the distance between Clusium and Rome is only three good days'marches. It is impossible to restore the true history, but we candiscern what is fabulous from what is really historical. 

An innumerable host of Gauls now marched from Clusium toward Rome. For along time the Gauls were most formidable to the Romans, as well as toall other nations with whom they came in contact, even as far east asthe Ukraine; as to Rome, we see this as late as the Cisalpine war of theyear A. U. 527. Polybius and Diodorus are our best guides in seeking forinformation about the manners of the Gauls, for in the time of Caesarthey had already become changed. In the description of their persons wepartly recognize the modern Gael, or the inhabitants of the Highlands ofScotland: huge bodies, blue eyes, bristly hair; even their dress andarmor are those of the Highlanders, for they wore the checked andvariegated tartans; their arms consisted of the broad, unpointedbattle-sword, the same weapon as the claymore among the Highlanders. They had a vast number of horns, which were used in the Highlands formany centuries after, and threw themselves upon the enemy in immenseirregular masses with terrible fury, those standing behind impellingthose stationed in front, whereby they became irresistible by thetactics of those times. 

The Romans ought to have used against them their phalanx and doubled it, until they were accustomed to this enemy and were enabled by theirgreater skill to repel them. If the Romans had been able to withstandtheir first shock, the Gauls would have easily been thrown intodisorder, and put to flight. The Gauls who were subsequently conqueredby the Romans were the descendants of such as were born in Italy, andhad lost much of their courage and strength. The Goths under Vitiges, not fifty years after the immigration of Theodoric into Italy, werecowards, and unable to resist the twenty thousand men of Belisarius:showing how easily barbarians degenerate in such climates. 

The Gauls, moreover, were terrible on account of their inhuman cruelty, for, wherever they settled, the original towns and their inhabitantscompletely disappeared from the face of the earth. In their own countrythey had the feudal system and a priestly government: the Druids weretheir only rulers, who avenged the oppressed people on the lords, but intheir turn became tyrants: all the people were in the condition ofserfs, a proof that the Gauls, in their own country too, were theconquerors who had subdued an earlier population. We always find mentionof the wealth of the Gauls in gold, and yet France has no rivers thatcarry gold-sand, and the Pyrenees were then no longer in theirpossession: the gold must therefore have been obtained by barter. Muchmay be exaggeration; and the fact of some noble individuals wearing goldchains was probably transferred by ancient poets to the whole nation, since popular poetry takes great liberty, especially in suchembellishments. 

Pliny states that previous to the Gallic calamity the census amounted toone hundred and fifty thousand persons, which probably refers only tomen entitled to vote in the assemblies, and does not comprise women, children, slaves, and strangers. If this be correct, the number ofcitizens was enormous; but it must not be supposed to include theinhabitants of the city only, the population of which was doubtless muchsmaller. The statement of Diodorus that all men were called to arms toresist the Gauls, and that the number amounted to forty thousand, is byno means improbable: according to the testimony of Polybius, Latins andHernicans also were enlisted. Another account makes the Romans take thefield against the Gauls with twenty-four thousand men, that is, withfour field legions and four civic legions: the field legions were formedonly of plebeians, and served, according to the order of the classes, probably in _maniples_; the civic legions contained all those whobelonged neither to the patricians nor to the plebeians, that is, allthe _aerarii, proletarii_, freedmen, and artisans who had never beforefaced an enemy. They were certainly not armed with the _pilum_, nordrawn up in _maniples_; but used pikes and were employed in phalanxes. 

Now as for the field legions, each consisted half of Latins and half ofRomans, there being in each _maniple_ one century of Roman and one ofLatins. There were at that time four legions, and as a legion, includingthe reserve troops, contained three thousand men, the total is twelvethousand; now the account which mentions twenty-four thousand men musthave presumed that there were four field legions and four irregularcivic ones. There would accordingly have been no more than six thousandplebeians, and, even if the legions were all made up of Romans, onlytwelve thousand; if in addition to these we take twelve thousandirregular troops and sixteen thousand allies, the number of fortythousand would be completed. In this case, the population of Rome wouldnot have been as large as that of Athens in the Peloponnesian war, andthis is indeed very probable. The cavalry is not included in thiscalculation: but forty thousand must be taken as the maximum of thewhole army. There seems to be no exaggeration in this statement, and thebattle on the Alia, speaking generally, is an historical event. 

It is surprising that the Romans did not appoint a dictator to commandin the battle; it cannot be said indeed that they regarded this war asan ordinary one, for in that case they would not have raised so great aforce, but they cannot have comprehended the danger in all itsgreatness. New swarms continued to come across the Alps; the Senonesalso now appeared to seek habitations for themselves; they, like theGermans in after-times, demanded land, as they found the Insubrians, Boians, and others already settled; the latter had taken up their abodein Umbria, but only until they should find a more extensive and suitableterritory. 

The Romans committed the great mistake of fighting with their hurriedlycollected troops a battle against an enemy who had hitherto beeninvincible. The hills along which the right wing is said to have beendrawn up are no longer discernible, and they were probably nothing butlittle mounds of earth: at any rate it was senseless to draw up a longline against the immense mass of enemies. The Gauls, on the other hand, were enabled without any difficulty to turn off to the left. Theyproceeded to a higher part of the river, where it was more easilyfordable, and with great prudence threw themselves with all their forceupon the right wing, consisting of the civic legions. The latter atfirst resisted, but not long; and when they fled, the whole remainingline, which until then seems to have been useless and inactive, wasseized with a panic. 

Terror preceded the Gauls as they laid waste everything on their way, and this paralyzed the courage of the Romans, instead of rousing them toa desperate resistance. The Romans therefore were defeated on the Aliain the most inglorious manner. The Gauls had taken them in their rear, and cut off their return to Rome. A portion fled toward the Tiber, wheresome effected a retreat across the river, and others were drowned;another part escaped into a forest. The loss of life must have beenprodigious, and it is inconceivable how Livy could have attached so muchimportance to the mere disgrace. If the Roman army had not been almostannihilated, it would not have been necessary to give up the defence ofthe city, as was done, for the city was left undefended and deserted byall. Many fled to Veii instead of returning to Rome: only a few, who hadescaped along the high road, entered the city by the Colline gate. 

Rome was exhausted, her power shattered, her legions defenceless, andher warlike allies had partly been beaten in the same battle, and werepartly awaiting the fearful enemy in their own countries. At Rome it wasbelieved that the whole army was destroyed, for nothing was known ofthose who had reached Veii. In the city itself there were only old men, women, and children, so that there was no possibility of defending it. It is, however, inconceivable that the gates should have been left open, and that the Gauls, from fear of a stratagem, should have encamped forseveral days outside the gates. A more probable account is that thegates were shut and barricaded. We may form a vivid conception of thecondition of Rome after this battle, by comparing it with that of Moscowbefore the conflagration: the people were convinced that a long defencewas impossible, since there was probably a want of provisions. 

Livy gives a false notion of the evacuation of the city, as if thedefenceless citizens had remained immovable in their consternation, andonly a few had been received into the Capitol. The determination, infact, was to defend the Capitol, and the tribune Sulpicius had takenrefuge there, with about one thousand men. There was on the Capitol anancient well which still exists, and without which the garrison wouldsoon have perished. This well remained unknown to all antiquaries, tillI discovered it by means of information gathered from the people wholive there. Its depth in the rock descends to the level of the Tiber, but the water is now not fit to drink. The Capitol was a rock which hadbeen hewn steep, and thereby made inaccessible, but a _clivus_, closedby gates both below and above, led up from the Forum and the Sacred Way. The rock, indeed, was not so steep as in later times, as is clear fromthe account of the attempt to storm it; but the Capitol was neverthelessvery strong. Whether some few remained in the city, as at Moscow, who intheir stupefaction did not consider what kind of enemy they had beforethem, cannot be decided. The narrative is very beautiful, and reminds usof the taking of the Acropolis of Athens by the Persians, where, likewise, the old men allowed themselves to be cut down by the Persians. 

Notwithstanding the improbability of the matter, I am inclined tobelieve that a number of aged patricians--their number may not beexactly historical--sat down in the Forum, in their official robes, ontheir curule chairs, and that the chief pontiff devoted them to death. Such devotions are a well-known Roman custom. It is certainly notimprobable that the Gauls were amazed when they found the city deserted, and only these old men sitting immovable, that they took them forstatues or supernatural visions, and did nothing to them, until one ofthem struck a Gaul who touched him, whereupon all were slaughtered. Tocommit suicide was repugnant to the customs of the Romans, who wereguided in many things by feelings more correct and more resembling ourown, than many other ancient nations. The old men, indeed, had given upthe hope of their country being saved; but the Capitol might bemaintained, and the survivors preferred dying in the attempt ofself-defence to taking refuge at Veii, where after all they could nothave maintained themselves in the end. 

The sacred treasures were removed to Caere, and the hope of the Romansnow was that the barbarians would be tired of the long siege. Provisionsfor a time had been conveyed to the Capitol, where a couple of thousandmen may have been assembled, and where all buildings, temples, as wellas public and private houses, were used as habitations. The Gauls madefearful havoc at Rome, even more fearful than the Spaniards and Germansdid in the year 1527. Soldiers plunder, and when they find no humanbeings they engage in the work of destruction; and fires break out, asat Moscow, without the existence of any intention to cause aconflagration. The whole city was changed into a heap of ashes, with theexception of a few houses on the Palatine, which were occupied by theleaders of the Gauls. It is astonishing to find, nevertheless, that afew monuments of the preceding period, such as statues, situated at somedistance from the Capitol, are mentioned as having been preserved; butwe must remember that _travertino_ is tolerably fireproof. That Rome wasburned down is certain; and when it was rebuilt, not even the ancientstreets were restored. 

The Gauls were now encamped in the city. At first they attempted tostorm the _clivus_, but were repelled with great loss, which issurprising, since we know that at an earlier time the Romans succeededin storming it against Appius Herdonius. Afterward they discovered thefootsteps of a messenger who had been sent from Veii, in order that theState might be taken care of in due form; for the Romans in the Capitolwere patricians, and represented the _curies_ and the Government, whereas those assembled at Veii represented the tribes, but had noleaders. The latter had resolved to recall Camillus, and raise him tothe dictatorship. For this reason Pontius Cominius had been sent to Rometo obtain the sanction of the senate and the curies. This was quite inthe spirit of the ancient times. If the curies had interdicted him _aquaet igni_, they alone could recall him, if they previously obtained aresolution of the senate authorizing them to do so; but if he had goneinto voluntary exile, and had given up his Roman franchise by becoming acitizen of Ardea before a sentence had been passed upon him by thecenturies, it was again in the power of the curies alone, he being apatrician, to recall him as a citizen; and otherwise he could not havebecome dictator, nor could he have regarded himself as such. 

It was the time of the dog-days when the Gauls came to Rome, and as thesummer at Rome is always pestilential, especially during the two monthsand a half before the first of September, the unavoidable consequencemust have been, as Livy relates, that the barbarians, bivouacking on theruins of the city in the open air, were attacked by disease and carriedoff, like the army of Frederick Barbarossa when encamped before thecastle of St. Angelo. The whole army of the Gauls, however, was not inthe city, but only as many as were necessary to blockade the garrison ofthe Capitol; the rest were scattered far and wide over the face of thecountry, and were ravaging all the unprotected places and isolated farmsin Latium; many an ancient town, which is no longer mentioned after thistime, may have been destroyed by the Gauls. None but fortified placeslike Ostia, which could obtain supplies by sea, made a successfulresistance, for the Gauls were unacquainted with the art of besieging. 

The Ardeatans, whose territory was likewise invaded by the Gauls, opposed them, under the command of Camillus; the Etruscans would seem tohave endeavored to avail themselves of the opportunity of recoveringVeii, for we are told that the Romans at Veii, commanded by Caedicius, gained a battle against them, and that, encouraged by this success, theybegan to entertain a hope of regaining Rome, since by this victory theygot possession of arms. 

A Roman of the name of Fabius Dorso is said to have offered up, in broaddaylight, a _gentilician_ sacrifice on the Quirinal; and the astonishedGauls are said to have done him no harm--a tradition which is notimprobable. 

The provisions in the Capitol were exhausted, but the Gauls themselvesbeing seized with epidemic diseases became tired of their conquests, andwere not inclined to settle in a country so far away from their ownhome. They once more attempted to take the Capitol by storm, havingobserved that the messenger from Veii had ascended the rock, and comedown again near the Porta Carmentalis, below Araceli. The ancient rockis now covered with rubbish, and no longer discernible. The besieged didnot think of a storm on that side; it may be that formerly there had inthat part been a wall, which had become decayed; and in southerncountries an abundant vegetation always springs up between the stones, and if this had actually been neglected it cannot have been verydifficult to climb up. The Gauls had already gained a firm footing, asthere was no wall at the top--the rock which they stormed was not theTarpeian, but the Arx--when Manlius, who lived there, was roused by thescreaming of the geese: he came to the spot and thrust down those whowere climbing up. 

This rendered the Gauls still more inclined to commence negotiations;they were, moreover, called back by an inroad of some Alpine tribes intoLombardy, where they had left their wives and children: they offered todepart if the Romans would pay them a ransom of a thousand pounds ofgold, to be taken no doubt from the Capitoline treasury. Considering thevalue of money at that time, the sum was enormous: in the time ofTheodosius, indeed, there were people at Rome who possessed severalhundredweight of gold, nay, one is said to have had an annual revenue oftwo hundredweight. There can be no doubt that the Gauls received the sumthey demanded, and quitted Rome; that in weighing it they scornfullyimposed upon the Romans is very possible, and the _vae victis_ too maybe true: we ourselves have seen similar things before the year 1813. 

But there can be no truth in the story told by Livy, that while theywere disputing Camillus appeared with an army and stopped theproceedings, because the military tribunes had had no right to concludethe treaty. He is there said to have driven the Gauls from the city, andafterward in a twofold battle to have so completely defeated them thatnot even a messenger escaped. Beaufort, inspired by Gallic patriotism, has most excellently shown what a complete fable this story is. Toattempt to disguise the misfortunes of our forefathers by substitutingfables in their place is mere childishness. This charge does not affectLivy, indeed, for he copied only what others had written before him; buthe did not allow his own conviction to appear as he generally does, forhe treats the whole of the early history with a sort of irony, halfbelieving, half disbelieving it. 

According to another account in Diodorus, the Gauls besieged a townallied with Rome--its name seems to be mis-written, but is probablyintended for Vulsinii--and the Romans relieved it and took back from theGauls the gold which they had paid them; but this siege of Vulsinii isquite unknown to Livy. A third account in Strabo and also mentioned byDiodorus does not allow this honor to the Romans, but states that theCaerites pursued the Gauls, attacked them in the country of the Sabines, and completely annihilated them. In like manner the Greeks endeavored todisguise the fact that the Gauls took the money from the Delphictreasury, and that in a quite historical period (Olymp. 120). The trueexplanation is undoubtedly the one found in Polybius, that the Gaulswere induced to quit Rome by an insurrection of the Alpine tribes, afterit had experienced the extremity of humiliation. 

Whatever the enemy had taken as booty was consumed; they had not madeany conquests, but only indulged in plunder and devastation; they hadbeen staying at Rome for seven or eight months, and could have gainednothing further than the Capitol and the very money which they receivedwithout taking that fortress. The account of Polybius throws light uponmany discrepant statements, and all of them, not even excepting Livy'sfairy-tale-like embellishment, may be explained by means of it. TheRomans attempted to prove that the Gauls had actually been defeated, byrelating that the gold afterward taken from the Gauls and buried in theCapitol was double the sum paid to them as a ransom; but it is much moreprobable that the Romans paid their ransom out of the treasury of thetemple of the Capitoline Jupiter and of other temples, and thatafterward double this sum was made up by a tax; which agrees with astatement in the history of Manlius, that a tax was imposed for thepurpose of raising the Gallic ransom: surely this could not have beendone at the time of the siege, when the Romans were scattered in allparts of the country, but must have taken place afterward for thepurpose of restoring the money that had been taken. Now if at a latertime there actually existed in the Capitol such a quantity of gold, itis clear that it was believed to be a proof that the Gauls had not keptthe gold which was paid to them. 

Even as late as the time of Cicero and Caesar, the spot was shown atRome in the Carinae, where the Gauls had heaped up and burned theirdead; it was called _busta Gallica_, which was corrupted in the MiddleAges into Protogallo, whence the church which was built there was inreality called _S. Andreas in bustis Gallicis_, or, according to thelater Latinity, _in busta Gallica--busta Gallica_ not being declined. 

The Gauls departed with their gold, which the Romans had been compelledto pay on account of the famine that prevailed in the Capitol, which wasso great that they pulled the leather from their shields and cooked it, just as was done during the siege of Jerusalem. The Gauls were certainlynot destroyed. Justin has preserved the remarkable statement that thesame Gauls who sacked Rome went to Apulia, and there offered for moneytheir assistance to the elder Dionysius of Syracuse. From this importantstatement it is at any rate clear that they traversed all Italy, andthen probably returned along the shore of the Adriatic: theirdevastations extended over many parts of Italy, and there is no doubtthat the Æquians received their death-blow at that time, for henceforthwe hear no more of the hostilities of the Æquians against Rome. Praeneste, on the other hand, which must formerly have been subject tothe Æquians, now appears as an independent town. The Æquians, whoinhabited small and easily destructible towns, must have beenannihilated during the progress of the Gauls. 

There is nothing so strange in the history of Livy as his view of theconsequences of the Gallic calamity; he must have conceived it as atransitory storm by which Rome was humbled but not broken. The army, according to him, was only scattered, and the Romans appear afterwardjust as they had been before, as if the preceding period had only beenan evil dream, and as if there had been nothing to do but to rebuild thecity. But assuredly the devastation must have been tremendous throughoutthe Roman territory: for eight months the barbarians had been ravagingthe country, every trace of cultivation, every farmer's house, all thetemples and public buildings were destroyed; the walls of the city hadbeen purposely pulled down, a large number of its inhabitants were ledinto slavery, the rest were living in great misery at Veii; and whatthey had saved scarcely sufficed to buy their bread. In this conditionthey returned to Rome. Camillus as dictator is called a second Romulus, and to him is due the glory of not having despaired in those distressingcircumstances. 

TARTAR INVASION OF CHINA BY MEHA

B. C. 341

DEMETRIUS CHARLES BOULGER

(The first Chinese are supposed to have been a nomad tribe in theprovinces of Shensi, which lies in the northwest of China, and amongthem at last appeared a ruler, Fohi, whose name at least has beenpreserved. His deeds and his person are mythical, but he is creditedwith having given his country its first regular institutions. 

The annalists of the Chinese chronicles placed the date of the Creationat a point of time two millions of years before Confucius; this intervalthey filled up with lines of dynasties. Preceding the Chow dynasty thechronicles give ten epochs--prior to the eighth of these there is noauthentic history. Yew-chow She [the "Nest-having"] taught the people tobuild huts of the boughs of trees. Fire was discovered by Say-jin She[the "Fire producer"]. Fuh-he [B. C. 2862] was the discoverer of iron. With Yaou [B. C. 2356] is the period whence Confucius begins his story. He says of that epoch: "The house door could safely be left open. " Yaougreatly extended and strengthened the empire and established fairs andmarts over the land. 

One of China's most notable rulers was Tsin Chi Hwangti, who wasstudious in providing for the security of his empire, and with thisobject began the construction of a fortified wall across the northernfrontier to serve as a defence against the troublesome Hiongnou tribes, who are identified with the Huns of Attila. This wall, which he began inthe first years of his reign--about the close of the third centuryB. C. --was finished before his death. It still exists, known as the GreatWall of China, and has long been considered one of the wonders of theworld. Every third man of the whole empire was employed on this work. Itis said that five hundred thousand of them died of starvation. Thecontents of the Great Wall would be enough to build two walls six feethigh and two feet thick around the equator. It is the largest artificialstructure in the world; carried for fourteen hundred miles over heightand hollow, reaching in one place the level of five thousandfeet--nearly one mile--above the sea. Earth, gravel, brick, and stonewere used in its construction. 

The weak successors of Hwangti finally gave way to the usurper, Kaotsou, who had been originally the ruler of a small town, and had borne thename of Lieou Pang. 

The reign of Kaotsou was distinguished by the consolidation of theempire; the connection of Western with Eastern China by high walls andbridges, some of which are still in perfect condition, and theinstitution of an elaborate code of court etiquette. His attention tothese things was, however, rudely interrupted by an irruption of theHiongnou Tartars. )

The death of Tsin Chi Hwangti proved the signal for the outbreak ofdisturbances throughout the realm. Within a few months five princes hadfounded as many kingdoms, each hoping, if not to become supreme, atleast to remain independent. Moungtien, beloved by the army, and at thehead, as he tells us in his own words, of three hundred thousandsoldiers, might have been the arbiter of the empire; but a weak feelingof respect for the imperial authority induced him to obey an order, sentby Eulchi, Hwangti's son and successor, commanding him "to drink thewaters of eternal life. " Eulchi's brief reign of three years was asuccession of misfortunes. The reins of office were held by the eunuchChow-kow, who first murdered the minister Lissep and then Eulchihimself. 

Ing Wang, a grandson of Hwangti, was the next and last of the Tsinemperors. On coming to power, he at once caused Chow-kow, whose crimeshad been discovered, to be arrested and executed. This vigorouscommencement proved very transitory, for when he had enjoyed nominalauthority during six weeks, Ing Wang's troops, after a reverse in thefield, went over in a body to Lieou Pang, the leader of a rebel force. Ing Wang put an end to his existence, thus terminating, in a manner notless ignominious than any of its predecessors, the dynasty of the Tsins, which Hwangti had hoped to place permanently on the throne of China, andto which his genius gave a lustre far surpassing that of many otherfamilies who had enjoyed the same privilege during a much longer period. 

The crisis in the history of the country had afforded one of those greatmen who rise periodically from the ranks of the people to give law tonations the opportunity for advancing his personal interests at the sametime that he made them appear to be identical with the public weal. Ofsuch geniuses, if the test applied be the work accomplished, there havebeen few with higher claims to respectful and admiring considerationthan Lieou Pang, who after the fall of the Tsins became the founder ofthe Han dynasty under the style of Kaotsou. Originally the governor of asmall town, he had, soon after the death of Hwangti, gathered round himthe nucleus of a formidable army, and while nominally serving under oneof the greater princes, he scarcely affected to conceal that he wasfighting for his own interest. On the other hand, he was no mere soldierof fortune, and the moderation which he showed after victory enhancedhis reputation as a general. The path to the throne being thus cleared, the successful general became emperor. 

His first act was to proclaim an amnesty to all those who had borne armsagainst him. In a public proclamation he expressed his regret at thesuffering of the people "from the evils which follow in the train ofwar. " During the earlier years of his reign he chose the city of Loyangas his capital--now the flourishing and populous town of Honan--but at alater period he removed it to Singanfoo, in the western province ofShensi. His dynasty became known by the name of the small state where hewas born, and which had fallen early in his career into his hands. 

Kaotsou sanctioned or personally undertook various important publicworks, which in many places still exist to testify to the greatness ofhis character. Prominent among those must be placed the bridgesconstructed along the great roads of Western China. Some of them arestill believed to be in perfect condition. No act of Kaotsou's reignplaces him higher in the scale of sovereigns than the improvement of theroads and the construction of those remarkable bridges. Kaotsou lovedsplendor and sought to make his receptions and banquets imposing bytheir brilliance. He drew up a special ceremonial which must have proveda trying ordeal for his courtiers, and dire was the offence if it wereinfringed in the smallest particular. He kept up festivities atSinganfoo for several weeks, and on one of these occasions he exclaimed:"To-day I feel I am emperor and perceive all the difference between asubject and his master. "

Kaotsou's attention was rudely summoned away from these trivialities bythe outbreak of revolts against his authority and by inroads on the partof the Tartars. The latter were the more serious. The disturbances thatfollowed Hwangti's death were a fresh inducement to these clans to againgather round a common head and prey upon the weakness of China, forKaotsou's authority was not yet recognized in many of the tributarystates which had been fain to admit the supremacy of the great Tsinemperor. About this time the Hiongnou[45] Tartars were governed by twochiefs in particular, one named Tonghou, the other Meha or Mehe. Ofthese the former appears to have been instigated by a reckless ambitionor an overweening arrogance, and at first it seemed that the forbearanceof Meha would allow his pretensions[46] to pass unchallenged. 

[Footnote 45: Probably the same race as the Huns. ]

[Footnote 46: Meha had become chief of his clan by murdering his father, Teou-man, who was on the point of ordering his son's assassination whenthus forestalled in his intention. Tonghou sent to demand from him afavorite horse, which Meha sent him. His kinsmen advised him to refusecompliance; but he replied: "What! Would you quarrel with your neighborsfor a horse?" Shortly afterward Tonghou sent to ask for one of the wivesof the former chief. This also Meha granted, saying: "Why should weundertake a war for the sake of a woman?" It was only when Tonghoumenaced his possessions that Meha took up arms. ]

Meha's successes followed rapidly upon each other. Issuing from thedesert, and marching in the direction of China, he wrested many fertiledistricts from the feeble hands of those who held them; and whileestablishing his personal authority on the banks of the Hoangho, hislieutenants returned laden with plunder from expeditions into the richprovinces of Shensi and Szchuen. He won back all the territory lost byhis ancestors to Hwangti and Moungtien, and he paved the way to greatersuccess by the siege and capture of the city of Maye, thus obtainingpossession of the key of the road to Tsinyang. Several of the borderchiefs and of the Emperor's lieutenants, dreading the punishmentallotted in China to want of success, went over to the Tartars, and tookservice under Meha. 

The Emperor, fully aroused to the gravity of the danger, assembled hisarmy, and placing himself at its head marched against the Tartars. Encouraged by the result of several preliminary encounters, the Emperorwas eager to engage Meha's main army, and after some weeks' searchingand manoeuvring, the two forces halted in front of each other. Kaotsou, imagining that victory was within his grasp, and believing the storiesbrought to him by spies of the weakness of the Tartar army, resolved onan immediate attack. He turned a deaf ear to the cautious advice of oneof his generals, who warned him that "in war we should never despise anenemy, " and marched in person at the head of his advance guard to findthe Tartars. Meha, who had been at all these pains to throw dust in theEmperor's eyes and to conceal his true strength, no sooner saw how wellhis stratagem had succeeded, and that Kaotsou was rushing into the trapso elaborately laid for him, than by a skilful movement he cut off hiscommunications with the main body of his army, and, surrounding him withan overwhelming force, compelled him to take refuge in the city ofPingching in Shensi. 

With a very short supply of provisions, and hopelessly outnumbered, itlooked as if the Chinese Emperor could not possibly escape the grasp ofthe desert chief. In this strait one of his officers suggested as a lastchance that the most beautiful virgin in the town should be discovered, and sent as a present to mollify the conqueror. Kaotsou seized at thissuggestion, as the drowning man will catch at a straw, and the story ispreserved, though her name has passed into oblivion, of how the youngChinese girl entered into the plan and devoted all her wits to charmingthe Tartar conqueror. She succeeded as much as their fondest hopes couldhave led them to believe; and Meha permitted Kaotsou, after signing anignominious treaty, to leave his place of confinement and rejoin hisarmy, glad to welcome the return of the Emperor, yet without himhelpless to stir a hand to effect his release. Meha retired to his ownterritory, well satisfied with the material results of the war and therich booty which had been obtained in the sack of Chinese cities, whileKaotsou, like the ordinary type of an oriental ruler, vented hisdiscomfiture on his subordinates. 

The closing acts of the war were the lavishing of rewards on the head ofthe general to whose warnings he had paid no heed, and the execution ofthe scouts who had been misled by the wiles of Meha. 

The success which had attended this incursion and the spoil of war werepotent inducements to the Tartars to repeat the invasion. While Kaotsouwas meditating over the possibility of revenge, and considering schemesfor the better protection of his frontier, the Tartars, disregarding thetruce that had been concluded, retraced their steps, and pillaged theborder districts with impunity. In this year (B. C. 199) they werecarrying everything before them, and the Emperor, either unnerved byrecent disaster or appalled at the apparently irresistible energy of thefollowers of Meha, remained apathetic in his palace. The representationsof his ministers and generals failed to rouse him from his stupor, andthe weapon to which he resorted was the abuse of his opponent, and nothis prompt chastisement. Meha was "a wicked and faithless man, who hadrisen to power by the murder of his father, and one with whom oaths andtreaties carried no weight. " In the mean while the Tartars werecontinuing their victorious career. The capital itself could not bepronounced safe from their assaults, or from the insult of theirpresence. 

In this crisis counsels of craft and dissimulation alone found favor inthe Emperor's cabinet. No voice was raised in support of the bold andonly true course of going forth to meet the national enemy. Thecapitulation of Pingching had for the time destroyed the manhood of therace, and Kaotsou held in esteem the advice of men widely different tothose who had placed him on the throne. Kaotsou opened freshnegotiations with Meha, who concluded a treaty on condition of theEmperor's daughter being given to him in marriage, and on the assumptionthat he was an independent ruler. With these terms Kaotsou felt obligedto comply, and thus for the first time this never-ceasing collisionbetween the tribes of the desert and the agriculturists of the plains ofChina closed with the admitted triumph of the former. The contest wassoon to be renewed with different results, but the triumph of Meha wasbeyond question. [47]

[Footnote 47: One historian had the courage to declare that "Never wasso great a shame inflicted on the Middle Kingdom, which then lost itsdignity and honor. "]

The weakness thus shown against a foreign foe brought its own punishmentin domestic troubles. The palace became the scene of broils, plots, andcounterplots, and so badly did Kaotsou manage his affairs at this epochthat one of his favorite generals raised the standard of revolt againsthim through apparently a mere misunderstanding. In this instance Kaotsoueasily put down the rising, but others followed which, if not pregnantwith danger, were at the least extremely troublesome. The murder ofHansin, to whose aid Kaotsou owed his elevation to the throne as much asto any other, by order of the empress, during a reception at the palace, shook confidence still more in the ruler, and many of his followers wereforced into open rebellion through dread of personal danger. What wonderthat, as he has said, "the very name of revolt inspired Kaotsou withapprehension. "

In B. C. 195 we find Kaotsou going out of his way to visit the tomb ofConfucius. Shortly after this event it became evident that he wasapproaching his end. His eldest son Hiaohoei was proclaimed heirapparent. Kaotsou died in the fifty-third year of his age, havingreigned as emperor during eight years. The close of his reign did notbear out all the promise of its commencement; and the extent of hisauthority was greatly curtailed by the disastrous effects of the warwith the Tartars and the subsequent revolts among his generals. 

Despite these reverses there remains much in favor of his character. Hehad performed his part in the consolidation of the Hans; it remained forthose who came after him to complete what he left half finished. 

Under Hoeiti, the Tartar King Meha sent an envoy to the capital, buteither the form or the substance of his message enraged theempress-mother, who ordered his execution. The two peoples were thusagain brought to the brink of war, but eventually the difference wassunk for the time, and the Chinese chroniclers have represented that thesatisfactory turn in the question was due to Meha seeing the error ofhis ways. [48] Not long afterward the Tartar King died, and was succeededby his son Lao Chang. 

[Footnote 48: Meha's letter of excuse is thus given: "In the barbarouscountry which I govern both virtue and the decencies of life areunknown. I have been unable to free myself from them, and, therefore, Iblush. China has her wise men; that is a happiness which I envy. Theywould have prevented my being wanting in the respect due to your rank. "]

ALEXANDER REDUCES TYRE: LATER FOUNDS ALEXANDRIA

B. C. 332

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

(The master spirit who could sigh for more worlds to conquer was at thistime high in his dazzling flight. Alexander has always been consideredone of the most striking and picturesque characters of history. Hispersonality was pleasing, his endurance remarkable, and couragedauntless. Educated by Aristotle, his keen mind was well trained. He wasskilled in horsemanship, and his control over the fiery Bucephalus, untamable by others, has become a household tale in all lands. Therenever was a more kingly prince. 

A king at twenty, his career has been an object of wonder to succeedinggenerations. He shot like a meteor across the sky of ancientcivilization. His military achievements were remarkable for quickness ofconception and rapidity of execution; his life was a progress fromconquest to conquest. Alexander's army, with its solid phalanx, itsdarting cavalry, and light troops, had become irresistible. He possessedNapoleon's ability to select good generals and to make the most of histalents. In battle Alexander was entirely devoid of fear. After avictory his chief thoughts were for the wounded. Like Napoleon, he alsopossessed that personal equation of absolute popularity with hissoldiers. Their devotion to him was simply complete. 

After Thebes came the invasion of Asia. The invincible Macedonian hadfought and won the battle of the Granicus. In this battle nearly all ofthe Persian leaders were slain, and its result spread terror throughoutPersia. Halicarnassus was next reduced. The march of Alexander was everonward. In the citadel of Gordium he cut the "Gordian knot, " andprophecy marked him for the lord of Asia. 

And now Darius marched to meet him, making a fatally bad choice ofbattle-ground. Darius was totally defeated at the celebrated battle ofIssus, although he had anticipated a victory. After the Persian rout andthe flight of Darius, whose numbers counted for nothing before theMacedonian's skill, Lindon welcomed the invaders, and Alexanderdetermined to take Tyre. This was accomplished after a siege, which wasattended with much cruelty. 

The siege of Gaza followed, in which nearly all of the citizensperished. In B. C. 332 Alexander began his expedition to Egypt. Heconciliated the natives by paying honors to their gods. In his progresshe was struck by the advantages of a certain site for a city, andfounded there the town which is now called Alexandria. )

All Phoenicia was subdued except Tyre, the capital city. This city wasjustly entitled the "Queen of the Sea, " that element bringing to it thetribute of all nations. She boasted of having first invented navigationand taught mankind the art of braving the winds and waves by theassistance of a frail bark. The happy situation of Tyre, at the upperend of the Mediterranean; the conveniency of its ports, which were bothsafe and capacious; and the character of its inhabitants, who wereindustrious, laborious, patient, and extremely courteous to strangers, invited thither merchants from all parts of the globe; so that it mightbe considered, not so much a city belonging to any particular nation, asthe common city of all nations and the centre of their commerce. 

Alexander thought it necessary, both for his glory and his interest, totake this city. The spring was now coming on. Tyre was at that timeseated on an island of the sea, about a quarter of a league from thecontinent. It was surrounded by a strong wall, a hundred and fifty feethigh, which the waves of the sea washed; and the Carthaginians, a colonyfrom Tyre, a mighty people, and sovereigns of the ocean, promised tocome to the assistance of their parent State. Encouraged, therefore, bythese favorable circumstances, the Tyrians determined not to surrender, but to hold out the place to the last extremity. This resolution, however imprudent, was certainly magnanimous, but it was soon afterfollowed by an act which was as blamable as the other was praiseworthy. 

Alexander was desirous of gaining the place rather by treaty than byforce of arms, and with this in view sent heralds into the town withoffers of peace; but the inhabitants were so far from listening to hisproposals, or endeavoring to avert his resentment by any kind ofconcession, that they actually killed his ambassadors and threw theirbodies from the top of the walls into the sea. It is easy to imaginewhat effect so shocking an outrage must produce in a mind likeAlexander's. He instantly resolved to besiege the place, and not todesist until he had made himself master of it and razed it to theground. 

As Tyre was divided from the continent by an arm of the sea, there wasnecessity for filling up the intermediate space with a bank or pier, before the place could be closely invested. This work, accordingly, wasimmediately undertaken and in a great measure completed; when all thewood, of which it was principally composed, was unexpectedly burned bymeans of a fire-ship sent in by the enemy. The damage, however, was verysoon repaired, and the mole rendered more perfect than formerly, andcarried nearer to the town, when all of a sudden a furious tempestarose, which, undermining the stonework that supported the wood, laidthe whole at once in the bottom of the sea. 

Two such disasters, following so closely on the heels of each other, would have cooled the ardor of any man except Alexander, but nothingcould daunt his invincible spirit, or make him relinquish an enterprisehe had once undertaken. He, therefore, resolved to prosecute the siege;and in order to encourage his men to second his views, he took care toinspire them with the belief that heaven was on their side and wouldsoon crown their labors with the wished-for success. At one time he gaveout that Apollo was about to abandon the Tyrians to their doom, andthat, to prevent his flight, they had bound him to his pedestal with agolden chain; at another, he pretended that Hercules, the tutelar deityof Macedon, had appeared to him, and, having opened prospects of themost glorious kind, had invited him to proceed to take possession ofTyre. 

These favorable circumstances were announced by the augurs asintimations from above; and every heart was in consequence cheered. Thesoldiers, as if that moment arrived before the city, forgetting all thetoils they had undergone and the disappointments they had suffered, began to raise a new mole, at which they worked incessantly. 

To protect them from being annoyed by the ships of the enemy, Alexanderfitted out a fleet, with which he not only secured his own men, butoffered the Tyrians battle, which, however, they thought proper todecline, and withdrew all their galleys into the harbor. 

The besiegers, now allowed to proceed unmolested, went on with the workwith the utmost vigor, and in a little time completed it and brought itclose to the walls. A general attack was therefore resolved on, both bysea and land, and with this in view the King, having manned his galleysand joined them together with strong cables, ordered them to approachthe walls about midnight and attack the city with resolution. But justas the assault was going to begin, a dreadful storm arose, which notonly shook the ships asunder, but even shattered them in a terriblemanner, so that they were all obliged to be towed toward the shore, without having made the least impression on the city. 

The Tyrians were elated with this gleam of good fortune; but that joywas of short duration, for in a little time they received intelligencefrom Carthage that they must expect no assistance from that quarter, asthe Carthaginians themselves were then overawed by a powerful army ofSyracusans, who had invaded their country. Reduced, therefore, to thehard necessity of depending entirely upon their own strength and theirown resources, the Tyrians sent all their women and children toCarthage, and prepared to encounter the very last extremities. For nowthe enemy was attacking the place with greater spirit and activity thanever. And, to do the Tyrians justice, it must be acknowledged that theyemployed a number of methods of defence which, considering the rudestate of the art of war at that early period, were really astonishing. They warded off the darts discharged from the ballisters against them, by the assistance of turning wheels, which either broke them to piecesor carried them another way. They deadened the violence of the stonesthat were hurled at them, by setting up sails and curtains made of asoft substance which easily gave way. 

To annoy the ships which advanced against their walls, they fixedgrappling irons and scythes to joists or beams; then, straining theircatapultas--an enormous kind of crossbow--they laid those great piecesof timber upon them instead of arrows, and shot them off on a sudden atthe enemy. These crushed some of their ships by their great weight, and, by means of the hooks or hanging scythes, tore others to pieces. Theyalso had brazen shields, which they drew red-hot out of the fire; andfilling these with burning sand, hurled them in an instant from the topof the wall upon the enemy. 

There was nothing the Macedonians dreaded so much as this fatalinstrument; for the moment the burning sand got to the flesh through thecrevices of the armor, it penetrated to the very bone, and stuck soclose that there was no pulling it off; so that the soldiers, throwingdown their arms, and tearing their clothes to pieces, were in thismanner exposed, naked and defenceless, to the shot of the enemy. 

Alexander, finding the resources and even the courage of the Tyriansincreased in proportion as the siege continued, resolved to make a lasteffort, and attack them at once both by sea and land, in order, ifpossible, to overwhelm them with the multiplicity of dangers to whichthey would be thus exposed. With this view, having manned his galleyswith some of the bravest of his troops, he commanded them to advanceagainst the enemy's fleet, while he himself took his post at the head ofhis men on the mole. 

And now the attack began on all sides with irresistible and unremittingfury. Wherever the battering-rams had beat down any part of the wall, and the bridges were thrown out, instantly the argyraspides mounted thebreach with the utmost valor, being led on by Admetus, one of thebravest officers in the army, who was killed by the thrust of a spear ashe was encouraging his soldiers. 

The presence of the King, and the example he set, fired his troops withunusual bravery. He himself ascended one of the towers on the mole, which was of a prodigious height, and there was exposed to the greatestdangers he had ever yet encountered; for being immediately known by hisinsignia and the richness of his armor, he served as a mark for all thearrows of the enemy. On this occasion he performed wonders, killing withjavelins several of those who defended the wall; then, advancing nearerto them, he forced some with his sword, and others with his shield, either into the city or the sea, the tower on which he fought almosttouching the wall. 

He soon ascended the wall, followed by his principal officers, andpossessed himself of two towers and the space between them. Thebattering-rams had already made several breaches; the fleet had forcedits way into the harbor; and some of the Macedonians had possessedthemselves of the towers which were abandoned. The Tyrians, seeing theenemy masters of their rampart, retired toward an open place, calledAgenor, and there stood their ground; but Alexander, marching up withhis regiment of bodyguards, killed part of them and obliged the rest tofly. 

At the same time, Tyre being taken on that side which lay toward theharbor, a general carnage of the citizens ensued, and none was spared, except the few that fell into the hands of the Siclonians in Alexander'sarmy, who--considering the Tyrians as countrymen--granted themprotection and carried them privately on board their ships. 

The number that was slaughtered on this occasion is almost incredible;even after conquest, the victor's resentment did not subside. He orderedno less than five thousand men, who were taken in the storming, to benailed to crosses along the shore. The number of prisoners amounted tothirty thousand and were all sold as slaves in different parts of theworld. Thus fell Tyre, that had been for many ages the most flourishingcity in the world, and had spread the arts and commerce into theremotest regions. 

While Alexander was employed in the siege of Tyre he received a secondletter from Darius, in which that monarch treated him with greaterrespect than before. He now gave him the title of king; he offered himten thousand talents as a ransom for his captive mother and queen; andhe promised him his daughter Statira in marriage, with all the countryhe had conquered, as far as the river Euphrates, provided he would agreeto a peace. These terms were so advantageous that, when the King debatedupon them in council, Parmenio, one of his generals, could not helpobserving that he would certainly accept of them were he Alexander. "Andso would I, " replied the King, "were I Parmenio!" But deeming itinconsistent with his dignity to listen to any proposals from a man whomhe had so lately overcome, he haughtily rejected them, and scorned toaccept of that as a favor which he already considered his own byconquest. 

From Tyre, Alexander marched to Jerusalem, fully determined to punishthat city for having refused to supply his army with provisions duringthe siege; but his resentment was mollified by a deputation of thecitizens coming out to meet him, with their high priest, Taddua, beforethem, dressed in white, and having a mitre on his head, on the front ofwhich the name of God was written. The moment the King perceived thehigh priest, he advanced toward him with an air of the most profoundrespect, bowed his body, adored the august name upon his front, andsaluted him who wore it with religious veneration. 

And when some of his courtiers expressed their surprise that he, who wasadored by everyone, should adore the high priest of the Jews: "I donot, " said he, "adore the high priest, but the God whose minister he is;for while I was at Dium in Macedonia, my mind wholly fixed on the greatdesign of the Persian war, as I was revolving the methods how to conquerAsia, this very man, dressed in the same robes, appeared to me in adream, exhorted me to banish my fear, bade me cross the Hellespontboldly, and assured me that God would march at the head of my army andgive me the victory over the Persians. " This speech, delivered with anair of sincerity, no doubt had its effect in encouraging the army andestablishing an opinion that his mission was from heaven. 

From Jerusalem he went to Gaza, where, having met with a more obstinateresistance than he expected, he cut to pieces the whole garrison, consisting of ten thousand men. Not satisfied with this act of cruelty, he caused holes to be bored through the heels of Boetis, the governor, and tying him with cords to the back of his chariot dragged him in thismanner around the walls of the city. This he did in imitation ofAchilles, whom Homer describes as having dragged Hector around the wallsof Troy in the same manner. It was reading the past to very little, orrather, indeed, to very bad purpose, to imitate this hero in the mostunworthy part of his character. 

Alexander, having left a garrison in Gaza, turned his arms toward Egypt;of which he made himself master without opposition. Here he formed thedesign of visiting the temple of Jupiter, which was situated in thesandy deserts of Lybia at the distance of twelve days' journey fromMemphis, the capital of Egypt. His chief object in going thither was toget himself acknowledged the son of Jupiter, an honor he had longaspired to. In this journey he founded the city of Alexandria, whichsoon became one of the greatest towns in the world for commerce. 

Nothing could be more dreary than the desert through which he passed, nor anything more charming--according to the fabulous accounts of thepoets--than the particular spot where the temple was situated. 

It was a perfect paradise in the midst of an immeasurable wilderness. Atlast, having reached the place, and appeared before the altar of thedeity, the priest, who was no stranger to Alexander's wishes, declaredhim to be the son of Jupiter. 

The conqueror, elated with this high compliment, asked whether he shouldhave success in his expedition. The priest answered that he should bemonarch of the world. The conqueror inquired if his father's murdererswere punished. The priest replied that his father Jupiter was immortal, but that the murderers of Philip had all been extirpated. 

THE BATTLE OF ARBELA

B. C. 331

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

(When Alexander, having returned from his campaign against thebarbarians of the North, had suppressed a revolt which meanwhile hadbroken out in Greece, he found himself free for undertaking those greatforeign conquests which he had planned. When he left Greece to conquerthe world, he said farewell to his own country forever. Crossing theHellespont into Asia Minor with a small but well equipped anddisciplined army, he advanced unopposed until he reached the riverGranicus, where he found himself confronted with a Persian host. Uponthis army he inflicted a defeat so signal as to bring at once tosubmission nearly the whole of Asia Minor. He next advanced into Syriaand met the Persian king, Darius III, who in person commanded an immensebody of soldiers, against which the young conqueror fought at Issus, winning a decisive victory. He not only captured the Persian camp, butalso secured the King's treasures and took his family prisoners. Fromthis time Alexander held complete mastery of the western dominions ofDarius, whom the conqueror afterward dethroned. 

After he had next invaded and subjugated Egypt and there founded thecity of Alexandria, he pursued King Darius, who had taken flight, intothe very heart of his empire, where the Persian monarch, on the plainsof Gaugamela, near the village of Arbela, made his last stand againsthis invincible foe. Of the battle to which Arbela gave its name, andwhich proved the death-blow of the Persian empire, Creasy's narrativefurnishes a realistic description. )

A long and not uninstructive list might be made out of illustrious menwhose characters have been vindicated during recent times fromaspersions which for centuries had been thrown on them. The spirit ofmodern inquiry, and the tendency of modern scholarship, both of whichare often said to be solely negative and destructive, have, in truth, restored to splendor, and almost created anew, far more than they haveassailed with censure or dismissed from consideration as unreal. 

The truth of many a brilliant narrative of brilliant exploits has oflate years been triumphantly demonstrated, and the shallowness of thesceptical scoffs with which little minds have carped at the great mindsof antiquity has been in many instances decisively exposed. The laws, the politics, and the lines of action adopted or recommended by eminentmen and powerful nations have been examined with keener investigationand considered with more comprehensive judgment than formerly werebrought to bear on these subjects. The result has been at least as oftenfavorable as unfavorable to the persons and the states so scrutinized, and many an oft-repeated slander against both measures and men has thusbeen silenced, we may hope forever. 

The veracity of Herodotus, the pure patriotism of Pericles, ofDemosthenes, and of the Gracchi, the wisdom of Clisthenes and ofLicinius as constitutional reformers, may be mentioned as facts whichrecent writers have cleared from unjust suspicion and censure. And itmight be easily shown that the defensive tendency which distinguishesthe present and recent great writers of Germany, France, and England hasbeen equally manifested in the spirit in which they have treated theheroes of thought and heroes of action who lived during what we term theMiddle Ages, and whom it was so long the fashion to sneer at or neglect. 

The name of the victor of Arbela has led to these reflections; for, although the rapidity and extent of Alexander's conquests have throughall ages challenged admiration and amazement, the grandeur of geniuswhich he displayed in his schemes of commerce, civilization, and ofcomprehensive union and unity among nations, has, until lately, beencomparatively unhonored. This long-continued depreciation was of earlydate. The ancient rhetoricians--a class of babblers, a school for liesand scandal, as Niebuhr justly termed them--chose, among the stockthemes for their commonplaces, the character and exploits of Alexander. 

They had their followers in every age; and, until a very recent period, all who wished to "point a moral or adorn a tale, " about unreasoningambition, extravagant pride, and the formidable frenzies of free willwhen leagued with free power, have never failed to blazon forth theso-called madman of Macedonia as one of the most glaring examples. Without doubt, many of these writers adopted with implicit credencetraditional ideas, and supposed, with uninquiring philanthropy, that inblackening Alexander they were doing humanity good service. But also, without doubt, many of his assailants, like those of other great men, have been mainly instigated by "that strongest of all antipathies, theantipathy of a second-rate mind to a first-rate one, " and by the envywhich talent too often bears to genius. 

Arrian, who wrote his history of Alexander when Hadrian was emperor ofthe Roman world, and when the spirit of declamation and dogmatism was atits full height, but who was himself, unlike the dreaming pedants of theschools, a statesman and a soldier of practical and proved ability, wellrebuked the malevolent aspersions which he heard continually thrown uponthe memory of the great conqueror of the East. 

He truly says: "Let the man who speaks evil of Alexander not merelybring forward those passages of Alexander's life which were really evil, but let him collect and review _all_ the actions of Alexander, and thenlet him thoroughly consider first who and what manner of man he himselfis, and what has been his own career; and then let him consider who andwhat manner of man Alexander was, and to what an eminence of humangrandeur _he_ arrived. Let him consider that Alexander was a king, andthe undisputed lord of the two continents, and that his name is renownedthroughout the whole earth. 

"Let the evil-speaker against Alexander bear all this in mind, and thenlet him reflect on his own insignificance, the pettiness of his owncircumstances and affairs, and the blunders that he makes about these, paltry and trifling as they are. Let him then ask himself whether he isa fit person to censure and revile such a man as Alexander. I believethat there was in his time no nation of men, no city, nay, no singleindividual with whom Alexander's name had not become a familiar word. Itherefore hold that such a man, who was like no ordinary mortal, was notborn into the world without some special providence. "

And one of the most distinguished soldiers and writers, Sir WalterRaleigh, though he failed to estimate justly the full merits ofAlexander, has expressed his sense of the grandeur of the part played inthe world by "the great Emathian conqueror" in language that welldeserves quotation:

"So much hath the spirit of some one man excelled as it hath undertakenand effected the alteration of the greatest states and commonweals, theerection of monarchies, the conquest of kingdoms and empires, guidedhandfuls of men against multitudes of equal bodily strength, contrivedvictories beyond all hope and discourse of reason, converted the fearfulpassions of his own followers into magnanimity, and the valor of hisenemies into cowardice; such spirits have been stirred up in sundry agesof the world, and in divers parts thereof, to erect and cast down again, to establish and to destroy, and to bring all things, persons, andstates to the same certain ends which the infinite spirit of the_Universal_, piercing, moving, and governing all things, hath ordained. Certainly, the things that this King did were marvellous and wouldhardly have been undertaken by anyone else; and though his father haddetermined to have invaded the Lesser Asia, it is like enough that hewould have contented himself with some part thereof, and not havediscovered the river of Indus, as this man did. "

A higher authority than either Arrian or Raleigh may now be referred toby those who wish to know the real merit of Alexander as a general, andhow far the commonplace assertions are true that his successes were themere results of fortunate rashness and unreasoning pugnacity. Napoleonselected Alexander as one of the seven greatest generals whose nobledeeds history has handed down to us, and from the study of whosecampaigns the principles of war are to be learned. The critique of thegreatest conqueror of modern times on the military career of the greatconqueror of the Old World is no less graphic than true:

"Alexander crossed the Dardanelles B. C. 334, with an army of about fortythousand men, of which one-eighth was cavalry; he forced the passage ofthe Granicus in opposition to an army under Memnon, the Greek, whocommanded for Darius on the coast of Asia, and he spent the whole of theyear 333 in establishing his power in Asia Minor. He was seconded by theGreek colonies, who dwelt on the borders of the Black Sea and on theMediterranean, and in Sardis, Ephesus, Tarsus, Miletus, etc. The kingsof Persia left their provinces and towns to be governed according totheir own particular laws. Their empire was a union of confederatedstates, and did not form one nation; this facilitated its conquest. AsAlexander only wished for the throne of the monarch, he easily effectedthe change by respecting the customs, manners, and laws of the people, who experienced no change in their condition. 

"In the year 332 he met with Darius at the head of sixty thousand men, who had taken up a position near Tarsus, on the banks of the Issus, inthe province of Cilicia. He defeated him, entered Syria, took Damascus, which contained all the riches of the Great King, and laid siege toTyre. This superb metropolis of the commerce of the world detained himnine months. 

"He took Gaza after a siege of two months; crossed the desert in sevendays; entered Pelusium and Memphis, and founded Alexandria. In less thantwo years, after two battles and four or five sieges, the coasts of theBlack Sea, from Phasis to Byzantium, those of the Mediterranean as faras Alexandria, all Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, had submitted to hisarms. 

"In 331 he repassed the desert, encamped in Tyre, re-crossed Syria, entered Damascus, passed the Euphrates and Tigris, and defeated Dariuson the field of Arbela when he was at the head of a still stronger armythan that which he commanded on the Issus, and Babylon opened her gatesto him. In 330 he overran Susa and took that city, Persepolis, andPasargada, which contained the tomb of Cyrus. In 329 he directed hiscourse northward, entered Ecbatana, and extended his conquests to thecoasts of the Caspian, punished Bessus, the cowardly assassin of Darius, penetrated into Scythia, and subdued the Scythians. 

"In 328 he forced the passage of the Oxus, received sixteen thousandrecruits from Macedonia, and reduced the neighboring people tosubjection. In 327 he crossed the Indus, vanquished Porus in a pitchedbattle, took him prisoner, and treated him as a king. He contemplatedpassing the Ganges, but his army refused. He sailed down the Indus, inthe year 326, with eight hundred vessels; having arrived at the ocean, he sent Nearchus with a fleet to run along the coasts of the IndianOcean and the Persian Gulf as far as the mouth of the Euphrates. In 325he took sixty days in crossing from Gedrosia, entered Keramania, returned to Pasargada, Persepolis, and Susa, and married Statira, thedaughter of Darius. In 324 he marched once more to the north, passedEchatana, and terminated his career at Babylon. "

The enduring importance of Alexander's conquests is to be estimated, notby the duration of his own life and empire, or even by the duration ofthe kingdoms which his generals after his death formed out of thefragments of that mighty dominion. In every region of the world that hetraversed, Alexander planted Greek settlements and founded cities, inthe populations of which the Greek element at once asserted itspredominance. Among his successors, the Seleucidae and the Ptolemiesimitated their great captain in blending schemes of civilization, ofcommercial intercourse, and of literary and scientific research with alltheir enterprises of military aggrandizement and with all their systemsof civil administration. 

Such was the ascendency of the Greek genius, so wonderfullycomprehensive and assimilating was the cultivation which it introduced, that, within thirty years after Alexander crossed the Hellespont, theGreek language was spoken in every country from the shores of the Ægeanto the Indus, and also throughout Egypt--not, indeed, wholly to theextirpation of the native dialects, but it became the language of everycourt, of all literature, of every judicial and political function, andformed a medium of communication among the many myriads of mankindinhabiting these large portions of the Old World. 

Throughout Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt the Hellenic character that wasthus imparted remained in full vigor down to the time of the Mahometanconquests. The infinite value of this to humanity in the highest andholiest point of view has often been pointed out, and the workings ofthe finger of Providence have been gratefully recognized by those whohave observed how the early growth and progress of Christianity wereaided by that diffusion of the Greek language and civilizationthroughout Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt which had been caused by theMacedonian conquest of the East. 

In Upper Asia, beyond the Euphrates, the direct and material influenceof Greek ascendency was more short-lived. Yet, during the existence ofthe Hellenic kingdoms in these regions, especially of the Greek kingdomof Bactria, the modern Bokhara, very important effects were produced onthe intellectual tendencies and tastes of the inhabitants of thosecountries, and of the adjacent ones, by the animating contact of theGrecian spirit. Much of Hindu science and philosophy, much of theliterature of the later Persian kingdom of the Arsacidæ, eitheroriginated from or was largely modified by Grecian influences. So, also, the learning and science of the Arabians were in a far less degree theresult of original invention and genius than the reproduction, in analtered form, of the Greek philosophy and the Greek lore acquired by theSaracenic conquerors, together with their acquisition of the provinceswhich Alexander had subjugated, nearly a thousand years before the armeddisciples of Mahomet commenced their career in the East. 

It is well known that Western Europe in the Middle Ages drew itsphilosophy, its arts, and its science principally from Arabian teachers. And thus we see how the intellectual influence of ancient Greece, pouredon the Eastern world by Alexander's victories, and then brought back tobear on mediæval Europe by the spread of the Saracenic powers, hasexerted its action on the elements of modern civilization by thispowerful though indirect channel, as well as by the more obvious effectsof the remnants of classic civilization which survived in Italy, Gaul, Britain, and Spain, after the irruption of the Germanic nations. 

These considerations invest the Macedonian triumphs in the East withnever-dying interest, such as the most showy and sanguinary successes ofmere "low ambition and the pride of kings, " however they may dazzle fora moment, can never retain with posterity. Whether the old Persianempire which Cyrus founded could have survived much longer than it did, even if Darius had been victorious at Arbela, may safely be disputed. That ancient dominion, like the Turkish at the present time, laboredunder every cause of decay and dissolution. The satraps, like the modernpachas, continually rebelled against the central power, and Egypt inparticular was almost always in a state of insurrection against itsnominal sovereign. There was no longer any effective central control, orany internal principle of unity fused through the huge mass of theempire, and binding it together. 

Persia was evidently about to fall; but, had it not been for Alexander'sinvasion of Asia, she would most probably have fallen beneath some otheroriental power, as Media and Babylon had formerly fallen before herself, and as, in after-times, the Parthian supremacy gave way to the revivedascendency of Persia in the East, under the sceptres of the Arsacidæ. Arevolution that merely substituted one Eastern power for another wouldhave been utterly barren and unprofitable to mankind. 

Alexander's victory at Arbela not only overthrew an oriental dynasty, but established European rulers in its stead. It broke the monotony ofthe eastern world by the impression of western energy and superiorcivilization, even as England's present mission is to break up themental and moral stagnation of India and Cathay by pouring upon andthrough them the impulsive current of Anglo-Saxon commerce and conquest. 

Arbela, the city which has furnished its name to the decisive battlewhich gave Asia to Alexander, lies more than twenty miles from theactual scene of conflict. The little village, then named Gaugamela, isclose to the spot where the armies met, but has ceded the honor ofnaming the battle to its more euphonious neighbor. Gaugamela is situatedin one of the wide plains that lie between the Tigris and the mountainsof Kurdistan. A few undulating hillocks diversify the surface of thissandy tract; but the ground is generally level and admirably qualifiedfor the evolutions of cavalry, and also calculated to give the larger oftwo armies the full advantage of numerical superiority. 

The Persian King--who, before he came to the throne, had proved hispersonal valor as a soldier and his skill as a general--had wiselyselected this region for the third and decisive encounter between hisforces and the invader. The previous defeats of his troops, howeversevere they had been, were not looked on as irreparable. The Granicushad been fought by his generals rashly and without mutual concert; and, though Darius himself had commanded and been beaten at Issus, thatdefeat might be attributed to the disadvantageous nature of the ground, where, cooped up between the mountains, the river, and the sea, thenumbers of the Persians confused and clogged alike the general's skilland the soldiers' prowess, and their very strength had been made theirweakness. Here, on the broad plains of Kurdistan, there was scope forAsia's largest host to array its lines, to wheel, to skirmish, tocondense or expand its squadrons, to manoeuvre, and to charge at will. Should Alexander and his scanty band dare to plunge into that living seaof war, their destruction seemed inevitable. 

Darius felt, however, the critical nature to himself as well as to hisadversary of the coming encounter. He could not hope to retrieve theconsequences of a third overthrow. The great cities of Mesopotamia andUpper Asia, the central provinces of the Persian empire, were certain tobe at the mercy of the victor. Darius knew also the Asiatic characterwell enough to be aware how it yields to _prestige_ of success and theapparent career of destiny. He felt that the diadem was now either to befirmly replaced on his own brow or to be irrevocably transferred to thehead of his European conqueror. He, therefore, during the long intervalleft him after the battle of Issus, while Alexander was subjugatingSyria and Egypt, assiduously busied himself in selecting the best troopswhich his vast empire supplied, and in training his varied forces to acttogether with some uniformity of discipline and system. 

The hardy mountaineers of Afghanistan, Bokhara, Khiva, and Tibet werethen, as at present, far different from the generality of Asiatics inwarlike spirit and endurance. From these districts Darius collectedlarge bodies of admirable infantry; and the countries of the modernKurds and Turkomans supplied, as they do now, squadrons of horsemen, hardy, skilful, bold, and trained to a life of constant activity andwarfare. It is not uninteresting to notice that the ancestors of our ownlate enemies, the Sikhs, served as allies of Darius against theMacedonians. They are spoken of in Arrian as Indians who dwelt nearBactria. They were attached to the troops of that satrapy, and theircavalry was one of the most formidable forces in the whole Persian army. 

Besides these picked troops, contingents also came in from the numerousother provinces that yet obeyed the Great King. Altogether, the horseare said to have been forty thousand, the scythe-bearing chariots twohundred, and the armed elephants fifteen in number. The amount of theinfantry is uncertain; but the knowledge which both ancient and moderntimes supply of the usual character of oriental armies, and of theirpopulations of camp-followers, may warrant us in believing that manymyriads were prepared to fight or to encumber those who fought for thelast Darius. 

The position of the Persian King near Mesopotamia was chosen with greatmilitary skill. It was certain that Alexander, on his return from Egypt, must march northward along the Syrian coast before he attacked thecentral provinces of the Persian empire. A direct eastward march fromthe lower part of Palestine across the great Syrian Desert was then, asever, utterly impracticable. Marching eastward from Syria, Alexanderwould, on crossing the Euphrates, arrive at the vast Mesopotamianplains. The wealthy capitals of the empire, Babylon, Susa, andPersepolis, would then lie to the south; and if he marched down throughMesopotamia to attack them, Darius might reasonably hope to follow theMacedonians with his immense force of cavalry, and, without even riskinga pitched battle, to harass and finally overwhelm them. 

We may remember that three centuries afterward a Roman army underCrassus was thus actually destroyed by the oriental archers and horsemenin these very plains, and that the ancestors of the Parthians who thusvanquished the Roman legions served by thousands under King Darius. If, on the contrary, Alexander should defer his march against Babylon, andfirst seek an encounter with the Persian army, the country on each sideof the Tigris in this latitude was highly advantageous for such an armyas Darius commanded, and he had close in his rear the mountainousdistricts of Northern Media, where he himself had in early life beensatrap, where he had acquired reputation as a soldier and a general, andwhere he justly expected to find loyalty to his person, and a saferefuge in case of defeat. [49]

[Footnote 49: Mitford's remarks on the strategy of Darius in his lastcampaign are very just. After having been unduly admired as a historian, Mitford is now unduly neglected. His partiality and his deficiency inscholarship have been exposed sufficiently to make him no longer adangerous guide as to Greek politics, while the clearness and brillianceof his narrative, and the strong common sense of his remarks (where hisparty prejudices do not interfere), must always make his volumesvaluable as well as entertaining. ]

His great antagonist came on across the Euphrates against him, at thehead of an army which Arrian, copying from the journals of Macedonianofficers, states to have consisted of forty thousand foot and seventhousand horse. In studying the campaigns of Alexander, we possess thepeculiar advantage of deriving our information from two of Alexander'sgenerals of division, who bore an important part in all his enterprises. Aristobulus and Ptolemy--who afterward became king of Egypt--keptregular journals of the military events which they witnessed, and thesejournals were in the possession of Arrian when he drew up his history ofAlexander's expedition. 

The high character of Arrian for integrity makes us confident that heused them fairly, and his comments on the occasional discrepanciesbetween the two Macedonian narratives prove that he used them sensibly. He frequently quotes the very words of his authorities; and his historythus acquires a charm such as very few ancient or modern militarynarratives possess. The anecdotes and expressions which he records wefairly believe to be genuine, and not to be the coinage of arhetorician, like those in Curtius. In fact, in reading Arrian, we readGeneral Aristobulus and General Ptolemy on the campaigns of theMacedonians, and it is like reading General Jomini or General Foy on thecampaigns of the French. 

The estimate which we find in Arrian of the strength of Alexander's armyseems reasonable enough, when we take into account both the losses whichhe had sustained and the reënforcements which he had received since heleft Europe. Indeed, to Englishmen, who know with what mere handfuls ofmen our own generals have, at Plassy, at Assaye, at Meeanee, and otherIndian battles, routed large hosts of Asiatics, the disparity of numbersthat we read of in the victories won by the Macedonians over thePersians presents nothing incredible. The army which Alexander now ledwas wholly composed of veteran troops in the highest possible state ofequipment and discipline, enthusiastically devoted to their leader, andfull of confidence in his military genius and his victorious destiny. 

The celebrated Macedonian phalanx formed the main strength of hisinfantry. This force had been raised and organized by his father, Philip, who, on his accession to the Macedonian throne, needed anumerous and quickly formed army, and who, by lengthening the spear ofthe ordinary Greek phalanx, and increasing the depth of the files, brought the tactics of armed masses to the highest extent of which itwas capable with such materials as he possessed. He formed his mensixteen deep, and placed in their grasp the _sarissa_, as the Macedonianpike was called, which was four-and-twenty feet in length, and, whencouched for action, reached eighteen feet in front of the soldier; sothat, as a space of about two feet was allowed between the ranks, thespears of the five files behind him projected in front of eachfront-rank man. 

The phalangite soldier was fully equipped in the defensive armor of theregular Greek infantry. And thus the phalanx presented a ponderous andbristling mass, which, as long as its order was kept compact, was sureto bear down all opposition. The defects of such an organization areobvious, and were proved in after-years, when the Macedonians wereopposed to the Roman legions. But it is clear that under Alexander thephalanx was not the cumbrous, unwieldy body which it was at Cynoscephateand Pydna. His men were veterans; and he could obtain from them anaccuracy of movement and steadiness of evolution such as probably therecruits of his father would only have floundered in attempting, andsuch as certainly were impracticable in the phalanx when handled by hissuccessors, especially as under them it ceased to be a standing force, and became only a militia. 

Under Alexander the phalanx consisted of an aggregate of eighteenthousand men, who were divided into six brigades of three thousand each. These were again subdivided into regiments and companies; and the menwere carefully trained to wheel, to face about, to take more ground, orto close up, as the emergencies of the battle required. Alexander alsoarrayed troops armed in a different manner in the intervals of theregiments of his phalangites, who could prevent their line from beingpierced and their companies taken in flank, when the nature of theground prevented a close formation, and who could be withdrawn when afavorable opportunity arrived for closing up the phalanx or any of itsbrigades for a charge, or when it was necessary to prepare to receivecavalry. 

Besides the phalanx, Alexander had a considerable force of infantry whowere called shield-bearers: they were not so heavily armed as thephalangites, or as was the case with the Greek regular infantry ingeneral, but they were equipped for close fight as well as forskirmishing, and were far superior to the ordinary irregular troops ofGreek warfare. They were about six thousand strong. Besides these, hehad several bodies of Greek regular infantry; and he had archers, slingers, and javelin-men, who fought also with broadsword and target, and who were principally supplied him by the highlanders of Illyria andThracia. 

The main strength of his cavalry consisted in two chosen regiments ofcuirassiers, one Macedonian and one Thessalian, each of which was aboutfifteen hundred strong. They were provided with long lances and heavyswords, and horse as well as man was fully equipped with defensivearmor. Other regiments of regular cavalry were less heavily armed, andthere were several bodies of light-horsemen, whom Alexander's conquestsin Egypt and Syria had enabled him to mount superbly. 

A little before the end of August, Alexander crossed the Euphrates atThapsacus, a small corps of Persian cavalry under Mazaeus retiringbefore him. Alexander was too prudent to march down through theMesopotamian deserts, and continued to advance eastward with theintention of passing the Tigris, and then, if he was unable to findDarius and bring him to action, of marching southward on the left sideof that river along the skirts of a mountainous district where his menwould suffer less from heat and thirst, and where provisions would bemore abundant. 

Darius, finding that his adversary was not to be enticed into the marchthrough Mesopotamia against his capital, determined to remain on thebattle-ground, which he had chosen on the left of the Tigris; where, ifhis enemy met a defeat or a check, the destruction of the invaders wouldbe certain with two such rivers as the Euphrates and the Tigris in theirrear. 

The Persian King availed himself to the utmost of every advantage in hispower. He caused a large space of ground to be carefully levelled forthe operation of his scythe-armed chariots; and he deposited hismilitary stores in the strong town of Arbela, about twenty miles in hisrear. The rhetoricians of after-ages have loved to describe DariusCodomanus as a second Xerxes in ostentation and imbecility; but a fairexamination of his generalship in this his last campaign shows that hewas worthy of bearing the same name as his great predecessor, the royalson of Hystaspes. 

On learning that Darius was with a large army on the left of the Tigris, Alexander hurried forward and crossed that river without opposition. Hewas at first unable to procure any certain intelligence of the preciseposition of the enemy, and after giving his army a short interval ofrest he marched for four days down the left bank of the river. 

A moralist may pause upon the fact that Alexander must in this marchhave passed within a few miles of the ruins of Nineveh, the great cityof the primæval conquerors of the human race. Neither the MacedonianKing nor any of his followers knew what those vast mounds had once been. They had already sunk into utter destruction; and it is only within thelast few years that the intellectual energy of one of our own countrymenhas rescued Nineveh from its long centuries of oblivion. 

On the fourth day of Alexander's southward march, his advance guardreported that a body of the enemy's cavalry was in sight. He instantlyformed his army in order for battle, and directing them to advancesteadily he rode forward at the head of some squadrons of cavalry andcharged the Persian horse, whom he found before him. This was a merereconnoitring party, and they broke and fled immediately; but theMacedonians made some prisoners, and from them Alexander found thatDarius was posted only a few miles off, and learned the strength of thearmy that he had with him. On receiving this news Alexander halted, andgave his men repose for four days, so that they should go into actionfresh and vigorous. He also fortified his camp and deposited in it allhis military stores and all his sick and disabled soldiers, intending toadvance upon the enemy with the serviceable part of his army perfectlyunencumbered. 

After this halt, he moved forward, while it was yet dark, with theintention of reaching the enemy, and attacking them at break of day. About half way between the camps there were some undulations of theground, which concealed the two armies from each other's view; but, onAlexander arriving at their summit, he saw, by the early light, thePersian host arrayed before him, and he probably also observed traces ofsome engineering operation having been carried on along part of theground in front of them. 

Not knowing that these marks had been caused by the Persians havinglevelled the ground for the free use of their war chariots, Alexandersuspected that hidden pitfalls had been prepared with a view ofdisordering the approach of his cavalry. He summoned a council of warforthwith. Some of the officers were for attacking instantly, at allhazards; but the more prudent opinion of Parmenio prevailed, and it wasdetermined not to advance farther till the battle-ground had beencarefully surveyed. 

Alexander halted his army on the heights, and, taking with him somelight-armed infantry and some cavalry, he passed part of the day inreconnoitring the enemy and observing the nature of the ground which hehad to fight on. Darius wisely refrained from moving from his positionto attack the Macedonians on the eminences which they occupied, and thetwo armies remained until night without molesting each other. 

On Alexander's return to his headquarters, he summoned his generals andsuperior officers together, and telling them that he knew well that_their_ zeal wanted no exhortation, he besought them to do their utmostin encouraging and instructing those whom each commanded, to do theirbest in the next day's battle. They were to remind them that they werenow not going to fight for a province as they had hitherto fought, butthey were about to decide by their swords the dominion of all Asia. Eachofficer ought to impress this upon his subalterns, and they should urgeit on their men. Their natural courage required no long words to exciteits ardor; but they should be reminded of the paramount importance ofsteadiness in action. The silence in the ranks must be unbroken as longas silence was proper; but when the time came for the charge, the shoutand the cheer must be full of terror for the foe. The officers were tobe alert in receiving and communicating orders; and everyone was to actas if he felt that the whole result of the battle depended on his ownsingle good conduct. 

Having thus briefly instructed his generals, Alexander ordered that thearmy should sup and take their rest for the night. 

Darkness had closed over the tents of the Macedonians when Alexander'sveteran general, Parmenio, came to him and proposed that they shouldmake a night attack on the Persians. The King is said to have answeredthat he scorned to filch a victory, and that Alexander must conqueropenly and fairly. Arrian justly remarks that Alexander's resolution wasas wise as it was spirited. Besides the confusion and uncertainty whichare inseparable from night engagements, the value of Alexander's victorywould have been impaired if gained under circumstances which mightsupply the enemy with any excuse for his defeat, and encourage him torenew the contest. It was necessary for Alexander not only to beatDarius, but to gain such a victory as should leave his rival withoutapology and without hope of recovery. 

The Persians, in fact, expected and were prepared to meet a nightattack. Such was the apprehension that Darius entertained of it that heformed his troops at evening in order of battle, and kept them underarms all night. The effect of this was that the morning found them jadedand dispirited, while it brought their adversaries all fresh andvigorous against them. 

The written order of battle which Darius himself caused to be drawn upfell into the hands of the Macedonians after the engagement, andAristobulus copied it into his journal. We thus possess, through Arrian, unusually authentic information as to the composition and arrangement ofthe Persian army. On the extreme left were the Bactrian, Daan, andArachosian cavalry. Next to these Darius placed the troops from Persiaproper, both horse and foot. Then came the Susians, and next to thesethe Cadusians. These forces made up the left wing. 

Darius' own station was in the centre. This was composed of the Indians, the Carians, the Mardian archers, and the division of Persians who weredistinguished by the golden apples that formed the knobs of theirspears. Here also were stationed the bodyguard of the Persian nobility. Besides these, there were, in the centre, formed in deep order, theUxian and Babylonian troops and the soldiers from the Red Sea. Thebrigade of Greek mercenaries whom Darius had in his service, and whoalone were considered fit to stand the charge of the Macedonian phalanx, was drawn up on either side of the royal chariot. 

The right wing was composed of the Coelosyrians and Mesopotamians, theMedes, the Parthians, the Sacians, the Tapurians, Hyrcanians, Albanians, and Sacesinae. In advance of the line on the left wing were placed theScythian cavalry, with a thousand of the Bactrian horse and a hundredscythe-armed chariots. The elephants and fifty scythe-armed chariotswere ranged in front of the centre; and fifty more chariots, with theArmenian and Cappadocian cavalry, were drawn up in advance of the rightwing. 

Thus arrayed, the great host of King Darius passed the night that tomany thousands of them was the last of their existence. The morning ofthe first of October[50] dawned slowly to their wearied watching, andthey could hear the note of the Macedonian trumpet sounding to arms, andcould see King Alexander's forces descend from their tents on theheights and form in order of battle on the plain. 

[Footnote 50: The battle was fought eleven days after an eclipse of themoon, which gives the means of fixing the precise date. ]

There was deep need of skill, as well as of valor, on Alexander's side;and few battle-fields have witnessed more consummate generalship thanwas now displayed by the Macedonian King. There were no natural barriersby which he could protect his flanks; and not only was he certain to beoverlapped on either wing by the vast lines of the Persian army, butthere was imminent risk of their circling round him, and charging him inthe rear, while he advanced against their centre. He formed, therefore, a second, or reserve line, which was to wheel round, if required, or todetach troops to either flank, as the enemy's movements mightnecessitate; and thus, with their whole army ready at any moment to bethrown into one vast hollow square, the Macedonians advanced in twolines against the enemy, Alexander himself leading on the right wing, and the renowned phalanx forming the centre, while Parmenio commanded onthe left. 

Such was the general nature of the disposition which Alexander made ofhis army. But we have in Arrian the details of the position of eachbrigade and regiment; and as we know that these details were taken fromthe journals of Macedonian generals, it is interesting to examine them, and to read the names and stations of King Alexander's generals andcolonels in this the greatest of his battles. 

The eight regiments of the royal horse-guards formed the right ofAlexander's line. Their colonels were Clitus--whose regiment was on theextreme right, the post of peculiar danger--Glaucias, Ariston, Sopolis, Heraclides, Demetrias, Meleager, and Hegelochus. Philotas was general ofthe whole division. Then came the shield-bearing infantry: Nicanor wastheir general. Then came the phalanx in six brigades. Coenus' brigadewas on the right, and nearest to the shield-bearers; next to this stoodthe brigade of Perdiccas, then Meleager's, then Polysperchon's; and thenthe brigade of Amynias, but which was now commanded by Simmias, asAmynias had been sent to Macedonia to levy recruits. Then came theinfantry of the left wing, under the command of Craterus. 

Next to Craterus' infantry were placed the cavalry regiments of theallies, with Eriguius for their general. The Thessalian cavalry, commanded by Philippus, were next, and held the extreme left of thewhole army. The whole left wing was intrusted to the command ofParmenio, who had round his person the Pharsalian regiment of cavalry, which was the strongest and best of all the Thessalian horse regiments. 

The centre of the second line was occupied by a body of phalangiteinfantry, formed of companies which were drafted for this purpose fromeach of the brigades of their phalanx. The officers in command of thiscorps were ordered to be ready to face about if the enemy should succeedin gaining the rear of the army. On the right of this reserve ofinfantry, in the second line, and behind the royal horse-guards, Alexander placed half the Agrian light-armed infantry under Attalus, andwith them Brison's body of Macedonian archers and Cleander's regiment offoot. He also placed in this part of his army Menidas' squadron ofcavalry and Aretes' and Ariston's light horse. Menidas was ordered towatch if the enemy's cavalry tried to turn their flank, and, if they didso, to charge them before they wheeled completely round, and so takethem in flank themselves. 

A similar force was arranged on the left of the second line for the samepurpose. The Thracian infantry of Sitalces were placed there, andCoeranus' regiment of the cavalry of the Greek allies, and Agathon'stroops of the Odrysian irregular horse. The extreme left of the secondline in this quarter was held by Andromachus' cavalry. A division ofThracian infantry was left in guard of the camp. In advance of the rightwing and centre was scattered a number of light-armed troops, ofjavelin-men and bowmen, with the intention of warding off the charge ofthe armed chariots. [51]

[Footnote 51: Kleber's arrangement of his troops at the battle ofHeliopolis, where, with ten thousand Europeans, he had to encountereighty thousand Asiatics in an open plain, is worth comparing withAlexander's tactics at Arbela. See Thiers' _Histoire du Consulat_. ]

Conspicuous by the brilliancy of his armor, and by the chosen band ofofficers who were round his person, Alexander took his own station, ashis custom was, in the right wing, at the head of his cavalry; and whenall the arrangements for the battle were complete, and his generals werefully instructed how to act in each probable emergency, he began to leadhis men toward the enemy. 

It was ever his custom to expose his life freely in battle, and toemulate the personal prowess of his great ancestor, Achilles. Perhaps, in the bold enterprise of conquering Persia, it was politic forAlexander to raise his army's daring to the utmost by the example of hisown heroic valor; and, in his subsequent campaigns, the love of theexcitement, of "the raptures of the strife, " may have made him, likeMurat, continue from choice a custom which he commenced from duty. Buthe never suffered the ardor of the soldier to make him lose the coolnessof the general. 

Great reliance had been placed by the Persian King on the effects of thescythe-bearing chariots. It was designed to launch these against theMacedonian phalanx, and to follow them up by a heavy charge of cavalry, which, it was hoped, would find the ranks of the spearmen disordered bythe rush of the chariots, and easily destroy this most formidable partof Alexander's force. In front, therefore, of the Persian centre, whereDarius took his station, and which it was supposed that the phalanxwould attack, the ground had been carefully levelled and smoothed, so asto allow the chariots to charge over it with their full sweep and speed. 

As the Macedonian army approached the Persian, Alexander found that thefront of his whole line barely equalled the front of the Persian centre, so that he was outflanked on his right by the entire left wing of theenemy, and by their entire right wing on his left. His tactics were toassail some one point of the hostile army, and gain a decisiveadvantage, while he refused, as far as possible, the encounter along therest of the line. He therefore inclined his order of march to the right, so as to enable his right wing and centre to come into collision withthe enemy on as favorable terms as possible, although the manoeuvremight in some respect compromise his left. 

The effect of this oblique movement was to bring the phalanx and his ownwing nearly beyond the limits of the ground which the Persians hadprepared for the operations of the chariots; and Darius, fearing to losethe benefit of this arm against the most important parts of theMacedonian force, ordered the Scythian and Bactrian cavalry, who weredrawn up in advance on his extreme left, to charge round uponAlexander's right wing, and check its farther lateral progress. Againstthese assailants Alexander sent from his second line Menidas' cavalry. As these proved too few to make head against the enemy, he orderedAriston also from the second line with his right horse, and Cleanderwith his foot, in support of Menidas. 

The Bactrians and Scythians now began to give way; but Darius reenforcedthem by the mass of Bactrian cavalry from his main line, and anobstinate cavalry fight now took place. The Bactrians and Scythians werenumerous, and were better armed than the horsemen under Menidas andAriston; and the loss at first was heaviest on the Macedonian side. Butstill the European cavalry stood the charge of the Asiatics, and atlast, by their superior discipline, and by acting in squadrons thatsupported each other, [52] instead of fighting in a confused mass likethe barbarians, the Macedonians broke their adversaries and drove themoff the field. 

[Footnote 52: The best explanation of this may be found in Napoleon'saccount of the cavalry fights between the French and the mamelukes: "Twomamelukes were able to make head against three Frenchmen, because theywere better armed, better mounted, and better trained; they had two pairof pistols, a blunderbuss, a carbine, a helmet with a visor, and a coatof mail; they had several horses, and several attendants on foot. Onehundred cuirassiers, however, were not afraid of one hundred mamelukes;three hundred could beat an equal number, and one thousand could easilyput to the rout fifteen hundred, so great is the influence of tactics, order, and evolutions! Leclerc and Lasalle presented their men to themamelukes in several lines. When the Arabs were on the point ofoverwhelming the first, the second came to its assistance on the rightand left; the mamelukes then halted and wheeled, in order to turn thewings of this new line; this moment was always seized upon to chargethem, and they were uniformly broken. "]

Darius now directed the scythe-armed chariots to be driven againstAlexander's horse-guards and the phalanx, and these formidable vehicleswere accordingly sent rattling across the plain, against the Macedonianline. When we remember the alarm which the war chariots of the Britonscreated among Cæsar's legions, we shall not be prone to deride this armof ancient warfare as always useless. The object of the chariots was tocreate unsteadiness in the ranks against which they were driven, andsquadrons of cavalry followed close upon them to profit by suchdisorder. But the Asiatic chariots were rendered ineffective at Arbelaby the light-armed troops, whom Alexander had specially appointed forthe service, and who, wounding the horses and drivers with their missileweapons, and running alongside so as to cut the traces or seize thereins, marred the intended charge; and the few chariots that reached thephalanx passed harmlessly through the internals which the spearmenopened for them, and were easily captured in the rear. 

A mass of the Asiatic cavalry was now, for the second time, collectedagainst Alexander's extreme right, and moved round it, with the view ofgaining the flank of his army. At the critical moment, when their ownflanks were exposed by this evolution, Aretes dashed on the Persiansquadrons with his horsemen from Alexander's second line. WhileAlexander thus met and baffled all the flanking attacks of the enemywith troops brought up from his second line, he kept his ownhorse-guards and the rest of the front line of his wing fresh, and readyto take advantage of the first opportunity for striking a decisive blow. 

This soon came. A large body of horse, who were posted on the Persianleft wing nearest to the centre, quitted their station, and rode off tohelp their comrades in the cavalry fight that still was going on at theextreme right of Alexander's wing against the detachments from hissecond line. This made a huge gap in the Persian array, and into thisspace Alexander instantly charged with his guard and all the cavalry ofhis wing; and then, pressing toward his left, he soon began to makehavoc in the left flank of the Persian centre. The shield-bearinginfantry now charged also among the reeling masses of the Asiatics; andfive of the brigades of the phalanx, with the irresistible might oftheir sarissas, bore down the Greek mercenaries of Darius, and dug theirway through the Persian centre. 

In the early part of the battle Darius had showed skill and energy; andhe now, for some time, encouraged his men, by voice and example, to keepfirm. But the lances of Alexander's cavalry and the pikes of the phalanxnow pressed nearer and nearer to him. His charioteer was struck down bya javelin at his side; and at last Darius' nerve failed him, and, descending from his chariot, he mounted on a fleet horse and gallopedfrom the plain, regardless of the state of the battle in other parts ofthe field, where matters were going on much more favorably for hiscause, and where his presence might have done much toward gaining avictory. 

Alexander's operations with his right and centre had exposed his left toan immensely preponderating force of the enemy. Parmenio kept out ofaction as long as possible; but Mazaeus, who commanded the Persian rightwing, advanced against him, completely outflanked him, and pressed himseverely with reiterated charges by superior numbers. 

Seeing the distress of Parmenio's wing, Simmias, who commanded the sixthbrigade of the phalanx, which was next to the left wing, did not advancewith the other brigades in the great charge upon the Persian centre, butkept back to cover Parmenio's troops on their right flank, as otherwisethey would have been completely surrounded and cut off from the rest ofthe Macedonian army. By so doing, Simmias had unavoidably opened a gapin the Macedonian left centre; and a large column of Indian and Persianhorse, from the Persian right centre, had galloped forward through thisinterval, and right through the troops of the Macedonian second line. Instead of then wheeling round upon Parmenio, or upon the rear ofAlexander's conquering wing, the Indian and Persian cavalry rodestraight on to the Macedonian camp, overpowered the Thracians who wereleft in charge of it, and began to plunder. This was stopped by thephalangite troops of the second line, who, after the enemy's horsemenhad rushed by them, faced about, countermarched upon the camp, killedmany of the Indians and Persians in the act of plundering, and forcedthe rest to ride off again. 

Just at this crisis, Alexander had been recalled from his pursuit ofDarius by tidings of the distress of Parmenio and of his inability tobear up any longer against the hot attacks of Mazaeus. Taking hishorse-guards with him, Alexander rode toward the part of the field wherehis left wing was fighting; but on his way thither he encountered thePersian and Indian cavalry on their return from his camp. 

These men now saw that their only chance of safety was to cut their waythrough, and in one huge column they charged desperately upon theMacedonian regiments. There was here a close hand-to-hand fight, whichlasted some time, and sixty of the royal horse-guards fell, and threegenerals, who fought close to Alexander's side, were wounded. At lengththe Macedonian discipline and valor again prevailed, and a large numberof the Persian and Indian horsemen were cut down, some few onlysucceeding in breaking through and riding away. 

Relieved of these obstinate enemies, Alexander again formed hisregiments of horse-guards, and led them toward Parmenio; but by thistime that general also was victorious. Probably the news of Darius'flight had reached Mazæus, and had damped the ardor of the Persian rightwing, while the tidings of their comrades' success must haveproportionally encouraged the Macedonian forces under Parmenio. HisThessalian cavalry particularly distinguished themselves by theirgallantry and persevering good conduct; and by the time that Alexanderhad ridden up to Parmenio, the whole Persian army was in full flightfrom the field. 

It was of the deepest importance to Alexander to secure the person ofDarius, and he now urged on the pursuit. The river Lycus was between thefield of battle and the city of Arbela, whither the fugitives directedtheir course, and the passage of this river was even more destructive tothe Persians than the swords and spears of the Macedonians had been inthe engagement. [53]

[Footnote 53: I purposely omit any statement of the loss in the battle. There is a palpable error of the transcribers in the numbers which wefind in our present manuscripts of Arrian, and Curtius is of noauthority. ]

The narrow bridge was soon choked up by the flying thousands who rushedtoward it, and vast numbers of the Persians threw themselves, or werehurried by others, into the rapid stream, and perished in its waters. Darius had crossed it, and had ridden on through Arbela without halting. Alexander reached the city on the next day, and made himself master ofall Darius' treasure and stores; but the Persian King, unfortunately forhimself, had fled too fast for his conqueror, but had only escaped toperish by the treachery of his Bactrian satrap, Bessus. 

A few days after the battle Alexander entered Babylon, "the oldest seatof earthly empire" then in existence, as its acknowledged lord andmaster. There were yet some campaigns of his brief and bright career tobe accomplished. Central Asia was yet to witness the march of hisphalanx. He was yet to effect that conquest of Afghanistan in whichEngland since has failed. His generalship, as well as his valor, was yetto be signalized on the banks of the Hydaspes and the field ofChillianwallah; and he was yet to precede the queen of England inannexing the Punjab to the dominions of a European sovereign. But thecrisis of his career was reached; the great object of his mission wasaccomplished; and the ancient Persian empire, which once menaced all thenations of the earth with subjection, was irreparably crushed whenAlexander had won his crowning victory at Arbela. 

FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN GREEKS AND ROMANS

B. C. 280-279

PLUTARCH

(The Romans, in B. C. 290, had conquered the Samnites and this extendedthe Roman power to the very gates of the Grecian cities on the Gulf ofTarentine. Tarentum, the chief city among them, was almost totallycontrolled by a party which advised a peaceful submission to the Romanconquerors. The opposing party of patriots, against such cowardlymeasures, looked abroad for aid and found a ready ally in Pyrrhus, theMolossian king of Epirus. He was warlike and adventurous, and a memberof the royal family of Macedonia, through Olympias, who was the motherof Alexander the Great. 

Pyrrhus had established a reputation for fighting. Not alone had hefought at the memorable battle of Ipsus, in Phrygia, but he had proven aformidable opponent to Demetinus, king of Macedonia, having forced thelatter powerful monarch to conclude a truce with him, though afterwardhe had been conquered and driven back to his little kingdom of Epirus. At the time the Tarentines sent to him to help them against Rome he waseager for a field in which he might do something to prove his mettle. This was the greatest opportunity of his life, and he seized upon it. The campaign is memorable for having brought the Romans and Greeks intoconflict on the battle-field for the first time. )

Pyrrhus, now that he had lost Macedonia, might have spent his dayspeacefully ruling his own subjects in Epirus; but he could not endurerepose, thinking that not to trouble others and be troubled by them wasa life of unbearable ennui, and, like Achilles in the _Iliad_, "he could not rest in indolence at home, He longed for battle, and the joys of war. "

As he desired some new adventures he embraced the following opportunity. The Romans were at war with the Tarentines; and as that people were notsufficiently powerful to carry on the war, and yet were not allowed bythe audacious folly of their mob orators to make peace, they proposed tomake Pyrrhus their leader and to invite him to be their ally in the war, because he was more at leisure than any of the other kings, and also wasthe best general of them all. Of the older and more sensible citizenssome endeavored to oppose this fatal decision, but were overwhelmed bythe clamor of the war party, while the rest, observing this, ceased toattend the public assembly. 

There was one citizen of good repute, named Meton, who, on the day whenthe final decision was to be made, when the people were all assembled, took a withered garland and a torch, and like a drunkard, reeled intothe assembly with a girl playing the flute before him. At this, as onemay expect in a disorderly popular meeting, some applauded and somelaughed, but no one stopped him. They next bade the girl play, and Metoncome forward and dance to the music; and he made as though he would doso. When he had obtained silence he said: "Men of Tarentum, you do wellin encouraging those who wish to be merry and amuse themselves whilethey may. If you are wise you will all enjoy your freedom now, for whenPyrrhus is come to our city you will have very different things to thinkof and will live very differently. " By these words he made an impressionon the mass of the Tarentine people, and a murmur ran through the crowdthat he had spoken well. But those politicians who feared that if peacewere made they should be delivered up to the Romans, reproached thepeople for allowing anyone to insult them by such a disgracefulexhibition, and prevailed on them to turn Meton out of the assembly. 

Thus the vote for war was passed, and ambassadors were sent to Epirus, not from Tarentum alone, but from the other Greek cities in Italy, carrying with them presents for Pyrrhus, with instructions to tell himthat they required a leader of skill and renown, and that they possesseda force of Lucanians, Messapians, Samnites, and Tarentines, whichamounted to twenty thousand cavalry and three hundred and fifty thousandinfantry. This not only excited Pyrrhus, but also made all the Epiroteseager to take part in the campaign. 

There was one Cineas, a Thessalian, who was thought to be a man of goodsense, and who, having heard Demosthenes the orator speak, was betterable than any of the speakers of his age to delight his hearers with animitation of the eloquence of that great master of rhetoric. He was nowin the service of Pyrrhus, and being sent about to various cities, proved the truth of the Euripidean saw, that

 "All can be done by words Which foemen wish to do with conquering swords. "

Pyrrhus at any rate used to say that more cities were won for him byCineas with words than he himself won by force of arms. This man, observing that Pyrrhus was eagerly preparing for his Italian expedition, once when he was at leisure conversed with him in the following manner. "Pyrrhus, " said he, "the Romans are said to be good soldiers, and torule over many warlike nations. Now, if heaven grants us the victoryover them, what use shall we make of it?"

"You ask what is self-evident, " answered Pyrrhus. "If we can conquer theRomans, there is no city, Greek or barbarian, that can resist us, and weshall gain possession of the whole of Italy, a country whose size, richness, and power no one knows better than yourself. " Cineas then, after waiting for a short time, said: "O King, when we have taken Italy, what shall we do then?"

Pyrrhus, not yet seeing his drift, answered: "Close to it Sicily invitesus, a noble and populous island, and one which is very easy to conquer;for, my Cineas, now that Agathocles is dead, there is nothing there butrevolution and faction and the violence of party spirit. "

"What you say, " answered Cineas, "is very probably true. But is thisconquest of Sicily to be the extreme limit of our campaign?"

"Heaven, " answered Pyrrhus, "alone can give us victory and success; butthese conquests would merely prove to us the stepping-stones to greaterthings. Who could refrain from making an attempt upon Carthage and Libyawhen he was so close to them, countries which were all but conquered byAgathocles when he ran away from Syracuse with only a few ships? and ifwe were masters of these countries, none of the enemies who now givethemselves such airs at our expense will dare to resist us. "

"Certainly not, " answered Cineas; "with such a force at our disposal weclearly could recover Macedonia, and have the whole of Greece at ourfeet. And after we have made all these conquests, what shall we dothen?"

Pyrrhus laughing answered: "We will take our ease and carouse every day, and enjoy pleasant conversation with one another. "

Having brought Pyrrhus to say this, Cineas asked in reply: "But whatprevents our carousing and taking our ease now, since we have already athand all those things which we propose to obtain with much bloodshed, and great toils and perils, and after suffering much ourselves andcausing much suffering to others?"

By talking in this manner Cineas vexed Pyrrhus, because he made himreflect on the pleasant home which he was leaving, but his reasoning hadno effect in turning him from his purpose. 

He first despatched Cineas to Tarentum with three thousand men; next hecollected from Tarentum many horse-transports, decked vessels, and boatsof all sorts, and embarked upon them twenty elephants, twenty-threethousand cavalry, twenty-two thousand infantry, and five hundredslingers. When all was ready he put to sea; and when half way across astorm burst upon him from the north, which was unusual at that season ofthe year. He himself, though his ship was carried away by the tempest, yet, by the great pains and skill of the sailors and pilots, resisted itand reached the land, with great toil to the rowers, and beyondeveryone's expectation; for the rest of the fleet was overpowered by thegale and scattered. Some ships were driven off the Italian coastaltogether, and forced into the Libyan and Sicilian seas, and some whichcould not weather the Iapygian Cape were overtaken by night, and beingdashed by a violent and boisterous sea against that harborless coastwere utterly lost, except only the King's ship. She was so large andstrongly built as to resist the waves as long as they broke upon herfrom the seaward; but when the wind changed and blew directly off theshore, the ship, which now met the waves directly with her head, was ingreat danger of going to pieces, while to let her drive out to sea againnow that it was so rough, and the wind changed so frequently, seemedmore terrible than to remain where they were. 

Pyrrhus rose and leaped into the water, and at once was eagerly followedby his friends and his bodyguard. The darkness of night and the violentrecoil of the roaring waves made it hard for them to help him, and itwas not until daybreak, when the wind abated, that he reached the land, faint and helpless in body, but with his spirit invincible inmisfortune. The Messapians, upon whose coast he had been thrown, nowassembled from the neighboring villages and offered their help, whilesome of the ships which had outlived the storm appeared, bringing a fewhorsemen, about two thousand foot, and two elephants. 

With these Pyrrhus marched to Tarentum; Cineas, as soon as he heard ofhis arrival, bringing out the Tarentine army to meet him. When hereached the city he did nothing to displease the Tarentines until hisfleet returned to the coast and he had assembled the greater part of hisarmy. But then, as he saw that the populace, unless ruled by a stronghand, could neither help him nor help themselves, but intended to stayidling about their baths and entertainments at home, while he foughttheir battles in the field, he closed the gymnasia and public walks, inwhich the people were wont to waste their time in empty talk about thewar. He forbade all drinking, feasting, and unseasonable revels, andforced the people to take up arms, proving himself inexorable toeveryone who was on the muster-roll of able-bodied citizens. Thisconduct made him much disliked, and many of the Tarentines left the cityin disgust; for they were so unused to discipline that they consideredthat not to be able to pass their lives as they chose was no better thanslavery. 

When news came that Laevinus, the Roman consul, was marching to attackhim with a large force, and was plundering the country of Lucania as headvanced, while Pyrrhus' allies had not yet arrived, he thought it ashameful thing to allow the enemy to proceed any farther, and marchedout with his army. He sent before him a herald to the Roman general, informing him that he was willing to act as arbitrator in the disputebetween the Romans and the Greek cities of Italy, if they chose toterminate it peacefully. On receiving for an answer that the Romansneither wished for Pyrrhus as an arbitrator, nor feared him as an enemy, he marched forward, and encamped in the plain between the city ofPandosia and Heraclea. 

Learning that the Romans were close by, and were encamping on thefarther side of the river Siris (the river Aciris, now called Agri), herode up to the river to view them; and when he observed their evenranks, their orderly movements, and their well-arranged camp, he wassurprised, and said to the nearest of his friends: "These barbarians, Megacles, have nothing barbarous in their military discipline; but weshall soon learn what they can do. " He began indeed already to feel someuncertainty as to the issue of the campaign, and determined to waituntil his allies came up, and till then to observe the movements of theRomans, and prevent their crossing the river. They, however, perceivinghis object, at once crossed the river, the infantry at a ford, thecavalry at many points at once, so that the Greeks feared they might besurrounded, and drew back. Pyrrhus, perceiving this, ordered hisofficers instantly to form the troops in order of battle and wait underarms while he himself charged with the cavalry, three thousand strong, hoping to catch the Romans in the act of crossing the river andconsequently in disorder. 

When he saw many shields of the Roman infantry appearing over the riverbank, and their horsemen all ranged in order, he closed up his own ranksand charged them first himself, a conspicuous figure in his beautifulglittering armor, and proving by his exploits that he deserved his highreputation; especially as although he fought personally, and engaged incombat with the enemy, yet he continually watched the whole battle, andhandled his troops with as much facility as though he were not in thethick of the fight, appearing always wherever his presence was required, and reenforcing those who seemed likely to give way. In this battleLeonnatus the Macedonian, observing one of the Italians watching Pyrrhusand constantly following him about the field, said to him: "My King, doyou see that barbarian on the black horse with white feet? He seems tobe meditating some desperate deed. He is a man of spirit and courage, and he never takes his eyes off you, and takes no notice of anyone else. Beware of that man. "

Pyrrhus answered: "Leonnatus, no man can avoid his fate; but neitherthat Italian nor anyone else who attacks me will do so with impunity. "While they were yet talking the Italian levelled his lance and urged hishorse in full career against Pyrrhus. He struck the King's horse withhis spear, and at the same instant his own horse was struck a sidelongblow by Leonnatus. Both horses fell; Pyrrhus was saved by his friends, and the Italian perished fighting. He was of the nation of the Frentani, Hoplacus by name, and was the captain of a troop of horse. 

This incident taught Pyrrhus to be more cautious. He observed that hiscavalry were inclined to give way, and therefore sent for his phalanx, and arrayed it against the enemy. Then he gave his cloak and armor toone of his companions, Megacles, and after partially disguising himselfin those of his friend, led his main body to attack the Roman army. TheRomans stoutly resisted him, and an obstinate battle took place, for itis said that the combatants alternately yielded and again pressedforward no less than seven distinct times. The King's exchange of armor, too, though it saved his life, yet very nearly lost him the victory: formany attacked Megacles, and the man who first struck him down, who wasnamed Decius, snatched up his cloak and helmet, and rode with them toLævinus, displaying them and shouting aloud that he had slain Pyrrhus. 

The Romans, when they saw these spoils carried in triumph along theirranks, raised a joyful cry, while the Greeks were correspondinglydisheartened, until Pyrrhus, learning what had taken place, rode alongthe line with his head bare, stretching out his hands to his soldiersand telling them that he was safe. At length he was victorious, chieflyby means of a sudden charge of his Thessalian horse on the Romans afterthey had been thrown into disorder by the advance of the elephants. TheRoman horses were terrified at these animals, and, long before they camenear, ran away with their riders in panic. The slaughter was very great:Dionysius says that of the Romans there fell but little short of fifteenthousand, but Hieronymus reduces this to seven thousand, while onPyrrhus' side there fell, according to Dionysius, thirteen thousand, butaccording to Hieronymus less than four thousand. 

These, however, were the very flower of Pyrrhus' army; for he lost allhis most trusty officers and his most intimate personal friends. Still, he captured the Roman camp, which was abandoned by the enemy, inducedseveral of their allied cities to join him, plundered a vast extent ofcountry, and advanced within three hundred stades--less than fortyEnglish miles--of Rome itself. After the battle many of the Lucaniansand Samnites came up; these allies he reproached for their dilatorymovements, but was evidently well pleased at having conquered the greatRoman army with no other forces but his own Epirotes and the Tarentines. 

The Romans did not remove Laevinus from his office of consul, althoughCaius Fabricius is reported to have said that it was not the Epiroteswho had conquered the Romans, but Pyrrhus who had conquered Laevinus;meaning that he thought that the defeat was owing not to the greaterforce but the superior generalship of the enemy. They astonished Pyrrhusby quickly filling up their ranks with fresh levies, and talking aboutthe war in a spirit of fearless confidence. He decided to try whetherthey were disposed to make terms with him, as he perceived that tocapture Rome and utterly subdue the Roman people would be a work of nosmall difficulty, and that it would be vain to attempt it with the forceat his disposal, while after his victory he could make peace on termswhich would reflect great lustre on himself. Cineas was sent asambassador to conduct this negotiation. 

He conversed with the leading men of Rome, and offered their wives andchildren presents from the King. No one, however, would accept them, butthey all, men and women alike, replied that if peace were publiclyconcluded with the King, they would then have no objection to regard himas a friend. And when Cineas spoke before the senate in a winning andpersuasive manner he could not make any impression upon his audience, although he announced to them that Pyrrhus would restore the prisonershe had taken without any ransom, and would assist them in subduing allItaly, while all that he asked in return was that he should be regardedas a friend, and that the people of Tarentum should not be molested. Thecommon people, however, were evidently eager for peace, in consequenceof their having been defeated in one great battle, and expecting thatthey would have to fight another against a larger force, because theItalian states would join Pyrrhus. 

At this crisis Appius Claudius, an illustrious man, but who had longsince been prevented by old age and blindness from taking any activepart in politics, when he heard of the proposals of Pyrrhus, and thatthe question of peace or war was about to be voted upon by the senate, could no longer endure to remain at home, but caused his slaves to carryhim through the Forum to the senate house in a litter. When he reachedthe doors of the senate house his sons and sons-in-law supported him andguided him into the house, while all the assembly observed a respectfulsilence. 

Speaking from where he stood, he addressed them as follows: "Mycountrymen, I used to grieve at the loss of my sight, but now I am sorrynot to be deaf also, when I hear the disgraceful propositions with whichyou are tarnishing the glory of Rome. What has become of that boastwhich we were so fond of making before all mankind, that if Alexanderthe Great had invaded Italy, and had met us when we were young, and ourfathers when they were in the prime of life, he would not have beenreputed invincible, but would either have fled or perhaps even havefallen, and added to the glory of Rome?

"You now prove that this was mere empty vaporing, by your terror ofthese Chaonians and Molossians, nations who have always been a prey anda spoil to the Macedonians, and by your fear of this Pyrrhus, who usedformerly to dance attendance on one of Alexander's bodyguards, [54] andwho has now wandered hither not so much in order to assist the Greeks inItaly as to escape from his enemies at home, and promises to be ourfriend and protector, forsooth, when the army he commands did notsuffice to keep for him the least portion of that Macedonia which heonce acquired. Do not imagine that you will get rid of this man bymaking a treaty with him. Rather you will encourage other Greek princesto invade you, for they will despise you and think you an easy prey toall men if you let Pyrrhus go home again without paying the penalty ofhis outrages upon you, nay, with the power to boast that he has madeRome a laughing-stock for Tarentines and Samnites. "

[Footnote 54: Demetrius. ]

By these words Appius roused a warlike spirit in the Romans, and theydismissed Cineas with the answer that if Pyrrhus would leave Italy theywould, if he wished, discuss the question of an alliance with him, butthat while he remained in arms in their country the Romans would fighthim to the death, however many Laevinuses he might defeat. It is relatedthat Cineas, during his mission to Rome, took great interest inobserving the national life of the Romans, and fully appreciated theexcellence of their political constitution, which he learned byconversing with many of the leading men of the State. On his return hetold Pyrrhus that the senate seemed to him like an assembly of kings, and that as to the populace he feared that the Greeks might find in thema new Lernæan hydra; for twice as many troops had been enrolled in theconsul's army as he had before, and yet there remained many more Romanscapable of bearing arms. 

After this Caius Fabricius came to arrange terms for the exchange ofprisoners; a man whom Cineas said the Romans especially valued for hisvirtue and bravery, but who was excessively poor. Pyrrhus, inconsequence of this, entertained Fabricius privately, and made him anoffer of money, not as a bribe for any act of baseness, but speaking ofit as a pledge of friendship and sincerity. As Fabricius refused this, Pyrrhus waited till the next day, when, desirous of making an impressionon him, as he had never seen an elephant, he had his largest elephantplaced behind Fabricius during their conference, concealed by a curtain. At a given signal, the curtain was withdrawn, and the creature reachedout his trunk over the head of Fabricius with a harsh and terrible cry. Fabricius, however, quietly turned round, and then said to Pyrrhus witha smile, "You could not move me by your gold yesterday, nor can you withyour beast to-day. "

At table that day they conversed upon all subjects, but chiefly aboutGreece and Greek philosophy. Cineas repeated the opinion of Epicurus andhis school, about the gods, and the practice of political life, and theobjects at which we should aim, how they considered pleasure to be thehighest good, and held aloof from taking any active part in politics, because it spoiled and destroyed perfect happiness; and about how theythought that the gods lived far removed from hopes and fears, andinterest in human affairs, in a placid state of eternal fruition. [55]While he was speaking in this strain Fabricius burst out: "Hercules!"cried he, "may Pyrrhus and the Samnites continue to waste their time onthese speculations as long as they remain at war with us!" Pyrrhus, atthis, was struck by the spirit and noble disposition of Fabricius, andlonged more than ever to make Rome his friend instead of his enemy. Hebegged him to arrange terms of peace, and after they were concluded tocome and live with him as the first of his friends and officers. 

[Footnote 55: I have translated the above passages almost literally fromthe Greek. Yet I am inclined to think that Arnold has penetrated thetrue meaning, and shows us the reason for Fabricius' exclamation when hestates the Epicurean philosophy, as expounded by Cineas, to be "that warand state affairs were but toil and trouble, and that the wise manshould imitate the blissful rest of the gods, who, dwelling in their owndivinity, regarded not the vain turmoil of this lower world. "]

Fabricius is said to have quietly answered: "That, O King, will not beto your advantage; for those who now obey you, and look up to you, ifthey had any experience of me, would prefer me to you for their king. "Pyrrhus was not angry at this speech, but spoke to all his friends aboutthe magnanimous conduct of Fabricius, and intrusted the prisoners to himalone, on the condition that, if the senate refused to make peace, theyshould be allowed to embrace their friends, and spend the festival ofthe Saturnalia with them, and then be sent back to him. And they weresent back after the Saturnalia, for the senate decreed that any of themwho remained behind should be put to death. 

After this, when C. Fabricius was consul, a man came into his campbringing a letter from King Pyrrhus' physician, in which he offered topoison the King if he could be assured of a suitable reward for hisservices in thus bringing the war to an end without a blow. Fabricius, disgusted at the man's treachery, brought his colleague to share hisviews, and in haste sent off a letter to Pyrrhus, bidding him be on hisguard. The letter ran as follows: "Caius Fabricius and Quintus Æmilius, the Roman consuls, greet King Pyrrhus. You appear to be a bad judge bothof your friends and of your enemies. You will perceive, by reading theenclosed letter which has been sent to us, that you are fighting againstgood and virtuous men, and trusting to wicked and treacherous ones. Wedo not give you this information out of any love we bear you, but forfear that we might be charged with having assassinated you and bethought to have brought the war to a close by treachery because we couldnot do so by manhood. "

Pyrrhus on receiving this letter, and discovering the plot against hislife, punished his physician, and, in return for the kindness ofFabricius and the Romans, delivered up their prisoners without ransom, and sent Cineas a second time to arrange terms of peace. However, theRomans refused to receive their prisoners back without ransom, beingunwilling either to receive a favor from their enemy or to be rewardedfor having abstained from treachery toward him, but set free an equalnumber of Tarentines and Samnites, and sent them to him. As to terms ofpeace, they refused to entertain the question unless Pyrrhus firstplaced his entire armament on board the ships in which it came, andsailed back to Epirus with it. 

As it was now necessary that Pyrrhus should fight another battle, headvanced with his army to the city of Asculum, and attacked the Romans. Here he was forced to fight on rough ground, near the swampy banks of ariver, where his elephants and cavalry were of no service, and he wasforced to attack with his phalanx. After a drawn battle, in which manyfell, night parted the combatants. Next day Pyrrhus manoeuvred so as tobring the Romans fairly into the plain, where his elephants could actupon the enemy's line. He occupied the rough ground on either side, placed many archers and slingers among his elephants, and advanced withhis phalanx in close order and irresistible strength. 

The Romans, who were unable on the level ground to practise thebush-fighting and skirmishing of the previous day, were compelled toattack the phalanx in front. They endeavored to force their way throughthat hedge of spears before the elephants could come up, and showedmarvellous courage in hacking at the spears with their swords, exposingthemselves recklessly, careless of wounds or death. After a longstruggle, it is said that they first gave way at the point where Pyrrhuswas urging on his soldiers in person, though the defeat was chiefly dueto the weight and crushing charge of the elephants. The Romans could notfind any opportunity in this sort of battle for the display of theircourage, but thought it their duty to stand aside and save themselvesfrom a useless death, just as they would have done in the case of a waveof the sea or an earthquake coming upon them. In the flight to theircamp, which was not far off, Hieronymus says that six thousand Romansperished, and that in Pyrrhus' commentaries his loss is stated at threethousand five hundred and five. 

Dionysius, on the other hand, does not admit that there were two battlesat Asculum, or that the Romans suffered a defeat, but tells us that theyfought the whole of one day until sunset, and then separated, Pyrrhusbeing wounded in the arm by a javelin, and the Samnites having plunderedhis baggage. He also states the total loss on both sides to be abovefifteen thousand. 

The armies separated after the battle, and it is said that Pyrrhus, whencongratulated on his victory by his friends, said in reply: "If we winone more such victory over the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined. " Fora large part of the force which he had brought with him had perished, and very nearly all his friends and officers, and there were no more tosend for at home. 

THE PUNIC WARS

B. C. 264-219-149

FLORUS

(The three Punic wars stand out in history as a mighty "duel _àl'outrance_" [a fight to the death], as Victor Hugo says, in the finalscene of which Rome, having herself been brought near to defeat, "risesagain, uses the limits of her strength in a last blow, throws herself onCarthage, and effaces her from the world. "

Jealousy and antagonism had long existed between Rome and Carthage, butit was the preeminence of the African city which held Roman ambition incheck and for generations deferred the final struggle. But when at lastRome had acquired the strength she needed in order to assert herrivalry, it was only a question of actual preparation, and the firstcause of quarrel was sure to be seized upon by either party, especiallyby the growing and haughty Italian Power. 

The immediate object of contention was the island of Sicily, lyingbetween the territory of Rome and that of Carthage. In Sicily the FirstPunic War, lasting about twenty-three years, was mainly carried on bythe Romans with success, while on the sea Carthage for a long timemaintained superiority. 

During the intervals between the Punic wars two things appear withstriking force in the history of these events--the passive strength andrecuperative power of Carthage, which enabled her to return again andagain to the struggle from almost crushing defeat, and the marvellousdevelopment of resources and aggressive vigor on the part of Rome, inwhose case the rise of powerful individual leaders more than offset theweight of long-accumulated energies, supplemented as these were by thegenius and achievement of great Carthaginian warriors. 

The wars progressed in a spirit of deadly hatred, constantly intensifiedon both sides, and the Roman determination, of which Cato was themouthpiece, that Carthage must be destroyed, met its stubborn answer inthe endeavors of the Carthaginians to turn this vengeance against Romeherself. 

Carthage had been mistress of the world, the richest and most powerfulof cities. Her naval supremacy alone had sufficed to secure her safetyand superiority over all rivals or possible combinations of force. Butthe strength of her government lay not so much in her people, or even inher statesmen and soldiers, as in her men of wealth. A politicalestablishment founded upon such supports was peculiarly liable to allthe dangers of corruption and of public ignorance and apathy in theconduct of affairs. These causes appear conspicuously in the history ofthe Punic wars, as contributing largely to the overthrow and finalextinguishment of Carthage, which left to her successful rival the openway to universal dominion. 

The account of Florus presents in a style at once comprehensive andsuccinct a splendid narrative of these wars, with their decisive andworld-changing events. )

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR

The victor-people of Italy, having now spread over the land as far asthe sea, checked its course for a little, like a fire, which, havingconsumed the woods lying in its track, is stopped by some interveningriver. But soon after, seeing at no great distance a rich prey, whichseemed in a manner detached and torn away from their own Italy, theywere so inflamed with a desire to possess it that, since it couldneither be joined to their country by a mole or bridge, they resolvedthat it should be secured by arms and war, and reunited, as it were, totheir continent. And behold! as if the Fates themselves opened a way forthem, an opportunity was not wanting, for Messana, a city of Sicily inalliance with them, happened then to make a complaint concerning thetyranny of the Carthaginians. 

As the Romans coveted Sicily, so likewise did the people of Carthage;and both at the same time, with equal desires and equal forces, contemplated the attainment of the empire of the world. Under thepretext, therefore, of assisting their allies, but in reality beingallured by the prey, that rude people, that people sprung fromshepherds, and merely accustomed to the land, made it appear, though thestrangeness of the attempt startled them (yet such confidence is therein true courage), that to the brave it is indifferent whether a battlebe fought on horseback or in ships, by land or by sea. 

It was in the consulship of Appius Claudius that they first venturedupon that strait which has so ill a name from the strange things relatedof it, and so impetuous a current. But they were so far from beingaffrighted, that they regarded the violence of the rushing tide assomething in their favor, and, sailing forward immediately and withoutdelay, they defeated Hiero, king of Syracuse, with so much rapidity thathe owned he was conquered before he saw the enemy. In the consulship ofDuilius and Cornelius, they likewise had courage to engage at sea, andthen the expedition used in equipping the fleet was a presage ofvictory; for within sixty days after the timber was felled, a navy of ahundred and sixty ships lay at anchor; so that the vessels did not seemto have been made by art, but the trees themselves appeared to have beenturned into ships by the aid of the gods. The aspect of the battle, too, was wonderful; as the heavy and slow ships of the Romans closed with theswift and nimble barks of the enemy. Little availed their naval arts, such as breaking off the oars of a ship, and eluding the beaks of theenemy by turning aside; for the grappling-irons and other instruments, which, before the engagement, had been greatly derided by the enemy, were fastened upon their ships, and they were compelled to fight as onsolid ground. Being victorious, therefore, at Liparæ, by sinking andscattering the enemy's fleet, they celebrated their first naval triumph. And how great was the exultation at it! Duilius, the commander, notcontent with one day's triumph, ordered, during all the rest of hislife, when he returned from supper, lighted torches to be carried, andflutes to play, before him, as if he would triumph every day. The lossin this battle was trifling, in comparison with the greatness of thevictory; though the other consul, Cornelius Asina, was cut off, beinginvited by the enemy to a pretended conference, and put to death; aninstance of Carthaginian perfidy. 

Under the dictatorship of Calatinus, the Romans expelled almost all thegarrisons of the Carthaginians from Agrigentum, Drepanum, Panormus, Eryx, and Lilybæum. Some alarm was experienced at the forest ofCamarina, but we were rescued by the extraordinary valor of CalpurniusFlamma, a tribune of the soldiers, who, with a choice troop of threehundred men, seized upon an eminence occupied by the enemy, to ourannoyance, and so kept them in play till the whole army escaped; thus, by eminent success, equalling the fame of Thermopylæ and Leonidas, though our hero was indeed more illustrious, inasmuch as he escaped andoutlived so great an effort, notwithstanding he wrote nothing with hisblood. 

In the consulship of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, when Sicily was become asa suburban province of the Roman people, and the war was spreadingfarther, they crossed over into Sardinia, and into Corsica, which liesnear it. In the latter they terrified the natives by the destruction ofthe city of Olbia, in the former by that of Aleria; and so effectuallyhumbled the Carthaginians, both by land and sea, that nothing remainedto be conquered but Africa itself. Accordingly, under the leadership ofMarcus Atilius Regulus, the war passed over into Africa. Nor were therewanting some on the occasion who mutinied at the mere name and dread ofthe Punic sea, a tribune named Mannius increasing their alarm; but thegeneral, threatening him with the axe if he did not obey, producedcourage for the voyage by the terror of death. They then hastened theircourse by the aid of winds and oars, and such was the terror of theAfricans at the approach of the enemy that Carthage was almost surprisedwith its gates opened. 

The first prize taken in the war was the city of Clypea, which juts outfrom the Carthaginian shore as a fortress or watch-tower. Both this andmore than three hundred fortresses besides were destroyed. Nor had theRomans to contend only with men, but with monsters also; for a serpentof vast size, born, as it were, to avenge Africa, harassed their camp onthe Bagrada. But Regulus, who overcame all obstacles, having spread theterror of his name far and wide, having killed or taken prisoners agreat number of the enemy's force, and their captains themselves, andhaving despatched his fleet, laden with much spoil and stored withmaterials for a triumph, to Rome, proceeded to besiege Carthage itself, the origin of the war, and took his position close to the gates of it. Here fortune was a little changed; but it was only that more proofs ofRoman fortitude might be given, the greatness of which was generallybest shown in calamities. For the enemy applying for foreign assistance, and Lacedaemon having sent them Xanthippus as a general, we weredefeated by a captain so eminently skilled in military affairs. It wasthen that by an ignominious defeat, such as the Romans had never beforeexperienced, their most valiant commander fell alive into the enemy'shands. But he was a man able to endure so great a calamity; as he wasneither humbled by his imprisonment at Carthage nor by the deputationwhich he headed to Rome; for he advised what was contrary to theinjunctions of the enemy, and recommended that no peace should be made, and no exchange of prisoners admitted. Even by his voluntary return tohis enemies, and by his last sufferings, whether in prison or on thecross, the dignity of the man was not at all obscured. But beingrendered, by all these occurrences, even more worthy of admiration, whatcan be said of him but that, when conquered, he was superior to hisconquerors, and that, though Carthage had not submitted, he triumphedover Fortune herself?

The Roman people were now much keener and more ardent to revenge thefate of Regulus than to obtain victory. Under the consul Metellus, therefore, when the Carthaginians were growing insolent, and when thewar had returned into Sicily, they gave the enemy such a defeat atPanormus that they thought no more of that island. A proof of thegreatness of this victory was the capture of about a hundred elephants, a vast prey, even if they had taken that number, not in war, but inhunting. [56] Under the consulship of Appius Claudius, they wereovercome, not by the enemy, but by the gods themselves, whose auspicesthey had despised, their fleet being sunk in that very place where theconsul had ordered the chickens to be thrown overboard, because he waswarned by them not to fight. Under the consulship of Marcus FabiusButeo, they overthrew, near Ægimurus, in the African sea, a fleet of theenemy which was just sailing for Italy. But, oh! how great materials fora triumph were then lost by a storm, when the Roman fleet, richly ladenwith spoil, and driven by contrary winds, covered with its wreck thecoasts of Africa and the Syrtes, and of all the islands lying amid thoseseas! A great calamity! But not without some honor to this eminentpeople, from the circumstance that their victory was intercepted only bya storm, and that the matter for their triumph was lost only by ashipwreck. Yet, though the Punic spoils were scattered abroad, andthrown up by the waves on every promontory and island, the Romans stillcelebrated a triumph. In the consulship of Lutatius Catulus, an end wasat last put to the war near the islands named Ægates. Nor was there anygreater fight during this war; for the fleet of the enemy was laden withprovisions, troops, towers, and arms; indeed, all Carthage, as it were, was in it; a state of things which proved its destruction, as the Romanfleet, on the contrary, being active, light, free from encumbrance, andin some degree resembling a land-camp, was wheeled about by its oarslike cavalry in a battle by their reins; and the beaks of the vessels, directed now against one part of the enemy and now against another, presented the appearance of living creatures. In a very short time, accordingly, the ships of the enemy were shattered to pieces, and filledthe whole sea between Sicily and Sardinia with their wrecks. So great, indeed, was the victory that there was no thought of demolishing theenemy's city; since it seemed superfluous to pour their fury on towersand walls, when Carthage had already been destroyed at sea. 

[Footnote 56: "A vast prey--not in war, but in hunting. " The sense is, it would have been a considerable capture if he had taken these hundredelephants, not in battle, but in hunting, in which more are oftentaken. ]

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR

After the first Carthaginian war there was scarcely a rest of fouryears, when there was another war, inferior, indeed, in length of time, for it occupied but eighteen years, but so much more terrible, from thedirefulness of its havoc, that if anyone compares the losses on bothsides, the people that conquered was more like one defeated. Whatprovoked this noble people was that the command of the sea was forcedfrom them, that their islands were taken, and that they were obliged topay tribute which they had before been accustomed to impose. Hannibal, when but a boy, swore to his father, before an altar, to take revenge onthe Romans; nor was he backward to execute his oath. Saguntum, accordingly, was made the occasion of a war; an old and wealthy city ofSpain, and a great but sad example of fidelity to the Romans. This city, though granted, by the common treaty, the special privilege of enjoyingits liberty, Hannibal, seeking pretences for new disturbances, destroyedwith his own hands and those of its inhabitants, in order that, by aninfraction of the compact, he might open a passage for himself intoItaly. 

Among the Romans there is the highest regard to treaties, andconsequently, on hearing of the siege of an allied city, andremembering, too, the compact made with the Carthaginians, they did notat once have recourse to arms, but chose rather to expostulate on legalgrounds. In the mean time the Saguntines, exhausted with famine, theassaults of machines, and the sword, and their fidelity being at lastcarried to desperation, raised a vast pile in the market-place, on whichthey destroyed, with fire and sword, themselves, their wives andchildren, and all that they possessed. Hannibal, the cause of this greatdestruction, was required to be given up. The Carthaginians hesitatingto comply, Fabius, who was at the head of the embassy, exclaimed: "Whatis the meaning of this delay? In the fold of this garment I carry warand peace; which of the two do you choose?" As they cried out "War, ""Take war, then, " he rejoined, and, shaking out the fore-part of histoga in the middle of the senate house, as if he really carried war inits folds, he spread it abroad, not without awe on the part of thespectators. 

The sequel of the war was in conformity with its commencement; for, asif the last imprecations of the Saguntines, at their publicself-immolation and burning of the city, had required such obsequies tobe performed to them, atonement was made to their _manes_ by thedevastation of Italy, the reduction of Africa, and the destruction ofthe leaders and kings who engaged in that contest. When once, therefore, that sad and dismal force and storm of the Punic War had arisen inSpain, and had forged, in the fire of Saguntum, the thunderbolt longbefore intended for the Romans, it immediately burst, as if hurriedalong by resistless violence, through the middle of the Alps, anddescended, from those snows of incredible altitude, on the plains ofItaly, as if it had been hurled from the skies. The violence of itsfirst assault burst, with a mighty sound, between the Po and theTicinus. There the army under Scipio was routed; and the generalhimself, being wounded, would have fallen into the hands of the enemy, had not his son, then quite a boy, covered his father with his shield, and rescued him from death. This was the Scipio who grew up for theconquest of Africa, and who was to receive a name from its ill-fortune. 

To Ticinus succeeded Trebia, where, in the consulship of Sempronius, thesecond outburst of the Punic War was spent. On that occasion, the craftyenemy, having chosen a cold and snowy day, and having first warmedthemselves at their fires, and anointed their bodies with oil, conqueredus, though they were men that came from the south and a warm sun, by theaid (strange to say!) of our own winter. 

The third thunderbolt of Hannibal fell at the Trasimene lake, whenFlaminius was commander. There also was employed a new stratagem ofCarthaginian subtlety; for a body of cavalry, being concealed by a mistrising from the lake, and by the osiers growing in the fens, fell uponthe rear of the Romans as they were fighting. Nor can we complain of thegods; for swarms of bees settling upon the standards, the reluctance ofthe eagles to move forward, and a great earthquake that happened at thecommencement of the battle--unless, indeed, it was the tramping of horseand foot, and the violent concussion of arms, that produced thistrembling of the ground--had forewarned the rash leader of approachingdefeat. 

The fourth and almost mortal wound of the Roman Empire was at Cannæ, anobscure village of Apulia; which, however, became famous by thegreatness of the defeat, its celebrity being acquired by the slaughterof forty thousand men. Here the general, the ground, the face of heaven, the day, indeed, all nature conspired together for the destruction ofthe unfortunate army. For Hannibal, the most artful of generals, notcontent with sending pretended deserters among the Romans, who fell upontheir rear as they were fighting, but having also noted the nature ofthe ground in those open plains, where the heat of the sun is extremelyviolent, the dust very great, and the wind blows constantly, and as itwere statedly, from the east, drew up his army in such a position that, while the Romans were exposed to all these inconveniences, he himself, having heaven, as it were, on his side, fought with wind, dust, and sunin his favor. Two vast armies, in consequence, were slaughtered till theenemy were satiated, and till Hannibal said to his soldiers, "Put upyour swords. " Of the two commanders, one escaped, the other was slain;which of them showed the greater spirit is doubtful. Paulus was ashamedto survive; Varrodid not despair. Of the greatness of the slaughter thefollowing proofs may be noticed: that the Aufidus was for some time redwith blood; that a bridge was made of dead bodies, by order of Hannibal, over the torrent of Vergellus, and that two _modii_ of rings were sentto Carthage, and the equestrian dignity estimated by measure. 

It was afterward not doubted but that Rome might have seen its last day, and that Hannibal, within five days, might have feasted in the Capitol, if--as they say that Adherbal, the Carthaginian, the son of Bomilcar, observed--"he had known as well how to use his victory as how to gainit. " But at that crisis, as is generally said, either the fate of thecity that was to be empress of the world, or his own want of judgment, and the influence of deities unfavorable to Carthage, carried him in adifferent direction. When he might have taken advantage of his victory, he chose rather to seek enjoyment from it, and, leaving Rome, to marchinto Campania and to Tarentum, where both he and his army soon losttheir vigor, so that it was justly remarked that "Capua proved a Cannæto Hannibal"; since the sunshine of Campania and the warm springs ofBaiæ subdued--who could have believed it?--him who had been unconqueredby the Alps and unshaken in the field. In the mean time the Romans beganto recover and to rise, as it were, from the dead. They had no arms, butthey took them down from the temples; men were wanting, but slaves werefreed to take the oath of service; the treasury was exhausted, but thesenate willingly offered their wealth for the public service, leavingthemselves no gold but what was contained in their children's_bullæ_[57] and in their own belts and rings. The knights followed theirexample, and the common people that of the knights; so that when thewealth of private persons was brought to the public treasury--in theconsulship of Lævinus and Marcellus--the registers scarcely sufficed tocontain the account of it, or the hands of the clerks to record it. 

[Footnote 57: A sort of ornament suspended from the necks of children, which, among the wealthy, was made of gold. It was in the shape of abubble on water, or, as Pliny says, of a heart. ]

But how can I sufficiently praise the wisdom of the centuries in thechoice of magistrates, when the younger sought advice from the elder asto what consuls should be created? They saw that against an enemy sooften victorious, and so full of subtlety, it was necessary to contend, not only with courage, but with his own wiles. The first hope of theempire now recovering, and, if I may use the expression, coming to lifeagain, was Fabius, who found a new mode of conquering Hannibal, whichwas, _not to fight_. Hence he received that new name, so salutary to thecommonwealth, of _Cunctator_, or Delayer. Hence too it happened that hewas called by the people _the shield of the empire_. Through the wholeof Samnium, and through the Falerian and Gauran forests, he so harassedHannibal that he who could not be reduced by valor was weakened bydelay. The Romans then ventured, under the command of ClaudiusMarcellus, to engage him; they came to close quarters with him, drovehim out of his dear Campania, and forced him to raise the siege of Nola. They ventured likewise, under the leadership of Sempronius Gracchus, topursue him through Lucania, and to press hard upon his rear as heretired; though they then fought him (sad dishonor!) with a body ofslaves, for to this extremity had so many disasters reduced them, butthey were rewarded with liberty, and from slaves they made them Romans. 

O amazing confidence in the midst of so much adversity! O extraordinarycourage and spirit of the Roman people in such oppressive anddistressing circumstances! At a time when they were uncertain ofpreserving their own Italy, they yet ventured to look to othercountries; and when the enemy were at their throat, flying throughCampania and Apulia, and making an Africa in the middle of Italy, theyat the same time both withstood that enemy and dispersed their arms overthe earth into Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. 

Sicily was assigned to Marcellus, and did not long resist his efforts;for the whole island was conquered in the conquest of one city. Syracuse, its great and, till that period, unconquered capital, thoughdefended by the genius of Archimedes, was at last obliged to yield. Itstriple wall and three citadels, its marble harbor and the celebratedfountain of Arethusa, were no defence to it, except so far as to procureconsideration for its beauty when it was conquered. 

Sardinia Gracchus reduced; the savageness of the inhabitants, and thevastness of its Mad Mountains--for so they are called--availed itnothing. Great severity was exercised upon its cities, and upon Caralis, the city of its cities, that a nation, obstinate and regardless ofdeath, might at least be humbled by concern for the soil of its country. 

Into Spain were sent the two Scipios, Cnaeus, and Publius, who wrestedalmost the whole of it from the Carthaginians; but, being surprised bythe artifices of Punic subtlety, they again lost it, even after they hadslaughtered the enemy's forces in great battles. The wiles of theCarthaginians cut off one of them by the sword as he was pitching hiscamp, and the other by surrounding him with lighted fagots after he hadmade his escape into a tower. But the other Scipio, to whom the Fateshad decreed so great a name from Africa, being sent with an army torevenge the death of his father and uncle, recovered all that warlikecountry of Spain, so famous for its men and arms, that seminary of theenemy's force, that instructress of Hannibal, from the Pyreneanmountains--the account is scarcely credible--to the Pillars of Herculesand the ocean, whether with greater speed or good fortune is difficultto decide; how great was his speed, four years bear witness; howremarkable his good fortune, even one city proves, for it was taken onthe same day in which siege was laid to it, and it was an omen of theconquest of Africa that Carthage in Spain was so easily reduced. It iscertain, however, that what most contributed to make the province submitwas the eminent virtue of the general, who restored to the barbarianscertain captive youths and maidens of extraordinary beauty, not allowingthem even to be brought into his sight, that he might not seem, even bya single glance, to have detracted from their virgin purity. 

These actions the Romans performed in different parts of the world, yetwere they unable, notwithstanding, to remove Hannibal, who was lodged inthe heart of Italy. Most of the towns had revolted to the enemy, whosevigorous commander used even the strength of Italy against the Romans. However, we had now forced him out of many towns and districts. Tarentumhad returned to our side; and Capua, the seat, home, and second countryof Hannibal, was again in our hands; the loss of which caused the Punicleader so much affliction that he then directed all his force againstRome. 

O people worthy of the empire of the world, worthy of the favor andadmiration of all, not only men, but gods! Though they were brought intothe greatest alarm, they desisted not from their original design; thoughthey were concerned for their own city, they did not abandon theirattempts on Capua; but, part of their army being left there with theconsul Appius, and part having followed Flaccus to Rome, they foughtboth at home and abroad at the same time. Why then should we wonder thatthe gods themselves, the gods, I say--nor shall I be ashamed[58] toadmit it--again opposed Hannibal as he was preparing to march forwardwhen at three miles' distance from Rome. For, at every movement of hisforce, so copious a flood of rain descended, and such a violent storm ofwind arose, that it was evident the enemy was repulsed by divineinfluence, and the tempest proceeded, not from heaven, but from thewalls of the city and the Capitol. He therefore fled and departed, andwithdrew to the farthest corner of Italy, leaving the city in a manneradored. It is but a small matter to mention, yet sufficiently indicativeof the magnanimity of the Roman people, that during those very days inwhich the city was besieged, the ground which Hannibal occupied with hiscamp was offered for sale at Rome, and, being put up to auction, actually found a purchaser. Hannibal, on the other side, wished toimitate such confidence, and put up for sale the bankers' houses in thecity; but no buyer was found; so that it was evident that the Fates hadtheir presages. 

[Footnote 58: Why should he be ashamed to admit that Rome was saved bythe aid of the gods? To receive assistance from the gods was a proof ofmerit. The gods help those who help themselves, says the proverb. Whenhe says that the gods "_again_ opposed Hannibal, " he seems to refer towhat he said above in speaking of the battle of Cannae, that thedeities, averse to Carthage, prevented Hannibal from marching at thattime to Rome. ]

But as yet nothing had been effectually accomplished by so much valor, or even through such eminent favor from the gods; for Hasdrubal, thebrother of Hannibal, was approaching with a new army, new strength, andevery fresh requisite for war. There had doubtless been an end of Rome, if that general had united himself with his brother; but Claudius Nero, in conjunction with Livius Salinator, overthrew him as he was pitchinghis camp. Nero was at that time keeping Hannibal at bay in the farthestcorner of Italy; while Livius had marched to the very opposite quarter, that is, to the very entrance and confines of Italy; and of the abilityand expedition with which the consuls joined their forces--though sovast a space, that is, the whole of Italy where it is longest, laybetween them--and defeated the enemy with their combined strength, whenthey expected no attack, and without the knowledge of Hannibal, it isdifficult to give a notion. When Hannibal, however, had knowledge of thematter, and saw his brother's head thrown down before his camp, heexclaimed, "I perceive the evil destiny of Carthage. " This was his firstconfession of that kind, not without a sure presage of his approachingfate; and it was now certain, even from his own acknowledgment, thatHannibal might be conquered. But the Roman people, full of confidencefrom so many successes, thought it would be a noble enterprise to subduesuch a desperate enemy in his own Africa. Directing their whole force, therefore, under the leadership of Scipio, upon Africa itself, theybegan to imitate Hannibal, and to avenge upon Africa the sufferings oftheir own Italy. What forces of Hasdrubal (good gods!), what armies ofSyphax, did that commander put to flight! How great were the camps ofboth that he destroyed in one night by casting firebrands into them! Atlast, not at three miles distance, but by a close siege, he shook thevery gates of Carthage itself. And thus he succeeded in drawing offHannibal when he was still clinging to and brooding over Italy. Therewas no more remarkable day, during the whole course of the Roman Empire, than that on which those two generals, the greatest of all that everlived, whether before or after them, the one the conqueror of Italy, andthe other of Spain, drew up their forces for a close engagement. Butpreviously a conference was held between them concerning conditions ofpeace. They stood motionless awhile in admiration of each other. Whenthey could not agree on a peace, they gave the signal for battle. It iscertain, from the confession of both, that no troops could have beenbetter drawn up, and no fight more obstinately maintained. This Hannibalacknowledged concerning the army of Scipio, and Scipio concerning thatof Hannibal. But Hannibal was forced to yield, and Africa became theprize of the victory; and the whole earth soon followed the fate ofAfrica. 

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR

The third war with Africa was both short in its duration--for it wasfinished in four years--and, compared with those that preceded it, ofmuch less difficulty; as we had to fight not so much against troops inthe field as against the city itself; but it was far the greatest of thethree in its consequences, for in it Carthage was at last destroyed. Andif anyone contemplates the events of the three periods, he willunderstand that the war was begun in the first, greatly advanced in thesecond, and entirely finished in the third. 

The cause of this war was that Carthage, in violation of an article inthe treaty, had once fitted out a fleet and army against the Numidians, and had frequently threatened the frontiers of Masinissa. But the Romanswere partial to this good king, who was also their ally. 

When the war had been determined upon, they had to consider about theend of it. Cato, even when his opinion was asked on any other subject, pronounced, with implacable enmity, that Carthage should be destroyed. Scipio Nasica gave his voice for its preservation, lest, if the fear ofthe rival city were removed, the exultation of Rome should growextravagant. The senate decided on a middle course, resolving that thecity should only be removed from its place; for nothing appeared to themmore glorious than that there should be a Carthage which should not befeared. In the consulship of Manlius and Censorinus, therefore, theRoman people having attacked Carthage, but giving them some hopes ofpeace, burned their fleet, which they voluntarily delivered up, in sightof the city. Having next summoned the chief men, they commanded them toquit the place if they wished to preserve their lives. This requisition, from its cruelty, so incensed them that they chose rather to submit tothe utmost extremities. They accordingly bewailed their necessitiespublicly, and shouted with one voice _to arms_; and a resolution wasmade to resist the enemy by every means in their power; not because anyhope of success was left, but because they had rather their birthplaceshould be destroyed by the hands of the enemy than by their own. Withwhat spirit they resumed the war may be understood from the facts thatthey pulled down their roofs and houses for the equipment of a newfleet; that gold and silver, instead of brass and iron, were melted intheir forges for the construction of arms; and that the women partedwith their hair to make cordage for the engines of war. 

Under the command of the consul Mancinus, the siege was warmly conductedboth by land and sea. The harbor was dismantled of its works, and afirst, second, and even third wall taken, while nevertheless the Byrsa, which was the name of the citadel, held out like another city. Butthough the destruction of the place was thus very far advanced, it wasthe name of the Scipios only that seemed fatal to Africa. TheGovernment, accordingly, applying to another Scipio, desired from him atermination of the war. This Scipio, the son of Paulus Macedonicus, theson of the great Africanus had adopted as an honor to his family, and, as it appeared, with this destiny, that the grandson should overthrowthe city which the grandfather had shaken. But as the bites of dyingbeasts are wont to be most fatal, so there was more trouble withCarthage half-ruined than when it was in its full strength. The Romanshaving shut the enemy up in their single fortress, had also blockadedthe harbor; but upon this they dug another harbor on the other side ofthe city, not with a design to escape, but because no one supposed thatthey could even force an outlet there. Here a new fleet, as if justborn, started forth; and, in the mean while, sometimes by day andsometimes by night, some new mole, some new machine, some new band ofdesperate men perpetually started up, like a sudden flame from a firesunk in ashes. At last, their affairs becoming desperate, forty thousandmen, and (what is hardly credible) with Hasdrubal at their head, surrendered themselves. How much more nobly did a woman behave, the wifeof the general, who, taking hold of her two children, threw herself fromthe top of her house into the midst of the flames, imitating the queenthat built Carthage. How great a city was then destroyed is shown, tosay nothing of other things, by the duration of the fire, for the flamescould scarcely be extinguished at the end of seventeen days; flameswhich the enemy themselves had raised in their houses and temples, that, since the city could not be rescued from the Romans, all matter fortriumph might at least be burned. 

BATTLE OF THE METAURUS

B. C. 207

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

(During the closing years of the Second Punic War the resources of theRomans were drained to such an extent as to bring great disheartenmentto their rulers and generals. Under the stress of financialdifficulties, the cost of living greatly increased, and the State wascompelled to resort to loans of various kinds, and to levy upon citizensof means for the pay of seamen. This scheme for raising Roman "shipmoney" was one of the most significant indications of the extreme weightresting upon the republic in the prosecution of this arduous war. A warwith Sicily was fortunately terminated, releasing some additional forcefor employment against the Carthaginians; but for some time littleheadway was made by the Roman commanders, and when, in B. C. 207, thepeople were called upon to elect consuls, their affairs were still in acondition which caused serious anxiety. The consuls chosen in that yearwere Marcus Livius and Caius Claudius Nero, and without delay they wentto take command in southern Italy, which the Carthaginians underHannibal, though not in much strength, had invaded. 

But when, later in the season, Hasdrubal crossed the Alps from the northto join his brother, Hannibal, the aspect of the war became still moregrave in the eyes of the Romans. Hasdrubal solicited the support of theGauls, but to little purpose. Meanwhile Hannibal made skilful use of hissmall forces in eluding the consul Nero; but the capture by the Romansof despatches from Hasdrubal disclosed his plans, and Nero at onceformed his own for intercepting him. The result was that Nero and Liviusjoined their forces in Hasdrubal's front, and to the Carthaginian theyoffered immediate battle. Hasdrubal attempted a retreat, but wascompelled to give battle on the banks of the Metaurus. Of this, one ofthe "decisive battles of the world, " Creasy has left an authoritativeand graphic account, which here follows. The part of the consul Nero inthe campaign is thus remarked upon by Lord Byron:

"The consul Nero, who made the unequalled march which deceived Hannibaland deceived Hasdrubal, thereby accomplished an achievement almostunrivalled in military annals. The first intelligence of his return, toHannibal, was the sight of Hasdrubal's head thrown into his camp. WhenHannibal saw this, he exclaimed, with a sigh, that 'Rome would now bethe mistress of the world. ' To this victory of Nero's it might be owingthat his imperial namesake reigned at all. But the infamy of the one haseclipsed the glory of the other. When the name of Nero is heard, whothinks of the consul? But such are human things. ")

About midway between Rimini and Ancona a little river falls into theAdriatic, after traversing one of those districts of Italy in which avain attempt has lately been made to revive, after long centuries ofservitude and shame, the spirit of Italian nationality and the energy offree institutions. That stream is still called the Metauro, and wakensby its name the recollections of the resolute daring of ancient Rome, and of the slaughter that stained its current two thousand andsixty-three years ago, when the combined consular armies of Livius andNero encountered and crushed near its banks the varied hosts whichHannibal's brother was leading from the Pyrenees, the Rhone, the Alps, and the Po, to aid the great Carthaginian in his stern struggle toannihilate the growing might of the Roman republic, and make the Punicpower supreme over all the nations of the world. 

The Roman historian, [59] who termed that struggle the most memorable ofall wars that ever were carried on, wrote in no spirit of exaggeration;for it is not in ancient, but in modern history that parallels for itsincidents and its heroes are to be found. The similitude between thecontest which Rome maintained against Hannibal, and that which Englandwas for many years engaged in against Napoleon, has not passedunobserved by recent historians. "Twice, " says Arnold, "has there beenwitnessed the struggle of the highest individual genius against theresources and institutions of a great nation, and in both cases thenation has been victorious. For seventeen years Hannibal strove againstRome; for sixteen years Napoleon Bonaparte strove against England: theefforts of the first ended in Zama; those of the second in Waterloo. "

[Footnote 59: Livy. ]

One point, however, of the similitude between the two wars has scarcelybeen adequately dwelt on; that is, the remarkable parallel between theRoman general who finally defeated the great Carthaginian, and theEnglish general who gave the last deadly overthrow to the FrenchEmperor. Scipio and Wellington both held for many years commands of highimportance, but distant from the main theatres of warfare. The samecountry was the scene of the principal military career of each. It wasin Spain that Scipio, like Wellington, successively encountered andoverthrew nearly all the subordinate generals of the enemy before beingopposed to the chief champion and conqueror himself. Both Scipio andWellington restored their countrymen's confidence in arms when shaken bya series of reverses, and each of them closed a long and perilous war bya complete and overwhelming defeat of the chosen leader and the chosenveterans of the foe. 

Nor is the parallel between them limited to their military charactersand exploits. Scipio, like Wellington, became an important leader of thearistocratic party among his countrymen, and was exposed to theunmeasured invectives of the violent section of his politicalantagonists. When, early in the last reign, an infuriated mob assaultedthe Duke of Wellington in the streets of the English capital on theanniversary of Waterloo, England was even more disgraced by that outragethan Rome was by the factious accusations which demagogues broughtagainst Scipio, but which he proudly repelled on the day of trial byreminding the assembled people that it was the anniversary of the battleof Zama. Happily, a wiser and a better spirit has now for years pervadedall classes of our community, and we shall be spared the ignominy ofhaving worked out to the end the parallel of national ingratitude. Scipio died a voluntary exile from the malevolent turbulence of Rome. Englishmen of all ranks and politics have now long united inaffectionate admiration of our modern Scipio; and even those who havemost widely differed from the duke on legislative or administrativequestions, forget what they deem the political errors of thattime-honored head, while they gratefully call to mind the laurels thathave wreathed it. 

Scipio at Zama trampled in the dust the power of Carthage, but thatpower had been already irreparably shattered in another field, whereneither Scipio nor Hannibal commanded. When the Metaurus witnessed thedefeat and death of Hasdrubal, it witnessed the ruin of the scheme bywhich alone Carthage could hope to organize decisive success--the schemeof enveloping Rome at once from the north and the south of Italy by twochosen armies, led by two sons of Hamilcar. That battle was thedetermining crisis of the contest, not merely between Rome and Carthage, but between the two great families of the world, which then made Italythe arena of their oft-renewed contest for preëminence. 

The French historian, Michelet, whose _Histoire Romaine_ would have beeninvaluable if the general industry and accuracy of the writer had in anydegree equalled his originality and brilliancy, eloquently remarks: "Itis not without reason that so universal and vivid a remembrance of thePunic wars has dwelt in the memories of men. They formed no merestruggle to determine the lot of two cities or two empires; but it was astrife on the event of which depended the fate of two races of mankind, whether the dominion of the world should belong to the Indo-Germanic orto the Semitic family of nations. Bear in mind that the first of thesecomprises, besides the Indians and the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germans. In the other are ranked the Jews and the Arabs, thePhoenicians and the Carthaginians. On the one side is the genius ofheroism, of art, and legislation; on the other is the spirit ofindustry, of commerce, of navigation. 

"The two opposite races have everywhere come into contact, everywhereinto hostility. In the primitive history of Persia and Chaldaea, theheroes are perpetually engaged in combat with their industrious andperfidious neighbors. The struggle is renewed between the Phoeniciansand the Greeks on every coast of the Mediterranean. The Greek supplantsthe Phoenician in all his factories, all his colonies in the East: soonwill the Roman come, and do likewise in the West. Alexander did far moreagainst Tyre than Shalmaneser or Nebuchadnezzar had done. Not contentwith crushing her, he took care that she never should revive; for hefounded Alexandria as her substitute, and changed forever the track ofthe commerce of the world. There remained Carthage--the great Carthage, and her mighty empire--mighty in a far different degree than Phoenicia'shad been. Rome annihilated it. Then occurred that which has no parallelin history--an entire civilization perished at one blow--banished, likea falling star. The _Periplus_ of Hanno, a few coins, a score of linesin Plautus, and, lo, all that remains of the Carthaginian world!

"Many generations must needs pass away before the struggle between thetwo races could be renewed; and the Arabs, that formidable rear-guard ofthe Semitic world, dashed forth from their deserts. The conflict betweenthe two races then became the conflict of two religions. Fortunate wasit that those daring Saracenic cavaliers encountered in the East theimpregnable walls of Constantinople, in the West the chivalrous valor ofCharles Martel and the sword of the Cid. The crusades were the naturalreprisals for the Arab invasions, and form the last epoch of that greatstruggle between the two principal families of the human race. "

It is difficult, amid the glimmering light supplied by the allusions ofthe classical writers, to gain a full idea of the character andinstitutions of Rome's great rival. But we can perceive how inferiorCarthage was to her competitor in military resources, and how far lessfitted than Rome she was to become the founder of centralized andcentralizing dominion that should endure for centuries, and fuse intoimperial unity the narrow nationalities of the ancient races that dweltaround and near the shores of the Mediterranean Sea?

Carthage was originally neither the most ancient nor the most powerfulof the numerous colonies which the Phoenicians planted on the coast ofNorthern Africa. But her advantageous position, the excellence of herconstitution--of which, though ill-informed as to its details, we knowthat it commanded the admiration of Aristotle--and the commercial andpolitical energy of her citizens gave her the ascendency over Hippo, Utica, Leptis, and her other sister Phoenician cities in those regions;and she finally reduced them to a condition of dependency similar tothat which the subject allies of Athens occupied relatively to that onceimperial city. When Tyre and Sidon and the other cities of Phoeniciaitself sank from independent republics into mere vassal states of thegreat Asiatic monarchies, and obeyed by turns a Babylonian, a Persian, and a Macedonian master, their power and their traffic rapidly declined, and Carthage succeeded to the important maritime and commercialcharacter which they had previously maintained. 

The Carthaginians did not seek to compete with the Greeks on thenortheastern shores of the Mediterranean, or in the three inland seaswhich are connected with it; but they maintained an active intercoursewith the Phoenicians, and through them with Lower and Central Asia; andthey, and they alone, after the decline and fall of Tyre, navigated thewaters of the Atlantic. They had the monopoly of all the commerce of theworld that was carried on beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. We have yetextant (in a Greek translation) the narrative of the voyage of Hanno, one of their admirals, along the western coast of Africa as far asSierra Leone; and in the Latin poem of Festus Avienus frequentreferences are made to the records of the voyages of another celebratedCarthaginian admiral, Himilco, who had explored the northwestern coastof Europe. Our own islands are mentioned by Himilco as the lands of theHiberni and Albioni. It is indeed certain that the Carthaginiansfrequented the Cornish coast--as the Phoenicians had done beforethem--for the purpose of procuring tin; and there is every reason tobelieve that they sailed as far as the coasts of the Baltic for amber. When it is remembered that the mariner's compass was unknown in thoseages, the boldness and skill of the seamen of Carthage, and theenterprise of her merchants, may be paralleled with any achievementsthat the history of modern navigation and commerce can produce. 

In their Atlantic voyages along the African shores the Carthaginiansfollowed the double object of traffic and colonization. The numeroussettlements that were planted by them along the coast from Morocco toSenegal provided for the needy members of the constantly increasingpopulation of a great commercial capital, and also strengthened theinfluence which Carthage exercised among the tribes of the Africancoast. Besides her fleets, her caravans gave her a large and lucrativetrade with the native Africans; nor must we limit our belief of theextent of the Carthaginian trade with the tribes of Central and WesternAfrica by the narrowness of the commercial intercourse which civilizednations of modern times have been able to create in those regions. 

Although essentially a mercantile and seafaring people, theCarthaginians by no means neglected agriculture. On the contrary, thewhole of their territory was cultivated like a garden. The fertility ofthe soil repaid the skill and toil bestowed on it; and every invader, from Agathocles to Scipio Æmilianus, was struck with admiration at therich pasture lands carefully irrigated, the abundant harvests, theluxuriant vineyards, the plantations of fig and olive trees, thethriving villages, the populous towns, and the splendid villas of thewealthy Carthaginians, through which his march lay, as long as he was onCarthaginian ground. 

Although the Carthaginians abandoned the Ægean and the Pontus to theGreek, they were by no means disposed to relinquish to those rivals thecommerce and the dominion of the coasts of the Mediterranean westward ofItaly. For centuries the Carthaginians strove to make themselves mastersof the islands that lie between Italy and Spain. They acquired theBalearic Islands, where the principal harbor, Port Mahon, still bearsthe name of a Carthaginian admiral. They succeeded in reducing thegreater part of Sardinia; but Sicily could never be brought into theirpower. They repeatedly invaded that island, and nearly overran it; butthe resistance which was opposed to them by the Syracusans under Gelon, Dionysius, Timoleon, and Agathocles preserved the island from becomingPunic, though many of its cities remained under the Carthaginian ruleuntil Rome finally settled the question to whom Sicily was to belong byconquering it for herself. 

With so many elements of success, with almost unbounded wealth, withcommercial and maritime activity, with a fertile territory, with acapital city of almost impregnable strength, with a constitution thatinsured for centuries the blessing of social order, with an aristocracysingularly fertile in men of the highest genius, Carthage yet failedsignally and calamitously in her contest for power with Rome. One of theimmediate causes of this may seem to have been the want of firmnessamong her citizens, which made them terminate the First Punic War bybegging peace, sooner than endure any longer the hardships and burdenscaused by a state of warfare, although their antagonists had sufferedfar more severely than themselves. Another cause was the spirit offaction among their leading men, which prevented Hannibal in the secondwar from being properly reënforced and supported. But there were alsomore general causes why Carthage proved inferior to Rome. These were herposition relatively to the mass of the inhabitants of the country whichshe ruled, and her habit of trusting to mercenary armies in her wars. 

Our clearest information as to the different races of men in and aboutCarthage is derived from Diodorus Siculus. That historian enumeratesfour different races: first, he mentions the Phoenicians who dwelt inCarthage; next, he speaks of the Liby-Phoenicians: these, he tells us, dwelt in many of the maritime cities, and were connected byintermarriage with the Phoenicians, which was the cause of theircompound name; thirdly, he mentions the Libyans, the bulk and the mostancient part of the population, hating the Carthaginians intensely onaccount of the oppressiveness of their domination; lastly, he names theNumidians, the nomad tribes of the frontier. 

It is evident, from this description, that the native Libyans were asubject class, without franchise or political rights; and, accordingly, we find no instance specified in history of a Libyan holding politicaloffice or military command. The half-castes, the Liby-Phoenicians, seemto have been sometimes sent out as colonists; but it may be inferred, from what Diodorus says of their residence, that they had not the rightof the citizenship of Carthage; and only a single solitary case occursof one of this race being intrusted with authority, and that, too, notemanating from the home government. This is the instance of the officersent by Hannibal to Sicily after the fall of Syracuse, whom Polybiuscalls Myttinus the Libyan, but whom, from the fuller account in Livy, wefind to have been a Liby-Phoenician; and it is expressly mentioned whatindignation was felt by the Carthaginian commanders in the island thatthis half-caste should control their operations. 

With respect to the composition of their armies, it is observable that, though thirsting for extended empire, and though some of her leading menbecame generals of the highest order, the Carthaginians, as a people, were anything but personally warlike. As long as they could hiremercenaries to fight for them, they had little appetite for the irksometraining and the loss of valuable time which military service would haveentailed on themselves. 

As Michelet remarks: "The life of an industrious merchant, of aCarthaginian, was too precious to be risked, as long as it was possibleto substitute advantageously for it that of a barbarian from Spain orGaul. Carthage knew, and could tell to a drachma, what the life of a manof each nation came to. A Greek was worth more than a Campanian, aCampanian worth more than a Gaul or a Spaniard. When once this tariff ofblood was correctly made out, Carthage began a war as a mercantilespeculation. She tried to make conquests in the hope of getting newmines to work or to open fresh markets for her exports. In one ventureshe could afford to spend fifty thousand mercenaries, in another rathermore. If the returns were good, there was no regret felt for the capitalthat had been sunk in the investment; more money got more men, and allwent on well. "

Armies composed of foreign mercenaries have in all ages been asformidable to their employers as to the enemy against whom they weredirected. We know of one occasion--between the First and Second Punicwars--when Carthage was brought to the very brink of destruction by arevolt of her foreign troops. Other mutinies of the same kind must fromtime to time have occurred. Probably one of these was the cause of thecomparative weakness of Carthage at the time of the Athenian expeditionagainst Syracuse, so different from the energy with which she attackedGelon half a century earlier and Dionysius half a century later. Andeven when we consider her armies with reference only to their efficiencyin warfare, we perceive at once the inferiority of such bands of_condottieri_, brought together without any common bond of origin, tactics, or cause, to the legions of Rome, which, at the time of thePunic wars, were raised from the very flower of a hardy agriculturalpopulation, trained in the strictest discipline, habituated to victory, and animated by the most resolute patriotism. 

And this shows, also, the transcendency of the genius of Hannibal, whichcould form such discordant materials into a compact organized force, andinspire them with the spirit of patient discipline and loyalty to theirchief, so that they were true to him in his adverse as well as in hisprosperous fortunes; and throughout the checkered series of hiscampaigns no panic rout ever disgraced a division under his command, nomutiny, or even attempt at mutiny, was ever known in his camp; andfinally, after fifteen years of Italian warfare, his men followed theirold leader to Zama, "with no fear and little hope, "[60] and there, onthat disastrous field, stood firm around him, his Old Guard, tillScipio's Numidian allies came up on their flank, when at last, surrounded and overpowered, the veteran battalions sealed their devotionto their general by their blood!

[Footnote 60: "We advanced to Waterloo as the Greeks did to Thermopylae:all of us without fear, and most of us without hope. "--_Speech ofGeneral Foy. _]

"But if Hannibal's genius may be likened to the Homeric god, who, in hishatred to the Trojans, rises from the deep to rally the fainting Greeksand to lead them against the enemy, so the calm courage with whichHector met his more than human adversary in his country's cause is nounworthy image of the unyielding magnanimity displayed by thearistocracy of Rome. As Hannibal utterly eclipses Carthage, so, on thecontrary, Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero, even Scipio himself, are asnothing when compared to the spirit and wisdom and power of Rome. Thesenate, which voted its thanks to its political enemy, Varro, after hisdisastrous defeat, 'because he had not despaired of the commonwealth, 'and which disdained either to solicit or to reprove or to threaten or inany way to notice the twelve colonies which had refused their accustomedsupplies of men for the army, is far more to be honored than theconqueror of Zama. This we should the more carefully bear in mindbecause our tendency is to admire individual greatness far more thannational; and, as no single Roman will bear comparison to Hannibal, weare apt to murmur at the event of the contest, and to think that thevictory was awarded to the least worthy of the combatants. On thecontrary, never was the wisdom of God's providence more manifest than inthe issue of the struggle between Rome and Carthage. 

"It was clearly for the good of mankind that Hannibal should beconquered; his triumph would have stopped the progress of the world; forgreat men can only act permanently by forming great nations; and no oneman, even though it were Hannibal himself, can in one generation effectsuch a work. But where the nation has been merely enkindled for a whileby a great man's spirit, the light passes away with him who communicatedit; and the nation, when he is gone, is like a dead body to which magicpower had for a moment given unnatural life: when the charm has ceased, the body is cold and stiff as before. He who grieves over the battle ofZama should carry on his thoughts to a period thirty years later, whenHannibal must in the course of nature have been dead, and consider howthe isolated Phoenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and toconsolidate the civilization of Greece, or by its laws and institutionsto bind together barbarians of every race and language into an organizedempire, and prepare them for becoming, when that empire was dissolved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe. "[61]

[Footnote 61: Arnold. ]

It was in the spring of 207 B. C. That Hasdrubal, after skilfullydisentangling himself from the Roman forces in Spain, and after a marchconducted with great judgment and little loss through the interior ofGaul and the passes of the Alps, appeared in the country that now is thenorth of Lombardy, at the head of troops which he had partly brought outof Spain and partly levied among the Gauls and Ligurians on his way. Atthis time Hannibal, with his unconquered and seemingly unconquerablearmy, had been eight years in Italy, executing with strenuous ferocitythe vow of hatred to Rome which had been sworn by him while yet a childat the bidding of his father, Hamilcar, who, as he boasted, had trainedup his three sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago, like three lion'swhelps, to prey upon the Romans. But Hannibal's latter campaigns had notbeen signalized by any such great victories as marked the first years ofhis invasion of Italy. The stern spirit of Roman resolution, everhighest in disaster and danger, had neither bent nor despaired beneaththe merciless blows which "the dire African" dealt her in rapidsuccession at Trebia, at Thrasymene, and at Cannae. Her population wasthinned by repeated slaughter in the field; poverty and actual scarcityground down the survivors, through the fearful ravages which Hannibal'scavalry spread through their cornfields, their pasture lands, and theirvineyards; many of her allies went over to the invader's side, and newclouds of foreign war threatened her from Macedonia and Gaul. But Romereceded not. Rich and poor among her citizens vied with each other indevotion to their country. The wealthy placed their stores, and allplaced their lives, at the State's disposal. And though Hannibal couldnot be driven out of Italy, though every year brought its sufferings andsacrifices, Rome felt that her constancy had not been exerted in vain. If she was weakened by the continued strife, so was Hannibal also; andit was clear that the unaided resources of his army were unequal to thetask of her destruction. The single deerhound could not pull down thequarry which he had so furiously assailed. Rome not only stood fiercelyat bay, but had pressed back and gored her antagonist, that still, however, watched her in act to spring. She was weary, and bleeding atevery pore; and there seemed to be little hope of her escape if theother hound of old Hamilcar's race should come up in time to aid hisbrother in the death grapple. 

Hasdrubal had commanded the Carthaginian armies in Spain for some timewith varying but generally unfavorable fortune. He had not the fullauthority over the Punic forces in that country which his brother andhis father had previously exercised. The faction at Carthage, which wasat feud with his family, succeeded in fettering and interfering with hispower; and other generals were from time to time sent into Spain, whoseerrors and misconduct caused the reverses that Hasdrubal met with. Thisis expressly attested by the Greek historian Polybius, who was theintimate friend of the younger Africanus, and drew his informationrespecting the Second Punic War from the best possible authorities. Livygives a long narrative of campaigns between the Roman commanders inSpain and Hasdrubal, which is so palpably deformed by fictions andexaggerations as to be hardly deserving of attention. It is clear thatin the year B. C. 208, at least, Hasdrubal outmanoeuvred Publius Scipio, who held the command of the Roman forces in Spain, and whose object wasto prevent him from passing the Pyrenees and marching upon Italy. Scipioexpected that Hasdrubal would attempt the nearest route along the coastof the Mediterranean, and he therefore carefully fortified and guardedthe passes of the eastern Pyrenees. But Hasdrubal passed these mountainsnear their western extremity; and then, with a considerable force ofSpanish infantry, with a small number of African troops, with someelephants and much treasure, he marched, not directly toward the coastof the Mediterranean, but in a northeastern line toward the centre ofGaul. He halted for the winter in the territory of the Arverni, themodern Auvergne, and conciliated or purchased the goodwill of the Gaulsin that region so far that he not only found friendly winter quartersamong them, but great numbers of them enlisted under him, and, on theapproach of spring, marched with him to invade Italy. 

By thus entering Gaul at the southwest, and avoiding its southernmaritime districts, Hasdrubal kept the Romans in complete ignorance ofhis precise operations and movements in that country; all that they knewwas that Hasdrubal had baffled Scipio's attempts to detain him in Spain;that he had crossed the Pyrenees with soldiers, elephants, and money, and that he was raising fresh forces among the Gauls. The spring wassure to bring him into Italy, and then would come the real tempest ofthe war, when from the north and from the south the two Carthaginianarmies, each under a son of the Thunderbolt[62], were to gather togetheraround the seven hills of Rome. 

[Footnote 62: Hamilcar was surnamed Barca, which means the Thunderbolt. Sultan Bajazet had the similar surname of Yilderim. ]

In this emergency the Romans looked among themselves earnestly andanxiously for leaders fit to meet the perils of the coming campaign. 

The senate recommended the people to elect, as one of their consuls, Caius Claudius Nero, a patrician of one of the families of the greatClaudian house. Nero had served during the preceding years of the warboth against Hannibal in Italy and against Hasdrubal in Spain; but it isremarkable that the histories which we possess record no successes ashaving been achieved by him either before or after his great campaign ofthe Metaurus. It proves much for the sagacity of the leading men of thesenate that they recognized in Nero the energy and spirit which wererequired at this crisis, and it is equally creditable to the patriotismof the people that they followed the advice of the senate by electing ageneral who had no showy exploits to recommend him to their choice. 

It was a matter of greater difficulty to find a second consul; the lawsrequired that one consul should be a plebeian; and the plebeian nobilityhad been fearfully thinned by the events of the war. While the senatorsanxiously deliberated among themselves what fit colleague for Nero couldbe nominated at the coming comitia, and sorrowfully recalled the namesof Marcellus, Gracchus, and other plebeian generals who were no more, one taciturn and moody old man sat in sullen apathy among the conscriptfathers. This was Marcus Livius, who had been consul in the year beforethe beginning of this war, and had then gained a victory over theIllyrians. After his consulship he had been impeached before the peopleon a charge of peculation and unfair division of the spoils among hissoldiers; the verdict was unjustly given against him, and the sense ofthis wrong, and of the indignity thus put upon him, had rankledunceasingly in the bosom of Livius, so that for eight years after histrial he had lived in seclusion in his country seat, taking no part inany affairs of State. Latterly the censors had compelled him to come toRome and resume his place in the senate, where he used to sit gloomilyapart, giving only a silent vote. At last an unjust accusation againstone of his near kinsmen made him break silence, and he harangued thehouse in words of weight and sense, which drew attention to him andtaught the senators that a strong spirit dwelt beneath that unimposingexterior. 

Now, while they were debating on what noble of a plebeian house was fitto assume the perilous honors of the consulate, some of the elder ofthem looked on Marcus Livius, and remembered that in the very lasttriumph which had been celebrated in the streets of Rome, this grim oldman had sat in the car of victory, and that he had offered the lastthanksgiving sacrifice for the success of the Roman arms which had bledbefore Capitoline Jove. There had been no triumphs since Hannibal cameinto Italy. The Illyrian campaign of Livius was the last that had beenso honored; perhaps it might be destined for him now to renew thelong-interrupted series. The senators resolved that Livius should be putin nomination as consul with Nero; the people were willing to elect him:the only opposition came from himself. He taunted them with theirinconsistency in honoring the man whom they had convicted of a basecrime. "If I am innocent, " said he, "why did you place such a stain onme? If I am guilty, why am I more fit for a second consulship than I wasfor my first one?" The other senators remonstrated with him, urging theexample of the great Camillus, who, after an unjust condemnation on asimilar charge, both served and saved his country. At last Livius ceasedto object; and Caius Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius were chosen consulsof Rome. 

A quarrel had long existed between the two consuls, and the senatorsstrove to effect a reconciliation between them before the campaign. Hereagain Livius for a long time obstinately resisted the wish of hisfellow-senators. He said it was best for the State that he and Neroshould continue to hate one another. Each would do his duty better whenhe knew that he was watched by an enemy in the person of his owncolleague. At last the entreaties of the senate prevailed, and Liviusconsented to forego the feud, and to cooperate with Nero in preparingfor the coming struggle. 

As soon as the winter snows were thawed, Hasdrubal commenced his marchfrom Auvergne to the Alps. He experienced none of the difficulties whichhis brother had met with from the mountain tribes. Hannibal's army hadbeen the first body of regular troops that had ever traversed theirregions; and, as wild animals assail a traveller, the natives roseagainst it instinctively, in imagined defence of their own habitations, which they supposed to be the objects of Carthaginian ambition. But thefame of the war, with which Italy had now been convulsed for twelveyears, had penetrated into the Alpine passes, and the mountaineers nowunderstood that a mighty city southward of the Alps was to be attackedby the troops whom they saw marching among them. They now not onlyopposed no resistance to the passage of Hasdrubal, but many of them, outof love of enterprise and plunder, or allured by the high pay that heoffered, took service with him; and thus he advanced upon Italy with anarmy that gathered strength at every league. It is said, also, that someof the most important engineering works which Hannibal had constructedwere found by Hasdrubal still in existence, and materially favored thespeed of his advance. He thus emerged into Italy from the Alpine valleysmuch sooner than had been anticipated. Many warriors of the Liguriantribes joined him; and, crossing the River Po, he marched down itssouthern bank to the city of Placentia, which he wished to secure as abase for his future operations. Placentia resisted him as bravely as ithad resisted Hannibal twelve years before, and for some time Hasdrubalwas occupied with a fruitless siege before its walls. 

Six armies were levied for the defence of Italy when the long-dreadedapproach of Hasdrubal was announced. Seventy thousand Romans served inthe fifteen legions of which, with an equal number of Italian allies, those armies and the garrisons were composed. Upward of thirty thousandmore Romans were serving in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. The wholenumber of Roman citizens of an age fit for military duty scarcelyexceeded a hundred and thirty thousand. The census taken before thecommencement of the war had shown a total of two hundred and seventythousand, which had been diminished by more than half during twelveyears. These numbers are fearfully emphatic of the extremity to whichRome was reduced, and of her gigantic efforts in that great agony of herfate. Not merely men, but money and military stores, were drained to theutmost, and if the armies of that year should be swept off by arepetition of the slaughters of Thrasymene and Cannae all felt that Romewould cease to exist. 

Even if the campaign were to be marked by no decisive success on eitherside her ruin seemed certain. In South Italy, Hannibal had eitherdetached Rome's allies from her or had impoverished them by the ravagesof his army. If Hasdrubal could have done the same in Upper Italy; ifEtruria, Umbria, and Northern Latium had either revolted or been laidwaste, Rome must have sunk beneath sheer starvation, for the hostile ordesolated territory would have yielded no supplies of corn for herpopulation, and money to purchase it from abroad there was none. Instantvictory was a matter of life or death. Three of her six armies wereordered to the North, but the first of these was required to overawe thedisaffected Etruscan. The second army of the North was pushed forward, under Porcius, the praetor, to meet and keep in check the advancedtroops of Hasdrubal; while the third, the grand army of the North, whichwas to be under the immediate command of the consul Livius, who had thechief command in all North Italy, advanced more slowly in its support. There were similarly three armies in the South, under the orders of theother consul, Claudius Nero. 

The lot had decided that Livius was to be opposed to Hasdrubal, and thatNero should face Hannibal. And "when all was ordered as themselvesthought best, the two consuls went forth from the city, each his severalway. The people of Rome were now quite otherwise affected than they hadbeen when L. Æmilius Paulus and C. Terentius Varro were sent againstHannibal. They did no longer take upon them to direct their generals, orbid them despatch and win the victory betimes, but rather they stood infear lest all diligence, wisdom, and valor should prove too little; forsince few years had passed wherein some one of their generals had notbeen slain, and since it was manifest that, if either of these presentconsuls were defeated or put to the worst, the two Carthaginians wouldforthwith join, and make short work with the other, it seemed a greaterhappiness than could be expected that each of them should return homevictor, and come off with honor from such mighty opposition as he waslike to find. With extreme difficulty had Rome held up her head eversince the battle of Cannae; though it were so, that Hannibal alone, withlittle help from Carthage, had continued the war in Italy. But there wasnow arrived another son of Hamilcar, and one that in his presentexpedition had seemed a man of more sufficiency than Hannibal himself;for whereas, in that long and dangerous march through barbarous nations, over great rivers and mountains that were thought unpassable, Hannibalhad lost a great part of his army, this Hasdrubal, in the same places, had multiplied his numbers, and gathering the people that he found inthe way, descended from the Alps like a rolling snowball, far greaterthan he came over the Pyrenees at his first setting out of Spain. Theseconsiderations and the like, of which fear presented many unto them, caused the people of Rome to wait upon their consuls out of the town, like a pensive train of mourners, thinking upon Marcellus and Crispinus, upon whom, in the like sort, they had given attendance the last year, but saw neither of them return alive from a less dangerous war. Particularly old Q. Fabius gave his accustomed advice to M. Livius, thathe should abstain from giving or taking battle until he well understoodthe enemy's condition. But the consul made him a froward answer, andsaid that he would fight the very first day, for that he thought it longtill he should either recover his honor by victory, or, by seeing theoverthrow of his own unjust citizens, satisfy himself with the joy of agreat though not an honest revenge. But his meaning was better than hiswords. "

Hannibal at this period occupied with his veteran but much-reducedforces the extreme south of Italy. It had not been expected either byfriend or foe that Hasdrubal would effect his passage of the Alps soearly in the year as actually occurred. And even when Hannibal learnedthat his brother was in Italy, and had advanced as far as Placentia, hewas obliged to pause for further intelligence before he himselfcommenced active operations, as he could not tell whether his brothermight not be invited into Etruria, to aid the party there that wasdisaffected to Rome, or whether he would march down by the Adriatic Sea. Hannibal led his troops out of their winter quarters in Bruttium, andmarched northward as far as Canusium. Nero had his head-quarters nearVenusia, with an army which he had increased to forty thousand foot andtwo thousand five hundred horse, by incorporating under his own commandsome of the legions which had been intended to act under other generalsin the South. There was another Roman army, twenty thousand strong, south of Hannibal at Tarentum. The strength of that city secured thisRoman force from any attack by Hannibal, and it was a serious matter tomarch northward and leave it in his rear, free to act against all hisdepots and allies in the friendly part of Italy, which for the two orthree last campaigns had served him for a base of his operations. Moreover, Nero's army was so strong that Hannibal could not concentratetroops enough to assume the offensive against it without weakening hisgarrisons and relinquishing, at least for a time, his grasp upon thesouthern provinces. To do this before he was certainly informed of hisbrother's operations would have been a useless sacrifice, as Nero couldretreat before him upon the other Roman armies near the capital, andHannibal knew by experience that a mere advance of his army upon thewalls of Rome would have no effect on the fortunes of the war. In thehope, probably, of inducing Nero to follow him and of gaining anopportunity of outmanoeuvring the Roman consul and attacking him on hismarch, Hannibal moved into Lucania, and then back into Apulia; he againmarched down into Bruttium, and strengthened his army by a levy ofrecruits in that district. Nero followed him, but gave him no chance ofassailing him at a disadvantage. Some partial encounters seem to havetaken place; but the consul could not prevent Hannibal's junction withhis Bruttian levies, nor could Hannibal gain an opportunity ofsurprising and crushing the consul. [63] Hannibal returned to his formerheadquarters at Canusium, and halted there in expectation of furthertidings of his brother's movements. Nero also resumed his formerposition in observation of the Carthaginian army. 

[Footnote 63: The annalists whom Livy copied spoke of Nero's gainingrepeated victories over Hannibal, and killing and taking his men by tensof thousands. The falsehood of all this is self-evident. If Nero couldthus always beat Hannibal, the Romans would not have been in such anagony of dread about Hasdrubal as all writers describe. Indeed, we havethe express testimony of Polybius that the statements which we read inLivy of Marcellus, Nero, and others gaining victories over Hannibal inItaly must be all fabrications of Roman vanity. Polybius states thatHannibal was never defeated before the battle of Zama; and in anotherpassage he mentions that after the defeats which Hannibal inflicted onthe Romans in the early years of the war, they no longer dared face hisarmy in a pitched battle on a fair field, and yet they resolutelymaintained the war. He rightly explains this by referring to thesuperiority of Hannibal's cavalry, the arm which gained him all hisvictories. By keeping within fortified lines, or close to the sides ofthe mountains when Hannibal approached them, the Romans rendered hiscavalry ineffective; and a glance at the geography of Italy will showhow an army can traverse the greater part of that country withoutventuring far from the high grounds. ]

Meanwhile, Hasdrubal had raised the siege of Placentia, and wasadvancing toward Ariminum on the Adriatic, and driving before him theRoman army under Porcius. Nor when the consul Livius had come up, andunited the second and third armies of the North, could he make headagainst the invaders. The Romans still fell back before Hasdrubal beyondAriminum, beyond the Metaurus, and as far as the little town of Sena, tothe southeast of that river. Hasdrubal was not unmindful of thenecessity of acting in concert with his brother. He sent messengers toHannibal to announce his own line of march, and to propose that theyshould unite their armies in South Umbria and then wheel round againstRome. Those messengers traversed the greater part of Italy in safety, but, when close to the object of their mission, were captured by a Romandetachment; and Hasdrubal's letter, detailing his whole plan of thecampaign, was laid, not in his brother's hands, but in those of thecommander of the Roman armies of the South. Nero saw at once the fullimportance of the crisis. The two sons of Hamilcar were now within twohundred miles of each other, and if Rome were to be saved the brothersmust never meet alive. Nero instantly ordered seven thousand picked men, a thousand being cavalry, to hold themselves in readiness for a secretexpedition against one of Hannibal's garrisons, and as soon as night hadset in he hurried forward on his bold enterprise; but he quickly leftthe southern road toward Lucania, and, wheeling round, pressed northwardwith the utmost rapidity toward Picenum. He had, during the precedingafternoon, sent messengers to Rome, who were to lay Hasdrubal's lettersbefore the senate. There was a law forbidding a consul to make war ormarch his army beyond the limits of the province assigned to him; but insuch an emergency, Nero did not wait for the permission of the senate toexecute his project, but informed them that he was already on his marchto join Livius against Hasdrubal. He advised them to send the twolegions which formed the home garrison on to Narnia, so as to defendthat pass of the Flaminian road against Hasdrubal, in case he shouldmarch upon Rome before the consular armies could attack him. They wereto supply the place of these two legions at Rome by a levy _en masse_ inthe city, and by ordering up the reserve legion from Capua. These werehis communications to the senate. He also sent horsemen forward alonghis line of march, with orders to the local authorities to bring storesof provisions and refreshment of every kind to the roadside, and to haverelays of carriages ready for the conveyance of the wearied soldiers. Such were the precautions which he took for accelerating his march; andwhen he had advanced some little distance from his camp, he brieflyinformed his soldiers of the real object of their expedition. He toldthem that never was there a design more seemingly audacious and morereally safe. He said he was leading them to a certain victory, for hiscolleague had an army large enough to balance the enemy already, so that_their_ swords would decisively turn the scale. The very rumor that afresh consul and a fresh army had come up, when heard on thebattle-field--and he would take care that they should not be heard ofbefore they were seen and felt--would settle the business. They wouldhave all the credit of the victory and of having dealt the finaldecisive blow. He appealed to the enthusiastic reception which theyalready met with on their line of march as a proof and an omen of theirgood fortune. And, indeed, their whole path was amid the vows andprayers and praises of their countrymen. The entire population of thedistricts through which they passed flocked to the roadside to see andbless the deliverers of their country. Food, drink, and refreshments ofevery kind were eagerly pressed on their acceptance. Each peasantthought a favor was conferred on him if one of Nero's chosen band wouldaccept aught at his hands. The soldiers caught the full spirit of theirleader. Night and day they marched forward, taking their hurried mealsin the ranks, and resting by relay in the wagons which the zeal of thecountry people provided, and which followed in the rear of the column. 

Meanwhile, at Rome, the news of Nero's expedition had caused thegreatest excitement and alarm. All men felt the full audacity of theenterprise, but hesitated what epithet to apply to it. It was evidentthat Nero's conduct would be judged of by the event, that most unfaircriterion, as the Roman historian truly terms it. People reasoned on theperilous state in which Nero had left the rest of his army, without ageneral, and deprived of the core of its strength, in the vicinity ofthe terrible Hannibal. They speculated on how long it would takeHannibal to pursue and overtake Nero himself, and his expeditionaryforce. They talked over the former disasters of the war, and the fall ofboth the consuls of the last year. All these calamities had come on themwhile they had only one Carthaginian general and army to deal with inItaly. Now they had two Punic wars at a time. They had two Carthaginianarmies, they had almost two Hannibals, in Italy. Hasdrubal was sprungfrom the same father; trained up in the same hostility to Rome; equallypractised in battle against their legions; and, if the comparative speedand success with which he had crossed the Alps were a fair test, he waseven a better general than his brother. With fear for their interpreterof every rumor, they exaggerated the strength of their enemy's forces inevery quarter, and criticised and distrusted their own. 

Fortunately for Rome, while she was thus a prey to terror and anxiety, her consul's nerves were stout and strong, and he resolutely urged onhis march toward Sena, where his colleague Livius and the praetorPorcius were encamped, Hasdrubal's army being in position about half amile to their north. Nero had sent couriers forward to apprise hiscolleague of his project and of his approach; and by the advice ofLivius, Nero so timed his final march as to reach the camp at Sena bynight. According to a previous arrangement, Nero's men were receivedsilently into the tents of their comrades, each according to his rank. By these means there was no enlargement of the camp that could betray toHasdrubal the accession of force which the Romans had received. This wasconsiderable, as Nero's numbers had been increased on the march by thevolunteers, who offered themselves in crowds, and from whom he selectedthe most promising men, and especially the veterans of former campaigns. A council of war was held on the morning after his arrival, in whichsome advised that time should be given for Nero's men to refreshthemselves after the fatigue of such a march. But Nero vehementlyopposed all delay. "The officer, " said he, "who is for giving time to mymen here to rest themselves is for giving time to Hannibal to attack mymen, whom I have left in the camp in Apulia. He is for giving time toHannibal and Hasdrubal to discover my march, and to manoeuvre for ajunction with each other in Cisalpine Gaul at their leisure. We mustfight instantly, while both the foe here and the foe in the South areignorant of our movements. We must destroy this Hasdrubal, and I must beback in Apulia before Hannibal awakes from his torpor. " Nero's adviceprevailed. It was resolved to fight directly; and before the consuls andpraetor left the tent of Livius, the red ensign, which was the signal toprepare for immediate action, was hoisted, and the Romans forthwith drewup in battle array outside the camp. 

Hasdrubal had been anxious to bring Livius and Porcius to battle, thoughhe had not judged it expedient to attack them in their lines. And now, on hearing that the Romans offered battle, he also drew up his men andadvanced toward them. No spy or deserter had informed him of Nero'sarrival, nor had he received any direct information that he had morethan his old enemies to deal with. But as he rode forward to reconnoitrethe Roman line, he thought that their numbers seemed to have increased, and that the armor of some of them was unusually dull and stained. Henoticed, also, that the horses of some of the cavalry appeared to berough and out of condition, as if they had just come from a successionof forced marches. So also, though, owing to the precaution of Livius, the Roman camp showed no change of size, it had not escaped the quickear of the Carthaginian general that the trumpet which gave the signalto the Roman legions sounded that morning once oftener than usual, as ifdirecting the troops of some additional superior officer. Hasdrubal, from his Spanish campaigns, was well acquainted with all the sounds andsignals of Roman war, and from all that he heard and saw he feltconvinced that both the Roman consuls were before him. In doubt anddifficulty as to what might have taken place between the armies of theSouth, and probably hoping that Hannibal also was approaching, Hasdrubaldetermined to avoid an encounter with the combined Roman forces, and toendeavor to retreat upon Insubrian Gaul, where he would be in a friendlycountry, and could endeavor to reopen his communication with hisbrother. He therefore led his troops back into their camp; and as theRomans did not venture on an assault upon his intrenchments, andHasdrubal did not choose to commence his retreat in their sight, the daypassed away in inaction. At the first watch of the night Hasdrubal ledhis men silently out of their camp, and moved northward toward theMetaurus, in the hope of placing that river between himself and theRomans before his retreat was discovered. His guides betrayed him; andhaving purposely led him away from the part of the river that wasfordable, they made their escape in the dark, and left Hasdrubal and hisarmy wandering in confusion along the steep bank, and seeking in vainfor a spot where the stream could be safely crossed. At last theyhalted; and when day dawned on them, Hasdrubal found that great numbersof his men, in their fatigue and impatience, had lost all discipline andsubordination, and that many of his Gallic auxiliaries had got drunk, and were lying helpless in their quarters. The Roman cavalry was soonseen coming up in pursuit, followed at no great distance by the legions, which marched in readiness for an instant engagement. It was hopelessfor Hasdrubal to think of continuing his retreat before them. Theprospect of immediate battle might recall the disordered part of histroops to a sense of duty, and revive the instinct of discipline. Hetherefore ordered his men to prepare for action instantly, and made thebest arrangement of them that the nature of the ground would permit. 

Heeren has well described the general appearance of a Carthaginian army. He says: "It was an assemblage of the most opposite races of the humanspecies from the farthest parts of the globe. Hordes of half-naked Gaulswere ranged next to companies of white-clothed Iberians, and savageLigurians next to the far-travelled Nasamones and Lotophagi. Carthaginians and Phoenici-Africans formed the centre, while innumerabletroops of Numidian horsemen, taken from all the tribes of the Desert, swarmed about on unsaddled horses, and formed the wings; the van wascomposed of Balearic slingers; and a line of colossal elephants, withtheir Ethiopian guides, formed, as it were, a chain of moving fortressesbefore the whole army. "

Such were the usual materials and arrangements of the hosts that foughtfor Carthage; but the troops under Hasdrubal were not in all respectsthus constituted or thus stationed. He seems to have been especiallydeficient in cavalry, and he had few African troops, though someCarthaginians of high rank were with him. His veteran Spanish infantry, armed with helmets and shields, and short cut-and-thrust swords, werethe best part of his army. These and his few Africans he drew up on hisright wing, under his own personal command. In the centre he placed hisLigurian infantry, and on the left wing he placed or retained the Gauls, who were armed with long javelins and with huge broadswords and targets. The rugged nature of the ground in front and on the flank of this partof his line made him hope that the Roman right wing would be unable tocome to close quarters with these unserviceable barbarians before hecould make some impression with his Spanish veterans on the Roman left. This was the only chance that he had of victory or safety, and he seemsto have done everything that good generalship could do to secure it. Heplaced his elephants in advance of his centre and right wing. He hadcaused the driver of each of them to be provided with a sharp iron spikeand a mallet, and had given orders that every beast that becameunmanageable, and ran back upon his own ranks, should be instantlykilled by driving the spike into the vertebra at the junction of thehead and the spine. Hasdrubal's elephants were ten in number. We have notrustworthy information as to the amount of his infantry, but it isquite clear that he was greatly outnumbered by the combined Romanforces. 

The tactics of the Roman legions had not yet acquired that perfectionwhich they received from the military genius of Marius, [64] and which weread of in the first chapter of Gibbon. We possess, in that great work, an account of the Roman legions at the end of the commonwealth, andduring the early ages of the empire, which those alone can adequatelyadmire who have attempted a similar description. We have also, in thesixth and seventeenth books of Polybius, an elaborate discussion on themilitary system of the Romans in his time, which was not far distantfrom the time of the battle of the Metaurus. But the subject is besetwith difficulties; and instead of entering into minute but inconclusivedetails, I would refer to Gibbon's first chapter as serving for ageneral description of the Roman army in its period of perfection, andremark that the training and armor which the whole legion received inthe time of Augustus were, two centuries earlier, only partiallyintroduced. Two divisions of troops, called _hastati_ and _principes_, formed the bulk of each Roman legion in the Second Punic War. Each ofthese divisions was twelve hundred strong. The hastatus and the princepslegionary bore a breastplate or coat of mail, brazen greaves, and abrazen helmet with a lofty upright crest of scarlet or black feathers. He had a large oblong shield; and, as weapons of offence, two javelins, one of which was light and slender, but the other was a strong andmassive weapon, with a shaft about four feet long and an iron head ofequal length. The sword was carried on the right thigh, and was a shortcut-and-thrust weapon, like that which was used by the Spaniards. Thusarmed, the hastati formed the front division of the legion, and theprincipes the second. Each division was drawn up about ten deep, a spaceof three feet being allowed between the files as well as the ranks, soas to give each legionary ample room for the use of his javelins and ofhis sword and shield. The men in the second rank did not standimmediately behind those in the first rank, but the files werealternate, like the position of the men on a draught-board. This wastermed the _quincunx_ order. 

[Footnote 64: Most probably during the period of his prolongedconsulship, from B. C. 104 to B. C. 101, while he was training his armyagainst the Cimbri and the Teutons. ]

Niebuhr considers that this arrangement enabled the legion to keep up ashower of javelins on the enemy for some considerable time. He says:"When the first line had hurled its _pila_, it probably stepped backbetween those who stood behind it, and two steps forward restored thefront nearly to its first position; a movement which, on account of thearrangement of the quincunx, could be executed without losing a moment. Thus one line succeeded the other in the front till it was time to drawthe swords; nay, when it was found expedient, the lines which hadalready been in the front might repeat this change, since the stores ofpila were surely not confined to the two which each soldier took withhim into battle. 

"The same charge must have taken place in fighting with the sword, which, when the same tactics were adopted on both sides, was anythingbut a confused _mêlée_; on the contrary, it was a series of singlecombats. " He adds that a military man of experience had been consultedby him on the subject and had given it as his opinion "that the changeof the lines as described above was by no means impracticable; but, inthe absence of the deafening noise of gunpowder, it cannot have had evenany difficulty with well-trained troops. "

The third division of the legion was six hundred strong and acted as areserve. It was always composed of veteran soldiers, who were called the_triarii_. Their arms were the same as these of the principes andhastati, except that each _triarian_ carried a spear instead ofjavelins. The rest of the legion consisted of light-armed troops, whoacted as skirmishers. The cavalry of each legion was at this periodabout three hundred strong. The Italian allies who were attached to thelegion seem to have been similarly armed and equipped, but theirnumerical proportion of cavalry was much larger. 

Such was the nature of the forces that advanced on the Roman side to thebattle of the Metaurus. Nero commanded the right wing, Livius the left, and the praetor Porcius had the command of the centre. "Both Romans andCarthaginians well understood how much depended upon the fortune of thisday, and how little hope of safety there was for the vanquished. Onlythe Romans herein seemed to have had the better in conceit and opinionthat they were to fight with men desirous to have fled from them; andaccording to this presumption came Livius the consul, with a proudbravery, to give charge on the Spaniards and Africans, by whom he was sosharply entertained that the victory seemed very doubtful. The Africansand Spaniards were stout soldiers, and well acquainted with the mannerof the Roman fight. The Ligurians also were a hardy nation, and notaccustomed to give ground, which they needed the less, or were able nowto do, being placed in the midst. Livius, therefore, and Porcius foundgreat opposition; and with great slaughter on both sides prevailedlittle or nothing. Besides other difficulties, they were exceedinglytroubled by the elephants, that brake their first ranks and put them insuch disorder as the Roman ensigns were driven to fall back; all thiswhile Claudius Nero, laboring in vain against a steep hill, was unableto come to blows with the Gauls that stood opposite him, but out ofdanger. This made Hasdrubal the more confident, who, seeing his own leftwing safe, did the more boldly and fiercely make impression on the otherside upon the left wing of the Romans. "[65]

[Footnote 65: Sir Walter Raleigh: _Historie of the World_. ]

But at last Nero, who found that Hasdrubal refused his left wing, andwho could not overcome the difficulties of the ground in the quarterassigned to him, decided the battle by another stroke of that militarygenius which had inspired his march. Wheeling a brigade of his best menround the rear of the rest of the Roman army, Nero fiercely charged theflank of the Spaniards and Africans. The charge was as successful as itwas sudden. Rolled back in disorder upon each other, and overwhelmed bynumbers, the Spaniards and Ligurians died, fighting gallantly to thelast. The Gauls, who had taken little or no part in the strife of theday, were then surrounded, and butchered almost without resistance. Hasdrubal, after having, by the confession of his enemies, done all thata general could do, when he saw that the victory was irreparably lost, scorning to survive the gallant host which he had led, and to gratify, as a captive, Roman cruelty and pride, spurred his horse into the midstof a Roman cohort, and sword in hand, met the death that was worthy ofthe son of Hamilcar and the brother of Hannibal. 

Success the most complete had crowned Nero's enterprise. Returning asrapidly as he had advanced, he was again facing the inactive enemies inthe South before they even knew of his march. But he brought with him aghastly trophy of what he had done. In the true spirit of that savagebrutality which deformed the Roman national character, Nero orderedHasdrubal's head to be flung into his brother's camp. Ten years hadpassed since Hannibal had last gazed on those features. The sons ofHamilcar had then planned their system of warfare against Rome whichthey had so nearly brought to successful accomplishment. Year after yearhad Hannibal been struggling in Italy, in the hope of one day hailingthe arrival of him whom he had left in Spain, and of seeing hisbrother's eye flash with affection and pride at the junction of theirirresistible hosts. He now saw that eye glazed in death, and in theagony of his heart the great Carthaginian groaned aloud that herecognized his country's destiny. 

Meanwhile, at the tidings of the great battle, Rome at once rose fromthe thrill of anxiety and terror to the full confidence of triumph. Hannibal might retain his hold on Southern Italy for a few years longer, but the imperial city and her allies were no longer in danger from hisarms; and, after Hannibal's downfall, the great military republic of theancient world met in her career of conquest no other worthy competitor. Byron has termed Nero's march "unequalled, " and, in the magnitude of itsconsequences, it is so. Viewed only as a military exploit, it remainsunparalleled save by Marlborough's bold march from Flanders to theDanube in the campaign of Blenheim, and perhaps also by the ArchdukeCharles' lateral march in 1796, by which he overwhelmed the French underJourdan, and then, driving Moreau through the Black Forest and acrossthe Rhine, for a while freed Germany from her invaders. 

SCIPIO AFRICANUS CRUSHES HANNIBAL AT ZAMA AND SUBJUGATES CARTHAGE

B. C. 202

LIVY

(Sprung from a colony of Tyre, Carthage, founded about B. C. 800, rapidlydeveloped, through a wonderful system of colonization, into a dominatingpower, her rule extending through Northwestern Africa and WesternEurope. In B. C. 509 Carthage made her first treaty with Rome. But therivalry which grew up between the two Powers developed into a stubborncontest for the empire of the world, culminating in the three Punicwars. The first of these lasted from B. C. 264 to 241; the second, fromB. C. 218 to 201. In the interval between these two wars Rome acquiredthe northern part of Italy, whence she sent victorious armies againstthe barbarians in Gaul. Meanwhile, under Hamilcar Barcar, theCarthaginians had effected the conquest of Southern Spain, which theyreduced to the condition of a dependency. 

Hamilcar's greater son, Hannibal, was compelled by his father to sweareternal enmity to Rome. Having established the Carthaginian empire inSpain, at the age of twenty-six he took the Spanish city of Saguntum, anally of Rome, and this was the immediate cause of the Second Punic War, which the Romans declared. The passage of the Alps by Hannibal isregarded as one of the greatest military performances in history. He waswelcomed by the Gauls as a deliverer, and was soon operating in NorthernItaly, his appearance there being a complete surprise to the Romans. Hewon victories over them at the rivers Ticinus and Trebia, B. C. 218;another in 217 at Lake Trasimenus; a great triumph at Cannae in 216;took Capua in the same year, and wintered there; in 212 capturedTarentum; marched against Rome in 211; and in 203 was recalled toAfrica. 

In the mean time the Romans had decided to carry the war into Africa, although in 215 they had beaten Hannibal, and in 211 had retaken Capua. Publius Cornelius Scipio [Scipio Africanus Major] in B. C. 210-206 drovethe Carthaginians out of Spain. In 205 he was made consul, and the nextyear invaded Africa. Landing on the coast, he was met by the forces ofthe Numidian King, who became his allies against Carthage. In 203 hedefeated Syphax and Hasdrubal. Hannibal now having returned to Carthage, he took command of the forces which she opposed to the Roman invaders, but in B. C. 202 suffered final overthrow at Zama, in the battle thatended the Second Punic War. Livy's account of the closing scenes of thatwar, which here follows, gives the reader a clear understanding of thesequence and conclusion of the events related. )

Marcus Servilius and Tiberius Claudius, having assembled the senate, consulted them respecting the provinces. As both were desirous of havingAfrica, they wished Italy and Africa to be disposed of by lots; but, principally in consequence of the exertions of Quintus Metellus, Africawas neither assigned to anyone nor withheld. The consuls were ordered tomake application to the tribunes of the people, to the effect that, ifthey thought proper, they should put it to the people to decide whomthey wished to conduct the war in Africa. All the tribes nominatedPublius Scipio. Nevertheless, the consuls put the province of Africa tothe lot, for so the senate had decreed. Africa fell to the lot ofTiberius Claudius, who was to cross over into Africa with a fleet offifty ships, all quinqueremes, and have an equal command with Scipio. Marcus Servilius obtained Etruria. Caius Servilius was continued incommand in the same province, in case the senate resolved that theconsul should remain at the city. Of the praetors, Marcus Sextusobtained Gaul, which province, together with two legions, PubliusQuinctilius Varus was to deliver to him; Caius Livius obtained Bruttium, with the two legions which Publius Sempronius, the proconsul, hadcommanded the former year; Cneius Tremellius had Sicily, and was toreceive the province and two legions from Publius Villius Tappulus, apraetor of the former year; Villius, as propraetor, was to protect thecoast of Sicily with twenty men-of-war and a thousand soldiers; andMarcus Pomponius was to convey thence to Rome one thousand five hundredsoldiers, with the remaining twenty ships. The city jurisdiction fell toCaius Aurelius Cotta; and the rest of the praetors were continued incommand of the respective provinces and armies which they then had. Notmore than sixteen legions were employed this year in the defence of theempire. And, that they might have the gods favorably disposed towardthem in all their undertakings and proceedings, it was ordered that theconsuls, before they set out to the war, should celebrate those gamesand sacrifice those victims of the larger sort which, in the consulateof Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Titus Quinctius, Titus Manlius thedictator had vowed, provided the commonwealth should continue in thesame state for the next five years. The games were exhibited in thecircus during four days, and the victims sacrificed to those deities towhom they had been vowed. 

Meanwhile, hope and anxiety daily and simultaneously increased; norcould the minds of men be brought to any fixed conclusion, whether itwas a fit subject for rejoicing that Hannibal had now at length, afterthe sixteenth year, departed from Italy and left the Romans in theunmolested possession of it or whether they had not greater cause tofear from his having transported his army in safety into Africa. Theysaid that the scene of action certainly was changed, but not the danger. That Quintus Fabius, lately deceased, who had foretold how arduous thecontest would be, was used to predict, not without good reason, thatHannibal would prove a more formidable enemy in his own country than hehad been in a foreign one; and that Scipio would have to encounter, notSyphax, a king of undisciplined barbarians whose armies Statorius, a manlittle better than a soldier's drudge, was used to lead, nor hisfather-in-law Hasdrubal, that most fugacious general, nor tumultuaryarmies hastily collected out of a crowd of half-armed rustics, butHannibal, born in a manner in the pavilion of his father, that bravestof generals, nurtured and educated in the midst of arms, who served as asoldier formerly, when a boy, and became a general when he had scarcelyattained the age of manhood; who, having grown old in victory, hadfilled Spain, Gaul, and Italy, from the Alps to the strait, withmonuments of his vast achievements; who commanded troops who had servedas long as he had himself; troops hardened by the endurance of everyspecies of suffering, such as it is scarcely credible that men couldhave supported; stained a thousand times with Roman blood, and bearingwith them the spoils not only of soldiers, but of generals. That manywould meet the eyes of Scipio in battle who had with their own handsslain Roman praetors, generals, and consuls; many decorated with crownsin reward for having scaled walls and crossed ramparts; many who hadtraversed the captured camps and cities of the Romans. That themagistrates of the Roman people had not then so many fasces as Hannibalcould have carried before him, having taken them from generals whom hehad slain. While their minds were harassed by these apprehensions, theiranxiety and fears were further increased from the circumstance that, whereas they had been accustomed to carry on war for several years indifferent parts of Italy, and within their view, with languid hopes andwithout the prospect of bringing it to a speedy termination, Scipio andHannibal had stimulated the minds of all, as generals prepared for afinal contest. Even those persons whose confidence in Scipio and hopesof victory were great, were affected with anxiety, increasing inproportion as they saw their completion approaching. The state offeeling among the Carthaginians was much the same; for when they turnedtheir eyes on Hannibal, and the greatness of his achievements, theyrepented having solicited peace; but when again they reflected that theyhad been twice defeated in a pitched battle, that Syphax had been madeprisoner, that they had been driven out of Spain and Italy, and that allthis had been effected by the valor and conduct of Scipio alone, theyregarded him with horror, as a general marked out by destiny, and bornfor their destruction. 

Hannibal had by this time arrived at Adrumetum, from which place, afteremploying a few days there in refreshing his soldiers, who had sufferedfrom the motion by sea, he proceeded by forced marches to Zama, rousedby the alarming statements of messengers who brought word that all thecountry around Carthage was filled with armed troops. Zama is distantfrom Carthage a five days' journey. Some spies whom he sent out fromthis place, being intercepted by the Roman guard and brought beforeScipio, he directed that they should be handed over to the militarytribunes, and after having been desired fearlessly to survey everything, to be conducted through the camp wherever they chose; then, asking themwhether they had examined everything to their satisfaction, he assignedthem an escort and sent them back to Hannibal. 

Hannibal received none of the circumstances which were reported to himwith feelings of joy, for they brought word that, as it happened, Masinissa had joined the enemy that very day with six thousand infantryand four thousand horse; but he was principally dispirited by theconfidence of his enemy, which, doubtless, was not conceived withoutsome ground. Accordingly, though he himself was the originator of thewar, and by his coming had upset the truce which had been entered into, and cut off all hopes of a treaty, yet concluding that more favorableterms might be obtained if he solicited peace while his strength wasunimpaired than when vanquished, he sent a message to Scipio requestingpermission to confer with him. 

Scipio took up his position not far from the city of Naragara, in asituation convenient not only for other purposes, but also because therewas a watering-place within a dart's throw. Hannibal took possession ofan eminence four miles thence, safe and convenient in every respect, except that he had a long way to go for water. Here in the intermediatespace a place was chosen open to view from all sides, that there mightbe no opportunity for treachery. 

Their armed attendants having retired to an equal distance, they met, each attended by one interpreter, being the greatest generals not onlyof their own times, but of any to be found in the records of the timespreceding them, and equal to any of the kings or generals of any nationwhatever. When they came within sight of each other they remained silentfor a short time, thunderstruck, as it were, with mutual admiration. Atlength Hannibal thus began: "Since fate hath so ordained it that I, whowas the first to wage war upon the Romans, and who have so often hadvictory almost within my reach, should voluntarily come to sue forpeace, I rejoice that it is you, above all others, from whom it is mylot to solicit it. To you, also, amid the many distinguished events ofyour life, it will not be esteemed one of the least glorious thatHannibal, to whom the gods had so often granted victory over the Romangenerals, should have yielded to you; and that you should have put anend to this war, which has been rendered remarkable by your calamitiesbefore it was by ours. 

"Peace is proposed at a time when you have the advantage. We whonegotiate it are the persons whom it most concerns to obtain it, and weare persons whose arrangements, be they what they will, our states willratify. You have recovered Spain, which had been lost, after drivingthence four Carthaginian armies. When elected consul, though all otherswanted courage to defend Italy, you crossed over into Africa, wherehaving cut to pieces two armies, having at once captured and burnt twocamps in the same hour, having made prisoner Syphax, a most powerfulking, and seized so many towns of his dominions and so many of ours, youhave dragged me from Italy, the possession of which I had firmly heldfor now sixteen years. While your affairs are in a favorable and ours ina dubious state, you would derive honor and splendor from grantingpeace; while to us, who solicit it, it would be considered as necessaryrather than honorable. 

"It is indeed the right of him who grants, and not of him who solicitsit, to dictate the terms of peace, but perhaps we may not be unworthy toimpose upon ourselves the fine. We do not refuse that all thosepossessions on account of which the war was begun should be yours;Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, with all the islands lying in any part of thesea, between Africa and Italy. Let us Carthaginians, confined within theshores of Africa, behold you, since such is the pleasure of the gods, extending your empire over foreign nations both by sea and land. Icannot deny that you have reason to suspect the Carthaginian faith, inconsequence of their insincerity lately in soliciting a peace and whileawaiting the decision. The sincerity with which a peace will be observeddepends much, Scipio, on the person by whom it is sought. Your senate, as I hear, refused to grant a peace in some measure because the deputieswere deficient in respectability. It is I, Hannibal, who now solicitpeace; who would neither ask for it unless I believed it expedient, norwill I fail to observe it for the same reason of expedience on accountof which I have solicited it. And in the same manner as I, because thewar was commenced by me, brought it to pass that no one regretted ittill the gods began to regard me with displeasure; so will I also exertmyself that no one may regret the peace procured by my means. "

In answer to these things the Roman general spoke nearly to thefollowing effect: "I was aware that it was in consequence of theexpectation of your arrival that the Carthaginians violated the existingfaith of the truce and broke off all hope of a peace. Nor, indeed, doyou conceal the fact, inasmuch as you artfully withdraw from the formerconditions of peace every concession except what relates to those thingswhich have for a long time been in our own power. But as it is yourobject that your countrymen should be sensible how great a burden theyare relieved from by your means, so it is incumbent upon me to endeavorthat they may not receive, as the reward of their perfidy, theconcessions which they formerly stipulated, by expunging them now fromthe conditions of the peace. Though you do not deserve to be allowed thesame conditions as before, you now request even to be benefited by yourtreachery. 

"Neither did our fathers first make war respecting Sicily, nor did werespecting Spain. In the former case the danger which threatened ourallies the Mamertines, and in the present the destruction of Saguntum, girded us with just and pious arms. That you were the aggressors, bothyou yourselves confess and the gods are witnesses, who determined theissue of the former war, and who are now determining and will determinethe issue of the present according to right and justice. As to myself, Iam not forgetful of the instability of human affairs, but consider theinfluence of fortune, and am well aware that all our measures are liableto a thousand casualties. But as I should acknowledge that my conductwould savor of insolence and oppression if I rejected you on your comingin person to solicit peace before I crossed over into Africa, youvoluntarily retiring from Italy, and after you had embarked your troops, so now, when I have dragged you into Africa almost by manual force, notwithstanding your resistance and evasions, I am not bound to treatyou with any respect. Wherefore, if in addition to those stipulations onwhich it was considered that a peace would at that time have been agreedupon, and what they are you are informed, a compensation is proposed forhaving seized our ships together with their stores during a truce, andfor the violence offered to our ambassadors, I shall then have matter tolay before my council. But if these things also appear oppressive, prepare for war, since you could not brook the conditions of peace. "

Thus, without effecting an accommodation, when they had returned fromthe conference to their armies, they informed them that words had beenbandied to no purpose, that the question must be decided by arms, andthat they must accept that fortune which the gods assigned them. 

When they had arrived at their camps, they both issued orders that theirsoldiers should get their arms in readiness and prepare their minds forthe final contest; in which, if fortune should favor them, they wouldcontinue victorious, not for a single day, but forever. "Beforeto-morrow night, " they said, "they would know whether Rome or Carthageshould give laws to the world, and that neither Africa nor Italy, butthe whole world, would be the prize of victory. That the dangers whichthreatened those who had the misfortune to be defeated were proportionedto the rewards of the victors. " For the Romans had not any place ofrefuge in an unknown and foreign land, and immediate destruction seemedto await Carthage if the troops which formed her last reliance weredefeated. To this important contest, the day following, two generals, byfar the most renowned of any, and belonging to two of the most powerfulnations in the world, advanced either to crown or overthrow on that daythe many honors they had previously acquired. 

Scipio drew up his troops, posting the hastati in front, the principesbehind them, and closing his rear line with the triarii. He did not drawup his cohorts in close order, but each before their respectivestandards; placing the companies at some distance from each other, so asto leave a space through which the elephants of the enemy passing mightnot at all break their ranks. Laelius, whom he had employed before aslieutenant-general, but this year as quaestor, by special appointment, according to a decree of the senate, he posted with the Italian cavalryin the left wing, Masinissa and the Numidians in the right. The openspaces between the companies of those in the van he filled with velites, which then formed the Roman light-armed troops, with an injunction thaton the charge of the elephants they should either retire behind thefiles, which extended in a right line, or, running to the right and leftand placing themselves by the side of those in the van, afford a passageby which the elephants might rush in between weapons on both sides. 

Hannibal, in order to terrify the enemy, drew up his elephants in front, and he had eighty of them, being more than he had ever had in anybattle; behind these his Ligurian and Gallic auxiliaries, withBalearians and Moors intermixed. In the second line he placed theCarthaginians, Africans, and a legion of Macedonians; then, leaving amoderate interval, he formed a reserve of Italian troops, consistingprincipally of Bruttians, more of whom had followed him on his departurefrom Italy by compulsion and necessity than by choice. His cavalry alsohe placed in the wings, the Carthaginian occupying the right, theNumidian the left. Various were the means of exhortation employed in anarmy consisting of a mixture of so many different kinds of men; mendiffering in language, customs, laws, arms, dress, and appearance, andin the motives for serving. To the auxiliaries, the prospect both oftheir present pay and many times more from the spoils was held out. TheGauls were stimulated by their peculiar and inherent animosity againstthe Romans. To the Ligurians the hope was held out of enjoying thefertile plains of Italy, and quitting their rugged mountains, ifvictorious. The Moors and Numidians were terrified with subjection tothe government of Masinissa, which he would exercise with despoticseverity. 

Different grounds of hope and fear were represented to differentpersons. The view of the Carthaginians was directed to the walls oftheir city, their household gods, the sepulchres of their ancestors, their children and parents, and their trembling wives; they were toldthat either the destruction of their city and slavery or the empire ofthe world awaited them; that there was nothing intermediate which theycould hope for or fear. 

While the general was thus busily employed among the Carthaginians, andthe captains of the respective nations among their countrymen, most ofthem employing interpreters among troops intermixed with those ofdifferent nations, the trumpets and cornets of the Romans sounded; andsuch a clamor arose that the elephants, especially those in the leftwing, turned round upon their own party, the Moors and Numidians. Masinissa had no difficulty in increasing the alarm of the terrifiedenemy, and deprived them of the aid of their cavalry in that wing. Afew, however, of the beasts which were driven against the enemy, andwere not turned back through fear, made great havoc among the ranks ofthe velites, though not without receiving many wounds themselves; forwhen the velites, retiring to the companies, had made way for theelephants, that they might not be trampled down, they discharged theirdarts at them; exposed as they were to wounds on both sides, those inthe van also keeping up a continual discharge of javelins, until drivenout of the Roman line by the weapons which fell upon them from allquarters, these elephants also put to flight even the cavalry of theCarthaginians posted in their right wing. Laelius, when he saw the enemyin disorder, struck additional terror into them in their confusion. 

The Carthaginian line was deprived of the cavalry on both sides, whenthe infantry, who were now not a match for the Romans in confidence orstrength, engaged. In addition to this there was one circumstance, trifling in itself, but at the same time producing importantconsequences in the action. On the part of the Romans the shout wasuniform, and on that account louder and more terrific, while the voicesof the enemy, consisting as they did of many nations of differentlanguages, were dissonant. The Romans used the stationary kind of fight, pressing upon the enemy with their own weight and that of their arms;but on the other side there was more of skirmishing and rapid movementthan force. Accordingly, on the first charge, the Romans immediatelydrove back the line of their opponents; then pushing them with theirelbows and the bosses of their shields, and pressing forward into theplaces from which they had pushed them, they advanced a considerablespace, as though there had been no one to resist them, those who formedthe rear urging forward those in front when they perceived the line ofthe enemy giving way, which circumstance itself gave great additionalforce in repelling them. 

On the side of the enemy, the second line, consisting of the Africansand Carthaginians, were so far from supporting the first line whengiving ground, that on the contrary they even retired, lest their enemy, by slaying those who made a firm resistance, should penetrate tothemselves also. Accordingly the auxiliaries suddenly turned theirbacks, and facing about upon their own party, fled, some of them intothe second line, while others slew those who did not receive them intotheir ranks, since before they did not support them, and now refused toreceive them. And now there were, in a manner, two contests going ontogether, the Carthaginians being compelled to fight at once with theenemy and with their own party. Not even then, however, did they receiveinto their line the terrified and exasperated troops, but, closing theirranks, drove them out of the scene of action to the wings and thesurrounding plain, lest they should mingle these soldiers, terrifiedwith defeat and wounds, with that part of their line which was firm andfresh. 

But such a heap of men and arms had filled the space in which theauxiliaries a little while ago had stood that it was almost moredifficult to pass through it than through a close line of troops. Thespearmen, therefore, who formed the front line, pursuing the enemy aseach could find a way through the heap of arms and men and streams ofblood, threw into complete disorder the battalions and companies. Thestandards also of the principes had begun to waver when they saw theline before them driven from their ground. Scipio, perceiving this, promptly ordered the signal to be given for the spearmen to retreat, andhaving taken his wounded into the rear, brought the principes andtriarii to the wings in order that the line of spearmen in the centremight be more strong and secure. Thus a fresh and renewed battlecommenced, inasmuch as they had penetrated to their real antagonists, men equal to them in the nature of their arms, in their experience inwar, in the fame of their achievements, and the greatness of their hopesand fears. But the Romans were superior both in numbers and courage, forthey had now routed both the cavalry and the elephants, and, havingalready defeated the front line, were fighting against the second. 

Lælius and Masinissa, who had pursued the routed cavalry through aconsiderable space, returning very opportunely, charged the rear of theenemy's line. This attack of the cavalry at length routed them. Many ofthem, being surrounded, were slain in the field; and many, dispersed inflight through the open plain around, were slain on all hands, as thecavalry were in possession of every part. Of the Carthaginians and theirallies, above twenty thousand were slain on that day; about an equalnumber were captured, with a hundred and thirty-three military standardsand eleven elephants. Of the victors as many as two thousand fell. 

Hannibal, slipping off during the confusion, with a few horsemen, cameto Adrumetum, not quitting the field till he had tried every expedientboth in the battle and before the engagement; having, according to theadmission of Scipio and everyone skilled in military science, acquiredthe fame of having marshalled his troops on that day with singularjudgment. He placed his elephants in the front, in order that theirdesultory attack and insupportable violence might prevent the Romansfrom following their standards and preserving their ranks, on which theyplaced their principal dependence. Then he posted his auxiliaries beforethe line of Carthaginians, in order that men who were made up of therefuse of all nations, and who were not bound by honor but by gain, might not have any retreat open to them in case they fled; at the sametime that the first ardor and impetuosity might be exhausted upon them, and, if they could render no other service, that the weapons of theenemy might be blunted in wounding them. Next he placed the Carthaginianand African soldiers, on whom he placed all his hopes, in order that, being equal to the enemy in every other respect, they might have theadvantage of them inasmuch as, being fresh and unimpaired in strengththemselves, they would fight with those who were fatigued and wounded. The Italians he removed into the rear, separating them also by anintervening space, as he knew not with certainty whether they werefriends or enemies. Hannibal, after performing this as it were his lastwork of valor, fled to Adrumetum, whence, having been summoned toCarthage, he returned thither in the sixth and thirtieth year after hehad left it when a boy, and confessed in the senate house that he wasdefeated, not only in the battle, but in the war, and that there was nohope of safety in anything but in obtaining peace. 

Immediately after the battle, Scipio, having taken and plundered theenemy's camp, returned to the sea and his ships with an immense booty, news having reached him that Publius Lentulus had arrived at Utica withfifty men-of-war, and a hundred transports laden with every kind ofstores. Concluding that he ought to bring before Carthage everythingwhich could increase the consternation already existing there, aftersending Laelius to Rome to report his victory, he ordered CneiusOctavius to conduct the legions thither by land, and setting out himselffrom Utica with the fresh fleet of Lentulus added to his former one, made for the harbor of Carthage. When he had arrived within a shortdistance he was met by a Carthaginian ship decked with fillets andbranches of olive. There were ten deputies, the leading men in theState, sent at the instance of Hannibal to solicit peace, to whom, whenthey had come up to the stern of the general's ship, holding out thebadges of suppliants, entreating and imploring the protection andcompassion of Scipio, the only answer given was that they must come toTunis, to which place he would move his camp. After taking a view of thesite of Carthage, not so much for the sake of acquainting himself withit for any present object as to dispirit the enemy, he returned toUtica, having recalled Octavius to the same place. 

As they were proceeding thence to Tunis, they received intelligence thatVermina, the son of Syphax, with a greater number of horse than foot, was coming to the assistance of the Carthaginians. A part of hisinfantry with all the cavalry having attacked them on their march on thefirst day of the Saturnalia, routed the Numidians with littleopposition, and as every way by which they could escape in flight wasblocked up, for the cavalry surrounded them on all sides, fifteenthousand men were slain, twelve hundred were taken alive, with fifteenhundred Numidian horses and seventy-two military standards. The princehimself fled from the field with a few attendants during the confusion. The camp was then pitched near Tunis in the same place as before, andthirty ambassadors came to Scipio from Carthage. These behaved in amanner even more calculated to excite compassion than the former, inproportion as their situation was more pressing; but from therecollection of their recent perfidy, they were heard with considerablyless pity. In the council, though all were impelled by just resentmentto demolish Carthage, yet, when they reflected upon the magnitude of theundertaking and the length of time which would be consumed in the siegeof so well fortified and strong a city, while Scipio himself was uneasyin consequence of the expectation of a successor, who would come in forthe glory of having terminated the war, though it was accomplishedalready by the exertions and danger of another, the minds of all wereinclined to peace. 

The next day the ambassadors being called in again, and with manyrebukes of their perfidy, warned that instructed by so many disastersthey would at length believe in the existence of the gods and theobligation of an oath, these conditions of the peace were stated tothem: "That they should enjoy their liberty and live under their ownlaws; that they should possess such cities and territories as they hadenjoyed before the war, and with the same boundaries, and that theRomans should on that day desist from devastation. That they shouldrestore to the Romans all deserters and fugitives, giving up all theirships-of-war except ten triremes, with such tamed elephants as they had, and that they should not tame any more. That they should not carry onwar in or out of Africa without the permission of the Roman people. Thatthey should make restitution to Masinissa, and form a league with him. That they should furnish corn, and pay for the auxiliaries until theambassadors had returned from Rome. That they should pay ten thousandtalents of silver in equal annual installments distributed over fiftyyears. That they should give a hundred hostages, according to thepleasure of Scipio, not younger than fourteen nor older than thirty. That he would grant them a truce on condition that the transports, together with their cargoes, which had been seized during the formertruce, were restored. Otherwise they would have no truce, nor any hopeof a peace. " When the ambassadors who were ordered to bear theseconditions home reported them in an assembly, and Gisgo had stood forthto dissuade them from the terms, and was being listened to by themultitude, who were at once indisposed for peace and unfit for war, Hannibal, indignant that such language should be held and listened to atsuch a juncture, laid hold of Gisgo with his own hand and dragged himfrom his elevated position. 

This unusual sight in a free State having raised a murmur among thepeople, the soldier, disconcerted at the liberties which the citizenstook, thus addressed them: "Having left you when nine years old, I havereturned after a lapse of thirty-six years. I flatter myself I am wellacquainted with the qualifications of a soldier, having been instructedin them from my childhood, sometimes by my own situation and sometimesby that of my country. The privileges, the laws, and customs of the cityand the forum you ought to teach me. " Having thus apologized for hisindiscretion, he discoursed largely concerning the peace, showing howinoppressive the terms were, and how necessary it was. The greatestdifficulty was that of the ships which had been seized during the trucenothing was to be found except the ships themselves, nor was it easy tocollect the property, because those who were charged with having it wereopposed to the peace. It was resolved that the ships should be restoredand that the men at least should be looked up; and as to whatever elsewas missing, that it should be left to Scipio to put a value upon it, and that the Carthaginians should make compensation accordingly inmoney. There are those who say that Hannibal went from the field ofbattle to the sea-coast; whence he immediately sailed in a ship, whichhe had ready for the purpose, to king Antiochus; and that when Scipiodemanded above everything that Hannibal should be given up to him, answer was made that Hannibal was not in Africa. 

After the ambassadors returned to Scipio, the quaestors were ordered togive in an account, made out from the public registers, of the publicproperty which had been in the ships; and the owners to make a return ofthe private property. For the amount of the value twenty-five thousandpounds of silver were required to be paid down; and a truce for threemonths was granted to the Carthaginians. It was added that during thetime of the truce they should not send ambassadors anywhere else than toRome; and that whatever ambassadors came to Carthage, they should notdismiss them before informing the Roman general who they were and whatthey sought. With the Carthaginian ambassadors, Lucius Veturius Philo, Marcus Marcius Ralla, and Lucius Scipio, brother of the general, weresent to Rome. 

The Roman, together with the Carthaginian, ambassadors having arrived atRome from Africa, the senate was assembled at the temple of Bellona;when Lucius Veturius Philo stated, to the great joy of the senate, thata battle had been fought with Hannibal which was decisive of the fate ofthe Carthaginians, and that a period was at length put to thatcalamitous war. He added what formed a small accession to theirsuccesses, that Vermina, the son of Syphax, had been vanquished. He wasthen ordered to go forth to the public assembly and impart the joyfultidings to the people. Then, a thanksgiving having been appointed, allthe temples in the city were thrown open and supplications for threedays were decreed. Publius Scipio was continued in command in theprovince of Africa with the armies which he then had. The Carthaginianambassadors were called before the senate. On observing their ages anddignified appearance, for they were by far the first men of the State, all promptly declared their conviction that now they were sincere intheir desire to effect a peace. Hasdrubal, however, surnamed by hiscountrymen Haedus, who had invariably recommended peace and was opposedto the Barcine faction, was regarded with greater interest than therest. 

On these accounts the greater weight was attached to him whentransferring the blame of the war from the State at large to thecupidity of a few. After a speech of varied character, in which hesometimes refuted the charges which had been brought, at other timesadmitted some, lest by imprudently denying what was manifestly truetheir forgiveness might be the more difficult; and then, evenadmonishing the conscript fathers to be guided by the rules of decorumand moderation in their prosperity, he said that if the Carthaginianshad listened to himself and Hanno, and had been disposed to make aproper use of circumstances, they would themselves have dictated termsof peace, instead of begging it as they now did. That it rarely happenedthat good fortune and a sound judgment were bestowed upon men at thesame time. That the Roman people were therefore invincible, because whensuccessful they forgot not the maxims of wisdom and prudence; and indeedit would have been matter of astonishment did they act otherwise. Thatthose persons to whom success was a new and uncommon thing proceeded toa pitch of madness in their ungoverned transports in consequence oftheir not being accustomed to it. That to the Roman people the joyarising from victory was a matter of common occurrence, and was nowalmost become old-fashioned. That they had extended their empire more bysparing the vanquished than by conquering. 

The language employed by the others was of a nature more calculated toexcite compassion; they represented from what a height of power theCarthaginian affairs had fallen. That nothing besides the walls ofCarthage remained to those who a little time ago held almost the wholeworld in subjection by their arms; that shut up within these, they couldsee nothing anywhere on sea or land which owned their authority. Thatthey would retain possession of their city itself and their householdgods only in case the Roman people should refrain from venting theirindignation upon these, which is all that remains for them to do. Whenit was manifest that the fathers were moved by compassion, it is saidthat one of the senators, violently incensed at the perfidy of theCarthaginians, immediately asked with a loud voice by what gods theywould swear in striking the league, since they had broken their faithwith those by whom they swore in striking the former one? By those same, replied Hasdrubal, who have shown such determined hostility to theviolators of treaties. 

The minds of all being disposed to peace, Cneius Lentulus, whoseprovince the fleet was, protested against the decree of the senate. Uponthis, Manius Acilius and Quintus Minucius, tribunes of the people, putthe question to the people whether they willed and ordered that thesenate should decree that peace should be made with the Carthaginians?whom they ordered to grant that peace, and whom to conduct the army outof Africa? All the tribes ordered respecting the peace according as thequestion had been put. That Publius Scipio should grant the peace, andthat he also should conduct the army home. Agreeably to this order, thesenate decreed that Publius Scipio, acting according to the opinion ofthe ten deputies, should make peace with the Carthaginian people on whatterms he pleased. The Carthaginians then returned thanks to the senate, and requested that they might be allowed to enter the city and conversewith their countrymen who had been made prisoners and were in custody ofthe State; observing that some of them were their relations and friends, and men of rank, and some, persons to whom they were charged withmessages from their relations. 

Having obtained these requests, they again asked permission to ransomsuch of them as they pleased; when they were desired to give in theirnames. Having given in a list of about two hundred, a decree of thesenate was passed to the effect that the Carthaginian ambassadors shouldbe allowed to take away into Africa to Publius Cornelius Scipio twohundred of the Carthaginian prisoners, selecting whom they pleased; andthat they should convey to him a message that if the peace wereconcluded he should restore them to the Carthaginians without ransom. The heralds being ordered to go into Africa to strike the league, attheir own desire the senate passed a decree that they should take withthem flint stones of their own and vervain of their own; that the Romanpraetor should command them to strike the league, and that they shoulddemand of him herbs. The description of herb usually given to theheralds is taken from the Capitol. Thus the Carthaginians being allowedto depart from Rome, when they had gone into Africa to Scipio concludedthe peace on the terms before mentioned. They delivered up theirmen-of-war, their elephants, deserters, fugitives, and four thousandprisoners, among whom was Quintus Terentius Culleo, a senator. The shipshe ordered to be taken out into the main and burned. Some say there werefive hundred of every description of those which are worked with oars, and that the sudden sight of these when burning occasioned as deep asensation of grief to the Carthaginians as if Carthage had been inflames. The measures adopted respecting the deserters were more severethan those respecting the fugitives. Those who were of the Latinconfederacy were decapitated; the Romans were crucified. 

The last peace with the Carthaginians was made forty years before thisin the consulate of Quintus Lutatius and Aulus Manlius. The warcommenced twenty-three years afterward in the consulate of PubliusCornelius and Tiberius Sempronius. It was concluded in the seventeenthyear, in the consulate of Cneius Cornelius and Publius Aelius Paetus. Itis related that Scipio frequently said afterward, that first theambition of Tiberius Claudius, and afterward of Cneius Cornelius, werethe causes which prevented his terminating the war by the destruction ofCarthage. 

The Carthaginians finding difficulty in raising the first sum of moneyto be paid, as their finances were exhausted by a protracted war, and inconsequence great lamentation and grief arising in the senate house, itis said that Hannibal was observed laughing, and when Hasdrubal Haedusrebuked him for laughing amid the public grief, when he himself was theoccasion of the tears which were shed, he said: "If, as the expressionof the countenance is discerned by the sight, so the inward feelings ofthe mind could be distinguished, it would clearly appear to you thatthat laughter which you censure came from a heart not elated with joy, but frantic with misfortunes. And yet it is not so ill-timed as thoseabsurd and inconsistent tears of yours. Then you ought to have wept whenour arms were taken from us, our ships burned, and we were forbidden toengage in foreign wars, for that was the wound by which we fell. Nor isit just that you should suppose that the measures which the Romans haveadopted toward you have been dictated by animosity. No great state canremain at rest long together. If it has no enemy abroad it finds one athome in the same manner as over-robust bodies seem secure from externalcauses, but are encumbered with their own strength. So far, forsooth, weare affected with the public calamities as they reach our privateaffairs; nor is there any circumstance attending them which is felt moreacutely than the loss of money. Accordingly, when the spoils were torndown from vanquished Carthage, when you beheld her left unarmed anddefenceless amid so many armed nations of Africa, none heaved a sigh. Now, because a tribute is to be levied from private property you lamentwith one accord, as though at the funeral of the State. How much do Idread lest you should soon be made sensible that you have shed tearsthis day for the lightest of your misfortunes!"

Such were the sentiments which Hannibal delivered to the Carthaginians. Scipio, having summoned an assembly, presented Masinissa, in addition tohis paternal dominions, with the town of Cirta, and the other cities andterritories which had passed from the kingdom of Syphax into thepossession of the Romans. He ordered Cneius Octavius to conduct thefleet to Sicily and deliver it to Cneius Cornelius the consul, anddirected the Carthaginian ambassadors to go to Rome, that thearrangements he had made with the advice of the ten deputies might beratified by the sanction of the fathers and the order of the people. 

Peace having been established by sea and land, he embarked his troopsand crossed over to Lilybæum in Sicily, whence, having sent a great partof his soldiers by ships, he himself proceeded through Italy, which wasrejoicing not less on account of the peace than the victory; while notonly the inhabitants of the cities poured out to show him honor, butcrowds of rustics thronged the roads. He arrived at Rome and entered thecity in a triumph of unparalleled splendor. He brought into the treasuryone hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds of silver. He distributedto each of his soldiers four hundred asses out of the spoils. By thedeath of Syphax, which took place but a short time before at Tibur, whither he had been removed from Alba, a diminution was occasioned inthe interest of the pageant rather than in the glory of him whotriumphed. His death, however, was attended with circumstances whichproduced a strong sensation, for he was buried at the public expense. Polybius, an author by no means to be despised, asserts that this Kingwas led in the triumph. Quintus Terentius Culleo followed Scipio in histriumph with a cap of liberty on his head, and during the remainder ofhis life treated him with the respect due to him as the author of hisfreedom. I have not been able to ascertain whether the partiality of thesoldiers or the favor of the people fixed upon him the surname ofAfricanus, or whether in the same manner as Felix was applied to Sulla, and Magnus to Pompey, in the memory of our fathers, it originated in theflattery of his friends. He was doubtless the first general who wasdistinguished by a name derived from the nation which he had conquered. Afterward, in imitation of his example, some, by no means his equals inhis victories, affixed splendid inscriptions on their statues and gavehonorable surnames to their families. 

JUDAS MACCAÆBUS LIBERATES JUDEA

B. C. 165

JOSEPHUS

(The noble-minded Judas Maccabaeus was the hero of Jewish independence--the deliverer of Judea and Judaism during the bloody persecutions of theSyrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, in the second century B. C. This Kingwas attempting to destroy in Palestine the national religion. For thispurpose pagan altars were set up among the Jews and pagan sacrificesenjoined upon the worshippers of Jehovah. Many Jews fled from their owntowns and villages into the uninhabited wilderness, in order that theymight have liberty to worship the God of their fathers; but a fewconformed to the ordinances of Antiochus. Soon, however, open resistanceto the decrees of the pagan ruler began to manifest itself among thefaithful. 

The first protest in the shape of active opposition was made byMattathias, a priest living at Modin. When the servants of Antiochuscame to that retired village and commanded Mattathias to do sacrifice tothe heathen gods, he refused; he went so far as to strike down at thealtar a Jew who was preparing to offer such a sacrifice. Then he escapedto the mountains with his five sons and a band of followers. Thesefollowers grew in numbers and activity, overthrowing pagan altars, circumcising heathen children, and putting to the sword both apostatesand unbelievers. When Mattathias died, in B. C. 166, he was succeeded asleader by his son Judas, called Maccabaeus, "the Hammer"; as Charles, who defeated the Saracens at Tours, is called Martel or hammer. 

The successes of Judas were uninterrupted, and culminated B. C. 165 inthe repulse of Lysias, the general of Antiochus, at Bethzur, where alarge Syrian force gathered in the expectation of crushing the patrioticarmy of Judas. After this victory Judas led his followers into Jerusalemand proceeded to restore the Temple and the worship of the nationalreligion, and to cleanse the Temple from all traces of pagan worship. The great altar was rebuilt; new sacred vessels provided; and aneight-days' dedication festival begun on the very day when, three yearsbefore, the altar of Jehovah had been desecrated by a heathen sacrifice. This Feast of the Dedication was ever afterward observed in the Templeat Jerusalem and is mentioned in the gospels [John x. 22]. Judasestablished a dynasty of priest-kings, which lasted until supplanted byHerod, with the aid of the Romans, in B. C. 40; and gave by his genuinelyheroic bearing his name to this whole glorious epoch of Jewish history. )

Now at this time there was one whose name was Mattathias, who dwelt atModin, the son of John, the son of Simeon, the son of Asamoneus, apriest of the order of Joarib, and a citizen of Jerusalem. He had fivesons: John, who was called Gaddis, and Simon, who was called Matthes, and Judas, who was called Maccabæus, [66] and Eleazar, who was calledAuran, and Jonathan, who was called Apphus. Now this Mattathias lamentedto his children the sad state of their affairs, and the ravage made inthe city, and the plundering of the Temple, and the calamities themultitude were under; and he told them that it was better for them todie for the laws of their country than to live so ingloriously as theythen did. 

[Footnote 66: That this appellation of Maccabee was not first of allgiven to Judas Maccabæaus, nor was derived from any initial letters ofthe Hebrew words on his banner, _Mi Kamoka Be Elim, Jehovah_? ("Who islike unto thee among the gods, O Jehovah?"), Exod. Xv. II, as the modernrabbins vainly pretend, see _Authent. Rec. _, part i. , pp. 205, 206. Onlywe may note, by the way, that the original name of these Maccabees andtheir posterity was Asamoneans, which was derived from Asamoneus, thegreat-grandfather of Mattathias, as Josephus here informs us. ]

But when those that were appointed by the King were come to Modin thatthey might compel the Jews to do what they were commanded, and to enjointhose that were there to offer sacrifice, as the King had commanded, they desired that Mattathias, a person of the greatest character amongthem, both on other accounts and particularly on account of such anumerous and so deserving a family of children, would begin thesacrifice, because his fellow-citizens would follow his example, andbecause such a procedure would make him honored by the King. ButMattathias said that he would not do it, and that if all the othernations would obey the commands of Antiochus, either out of fear or toplease him, yet would not he nor his sons leave the religious worship oftheir country; but as soon as he had ended his speech there came one ofthe Jews into the midst of them and sacrificed as Antiochus hadcommanded. At which Mattathias had great indignation, and ran upon himviolently with his sons, who had swords with them, and slew both the manhimself that sacrificed and Apelles, the King's general who compelledhim to sacrifice, with a few of his soldiers. 

He also overthrew the idol altar and cried out, "If, " said he, "anyonebe zealous for the laws of his country and for the worship of God, lethim follow me"; and when he had said this he made haste into the desertwith his sons, and left all his substance in the village. Many othersdid the same also, and fled with their children and wives into thedesert and dwelt in caves; but when the King's generals heard this, theytook all the forces they then had in the citadel at Jerusalem, andpursued the Jews into the desert; and when they had overtaken them, theyin the first place endeavored to persuade them to repent, and to choosewhat was most for their advantage and not put them to the necessity ofusing them according to the law of war; but when they would not complywith their persuasions, but continued to be of a different mind, theyfought against them on the Sabbath day, and they burned them as theywere in the caves, without resistance, and without so much as stoppingup the entrances of the caves. And they avoided to defend themselves onthat day because they were not willing to break in upon the honor theyowed the Sabbath, even in such distresses; for our law requires that werest upon that day. 

There were about a thousand, with their wives and children, who weresmothered and died in these caves; but many of those that escaped joinedthemselves to Mattathias and appointed him to be their ruler, who taughtthem to fight even on the Sabbath day, and told them that unless theywould do so they would become their own enemies by observing the law [sorigorously] while their adversaries would still assault them on thisday, and they would not then defend themselves; and that nothing couldthen hinder but they must all perish without fighting. This speechpersuaded them, and this rule continues among us to this day, that ifthere be a necessity we may fight on Sabbath days. So Mattathias got agreat army about him and overthrew their idol altars and slew those thatbroke the laws, even all that he could get under his power; for many ofthem were dispersed among the nations round about them for fear of him. He also commanded that those boys who were not yet circumcised should becircumcised now; and he drove those away that were appointed to hindersuch their circumcision. 

But when he had ruled one year and was fallen into a distemper, hecalled for his sons and set them round about him, and said: "O my sons, I am going the way of all the earth; and I recommend to you myresolution and beseech you not to be negligent in keeping it, but to bemindful of the desires of him who begat you and brought you up, and topreserve the customs of your country, and to recover your ancient formof government which is in danger of being overturned, and not to becarried away with those that either by their own inclination or out ofnecessity betray it, but to become such sons as are worthy of me; to beabove all force and necessity, and so to dispose your souls as to beready when it shall be necessary to die for your laws, as sensible ofthis, by just reasoning, that if God see that you are so disposed hewill not overlook you, but will have a great value for your virtue, andwill restore to you again what you have lost and will return to you thatfreedom in which you shall live quietly and enjoy your own customs. 

"Your bodies are mortal and subject to fate; but they receive a sort ofimmortality by the remembrance of what actions they have done; and Iwould have you so in love with this immortality that you may pursueafter glory, and that when you have undergone the greatest difficultiesyou may not scruple for such things to lose your lives. I exhort youespecially to agree one with another, and in what excellency any one ofyou exceeds another, to yield to him so far, and by that means to reapthe advantage of everyone's own virtues. Do you then esteem Simon asyour father because he is a man of extraordinary prudence, and begoverned by him in what counsels he gives you. Take Maccabaeus for thegeneral of your army, because of his courage and strength, for he willavenge your nation and will bring vengeance on your enemies. Admit amongyou the righteous and religious, and augment their power. "

When Mattathias had thus discoursed to his sons and had prayed to God tobe their assistant and to recover to the people their formerconstitution, he died a little afterward, and was buried at Modin, allthe people making great lamentation for him. Whereupon his son Judastook upon him the administration of public affairs, in the hundred andforty-sixth year; and thus, by the ready assistance of his brethren andof others, Judas cast their enemies out of the country and put those oftheir own country to death who had transgressed its laws, and purifiedthe land of all the pollutions that were in it. 

When Apollonius, the general of the Samaritan forces, heard this he tookhis army and made haste to go against Judas, who met him and joinedbattle with him, and beat him and slew many of his men, and among themApollonius himself, their general, whose sword, being that which hehappened then to wear, he seized upon and kept for himself; but hewounded more than he slew, and took a great deal of prey from theenemy's camp, and went his way; but when Seron, who was general of thearmy of Celesyria, heard that many had joined themselves to Judas, andthat he had about him an army sufficient for fighting and for makingwar, he determined to make an expedition against him, as thinking itbecame him to endeavor to punish those that transgressed the King'sinjunctions. He then got together an army as large as he was able, andjoined to it the renegade and wicked Jews, and came against Judas. 

He then came as far as Bethoron, a village of Judea, and there pitchedhis camp; upon which Judas met him, and when he intended to give himbattle he saw that his soldiers were backward to fight because theirnumber was small and because they wanted food, for they were fasting. Heencouraged them and said to them that victory and conquest of enemiesare not derived from the multitude in armies, but in the exercise ofpiety toward God; and that they had the plainest instances in theirforefathers, who, by their righteousness and exerting themselves onbehalf of their own laws and their own children, had frequentlyconquered many ten thousands, for innocence is the strongest army. Bythis speech he induced his men to contemn the multitude of the enemy, and to fall upon Seron; and upon joining battle with him he beat theSyrians; and when their general fell among the rest they all ran awaywith speed, as thinking that to be their best way of escaping. So hepursued them unto the plain and slew about eight hundred of the enemy, but the rest escaped to the region which lay near to the sea. 

When king Antiochus heard of these things he was very angry at what hadhappened; so he got together all his own army, with many mercenarieswhom he had hired from the islands, and took them with him, and preparedto break into Judea about the beginning of the spring; but when, uponhis mustering his soldiers, he perceived that his treasures weredeficient, and there was a want of money in them, for all the taxes werenot paid, by reason of the seditions there had been among the nations, he having been so magnanimous and so liberal that what he had was notsufficient for him, he therefore resolved first to go into Persia andcollect the taxes of that country. Hereupon he left one whose name wasLysias, who was in great repute with him, governor of the kingdom, asfar as the bounds of Egypt and of the Lower Asia and reaching from theriver Euphrates, and committed to him a certain part of his forces andof his elephants and charged him to bring up his son Antiochus with allpossible care until he came back; and that he should conquer Judea andtake its inhabitants for slaves and utterly destroy Jerusalem, andabolish the whole nation; and when king Antiochus had given these thingsin charge to Lysias, he went into Persia, and in the hundred andforty-seventh year he passed over Euphrates and went to the superiorprovinces. 

Upon this Lysias chose Ptolemy the son of Dorymenes, and Nicanor, andGorgias, very potent men among the King's friends, and delivered to themforty thousand foot-soldiers and seven thousand horsemen, and sent themagainst Judea, who came as far as the city Emmaus and pitched their campin the plain country. There came also to them auxiliaries out of Syriaand the country round about, as also many of the renegade Jews; andbesides these came some merchants to buy those that should be carriedcaptives--having bonds with them to bind those that should be madeprisoners--with that silver and gold which they were to pay for theirprice; and when Judas saw their camp and how numerous their enemieswere, he persuaded his own soldiers to be of good courage, and exhortedthem to place their hopes of victory in God and to make supplication tohim, according to the custom of their country, clothed in sackcloth, andto show what was their usual habit of supplication in the greatestdangers, and thereby to prevail with God to grant them the victory overtheir enemies. So he set them in their ancient order of battle used bytheir forefathers, under their captains of thousands, and otherofficers, and dismissed such as were newly married, as well as thosethat had newly gained possessions, that they might not fight in acowardly manner out of an inordinate love of life, in order to enjoythose blessings. 

When he had thus disposed his soldiers he encouraged them to fight bythe following speech, which he made to them: "O my fellow-soldiers, noother time remains more opportune than the present for courage andcontempt of dangers; for if you now fight manfully you may recover yourliberty, which, as it is a thing of itself agreeable to all men, so itproves to be to us much more desirable, by its affording us the libertyof worshipping God. Since, therefore, you are in such circumstances atpresent, you must either recover that liberty and so regain a happy andblessed way of living, which is that according to our laws and thecustoms of our country, or to submit to the most opprobrious sufferings;nor will any seed of your nation remain if you be beat in this battle. Fight therefore manfully, and suppose that you must die though you donot fight; but believe that besides such glorious rewards as those ofthe liberty of your country, of your laws, of your religion, you shallthen obtain everlasting glory. Prepare yourselves, therefore, and putyourselves into such an agreeable posture that you may be ready to fightwith the enemy as soon as it is day to-morrow morning. "

And this was the speech which Judas made to encourage them. But when theenemy sent Gorgias with five thousand foot and one thousand horse, thathe might fall upon Judas by night, and had for that purpose certain ofthe renegade Jews as guides, the son of Mattathias perceived it andresolved to fall upon those enemies that were in their camp, now theirforces were divided. When they had therefore supped in good time and hadleft many fires in their camp he marched all night to those enemies thatwere at Emmaus; so that when Gorgias found no enemy in their camp, butsuspected that they were retired and had hidden themselves among themountains, he resolved to go and seek them wheresoever they were. 

But about break of day Judas appeared to those enemies that were atEmmaus, with only three thousand men, and those ill-armed by reason oftheir poverty; and when he saw the enemy very well and skilfullyfortified in their camp he encouraged the Jews and told them that theyought to fight, though it were with their naked bodies, for that God hadsometimes of old given such men strength, and that against such as weremore in number, and were armed also, out of regard to their greatcourage. So he commanded the trumpeters to sound for the battle, and bythus falling upon the enemy when they did not expect it, and therebyastonishing and disturbing their minds, he slew many of those thatresisted him and went on pursuing the rest as far as Gadara and theplains of Idumea, and Ashdod, and Jamnia; and of these there fell aboutthree thousand. Yet did Judas exhort his soldiers not to be too desirousof the spoils, for that still they must have a contest and battle withGorgias and the forces that were with him, but that when they had onceovercome them then they might securely plunder the camp because theywere the only enemies remaining, and they expected no others. 

And just as he was speaking to his soldiers, Gorigas' men looked downinto that army which they left in their camp and saw that it wasoverthrown and the camp burned; for the smoke that arose from it showedthem, even when they were a great way off, what had happened. When, therefore, those that were with Gorgias understood that things were inthis posture, and perceived that those that were with Judas were readyto fight them, they also were affrighted and put to flight; but thenJudas, as though he had already beaten Gorgias' soldiers withoutfighting, returned and seized on the spoils. He took a great quantity ofgold and silver and purple and blue, and then returned home with joy, and singing hymns to God for their good success; for this victorygreatly contributed to the recovery of their liberty. 

Hereupon Lysias was confounded at the defeat of the army which he hadsent, and the next year he got together sixty thousand chosen men. Healso took five thousand horsemen and fell upon Judea, and he went up tothe hill country of Bethsur, a village of Judea, and pitched his campthere, where Judas met him with ten thousand men; and when he saw thegreat number of his enemies, he prayed to God that he would assist him, and joined battle with the first of the enemy that appeared and beatthem and slew about five thousand of them, and thereby became terribleto the rest of them. Nay, indeed, Lysias observing the great spirit ofthe Jews, how they were prepared to die rather than lose their liberty, and being afraid of their desperate way of fighting, as if it were realstrength, he took the rest of the army back with him and returned toAntioch. 

When, therefore, the generals of Antiochus' armies had been beaten sooften, Judas assembled the people together, and told them that afterthese many victories which God had given them, they ought to go up toJerusalem and purify the Temple and offer the appointed sacrifices. Butas soon as he with the whole multitude was come to Jerusalem and foundthe Temple deserted and its gates burned down and plants growing in theTemple of their own accord on account of its desertion, he and thosethat were with him began to lament and were quite confounded at thesight of the Temple; so he chose out some of his soldiers and gave themorders to fight against those guards that were in the citadel until heshould have purified the Temple. When therefore he had carefully purgedit and had brought in new vessels, the candlestick, the table [ofshewbread], and the altar [of incense], which were made of gold, he hungup the veils at the gates and added doors to them. 

He also took down the altar [of burnt-offering], and built a new one ofstones that he gathered together and not of such as were hewn with irontools. So on the five-and-twentieth day of the month of Casleu, whichthe Macedonians call Apelleus, they lighted the lamps that were on thecandlestick and offered incense upon the altar [of incense], and laidthe loaves upon the table [of shew-bread], and offered burnt-offeringsupon the new altar [of burnt-offering]. Now it so fell out that thesethings were done on the very same day on which their divine worship hadfallen off and was reduced to a profane and common use after threeyears' time; for so it was, that the Temple was made desolate byAntiochus, and so continued for three years. This desolation happened tothe Temple in the hundred forty and fifth year, on the twenty-fifth dayof the month Apelleus, and on the hundred and fifty-third Olympiad; butit was dedicated anew, on the same day, the twenty-fifth of the monthApelleus, in the hundred and forty-eighth year, and on the hundred andfifty-fourth Olympiad. And this desolation came to pass according to theprophecy of Daniel, which was given four hundred and eight years before, for he declared that the Macedonians would dissolve that worship [forsome time]. 

Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrificesof the Temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasures thereon;but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices, and hehonored God and delighted them by hymns and psalms. Nay, they were sovery glad at the revival of their customs, when after a long time ofintermission they unexpectedly had regained the freedom of theirworship, that they made it a law for their posterity that they shouldkeep a festival, on account of the restoration of their Temple worship, for eight days. And from that time to this we celebrate this festivaland call it Lights. I suppose the reason was, because this libertybeyond our hopes appeared to us, and that thence was the name given tothat festival. Judas also rebuilt the walls round about the city, andreared towers of great height against the incursions of enemies, and setguards therein. He also fortified the city Bethsura that it might serveas a citadel against any distresses that might come from our enemies. 

When these things were over, the nations round about the Jews were veryuneasy at the revival of their power and rose up together and destroyedmany of them, as gaining advantage over them by laying snares for themand making secret conspiracies against them. Judas made perpetualexpeditions against these men, and endeavored to restrain them fromthose incursions and to prevent the mischiefs they did to the Jews. Sohe fell upon the Idumeans, the posterity of Esau, at Acra-battene, andslew a great many of them and took their spoils. He also shut up thesons of Bean, that laid wait for the Jews; and he sat down about them, and besieged them, and burned their towers and destroyed the men [thatwere in them]. After this he went thence in haste against the Ammoniteswho had a great and a numerous army, of which Timotheus was thecommander. And when he had subdued them he seized on the city of Jazer, and took their wives and their children captives and burned the city andthen returned into Judea. But when the neighboring nations understoodthat he was returned they got together in great numbers in the land ofGilead and came against those Jews that were at their borders, who thenfled to the garrison of Dathema, and sent to Judas to inform him thatTimotheus was endeavoring to take the place whither they were fled. Andas these epistles were reading, there came other messengers out ofGalilee who informed him that the inhabitants of Ptolemais, and of Tyreand Sidon, and strangers of Galilee, were gotten together. 

Accordingly Judas, upon considering what was fit to be done withrelation to the necessity both these cases required, gave order thatSimon his brother should take three thousand chosen men and go to theassistance of the Jews in Galilee, while he and another of his brothers, Jonathan, made haste into the land of Gilead with eight thousandsoldiers. And he left Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Azarias, to beover the rest of the forces, and charged them to keep Judea verycarefully and to fight no battles with any persons whomsoever until hisreturn. Accordingly Simon went into Galilee and fought the enemy and putthem to flight, and pursued them to the very gates of Ptolemais, andslew about three thousand of them, and took the spoils of those thatwere slain and those Jews whom they had made captives, with theirbaggage, and then returned home. 

Now as for Judas Maccabaeus and his brother Jonathan, they passed overthe river Jordan, and when they had gone three days' journey theylighted upon the Nabateans, who came to meet them peaceably and who toldthem how the affairs of those in the land of Galilee stood and how manyof them were in distress and driven into garrisons and into the citiesof Galilee, and exhorted him to make haste to go against the foreigners, and to endeavor to save his own countrymen out of their hands. To thisexhortation Judas hearkened and returned into the wilderness, and in thefirst place fell upon the inhabitants of Bosor, and took the city, andbeat the inhabitants, and destroyed all the males, and all that wereable to fight, and burned the city. Nor did he stop even when night cameon, but he journeyed in it to the garrison where the Jews happened to bethen shut up, and where Timotheus lay round the place with his army; andJudas came upon the city in the morning, and when he found that theenemy were making an assault upon the walls, and that some of thembrought ladders on which they might get upon those walls, and thatothers brought engines [to batter them], he bid the trumpeter to soundhis trumpet, and he encouraged his soldiers cheerfully to undergodangers for the sake of their brethren and kindred; he also parted hisarmy into three bodies and fell upon the backs of their enemies. Butwhen Timotheus' men perceived that it was Maccabaeus that was upon them, of both whose courage and good success in war they had formerly hadsufficient experience, they were put to flight; but Judas followed themwith his army and slew about eight thousand of them. He then turnedaside to a city of the foreigners called Malle, and took it, and slewall the males and burned the city itself. He then removed from thence, and overthrew Casphom and Bosor, and many other cities of the land ofGilead. 

But not long after this Timotheus prepared a great army, and took manyothers as auxiliaries, and induced some of the Arabians by the promiseof rewards to go with him in this expedition, and came with his armybeyond the brook over against the city Raphon; and he encouraged hissoldiers, if it came to a battle with the Jews, to fight courageously, and to hinder their passing over the brook; for he said to thembeforehand that "if they come over it we shall be beaten. " And whenJudas heard that Timotheus prepared himself to fight he took all his ownarmy and went in haste against Timotheus, his enemy; and when he hadpassed over the brook he fell upon his enemies, and some of them methim, whom he slew, and others of them he so terrified that he compelledthem to throw down their arms and fly, and some of them escaped; butsome of them fled to what was called the temple of Carnaim, and hopedthereby to preserve themselves, but Judas took the city and slew themand burned the temple, and so used several ways of destroying hisenemies. 

When he had done this he gathered the Jews together with their childrenand wives and the substance that belonged to them, and was going tobring them back into Judea. But as soon as he was come to a certain citythe name of which was Ephron, that lay upon the road--and as it was notpossible for him to go any other way, so he was not willing to go backagain--he then sent to the inhabitants, and desired that they would opentheir gates and permit them to go on their way through the city; forthey had stopped up the gates with stones and cut off their passagethrough it. And when the inhabitants of Ephron would not agree to thisproposal, he encouraged those that were with him, and encompassed thecity round and besieged it, and lying round it by day and night took thecity and slew every male in it and burned it all down, and so obtained away through it; and the multitude of those that were slain was so greatthat they went over the dead bodies. So they came over Jordan andarrived at the great plain over against which is situate the cityBethshan, which is called by the Greeks Scythopolis. [67] And going awayhastily from thence, they came into Judea, singing psalms and hymns asthey went, and indulging such tokens of mirth as are usual in triumphsupon victory. They also offered thank-offerings both for their goodsuccess and for the preservation of their army, for not one of the Jewswas slain in these battles. 

[Footnote 67: The reason why Bethshan was called Scythopolis is wellknown from Herodotus, b. I. , p. 105, and Syncellus, p. 214, that theScythians, where they overran Asia, in the days of Josiah, seized onthis city, and kept it as long as they continued in Asia; from whichtime it retained the name of Scythopolis, or the City of the Scythians. ]

But as to Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Azarias, whom Judas leftgenerals [of the rest of his forces] at the same time when Simon was inGalilee fighting against the people of Ptolemais, and Judas himself andhis brother Jonathan were in the land of Gilead, did these men alsoaffect the glory of being courageous generals in war, in order wheretothey took the army that was under their command and came to Jamnia. There Gorgias, the general of the forces of Jamnia, met them, and uponjoining battle with him they lost two thousand of their army and fledaway, and were pursued to the very borders of Judea. And this misfortunebefell them by their disobedience to what injunctions Judas had giventhem not to fight with anyone before his return. For besides the rest ofJudas' sagacious counsels, one may well wonder at this concerning themisfortune that befell the forces commanded by Joseph and Azarias, whichhe understood would happen if they broke any of the injunctions he hadgiven them. But Judas and his brethren did not leave off fighting withthe Idumeans, but pressed upon them on all sides, and took from them thecity of Hebron, and demolished all its fortifications and set all itstowers on fire, and burned the country of the foreigners and the cityMarissa. They came also to Ashdod, and took it, and laid it waste, andtook away a great deal of the spoils and prey that were in it andreturned to Judea. 

THE GRACCHI AND THEIR REFORMS

B. C. 133

THEODOR MOMMSEN

(Cornelia, whose father was Scipio Africanus, preferred to be called"Mother of the Gracchi" rather than daughter of the conqueror ofNumantia. Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, her sons, were born at a timewhen the social condition of Rome was rank with corruption. The smallfarmer class were deprived of holdings, the soil was being worked byslaves, and its products wasted on pleasure and debauchery by the rich;the law courts were controlled by the wealthy and powerful, whileoppression, bribery, and fraud were generally rampant in the city. 

On December 10, B. C. 133, Tiberius Gracchus entered upon the office oftribune, to which he had been elected, and pledged himself to theabolition of crying abuses. His first movement was in the direction ofagrarian legislation. He proposed to vest all public lands in the handsof three commissioners [triumviri], who were to distribute the publiclands, at that time largely monopolized by the wealthy, to all citizensin needy circumstances. The bill met with bitter opposition from therich landholders, but was eventually passed, and Gracchus rose to thesummit of popular power. He also brought forward a measure limiting thenecessary period of military service; a second bill was drawn up by himfor the reformation of the law courts, and a third established a rightof appeal from the law courts to the popular assembly. These measureswere afterward carried by his brother Caius. Tiberius Gracchus waskilled in a tumult which was raised in the Forum by the nobles and theirpartisans, and three hundred of his followers lost their lives in thefray. 

Caius Gracchus, his brother, returned to Rome B. C. 124 from Sardinia, where he had been engaged in subduing the mountaineers. For ten years hehad kept aloof from public life, but was at once elected tribune, in thedischarge of which office he showed distinguished powers as an orator. He brought forth the important measures known as the Sempronian Laws, the provisions of which were quite revolutionary in character. The firstof these laws renewed and extended the agrarian laws of his brother andinstituted new colonies in Italy and the provinces. By the secondSempronian law the State undertook to furnish corn at a low price to allRoman citizens. 

Other measures aimed at diminishing the great administrative power ofthe senate, which had so far monopolized all judicial offices. By thelaw of Gracchus the administration of justice was entirely transferredto a body of three hundred persons who possessed the equestrian rate ofproperty. The Sempronian law for the assignment of consular provinces, which hitherto had been left to the senate, made the allotment of twodesignated provinces to be decided by the newly elected consulsthemselves. The power of the senate was also crippled by the law ofGracchus in which he transferred to the tribunes the burden of improvingthe roads of Italy, contracts for which had hitherto been awarded by thecensor under the approval of the senate. These movements were all in thedirection of increasing popular and democratic power, and the work ofthe Gracchi tended to the extension of political freedom. In the historyof politics these social struggles are among the most important eventsillustrative of the gradual dawn of civil liberty among a people whichhad been dominated and oppressed by a selfish aristocracy. )

The power of Gracchus rested on the mercantile class and theproletariat; primarily on the latter, which in this conflict--whereinneither side had any military reserve--acted, as it were, the part of anarmy. It was clear that the senate was not powerful enough to wresteither from the merchants or from the proletariat their new privileges;any attempt to assail the corn laws or the new jury arrangement wouldhave led under a somewhat grosser or somewhat more civilized form to astreet riot, in presence of which the senate was utterly defenceless. But it was no less clear that Gracchus himself and these merchants andproletarians were only kept together by mutual advantage, and that themen of material interests were ready to accept their posts, and thepopulace, strictly so called, its bread, quite as well from any other asfrom Caius Gracchus. 

The institutions of Gracchus stood, for the moment at least, immovablyfirm, with the exception of a single one--his own supremacy. Theweakness of the latter lay in the fact that in the constitution ofGracchus there was no relation of allegiance subsisting at all betweenthe chief and the army; and, while the new constitution possessed allother elements of vitality, it lacked one--the moral tie between rulerand ruled, without which every state rests on a pedestal of clay. In therejection of the proposal to admit the Latins to the franchise it hadbeen demonstrated with decisive clearness that the multitude in factnever voted for Gracchus, but always simply for itself. The aristocracyconceived the plan of offering battle to the author of the cornlargesses and land assignations on his own ground. 

As a matter of course the senate offered to the proletariat not merelythe same advantages as Gracchus had already assured to it in corn andotherwise, but advantages still greater. Commissioned by the senate, thetribune of the people, Marcus Livius Drusus, proposed to relieve thosewho received land under the laws of Gracchus from the rent imposed onthem, and to declare their allotments to be free and alienable property;and, further, to provide for the proletariat not in transmarine, but intwelve Italian, colonies, each of three thousand colonists, for theplanting of which the people might nominate suitable men; only Drusushimself declined--in contrast with the family complexion of the Gracchancommission--to take part in this honorable duty. Presumably the Latinswere named as those who would have to bear the costs of the plan, forthere does not appear to have existed then in Italy other occupieddomain land of any extent save that which was enjoyed by them. 

We find isolated enactments of Drusus--such as the regulation that thepunishment of scourging might only be inflicted on the Latin soldier bythe Latin officer set over him, and not by the Roman officer--which wereto all appearance intended to indemnify the Latins for other losses. Theplan was not the most refined. The attempt at rivalry was too clear; theendeavor to draw the fair bond between the nobles and the proletariatstill closer by their exercising jointly a tyranny over the Latins wastoo transparent; the inquiry suggested itself too readily. 

In what part of the peninsula, now that the Italian domains had beenmainly given away already--even granting that the whole domains assignedto the Latins were confiscated--was the occupied domain land requisitefor the formation of twelve new, numerous, and compact burgesscommunities to be discovered? Lastly, the declaration of Drusus that hewould have nothing to do with the execution of his law was so dreadfullyprudent as to border on sheer folly. But the clumsy snare was quitesuited to the stupid game which they wished to catch. There was theadditional and perhaps decisive consideration that Gracchus, on whosepersonal influence everything depended, was just then establishing theCarthaginian colony in Africa, and that his lieutenant in the capital, Marcus Flaccus, played into the hands of his opponents by his vehementand maladroit acts. The "people" accordingly ratified the Livian laws asreadily as it had before ratified the Sempronian. It then as usualrepaid its latest by inflicting a gentle blow on its earlier benefactor, declining to reëlect him when he stood for the third time as a candidatefor the tribunate for the year B. C. 120. On this occasion, however, there are alleged to have been unjust proceedings on the part of thetribune presiding at the election, who had been offended by Gracchus. 

Thus the foundation of his despotism gave way beneath him. A second blowwas inflicted on him by the consular elections, which not only proved, in a general sense, adverse to the democracy, but which placed at thehead of the State Lucius Opimius, one of the least scrupulous chiefs ofthe strict aristocratic party and a man firmly resolved to get rid oftheir dangerous antagonist at the earliest opportunity. Such anopportunity soon occurred. On the 10th of December, B. C. 121, Gracchusceased to be tribune of the people. On the 1st of January, B. C. 120, Opimius entered upon his office. 

The first attack, as was fair, was directed against the most useful andthe most unpopular measure of Gracchus, the reëstablishment of Carthage, while the transmarine colonies had hitherto been only indirectlyassailed through the greater allurements of the Italian. African hyenas, it was now alleged, dug up the newly placed boundary stones of Carthage, and the Roman priests when requested certified that such signs andportents ought to form an express warning against rebuilding on a siteaccursed by the gods. The senate thereby found itself in its consciencecompelled to have a law proposed which prohibited the planting of thecolony of Sunonia. Gracchus, who with the other men nominated toestablish it was just then selecting the colonists, appeared on the dayof voting at the Capitol, whither the burgesses were convoked, with aview to procure by means of his adherents the rejection of the law. 

He wished to shun acts of violence that he might not himself supply hisopponents with the pretext which they sought, but he had not been ableto prevent a great portion of his faithful partisans--who remembered thecatastrophe of Tiberius, and were well acquainted with the designs ofthe aristocracy--from appearing in arms, fearing that, amid the immenseexcitement on both sides, quarrels could hardly be avoided. The consulLucius Opimius offered the usual sacrifice in the porch of theCapitoline temple, one of the attendants assisting at the ceremony. Quintus Antullius, with the holy entrails in his hands, haughtilyordered the "bad citizens" to quit the porch, and seemed as though hewould lay hands on Caius himself; whereupon a zealous Gracchan drew hissword and cut the man down. A fearful tumult arose. Gracchus vainlysought to address the people and to disclaim the responsibility for thesacreligious murder; he only furnished his antagonists with a furtherformal ground of accusation, as, without being aware of it in theconfusion, he interrupted a tribune in the act of speaking to thepeople--an offence for which an obsolete statute, originating at thetime of the old dissensions between the orders (I. 353), had prescribedthe severest penalty. The consul Lucius Opimius took his measures to putdown by force of arms the insurrection for the overthrow of therepublican constitution, as they were fond of designating the events ofthis day. He himself passed the night in the temple of Castor in theForum. At early dawn the Capitol was filled with Cretan archers, thesenate house and Forum with the men of the government party (thesenators and that section of the _equites_ adhering to them), who byorder of the consul had all appeared in arms, each attended by two armedslaves. None of the aristocracy was absent; even the aged and venerableQuintus Metellus, well disposed to reform, had appeared with shield andsword. An officer of ability and experience acquired in the Spanishwars, Decimus Brutus, was intrusted with the command of the armed force;the senate assembled in the senate house. The bier with the corpse ofAntullius was deposited in front of it, the senate as if surprisedappeared _en masse_ at the door in order to view the dead body, and thenretired to determine what should be done. 

The leaders of the democracy had gone from the Capitol to their houses;Marcus Flaccus had spent the night in preparing for the war in thestreets, while Gracchus apparently disdained to strive with destiny. Next morning when they learned of the preparations made by theiropponents at the Capitol and the Forum, both proceeded to the Aventine, the old stronghold of the popular party in the struggles between thepatricians and the plebeians. Gracchus went thither silent and unarmed. Flaccus called the slaves to arms and intrenched himself in the templeof Diana, while he at the same time sent his younger son Quintus to theenemy's camp in order if possible to arrange a compromise. The latterreturned with the announcement that the aristocracy demandedunconditional surrender. At the same time he brought a summons from thesenate to Gracchus and Flaccus to appear before it and to answer fortheir violation of the majesty of the tribunes. 

Gracchus wished to comply with the summons, but Flaccus prevented himfrom doing so, and repeated the equally weak and mistaken attempt tomove such antagonists to a compromise. When instead of the two citedleaders the young Quintus Flaccus once more presented himself alone, theconsul treated their refusal to appear as the beginning of openinsurrection against the Government. He ordered the messenger to bearrested and gave the signal for attack on the Aventine, while at thesame time he caused proclamations to be made in the streets that theGovernment would give to whomsoever should bring the head of Gracchus orof Flaccus its literal weight in gold; and that they would guaranteecomplete indemnity to everyone who should leave the Aventine before thebeginning of the conflict. The ranks on the Aventine speedily thinned;the valiant nobility in conjunction with the Cretans and the slavesstormed the almost undefended mount, and killed all whom theyfound--about two hundred and fifty persons, mostly of humble rank. Marcus Flaccus fled with his eldest son to a place of concealment, wherethey were soon afterward hunted out and put to death. Gracchus had atthe beginning of the conflict retired into the temple of Minerva and wasthere about to pierce himself with his sword when his friend PubliusLaetorius seized his arm and besought him to preserve himself, ifpossible, for better times. 

Gracchus was induced to make an attempt to escape to the other bank ofthe Tiber, but when hastening down the hill he fell and sprained hisfoot. To gain time for him to escape, his two attendants turned, andfacing his pursuers allowed themselves to be cut down. As MarcusPomponius at the Porta Trigemina under the Aventine; Publius Laetoriusat the bridge over the Tiber--where Horatius Cocles was said to haveonce withstood, singly, the Etruscan army--so Gracchus, attended only byhis slave Euporus, reached the suburb on the right bank of the Tiber. 

There, in the grove of Furrina, afterward were found the two deadbodies. It seemed as if the slave had put to death first his master, andthen himself. The heads of the two fallen leaders were handed over tothe Government as required. The stipulated price, and more, was paid toLucius Septumuleius, a man of quality, the bearer of the head ofGracchus; while the murderers of Flaccus, persons of humble rank, weresent away with empty hands. The bodies of the dead were thrown into theriver, and the houses of the leaders were abandoned to the pillage ofthe multitude. The warfare of prosecution against the partisans ofGracchus began on the grandest scale; as many as three thousand of themare said to have been strangled in prison, among whom was QuintusFlaccus, eighteen years of age, who had taken no part in the conflict, and was universally lamented on account of his youth and his amiabledisposition. On the open space beneath the Capitol, where the altarconsecrated by Camillus after the restoration of internal peace (I. 382), and other shrines--erected on similar occasions to Concord--weresituated, the small chapels were pulled down, and out of the property ofthe killed or condemned traitors--which was confiscated, even to theportions of their wives--a new and splendid temple of Concord, with thebasilica belonging to it, was erected in accordance with a decree of thesenate by the consul Lucius Opimius. 

Certainly it was an act in accordance with the spirit of the age toremove the memorials of the old and to inaugurate a new Concord over theremains of the three grandsons of Zama, all of whom--first, TiberiusGracchus, then Scipio Aemilianus, and lastly the youngest and themightiest, Caius Gracchus--had now been engulfed by the revolution. Thememory of the Gracchi remained officially proscribed; Cornelia was notallowed even to put on mourning for the death of her last son; but thepassionate attachment which very many had felt toward the two noblebrothers, and especially toward Caius, during their life, was touchinglydisplayed also after their death, in the almost religious venerationwhich the multitude, in spite of all precautions of the police, continued to pay to their memory and to the spots where they had fallen. 

CAESAR CONQUERS GAUL[68]

B. C. 58-50

NAPOLEON III

[Footnote 68: From Louis Napoleon's Julius Caesar, by permission ofHarper & Brothers. ]

(In Caesar's military performances the Gallic war plays the mostimportant part, as shown in his _Commentaries_, his sole extant literarywork and almost the only authority for this part of Roman history. 

Cisalpine Gaul--that portion lying on the southern or Italian side ofthe Alps--came partly under the dominion of Rome as early as B. C. 282, when a Roman colony was founded at Sena Gallica. This division of Gaulwas wholly conquered by B. C. 191; and in B. C. 43, having been made aRoman province, it became a part of Italy. 

Transalpine Gaul--that part lying north and northwest of the Alps fromRome--comprised in Caesar's day three divisions: Aquitaine to thesouthwest, Celtic Gaul in the middle, and Belgic Gaul to the northwest. The region was inhabited by various tribes having neither unity of racenor of customs whereby nationality becomes distinguished. Toward theclose of the second century B. C. The Romans made their first settlementsin Transalpine Gaul, in the southeastern part. At the time when Caesarbecame proconsul in Gaul, B. C. 58, the province was in a state oftranquillity, but Fortune seemed determined that he should have greatopportunities for the display of his military genius, and, when Asia hadbeen subdued by Pompey, "conferred what remained to be done in Europeupon Caesar. " The attempt of the Helvetii to leave their homes in theAlps for new dwelling-places in Gaul served him as an occasion for war. As they were crossing the Arar [now Saone] he attacked and routed them, later defeated them again, and at last drove them back to their owncountry. 

The story of the long war, with its various campaigns, has becomefamiliar to the world's readers through the masterly account of Caesarhimself, known to "every schoolboy" who advances to the dignity ofclassical studies. In the end the country between the Pyrenees and theRhine was subjugated, and for several centuries it remained a Romanprovince. 

At the time when the history is taken up in the following narrative byNapoleon III, the great rebellion, B. C. 52, had sustained a heavy blowin the surrender of Alesia, and the capture of the heroic chief andleader of the insurrection, Vercingetorix, whom Caesar exhibited in histriumph at Rome, B. C. 46, and then caused to be put to death. 

The distinguished author of the article says he wrote "for the purposeof proving that when Providence raises up such men as Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon it is to trace out to peoples the path theyought to follow, to stamp with the seal of their genius a new era, andto accomplish in a few years the work of many centuries. " The work wasprepared [_vide Manual of Historical Literature_: Adams] with the utmostcare--a care which extended in some instances to special surveys, toinsure perfect accuracy in the descriptions, etc. )

The capture of Alesia and that of Vercingetorix, in spite of the unitedefforts of all Gaul, naturally gave Caesar hopes of a generalsubmission; and he therefore believed that he could leave his armyduring the winter to rest quietly in its quarters from the hard laborswhich had lasted without interruption during the whole of the pastsummer. But the spirit of insurrection was not extinct among the Gauls;and convinced by experience that whatever might be their number theycould not in a body cope with troops inured to war, they resolved, bypartial insurrections raised on all points at once, to divide theattention and the forces of the Romans as their only chance of resistingthem with advantage. 

Caesar was unwilling to leave them time to realize this new plan, butgave the command of his winter quarters to his quaestor, Mark Antony;quitted Bibracte on the day before the Calends of January (the 25th ofDecember) with an escort of cavalry, joined the Thirteenth legion, whichwas in winter quarters among the Bituriges, not far from the frontier ofthe Aldui, and called to him the Eleventh legion, which was the nearestat hand. Having left two cohorts of each legion to guard the baggage, heproceeded toward the fertile country of the Bituriges, a vast territory, where the presence of a single legion was insufficient to put a stop tothe preparations for insurrection. 

His sudden arrival in the midst of men without distrust, who were spreadover the open country, produced the result which he expected. They weresurprised before they could enter into their _oppidae_--for Caesar hadstrictly forbidden everything which might have raised their suspicion;especially the application of fire, which usually betrays the suddenpresence of an enemy. Several thousands of captives were made. Those whosucceeded in escaping sought in vain a refuge among the neighboringnations. Caesar, by forced marches, came up with them everywhere andobliged each tribe to think of its own safety before that of others. 

This activity held the populations in their fidelity, and through fearengaged the wavering to submit to the conditions of peace. Thus theBituriges, seeing that Caesar offered them an easy way to recover hisprotection, and that the neighboring states had suffered no otherchastisement than that of having to deliver hostages, did not hesitatein submitting. 

The soldiers of the Eleventh and Thirteenth legions had, during thewinter, supported with rare constancy the fatigues of very difficultmarches in intolerable cold. To reward them he promised to give by wayof prize-money two hundred _sestertii_ to each soldier and two thousandto each centurion. He then sent them into their winter quarters andreturned to Bibracte after an absence of forty days. While he was there, dispensing justice, the Bituriges came to implore his support againstthe attacks of the Carnutes. Although it was only eighteen days since hereturned, he marched again at the head of two legions--the Sixth and theFourteenth--which had been placed on the Saone to insure the supply ofprovisions. 

On his approach the Carnutes, taught by the fate of others, abandonedtheir miserable huts--which they had erected on the site of their burgsand oppida destroyed in the last campaign--and fled in every direction. 

Caesar, unwilling to expose his soldiers to the rigor of the season, established his camp at Genabum (Gien), and lodged them partly in thehuts which had remained undestroyed, partly in tents under penthousescovered with straw. The cavalry and auxiliary infantry were sent inpursuit of the Carnutes, who, hunted down everywhere, and withoutshelter, took refuge in the neighboring counties. 

After having dispersed some rebellious meetings and stifled the germs ofan insurrection, Caesar believed that the summer would pass without anyserious war. He left therefore at Genabum the two legions he had withhim, and gave the command of them to C. Trebonius. 

Nevertheless, he learned by several intimations from the Remi that theBellovaci and neighboring peoples, with Correus and Commius at theirhead, were collecting troops to make an inroad on the territory of theSuessiones, who had been placed--since the campaign of 697--under thedependence of the Remi. 

He considered that he regarded his interest as well as his dignity inprotecting allies who had deserved so well of the republic. He againdrew the Eleventh legion from its winter quarters, sent written ordersto C. Fabius, who was encamped in the country of the Remi, to bring intothat of the Suessiones the two legions under his command, and demandedone of his legions from Labienus, who was at Besançon. Thus withouttaking any rest himself he shared the fatigues among the legions byturns, as far as the position of the winter quarters and the necessitiesof the war permitted. 

When this army was assembled he marched against the Bellovaci, established his camp on their territory, and sent cavalry in everydirection in order to make some prisoners and learn from them thedesigns of the enemy. The cavalry reported that the emigration wasgeneral, and that the few inhabitants who were to be seen were notremaining behind in order to apply themselves to agriculture, but to actas spies upon the Romans. 

Caesar by interrogating the prisoners learned that all the Bellovaciable to fight had assembled on one spot, and that they had been joinedby the Ambiani, the Aulerci, the Caletes, the Veliocasses, and theAtrebates. Their camp was in a forest on a height surrounded bymarshes--Mont Saint Marc, in the forest of Compiègne; their baggage hadbeen transported to more distant woods. The command was divided amongseveral chiefs, but the greater part obeyed Correus on account of hiswell-known hatred of the Romans. Commius had a few days before gone toseek succor from the numerous Germans who lived in great numbers in theneighboring counties--probably those on the banks of the Meuse. 

The Bellovaci resolved with one accord to give Caesar battle, if, asreport said, he was advancing with only three legions; for they wouldnot run the risk of having afterward to encounter his entire army. If, on the contrary, the Romans were advancing with more considerable forcesthey proposed to keep their positions and confine themselves tointercepting, by means of ambuscades, the provisions and forage, whichwere very scarce at that season. 

This plan, confirmed by many reports, seemed to Caesar full of prudenceand altogether contrary to the usual rashness of the barbarians. He tooktherefore every possible care to dissimulate as to the number of histroops. He had with him the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth legions, composedof old soldiers of tried valor, and the Eleventh, which, formed ofpicked young men who had gone through eight campaigns, deserved hisconfidence, although it could not be compared with the others withregard to bravery and experience in war. In order to deceive the enemyby showing them only three legions--the only number they were willing tofight--he placed the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth in one line; while thebaggage, which was not very considerable, was placed behind under theprotection of the Eleventh legion, which closed the march. In thisorder, which formed almost a square, he came unawares in sight of theBellovaci. At the unexpected view of the legions, which advanced inorder of battle and with a firm step, they lost their courage and, instead of attacking, as they had engaged to do, they confinedthemselves to drawing themselves up before their camp without leavingthe height. A valley deeper than it was wide separated the two armies. 

On account of this obstacle and the numerical superiority of thebarbarians, Caesar, though he had wished for battle, abandoned the ideaof attacking them and placed his camp opposite that of the Gauls in astrong position. He caused it to be surrounded with a parapet twelvefeet high, surmounted by accessory works proportioned to the importanceof the retrenchment and preceded by a double fosse fifteen feet wide, with a square bottom. Towers of three stories were constructed fromdistance to distance and united together by covered bridges, theexterior parts of which were protected by hurdle-work. In this mannerthe camp was protected not only by a double fosse, but also by a doublerow of defenders, some of whom, placed on the bridges, could from thiselevated and sheltered position throw their missiles farther and with abetter aim; while the others, placed on the _vallum_, nearer to theenemy, were protected by the bridges from the missiles which showereddown upon them. The entrances were defended by means of higher towersand were closed with gates. 

These formidable retrenchments had a double aim--to increase theconfidence of the barbarians by making them believe that they werefeared, and next to allow the number of the garrison to be reduced withsafety when they had to go far for provisions. For some days there wereno serious engagements, but slight skirmishes in the marshy plain whichextended between the two camps. The capture, however, of a few foragersdid not fail to swell the presumption of the barbarians, which was stillmore increased by the arrival of Commius, although he had brought onlyfive hundred German cavalry. 

The enemy remained for several days shut up in its impregnable position. Caesar judged that an assault would cost too many lives; an investmentalone seemed to him opportune, but it would require a greater number oftroops. 

He wrote thereupon to Trebonius to send him as soon as possible theThirteenth legion, which, under the command of T. Sextius, was in winterquarters among the Bituriges, to join it with the Sixth and theFourteenth (which the first of these lieutenants commanded at Genabum), and to come himself with these three legions by forced marches. 

During this time he employed the numerous cavalry of the Remi, theLingones and the other allies, to protect the foragers and to preventsurprises, but this daily service, as is often the case, ended by beingnegligently performed. And one day the Remi, pursuing the Bellovaci withtoo much ardor, fell into an ambuscade. In withdrawing they weresurrounded by foot-soldiers in the midst of whom Vertiscus, their chief, met with his death. True to his Gaulish nature, he would not allow hisage to exempt him from commanding and mounting on horseback, although hewas hardly able to keep his seat. His death and this feeble advantageraised the self-confidence of the barbarians still more, but it renderedthe Romans more circumspect. 

Nevertheless, in one of the skirmishes which were continually takingplace within sight of the two camps about the fordable places of themarsh, the German infantry--which Caesar had sent for from beyond theRhine in order to mix them with the cavalry--joined in a body, boldlycrossed the marsh, and, meeting with little resistance, continued thepursuit with such impetuosity that fear seized not only the enemy whofought, but even those who were in reserve. Instead of availingthemselves of the advantages of the ground, all fled in a cowardlymanner. They did not stop until they were within their camp, and someeven were not ashamed to fly beyond it. This defeat caused a generaldiscouragement, for the Gauls were as easily daunted by the leastreverse as they were made arrogant by the smallest success. 

Day after day was passing in this manner when Caesar was informed of thearrival of C. Trebonius and his troops, which raised the number of hislegions to seven. The chiefs of the Bellovaci then feared an investmentlike that of Alesia, and resolved to quit their position. They sent awayby night the old men, the infirm, the unarmed men, and the part of thebaggage which they had kept with them. Scarcely was this confusedmultitude in motion--embarrassed by its own mass and its numerouschariots--when daylight surprised it, and the troops had to be drawn upin line before the camp to give the column time to move away. Caesar sawno advantage either in giving battle to those who were in position, nor, on account of the steepness of the hill, in pursuing those who weremaking their retreat; he resolved, nevertheless, to make two legionsadvance in order to disturb the enemy in its retreat. Having observedthat the mountain on which the Gauls were established was connected withanother height (Mont Collet), from which it was only separated by anarrow valley, he ordered bridges to be thrown across the marsh. Thelegions crossed over them and soon attained the summit of the height, which was defended on both sides by abrupt declivities. 

There he collected his troops and advanced in order of battle up to theextremity of the plateau, whence the engines placed in battery couldreach the masses of the enemy with their missiles. 

The barbarians, rendered confident by the advantage of their position, were ready to accept battle if the Romans dared to attack the mountain;besides, they were afraid to withdraw their troops successively, as, ifdivided, they might have been thrown into disorder. This attitude ledCæsar to resolve upon leaving twenty cohorts under arms, and on tracinga camp on this spot and retrenching it. When the works were completedthe legions were placed before the retrenchments and the cavalrydistributed with their horses bridled at the outposts. The Bellovaci hadrecourse to a stratagem in order to effect their retreat. They passedfrom hand to hand the fascines and the straw on which, according to theGaulish custom, they were in the habit of sitting, preserving at thesame time their order of battle; placed them in front of the camp, andtoward the close of the day, on a preconcerted signal, set fire to them. Immediately a vast flame concealed from the Romans the Gaulish troops, who fled in haste. 

Although the fire prevented Cæsar from seeing the retreat of the enemyhe suspected it. He ordered his legions to advance, and sent the cavalryin pursuit, but he marched slowly in fear of some stratagem, suspectingthe barbarians to have formed the design of drawing the Romans todisadvantageous ground. Besides, the cavalry did not dare to ridethrough the smoke and flames; and thus the Bellovaci were able to passover a distance of ten miles and halt in a place strongly fortified bynature (Mont Ganelon), where they pitched their camp. In this positionthey confined themselves to placing cavalry and infantry in frequentambuscades, thus inflicting great damage on the Romans when they went toforage. After several encounters of this kind Cæsar learned by aprisoner that Correus, chief of the Bellovaci, with six thousand pickedinfantry and one thousand horsemen, was preparing an ambuscade in placeswhere the abundance of corn and forage was likely to attract the Romans. In consequence of this information he sent forward the cavalry, whichwas always employed to protect the foragers, and joined with them somelight-armed auxiliaries, while he himself, with a greater number oflegions, followed them as closely as possible. 

The enemy had posted themselves in a plain--that of Choisy-au-Bac--ofabout one thousand paces in length and the same in breadth, surroundedon one side by forests, on the other by a river which was difficult topass (the Aisne). The cavalry becoming acquainted with the designs ofthe Gauls and feeling themselves supported, advanced resolutely insquadrons toward this plain, which was surrounded with ambushes on allsides. 

Correus, seeing them arrive in this manner, believed the opportunityfavorable for the execution of his plan and began by attacking the firstsquadrons with a few men. The Romans sustained the shock withoutconcentrating themselves in a mass on the same point, "which, " saysHirtius, "usually happens in cavalry engagements, and leads always to adangerous confusion. " There, on the contrary, the squadrons, remainingseparated, fought in detached bodies, and when one of them advanced, itsflanks were protected by the others. Correus then ordered the rest ofhis cavalry to issue from the woods. An obstinate combat began on allsides without any decisive result until the enemy's infantry, debouchingfrom the forest in close ranks, forced the Roman cavalry to fall back. The lightly armed soldiers who preceded the legions placed themselvesbetween the squadrons and restored the fortune of the combat. After acertain time the troops, animated by the approach of the legions and thearrival of Caesar, and ambitious of obtaining alone the honor of thevictory, redoubled their efforts and gained the advantage. The enemy, onthe other hand, were discouraged and took to flight, but were stopped bythe very obstacles which they intended to throw in the way of theRomans. A small number, nevertheless, escaped through the forest andcrossed the river. Correus, who remained unshaken under thiscatastrophe, obstinately refused to surrender, and fell pierced withwounds. After this success Caesar hoped that if he continued his marchthe enemy in dismay would abandon his camp, which was only eight milesfrom the field of battle. He therefore crossed the Aisne, though notwithout great difficulties. 

The Bellovaci and their allies, informed by the fugitives of the deathof Correus, of the loss of their cavalry and the flower of theirinfantry, and fearing every moment to see the Romans appear, convoked bysound of trumpet a general assembly and decided by acclamation to senddeputies and hostages to the proconsul. The barbarians imploredforgiveness, alleging that this last defeat had ruined their power, andthat the death of Correus, the instigator of the war, delivered themfrom oppression, for, during his life, it was not the senate whichgoverned, but an ignorant multitude. To their prayers Caesar repliedthat last year the Bellovaci had revolted in concert with the otherGaulish peoples, but that _they_ alone had persisted in the revolt. Itwas very convenient to throw their faults upon those who were dead, buthow could it be believed that with nothing but the help of a weakpopulace a man should have had sufficient influence to raise and sustaina war contrary to the will of the chiefs, the decision of the senate, and the desire of honest people? However, the evil which they had drawnupon themselves was for him a sufficient reparation. 

The following night the Bellovaci and their allies submitted, with theexception of Commius, who fled to the country from which he had butrecently drawn support. He had not dared to trust the Romans for thefollowing reason: "The year before, in the absence of Caesar, T. Labienus, informed that Commius was conspiring and preparing aninsurrection, thought that without accusing him of bad faith, " saysHirtius, "he could repress his treason. " ("Under pretext of an interviewhe sent C. Volusenus Quadratus, with some centurions, to kill him; butwhen they were in the presence of the Gaulish chief the centurion whowas to strike him missed his blow and only wounded him; swords weredrawn on both sides and Commius had time to escape. ")

The most warlike tribes had been vanquished and none of them dreamed offurther revolt. Nevertheless, many inhabitants of the newly conqueredcountries abandoned the towns and the fields in order to withdrawthemselves from the Roman dominion. Caesar, in order to put a stop tothis emigration, distributed his army in different countries. He orderedthe quaestor, Mark Antony, to come to him with the Twelfth legion, andsent the lieutenant Fabius with twenty-five cohorts into an oppositepart of Gaul--to the country situated between the Creuse and theVienne--where it was said that several tribes were in arms, and wherethe lieutenant, Caninius Rebilus, who commanded with two legions, didnot appear to be sufficiently strong. Lastly, he ordered T. Labienus tojoin him in person and to send the Fifteenth legion, which he had underhis command, into Cisalpine Gaul to protect the colonies of Romancitizens there against the sudden inroads of the barbarians, who thesummer before had attacked the Tergestini (the inhabitants of Trieste). 

As for Cæsar, he proceeded with four legions to the territory of theEburones to lay it waste. As he could not secure Ambiorix, who was stillwandering at large, he thought it advisable to destroy everything byfire and sword, persuaded that this chief would never dare to return toa country upon which he had brought such a terrible calamity. Thelegions and the auxiliaries were charged with the execution of thisplan. Then he sent Labienus, with two legions, to the country of theTreviri, who, always at war with the Germans, were only kept inobedience by the presence of a Roman army. 

During this time Caninius Rebilus, who had first been appointed to gointo the country of the Ruteni, but who had been detained by pettyinsurrections in the region situated between the Creuse and the Vienne, learned that numerous hostile bands were assembling in the country ofthe Pictones. He was informed of this by letters from Duratius, theirking, who, amid the defection of a part of his people, had remainedinvariably faithful to the Romans. He started immediately for Lemonum(Poitiers). On the road he learned from prisoners that Duratius was shutup there and besieged by several thousand men under the orders ofDumnacus, chief of the Andes. 

Rebilus, at the head of two weak legions, did not dare to measure hisstrength with the enemy; he contented himself with establishing his campin a strong position. At the news of his approach, Dumnacus raised thesiege, and marched to meet the legions, but after several days offruitless attempts to force their camp he returned to attack Lemonum. 

Meanwhile, the lieutenant, Caius Fabius, occupied in pacifying severalother tribes, learned from Caninius Rebilus what was going on in thecountry of the Pictones and marched without delay to the assistance ofDuratius. The news of the march of Fabius deprived Dumnacus of all hopeof opposing, at the same time, the troops shut up in Lemonum and therelieving army. He abandoned the siege again in great haste, notthinking himself safe until he had placed the Loire between himself andthe Romans; but he could only pass that river where there was a bridge(at Saumur). Before he had joined Rebilus, before he had even obtained asight of the enemy, Fabius, who came from the North, and had lost notime, doubted not, from what he heard from the people of the country, that Dumnacus, in his fear, had taken the road which led to that bridge. He therefore marched thither with his legions, preceded at a shortdistance by his cavalry. The latter surprised the column of Dumnacus onits march, dispersed it, and returned to the camp laden with booty. 

During the night of the following day Fabius again sent his cavalryforward with orders to delay the march of the enemy so as to give timefor the arrival of the infantry. The two bodies of cavalry were soonengaged, but the enemy, thinking he had to contend with only the sametroops as the day before, drew up his infantry in line so as to supportthe squadrons, when suddenly the Roman legions appeared in order ofbattle. At this sight the barbarians were struck with terror, the longtrain of baggage thrown into confusion, and the infantry dispersed. Morethan twelve thousand men were killed and all the baggage fell into thehands of the Romans. 

Only five thousand fugitives escaped from this rout; they were receivedby the Senonan, Drappes, the same who in the first revolt of the Gaulshad collected a crowd of vagabonds, slaves, exiles, and robbers tointercept the convoys of the Romans. 

They took the direction of the Narbonnese with the Cadurcan Lucteriuswho had before attempted a similar invasion. 

Rebilus pursued them with two legions in order to avoid the shame ofseeing the province suffering any injury from such a contemptiblerabble. As for Fabius, he led the twenty-five cohorts against theCarnutes and the other tribes whose forces had already been reduced bythe defeat they had suffered from Dumnacus. The Carnutes, though oftenbeaten, had never been completely subdued. They gave hostages, and theArmoricans followed their example. Dumnacus, driven out of his ownterritory, went to seek a refuge in the remotest part of Gaul. 

Drappes and Lucterius, when they learned that they were pursued byRebilus and his two legions, gave up the design of penetrating into theprovince; they halted in the country of the Cadurci and threw themselvesinto the _oppidum_ of Uxellodunum (Puy-d'Issolu, near Varac), anexceedingly strong place formerly under the dependence of Lucterius, whosoon incited the inhabitants to revolt. 

Rebilus appeared immediately before the town, which, surrounded on allsides by steep rocks, was, even without being defended, difficult ofaccess to armed men. Knowing that there was in the oppidum so great aquantity of baggage that the besieged could not send it away secretlywithout being detected and overtaken by the cavalry, and even by theinfantry, he divided his cohorts into three bodies and established threecamps on the highest points. Next he ordered a countervallation to bemade. On seeing these preparations the besieged remembered theill-fortune of Alesia, and feared a similar fate. Lucterius, who hadwitnessed the horrors of famine during the investment of that town, nowtook especial care of the provisions. 

During this time the garrison of the oppidum attacked the redoubts ofRebilus several times, which obliged him to interrupt the work of thecountervallation, which, indeed, he had not sufficient forces to defend. 

Drappes and Lucterius established themselves at a distance of ten milesfrom the oppidum, with the intention of introducing the provisionsgradually. They shared the duties between them. Drappes remained withpart of the troops to protect the camp. Lucterius, during thenight-time, endeavored to introduce beasts of burden into the town by anarrow and wooded path. The noise of their march gave warning to thesentries. Rebilus, informed of what was going on, ordered the cohorts tosally from the neighboring redoubts, and at daybreak fell upon theconvoy, the escort of which was slaughtered. Lucterius, having escapedwith a small number of his followers, was unable to rejoin Drappes. 

Rebilus soon learned from prisoners that the rest of the troops whichhad left the oppidum were with Drappes at a distance of twelve miles, and that by a fortunate chance not one fugitive had taken that directionto carry him news of the last combat. The Roman general sent in advanceall the cavalry and the light German infantry; he followed them with onelegion, without baggage, leaving the other as a guard to the threecamps. When he came near the enemy he learned, by his scouts, that thebarbarians--according to their custom of neglecting the heights--hadplaced their camp on the banks of a river (probably the Dordogne); thatthe Germans and the cavalry had surprised them, and that they werealready fighting. Rebilus then advanced rapidly at the head of thelegion drawn up in order of battle and took possession of the heights. 

As soon as the ensigns appeared, the cavalry redoubled its ardor; thecohorts rushed forward from all sides and the Gauls were taken orkilled. The booty was immense and Drappes fell into the hands of theRomans. 

Rebilus, after this successful exploit, which cost him but a fewwounded, returned under the walls of Uxellodunum. Fearing no longer anyattack from without, he set resolutely to work to continue hiscircumvallation. The day after, C. Fabius arrived, followed by histroops, and shared with him the labors of the siege. While the south ofGaul was the scene of serious trouble, Cæsar left the quaestor, MarkAntony, with fifteen cohorts in the country of the Bellovaci. To deprivethe Belgæ of all idea of revolt he had proceeded to the neighboringcountries with two legions; had exacted hostages, and restoredconfidence by his conciliating speeches. When he arrived among theCarnutes--who the year before had been the first to revolt--he saw thatthe remembrance of their conduct kept them in great alarm, and heresolved to put an end to it by causing his vengeance to fall only uponGutruatus, the instigator of the war. 

This man was brought in and delivered up. Although Cæsar was naturallyinclined to be indulgent, he could not resist the tumultuous entreatiesof his soldiers, who made that chief responsible for all the dangersthey had run and for all the misery they had suffered. Gutruatus diedunder the stripes and was afterward beheaded. 

It was in the land of the Carnutes that Cæsar received news, by theletters of Rebilus, of the events which had taken place at Uxellodunumand of the resistance of the besieged. Although a handful of men shut upin a fortress was not very formidable, he judged it necessary to punishtheir obstinacy, for fear that the Gauls should entertain the convictionthat it was not strength, but constancy, which had failed them inresisting the Romans; and lest this example might encourage the otherstates which possessed fortresses advantageously situated, to recovertheir independence. 

Moreover, it was known everywhere among the Gauls that Cæsar had onlyone more summer to hold his command, and that after that time they wouldhave nothing more to fear. He left therefore the lieutenant QuintusCalenus at the head of his two legions, with orders to follow him byordinary marches, and, with his cavalry, hastened by long marches towardUxellodunum. Cæsar, arriving unexpectedly before the town, found itcompletely defended at all accessible points. He judged that it couldnot be taken by assault (_neque ab oppugnatione recedi vidaret ullaconditione posse_), and, as it was abundantly provided with provisions, conceived the project of depriving the inhabitants of water. 

The mountain was surrounded almost on every side by very low ground, buton one side there existed a valley through which a river (the Tourmente)ran. As it flowed at the foot of two precipitous mountains thedisposition of the localities did not admit of turning it aside andconducting it into lower channels. It was difficult for the besieged tocome down to it, and the Romans rendered the approaches to it still moredangerous. They placed posts of archers and slingers, and broughtengines which commanded all the slopes which gave access to the river. The besieged had thenceforth no other means of procuring water but bycarrying it from an abundant spring which arose at the foot of the wallthree hundred feet from the channel of the Tourmente. Cæsar resolved todrain this spring, and for this purpose he did not hesitate to attempt alaborious undertaking. Opposite the point where it rose he orderedcovered galleries to be pushed forward against the mountain, and underprotection of these a terrace to be raised--labors which were carried onin the midst of continual fighting and weariness. 

Although the besieged from their elevated position fought without dangerand wounded many Romans, yet the latter did not yield to discouragement, but continued the work. At the same time they made a subterraneangallery, which, running from the covered galleries, was intended to leadup to the spring. This work, carried on free from all danger, wasexecuted without being perceived by the enemy. The terrace attained aheight of sixty feet and was surmounted by a tower of ten stories, which, without equalling the elevation of the wall--a result it wasimpossible to obtain--still commanded the fountain. Its approaches, battered by engines from the top of this tower, became inaccessible. Inconsequence of this, many men and animals in the place died of thirst. The besieged, terrified at this mortality, filled barrels with pitch, grease, and shavings, and rolled them flaming upon the Roman works, making at the same time a sally to prevent them from extinguishing thefire. Soon it spread to the covered galleries and the terrace, whichstopped the progress of the inflammable materials. 

Notwithstanding the difficult nature of the ground and the increasingdanger, the Romans still persevered in their struggle. The battle tookplace on a height within sight of the army. Loud cries were raised onboth sides. Each individual sought to rival his fellow in zeal, and themore he was exposed to view the more courageously he faced the missilesand the fire. 

Caesar, as he was sustaining great loss, determined to feign an assault. In order to create a diversion he ordered some cohorts to climb the hillon all sides, uttering loud cries. This movement terrified the besieged, who, fearing to be attacked at other points, called back to the defenceof the wall those who were setting fire to the works. Then the Romanswere enabled to extinguish the flames. The Gauls, although exhausted bythirst and reduced to a small number, ceased not to defend themselvesvigorously. At length the subterranean gallery having reached the sourceof the spring, the supply was turned aside. The besieged, beholding thefountain suddenly become dry, believed in their despair that it was anintervention of the gods, and, submitting to necessity, surrendered. 

Caesar considered that the pacification of Gaul would never be completedif as strong a resistance was encountered in other towns. He thought itadvisable to spread terror by a severe example--so much the more so as"the well-known mildness of his temper, " says Hirtius, "would not allowthis necessary rigor to be ascribed to cruelty. " He ordered that allthose who had borne arms should have their hands cut off, and sent themaway living examples of the punishment reserved for rebels. 

Drappes, who had been taken prisoner, starved himself to death;Lucterius, who had been arrested by the Arvernan Epasnactus (a friend ofthe Romans), was delivered up to Caesar. While these events were takingplace on the banks of the Dordogne, Labienus, in a cavalry engagement, had gained a decisive advantage over a part of the Treviri and Germans;had taken prisoner their chief, and thus subjected a people who werealways ready to support any insurrection against the Romans. The AeduanSurus fell also into his hands. He was a chief distinguished for hiscourage and birth, and the only one of that nation who had not yet laiddown his arms. 

From that moment Caesar considered Gaul to be completely pacified. Heresolved, however, to go himself to Aquitaine, which he had not yetvisited and which Publius Crassus had partly conquered. Arriving thereat the head of two legions, he obtained the complete submission of thatcountry without difficulty. All the tribes sent him hostages. Heproceeded next to Narbonne with a detachment of cavalry and charged hislieutenants to put the army into winter quarters. Four legions, underthe orders of Mark Antony, Caius Trebonius, Publius Vatinius, and Q. Tullius, were quartered in Belgium, two among the Aedui and two amongthe Turones on the frontier of the Carnutes, to hold in check all thecountries bordering on the ocean. 

These two last legions took up their winter quarters on the territory ofthe Lemovices, not far from the Arverni, so that no part of Gaul shouldbe without troops. Caesar remained but a short time in the province, presiding hastily over the assemblies, determining cases of publicdispute, and rewarding those who had served him well. He had hadoccasion more than anyone to know their sentiments individually, becauseduring the general revolt of Gaul the fidelity and succor of theprovince had aided him in triumphing over it. When these affairs weresettled he returned to his legions in Belgium and took up his winterquarters at Nemetocenna (Arras). 

There he was informed of the last attempts of Commius, who, continuing apartisan war at the head of a small number of cavalry, intercepted theRoman convoys. Mark Antony had charged C. Volusenus Quadratus, prefectof the cavalry, to pursue him. He had accepted the task eagerly in thehope of succeeding the second time better than the first, but Commius, taking advantage of the rash ardor with which his enemy had rushed uponhim, had wounded him seriously and escaped. He was discouraged, however, and had promised Mark Antony to retire to any spot which should beappointed him on condition that he should never be compelled to appearbefore a Roman. This condition having been accepted, he had givenhostages. Gaul was hereby subjugated. Death or slavery had carried offits principal citizens. Of all the chiefs who had fought for itsindependence only two survived--Commius and Ambiorix. 

Banished far from their country they died in obscurity. 

ROMAN INVASION AND CONQUEST OF BRITAIN

B. C. 55 - A. D. 79

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

(When Julius Caesar received the province of Gaul as his government, B. C. 58, it was only a small portion of the territory inhabited by theGauls or Celts, being almost conterminous with the mediaeval Provence. It was also at peace, and there seemed no excuse for making an extensionof Roman territory among the three tribes or races between whichNorthern and Western Gaul were divided. But the Helvetii, who occupiedthat part of the Alps known to-day as Switzerland, meditated anemigration into the plains of Gaul, and, as their shortest route layacross the Roman provinces, they asked leave of Caesar to pass threehundred and sixty thousand souls in all, counting women and children, through the imperial territory. 

The Roman commander, after giving them an evasive answer, met them inthe territory of the Sequani and Aedui and defeated them, driving themback to their mountains. He next went to the aid of the Aedui, ancientallies of Rome, against the Arverni and Sequani, who had invaded theAeduan territory under a German chieftain, Ariovistus. The result wasthat Ariovistus was defeated and driven eastward across the Rhine. Hethen defeated the Belgae, who, in B. C. 57, took up arms against thegarrisons which he had left in the country of the Sequani [dwellers onthe Seine]. He continued his conquest of the Belgic territory, andsubjected the three nations who occupied it, finally entering thecountry of the warlike Nervii, whom he only conquered after a stubbornand bloody battle. As soon as he had subjugated the whole of Gaul, hecrossed the Rhine for the purpose of intimidating the Germans andteaching them to keep within their own boundaries. 

He pursued the same policy with regard to the Britons, who, according toinformation received by him, had sent aid to the Gauls in their strugglewith Rome. His ships were brought round from the Loire to that part ofthe French coast now known as Boulogne, and he set out for Britain, where he landed, and eventually received the submission of the Britishchieftains. )

The Britons in their rude and barbarous state seemed to stand in need ofmore polished instructors; and indeed whatever evils may attend theconquest of heroes, their success has generally produced one good effectin disseminating the arts of refinement and humanity. It ever happenswhen a barbarous nation is conquered by another more advanced in thearts of peace, that it gains in elegance a recompense for what it losesin liberty. 

The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, whenCæsar, having overrun Gaul with his victories, and willing still furtherto extend his fame, determined upon the conquest of a country thatseemed to promise an easy triumph. He was allured neither by the richesnor by the renown of the inhabitants; but being ambitious rather ofsplendid than of useful conquests, he was willing to carry the Romanarms into a country the remote situation of which would add seemingdifficulty to the enterprise and consequently produce an increase ofreputation. His pretence was to punish these islanders for having sentsuccors to the Gauls while he waged war against that nation, as well asfor granting an asylum to such of the enemy as had sought protectionfrom his resentment. 

The natives, informed of his intention, were sensible of the unequalcontest and endeavored to appease him by submission. He received theirambassadors with great complacency, and having exhorted them to continuesteadfast in the same sentiments, in the mean time made preparations forthe execution of his design. When the troops designed for the expeditionwere embarked he set sail for Britain about midnight, and the nextmorning arrived on the coast near Dover, where he saw the rocks andcliffs covered with armed men to oppose his landing. 

Finding it impracticable to gain the shore where he first intended, fromthe agitation of the sea and the impending mountains, he resolved tochoose a landing-place of greater security. The place he chose was abouteight miles farther on (some suppose at Deal), where an inclining shoreand a level country invited his attempts. The poor, naked, ill-armedBritons we may well suppose were but an unequal match for thedisciplined Romans who had before conquered Gaul and afterward becamethe conquerors of the world. However, they made a brave oppositionagainst the veteran army; the conflicts between them were fierce, thelosses mutual, and the success various. 

The Britons had chosen Cassibelaunus for their commander-in-chief; butthe petty princes under his command, either desiring his station orsuspecting his fidelity, threw off their allegiance. Some of them fledwith their forces into the internal parts of the kingdom, otherssubmitted to Caesar; till at length Cassibelaunus himself, weakened byso many desertions, resolved upon making what terms he was able whileyet he had power to keep the field. The conditions offered by Caesar andaccepted by him were that he should send to the Continent double thenumber of hostages at first demanded and that he should acknowledgesubjection to the Romans. 

The Romans were pleased with the name of this new and remote conquest, and the senate decreed a supplication of twenty days in consequence oftheir general's success. Having therefore in this manner ratherdiscovered than subdued the southern parts of the island, Caesarreturned into Gaul with his forces and left the Britons to enjoy theircustoms, religion, and laws. But the inhabitants, thus relieved from theterror of his arms, neglected the performance of their stipulations, andonly two of their states sent over hostages according to the treaty. Caesar, it is likely, was not much displeased at the omission, as itfurnished him with a pretext for visiting the island once more andcompleting a conquest which he had only begun. 

Accordingly the ensuing spring he set sail for Britain with eighthundred ships, [69] and arriving at the place of his descent he landedwithout opposition. The islanders being apprised of his invasion hadassembled an army and marched down to the sea-side to oppose him, butseeing the number of his forces, and the whole sea, as it were, coveredwith his shipping, they were struck with consternation and retired totheir places of security. The Romans, however, pursued them to theirretreats until at last common danger induced these poor barbarians toforget their former dissensions and to unite their whole strength forthe mutual defence of their liberty and possessions. 

[Footnote 69: With regard to these Roman _ships_, let not our readers bemisled by a familiar notion or a pompous name. They were but little morethan rowboats, as may be easily imagined from the fact that Ciceroinstances for its uncommon magnitude a _ship_ of only fifty-six tons!These ancient vessels were occasionally sheathed with leather or lead, and had the prow decorated with paint and gilding, while the stern wassometimes carved in the figure of a shield, elaborately adorned. Upon astaff there erected hung ribbons distinctive of the ship and serving atthe same time to show the direction of the wind. There, too, stood the_tutela_, or chosen patron of the ship, to whom prayers and sacrificeswere daily offered. The selection of this deity was guided by eitherprivate or professional reasons, and as merchants committed themselvesto the protection of Mercury, or lovers to the care of Cupid, warriors, it will at once be surmised, made Mars the object of their pioussupplication. 

At a later period than the epoch to which our present note attaches, when Constantius removed from Heliopolis to Rome an enormous obelisk, weighing fifteen hundred tons, the vessel on board of which it wasshipped also carried _eleven hundred and thirty-eight tons_ of pulse;but such vast and unmanageable masses were regarded as monsters, andowed their existence to the absolute urgency of a remarkable purpose, backed by the despotic institutions of the times. ]

Cassibelaunus was chosen to conduct the common cause, and for some timehe harassed the Romans in their march and revived the desponding hopesof his countrymen. But no opposition that undisciplined strength couldmake was able to repress the vigor and intrepidity of Cæsar. Hediscomfited the Britons in every action; he advanced into the country, passed the Thames in the face of the enemy, took and burned the capitalcity of Cassibelaunus, established his ally Mandubratius as sovereign ofthe Trinobantes; and having obliged the inhabitants to make newsubmissions, he again returned with his army into Gaul, having madehimself rather the nominal than the real possessor of the island. 

Whatever the stipulated tribute might have been, it is more thanprobable, as there was no authority left to exact it, that it was butindifferently paid. Upon the accession of Augustus, that Emperor hadformed a design of visiting Britain, but was diverted from it by anunexpected revolt of the Pannonians. Some years after he resumed hisdesign; but being met in his way by the British ambassadors, whopromised the accustomed tribute and made the usual submissions, hedesisted from his intention. The year following, finding them remiss intheir supplies and untrue to their former professions, he once moreprepared for the invasion of the country; but a well-timed embassy againaverted his indignation, and the submissions he received seemed tosatisfy his resentment; upon his death-bed he appeared sensible of theovergrown extent of the Roman Empire and recommended it to hissuccessors never to enlarge their territories. 

Tiberius followed the maxims of Augustus and, wisely judging the empirealready too extensive, made no attempt upon Britain. Some Roman soldiershaving been wrecked on the British coast the inhabitants not onlyassisted them with the greatest humanity, but sent them in safety backto their general. In consequence of these friendly dispositions, aconstant intercourse of good offices subsisted between the two nations;the principal British nobility resorted to Rome, and many received theireducation there. 

From that time the Britons began to improve in all the arts whichcontribute to the advancement of human nature. The first art which asavage people is generally taught by politer neighbors is that of war. The Britons thenceforward, though not wholly addicted to the Romanmethod of fighting, nevertheless adopted several of their improvements, as well in their arms as in their arrangement in the field. Theirferocity to strangers, for which they had been always remarkable, wasmitigated and they began to permit an intercourse of commerce even inthe internal parts of the country. They still, however, continued tolive as herdsmen and hunters; a manifest proof that the country was yetbut thinly inhabited. A nation of hunters can never be populous, astheir subsistence is necessarily diffused over a large tract of country, while the husbandman converts every part of nature to human use, andflourishes most by the vicinity of those whom he is to support. 

The wild extravagances of Caligula by which he threatened Britain withan invasion served rather to expose him to ridicule than the island todanger. The Britons therefore for almost a century enjoyed their libertyunmolested, till at length the Romans in the reign of Claudius began tothink seriously of reducing them under their dominion. The expeditionfor this purpose was conducted in the beginning by Plautius and othercommanders, with that success which usually attended the Roman arms. 

Claudius himself, finding affairs sufficiently prepared for hisreception, made a journey thither and received the submission of suchstates as living by commerce were willing to purchase tranquillity atthe expense of freedom. It is true that many of the inland provincespreferred their native simplicity to imported elegance and, rather thanbow their necks to the Roman yoke, offered their bosoms to the sword. But the southern coast with all the adjacent inland country was seizedby the conquerors, who secured the possession by fortifying camps, building fortresses, and planting colonies. The other parts of thecountry, either thought themselves in no danger or continued patientspectators of the approaching devastation. 

Caractacus was the first who seemed willing, by a vigorous effort, torescue his country and repel its insulting and rapacious conquerors. [70]The venality and corruption of the Roman prætors and officers, who wereappointed to levy the contributions in Britain, served to excite theindignation of the natives and give spirit to his attempts. This rudesoldier, though with inferior forces, continued for about the space ofnine years to oppose and harass the Romans; so that at length OstoriusScapula was sent over to command their armies. He was more successfulthan his predecessors. He advanced the Roman conquest over Britain, pierced the country of the Silures, a warlike nation along the banks ofthe Severn, and at length came up with Caractacus, who had takenpossession of a very advantageous post upon an almost inaccessiblemountain, washed by a deep and rapid stream. 

[Footnote 70: The character of this hero has been powerfully depicted byBeaumont and Fletcher, in one of their noblest dramas. ]

The unfortunate British general, when he saw the enemy approaching, drewup his army, composed of different tribes, and going from rank to rankexhorted them to strike the last blow for liberty, safety, and life. Tothese exhortations his soldiers replied with shouts of determined valor. But what could undisciplined bravery avail against the attack of an armyskilled in all the arts of war and inspired by a long train ofconquests? The Britons were, after an obstinate resistance, totallyrouted, and a few days after Caractacus himself was delivered up to theconquerors by Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, with whom he hadtaken refuge. The capture of this general was received with such joy atRome that Claudius commanded that he should be brought from Britain inorder to be exhibited as a spectacle to the Roman people. Accordingly, on the day appointed for that purpose, the Emperor, ascending histhrone, ordered the captives and Caractacus among the number to bebrought into his presence. The vassals of the British King, with thespoils taken in war, were first brought forward; these were followed byhis family, who, with abject lamentations, were seen to implore formercy. 

Last of all came Caractacus with an undaunted air and a dignifiedaspect. He appeared no way dejected at the amazing concourse ofspectators that were gathered upon this occasion, but, casting his eyeson the splendors that surrounded him, "Alas!" cried he, "how is itpossible that a people possessed of such magnificence at home could envyme an humble cottage in Britain?" When brought into the Emperor'spresence he is said to have addressed him in the following manner: "Hadmy moderation been equal to my birth and fortune, I had arrived in thiscity not as a captive, but as a friend. But my present misfortunesredound as much to your honor as to my disgrace; and the obstinacy of myopposition serves to increase the splendor of your victory. Had Isurrendered myself in the beginning of the contest, neither my disgracenor your glory would have attracted the attention of the world, and myfate would have been buried in general oblivion. I am now at your mercy;but if my life be spared, I shall remain an eternal monument of yourclemency and moderation. " The Emperor was affected with the Britishhero's misfortunes and won by his address. He ordered him to beunchained upon the spot, with the rest of the captives, and the firstuse they made of their liberty was to go and prostrate themselves beforethe empress Agrippina, who as some suppose had been an intercessor fortheir freedom. 

Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued, andthis island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in whichmilitary honor might still be acquired. The Britons made one expiringeffort to recover their liberty in the time of Nero, taking advantage ofthe absence of Paulinus, the Roman general, who was employed in subduingthe isle of Anglesey. That small island, separated from Britain by anarrow channel, still continued the chief seat of the Druidicalsuperstition, and constantly afforded a retreat to their defeatedforces. It was thought necessary therefore to subdue that place, inorder to extirpate a religion that disdained submission to foreign lawsor leaders; and Paulinus, the greatest general of his age, undertook thetask. 

The Britons endeavored to obstruct his landing on that last retreat oftheir superstitions and liberties, both by the force of their arms andthe terrors of their religion. The priests and islanders were drawn upin order of battle upon the shore, to oppose his landing. The women, dressed like Furies, with dishevelled hair, and torches in their hands, poured forth the most terrible execrations. Such a sight at firstconfounded the Romans and fixed them motionless on the spot; so thatthey received the first assault without opposition. But Paulinus, exhorting his troops to despise the menaces of an absurd superstition, impelled them to the attack, drove the Britons off the field, burned theDruids in the same fires they had prepared for their captive enemies, and destroyed all their consecrated groves and altars. 

In the mean time the Britons, taking advantage of his absence, resolved, by a general insurrection, to free themselves from that state of abjectservitude to which they were reduced by the Romans. They had manymotives to aggravate their resentment--the greatness of their taxes, which were levied with unremitting severity; the cruel insolence oftheir conquerors, who reproached that very poverty which they hadcaused, but particularly the barbarous treatment of Boadicea, queen ofthe Iceni, drove them at last into open rebellion. 

Prasatagus, king of the Iceni, at his death had bequeathed one-half ofhis dominions to the Romans, and the other to his daughters; thus hopingby the sacrifice of a part to secure the rest in his family; but it hada different effect; for the Roman procurator immediately took possessionof the whole, and when Boadicea, the widow of the deceased, attempted toremonstrate, he ordered her to be scourged like a slave, and violatedthe chastity of her daughters. These outrages were sufficient to producea revolt through the whole island. The Iceni, being the most deeplyinterested in the quarrel, were the first to take arms; all the otherstates soon followed the example, and Boadicea, a woman of great beautyand masculine spirit, was appointed to head the common forces, whichamounted to two hundred and thirty thousand fighting men. 

These, exasperated by their wrongs, attacked several of the Romansettlements and colonies with success, Paulinus hastened to relieveLondon, which was already a flourishing colony; but found on his arrivalthat it would be requisite, for the general safety, to abandon thatplace to the merciless fury of the enemy. London was therefore soonreduced to ashes; such of the inhabitants as remained in it weremassacred; and the Romans with all other strangers to the number ofseventy thousand were cruelly put to the sword. Flushed with thesesuccesses the Britons no longer sought to avoid the enemy, but boldlycame to the place where Paulinus awaited their arrival, posted in a veryadvantageous manner with a body of ten thousand men. The battle wasobstinate and bloody. Boadicea herself appeared in a chariot with hertwo daughters and harangued her army with masculine firmness; but theirregular and undisciplined bravery of her troops was unable to resistthe cool intrepidity of the Romans. They were routed with greatslaughter; eighty thousand perished in the field, and an infinite numberwere made prisoners, while Boadicea herself, fearing to fall into thehands of the enraged victor, put an end to her life by poison. Nero soonafter recalled Paulinus from a government where, by suffering andinflicting so many severities, he was judged improper to compose theangry and alarmed minds of the natives. 

After an interval, Cerealis received the command from Vespasian, and byhis bravery propagated the terror of the Roman arms. Julius Frontinussucceeded Cerealis both in authority and reputation. The general whofinally established the dominion of the Romans in this island was JuliusAgricola, who governed it during the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, andDomitian, and distinguished himself as well by his courage as humanity. 

Agricola, who is considered as one of the greatest characters inhistory, formed a regular plan for subduing and civilizing the island, and thus rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors. As thenorthern part of the country was least tractable, he carried hisvictorious arms thither, and defeated the undisciplined enemy in everyencounter. He pierced into the formerly inaccessible forests andmountains of Caledonia; he drove onward all those fierce and intractablespirits who preferred famine to slavery, and who, rather than submit, chose to remain in perpetual hostility. Nor was it without oppositionthat he thus made his way into a country rude and impervious by nature. 

He was opposed by Galgacus at the head of a numerous army, whom hedefeated in a decisive action, in which considerable numbers were slain. Being thus successful, he did not think proper to pursue the enemy intotheir retreats; but embarking a body of troops on board his fleet, heordered the commander to surround the whole coast of Britain, which hadnot been discovered to be an island till the preceding year. Thisarmament, pursuant to his orders, steered to the northward, and theresubdued the Orkneys; then making the tour of the whole island, itarrived in the port of Sandwich, without having met with the leastdisaster. 

During these military enterprises, Agricola was ever attentive to thearts of peace. He attempted to humanize the fierceness of those whoacknowledged his power, by introducing the Roman laws, habits, manners, and learning. He taught them to desire and raise all the conveniences oflife, instructed them in the arts of agriculture, and, in order toprotect them in their peaceable possessions, he drew a rampart, andfixed a train of garrisons between them and their northern neighbors, thus cutting off the ruder and more barren parts of the island andsecuring the Roman province from the invasion of a fierce andnecessitous enemy. In this manner the Britons, being almost totallysubdued, now began to throw off all hopes of recovering their formerliberty, and, having often experienced the superiority of the Romans, consented to submit, and were content with safety. From that time theRomans seemed more desirous of securing what they possessed than ofmaking new conquests, and were employed rather in repressing thanpunishing their restless northern invaders. 

CLEOPATRA'S CONQUEST OF CÆSAR ANDANTONY

B. C. 51-30

JOHN P. MAHAFFY

(Several Egyptian princesses of the line of the Ptolemies bore the nameof Cleopatra, but history, romance, and tragedy are all illumined withthe story of one--Cleopatra the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes. Born atAlexandria, B. C. 69, she ruled jointly with her brother Ptolemy from 51to 48. Being then expelled by her colleague, she entered upon theperformance of her part in Roman history when her cause was espoused byJulius Cæsar, whom she had captivated by her charms. Her reinstatementby the help of Cæsar, as well as all that followed in her relations withRoman rulers, was due primarily to personal considerations, rather thanpolitical or military causes; and among women whose lives have vitallyinfluenced the conduct of great historic leaders, and thereby affectedthe course of events, Cleopatra holds a place at once the mostconspicuous and most unique. 

Like Cæsar, Mark Antony, at his first interview with Cleopatra, succumbed to the fascinations of the "Rare Egyptian, " and he never afterceased to be her slave. Not long after Cæsar's death Antony had marriedFulvia, whom he deserted for the "enchanting queen. " From this point toits culmination in overwhelming disaster and the tragic death of thiscelebrated pair of lovers, the romantic drama of Cleopatra's conquestsbecomes even more important in literature than in history. Thisextraordinary voluptuary, whose beauty and witcheries have interestedmankind for almost twenty centuries, has been the subject of some thirtytragedies in various languages; and in _Antony and Cleopatra_--one ofhis greatest plays--Shakespeare, closely following the narratives ofPlutarch and other classical writers, has invested her with a potency ofcharm unparalleled among literary creations. 

She matches Antony in qualities of intellect, while she dazzles him withher coquettish arts. "A queen, a siren, " says Thomas Campbell, "aShakespeare's Cleopatra alone could have entangled Shakespeare'sAntony. " And Shakespeare alone, as declared by Mrs. Jameson, "has daredto exhibit the Egyptian Queen with all her greatness and all herlittleness, all her paltry arts and dissolute passions, yet awakened ourpity for fallen grandeur without once beguiling us into sympathy withguilt. "

Yet the plain history of this "Sorceress of the Nile, " with her"infinite variety, " as told by Plutarch and the other ancients, andretold, with whatever advantages gained from critical research, by themodern masters, makes the same impression of moral contrast andinscrutability as that imparted by the greatest poet who has dramatizedthe character of Cleopatra. )

Now at last Egypt, coming into close connection with the world'smasters, becomes the stage for some of the most striking scenes inancient history. They seem to most readers something new andstrange--the pageants and passions of the fratricide Cleopatra assomething unparalleled--and yet she was one of a race in which almostevery reigning princess for the last two hundred years had been swayedby like storms of passion, or had been guilty of like daring violationsof common humanity. What Arsinoë, what Cleopatra, from the first to thelast, had hesitated to murder a brother or a husband, to assume thethrone, to raise and command armies, to discard or adopt a partner ofher throne from caprice in policy, or policy in caprice? But hithertothis desperate gambling with life had been carried on in Egypt andSyria; the play had been with Hellenistic pawns--Egyptian or Syrianprinces; the last Cleopatra came to play with Roman pieces, easierapparently to move than the others, but implying higher stakes, greaterglory in the victory, greater disaster in the defeat. Therefore is itthat this last Cleopatra, probably no more than an average specimen ofthe beauty, talent, daring, and cruelty of her ancestors, has taken anunique place among them in the imagination of the world, and holds herown even now and forever as a familiar name throughout the world. 

Ptolemy Auletes, when dying, had taken great care not to bequeath hismortgaged kingdom to his Roman creditors. In his will he had named ashis heirs the elder of his two sons, and his daughter, who was theeldest of the family. Nobody thought of claiming Egypt for a heritage ofthe Roman Republic, when the whole world was the prize proposed in thecivil conflict, for though the war of Cæsar and Pompey had not actuallybroken out, the political sky was lowering with blackness, and thecoming tempest was muttering its thunder through the sultry air. SoCleopatra, now about sixteen or seventeen years of age, and her muchyounger brother (about ten) assumed the throne as was traditional, without any tumult or controversy, The opening discords came from within the royal family. The tutors andadvisers of the young King, among whom Pothinos, a eunuch brought upwith him as his playmate, according to the custom of the court, was theablest and most influential, persuaded him to assume sole direction ofaffairs and to depose his elder sister. Cleopatra was not able tomaintain herself in Alexandria, but went to Syria as an exile, where shepromptly collected an army, as was the wont of these Egyptianprincesses, who seem to have resources always under their control, andreturned--within a few months, says Cæsar--by way of Pelusium, toreconquer her lawful share in the throne. This happened in the fourthyear of their so-called joint reign, B. C. 48, at the very time thatPompey and Cæsar were engaged in their conflict for a far greaterkingdom. 

Cæsar expressed his opinion that the quarrel of the sovereigns in Egyptconcerned the Roman people, and himself as consul, the more so as it wasin his previous consulate that the recognition of and alliance withtheir father had taken place. So he signified his decision that Ptolemyand Cleopatra should dismiss their armies, and should discuss theirclaims before him by argument and not by arms. All our authorities, except Dio Cassius, state that he sent for Cleopatra that she mightpersonally urge her claims; but Dio tells us, with far more detail and Ithink greater probability, "that at first the quarrel with her brotherwas argued for her by friends, till she, learning the amorous characterof Cæsar, sent him word that her case was being mismanaged by heradvocates, and she desired to plead it herself, She was then in theflower of her age (about twenty) and celebrated for her beauty. Moreover, she had the sweetest of voices, and every charm ofconversation, so that she was likely to ensnare even the most obdurateand elderly man. These gifts she regarded as her claims upon Cæsar. Sheprayed therefore for an interview, and adorned herself in a garb mostbecoming, but likely to arouse his pity, and so came secretly by nightto visit him. "

If she indeed arrived secretly and was carried into the palace by onefaithful follower as a bale of carpet, it was from fear of assassinationby the party of Pothinos. She knew that as soon as she had reachedCæsar's sentries she was safe; as the event proved, she was more thansafe, for in the brief interval of peace, and perhaps even of apparentjollity, while the royal dispute was under discussion, she gained aninfluence over Cæsar which she retained till his death. Cæsaradjudicated the throne according to the will of Auletes; he evenrestored Cyprus to Egypt, and proposed to send the younger brother andhis sister Arsinoë to govern it; but he also insisted on a repayment, inpart at least, of the enormous outstanding debt of Auletes to him andhis party. 

A few months after Cæsar's departure from Egypt Cleopatra gave birth toa son, whom she alleged, without any immediate contradiction, to be thedictator's. The Alexandrians called him Cæsarion, and she never swervedfrom asserting for him royal privileges. We hear of no other lover, though it is impossible to imagine Cleopatra arriving at the age oftwenty without providing herself with this luxury. She was, however, afraid to let Cæsar live far from her influence, and some time beforehis assassination--that is to say, some time between B. C. 48 and 44--shecame with the young King her brother to Rome, where she was received inCæsar's palace beyond the Tiber, causing by her residence thereconsiderable scandal among the stricter Romans. Cicero confesses that hewent to see her, but protests that his reasons for doing so wereabsolutely nonpolitical. Cicero found her haughty; he does not say shewas beautiful and fascinating. We do not hear of any political activityon her part, though Cicero evidently suspects it; it is well-nighimpossible that she can have preferred her very doubtful position atRome to her brilliant life in the East. She was suspected of urgingCæsar to move eastward the capital of his new empire, to desert Rome, and choose either Ilium, the imaginary cradle of his race, orAlexandria, as his residence. She is likely to have encouraged at allevents his expedition against the Parthians, which would bring him toSyria, whence she hoped to gain new territory for her son. The wholesituation is eloquently, perhaps too eloquently, described by Merivale, for he weaves in many conjectures of his own, as if they wereascertained facts. 

The colors of this imitation of a hateful original [the oriental despot]were heightened by the demeanor of Cleopatra, who followed her lover toRome at his invitation. She came with the younger Ptolemæus, who nowshared her throne, and her ostensible object was to negotiate a treatybetween her kingdom and the Commonwealth. While the Egyptian nation wasformally admitted to the friendship and alliance of Rome, its sovereignwas lodged in Cæsar's villa on the other side of the Tiber, and thestatue of the most fascinating of women was erected in the temple of theGoddess of Love and Beauty. The connection which subsisted between herand the dictator was unblushingly avowed. Public opinion demanded noconcessions to its delicacy; the feelings of the injured Calpurnia hadbeen blunted by repeated outrage, and Cleopatra was encouraged toproclaim openly that her child Cæsarion was the son of her Romanadmirer. A tribune, named Helvius Cinna, ventured, it is said, to assertamong his friends that he was prepared to propose a law, with thedictator's sanction, to enable him to marry more wives than one, for thesake of progeny, and to disregard in his choice the legitimatequalification of Roman descent. The Romans, however, were spared thislast insult to their prejudices. The queen of Egypt felt bitterly thescorn with which she was popularly regarded as the representative of aneffeminate and licentious people. It is not improbable that she employedher fatal influence to withdraw her lover from the Roman capital, andurged him to schemes of oriental conquest to bring him more completelywithin her toils. In the mean while the haughtiness of her demeanorcorresponded with the splendid anticipations in which she indulged. Sheheld a court in the suburbs of the city, at which the adherents of thedictator's policy were not the only attendants. Even his opponents andconcealed enemies were glad to bask in the sunshine of her smiles. 

When Cæsar was assassinated, she was still at Rome, and had some wildhopes of having her son recognized by the Cæsareans. But failing in thisshe escaped secretly, and sailed to Egypt, not without causingsatisfaction to cautious men like Cicero that she was gone. The passagein which he seems to allude to a rumor that she was about to haveanother child--another misfortune to the State--does not bear thatinterpretation. As he says not a word concerning the young king Ptolemy, we may assume that the youth was already dead, and that he died at Rome. The common belief was that Cleopatra poisoned him as soon as hisincreasing years made him troublesome to her. In her reign four yearsare assigned to a joint rule with her elder brother, four more to thatwith her younger, so that this latter must have died in the same year asCæsar. 

Cleopatra, watching from Egypt the great civil war which ensued, summoned and commanded by the various leaders to send aid in ships andmoney, threatened with plunder and confiscation by those who were nowexhausting Asia Minor and the islands with monstrous exactions, hadample occupation for her talents in steering safely among these constantdangers. Appian says she pleaded famine and pestilence in her country indeclining the demands of Cassius for subsidies. The latter was on thepoint of invading Egypt, at the moment denuded of defending forces and_wasted with famine_, when he was summoned to Philippi by Brutus. 

It was not till B. C. 41, after the decisive battle of Philippi, that thevictorious Antony, turning to subdue the East to the Cæsarean cause, held his _joyeuse entrée_ into Ephesus, and then proceeded to drain allAsia Minor of money for the satisfaction of his greedy legionaries andhis own still more greedy vices. Reaching Cilicia, he sent an order tothe queen of Egypt to come before him and explain her conduct during thelate war, for she was reported to have sent aid to Cassius. The sequelmay be told in Plutarch's famous narrative:

"Dellius, who was sent on this message, had no sooner seen her face, andremarked her adroitness and subtlety in speech, than he felt convincedthat Antony would not so much as think of giving any molestation to awoman like this. On the contrary, she would be the first in favor withhim. So he set himself at once to pay his court to the Egyptian, andgave her his advice, 'to go, ' in the Homeric style, to Cilicia, 'in herbest attire, ' and bade her fear nothing from Antony, the gentlest andkindest of soldiers. She had some faith in the words of Dellius, butmore in her own attractions, which, having formerly recommended her toCæsar and the young Cnaeus Pompey, she did not doubt might yet provemore successful with Antony. Their acquaintance was with her when agirl, young, and ignorant of the world, but she was to meet Antony inthe time of life when women's beauty is most splendid and theirintellects are in full maturity. She made great preparation for herjourney, of money, gifts, and ornaments of value, such as so wealthy akingdom might afford, but she brought with her her surest hopes in herown magic arts and charms. 

"She received several letters, both from Antony and from his friends, tosummon her, but she took no account of these orders; and at last, as ifin mockery of them, she came sailing up the river Cydnus, in a bargewith gilded stern and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silverbeat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps. She herself layall along, under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in apicture, and beautiful young boys, like painted cupids, stood on eachside to fan her. Her maids were dressed like sea nymphs and graces, somesteering at the rudder, some working at the ropes. [71] The perfumesdiffused themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered withmultitudes, part following the galley up the river on either bank, partrunning out of the city to see the sight. The market-place was quiteemptied, and Antony at last was left alone sitting upon the tribunal, while the word went through all the multitude that Venus was come tofeast with Bacchus, for the common good of Asia. [72] On her arrival, Antony sent to invite her to supper. She thought it fitter he shouldcome to her; so, willing to show his good humor and courtesy, hecomplied, and went. He found the preparations to receive him magnificentbeyond expression, but nothing so admirable as the great number oflights, for on a sudden there was let down altogether so great a numberof branches with lights in them so ingeniously disposed, some in squaresand some in circles, that the whole thing was a spectacle that hasseldom been equalled for beauty. "

[Footnote 71: There was no Egyptian feature in this show, which waspurely Hellenistic. ]

[Footnote 72: How easily such a belief started up in the minds of acrowd in the Asia Minor of that day appears from Acts xiv. 11 _seq_. , where the crowd at Iconium, on seeing a cripple cured, at once exclaimthat the gods are come down to them in the likeness of men, and callBarnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker, bringing sacrifices to offer to the apostles. ]

"The next day Antony invited her to supper, and was very desirous tooutdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance; but he found he wasaltogether beaten in both, and was so well convinced of it that he washimself the first to jest and mock at his poverty of wit and his rusticawkwardness. She, perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross andsavored more of the soldier than the courtier, rejoined in the sametaste, and fell into it at once, without any sort of reluctance orreserve, for her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself soremarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one couldsee her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, ifyou lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation and the character thatattended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was apleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like aninstrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another;so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by aninterpreter. To most of them she spoke herself, as to the Ethiopians, troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians, and manyothers, whose language she had learned;[73] which was all the moresurprising, because most of the kings her predecessors scarcely gavethemselves the trouble to acquire the Egyptian tongue, and several ofthem quite abandoned the Macedonian. "

[Footnote 73: We have here the usual lies of courtiers. ]

"Antony was so captivated by her that, while Fulvia, his wife, maintained his quarrels in Rome against Cæsar by actual force of arms, and the Parthian troops, commanded by Labienus--the King's generalshaving made him commander-in-chief--were assembled in Mesopotamia, andready to enter Syria, he could yet suffer himself to be carried away byher to Alexandria, there to keep holiday, like a boy, in play anddiversion, squandering and fooling away in enjoyments that most costly, as Antiphon says, of all valuables, time. They had a sort of company, towhich they gave a particular name, calling it that of the 'InimitableLivers. ' The members entertained one another daily in turn, with anextravagance of expenditure beyond measure or belief. Philotas, aphysician of Amphissa, who was at that time a student of medicine inAlexandria, used to tell my grandfather Lamprias that, having someacquaintance with one of the royal cooks, he was invited by him, being ayoung man, to come and see the sumptuous preparations for dinner. So hewas taken into the kitchen, where he admired the prodigious variety ofall things, but, particularly seeing eight wild boars roasting whole, says he, 'Surely you have a great number of guests. ' The cook laughed athis simplicity, and told him there were not above twelve to dine, butthat every dish was to be served up just roasted to a turn, and ifanything was but one minute ill-timed it was spoiled. 'And, ' said he, 'maybe Antony will dine just now, maybe not this hour, maybe he willcall for wine, or begin to talk, and will put it off. So that, ' hecontinued, 'it is not one, but many dinners, must be had in readiness, as it is impossible to guess at his hour. '"

Plato admits four sorts of flattery, but Cleopatra had a thousand. WereAntony serious or disposed to mirth she had any moment some new delightor charm to meet his wishes. At every turn she was upon him, and let himescape her neither by day nor by night. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him, and when he exercised in arms she wasthere to see. At night she would go rambling with him to joke withpeople at their doors and windows, dressed like a servant woman, forAntony also went in servant's disguise, and from these expeditions healways came home very scurvily answered, and sometimes even beatenseverely, though most people guessed who it was. However, theAlexandrians in general liked it all well enough, and joinedgood-humoredly and kindly in his frolic and play, saying they were muchobliged to Antony for acting his tragic parts at Rome and keeping hiscomedy for them. It would be trifling without end to be particular inrelating his follies, but his fishing must not be forgotten. He went outone day to angle with Cleopatra, and being so unfortunate as to catchnothing in the presence of his mistress, he gave secret orders to thefishermen to dive under water and put fishes that had been already takenupon his hooks, and these he drew in so fast that the Egyptian perceivedit. But feigning great admiration, she told everybody how dexterousAntony was, and invited them next day to come and see him again. So whena number of them had come on board the fishing boats, as soon as he hadlet down his hook, one of her servants was beforehand with his diversand fixed upon his hook a salted fish from Pontus. Antony, feeling hisline taut, drew up the prey, and when, as may be imagined, greatlaughter ensued, "Leave, " said Cleopatra, "the fishing rod, autocrat, tous poor sovereigns of Pharos and Canopus; your game is cities, kingdoms, and continents. "

Plutarch does not mention the most tragic and the most characteristicproof of Cleopatra's complete conquest of Antony. Among his other crimesof obedience he sent by her orders and put to death the PrincessArsinoë, who, knowing well her danger, had taken refuge as a suppliantin the temple of Artemis Leucophryne at Miletus. 

It is not our duty to follow the various complications of war anddiplomacy, accompanied by the marriage with the serious and gentleOctavia, whereby the brilliant but dissolute Antony was weaned, as itwere, from his follies, and persuaded to live a life of public activity. Whether the wily Octavian did not foresee the result, whether he did noteven sacrifice his sister to accumulate odium against his dangerousrival, is not for us to determine. But when it was arranged (in B. C. 36)that Antony should lead an expedition against the Parthians, any man ofordinary sense must have known that he would come within the reach ofthe eastern siren, and was sure to be again attracted by her fatalvoice. It is hard to account for her strange patience during these fouryears. She had borne twins to Antony, probably after the meeting inCilicia. Though she still maintained the claims of her eldest sonCæsarion to be the divine Julius' only direct heir, we do not hear ofher sending requests to Antony to support him, or that any agents wereworking in her interests at Rome. She was too subtle a woman to solicithis return to Alexandria. There are mistaken insinuations that shethought the chances of Sextus Pompey, with his naval supremacy, betterthan those of Antony, but these stories refer to his brother Cnaeus, whovisited Egypt before Pharsalia. 

It is probably to this pause in her life, as we know it, that we mayrefer her activity in repairing and enlarging the national temples. Thesplendid edifice at Dendera, at present among the most perfect ofEgyptian temples, bears no older names than those of Cleopatra and herson Cæsarion, and their portraits represent the latter as a growing lad, his mother as an essentially Egyptian figure, conventionally drawnaccording to the rules which had determined the figures of gods andkings for fifteen hundred years. Under these circumstances it is idle tospeak of this well-known relief picture as a portrait of the Queen. Itis no more so than the granite statues in the Vatican are portraits ofPhiladelphus and Arsinoë. The artist had probably never seen the Queen, and if he had, it would not have produced the slightest alteration inhis drawing. 

Plutarch expressly says that it was not in peerless beauty that herfascination lay, but in the combination of more than average beauty withmany other personal attractions. The Egyptian portrait is likely toconfirm in the spectator's mind the impression derived fromShakespeare's play, that Cleopatra was a swarthy Egyptian, in strongcontrast to the fair Roman ladies, and suggesting a wide difference ofrace. She was no more an Egyptian than she was an Indian, but a pureMacedonian, of a race akin to, and perhaps fairer than, the Greeks. 

No sooner had Antony reached Syria than the fell influence of theEgyptian Queen revived. In the words of Plutarch:

"But the mischief that thus long had lain still, the passion forCleopatra, which better thoughts had seemed to have lulled and charmedinto oblivion, upon his approach to Syria, gathered strength again, andbroke out into a flame. And in fine, like Plato's restive and rebellioushorse of the human soul, flinging off all good and wholesome counsel andbreaking fairly loose, he sent Fonteius Capito to bring Cleopatra intoSyria; to whom at her arrival he made no small or triflingpresent--Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, Cyprus, great part of Cilicia, thatside of Judea which produces balm, that part of Arabia where theNabathaeans extend to the outer sea--profuse gifts which much displeasedthe Romans. For although he had invested several private persons withgreat governments and kingdoms, and bereaved many kings of theirs, asAntigonus of Judea, whose head he caused to be struck off--the firstexample of that punishment being inflicted on a king--yet nothing stungthe Romans like the shame of these honors paid to Cleopatra. Theirdissatisfaction was augmented also by his acknowledging as his own thetwin children he had by her, giving them the names of Alexander andCleopatra, and adding, as their surnames, the titles of Sun and Moon. "

After much dallying the triumvir really started for the wild East, whither it is not our business to follow him. Cleopatra he sent home toEgypt, to await his victorious return, and it was on this occasion thatshe came in state to Jerusalem to visit Herod the Great--probably themost brilliant scene of the kind which had taken place since the queenof Sheba came to learn the wisdom of Solomon. But it was a verydifferent wisdom that Herod professed, and in which he was verily a highauthority, nor was the subtle daughter of the Ptolemies a docile pupil, but a practised expert in the same arts of cruelty and cunning;wherewith both pursued their several courses of ambition and sought towheedle from their Roman masters cities and provinces. The reunion ofAntony and Cleopatra must have greatly alarmed Herod, whose plans weredirectly thwarted by the freaks of Antony, and he must have beenpreparing at the time to make his case with Octavian, and seek from hisfavor protection against the new caprices of the then lord of the East. 

"The scene at Herod's palace must have been inimitable. The display ofcounter-fascinations between these two tigers; their voluptuous naturesmutually attracted; their hatred giving to each that deep interest inthe other which so often turns to mutual passion while it incites toconquest; the grace and finish of their manners, concealing a ruthlessferocity; the splendor of their appointments--what more dramatic picturecan we imagine in history?

"We hear that she actually attempted to seduce Herod, but failed, owingto his deep devotion to his wife Mariamne. The prosaic Josephus addsthat Herod consulted his council whether he should not put her to deathfor this attempt upon his virtue. He was dissuaded by them on the groundthat Antony would listen to no arguments, not even from the mostpersuasive of the world's princes, and would take awful vengeance whenhe heard of her death. So she was escorted with great gifts andpolitenesses back to Egypt. "

Such, then, was the character of this notorious Queen. But her violationof temples, and even of ancient tombs, for the sake of treasure musthave been a far more public and odious exhibition of that want ofrespect for the sentiment of others which is the essence of badmanners. [74]

[Footnote 74: _The Greek World under Roman Sway. _]

As is well known, the first campaign of Antony against Armenians andParthians was a signal failure, and it was only with great difficultythat he escaped the fate of Crassus. But Cleopatra was ready to meet himin Syria with provisions and clothes for his distressed and raggedbattalions, and he returned with her to spend the winter (B. C. 36-35) atAlexandria. She thus snatched him again from his noble wife, Octavia, who had come from Rome to Athens with succors even greater thanCleopatra had brought. This at least is the word of the historians whowrite in the interest of the Romans, and regard the queen of Egypt withhorror and with fear. 

The new campaign of Antony (B. C. 34) was apparently more prosperous, butit was only carried far enough to warrant his holding a Roman triumph atAlexandria--perhaps the only novelty in pomp which the triumvir couldexhibit to the Alexandrian populace, while it gave the most poignantoffence at Rome. It was apparently now that he made that formaldistribution of provinces which Octavian used as his chief _casusbelli_. 

"Nor was the division he made among his sons at Alexandria lessunpopular. It seemed a theatrical piece of insolence and contempt of hiscountry, for, assembling the people in the exercise ground, and causingtwo golden thrones to be placed on a platform of silver, the one for himand the other for Cleopatra, and at their feet lower thrones for theirchildren, he proclaimed Cleopatra queen of Egypt, Cyprus, Libya, andCoele-Syria, and with her conjointly Cæsarion, the reputed son of theformer Cæsar. His own sons by Cleopatra were to have the style of 'Kingof Kings'; to Alexander he gave Armenia and Media, with Parthia so soonas it should be overcome; to Ptolemy Phoenicia, Syria, and Cilicia. Alexander was brought out before the people in Median costume, the tiaraand upright peak, and Ptolemy in boots and mantle and Macedonian capdone about with the diadem; for this was the habit of the successors ofAlexander, as the other was of the Medes and Armenians. And, as soon asthey had saluted their parents, the one was received by a guard ofMacedonians, the other by one of Armenians. Cleopatra was then, as atother times when she appeared in public, dressed in the habit of thegoddess Isis, and gave audience to the people under the name of the NewIsis. 

"This over, he gave Priene to his players for a habitation, and set sailfor Athens, where fresh sports and play-acting employed him. Cleopatra, jealous of the honors Octavia had received at Athens--for Octavia wasmuch beloved by the Athenians--courted the favor of the people with allsorts of attentions. The Athenians, in requital, having decreed herpublic honors, deputed several of the citizens to wait upon her at herhouse, among whom went Antony as one, he being an Athenian citizen, andhe it was that made the speech. 

"The speed and extent of Antony's preparations alarmed Cæsar, who fearedhe might be forced to fight the decisive battle that summer, for hewanted many necessaries, and the people grudged very much to pay thetaxes; freemen being called upon to pay a fourth part of their incomes, and freed slaves an eighth of their property, so that there were loudoutcries against him, and disturbances throughout all Italy. And this islooked upon as one of the greatest of Antony's oversights that he didnot then press the war, for he allowed time at once for Cæsar to makehis preparations, and for the commotions to pass over, for while peoplewere having their money called for they were mutinous and violent; but, having paid it, they held their peace. 

"Titius and Plancus, men of consular dignity and friends to Antony, having been ill-used by Cleopatra, whom they had most resisted in herdesign of being present in the war, came over to Cæsar, and gaveinformation of the contents of Antony's will, with which they wereacquainted. It was deposited in the hands of the vestal virgins, whorefused to deliver it up, and sent Cæsar word, if he pleased, he shouldcome and seize it himself, which he did. And, reading it over tohimself, he noted those places that were most for his purpose, and, having summoned the senate, read them publicly. Many were scandalized atthe proceeding, thinking it out of reason and equity to call a man toaccount for what was not to be until after his death. Cæsar speciallypressed what Antony said in his will about his burial, for he hadordered that even if he died in the city of Rome, his body, after beingcarried in state through the Forum, should be sent to Cleopatra atAlexandria. 

"Calvisius, a dependent of Cæsar's, urged other charges in connectionwith Cleopatra against Antony: that he had given her the library ofPergamus, containing two hundred thousand distinct volumes; that at agreat banquet, in the presence of many guests, he had risen up andrubbed her feet, to fulfil some wager or promise; that he had sufferedthe Ephesians to salute her as their queen; that he had frequently atthe public audience of kings and princes received amorous messageswritten in tablets made of onyx and crystal, and read them openly on thetribunal; that when Furnius, a man of great authority and eloquenceamong the Romans, was pleading, Cleopatra happening to pass by in herlitter, Antony started up and left them in the middle of their cause, tofollow at her side and attend her home. "[75]

[Footnote 75: Plutarch: _Antony_. ]

When war was declared, Antony sought to gain the support of the East inthe conflict. He made alliance with a Median king who betrothed hisdaughter to Cleopatra's infant son Alexander; but he made the fatalmistake of allowing Cleopatra to accompany him to Samos, where hegathered his army, and even to Actium, where she led the way in flyingfrom the fight, and so persuading the infatuated Antony to leave hisarmy and join in her disgraceful escape. 

Historians have regarded this act of Cleopatra as the mere cowardice ofa woman who feared to look upon an armed conflict and join in the din ofbattle. But she was surely made of sterner stuff. She had probablycomputed with the utmost care the chances of the rivals, and had made upher mind that, in spite of Antony's gallantry, his cause was lost. [76]If she fought out the battle with her strong contingent of ships, shewould probably fall into Octavian's hands as a prisoner, and would haveno choice between suicide or death in the Roman prison, after beingexhibited to the mob in Octavian's triumph. There was no chance whateverthat she would have been spared, as was her sister Arsinoë after JuliusCæsar's triumph, nor would such clemency be less hateful than death. Butthere was still a chance, if Antony were killed or taken prisoner, thatshe might negotiate with the victor as queen of Egypt, with her fleet, army, and treasures intact, and who could tell what effect her charms, though now full ripe, might have upon the conqueror? Two great Romanshad yielded to her, why not the third, who seemed a smaller man?

[Footnote 76: Dion says that Antony was of the same opinion, and wentinto the battle intending to fly; but this does not agree with hischaracter or with the facts. ]

This view implies that she was already false to Antony, and it may wellbe asked how such a charge is compatible with the affecting scenes whichfollowed at Alexandria, where her policy seemed defeated by her passion, and she felt her old love too strong even for her heartless ambition? Iwill say in answer that there is no more frequent anomaly in thepsychology of female love than a strong passion coexisting with selfishambition, so that each takes the lead in turn; nay, even theconsciousness of treachery may so intensify the passion as to make awoman embrace with keener transports the lover whom she has betrayedthan one whom she has no thought of surrendering. There are, moreover, in these tragedies unexpected accidents, which so affect even thehardest nature that calculations are cast aside, and the old loyaltyresumes a temporary sway. Nor must we fail to insist again upon thetraditions wherein this last Cleopatra was born and bred. She came froma stock whose women played with love and with life as if they were merecounters. To hesitate whether such a scion of such a house would havedelayed to discard Antony and to assume another passion is to show smallappreciation of the effects of heredity and of example. Dion tells usthat she arrived in Alexandria before the news of her defeat, pretendeda victory, and took the occasion of committing many murders, in order toget rid of secret opponents, and also to gather wealth by confiscationof their goods, for both she and Antony, who came along the coast ofLibya, seem still to have thought of defending the inaccessible Egypt, and making terms for themselves and their children with the conqueror. But Antony's efforts completely failed; no one would rally to hisstandard. And meanwhile the false Queen had begun to send presents toCæsar and encourage him to treat with her. But when he bluntly proposedto her to murder Antony as the price of her reconciliation with himself, and when he even declared by proxy that he was in love with her, heclearly made a rash move in this game of diplomacy, though Dion says hepersuaded her of his love, and that accordingly she betrayed to him thefortress of Pelusium, the key of the country. Dion also differs fromPlutarch in repeatedly ascribing to Octavian great anxiety to secure thetreasures which Cleopatra had with her, and which she was likely todestroy by fire if driven to despair. 

The historian may well leave to the biographer, nay, to the poet, theaffecting details of the closing scenes of Cleopatra's life. In thefourth and fifth acts of _Antony and Cleopatra_ Shakespeare hasreproduced every detail of Plutarch's narrative, which was drawn fromthat of her physician Olympos. Her fascinations were not dead, for theyswayed Dolabella to play false to his master so far as to warn her ofhis intentions, and leave her time for her dignified and royal end. Butif these Hellenistic queens knew how to die, they knew not how to live. Even the penultimate scene of the tragedy, when she presents aninventory of her treasures to Octavian, and is charged by her stewardwith dishonesty, shows her in uncivilized violence striking the man inthe face and bursting into indecent fury, such as an Athenian, stillless a Roman, matron would have been ashamed to exhibit. Nor is thereany reason to doubt the genuineness of this scene, though we must not beweary of cautioning ourselves against the hostile witnesses who havereported to us her life. They praise nothing in her but her bewitchingpresence and her majestic death. 

"After her repast Cleopatra sent to Cæsar a letter which she had writtenand sealed, and, putting everybody out of the monument but her twowomen, she shut the doors. Cæsar, opening her letter, and findingpathetic prayers and entreaties that she might be buried in the sametomb with Antony, soon guessed what was doing. At first he was goinghimself in all haste; but, changing his mind, he sent others to see. Thething had been quickly done. The messengers came at full speed, andfound the guards apprehensive of nothing; but on opening the doors theysaw her stone dead, lying upon a bed of gold, set out in all her royalornaments. Iras, one of her women, lay dying at her feet, and Charmion, just ready to fall, scarce able to hold up her head, was adjusting hermistress' diadem. And when one that came in said angrily, 'Was this welldone of your lady, Charmion?' 'Perfectly well, ' she answered, 'and asbecame the daughter of so many kings'; and as she said this she felldown dead by the bedside. "

Even the hostile accounts cannot conceal from us that both in physiqueand in intellect she was a very remarkable figure, exceptional in herown, exceptional had she been born in any other, age. She is a speakinginstance of the falsehood of a prevailing belief, that the intermarriageof near relations invariably produces a decadence in the human race. Thewhole dynasty of the Ptolemies contradicts this current theory, andexhibits in the last of the series the most signal exception. CleopatraVI was descended from many generations of breeding-in, of which fourexhibit marriages of full brother and sister. And yet she was deficientin no quality, physical or intellectual, which goes to make up awell-bred and well-developed human being. Her morals were indeed thoseof her ancestors, and as bad as could be, but I am not aware that it isdegeneration in this direction which is assumed by the theory inquestion, except as a consequence of physical decay. Physically, however, Cleopatra was perfect. She was not only beautiful, butprolific, and retained her vigor, and apparently her beauty, to the timeof her death, when she was nearly forty years old. 

ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR

B. C. 44

NIEBUHR and PLUTARCH

(Cæsar's assassination forms the groundwork of one of Shakespeare's mostnotable tragedies. The "itching palm" of Cassius, Brutus' rectitude andhonesty of purpose, and Mark Antony's oration will ever live while theEnglish language endures. When the great Cæsar was struck down, thecivil war was over and he was master of the world. The month of the yearB. C. 100 in which he was born, Quinctilis, was afterward called in hishonor, July. 

Caius Julius Cæsar was one of the greatest figures in history, and earlytook a prominent part in the affairs of Rome. He was a rival of Ciceroin forensic eloquence and highly esteemed as a writer, his_Commentaries_ being universally admired. Ransomed from pirates who hadcaptured him on his way to study philosophy at Rhodes, he attacked themin turn, took them to Pergamus, and crucified them. 

After various successful engagements Cæsar marched against Pharnaces, now established in the kingdom of the Bosphorus, gaining at Zela, inPontus, the decisive victory which he announced in the famous despatch, _Veni, vidi, vici_ ["I came, I saw, I conquered"]. 

His unbounded affability, his liveliness and cordiality, his unaffectedkindness to his friends had made him popular with the high as well asthe low. His ambition began to show itself. During the wrangles over theelection of Afranius as consul, Cæsar returned from his brilliantsuccesses in Spain. The troops saluted him as imperator and the senatevoted a thanksgiving in his honor. He was now strong enough to take hisplace as the leader of the popular party. He was elected consul in spiteof the hostility of the senate. 

A coalition was formed between Cæsar and Pompey. Cæsar's agrarian lawadded to his popularity with the people, and he gained the influence ofthe _equites_ by relief of one-third of the farmed taxes of Asia. He nowbecame proconsul of Illyricum and Gaul for five years. This suited hisambition. At this time Pompey was the absolute master of Rome. And nowarose his duel for power with Cæsar. For a time he opposed the latter'selection as consul, but later yielded. 

Cæsar had achieved his brilliant success beyond the Alps. He had wonvictories in Gaul and Britain; but in the mean time his enemies had beenactive at Rome. Still believing that the senate would permit his quietelection to the consulship, he refused to strike any blow at theirauthority. But the senate had determined to humble Cæsar. Both Pompeyand Cæsar were removed from leadership, but the Consul Marcellus refusedto execute the decree. Cæsar was directed by the senate to disband hisarmy by a fixed day, on pain of being considered a public enemy. Pompeysided with the senate. This meant civil war. Antony and Cassius fled tothe camp of Cæsar, who was enthusiastically supported by his soldiersand "crossed the Rubicon. "

Having become master of all Italy in three months without a battle, Cæsar reëntered Rome. Pompey had fled, and at the battle of Pharsaliawas utterly routed, and took refuge in Egypt, where he was murdered afew days before the arrival of Cæsar. 

Upon receipt of the news of Pompey's death Cæsar was named dictator forone year. The government was now placed without disguise in his hands. He was invested with the tribunician power for life. He was also againelected consul and named dictator. 

Cæsar had now become a demi-god, and was named dictator for ten years, being awarded a fourfold triumph, and a thanksgiving being decreed forforty days. He was also made censor. This was in B. C. 46. Afterdefeating the remnant of the Pompeians, he returned to Rome inSeptember, B. C. 45, and was named imperator, and appointed consul forten years and dictator for life, being hailed as _Parens Patriæ_. 

All these triumphs had caused jealousies. It was thought that he aspiredto become king, and this led to his fall. )

NIEBUHR

It is one of the inestimable advantages of a hereditary governmentcommonly called the legitimate, whatever its form may be, that it may beformally inactive in regard to the state and the population--that it mayreserve its interference until it is absolutely necessary, andapparently leave things to take their own course. If we look around usand observe the various constitutions, we shall scarcely perceive theinterference of the government; the greater part of the time passes awaywithout those who have the reins in their hands being obliged to pay anyparticular attention to what they are doing, and a very large amount ofindividual liberty may be enjoyed. But if the government is what we calla usurpation, the ruler has not only to take care to maintain his power, but in all that he undertakes he has to consider by what means and inwhat ways he can establish his right to govern, and his own personalqualifications for it. Men who are in such a position are urged on toact by a very sad necessity, from which they cannot escape, and such wasthe position of Cæsar at Rome. 

In our European States, men have wide and extensive spheres in whichthey can act and move. The much-decried system of centralization hasindeed many disadvantages; but it has this advantage for the ruler, thathe can exert an activity which shows its influence far and wide. Butwhat could Cæsar do, in the centre of nearly the whole of the knownworld? He could not hope to effect any material improvements either inItaly or in the provinces. He had been accustomed from his youth, andmore especially during the last fifteen years, to an enormous activity, and idleness was intolerable to him. At the close of the civil war hewould have had little or nothing to do unless he had turned hisattention to some foreign enterprise. He was obliged to venture uponsomething that would occupy his whole soul, for he could not rest. Histhoughts were therefore again directed to war, and that in a quarterwhere the most brilliant triumphs awaited him, where the bones of thelegions of Crassus lay unavenged--to a war against the Parthians. Aboutthis time the Getae also had spread in Thrace, and he intended to checktheir progress likewise. But his main problem was to destroy theParthian empire and to extend the Roman dominion as far as India, a planin which he would certainly have been successful; and he himself felt sosure of this that he was already thinking of what he should undertakeafterward. 

It is by no means incredible that, as we are told, he intended on hisreturn to march through the passes of the Caucasus, and through ancientScythia into the country of the Getae, and thence through Germany andGaul into Italy. Besides this expedition, he entertained other plans ofno less gigantic dimensions. The port of Ostia was bad, and in realitylittle better than a mere roadstead, so that great ships could not comeup the river. Accordingly it is said that Cæsar intended to dig a canalfor sea-ships, from the Tiber, above or below Rome, through the Pomptinemarshes as far as Terracina. He further contemplated to cut through theIsthmus of Corinth. It is not easy to see in what manner he would haveaccomplished this, considering the state of hydraulic architecture inthose times. The Roman canals were mere _fossæ_, and canals withsluices, though not unknown to the Romans, were not constructed bythem. [77]

[Footnote 77: The first canals with sluices were executed by the Dutchin the fifteenth century. ]

The fact of Cæsar forming such enormous plans is not very surprising;but we can scarcely comprehend how it was possible for him to accomplishso much of what he undertook in the short time of five months precedinghis death. Following the unfortunate system of Sulla, Cæsar foundedthroughout Italy a number of colonies of veterans. The old Sullaniancolonists were treated with great severity, and many of them and theirchildren were expelled from their lands, and were thus punished for thecruelty which they or their fathers had committed against theinhabitants of the municipia. In like manner colonies were establishedin Southern Gaul, Italy, Africa, and other parts; I may mention inparticular the colonies founded at Carthage and Corinth. The latter, however, was a _colonia libertinorum_, and never rose to any importance. We do not know the details of its foundation, but one would imagine thatCæsar would have preferred restoring the place as a purely Greek town. This, however, he did not do. Its population was and remained a mixedone, and Corinth never rose to a state of real prosperity. 

Cæsar made various new arrangements in the State, and among others herestored the full franchise, or the _jus honorum_, to the sons of thosewho had been proscribed in the time of Sulla. He had obtained forhimself the title of imperator and the dictatorship for life and theconsulship for ten years. Half of the offices of the republic to whichpersons had before been elected by the centuries were in his gift, andfor the other half he usually recommended candidates; so that theelections were merely nominal. 

The tribes seem to have retained their rights of election uncurtailed, and the last tribunes must have been elected by the people. But althoughCæsar did not himself confer the consulship, yet the whole republic wasreduced to a mere form and appearance. Cæsar made various new laws andregulations; for example, to lighten the burdens of debtors and thelike; but the changes he introduced in the form of the constitution wereof little importance. He increased the number of prætors, which Sullahad raised to eight, successively to ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, and the number of quaestors was increased to forty. Hence the number ofpersons from whom the senate was to be filled up became greater thanthat of the vacancies, and Cæsar accordingly increased the number ofsenators, though it is uncertain what number he fixed upon, and raised agreat many of his friends to the dignity of senators. In this, as inmany other cases, he acted very arbitrarily; for he elected into thesenate whomsoever he pleased, and conferred the franchise in a mannerequally arbitrary. These things did not fail to create much discontent. It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding his mode of filling up thesenate, not even the majority of senators were attached to his causeafter his death. 

If we consider the changes and regulations which Cæsar introduced, itmust strike us as a singular circumstance that among all his measuresthere is no trace of any indicating that he thought of modifying theconstitution for the purpose of putting an end to the anarchy, for allhis changes are in reality not essential or of great importance. Sullafelt the necessity of remodelling the constitution, but he did notattain his end; and the manner, too, in which he set about it was thatof a short-sighted man; but he was at least intelligent enough to seethat the constitution as it then was could not continue to exist. In theregulations of Cæsar we see no trace of such a conviction; and I thinkthat he despaired of the possibility of effecting any real good byconstitutional reforms. Hence, among all his laws there is not one thathad any relation to the constitution. The fact of his increasing thenumber of patrician families had no reference to the constitution; sofar in fact were the patricians from having any advantages over theplebeians that the office of the two _oediles Cereales_, which Cæsarinstituted, was confined to the plebeians--a regulation which wasopposed to the very nature of the patriciate. 

His raising persons to the rank of patricians was neither more nor lessthan the modern practice of raising a family to the rank of nobility; hepicked out an individual and gave him the rank of patrician for himselfand his descendants, but did not elevate a whole gens. The distinctionitself was merely a nominal one and conferred no privilege upon a personexcept that of holding certain priestly offices, which could be filledby none but patricians, and for which their number was scarcelysufficient. If Cæsar had died quietly the republic would have been inthe same, nay, in a much worse, state of dissolution than if he had notexisted at all. I consider it a proof of the wisdom and good sense ofCæsar that he did not, like Sulla, think an improvement in the state ofpublic affairs so near at hand or a matter of so little difficulty. Thecure of the disease lay yet at a very great distance, and the firstcondition on which it could be undertaken was the sovereignty of Cæsar, a condition which would have been quite unbearable even to many of hisfollowers, who as rebels did not scruple to go along with him. But Romecould no longer exist as a republic. 

It is curious to see in Cicero's work, _de Republica_, the consciousnessrunning through it that Rome, as it then stood, required the strong handof a king. Cicero had surely often owned this to himself; but he saw noone who would have entered into such an idea. The title of king had agreat fascination for Cæsar, as it had for Cromwell--a surprisingphenomenon in a practical mind like that of Cæsar. Everyone knows thefact that while Cæsar was sitting on the _suggestum_, during thecelebration of the _Lupercalia_, Antony presented to him the diadem, totry how the people would take it. Cæsar saw the great alarm which theact created and declined the diadem for the sake of appearance; but hadthe people been silent, Cæsar would unquestionably have accepted it. Hisrefusal was accompanied by loud shouts of acclamation, which for thepresent rendered all further attempts impossible. Antony then had astatue of Cæsar adorned with the diadem; but two tribunes of the people, L. Caesetius Flavus and Epidius Marullus, took it away: and here Cæsarshowed the real state of his feelings, for he treated the conduct of thetribunes as a personal insult toward himself. He had lost hisself-possession and his fate carried him irresistibly onward. He wishedto have the tribunes imprisoned, but was prevailed upon to be satisfiedwith their being stripped of their office and sent into exile. 

This created a great sensation at Rome. Cæsar had also been guilty of anact of thoughtlessness, or perhaps merely of distraction, as mighthappen very easily to a man in his circumstances. When the senate hadmade its last decrees, conferring upon Cæsar unlimited powers, thesenators, consuls, and prætors, or the whole senate, in festal attire, presented the decrees to him, and Cæsar at the moment forgot to show hisrespect for the senators; he did not rise from his _sella curulis_, butreceived the decrees in an unceremonious manner. This want of politenesswas never forgiven by the persons who had not scrupled to make him theirmaster; for it had been expected that he would at least behave politelyand be grateful for such decrees. [78] Cæsar himself had no design in theact, which was merely the consequence of distraction or thoughtlessness;but it made the senate his irreconcilable enemies. The affair with thetribunes, moreover, had made a deep impression upon the people. We must, however, remember that the people under such circumstances are mostsensible to anything affecting their honor, as we have seen at thebeginning of the French Revolution. 

[Footnote 78: I have known an instance of a man of rank and influencewho could never forgive another man, who was by far his superior inevery respect, for having forgotten to take off his hat during a visit. ]

In the year of Cæsar's death, Brutus and Cassius were prætors. Both hadbeen generals under Pompey. Brutus' mother, Servilia, was a half-sisterof Cato, for after the death of her first husband Cato's mother hadmarried Servilius Caepio. She was a remarkable woman, but very immoral, and unworthy of her son; not even the honor of her own daughter wassacred to her. The family of Brutus derived its origin from L. JuniusBrutus, and from the time of its first appearance among the plebeians ithad had few men of importance to boast of. During the period subsequentto the passing of the Licinian laws we meet with some Junii in theFasti, but not one of them acquired any great reputation. The family hadbecome reduced and almost contemptible. One M. Brutus in particulardisgraced his family by sycophancy in the time of Sulla and wasafterward killed in Gaul by Pompey. Although no Roman family belonged toa more illustrious gens, yet Brutus was not by any means one of thosemen who are raised by fortunate circumstances. The education, however, which he received had a great influence upon him. His uncle Cato, whosedaughter Porcia he married--whether in Cato's lifetime or afterward isdoubtful--had initiated him from his early youth in the Stoicphilosophy, and had instilled into his mind a veneration for it, asthough it had been a religion. 

Brutus had qualities which Cato did not possess. The latter hadsomething of an ascetic nature, and was, if I may say so, a scrupulouslypious character; but Brutus had no such scrupulous timidity; his mindwas more flexible and lovable. Cato spoke well, but could not bereckoned among the eloquent men of his time. Brutus' great talents hadbeen developed with the utmost care, and if he had lived longer and inpeace he would have become a classical writer of the highest order. Hehad been known to Cicero from his early age, and Cicero felt a fatherlyattachment to him; he saw in him a young man who he hoped would exert abeneficial influence upon the next generation. 

Cæsar too had known and loved him from his childhood; but the storieswhich are related to account for this attachment must be rejected asfoolish inventions of idle persons; for nothing is more natural thanthat Cæsar should look with great fondness upon a young man of suchextraordinary and amiable qualities. The absence of envy was one of thedistinguishing features in the character of Cæsar, as it was in that ofCicero. In the battle of Pharsalus, Brutus served in the army of Pompey, and after the battle he wrote a letter to Cæsar, who had inquired afterhim; and when Cæsar heard of his safety he was delighted, and invitedhim to his camp. Cæsar afterward gave him the administration ofCisalpine Gaul, where Brutus distinguished himself in a veryextraordinary manner by his love of justice. 

Cassius was related to Brutus, and had likewise belonged to the Pompeianparty, but he was very unlike Brutus; he was much older, and adistinguished military officer. After the death of Crassus he hadmaintained himself as quaestor in Syria against the Parthians, and heenjoyed a very great reputation in the army, but he was after all nobetter than an ordinary officer of Cæsar. After the battle of Pharsalus, Cæsar did not at first know whither Pompey was gone. Cassius was at thetime stationed with some galleys in the Hellespont, notwithstandingwhich Cæsar with his usual boldness took a boat to sail across thatstrait, and on meeting Cassius called upon him to embrace his party. Cassius readily complied, and Cæsar forgave him, as he forgave all hisadversaries: even Marcellus, who had mortally offended him, was pardonedat the request of Cicero. Cæsar thus endeavored to efface allrecollections of the civil war. 

Cæsar had appointed both Brutus and Cassius prætors for that year. Withthe exception of the office of _prætor urbanus_, which was honorable andlucrative, the prætorship was a burdensome office and conferred littledistinction, since the other prætors were only the presidents of thecourts. Formerly they had been elected by lot, but the office was nowaltogether in the gift of Cæsar. Both Brutus and Cassius had wished forthe prætura urbana, and, when Cæsar gave that office to Brutus, Cassiuswas not only indignant at Cæsar, but began quarrelling with Brutus also. While Cassius was in this state of exasperation, a meeting of the senatewas announced for the 15th of March, on which day, as the report went, aproposal was to be made to offer Cæsar the crown. This was a welcomeopportunity for Cassius, who resolved to take vengeance, for he had evenbefore entertained a personal hatred of Cæsar, and was now disappointedat not having obtained the city prætorship. He first sounded Brutus and, finding that he was safe, made direct overtures to him. During the nightsome one wrote on the tribunal and the house of Brutus the words, "Remember that thou art Brutus. "

Brutus became reconciled to Cassius, offered his assistance, and gainedover several other persons to join the conspiracy. All party differencesseemed to have vanished all at once; two of the conspirators were oldgenerals of Cæsar, C. Trebonius and Decimus Brutus, both of whom hadfought with him in Gaul, and against Massilia, and had been raised tohigh honors by their chief. There were among the conspirators persons ofall parties. Men who had fought against one another at Pharsalus nowwent hand-in-hand and intrusted their lives to one another. No proposalswere made to Cicero, the reasons usually assigned for which are of themost calumniatory kind. It is generally said that the conspirators hadno confidence in Cicero, an opinion which is perfectly contemptible. Cicero would not have betrayed them for any consideration, but what theyfeared were his objections. Brutus had as noble a soul as anyone, but hewas passionate; Cicero, on the other hand, who was at an advanced age, had many sad experiences, and his feelings were so exceedingly delicatethat he could not have consented to take away the life of him to whom hehimself owed his own, who had always behaved most nobly toward him, andhad intentionally drawn him before the world as his friend. 

Cæsar's conduct toward those who had fought in the ranks of Pompey andafterward returned to him was extremely noble, and he regarded thereconciliation of those men as a personal favor conferred upon himself. All who knew Cicero must have been convinced that he would not havegiven his consent to the plan of the conspirators; and if they ever didgive the matter a serious thought, they must have owned to themselvesthat every wise man would have dissuaded them from it; for it was infact the most complete absurdity to fancy that the republic could berestored by Cæsar's death. Goethe says somewhere that the murder ofCæsar was the most senseless act that the Romans ever committed; and atruer word was never spoken. The result of it could not possibly be anyother than that which did follow the deed. 

Cæsar was cautioned by Hirtius and Pansa, both wise men of noblecharacter, especially the former, who saw that the republic must becomeconsolidated and not thrown into fresh convulsions. They advised Cæsarto be careful, and to take a bodyguard; but he replied that he wouldrather not live at all than be in constant fear of losing his life. Cæsar once expressed to some of his friends his conviction that Brutuswas capable of harboring a murderous design, but he added that as he, Cæsar, could not live much longer, Brutus would wait, and not be guiltyof such a crime. Cæsar's health was at that time weak, and the generalopinion was that he intended to surrender his power to Brutus as themost worthy. While the conspirators were making their preparations, Porcia, the wife of Brutus, inferred from the excitement andrestlessness of her husband that some fearful secret was pressing on hismind; but as he did not show her any confidence, she seriously woundedherself with a knife and was seized with a violent wound-fever. No oneknew the cause of her illness; and it was not till after many entreatiesof her husband that at length she revealed it to him, saying that as shehad been able to conceal the cause of her illness, so she could alsokeep any secret that might be intrusted to her. Her entreaties inducedBrutus to communicate to her the plan of the conspirators. Cæsar wasalso cautioned by the haruspices, by a dream of his wife, and by his ownforebodings, which we have no reason for doubting. But on the morning ofthe 15th of March, the day fixed upon for assassinating Cæsar, DecimusBrutus treacherously enticed him to go with him to the Curia, as it wasimpossible to delay the deed any longer. 

The conspirators were at first seized with fear lest their plan shouldbe betrayed; but on Cæsar's entrance into the senate house, C. Tillius(not Tullius) Cimber made his way up to him, and insulted him with hisimportunities, and Casca gave the first stroke. Cæsar fell covered withtwenty-three wounds. He was either in his fifty-sixth year or hadcompleted it; I am not quite certain on this point, though, if we judgeby the time of his first consulship, he must have been fifty-six yearsold. His birthday, which is not generally known, was the 11th ofQuinctilis, which month was afterward called Julius, and his death tookplace on the 15th of March, between eleven and twelve o'clock. 

PLUTARCH

At one time the senate having decreed Cæsar some extravagant honors, theconsuls and prætors, attended by the whole body of patricians, went toinform him of what they had done. When they came, he did not rise toreceive them, but kept his seat, as if they had been persons in aprivate station, and his answer to their address was, "that there wasmore need to retrench his honors than to enlarge them. " This haughtinessgave pain not only to the senate, but the people, who thought thecontempt of that body reflected dishonor upon the whole Commonwealth;for all who could decently withdraw went off greatly dejected. 

Perceiving the false step he had taken, he retired immediately to hisown house, and, laying his neck bare, told his friends "he was ready forthe first hand that would strike. " He then bethought himself of alleginghis distemper as an excuse; and asserted that those who are under itsinfluence are apt to find their faculties fail them when they speakstanding, a trembling and giddiness coming upon them, which bereave themof their senses. This, however, was not really the case; for it is saidhe was desirous to rise to the senate; but Cornelius Balbus, one of hisfriends, or rather flatterers, held him, and had servility enough tosay, "Will you not remember that you are Cæsar, and suffer them to paytheir court to you as their superior?"

These discontents were greatly increased by the indignity with which hetreated the tribunes of the people. In the Lupercalia, which, accordingto most writers, is an ancient pastoral feast, and which answers in manyrespects to the _Lycaea_ among the Arcadians, young men of noblefamilies, and indeed many of the magistrates, run about the streetsnaked, and, by way of diversion, strike all they meet with leathernthongs with the hair upon them. Numbers of women of the first qualityput themselves in their way, and present their hands for stripes--asscholars do to a master--being persuaded that the pregnant gain an easydelivery by it, and that the barren are enabled to conceive. Cæsar worea triumphal robe that day, and seated himself in a golden chair upon the_rostra_, to see the ceremony. 

Antony ran among the rest, in compliance with the rules of the festival, for he was consul. When he came into the Forum, and the crowd had madeway for him, he approached Cæsar, and offered him a diadem wreathed withlaurel. Upon this some plaudits were heard, but very feeble, becausethey proceeded only from persons placed there on purpose. Cæsar refusedit, and then the plaudits were loud and general. Antony presented itonce more, and few applauded his officiousness; but when Cæsar rejectedit again, the applause again was general. Cæsar, undeceived by hissecond trial, rose up and ordered the diadem to be consecrated in theCapitol. 

A few days after, his statues were seen adorned with royal diadems; andFlavius and Marullus, two of the tribunes, went and tore them off. Theyalso found out the persons who first saluted Cæsar king, and committedthem to prison. The people followed with cheerful acclamations, andcalled them Brutuses, because Brutus was the man who expelled the kingsand put the government in the hands of the senate and people. Cæsar, highly incensed at their behavior, deposed the tribunes, and by way ofreprimand to them, as well as insult to the people, called them severaltimes _Brutes_ and _Cumceans_. 

Upon this, many applied to Marcus Brutus, who, by the father's side, wassupposed to be a descendant of that ancient Brutus, and whose mother wasof the illustrious house of the Servilli. He was also nephew andson-in-law to Cato. No man was more inclined than he to lift his handagainst monarchy, but he was withheld by the honors and favors he hadreceived from Cæsar, who had not only given him his life after thedefeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, and pardoned many of his friends at hisrequest, but continued to honor him with his confidence. That very yearhe had procured him the most honorable prætorship, and he had named himfor the consulship four years after, in preference to Cassius, who washis competitor; on which occasion Cæsar is reported to have said, "Cassius assigns the strongest reasons, but I cannot refuse Brutus. "

Some impeached Brutus after the conspiracy was formed; but, instead oflistening to them, he laid his hand on his body and said, "Brutus willwait for this skin"; intimating that though the virtue of Brutusrendered him worthy of empire, he would not be guilty of any ingratitudeor baseness to obtain it. Those, however, who were desirous of a changekept their eyes upon him only, or principally at least; and as theydurst not speak out plain, they put billets night after night in thetribunal and seat which he used as prætor, mostly in these terms: "Thousleepest, Brutus, " or, "Thou art not Brutus. "

Cassius, perceiving his friend's ambition a little stimulated by thesepapers, began to ply him closer than before, and spur him on to thegreat enterprise; for he had a particular enmity against Cæsar. Cæsar, too, had some suspicion of him, and he even said one day to his friends:"What think you of Cassius? I do not like his pale looks. " Another time, when Antony and Dolabella were accused of some designs against hisperson and government, he said: "I have no apprehensions from those fatand sleek men; I rather fear the pale and lean ones, " meaning Cassiusand Brutus. 

It seems, from this instance, that fate is not so secret as it isinevitable; for we are told there were strong signs and presages of thedeath of Cæsar. As to the lights in the heavens, the strange noisesheard in various quarters by night, and the appearance of solitary birdsin the Forum, perhaps they deserve not our notice in so great an eventas this. But some attention should be given to Strabo the philosopher. According to him there were seen in the air men of fire encounteringeach other; such a flame appeared to issue from the hand of a soldier'sservant that all the spectators thought it must be burned, yet, when itwas over, he found no harm; and one of the victims which Cæsar offeredwas found without a heart. The latter was certainly a most alarmingprodigy; for, according to the rules of nature, no creature can existwithout a heart. What is still more extraordinary, many report that acertain soothsayer forewarned him of a great danger which threatened himon the ides of March, and that when the day was come, as he was going tothe senate house, he called to the soothsayer, and said, laughing, "Theides of March are come"; to which he answered softly, "Yes; but they arenot gone. "

The evening before, he supped with Marcus Lepidus, and signed, accordingto custom, a number of letters, as he sat at table. While he was soemployed, there arose a question, "What kind of death was the best?" andCæsar, answering before them all, cried out, "A sudden one. " The samenight, as he was in bed with his wife, the doors and windows of the roomflew open at once. Disturbed both with the noise and the light, heobserved, by moonshine, Calpurnia in a deep sleep, uttering broken wordsand inarticulate groans. She dreamed that she was weeping over him, asshe held him, murdered, in her arms. Others say she dreamed that thepinnacle was fallen, which, as Livy tells us, the senate had ordered tobe erected upon Cæsar's house by way of ornament and distinction; andthat it was the fall of it which she lamented and wept for. Be that asit may, the next morning she conjured Cæsar not to go out that day if hecould possibly avoid it, but to adjourn the senate; and, if he had noregard to her dreams, to have recourse to some other species ofdivination, or to sacrifices, for information as to his fate. This gavehim some suspicion and alarm; for he had never known before, inCalpurnia, anything of the weakness or superstition of her sex, thoughshe was now so much affected. 

He therefore offered a number of sacrifices, and, as the diviners foundno auspicious tokens in any of them, he sent Antony to dismiss thesenate. In the mean time Decius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, came in. Hewas a person in whom Cæsar placed such confidence that he had appointedhim his second heir, yet he was engaged in the conspiracy with the otherBrutus and Cassius. This man, fearing that if Cæsar adjourned the senateto another day the affair might be discovered, laughed at the diviners, and told Cæsar he would be highly to blame if by such a slight he gavethe senate an occasion of complaint against him. "For they were met, " hesaid, "at his summons, and came prepared with one voice to honor himwith the title of king in the provinces, and to grant that he shouldwear the diadem both by sea and land everywhere out of Italy. But ifanyone go and tell them, now they have taken their places, they must gohome again, and return when Calpurnia happens to have better dreams, what room will your enemies have to launch out against you? Or who willhear your friends when they attempt to show that this is not an openservitude on the one hand and tyranny on the other? If you areabsolutely persuaded that this is an unlucky day, it is certainly betterto go yourself and tell them you have strong reasons for putting offbusiness till another time. " So saying he took Cæsar by the hand and ledhim out. 

He was not gone far from the door when a slave, who belonged to someother person, attempted to get up to speak to him, but finding itimpossible, by reason of the crowd that was about him, he made his wayinto the house, and putting himself into the hands of Calpurnia desiredher to keep him safe till Cæsar's return, because he had matters ofgreat importance to communicate. 

Artemidorus the Cnidian, who, by teaching the Greek eloquence, becameacquainted with some of Brutus' friends, and had got intelligence ofmost of the transactions, approached Cæsar with a paper explaining whathe had to discover. Observing that he gave the papers, as fast as hereceived them, to his officers, he got up as close as possible and said:"Cæsar, read this to yourself, and quickly, for it contains matters ofgreat consequence and of the last concern to you. " He took it andattempted several times to read it, but was always prevented by oneapplication or other. He therefore kept that paper, and that only, inhis hand, when he entered the house. Some say it was delivered to him byanother man, Artemidorus being kept from approaching him all the way bythe crowd. 

These things might, indeed, fall out by chance; but as in the placewhere the senate was that day assembled, and which proved the scene ofthat tragedy, there was a statue of Pompey, and it was an edifice whichPompey had consecrated for an ornament to his theatre, nothing can beclearer than that some deity conducted the whole business and directedthe execution of it to that very spot. Even Cassius himself, thoughinclined to the doctrines of Epicurus, turned his eye to the statue ofPompey, and secretly invoked his aid, before the great attempt. Thearduous occasion, it seems, overruled his former sentiments, and laidthem open to all the influence of enthusiasm. Antony, who was a faithfulfriend to Cæsar, and a man of great strength, was held in discoursewithout, by Brutus Albinus, who had contrived a long story to detainhim. 

When Cæsar entered the house, the senate rose to do him honor. Some ofBrutus' accomplices came up behind his chair, and others before it, pretending to intercede, along with Metillius Cimber, for the recall ofhis brother from exile. They continued their instances till he came tohis seat. When he was seated he gave them a positive denial; and as theycontinued their importunities with an air of compulsion, he grew angry. Cimber, then, with both hands, pulled his gown off his neck, which wasthe signal for the attack. Casca gave him the first blow. It was astroke upon the neck with his sword, but the wound was not dangerous;for in the beginning of so tremendous an enterprise he was probably insome disorder. Cæsar therefore turned upon him and laid hold of hissword. At the same time they both cried out, the one in Latin, "Villain!Casca! what dost thou mean?" and the other in Greek, to his brother, "Brother, help!"

After such a beginning, those who knew nothing of the conspiracy wereseized with consternation and horror, insomuch that they durst neitherfly nor assist, nor even utter a word. All the conspirators now drewtheir swords, and surrounded him in such a manner that, whatever way heturned, he saw nothing but steel gleaming in his face, and met nothingbut wounds. Like some savage beast attacked by the hunters, he foundevery hand lifted against him, for they all agreed to have a share inthe sacrifice and a taste of his blood. Therefore Brutus himself gavehim a stroke in the groin. Some say he opposed the rest, and continuedstruggling and crying out till he perceived the sword of Brutus; then hedrew his robe over his face and yielded to his fate. Either by accidentor pushed thither by the conspirators, he expired on the pedestal ofPompey's statue, and dyed it with his blood; so that Pompey seemed topreside over the work of vengeance, to tread his enemy under his feet, and to enjoy his agonies. Those agonies were great, for he received noless than three-and-twenty wounds. And many of the conspirators woundedeach other as they were aiming their blows at him. 

Cæsar thus despatched, Brutus advanced to speak to the senate and toassign his reasons for what he had done, but they could not bear to hearhim; they fled out of the house and filled the people with inexpressiblehorror and dismay. Some shut up their houses; others left their shopsand counters. All were in motion; one was running to see the spectacle;another running back. Antony and Lepidus, Cæsar's principal friends, withdrew, and hid themselves in other people's houses. Meantime Brutusand his confederates, yet warm from the slaughter, marched in a bodywith their bloody swords in their hands, from the senate house to theCapitol, not like men that fled, but with an air of gayety andconfidence, calling the people to liberty, and stopping to talk withevery man of consequence whom they met. There were some who even joinedthem and mingled with their train, desirous of appearing to have had ashare in the action and hoping for one in the glory. Of this number wereCaius Octavius and Lentulus Spinther, who afterward paid dear for theirvanity, being put to death by Antony and young Cæsar; so that theygained not even the honor for which they lost their lives, for nobodybelieved that they had any part in the enterprise; and they werepunished, not for the deed, but for the will. 

Next day Brutus and the rest of the conspirators came down from theCapitol and addressed the people, who attended to their discoursewithout expressing either dislike or approbation of what was done. Butby their silence it appeared that they pitied Cæsar, at the same timethat they revered Brutus. The senate passed a general amnesty; and, toreconcile all parties, they decreed Cæsar divine honors and confirmedall the acts of his dictatorship; while on Brutus and his friends theybestowed governments and such honors as were suitable; so that it wasgenerally imagined the Commonwealth was firmly established again, andall brought into the best order. 

But when, upon the opening of Cæsar's will, it was found that he hadleft every Roman citizen a considerable legacy, and they beheld thebody, as it was carried through the Forum, all mangled with wounds, themultitude could no longer be kept within bounds. They stopped theprocession, and, tearing up the benches, with the doors and tables, heaped them into a pile, and burned the corpse there. Then snatchingflaming brands from the pile, some ran to burn the houses of theassassins, while others ranged the city to find the conspiratorsthemselves and tear them in pieces; but they had taken such care tosecure themselves that they could not meet with one of them. 

One Cinna, a friend of Cæsar's, had a strange dream the preceding night. He dreamed--as they tell us--that Cæsar invited him to supper, and, uponhis refusal to go, caught him by the hand and drew him after him, inspite of all the resistance he could make. Hearing, however, that thebody of Cæsar was to be burned in the Forum, he went to assist in doinghim the last honors, though he had a fever upon him, the consequence ofhis uneasiness about his dream. On his coming up, one of the populaceasked who that was? and having learned his name, told it to his nextneighbor. A report immediately spread through the whole company that itwas one of Cæsar's murderers; and, indeed, one of the conspirators wasnamed Cinna. The multitude, taking this for the man, fell upon him, andtore him to pieces upon the spot. Brutus and Cassius were so terrifiedat this rage of the populace that a few days after they left the city. An account of their subsequent actions, sufferings, and death may befound in the life of Brutus. 

Cæsar died at the age of fifty-six, and did not survive Pompey abovefour years. His object was sovereign power and authority, which hepursued through innumerable dangers, and by prodigious efforts he gainedit at last. But he reaped no other fruit from it than an empty andinvidious title. It is true the divine Power, which conducted himthrough life, attended him after his death as his avenger, pursued andhunted out the assassins over sea and land, and rested not till therewas not a man left, either of those who dipped their hands in his bloodor of those who gave their sanction to the deed. 

The most remarkable of natural events relative to this affair was thatCassius, after he had lost the battle of Philippi, killed himself withthe same dagger which he had made use of against Cæsar; and the mostsignal phenomenon in the heavens was that of a great comet, which shonevery bright for seven nights after Cæsar's death, and then disappeared;to which we may add the fading of the sun's lustre; for his orb lookedpale all that year; he rose not with a sparkling radiance, nor had theheat he afforded its usual strength. The air, of course, was dark andheavy, for want of that vigorous heat which clears and rarefies it; andthe fruits were so crude and unconcocted that they pined away anddecayed, through the chilliness of the atmosphere. 

We have a proof still more striking that the assassination of Cæsar wasdispleasing to the gods, in the phantom that appeared to Brutus. Thestory of it is this: Brutus was on the point of transporting his armyfrom Abydos to the opposite continent; and the night before, he lay inhis tent awake, according to custom, and in deep thought about whatmight be the event of the war; for it was natural for him to watch agreat part of the night, and no general ever required so little sleep. With all his senses about him, he heard a noise at the door of his tent, and looking toward the light, which was now burned very low, he saw aterrible appearance in the human form, but of prodigious stature and themost hideous aspect. At first he was struck with astonishment; but whenhe saw it neither did nor spoke anything to him, but stood in silence byhis bed, he asked it who it was? The spectre answered: "I am thy evilgenius, Brutus; thou shalt see me at Philippi. " Brutus answered boldly, "I'll meet thee there"; and the spectre immediately vanished. 

Some time after, he engaged Antony and Octavius Cæsar at Philippi, andthe first day was victorious, carrying all before him, where he foughtin person, and even pillaging Cæsar's camp. The night before he was tofight the second battle the same spectre appeared to him again, butspoke not a word. Brutus, however, understood that his last hour wasnear, and courted danger with all the violence of despair. Yet he didnot fall in the action; but seeing all was lost, he retired to the topof a rock, where he presented his naked sword to his breast, and afriend, as they tell us, assisting the thrust, he died upon the spot. 

ROME BECOMES A MONARCHY

DEATH OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

B. C. 44-30

HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL

(After the death of Cæsar, Rome was in confusion; consternation seizedthe people, and the "liberators" failed to rally them to their ownsupport. In possession of Cæsar's treasure, Antony, the survivingconsul, bided his time. His oration at Cæsar's funeral stirred thepopulace against the "liberators, " and made him for the moment master ofRome; but his self-seeking soon turned the people against him. The youngOctavius, Cæsar's heir, had become popular with the army. He returned toRome and claimed his inheritance, demanded from Antony Cæsar's moneys, but in vain, and assumed the title of Cæsar. The rivalry between the twoleaders rapidly approached a crisis. The partisans of Antony andOctavius began to clash, and civil war followed. Defeated, Antonyretreated across the Alps. Octavius was elected consul, and begannegotiations with Antony and Lepidus, which resulted in the three newmasters constituting themselves a triumvirate--the SecondTriumvirate--to settle the affairs of the Commonwealth. They divided thepowers of government, and a partition of territory was made betweenthem. Their next business was to put out of the way, by proscription, the enemies of this new order of things. Three hundred senators, including Cicero, were massacred, as well as two thousand knights. 

When the terrified senate had legalized the self-assumed authority ofthe triumvirs, they turned their attention to Brutus and Cassius in theEast, whither they had gone after the assassination of Cæsar andestablished and maintained themselves in power. At the battle ofPhilippi in Macedonia [B. C. 42] Antony and Octavius defeated Brutus andCassius, both of whom died by their own hands. The Roman world was nowin the hands of the triumvirs. Antony ruled in the East, Octavius in theWest, and Lepidus in Africa, B. C. 42-36. In the latter year Lepidus wasdeposed by Octavius after a short conflict. And only a year afterPhilippi a war between Octavius and Antony was threatened because of arevolt in Italy, raised by Antony's brother Lucius and Fulvia, wife ofAntony; but it was prevented by a treaty of peace, sealed by themarriage of Antony to Octavia, sister of Octavius. This peace lasted forten years, during which time, however, there was constant frictionbetween them. 

At Tarsus, in B. C. 41, Antony received a visit from Cleopatra, to whosecharms he had yielded years before. This was the turning-point in hiscareer; he went with her to Alexandria. By his oppression of the peopleof the East, and his dalliance with Cleopatra, he made himself theobject of hatred and contempt. His army met with a series of defeats. Inthe mean time Octavius was constantly strengthening himself. The rivalrybetween them finally reached the point where both prepared for war. Thegreat sea fight near Actium, September 2d, B. C. 31, resulted in thedestruction of Antony's fleet after he had followed Cleopatra in herflight. A year later occurred the death of both. This important battleestablished Octavius as the sole ruler of the Roman possessions, andhistorians regard it as marking the end of the republic and thebeginning of the empire. )

While the conspirators were at their bloody work [of slaying Cæsar], themass of the senators rushed in confused terror to the doors; and whenBrutus turned to address his peers in defence of the deed, the hall waswell-nigh empty. Cicero, who had been present, answered not, though hewas called by name; Antony had hurried away to exchange his consularrobes for the garb of a slave. Disappointed of obtaining the sanction ofthe senate, the conspirators sallied out into the Forum to win the earof the people. But here, too, they were disappointed. Not knowing whatmassacre might be in store, every man had fled to his own house; and invain the conspirators paraded the Forum, holding up their blood-stainedweapons and proclaiming themselves the liberators of Rome. Disappointment was not their only feeling: they were not without fear. They knew that Lepidus, being on the eve of departure for his provinceof Narbonnese Gaul, had a legion encamped on the island of the Tiber:and if he were to unite with Antony against them, Cæsar would quickly beavenged. In all haste, therefore, they retired to the Capitol. Meanwhilethree of Cæsar's slaves placed their master's body upon a stretcher andcarried it to his house on the south side of the Forum, with one armdangling from the unsupported corner. In this condition the widowedCalpurnia received the lifeless clay of him who had lately beensovereign of the world. 

Lepidus moved his troops to the Campus Martius. But Antony had nothoughts of using force; for in that case probably Lepidus would havebecome master of Rome. During the night he took possession of thetreasure which Cæsar had collected to defray the expenses of hisParthian campaign, and persuaded Calpurnia to put into his hands all thedictator's papers. Possessed of these securities, he barricaded hishouse on the Carinae, and determined to watch the course of events. 

In the evening Cicero, with other senators, visited the self-styledliberators in the Capitol. They had not communicated their plot to theorator, through fear (they said) of his irresolute counsels; but nowthat the deed was done, he extolled it as a godlike act. Next morning, Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, whom Cæsar had promised should be hissuccessor in the consulship, assumed the consular fasces and joined theliberators; while Cinna, son of the old Marian leader and thereforebrother-in-law to Cæsar, threw aside his praetorian robes, declaring hewould no longer wear the tyrant's livery. Dec. Brutus, a good soldier, had taken a band of gladiators into pay, to serve as a bodyguard of theliberators. Thus strengthened, they ventured again to descend into theForum. Brutus mounted the tribune, and addressed the people in adispassionate speech, which produced little effect. But when Cinnaassailed the memory of the dictator, the crowd broke out into menacingcries, and the liberators again retired to the Capitol. 

That same night they entered into negotiations with Antony, and theresult appeared next morning, the second after the murder. The senate, summoned to meet, obeyed the call in large numbers. Antony and Dolabellaattended in their consular robes, and Cinna resumed his praetorian garb. It was soon apparent that a reconciliation had been effected: for Antonymoved that a general amnesty should be granted, and Cicero seconded themotion in an animated speech. It was carried; and Antony next moved thatall the acts of the dictator should be recognized as law. He had his ownpurposes here; but the liberators also saw in the motion an advantage tothemselves; for they were actually in possession of some of the chiefmagistracies, and had received appointments to some of the richestprovinces of the empire. This proposal, therefore, was favorablyreceived; but it was adjourned to the next day, together with theimportant question of Cæsar's funeral. 

On the next day Cæsar's acts were formally confirmed, and among them hiswill was declared valid, though its provisions were yet unknown. Afterthis, it was difficult to reject the proposal that the dictator shouldhave a public burial. Old senators remembered the riots that attendedthe funeral of Clodius and shook their heads. Cassius opposed it. ButBrutus, with imprudent magnanimity, decided in favor of allowing it. Toseal the reconciliation, Lepidus entertained Brutus at dinner andCassius was feasted by Mark Antony. 

The will was immediately made public. Cleopatra was still in Rome, andentertained hopes that the boy Cæsarion would be declared the dictator'sheir; for though he had been married thrice, there was no one of hislineage surviving. But Cæsar was too much a Roman, and knew the Romanstoo well, to be guilty of this folly. Young C. Octavius, his sister'sson, was declared his heir. Legacies were left to all his supposedfriends, among whom were several of those who had assassinated him. Hisnoble gardens beyond the Tiber were devised to the use of the public, and every Roman citizen was to receive a donation of three hundredsesterces--between ten and fifteen dollars. The effect of this recitalwas electric. Devotion to the memory of the dictator and hatred for hismurderers at once filled every breast. 

Two or three days after this followed the funeral. The body was to beburned, and the ashes deposited in the Campus Martius, near the tomb ofhis daughter Julia. But it was first brought into the Forum upon a bierinlaid with ivory and covered with rich tapestries, which was carried bymen high in rank and office. There Antony, as consul, rose to pronouncethe funeral oration. He ran through the chief acts of Cæsar's life, recited his will, and then spoke of the death which had rewarded him. Tomake this more vividly present to the excitable Italians he displayed awaxen image marked with the three-and-twenty wounds, and produced thevery robe which he had worn, all rent and blood-stained. Soul-stirringdirges added to the solemn horror of the scene. But to us the memorablespeech which Shakespeare puts into Antony's mouth will give theliveliest notion of the art used and the impression produced. Thatimpression was instantaneous. The senator friends of the liberators whohad attended the ceremony looked on in moody silence. Soon the menacinggestures of the crowd made them look to their safety. They fled; and themultitude insisted on burning the body, as they had burned the body ofClodius, in the sacred precincts of the Forum. Some of the veterans whoattended the funeral set fire to the bier; benches and firewood heapedround it soon made a sufficient pile. 

From the blazing pyre the crowd rushed, eager for vengeance, to thehouses of the conspirators. But all had fled betimes. One poor wretchfell a victim to the fury of the mob--Helvius Cinna, a poet who haddevoted his art to the service of the dictator. He was mistaken for L. Cornelius Cinna the prætor, and was torn to pieces before the mistakecould be explained. [79]

[Footnote 79: This story is, however, rendered somewhat doubtful by themanner in which Cinna is mentioned in Vergil's ninth _Eclogue_, whichwas certainly written in or after the year B. C. 40. ]

Antony was now the real master of Rome. The treasure which he had seizedgave him the means of purchasing good will, and of securing theattachment of the veterans stationed in various parts of Italy. He didnot, however, proceed in the course which, from the tone of his funeralharangue, might have been expected. He renewed friendly intercourse withBrutus and Cassius, who were encouraged to visit Rome once at least, ifnot oftener, after that day; and Dec. Brutus, with his gladiators, wassuffered to remain in the city. Antony went still further. He gratifiedthe senate by passing a law to abolish the dictatorship forever. He thenleft Rome to win the favor of the Italian communities and try the temperof the veterans. 

Meanwhile another actor appeared upon the scene. This was youngOctavius. He had been but six months in the camp at Apollonia; but inthat short time he had formed a close friendship with M. VipsaniusAgrippa, a young man of his own age, who possessed great abilities foractive life, but could not boast of any distinguished ancestry. As soonas the news of his uncle's assassination reached the camp, his friendAgrippa recommended him to appeal to the troops and march upon Rome. Butthe youth, with a wariness above his years, resisted these boldcounsels. Landing near Brundusium almost alone, he there first heardthat Cæsar's will had been published and that he was declared Cæsar'sheir. He at once accepted the dangerous honor. As he travelled slowlytoward the city he stayed some days at Puteoli with his mother, Atia, who was now married to L. Philippus. Both mother and stepfatherattempted to dissuade him from the perilous business of claiming hisinheritance. At the same place he had an interview with Cicero, who hadquitted Rome in despair after the funeral, and left the orator under theimpression that he might be won to what was deemed the patriotic party. 

He arrived at Rome about the beginning of May, and demanded from Antony, who had now returned from his Italian tour, an account of the moneys ofwhich the consul had taken possession, in order that he might dischargethe obligations laid upon him by his uncle's will. But Antony hadalready spent great part of the money in bribing Dolabella and otherinfluential persons; nor was he willing to give up any portion of hisspoil. Octavius therefore sold what remained of his uncle's property, raised money on his own credit, and paid all legacies with greatexactness. This act earned him much popularity. Antony began to fearthis boy of eighteen, whom he had hitherto despised, and the senatelearned to look on him as a person to be conciliated. 

Still Antony remained in possession of all actual power. Cicero, notremarkable for political firmness, in this crisis displayed a vigorworthy of his earlier days. He had at one moment made up his mind toretire from public life and end his days at Athens in learned leisure. In the course of this summer he continued to employ himself on some ofhis most elaborate treatises. His works on the _Nature of the Gods_ andon _Divination_, his _Offices_, his _Dialogue on Old Age_, and severalother essays belong to this period and mark the restless activity of hismind. But though he twice set sail from Italy, he was driven back toport at Velia, where he found Brutus and Cassius. Here he receivedletters from Au. Hirtius and other friends of Cæsar, which gave himhopes that, in the name of Octavius, they might successfully opposeAntony and restore constitutional government. He determined to return, and announced his purpose to Brutus and Cassius, who commended him andtook leave of him. They went their way to the east to raise armiesagainst Antony; he repaired to Rome to fight the battles of his party inthe senate house. 

Meanwhile Antony had been running riot. In possession of Cæsar's papers, with no one to check him, he produced ready warrant for every measurewhich he wished to carry, and pleaded the vote of the senate whichconfirmed all the acts of Cæsar. When he could not produce a genuinepaper, he interpolated or forged what was needful. 

On the day after Cicero's return (September 1st) there was a meeting ofthe senate. But the orator did not attend, and Antony threatened to sendmen to drag him from his house. Next day Cicero was in his place, butnow Antony was absent. The orator arose and addressed the senate in whatis called his _First Philippic_. This was a measured attack upon thegovernment and policy of Antony, but personalities were carefullyeschewed: the tone of the whole speech, indeed, is such as might bedelivered by a leader of opposition in parliament at the present day. But Antony, enraged at his boldness, summoned a meeting for the 19th ofSeptember, which Cicero did not think it prudent to attend. He thenattacked the absent orator in the strongest language of personal abuseand menace. Cicero sat down and composed his famous _Second Philippic_, which is written as if it were delivered on the same day, in reply toAntony's invective. At present, however, he contented himself withsending a copy of it to Atticus, enjoining secrecy. 

Matters quickly drew to a head between Antony and Octavius. The latterhad succeeded in securing a thousand men of his uncle's veterans who hadsettled in Campania; and by great exertions in the different towns ofItaly had levied a considerable force. Meantime four of the Epirotelegions had just landed at Brundusium, and Antony hastened to attachthem to his cause. But the largess which he offered them was only ahundred _denaries_ a man, and the soldiers laughed in his face. Antony, enraged at their conduct, seized the ringleaders and decimated them. Butthis severity only served to change their open insolence into sullenanger, and emissaries from Octavius were ready to draw them over to theside of their young master. They had so far obeyed Antony as to marchnorthward to Ariminum, while he repaired to Rome. But as he entered thesenate house he heard that two of the four legions had deserted to hisrival, and in great alarm he hastened to the camp just in time to keepthe remainder of the troops under his standard by distributing to everyman five hundred denaries. 

The persons to hold the consulship for the next year had been designatedby Cæsar. They were both old officers of the Gallic army, C. VibiusPansa and Au. Hirtius, the reputed author of the Eighth Book of the_History of the Gallic War_. Cicero was ready to believe that they hadbecome patriots, because, disgusted with the arrogance of Antony, theyhad declared for Octavius and the senate. Antony began to fear that allparties might combine to crush him. He determined, therefore, no longerto remain inactive; and about the end of November, having now collectedall his troops at Ariminum, he marched along the Æmilian road to driveDec. Brutus out of Cisalpine Gaul. Decimus was obliged to throw himselfinto Mutina (Modena), and Antony blockaded the place. As soon as hisback was turned, Cicero published the famous _Second Philippic_, inwhich he lashed the consul with the most unsparing hand, going throughthe history of his past life, exaggerating the debaucheries, which werecommon to Antony with great part of the Roman youth, and painting in thestrongest colors the profligate use he had made of Cæsar's papers. Itseffect was great, and Cicero followed up the blow by the followingtwelve _Philippics_, which were speeches delivered in the senate houseand Forum, at intervals from December (44) to April in the next year. 

Cicero was anxious to break with Antony at once, by declaring him apublic enemy. But the latter was still regarded by many senators as thehead of the Cæsarean party, and it was resolved to treat with him. Butthe demands of Antony were so extravagant that negotiations were at oncebroken off, and nothing remained but to try the fortune of arms. Theconsuls proceeded to levy troops; but so exhausted was the treasury thatnow for the first time since the triumph of Æmilius Paullus it was foundnecessary to levy a property tax on the citizens of Rome. 

Octavius and the consuls assembled their forces at Alba. On the firstday of the new year (43) Hirtius marched for Mutina, with Octavius underhis command. The other consul, Pansa, remained at Rome to raise newlevies; but by the end of March he also marched to form a junction withHirtius. Both parties pretended to be acting in Cæsar's name. 

Antony left his brother Lucius in the trenches before Mutina, and tookthe field against Hirtius and Octavius. For three months the opponentslay watching each other. But when Antony learned that Pansa was comingup, he made a rapid movement southward with two of his veteran legionsand attacked him. A sharp conflict followed, in which Pansa's troopswere defeated, and the consul himself was carried, mortally wounded, offthe field. But Hirtius was on the alert, and assaulted Antony's weariedtroops on their way back to their camp, with some advantage. This was onthe 15th of April, and on the 27th Hirtius drew Antony from hisintrenchments before Mutina. A fierce battle followed, which ended inthe troops of Antony being driven back into their lines. Hirtiusfollowed close upon the flying enemy; the camp was carried by storm, anda complete victory would have been won had not Hirtius himself fallen. Upon this disaster Octavius drew off the troops. The news of the firstbattle had been reported at Rome as a victory, and gave rise toextravagant rejoicings. The second battle was really a victory, but allrejoicing was damped by the news that one consul was dead and the otherdying. No such fatal mischance had happened since the Second Punic War, when Marcellus and Crispinus fell in one day. 

After his defeat Antony felt it impossible to maintain the siege ofMutina. With Dec. Brutus in the town behind him, and the victoriouslegions of Octavius before him, his position was critical. He thereforeprepared to retreat, and effected this purpose like a good soldier. Hisdestination was the province of Narbonnese Gaul, where Lepidus hadassumed the government and had promised him support. But the senate alsohad hopes in the same quarter. L. Munatius Plancus commanded in NorthernGaul, and C. Asinius Pollio in Southern Spain. Sext. Pompeius had madegood his ground in the latter country, and had almost expelled Polliofrom Bætica. Plancus and Pollio, both friends and favorites of Cæsar, had as yet declared neither for Antony nor Octavius. If they woulddeclare for the senate, Lepidus, a feeble and fickle man, might desertAntony; or if Octavius would join with Dec. Brutus, and pursue him, Antony might not be able to escape from Italy at all. But thesepolitical combinations failed. Plancus and Pollio stood aloof, waitingfor the course of events. Dec. Brutus was not strong enough to pursueAntony by himself, and Octavius was unwilling, perhaps unable, to unitethe veterans of Cæsar with troops commanded by one of Cæsar's murderers. And so it happened that Antony effected his retreat across the Alps, butnot without extreme hardships, which he bore in common with the meanestsoldier. It was at such times that his good qualities always showedthemselves, and his gallant endurance of misery endeared him to everyman under his command. On his arrival in Narbonnese Gaul he met Lepidusat Forum Julii (Frejus), and here the two commanders agreed on a plan ofoperations. 

The conduct of Octavius gave rise to grave suspicions. It was even saidthat the consuls had been killed by his agents. Cicero, who had hithertomaintained his cause, was silent. He had delivered his _Fourteenth_ andlast _Philippic_ on the news of the first victory gained by Hirtius. Butnow he talked in private of "removing" the boy of whom he had hoped tomake a tool. Octavius, however, had taken his part, and was not to beremoved. Secretly he entered into negotiations with Antony. After somevain efforts on the part of the senate to thwart him, he appeared in theCampus Martius with his legions. Cicero and most of the senatorsdisappeared, and the fickle populace greeted the young heir of Cæsarwith applause. Though he was not yet twenty he demanded the consulship, having been previously relieved from the provisions of the _Lex Annalis_by a decree of the senate, and he was elected to the first office in theState, with his cousin, Q. Pedius. [80]

[Footnote 80: Pedius was son of Cæsar's second sister, Julia minor, andtherefore first cousin (once removed) to Octavius. ]

A curiate law passed, by which Octavius was adopted into the patriciangens of the Julii, and was put into legal possession of the name whichhe had already assumed--C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus. We shall henceforthcall him Octavian. 

The change in his policy was soon indicated by a law in which heformally separated himself from the senate. Pedius brought it forward. By its provisions all Cæsar's murderers were summoned to take theirtrial. Of course none of them appeared and they were condemned bydefault. By the end of September Octavian was again in Cisalpine Gauland in close negotiation with Antony and Lepidus. The fruits of hisconduct soon appeared. Plancus and Pollio declared against Cæsar'smurderers. Dec. Brutus, deserted by his soldiery, attempted to escapeinto Macedonia through Illyricum; but he was overtaken near Aquileia andslain by order of Antony. 

Italy and Gaul being now clear of the senatorial party, Lepidus, asmediator, arranged a meeting between Octavian and Antony, upon an islandin a small river near Bononia (Bologna). Here the three potentatesagreed that they should assume a joint and coordinate authority, underthe name of "Triumvirs for settling the affairs of the Commonwealth. "Antony was to have the two Gauls, except the Narbonnese district, which, with Spain, was assigned to Lepidus; Octavian received Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. Italy was for the present to be left to the consuls of theyear, and for the ensuing year Lepidus, with Plancus, received promiseof this high office. In return, Lepidus gave up his military force, while Octavian and Antony, each at the head of ten legions, prepared toconquer the Eastern part of the empire, which could not yet be dividedlike the Western provinces, because it was in possession of Brutus andCassius. 

But before they began war, the triumvirs agreed to follow the exampleset by Sylla--to extirpate their opponents by a proscription, and toraise money by confiscation. They framed a list of all men's names whosedeath could be regarded as advantageous to any of the three, and on thislist each in turn pricked a name. Antony had made many personal enemiesby his proceedings at Rome, and was at no loss for victims. Octavian hadfew direct enemies; but the boy-despot discerned with precocioussagacity those who were likely to impede his ambitious projects, andchose his victims with little hesitation. Lepidus would not be leftbehind in the bloody work. The author of the _Philippics_ was one ofAntony's first victims; Octavian gave him up, and took as an equivalentfor his late friend the life of L. Cæsar, uncle of Antony. Lepidussurrendered his brother Paullus for some similar favor. So the work wenton. Not fewer than three hundred senators and two thousand knights wereon the list. Q. Pedius, an honest and upright man, died in hisconsulship, overcome by vexation and shame at being implicated in thesetransactions. 

As soon as their secret business was ended, the triumvirs determined toenter Rome publicly. Hitherto they had not published more than seventeennames of the proscribed. They made their entrance severally on threesuccessive days, each attended by a legion. A law was immediatelybrought in to invest them formally with the supreme authority, whichthey had assumed. This was followed by the promulgation of successivelists, each larger than its predecessor. 

Among the victims, far the most conspicuous was Cicero. With his brotherQuintus, the old orator had retired to his Tusculan villa after thebattle of Mutina; and now they endeavored to escape in the hope ofjoining Brutus in Macedonia; for the orator's only son was serving as atribune in the liberator's army. After many changes of domicile theyreached Astura, a little island near Antium, where they found themselvesshort of money, and Quintus ventured to Rome to procure the necessarysupply. Here he was recognized and seized, together with his son. Eachdesired to die first, and the mournful claim to precedence was settledby the soldiers killing both at the same moment. 

Meantime Cicero had put to sea. But even in this extremity he could notmake up his mind to leave Italy, and put to land at Circeii. Afterfurther hesitation he again embarked, and again sought the Italian shorenear Formiae. For the night he stayed at his villa near that place, andnext morning would not move, exclaiming: "Let me die in my owncountry--that country which I have so often saved. " But his faithfulslaves forced him into a litter and carried him again toward the coast. Scarcely were they gone when a band of Antony's bloodhounds reached hisvilla, and were put upon the track of their victim by a young man whoowed everything to the Ciceros. The old orator from his litter saw thepursuers coming up. His own followers were strong enough to have maderesistance, but he desired them to set the litter down. Then, raisinghimself on his elbow, he calmly waited for the ruffians and offered hisneck to the sword. He was soon despatched. The chief of the band, byAntony's express orders, hewed off the head and hands and carried themto Rome. Fulvia, the widow of Clodius and now the wife of Antony, droveher hairpin through the tongue which had denounced the iniquities ofboth her husbands. The head which had given birth to the _SecondPhilippic_, and the hands which had written it, were nailed to theRostra, the home of their eloquence. The sight and the associationsraised feelings of horror and pity in every heart. Cicero died in hissixty-fourth year. 

Brutus and Cassius left Italy in the autumn of B. C. 44 and repaired tothe provinces which had been allotted to them, though by Antony'sinfluence the senate had transferred Macedonia from Brutus to his ownbrother Caius, and Syria from Cassius to Dolabella. C. Antonius wasalready in possession of parts of Macedonia; but Brutus succeeded indislodging him. Meanwhile Cassius, already well known in Syria for hissuccessful conduct of the Parthian War, had established himself in thatprovince before he heard of the approach of Dolabella. This worthlessman left Italy about the same time as Brutus and Cassius, and at thehead of several legions marched without opposition through Macedoniainto Asia Minor. Here C. Trebonius had already arrived. But he wasunable to cope with Dolabella; and the latter surprised him and took himprisoner at Smyrna. He was put to death with unseemly contumely inDolabella's presence. This was in February, 43; and thus two of Cæsar'smurderers, in less than a year's time, felt the blow of retributivejustice. When the news of this piece of butchery reached Rome, Cicero, believing that Octavian was a puppet in his hands, was ruling Rome bythe eloquence of his _Philippics_. On his motion Dolabella was declareda public enemy. [81] Cassius lost no time in marching his legions intoAsia, to execute the behest of the senate, though he had beendispossessed of his province by the senate itself. Dolabella threwhimself into Laodicea, where he sought a voluntary death. 

[Footnote 81: He had divorced Tullia, the orator's daughter, before heleft Italy. ]

By the end of B. C. 43, therefore, the whole of the East was in the handsof Brutus and Cassius. But instead of making preparations for war withAntony, the two commanders spent the early part of the year 42 inplundering the miserable cities of Asia Minor. Brutus demanded men andmoney of the Lycians; and, when they refused, he laid siege to Xanthus, their principal city. The Xanthians made the same brave resistance whichthey had offered five hundred years before to the Persian invaders. Theyburned their city and put themselves to death rather than submit. Brutuswept over their fate and abstained from further exactions. But Cassiusshowed less moderation; from the Rhodians alone, though they were alliesof Rome, he demanded all their precious metals. After this campaign ofplunder, the two chiefs met at Sardis and renewed the altercations whichCicero had deplored in Italy. It is probable that war might have brokenout between them had not the preparations of the triumvirs waked themfrom their dream of security. It was as he was passing over into Europethat Brutus, who continued his studious habits amid all disquietudes, and limited his time of sleep to a period too small for the requirementsof health, was dispirited by the vision which Shakespeare, afterPlutarch, has made famous. It was no doubt the result of a diseasedframe, though it was universally held to be a divine visitation. As hesat in his tent in the dead of night, he thought a huge and shadowy formstood by him; and when he calmly asked, "What and whence art thou?" itanswered, or seemed to answer: "I am thine evil genius, Brutus: we shallmeet again at Philippi. "

Meantime Antony's lieutenants had crossed the Ionian Sea and penetratedwithout opposition into Thrace. The republican leaders found them atPhilippi. The army of Brutus and Cassius amounted to at least eightythousand infantry, supported by twenty thousand horse; but they wereill-supplied with experienced officers. For M. Valerius Messalla, ayoung man of twenty-eight, held the chief command after Brutus andCassius; and Horace, who was but three-and-twenty, the son of afreedman, and a youth of feeble constitution, was appointed a legionarytribune. The forces opposed to them would have been at once overpoweredhad not Antony himself opportunely arrived with the second corps of thetriumviral army. Octavian was detained by illness at Dyrrhachium, but heordered himself to be carried on a litter to join his legions. The armyof the triumvirs was now superior to the enemy; but their cavalry, counting only thirteen thousand, was considerably weaker than the forceopposed to it. The republicans were strongly posted upon two hills, withintrenchments between: the camp of Cassius upon the left next the sea, that of Brutus inland on the right. The triumviral army lay upon theopen plain before them, in a position rendered unhealthy by marshes;Antony, on the right, was opposed to Cassius; Octavian, on the left, fronted Brutus. But they were ill-supplied with provisions and anxiousfor a decisive battle. The republicans, however, kept to theirintrenchments, and the other party began to suffer severely from famine. 

Determined to bring on an action, Antony began works for the purpose ofcutting off Cassius from the sea. Cassius had always opposed a generalaction, but Brutus insisted on putting an end to the suspense, and hiscolleague yielded. The day of the attack was probably in October. Brutusattacked Octavian's army, while Cassius assaulted the working parties ofAntony. Cassius' assault was beaten back with loss, but he succeeded inregaining his camp in safety. Meanwhile, Messalla, who commanded theright wing of Brutus' army, had defeated the host of Octavian, who wasstill too ill to appear on the field, and the republican soldierspenetrated into the triumvirs' camp. Presently his litter was brought instained with blood, and the corpse of a young man found near it wassupposed to be Octavian's. But Brutus, not receiving any tidings of themovements of Cassius, became so anxious for his fate that he sent off aparty of horse to make inquiries, and neglected to support thesuccessful assaults of Messalla. 

Cassius, on his part, discouraged at his ill-success, was unable toascertain the progress of Brutus. When he saw the party of horse hehastily concluded that they belonged to the enemy, and retired into histent with his freedman Pindarus. What passed there we know not forcertain. Cassius was found dead, with the head severed from the body. Pindarus was never seen again. It was generally believed that Pindarusslew his master in obedience to orders; but many thought that he haddealt a felon blow. The intelligence of Cassius' death was a heavy blowto Brutus. He forgot his own success, and pronounced the elegy ofCassius in the well-known words, "There lies the last of the Romans. "The praise was ill-deserved. Except in his conduct of the war againstthe Parthians, Cassius had never played a worthy part. 

After the first battle of Philippi it would have still been politic inBrutus to abstain from battle. The triumviral armies were in greatdistress, and every day increased their losses. Reinforcements coming totheir aid by sea were intercepted--a proof of the neglect of therepublican leaders in not sooner bringing their fleet into action. Nordid Brutus ever hear of this success. He was ill-fitted for the life ofthe camp, and after the death of Cassius he only kept his men togetherby largesse and promises of plunder. Twenty days after the first battlehe led them out again. Both armies faced one another. There was littlemanoeuvring. The second battle was decided by numbers and force, not byskill; and it was decided in favor of the triumvirs. Brutus retired withfour legions to a strong position in the rear, while the rest of hisbroken army sought refuge in the camp. Octavian remained to watch them, while Antony pursued the republican chief. Next day Brutus endeavored torouse his men to another effort; but they sullenly refused to fight; andBrutus withdrew with a few friends into a neighboring wood. Here he tookthem aside one by one, and prayed each to do him the last service that aRoman could render to his friend. All refused with horror; till atnightfall a trusty Greek freedman named Strato held the sword, and hismaster threw himself upon it. Most of his friends followed the sadexample. The body of Brutus was sent by Antony to his mother. His wifePortia, the daughter of Cato, refused all comfort; and being too closelywatched to be able to slay herself by ordinary means, she suffocatedherself by thrusting burning charcoal into her mouth. Massalla, with anumber of other fugitives, sought safety in the island of Thasos, andsoon after made submission to Antony. 

The name of Brutus has, by Plutarch's beautiful narrative, sublimed byShakespeare, become a byword for self-devoted patriotism. This exaltedopinion is now generally confessed to be unjust. Brutus was not apatriot, unless devotion to the party of the senate be patriotism. Toward the provincials he was a true Roman, harsh and oppressive. He wasfree from the sensuality and profligacy of his age, but for public lifehe was unfit. His habits were those of a student. His application wasgreat, his memory remarkable. But he possessed little power of turninghis acquirements to account; and to the last he was rather a learned manthan a man improved by learning. In comparison with Cassius, he washumane and generous; but in all respects his character is contrasted forthe worse with that of the great man from whom he accepted favors andthen became his murderer. 

The battle of Philippi was in reality the closing scene of therepublican drama. But the rivalship of the triumvirs prolonged forseveral years the divided state of the Roman world; and it was not tillafter the crowning victory of Actium that the imperial government wasestablished in its unity. We shall, therefore, here add a rapidnarrative of the events which led to that consummation. 

The hopeless state of the republican or rather the senatorial party wassuch that almost all hastened to make submission to the conquerors:those whose sturdy spirit still disdained submission resorted to Sext. Pompeius in Sicily. Octavian, still suffering from ill-health, wasanxious to return to Italy; but before he parted from Antony, theyagreed to a second distribution of the provinces of the empire. Antonywas to have the Eastern world; Octavian the Western provinces. ToLepidus, who was not consulted in this second division, Africa alone wasleft. Sext. Pompeius remained in possession of Sicily. 

Antony at once proceeded to make a tour through Western Asia, in orderto exact money from its unfortunate people. About midsummer (B. C. 41) hearrived at Tarsus, and here he received a visit which determined thefuture course of his life and influenced Roman history for the next tenyears. 

Antony had visited Alexandria fourteen years before, and had beensmitten by the charms of Cleopatra, then a girl of fifteen. She becameCæsar's paramour, and from the time of the dictator's death Antony hadnever seen her. She now came to meet him in Cilicia. The galley whichcarried her up the Cydnus was of more than oriental gorgeousness: thesails of purple; oars of silver, moving to the sound of music; theraised poop burnished with gold. There she lay upon a splendid couch, shaded by a spangled canopy; her attire was that of Venus; around herflitted attendant cupids and graces. At the news of her approach toTarsus, the triumvir found his tribunal deserted by the people. Sheinvited him to her ship, and he complied. From that moment he was herslave. He accompanied her to Alexandria, exchanged the Roman garb forthe Graeco-Egyptian costume of the court, and lent his power to theQueen to execute all her caprices. 

Meanwhile Octavian was not without his difficulties. He was so ill atBrundusium that his death was reported at Rome. The veterans, eager fortheir promised rewards, were on the eve of mutiny. In a short timeOctavian was sufficiently recovered to show himself. But he could findno other means of satisfying the greedy soldiery than by a confiscationof lands more sweeping than that which followed the proscription ofSylla. The towns of Cisalpine Gaul were accused of favoring Dec. Brutus, and saw nearly all their lands handed over to new possessors. The youngpoet, Vergil, lost his little patrimony, but was reinstated at theinstance of Pollio and Maecenas, and showed his gratitude in his _FirstEclogue_. Other parts of Italy also suffered: Apulia, for example, as welearn from Horace's friend Ofellus, who became the tenant of the estatewhich had formerly been his own. 

But these violent measures deferred rather than obviated the difficulty. The expulsion of so many persons threw thousands loose upon society, ripe for any crime. Many of the veterans were ready to join any newleader who promised them booty. Such a leader was at hand. 

Fulvia, wife of Antony, was a woman of fierce passions and ambitiousspirit. She had not been invited to follow her husband to the East. Shesaw that in his absence imperial power would fall into the hands ofOctavian. Lucius, brother of Mark Antony, was consul for the year, andat her instigation he raised his standard at Præneste. But L. Antoniusknew not how to use his strength; and young Agrippa, to whom Octavianintrusted the command, obliged Antonius and Fulvia to retire northwardand shut themselves up in Perusia. Their store of provisions was sosmall that it sufficed only for the soldiery. Early in the next yearPerusia surrendered, on condition that the lives of the leaders shouldbe spared. The town was sacked; the conduct of L. Antonius alienated allItaly from his brother. 

While his wife, his brother, and his friends were quitting Italy inconfusion, the arms of Antony suffered a still heavier blow in theEastern provinces, which were under his special government. After thebattle of Philippi, Q. Labienus, son of Cæsar's old lieutenant Titus, sought refuge at the court of Orodes, king of Parthia. Encouraged by theproffered aid of a Roman officer, Pacorus (the King's son) led aformidable army into Syria. Antony's lieutenant was entirely routed; andwhile Pacorus with one army poured into Palestine and Phoenicia, Q. Labienus with another broke into Cilicia. Here he found no opposition;and, overrunning all Asia Minor even to the Ionian Sea, he assumed thename of Parthicus, as if he had been a Roman conqueror of the peoplewhom he served. 

These complicated disasters roused Antony from his lethargy. He sailedto Tyre, intending to take the field against the Parthians; but theseason was too far advanced, and he therefore crossed the Ægean toAthens, where he found Fulvia and his brother, accompanied by Pollio, Plancus, and others, all discontented with Octavian's government. Octavian was absent in Gaul, and their representation of the state ofItaly encouraged him to make another attempt. Late in the year (41)Antony formed a league with Sext. Pompeius; and while that chiefblockaded Thurii and Consentia, Antony assailed Brundusium. Agrippa waspreparing to meet this new combination; and a fresh civil war wasimminent. But the soldiery was weary of war: both armies compelled theirleaders to make pacific overtures, and the new year was ushered in by ageneral peace, which was rendered easier by the death of Fulvia. Antonyand Octavian renewed their professions of amity, and entered Rometogether in joint ovation to celebrate the restoration of peace. Theynow made a third division of the provinces, by which Scodra (Scutari) inIllyricum was fixed as the boundary of the West and East; Lepidus wasstill left in possession of Africa. It was further agreed that Octavianwas to drive Sext. Pompeius, lately the ally of Antony, out of Sicily;while Antony renewed his pledges to recover the standards of Crassusfrom the Parthians. The new compact was sealed by the marriage of Antonywith Octavia, his colleague's sister, a virtuous and beautiful lady, worthy of a better consort. These auspicious events were celebrated bythe lofty verse of Vergil's _Fourth Eclogue_. 

Sext. Pompeius had reason to complain. By the peace of Brundusium he wasabandoned by his late friend to Octavian. He was not a man to brookungenerous treatment. Of late years his possession of Sicily had givenhim command of the Roman corn market. During the winter which followedthe peace of Brundusium (B. C. 40-39), Sextus blockaded Italy so closelythat Rome was threatened with a positive dearth. Riots arose; thetriumvirs were pelted with stones in the Forum, and they deemed itprudent to temporize by inviting Pompey to enter their league. He metthem at Misenum, and the two chiefs went on board his ship to settle theterms of alliance. It is said that one of his chief officers, a Greeknamed Menas or Menodorus, suggested to him the expediency of putting tosea with the great prize, and then making his own terms. Sextus rejectedthe advice with the characteristic words, "You should have done itwithout asking me. " It was agreed that Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsicashould be given up to his absolute rule, and that Achaia should be addedto his portion; so that the Roman world was now partitioned among four:Octavian, Antony, Lepidus, and Sext. Pompeius. On their return thetriumvirs were received with vociferous applause. 

Before winter, Antony sailed for Athens in company with Octavia, who forthe time seems to have banished Cleopatra from his thoughts. But hedisgusted all true Romans by assuming the attributes of Grecian gods andindulging in Grecian orgies. 

He found the state of things in the East greatly changed since hisdeparture. He had commissioned P. Ventidius Bassus, an officer who hadfollowed Fulvia from Italy, to hold the Parthians in check till hisreturn. Ventidius was son of a Picenian nobleman of Asculum, who hadbeen brought to Rome as a captive in the Social War. In his youth he hadbeen a contractor to supply mules for the use of the Roman commissariat. But in the civil wars which followed, men of military talent easily roseto command; and such was the lot of Ventidius. While Antony was absentin Italy, he drove Q. Labienus into the defiles of Taurus, and here thatadventurer was defeated and slain. The conqueror then marched rapidlyinto Syria, and forced Pacorus also to withdraw to the eastern bank ofthe Euphrates. 

In the following year (38) he repelled a fresh invasion of theParthians, and defeated them in three battles. In the last of theseengagements Pacorus himself was slain on the fifteenth anniversary ofthe death of Crassus. Antony found Ventidius laying siege to Samosata, and displaced him, only to abandon the siege and return to Athens. Ventidius repaired to Rome, where he was honored with a well-deservedtriumph. He had left it as a mule jobber; he returned with the laurelround his brows. He was the first, and almost the last, Roman generalwho could claim such a distinction for victory over the Parthians. 

The alliance with Sext. Pompeius was not intended to last, and it didnot last. Antony refused to put him in possession of Achaia, and toavenge himself for this breach of faith Pompeius again began tointercept the Italian corn fleets. Fresh discontent appeared at Rome, and Octavian equipped a second fleet to sail against the naval chief;but after two battles of doubtful result, the fleet was destroyed by astorm, and Sextus was again left in undisputed mastery of the sea. Octavian, however, was never daunted by reverses, and he gave hisfavorite Agrippa full powers to conduct the war against Pompeius. Thisable commander set about his work with that resolution that marked a mandetermined not to fail. As a harbor for his fleet, he executed a plan ofthe great Cæsar; namely, to make a good and secure harbor on the coastof Latium, which then, as now, offered no shelter to ships. For thispurpose he cut a passage through the narrow necks of land whichseparated Lake Lucrinus from the sea, and Lake Avernus from LakeLucrinus, and faced the outer barrier with stone. This was the famousJulian Port. In the whole of the two years B. C. 38 and 37 Agrippa wasoccupied in this work and in preparing a sufficient force of ships. Every dockyard in Italy was called into requisition. A large body ofslaves was set free that they might be trained to serve as rowers. 

On the 1st of July, B. C. 36, the fleet put to sea. Octavian himself, with one division, purposed to attack the northern coast of Sicily, while a second squadron was assembled at Tarentum for the purpose ofassailing the eastern side. Lepidus, with a third fleet from Africa, wasto assault Lilybaeum. But the winds were again adverse; and, thoughLepidus effected a landing on the southern coast, Octavian's two fleetswere driven back to Italy with great damage. But the injured ships wererefitted, and Agrippa was sent westward toward Panormus, while Octavianhimself kept guard near Messana. Off Mylae, a place famous for havingwitnessed the first naval victory of the Romans, Agrippa encountered thefleet of Sext. Pompeius; but Sextus, with the larger portion of hisships, gave Agrippa the slip, and sailing eastward fell suddenly uponOctavian's squadron off Tauromenium. A desperate conflict followed, which ended in the complete triumph of Sextus, and Octavian escaped toItaly with a few ships only. But Agrippa was soon upon the traces of theenemy. On the 3d of September Sextus was obliged once more to acceptbattle near the Straits of Messana, and suffered an irretrievabledefeat. His troops on land were attacked and dispersed by an army whichhad been landed on the eastern coast by the indefatigable Octavian; andSextus sailed off to Lesbos, where he had found refuge as a boy duringthe campaign of Pharsalia, to seek protection from the jealousy ofAntony. 

Lepidus had assisted in the campaign; but after the departure of Sextushe openly declared himself independent of his brother triumvirs. Octavian, with prompt and prudent boldness, entered the camp of Lepidusin person with a few attendants. The soldiers deserted in crowds, and ina few hours Lepidus was fain to sue for pardon, where he had hoped torule. He was treated with contemptuous indifference, Africa was takenfrom him; but he was allowed to live and die at Rome in quiet enjoymentof the chief pontificate. 

It was fortunate for Octavian that during this campaign Antony was onfriendly terms with him. In B. C. 37 the ruler of the East again visitedItaly, and a meeting between the two chiefs was arranged at Tarentum. The five years for which the triumvirs were originally appointed werenow fast expiring; and it was settled that their authority should berenewed by the subservient senate and people for a second period of thesame duration. They parted good friends; and Octavian undertook hiscampaign against Sext. Pompeius without fear from Antony. This wasproved by the fate of the fugitive. From Lesbos Sextus passed over toAsia, where he was taken prisoner by Antony's lieutenants and put todeath. 

Hitherto Octavia had retained her influence over Antony. But presently, after his last interview with her brother, the fickle triumvir abruptlyquitted a wife who was too good for him, and returned to the fascinatingpresence of the Egyptian Queen, whom he had not seen for three years. From this time forth he made no attempt to break the silken chain of herenchantments. During the next summer, indeed, he attempted a newParthian campaign. But his advance was made with reckless indifferenceto the safety of his troops. Provisions failed; disease broke out; andafter great suffering he was forced to seek safety by a precipitateretreat into the Armenian mountains. In the next year he contentedhimself with a campaign in Armenia, to punish the King of that countryfor alleged treachery in the last campaign. The King fell into hishands; and with this trophy Antony returned to Alexandria, where theRomans were disgusted to see the streets of a Graeco-Egyptian townhonored by a mimicry of a Roman triumph. 

For the next three years he surrendered himself absolutely to the willof the enchantress. To this period belong those tales of luxuriousindulgence which are known to every reader. The brave soldier, who inthe perils of war could shake off all luxurious habits and could rivalthe commonest man in the cheerfulness with which he underwent everyhardship, was seen no more. He sunk into an indolent voluptuary, pleasedby childish amusements. At one time he would lounge in a boat at afishing party, and laugh when he drew up pieces of salt fish which bythe Queen's order had been attached to his hook by divers. At anothertime she wagered that she would consume ten million sesterces at onemeal, and won her wager by dissolving in vinegar a pearl of unknownvalue. While Cleopatra bore the character of the goddess Isis, her loverappeared as Osiris. Her head was placed conjointly with his own on thecoins which he issued as a Roman magistrate. He disposed of the kingdomsand principalities of the East by his sole word. By his influence Herod, son of Antipater, the Idumæan minister of Hyrcanus, the late sovereignof Judea, was made king to the exclusion of the rightful heir. Polemo, his own son by Cleopatra, was invested with the sceptre of Armenia. Encouraged by the absolute submission of her lover, Cleopatra fixed hereye upon the Capitol, and dreamed of winning by means of Antony thatimperial crown which she had vainly sought from Cæsar. 

While Antony was engaged in voluptuous dalliance, Octavian wasresolutely pursuing the work of consolidating his power in the West. Hispatience, his industry, his attention to business, his affability, werewinning golden opinions and rapidly obliterating all memory of thebloody work by which he had risen to power. He had won little glory inwar; but so long as the corn fleets arrived daily from Sicily andAfrica, the populace cared little whether the victory had been won byOctavian or by his generals. In Agrippa he possessed a consummatecaptain, in Maecenas a wise and temperate minister. It is much to hiscredit that he never showed any jealousy of the men to whom he owed somuch. He flattered the people with the hope that he would, when Antonyhad fulfilled his mission of recovering the standards of Crassus, engagehim to join in putting an end to their sovereign power and restoringconstitutional liberty. 

In point of fidelity to his marriage vows Octavian was little betterthan Antony. He renounced his marriage with Clodia, the daughter ofFulvia, when her mother attempted to raise Italy against him. Hedivorced Scribonia, when it no longer suited him to court the favor ofher kinsman. To replace this second wife, he forcibly took away Liviafrom her husband, T. Claudius Nero, though she was at that time pregnantof her second son. But in this and other less pardonable immoralitiesthere was nothing to shock the feelings of Romans. 

But Octavian never suffered pleasure to divert him from business. If hecould not be a successful general, he resolved at least to show that hecould be a hardy soldier. While Antony in his Egyptian palace wasneglecting the Parthian War, his rival led his legions in more than onedangerous campaign against the barbarous Dalmatians and Pannonians, whohad been for some time infesting the province of Illyricum. In the yearB. C. 33 he announced that the limits of the empire had been extendednorthward to the banks of the Save. 

Octavian now began to feel that any appearance of friendship with Antonywas a source of weakness rather than of strength at Rome. Misunderstandings had already broken out. Antony complained thatOctavian had given him no share in the provinces wrested from Sext. Pompeius and Lepidus. Octavian retorted by accusing his colleague ofappropriating Egypt and Armenia, and of increasing Cleopatra's power atthe expense of the Roman Empire. Popular indignation rose to its heightwhen Plancus and Titius, who had been admitted to Antony's confidence, passed over to Octavian, and disclosed the contents of their master'swill. In that document Antony ordered that his body should be buried atAlexandria, in the mausoleum of Cleopatra. Men began to fancy thatCleopatra had already planted her throne upon the Capitol. Thesesuspicions were sedulously encouraged by Octavian. 

Before the close of B. C. 32, Octavian, by the authority of the senate, declared war nominally against Cleopatra. Antony, roused from his sleepby reports from Rome, passed over to Athens, issuing orders everywhereto levy men and collect ships for the impending struggle. At Athens hereceived news of the declaration of war, and replied by divorcingOctavia. His fleet was ordered to assemble at Corcyra; and his legionsin the early spring prepared to pour into Epirus. He established hishead-quarters at Patræ on the Corinthian Gulf. 

But Antony, though his fleet was superior to that of Octavian, allowedAgrippa to sweep the Ionian Sea, and to take possession of Methone, inMessenia, as a station for a flying squadron to intercept Antony'scommunications with the East, nay, even to occupy Corcyra, which hadbeen destined for his own place of rendezvous. Antony's fleet nowanchored in the waters of the Ambracian Gulf, while his legions encampedon a spot of land which forms the northern horn of that spacious inlet. But the place chosen for the camp was unhealthy; and in the heats ofearly summer his army suffered greatly from disease. Agrippa lay closeat hand watching his opportunity. In the course of the spring Octavianjoined him in person. 

Early in the season Antony had repaired from Patræ to his army, so as tobe ready either to cross over into Italy or to meet the enemy if theyattempted to land in Epirus. At first he showed something of his oldmilitary spirit, and the soldiers, who always loved his militaryfrankness, warmed into enthusiasm; but his chief officers, won byOctavian or disgusted by the influence of Cleopatra, deserted him insuch numbers that he knew not whom to trust, and gave up all thoughts ofmaintaining the contest with energy. Urged by Cleopatra, he resolved tocarry off his fleet and abandon the army. All preparations were made insecret, and the great fleet put to sea on the 28th of August. For thefour following days there was a strong gale from the south. Neithercould Antony escape nor could Octavian put to sea against him fromCorcyra. On the 2d of September, however, the wind fell, and Octavian'slight vessels, by using their oars, easily came up with the unwieldygalleys of the eastern fleet. A battle was now inevitable. 

Antony's ships were like impregnable fortresses to the assault of theslight vessels of Octavian; and, though they lay nearly motionless inthe calm sea, little impression was made upon them. But about noon abreeze sprung up from the west; and Cleopatra, followed by sixtyEgyptian ships, made sail in a southerly direction. Antony immediatelysprang from his ship-of-war into a light galley and followed. Desertedby their commander, the captains of Antony's ships continued to resistdesperately; nor was it till the greater part of them were set on firethat the contest was decided. Before evening closed, the whole fleet wasdestroyed; most of the men and all the treasure on board perished. A fewdays after, when the shameful flight of Antony was made known to hisarmy, all his legions went over to the conqueror. 

It was not for eleven months after the battle of Actium that Octavianentered the open gates of Alexandria. He had been employed in theinterval in founding the city of Nicopolis to celebrate his victory onthe northern horn of the Ambracian Gulf, in rewarding his soldiers, andsettling the affairs of the provinces of the East. In the winter hereturned to Italy, and it was midsummer, B. C. 30, before he arrived inEgypt. 

When Antony and Cleopatra arrived off Alexandria they put a bold faceupon the matter. Some time passed before the real state of the case wasknown; but it soon became plain that Egypt was at the mercy of theconqueror. The Queen formed all kinds of wild designs. One was totransport the ships that she had saved across the Isthmus of Suez andseek refuge in some distant land where the name of Rome was yet unknown. Some ships were actually drawn across, but they were destroyed by theArabs, and the plan was abandoned. She now flattered herself that herpowers of fascination, proved so potent over Cæsar and Antony, mightsubdue Octavian. Secret messages passed between the conqueror and theQueen; nor were Octavian's answers such as to banish hope. 

Antony, full of repentance and despair, shut himself up in Pharos, andthere remained in gloomy isolation. 

In July, B. C. 30, Octavian appeared before Pelusium. The place wassurrendered without a blow. Yet, at the approach of the conqueror, Antony put himself at the head of a division of cavalry and gained someadvantage. But on his return to Alexandria he found that Cleopatra hadgiven up all her ships; and no more opposition was offered. On the 1stof August (Sextilis, as it was then called) Octavian entered the opengates of Alexandria. Both Antony and Cleopatra sought to win him. Antony's messengers the conqueror refused to see; but he still used fairwords to Cleopatra. The Queen had shut herself up in a sort of mausoleumbuilt to receive her body after death, which was not approachable by anydoor; and it was given out that she was really dead. All the tendernessof old times revived in Antony's heart. He stabbed himself, and in adying state ordered himself to be laid by the side of Cleopatra. TheQueen, touched by pity, ordered her expiring lover to be drawn up bycords into her retreat, and bathed his temples with her tears. 

After he had breathed his last, she consented to see Octavian. Herpenetration soon told her that she had nothing to hope from him. She sawthat his fair words were only intended to prevent her from desperateacts and reserve her for the degradation of his triumph. This impressionwas confirmed when all instruments by which death could be inflictedwere found to have been removed from her apartments. But she was not tobe so baffled. She pretended all submission; but when the ministers ofOctavian came to carry her away, they found her lying dead upon hercouch, attended by her faithful waiting-women, Iras and Charmion. Themanner of her death was never ascertained; popular belief ascribed it tothe bite of an asp which had been conveyed to her in a basket of fruit. 

Thus died Antony and Cleopatra. Antony was by nature a genial, open-hearted Roman, a good soldier, quick, resolute, and vigorous, butreckless and self-indulgent, devoid alike of prudence and of principle. The corruptions of the age, the seductions of power, and the evilinfluence of Cleopatra paralyzed a nature capable of better things. Weknow him chiefly through the exaggerated assaults of Cicero in his_Philippic_, and the narratives of writers devoted to Octavian. Butafter all deductions for partial representation, enough remains to showthat Antony had all the faults of Cæsar, with little of his redeeminggreatness. 

Cleopatra was an extraordinary person. At her death she was butthirty-eight years of age. Her power rested not so much on actual beautyas on her fascinating manners and her extreme readiness of wit. In herfollies there was a certain magnificence which excites even a dullimagination. We may estimate the real power of her mental qualities byobserving the impression her character made upon the Roman poets of thetime. No meditated praises could have borne such testimony to hergreatness as the lofty strain in which Horace celebrates her fall andcongratulates the Roman world on its escape from the ruin which she wasthreatening to the Capitol. 

Octavian dated the years of his imperial monarchy from the day of thebattle of Actium. But it was not till two years after (the summer ofB. C. 29) that he established himself in Rome as ruler of the Romanworld. Then he celebrated three magnificent triumphs, after the exampleof his uncle the great dictator, for his victories in Dalmatia, atActium, and in Egypt. At the same time the temple of Janus wasclosed--notwithstanding that border wars still continued in Gaul andSpain--for the first time since the year B. C. 235. All men drew breathmore freely, and all except the soldiery looked forward to a time oftranquillity. Liberty and independence were forgotten words. After theterrible disorders of the last century, the general cry was for quiet atany price. Octavian was a person admirably fitted to fulfil theseaspirations. His uncle Julius was too fond of active exertion to playsuch a part well. Octavian never shone in war, while his vigilant andpatient mind was well fitted for the discharge of business. He avoidedshocking popular feeling by assuming any title savoring of royalty; buthe enjoyed by universal consent an authority more than regal. 

GERMANS UNDER ARMINIUS REVOLT AGAINST ROME

A. D. 9

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

(The German race was beginning to make itself felt to a greater extentthan hitherto in its efforts for freedom from the Roman rule. Researchshows that from the earliest days there were two distinct peoples underthis designation of _German_--the northern or Scandinavian, and thesouthern, being more truly the German. Both consisted of numeroustribes, the Romans giving separate names to each: from this arose thegeneric titles of _Franks, Bavarians, Alamanni_, and the rest. 

They were great fighters and, as a natural sequence, mighty hunters. When warfare did not occupy their attention, hunting, feasting, anddrinking took its place. Tacitus writes: "To drink continuously, nightand day, was no shame for them. " Their chief beverage was barley beer, though, in the South, wine was used to some extent. 

Rome had garrisons throughout the whole land, and the fortunes of theGermans were at a low ebb. Freedom seemed stifled forever when Arminiusled his forces against the Roman hosts in the forest of Teutoburgium. Rightly does Creasy rate this important battle so highly, for it meantthe final uplifting of the Teuton, and with him the English-speakingraces of a later time. )

To a truly illustrious Frenchman, whose reverses as a minister can neverobscure his achievements in the world of letters, we are indebted forthe most profound and most eloquent estimate that we possess of theimportance of the Germanic element in European civilization, and of theextent to which the human race is indebted to those brave warriors wholong were the unconquered antagonists, and finally became theconquerors, of imperial Rome. 

Twenty-three eventful years have passed away since M. Guizot[82]delivered from the chair of modern history, at Paris, his course oflectures on the history of civilization in Europe. During those yearsthe spirit of earnest inquiry into the germs and primary developments ofexisting institutions has become more and more active and universal, andthe merited celebrity of M. Guizot's work has proportionally increased. Its admirable analysis of the complex political and social organizationsof which the modern civilized world is made up must have led thousandsto trace with keener interest the great crises of times past, by whichthe characteristics of the present were determined. The narrative of oneof these great crises, of the epoch A. D. 9, when Germany took up armsfor her independence against Roman invasion, has for us this specialattraction--that it forms part of our own national history. Had Arminiusbeen supine or unsuccessful, our Germanic ancestors would have beenenslaved or exterminated in their original seats along the Eider and theElbe. This island would never have borne the name of England, and "we, this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunningthe earth, from one end of it to the other, " would have been utterly cutoff from existence. 

[Footnote 82: Guizot was minister of foreign affairs, and later (1848)prime minister, under Louis Philippe. ]

Arnold may, indeed, go too far in holding that we are wholly unconnectedin race with the Romans and Britons who inhabited this country beforethe coming over of the Saxons; that, "nationally speaking, the historyof Cæsar's invasion has no more to do with us than the natural historyof the animals which then inhabited our forests. " There seems ampleevidence to prove that the Romanized Celts whom our Teutonic forefathersfound here influenced materially the character of our nation. But themain stream of our people was, and is, Germanic. Our language alonedecisively proves this. Arminius is far more truly one of our nationalheroes than Caractacus; and it was our own primeval fatherland that thebrave German rescued when he slaughtered the Roman legions, eighteencenturies ago, in the marshy glens between the Lippe and the Ems. 

Dark and disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have seemed theprospects of Germany when Arminius planned the general rising of hiscountrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons;and, what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent intheir state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could berelied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined, while the enemy's troopsconsisted of veterans in the highest state of equipment and training, familiarized with victory and commanded by officers of proved skill andvalor. The resources of Rome seemed boundless; her tenacity of purposewas believed to be invincible. There was no hope of foreign sympathy oraid; for "the self-governing powers that had filled the Old World hadbent one after another before the rising power of Rome, and hadvanished. The earth seemed left void of independent nations. "

The German chieftain knew well the gigantic power of the oppressor. Arminius was no rude savage, fighting out of mere animal instinct or inignorance of the might of his adversary. He was familiar with the Romanlanguage and civilization; he had served in the Roman armies; he hadbeen admitted to the Roman citizenship, and raised to the rank of theequestrian order. It was part of the subtle policy of Rome to conferrank and privileges on the youth of the leading families in the nationswhich she wished to enslave. Among other young German chieftains, Arminius and his brother, who were the heads of the noblest house in thetribe of the Cherusci, had been selected as fit objects for the exerciseof this insidious system. Roman refinements and dignities succeeded indenationalizing the brother, who assumed the Roman name of Flavius, andadhered to Rome throughout all her wars against his country. Arminiusremained unbought by honors or wealth, uncorrupted by refinement orluxury. He aspired to and obtained from Roman enmity a higher title thanever could have been given him by Roman favor. It is in the page ofRome's greatest historian that his name has come down to us with theproud addition of "_Liberator hand dubie Germaniae_. "

Often must the young chieftain, while meditating the exploit which hasthus immortalized him, have anxiously revolved in his mind the fate ofthe many great men who had been crushed in the attempt which he wasabout to renew--the attempt to stay the chariot wheels of triumphantRome. Could he hope to succeed where Hannibal and Mithradates hadperished? What had been the doom of Viriathus? and what warning againstvain valor was written on the desolate site where Numantia once hadflourished? Nor was a caution wanting in scenes nearer home and morerecent times. The Gauls had fruitlessly struggled for eight yearsagainst Cæsar; and the gallant Vercingetorix, who in the last year ofthe war had roused all his countrymen to insurrection, who had cut offRoman detachments, and brought Cæsar himself to the extreme of peril atAlesia--he, too, had finally succumbed, had been led captive in Cæsar'striumph, and had then been butchered in cold blood in a Roman dungeon. 

It was true that Rome was no longer the great military republic whichfor so many ages had shattered the kingdoms of the world. Her system ofgovernment was changed, and, after a century of revolution and civilwar, she had placed herself under the despotism of a single ruler. Butthe discipline of her troops was yet unimpaired and her warlike spiritseemed unabated. The first year of the empire had been signalized byconquests as valuable as any gained by the republic in a correspondingperiod. It is a great fallacy--though apparently sanctioned by greatauthorities--to suppose that the foreign policy pursued by Augustus waspacific; he certainly recommended such a policy to his successors(_incertum metu an per invidiam_: Tac. , _Ann_. , i. 11), but he himself, until Arminius broke his spirit, had followed a very different course. Besides his Spanish wars, his generals, in a series of generallyaggressive campaigns, had extended the Roman frontier from the Alps tothe Danube, and had reduced into subjection the large and importantcountries that now form the territories of all Austria south of thatriver, and of East Switzerland, Lower Wuertemberg, Bavaria, theValtelline, and the Tyrol. 

While the progress of the Roman arms thus pressed the Germans from thesouth, still more formidable inroads had been made by the imperiallegions on the west. Roman armies, moving from the province of Gaul, established a chain of fortresses along the right as well as the leftbank of the Rhine, and, in a series of victorious campaigns, advancedtheir eagles as far as the Elbe, which now seemed added to the list ofvassal rivers, to the Nile, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, the Tagus, the Seine, and many more, that acknowledged the supremacy of the Tiber. Roman fleets also, sailing from the harbors of Gaul along the Germancoasts and up the estuaries, coöperated with the land forces of theempire, and seemed to display, even more decisively than her armies, heroverwhelming superiority over the rude Germanic tribes. Throughout theterritory thus invaded the Romans had with their usual military skillestablished fortified posts; and a powerful army of occupation was kepton foot, ready to move instantly on any spot where a popular outbreakmight be attempted. 

Vast, however, and admirably organized as the fabric of Roman powerappeared on the frontiers and in the provinces, there was rottenness atthe core. In Rome's unceasing hostilities with foreign foes, and stillmore in her long series of desolating civil wars, the free middleclasses of Italy had almost wholly disappeared. Above the position whichthey had occupied, an oligarchy of wealth had reared itself; beneaththat position a degraded mass of poverty and misery was fermenting. Slaves; the chance sweepings of every conquered country; shoals ofAfricans, Sardinians, Asiatics, Illyrians, and others made up the bulkof the population of the Italian peninsula. 

The foulest profligacy of manners was general in all ranks. In universalweariness of revolution and civil war, and in consciousness of being toodebased for self-government, the nation had submitted itself to theabsolute authority of Augustus. Adulation was now the chief function ofthe senate; and the gifts of genius and accomplishments of art weredevoted to the elaboration of eloquently false panegyrics upon theprince and his favorite courtiers. With bitter indignation must theGerman chieftain have beheld all this and contrasted with it the roughworth of his own countrymen: their bravery, their fidelity to theirword, their manly independence of spirit, their love of their nationalfree institutions, and their loathing of every pollution and meanness. Above all, he must have thought of the domestic virtues that hallowed aGerman home; of the respect there shown to the female character, and ofthe pure affection by which that respect was repaid. His soul must haveburned within him at the contemplation of such a race yielding to thesedebased Italians. 

Still, to persuade the Germans to combine, in spite of the frequentfeuds among themselves, in one sudden outbreak against Rome; to keep thescheme concealed from the Romans until the hour for action arrived; andthen, without possessing a single walled town, without military stores, without training, to teach his insurgent countrymen to defeat veteranarmies and storm fortifications, seemed so perilous an enterprise thatprobably Arminius would have receded from it had not a stronger feelingeven than patriotism urged him on. Among the Germans of high rank whohad most readily submitted to the invaders and become zealous partisansof Roman authority was a chieftain named Segestes. His daughter, Thusnelda, was preeminent among the noble maidens of Germany. Arminiushad sought her hand in marriage; but Segestes, who probably discernedthe young chief's disaffection to Rome, forbade his suit, and strove topreclude all communication between him and his daughter. Thusnelda, however, sympathized far more with the heroic spirit of her lover thanwith the timeserving policy of her father. An elopement baffled theprecautions of Segestes, who, disappointed in his hope of preventing themarriage, accused Arminius before the Roman governor of having carriedoff his daughter and of planning treason against Rome. Thus assailed, and dreading to see his bride torn from him by the officials of theforeign oppressor, Arminius delayed no longer, but bent all his energiesto organize and execute a general insurrection of the great mass of hiscountrymen, who hitherto had submitted in sullen hatred to the Romandominion. 

A change of governors had recently taken place, which, while itmaterially favored the ultimate success of the insurgents, served, bythe immediate aggravation of the Roman oppressions which it produced, tomake the native population more universally eager to take arms. Tiberius, who was afterward emperor, had recently been recalled from thecommand in Germany and sent into Pannonia to put down a dangerous revoltwhich had broken out against the Romans in that province. The Germanpatriots were thus delivered from the stern supervision of one of themost suspicious of mankind, and were also relieved from having tocontend against the high military talents of a veteran commander, whothoroughly understood their national character, and also the nature ofthe country, which he himself had principally subdued. 

In the room of Tiberius, Augustus sent into Germany Quintilius Varus, who had lately returned from the proconsulate of Syria. Varus was a truerepresentative of the higher classes of the Romans, among whom a generaltaste for literature, a keen susceptibility to all intellectualgratifications, a minute acquaintance with the principles and practiceof their own national jurisprudence, a careful training in the schoolsof the rhetoricians, and a fondness for either partaking in or watchingthe intellectual strife of forensic oratory had become generallydiffused, without, however, having humanized the old Roman spirit ofcruel indifference to human feelings and human sufferings, and withoutacting as the least checks on unprincipled avarice and ambition or onhabitual and gross profligacy. Accustomed to govern the depraved anddebased natives of Syria--a country where courage in man and virtue inwoman had for centuries been unknown--Varus thought that he mightgratify his licentious and rapacious passions with equal impunity amongthe high-minded sons and pure-spirited daughters of Germany. When thegeneral of an army sets the example of outrages of this description, heis soon faithfully imitated by his officers, and surpassed by his stillmore brutal soldiery. The Romans now habitually indulged in thoseviolations of the sanctity of the domestic shrine, and those insultsupon honor and modesty, by which far less gallant spirits than those ofour Teutonic ancestors have often been maddened into insurrection. 

Arminius found among the other German chiefs many who sympathized withhim in his indignation at their country's abasement, and many whomprivate wrongs had stung yet more deeply. There was little difficulty incollecting bold leaders for an attack on the oppressors, and little fearof the population not rising readily at those leaders' call. But todeclare open war against Rome and to encounter Varus' army in a pitchedbattle would have been merely rushing upon certain destruction. Varushad three legions under him, a force which, after allowing fordetachments, cannot be estimated at less than fourteen thousand Romaninfantry. He had also eight or nine hundred Roman cavalry, and at leastan equal number of horse and foot sent from the allied states, or raisedamong those provincials who had not received the Roman franchise. 

It was not merely the number, but the quality of this force that madethem formidable; and, however contemptible Varus might be as a general, Arminius well knew how admirably the Roman armies were organized andofficered, and how perfectly the legionaries understood every manoeuvreand every duty which the varying emergencies of a stricken field mightrequire. Stratagem was, therefore, indispensable; and it was necessaryto blind Varus to their schemes until a favorable opportunity shouldarrive for striking a decisive blow. 

For this purpose, the German confederates frequented the head-quartersof Varus, which seem to have been near the centre of the modern countryof Westphalia, where the Roman general conducted himself with all thearrogant security of the governor of a perfectly submissive province. There Varus gratified at once his vanity, his rhetorical tastes, and hisavarice, by holding courts, to which he summoned the Germans for thesettlement of all their disputes, while a bar of Roman advocatesattended to argue the cases before the tribunal of Varus, who did notomit the opportunity of exacting court fees and accepting bribes. Varustrusted implicitly to the respect which the Germans pretended to pay tohis abilities as a judge, and to the interest which they affected totake in the forensic eloquence of their conquerors. 

Meanwhile a succession of heavy rains rendered the country moredifficult for the operations of regular troops, and Arminius, seeingthat the infatuation of Varus was complete, secretly directed the tribesnear the Weser and the Ems to take up arms in open revolt against theRomans. This was represented to Varus as an occasion which required hisprompt attendance at the spot; but he was kept in studied ignorance ofits being part of a concerted national rising; and he still looked onArminius as his submissive vassal, whose aid he might rely on infacilitating the march of his troops against the rebels and inextinguishing the local disturbance. He therefore set his army inmotion, and marched eastward in a line parallel to the course of theLippe. For some distance his route lay along a level plain; but onarriving at the tract between the curve of the upper part of that streamand the sources of the Ems, the country assumes a very differentcharacter; and here, in the territory of the modern little principalityof Lippe, it was that Arminius had fixed the scene of his enterprise. 

A wooded and hilly region intervenes between the heads of the tworivers, and forms the water-shed of their streams. This region stillretains the name (Teutobergenwald = _Teutobergiensis saltus_) which itbore in the days of Arminius. The nature of the ground has probably alsoremained unaltered. The eastern part of it, round Detmold, the moderncapital of the principality of Lippe, is described by a modern Germanscholar, Dr. Plate, as being a "table-land intersected by numerous deepand narrow valleys, which in some places form small plains, surroundedby steep mountains and rocks, and only accessible by narrow defiles. Allthe valleys are traversed by rapid streams, shallow in the dry season, but subject to sudden swellings in autumn and winter. The vast forestswhich cover the summits and slopes of the hills consist chiefly of oak;there is little underwood, and both men and horse would move with easein the forests if the ground were not broken by gulleys or renderedimpracticable by fallen trees. " This is the district to which Varus issupposed to have marched; and Dr. Plate adds that "the names of severallocalities on and near that spot seem to indicate that a great battlehad once been fought there. We find the names '_das Winnefeld_' (thefield of victory), '_die Knochenbahn_' (the bone-lane), '_dieKnochenleke_' (the bone-brook), '_der Mordkessel_' (the kettle ofslaughter), and others. "

Contrary to the usual strict principles of Roman discipline, Varus hadsuffered his army to be accompanied and impeded by an immense train ofbaggage wagons and by a rabble of camp followers, as if his troops hadbeen merely changing their quarters in a friendly country. When the longarray quitted the firm, level ground and began to wind its way among thewoods, the marshes, and the ravines, the difficulties of the march, evenwithout the intervention of an armed foe, became fearfully apparent. Inmany places the soil, sodden with rain, was impracticable for cavalryand even for infantry, until trees had been felled and a rude causewayformed through the morass. 

The duties of the engineer were familiar to all who served in the Romanarmies. But the crowd and confusion of the columns embarrassed theworking parties of the soldiery, and in the midst of their toil anddisorder the word was suddenly passed through their ranks that therear-guard was attacked by the barbarians. Varus resolved on pressingforward; but a heavy discharge of missiles from the woods on eitherflank taught him how serious was the peril, and he saw his best menfalling round him without the opportunity of retaliation; for hislight-armed auxiliaries, who were principally of Germanic race, nowrapidly deserted, and it was impossible to deploy the legionaries onsuch broken ground for a charge against the enemy. 

Choosing one of the most open and firm spots which they could forcetheir way to, the Romans halted for the night; and, faithful to theirnational discipline and tactics, formed their camp amid the harassingattacks of the rapidly thronging foes with the elaborate toil andsystematic skill the traces of which are impressed permanently on thesoil of so many European countries, attesting the presence in the oldentime of the imperial eagles. 

On the morrow the Romans renewed their march, the veteran officers whoserved under Varus now probably directing the operations and hoping tofind the Germans drawn up to meet them, in which case they relied ontheir own superior discipline and tactics for such a victory as shouldreassure the supremacy of Rome. But Arminius was far too sage acommander to lead on his followers, with their unwieldy broadswords andinefficient defensive armor, against the Roman legionaries, fully armedwith helmet, cuirass, greaves, and shield, who were skilled to commencethe conflict with a murderous volley of heavy javelins hurled upon thefoe when a few yards distant, and then, with their short cut-and-thrustswords, to hew their way through all opposition, preserving the utmoststeadiness and coolness, and obeying each word of command in the midstof strife and slaughter with the same precision and alertness as if uponparade. Arminius suffered the Romans to march out from their camp, toform first in line for action and then in column for marching, withoutthe show of opposition. 

For some distance Varus was allowed to move on, only harassed by slightskirmishes, but struggling with difficulty through the broken ground, the toil and distress of his men being aggravated by heavy torrents ofrain, which burst upon the devoted legions, as if the angry gods ofGermany were pouring out the vials of their wrath upon the invaders. After some little time their van approached a ridge of high woodedground, which is one of the offshoots of the great Hercynian forest, andis situated between the modern villages of Driburg and Bielefeld. Arminius had caused barricades of hewn trees to be formed here, so as toadd to the natural difficulties of the passage. Fatigue anddiscouragement now began to betray themselves in the Roman ranks. Theirline became less steady; baggage wagons were abandoned from theimpossibility of forcing them along; and, as this happened, manysoldiers left their ranks and crowded round the wagons to secure themost valuable portions of their property; each was busy about his ownaffairs, and purposely slow in hearing the word of command from hisofficers. 

Arminius now gave the signal for a general attack. The fierce shouts ofthe Germans pealed through the gloom of the forests, and in throngingmultitudes they assailed the flanks of the invaders, pouring in cloudsof darts on the encumbered legionaries as they struggled up the glens orfloundered in the morasses, and watching every opportunity of chargingthrough the intervals of the disjointed column, and so cutting off thecommunication between its several brigades. Arminius, with a chosen bandof personal retainers round him, cheered on his countrymen by voice andexample. He and his men aimed their weapons particularly at the horsesof the Roman cavalry. The wounded animals, slipping about in the mireand their own blood, threw their riders and plunged among the ranks ofthe legions, disordering all round them. Varus now ordered the troops tobe countermarched, in the hope of reaching the nearest Roman garrison onthe Lippe. 

But retreat now was as impracticable as advance; and the falling back ofthe Romans only augmented the courage of their assailants and causedfiercer and more frequent charges on the flanks of the disheartenedarmy. The Roman officer who commanded the cavalry, Numonius Vala, rodeoff with his squadrons in the vain hope of escaping by thus abandoninghis comrades. Unable to keep together or force their way across thewoods and swamps, the horsemen were overpowered in detail andslaughtered to the last man. The Roman infantry still held together andresisted, but more through the instinct of discipline and bravery thanfrom any hope of success or escape. 

Varus, after being severely wounded in a charge of the Germans againsthis part of the column, committed suicide to avoid falling into thehands of those whom he had exasperated by his oppressions. One of thelieutenants-general of the army fell fighting; the other surrendered tothe enemy. But mercy to a fallen foe had never been a Roman virtue, andthose among her legions who now laid down their arms in hope of quarter, drank deep of the cup of suffering, which Rome had held to the lips ofmany a brave but unfortunate enemy. The infuriated Germans slaughteredtheir oppressors with deliberate ferocity, and those prisoners who werenot hewn to pieces on the spot were only preserved to perish by a morecruel death in cold blood. 

The bulk of the Roman army fought steadily and stubbornly, frequentlyrepelling the masses of assailants, but gradually losing the compactnessof their array and becoming weaker and weaker beneath the incessantshower of darts and the reiterated assaults of the vigorous andunencumbered Germans. At last, in a series of desperate attacks, thecolumn was pierced through and through, two of the eagles captured, andthe Roman host, which on the morning before had marched forth in suchpride and might--now broken up into confused fragments--either fellfighting beneath the overpowering numbers of the enemy or perished inthe swamps and woods in unavailing efforts at flight. Few, very few, ever saw again the left bank of the Rhine. One body of brave veterans, arraying themselves in a ring on a little mound, beat off every chargeof the Germans, and prolonged their honorable resistance to the close ofthat dreadful day. The traces of a feeble attempt at forming a ditch andmound attested in after-years the spot where the last of the Romanspassed their night of suffering and despair. But on the morrow thisremnant also, worn out with hunger, wounds, and toil, was charged by thevictorious Germans, and either massacred on the spot or offered up infearful rites on the altars of the deities of the old mythology of theNorth. 

A gorge in the mountain ridge, through which runs the modern roadbetween Paderborn and Pyrmont, leads from the spot where the heat of thebattle raged to the Extersteine--a cluster of bold and grotesque rocksof sandstone--near which is a small sheet of water, overshadowed by agrove of aged trees. According to local tradition, this was one of thesacred groves of the ancient Germans, and it was here that the Romancaptives were slain in sacrifice by the victorious warriors of Arminius. 

Never was victory more decisive; never was the liberation of anoppressed people more instantaneous and complete. Throughout Germany theRoman garrisons were assailed and cut off; and within a few weeks afterVarus had fallen, the German soil was freed from the foot of an invader. 

At Rome the tidings of the battle were received with an agony of terror, the reports of which we would deem exaggerated did they not come fromRoman historians themselves. They not only tell emphatically how greatwas the awe which the Romans felt of the prowess of the Germans if theirvarious tribes could be brought to unite for a common purpose, [83] butthey also reveal how weakened and debased the population of Italy hadbecome. Dion Cassius says: "Then Augustus, when he heard the calamity ofVarus, rent his garment, and was in great affliction for the troops hehad lost, and for terror respecting the Germans and the Gauls. And hischief alarm was that he expected them to push on against Italy and Rome;and there remained no Roman youth fit for military duty that were worthspeaking of, and the allied populations, that were at all serviceable, had been wasted away. Yet he prepared for the emergency as well as hismeans allowed; and when none of the citizens of military age werewilling to enlist, he made them cast lots, and punished, by confiscationof goods and disfranchisement, every fifth man among those underthirty-five and every tenth man of those above that age. At last, whenhe found that not even thus could he make many come forward, he put someof them to death. So he made a conscription of discharged veterans andof emancipated slaves, and, collecting as large a force as he could, sent it, under Tiberius, with all speed into Germany. "

[Footnote 83: It is clear that the Romans followed the policy offomenting dissensions and wars of the Germans among themselves. ]

Dion mentions also a number of terrific portents that were believed tohave occurred at the time, and the narration of which is not immaterial, as it shows the state of the public mind when such things were sobelieved in and so interpreted. The summits of the Alps were said tohave fallen, and three columns of fire to have blazed up from them. Inthe Campus Martius, the temple of the war-god, from whom the founder ofRome had sprung, was struck by a thunderbolt. The nightly heavens glowedseveral times as if on fire. Many comets blazed forth together; andfiery meteors, shaped like spears, had shot from the northern quarter ofthe sky down into the Roman camps. It was said, too, that a statue ofVictory, which had stood at a place on the frontier, pointing the waytoward Germany, had of its own accord turned round, and now pointed toItaly. These and other prodigies were believed by the multitude toaccompany the slaughter of Varus' legions and to manifest the anger ofthe gods against Rome. 

Augustus himself was not free from superstition; but on this occasion nosupernatural terrors were needed to increase the alarm and grief that hefelt, and which made him, even months after the news of the battle hadarrived, often beat his head against the wall and exclaim, "QuintiliusVarus, give me back my legions. " We learn this from his biographerSuetonius; and, indeed, every ancient writer who alludes to theoverthrow of Varus attests the importance of the blow against the Romanpower, and the bitterness with which it was felt. 

The Germans did not pursue their victory beyond their own territory; butthat victory secured at once and forever the independence of theTeutonic race. Rome sent, indeed, her legions again into Germany, toparade a temporary superiority, but all hopes of permanent conquestswere abandoned by Augustus and his successors. 

The blow which Arminius had struck never was forgotten. Roman feardisguised itself under the specious title of moderation, and the Rhinebecame the acknowledged boundary of the two nations until the fifthcentury of our era, when the Germans became the assailants, and carvedwith their conquering swords the provinces of imperial Rome into thekingdoms of modern Europe. 

ARMINIUS

I have said above that the great Cheruscan is more truly one of ournational heroes than Caractacus is. It may be added that an Englishmanis entitled to claim a closer degree of relationship with Arminius thancan be claimed by any German of modern Germany. The proof of thisdepends on the proof of four facts: First, that the Cheruscans were OldSaxons, or Saxons of the interior of Germany; secondly, that theAnglo-Saxons, or Saxons of the coast of Germany, were more closely akinthan other German tribes were to the Cheruscan Saxons; thirdly, that theOld Saxons were almost exterminated by Charlemagne; fourthly, that theAnglo-Saxons are our immediate ancestors. The last of these may beassumed as an axiom in English history. The proofs of the other threeare partly philological and partly historical. It may be, however, hereremarked that the present Saxons of Germany are of the _High_ Germanicdivision of the German race, whereas both the Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxonwere of the _Low_ Germanic. 

Being thus the nearest heirs of the glory of Arminius, we may fairlydevote more attention to his career than, in such a work as the present, could be allowed to any individual leader; and it is interesting totrace how far his fame survived during the Middle Ages, both among theGermans of the Continent and among ourselves. 

It seems probable that the jealousy with which Maroboduus, the king ofthe Suevi and Marcomanni, regarded Arminius, and which ultimately brokeout into open hostilities between those German tribes and the Cherusci, prevented Arminius from leading the confederate Germans to attack Italyafter his first victory. Perhaps he may have had the rare moderation ofbeing content with the liberation of his country, without seeking toretaliate on her former oppressors. When Tiberius marched into Germanyin the year 10, Arminius was too cautious to attack him on groundfavorable to the legions, and Tiberius was too skilful to entangle histroops in the difficult parts of the country. His march and countermarchwere as unresisted as they were unproductive. A few years later, when adangerous revolt of the Roman legions near the frontier caused theirgenerals to find them active employment by leading them into theinterior of Germany, we find Arminius again active in his country'sdefence. The old quarrel between him and his father-in-law, Segestes, had broken out afresh. 

Segestes now called in the aid of the Roman general, Germanicus, to whomhe surrendered himself; and by his contrivance, his daughter, Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius, also came into the hands of the Romans, she beingfar advanced in pregnancy. She showed, as Tacitus relates, more of thespirit of her husband than of her father, a spirit that could not besubdued into tears or supplications. She was sent to Ravenna, and theregave birth to a son, whose life we know, from an allusion in Tacitus, tohave been eventful and unhappy; but the part of the great historian'swork which narrated his fate has perished, and we only know from anotherquarter that the son of Arminius was, at the age of four years, ledcaptive in a triumphal pageant along the streets of Rome. 

The high spirit of Arminius was goaded almost into frenzy by thesebereavements. The fate of his wife, thus torn from him, and of his babedoomed to bondage even before its birth, inflamed the eloquentinvectives with which he roused his countrymen against thehome-traitors, and against their invaders, who thus made war upon womenand children. Germanicus had marched his army to the place where Varushad perished, and had there paid funeral honors to the ghastly relics ofhis predecessor's legions that he found heaped around him. [84] Arminiuslured him to advance a little farther into the country, and thenassailed him, and fought a battle, which, by the Roman accounts, was adrawn one. 

[Footnote 84: In the Museum of Rhenish Antiquities at Bonn there is aRoman sepulchral monument the inscription on which records that it waserected to the memory of M. Coelius, who fell "_Bella Variano_. "]

The effect of it was to make Germanicus resolve on retreating to theRhine. He himself, with part of his troops, embarked in some vessels onthe Ems, and returned by that river, and then by sea; but part of hisforces were intrusted to a Roman general named Caecina, to lead themback by land to the Rhine. Arminius followed this division on its march, and fought several battles with it, in which he inflicted heavy loss onthe Romans, captured the greater part of their baggage, and would havedestroyed them completely had not his skilful system of operations beenfinally thwarted by the haste of Inguiomerus, a confederate Germanchief, who insisted on assaulting the Romans in their camp, instead ofwaiting till they were entangled in the difficulties of the country, andassailing their columns on the march. 

In the following year the Romans were inactive, but in the yearafterward Germanicus led a fresh invasion. He placed his army onshipboard and sailed to the mouth of the Ems, where he disembarked andmarched to the Weser, there encamping, probably in the neighborhood ofMinden. Arminius had collected his army on the other side of the river;and a scene occurred, which is powerfully told by Tacitus, and which isthe subject of a beautiful poem by Praed. It has been already mentionedthat the brother of Arminius, like himself, had been trained up whileyoung to serve in the Roman armies; but, unlike Arminius, he not onlyrefused to quit the Roman service for that of his country, but foughtagainst his country with the legions of Germanicus. He had assumed theRoman name of Flavius, and had gained considerable distinction in theRoman service, in which he had lost an eye from a wound in battle. Whenthe Roman outposts approached the river Weser, Arminius called out tothem from the opposite bank and expressed a wish to see his brother. Flavius stepped forward, and Arminius ordered his own followers toretire, and requested that the archers should be removed from the Romanbank of the river. This was done; and the brothers, who apparently hadnot seen each other for some years, began a conversation from theopposite sides of the stream, in which Arminius questioned his brotherrespecting the loss of his eye, and what battle it had been lost in, andwhat reward he had received for his wound. Flavius told him how the eyewas lost, and mentioned the increased pay that he had on account of itsloss, and showed the collar and other military decorations that had beengiven him. Arminius mocked at these as badges of slavery; and then eachbegan to try to win the other over--Flavius boasting the power of Romeand her generosity to the submissive; Arminius appealing to him in thename of their country's gods, of the mother that had borne them, and bythe holy names of fatherland and freedom, not to prefer being thebetrayer to being the champion of his country. They soon proceeded tomutual taunts and menaces, and Flavius called aloud for his horse andhis arms, that he might dash across the river and attack his brother;nor would he have been checked from doing so had not the Roman generalStertinius run up to him and forcibly detained him. Arminius stood onthe other bank, threatening the renegade, and defying him to battle. 

I shall not be thought to need apology for quoting here the stanzas inwhich Praed has described this scene--a scene among the most affecting, as well as the most striking, that history supplies. It makes us reflecton the desolate position of Arminius, with his wife and child captivesin the enemy's hands, and with his brother a renegade in arms againsthim. The great liberator of our German race was there, with every sourceof human happiness denied him except the consciousness of doing his dutyto his country. 

 "Back, back! he fears not foaming flood Who fears not steel-clad line: No warrior thou of German blood, No brother thou of mine. Go, earn Rome's chain to load thy neck, Her gems to deck thy hilt; And blazon honor's hapless wreck With all the gauds of guilt. 

 "But wouldst thou have _me_ share the prey? By all that I have done, The Varian bones that day by day Lie whitening in the sun, The legion's trampled panoply, The eagle's shatter'd wing-- I would not be for earth or sky So scorn'd and mean a thing. 

 "Ho, call me here the wizard, boy, Of dark and subtle skill, To agonize but not destroy, To torture, not to kill. When swords are out and shriek and shout Leave little room for prayer, No fetter on man's arm or heart Hangs half so heavy there. 

 "I curse him by the gifts the land Hath won from him and Rome, The riving axe, the wasting brand, Rent forest, blazing home. I curse him by our country's gods, The terrible, the dark, The breakers of the Roman rods, The smiters of the bark. 

 "Oh, misery that such a ban On such a brow should be! Why comes he not in battle's van His country's chief to be? To stand a comrade by my side, The sharer of my fame, And worthy of a brother's pride And of a brother's name?

 "But it is past! where heroes press And cowards bend the knee, Arminius is not brotherless, His brethren are the free. They come around: one hour, and light Will fade from turf and tide, Then onward, onward to the fight, With darkness for our guide. 

 "To-night, to-night, when we shall meet In combat face to face, Then only would Arminius greet The renegade's embrace. The canker of Rome's guilt shall be Upon his dying name; And as he lived in slavery, So shall he fall in shame. "

On the day after the Romans had reached the Weser, Germanicus led hisarmy across that river, and a partial encounter took place, in whichArminius was successful. But on the succeeding day a general action wasfought, in which Arminius was severely wounded and the German infantryrouted with heavy loss. The horsemen of the two armies encounteredwithout either party gaining the advantage. But the Roman army remainedmaster of the ground and claimed a complete victory. Germanicus erecteda trophy in the field, with a vaunting inscription that the nationsbetween the Rhine and the Elbe had been thoroughly conquered by hisarmy. But that army speedily made a final retreat to the left bank ofthe Rhine; nor was the effect of their campaign more durable than theirtrophy. The sarcasm with which Tacitus speaks of certain other triumphsof Roman generals over Germans may apply to the pageant which Germanicuscelebrated on his return to Rome from his command of the Roman army ofthe Rhine. The Germans were "_triumphati potius quam victi_. "

After the Romans had abandoned their attempts on Germany, we findArminius engaged in hostilities with Maroboduus, king of the Suevi andMarcomanni, who was endeavoring to bring the other German tribes into astate of dependency on him. Arminius was at the head of the Germans whotook up arms against this home invader of their liberties. After someminor engagements a pitched battle was fought between the twoconfederacies (A. D. 19) in which the loss on each side was equal, butMaroboduus confessed the ascendency of his antagonist by avoiding arenewal of the engagement and by imploring the intervention of theRomans in his defence. The younger Drusus then commanded the Romanlegions in the province of Illyricum, and by his mediation a peace wasconcluded between Arminius and Maroboduus, by the terms of which it isevident that the latter must have renounced his ambitious schemesagainst the freedom of the other German tribes. 

Arminius did not long survive this second war of independence, which hesuccessfully waged for his country. He was assassinated in thethirty-seventh year of his age by some of his own kinsmen, who conspiredagainst him. Tacitus says that this happened while he was engaged in acivil war, which had been caused by his attempts to make himself kingover his countrymen. It is far more probable, as one of the bestbiographers[85] has observed, that Tacitus misunderstood an attempt ofArminius to extend his influence as elective war chieftain of theCherusci and other tribes, for an attempt to obtain the royal dignity. 

[Footnote 85: Dr. Plate, in _Biographical Dictionary_. ]

When we remember that his father-in-law and his brother were renegades, we can well understand that a party among his kinsmen may have beenbitterly hostile to him, and have opposed his authority with the tribeby open violence, and, when that seemed ineffectual, by secretassassination. 

Arminius left a name which the historians of the nation against which hecombated so long and so gloriously have delighted to honor. It is fromthe most indisputable source, from the lips of enemies, that we know hisexploits. [86] His countrymen made history, but did not write it. But hismemory lived among them in the days of their bards, who recorded

 "The deeds he did, the fields he won, The freedom he restored. "

Tacitus, writing years after the death of Arminius, says of him, "_Canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes_. " As time passed on, the gratitudeof ancient Germany to her great deliverer grew into adoration, anddivine honors were paid for centuries to Arminius by every tribe of theLow Germanic division of the Teutonic races. The _Irmin-sul_, or thecolumn of Herman, near Eresburgh (the modern Stadtberg), was the chosenobject of worship to the descendants of the Cherusci (the Old Saxons), and in defence of which they fought most desperately against Charlemagneand his Christianized Franks. "Irmin, in the cloudy Olympus of Teutonicbelief, appears as a king and a warrior; and the pillar, the'Irmin-sul, ' bearing the statue, and considered as the symbol of thedeity, was the Palladium of the Saxon nation until the temple ofEresburgh was destroyed by Charlemagne, and the column itselftransferred to the monastery of Corbey, where perhaps a portion of therude rock idol yet remains, covered by the ornaments of the Gothicera. "[87] Traces of the worship of Arminius are to be found among ourAnglo-Saxon ancestors after their settlement in this island. One of thefour great highways was held to be under the protection of the deity, and was called the "Irmin street. " The name _Arminius_ is, of course, the mere Latinized form of _Herman_, the name by which the hero and thedeity were known by every man of Low German blood on either side of theGerman Sea. It means, etymologically, the _War-man_, the _man of hosts_. No other explanation of the worship of the Irmin-sul, and of the name ofthe Irmin street, is so satisfactory as that which connects them withthe deified Arminius. We know for certain of the existence of othercolumns of an analogous character. Thus there was the _Roland-seule_ inNorth Germany; there was a _Thor-seule_ in Sweden, and (what is moreimportant) there was an _Athelstan-seule_ in Saxon England. [88]

[Footnote 86: Tacitus: _Annales_. ]

[Footnote 87: Palgrave: _English Commonwealth_. ]

[Footnote 88: Lappenburg: _Anglo-Saxons_. ]

CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY

EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME B. C. 450-A. D. 12

JOHN RUDD, LL. D. 

Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numeralsfollowing give volume and page. 

Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers offamous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and pagereferences showing where the several events are fully treated. 

"Est" means date uncertain. 

B. C. 

450. The decemvirate instituted at Rome; the Twelve Tables of lawframed. See "INSTITUTION AND FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATE IN ROME, " ii, 1. 

Alcibiades born. [Est]

448. First Sacred War between the Phocians and Delphians for thepossession of the temple at Delphi. 

The decemvirate abolished at Rome. See "INSTITUTION AND FALL OF THEDECEMVIRATE IN ROME, " ii, 1. 

Athens is now the principal seat of Greek philosophy, literature, andart. 

447. The Boeotians defeat the Athenians at Coronea; the conflict wasbrought about by Athens breaking the truce arranged between the Greekstates to endure for five years, in order to combine against Persia. Theresult was the loss to Athens of Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris. 

445. [Est] Nehemiah begins the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. 

Peace of Callias between the Greeks and Persians. 

Birth of Xenophon, general and historian. 

444. Ascendency of Pericles at Athens. [Est] See "PERICLES RULES INATHENS, " ii, 12. 

The military tribunes instituted at Rome. The consulship was in no senseabolished; until the passage of the Licinian Rogations (when itreappeared as a permanent annual magistracy) it alternated irregularlywith the military tribunes. See "INSTITUTION AND FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATEIN ROME, " ii, 1. 

Thucydides exiled Athens. 

443. An Athenian colony planted at Thurium, near Sybarius; it isaccompanied by Herodotus and Lysias. 

442. Pericles, guided by Phidias the sculptor, adorns Athens; theParthenon, Propylæa, and Odeum built. 

440. Samos resists the Athenian sway; is besieged by Pericles andSophocles; Melissus defends the city, but surrenders after a siege ofnine months. 

Comedies prohibited performance at Athens. 

439. Great famine in Rome; Sp. Mælius distributes corn to the citizens, for which he is accused of wishing to be king, and is assassinated byServilius Ahala. 

438. Spartacus becomes king of Bosporus. 

Ahala impeached and exiled Rome. 

437. The prohibition of comedy repealed at Athens. 

Syracuse, the predominant state in Sicily, reaches the height of itsprosperity. See "DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE, " ii, 48. 

436. Commencement of the dispute between Corinth and Corcyra regardingthe city of Epidamnus, in which Athens supported the latter; this led tothe Peloponnesian War. 

435. Naval victory over the Corinthians by the Corcyræans, near Actium. 

432. Ambassadors from Corcyra implore the aid of Athens, which series afleet to defend the island against the Corinthian attack. Corinthincites Potidæa to revolt from Athens. 

431. Beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Sparta declares on the side ofCorinth and makes war on Athens. The real cause of the war--which was tobe so disastrous to Greece--was that Sparta and its allies were jealousof the great power Athens had attained. Sparta was an oligarchy and afriend of the nobles everywhere; Athens was a democracy and the friendof the common people; so that the war was to some extent a strugglebetween these classes all over Greece. 

430. "GREAT PLAGUE AT ATHENS. " See ii, 34. The physician Hippocratesdistinguishes himself by extraordinary cures of the sick. 

Second invasion of Attica by the Spartans. 

429. Death of Pericles, during the plague, at Athens. 

Potidæa reduced by the Athenians. 

Birth of Plato. 

428. Attica invaded the third time. 

Lesbos revolts from the Athenian confederacy; on this the Atheniansbesiege Mitylene. 

427. Mitylene reduced; Athens becomes master of Lesbos. Platæa, the allyof Athens, after being besieged, surrenders to the Peloponnesians and isdestroyed. 

Attica again invaded. 

425. Agis begins the fifth invasion of Attica; he retires on learningthat the Athenians under Cleon had taken Pylos and Sapachteria. 

Mount Æetna in eruption. 

On the death of Artaxerxes I, his son, Xerxes II, succeeds him as rulerof Persia; he reigns only forty-five days, being slain by his brotherSogdianus, who usurps the throne. 

424. The island of Cythera taken by the Athenians. Brasidas, the Spartangeneral, captures Amphipolis, defeating Thucydides. 

Ochus (Darius Nothus) rids himself of Sogdianus and succeeds him on thePersian throne. 

423. The Athenians banish Thucydides for having suffered Amphipolis tobe taken. 

422. The Athenians send Cleon to recover Amphipolis; he is defeated byBrasidas; both fall in the battle. 

421. Peace of Nicias between Sparta and Athens. End of the first periodof the Peloponnesian War. 

420. Alcibiades negotiates an alliance between Athens and Argos. Amphipolis retained by the Spartans. 

419. An Athenian expedition is led into the Peloponnesus by Alcibiades. 

418. Victory of the Spartans at Mantinea. 

The league between Athens and Argos dissolved. 

416. The island of Melos, which had remained neutral, is conquered bythe Athenians; its inhabitants are treated with extreme cruelty. 

415. The Athenians send an expedition against Syracuse under Nicias, Lamachus, and Alcibiades; the latter is recalled to answer an accusationof having broken some statues of Mercury in Athens; he takes refuge inSparta. Andocides, the orator, implicated in the same charge, isimprisoned and exiled. 

414. Syracuse is invested by the Athenians under Nicias; being hardpressed, Syracuse appeals to the other Greek states; Cylippus, theSpartan commander, comes with a fleet to the aid of the city. See"DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE, " ii, 48. 

The Romans capture Bolae, an Æquian town; the division of the bootycauses a mutiny among the soldiers, who slay the quaestor and themilitary tribune, M. Postumius. 

413. On Alcibiades' advice the Spartans fortify a position at Decelea, in Attica. 

"DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE. " See ii, 48. 

412. Alcibiades visits the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, with whose aidhe negotiates an alliance between Persia and Sparta. 

411. Owing to the machinations of Alcibiades a revolt is organized inAthens, by the aid of the clubs of the nobles and rich men; its objectbeing to overthrow the democracy and establish an oligarchy. The risingis successful and the "Reign of the Four Hundred" ensues; it lasts fourmonths; its framer, Antipho, is put to death. Alcibiades is recalled. 

410. The Spartans are defeated by Alcibiades in a naval encounter atCyzicus. Sparta makes overtures for peace. 

409. The Carthaginians invade Sicily; they reduce Silenus and Himera. 

408. Alcibiades takes Selymbria and Byzantium. 

Psammeticus is king of Egypt. 

Roman plebs first admitted to the quaestorship. 

407. Lysander, the Spartan admiral, defeats the Athenian fleet atNotium; in consequence of this defeat, Alcibiades, who had been receivedwith great honor, is banished, and ten generals are nominated to succeedhim. 

406. The Athenians vanquish the Spartan fleet under Callicratidas, atArginusae. The Athenian generals are executed at Athens for not savingthe shattered vessels and the bodies of the slain. 

Dionysius the Elder becomes ruler of Syracuse. 

Anxur and other towns captured by the Romans, who now first give theirsoldiers a regular pay. 

405. The Spartan under Lysander, who had been restored to command, annihilate the Athenian navy at Aegospotami. 

Artaxerxes II succeeds Darius II on the Persian throne. 

Successful revolt of the Egyptians against the Persians; theindependence of Egypt secured. 

404. Athens taken by Lysander and dismantled; thirty tyrants appointedby him. Lysias and other orators banished. End of the Peloponnesian War. 

403. Democracy is restored in Athens by Thrasybulus; he publishes an actof amnesty. The Ionian alphabet adopted at Athens. 

401. Cyrus rebels against his brother Artaxerxes, of Persia; he isdefeated and slain at the battle of Cunaxa. 

400. The Ten Thousand Greek auxiliaries of Cyrus effect their retreat tothe sea. See "RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS, " ii, 68. 

399. Sparta and Persia engage in war. 

"CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SOCRATES. " See ii, 87. 

396. Agesilaus, the Spartan general, begins his victorious campaignsagainst the Persians. 

The Romans, headed by Camillus, capture Veii, after a ten years' siege. 

395. Corinth, Thebes, Argos, and Athens combine against Sparta; theSpartans are defeated at Haliartus; Lysander is slain. 

Tissaphernes' Persian army is defeated by Agesilaus, near Sardis. 

394. The Athenian admiral Conon, in charge of the Persian fleet, crushingly defeats that of the Spartans, under Pisander, off Cnidus. 

Agesilaus is recalled from Asia; commanding the Spartans, he gains avictory over the confederate Greeks at Coronea. 

393. Conon undertakes the rebuilding of the walls in Athens and restoresthe fortifications. 

392. Conon excites the jealousy of the Persians; he retires into Cyprus, where he dies. 

391. Camillus banished from Rome, charged with misappropriating thebooty secured at Veii, but really on account of his patricianhaughtiness; he dies at Ardea, whither he had withdrawn. 

389. Aeschines born; he was accounted in Athens second only toDemosthenes as an orator. 

388[89] (387). Brennus, commanding the Gauls, burns Rome. See "BRENNUSBURNS ROME, " ii, 110. 

[Footnote 89: By the old chronological reckoning this event occurredB. C. 390. ]

387. Through the mediation of Persia, Sparta compels the Greek states toaccept the peace of Antalcidas, which leaves the Ionian cities andCyprus at his mercy; this enables Sparta to maintain her supremacy inGreece. 

385. [Est] Birth of Demosthenes, the famous Greek orator and general. 

384. Aristotle born. 

383. War of Syracuse with Carthage. 

Thebes is betrayed to Sparta, during her war against Olynthus. 

379. The Olynthians are forced to submission by the Spartans. Pelopidasand his associates drive the Spartans from Thebes. 

378. Athens declares in favor of Thebes against Sparta. 

376. Cleombrotus leads the Spartans into Boeotia; the Spartan fleet, under Pollis, is overwhelmed off Maxos, by Chabrias. 

371. Congress of Sparta, Thebes being excluded from the treaty of peace;Pelopidas and Epaminondas gain the great victory of Leuctra, in whichCleombrotus, King of Sparta, is slain. Thebes becomes the dominant powerin Greece. 

The Arcadian union formed. One of the first effects of the battle ofLeuctra was to emancipate the Arcadians, and a plan was formed to raisethem in the political affairs of Greece. 

370. Epaminondas, the Theban general, heads his first expedition intothe Peloponnesus; he threatens Sparta, which Agesilaus saves. 

369. The Thebans advance into Laconia; they restore the independence ofthe Messenians. Epaminondas and Pelopidas are condemned for havingretained their command beyond the term allowed by the laws of Thebes;they are pardoned and reappointed. 

The Arcadians found Megalopolis, which they make the capital of theArcadian confederacy. 

368. The Thebans again enter the Peloponnesus, but retreat before thearrival of succor sent by Dionysius to the Lacedaemonians. Pelopidas, treacherously made prisoner by Alexander of Pherae, is rescued byEpaminondas. A congress, under the mediation of Persia, is held atDelphi; it fails, because the Thebans will not abandon the Messenians. 

The Carthaginians at war with Dionysius; but, after losing Selinus andother towns, they make peace. 

Camillus, more than eighty years old, appointed dictator at Rome; hepersuades the patricians to assent to the demands of the plebs, andbuilds the temple of Concord. 

A celestial globe brought into Greece from Egypt. 

367. The Licinian Rogations, Rome; three bills introduced by Licinius, decreeing: 1. That interest on loans be deducted from the principal; 2. Limiting the public land held by any individual to 500 jugera (320acres); 3. Ordering that one of the two consuls should be a plebeian. Institution of the praetorship. 

364. Pelopidas attacks Alexander of Pherae; during the battle ofCymoscephale his soldiers are alarmed at an eclipse of the sun, and heis slain. 

362. The Spartans and allies defeated at Mantinea by Epaminondas; he isslain. 

361 (359). Artaxerxes II of Persia succeeded by Artaxerxes III (Ochus). 

359. Philip ascends the throne of Macedon; he concludes peace with theAthenians. 

358. [Est] Athens involves herself in the Social War with Cos, Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium. 

Amphipolis captured by Philip of Macedon; he loses his right eye by anarrow from Astor. 

357. Outbreak of the Ten Years' Sacred War, caused by the Crissianslevying grievous taxes on those who went to consult the oracle ofDelphi. 

356. Burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; this building wasaccounted one of the Seven Wonders of the World. 

Birth of Alexander the Great. 

Dion frees Syracuse from Dionysius the Younger; he is expelled fromSicily. 

355. The Social War ends in Greece. Athens recognizes the independenceof the confederated states. 

353. Final conquest of Egypt by the Persians. 

352. Philip of Macedon interferes in the Greek Sacred War; Demosthenesdelivers his First Philippic encouraging the Greeks to resist theMacedonians; Philip's attempt to seize Thermopylae is defeated. 

Two thousand colonists are sent from Athens to Samos. 

347. Philip of Macedon captures and destroys Olynthus. 

346. Phocis occupied by Philip of Macedon; this ends the Sacred War. 

Dionysius the Younger again assumes power in Syracuse. 

343 (340). Timoleon effects the deliverance of Syracuse from Dionysiusthe Younger. 

Rome engages in the First Samnite War. 

341 (338). End of the First Samnite War. 

Invasion of China by Meha the Hun. See "TARTAR INVASION OF CHINA BYMEHA, " ii, 126. [Est]

340. Adoption of the Publilian laws in Rome, which further restrictedthe power of the patricians. 

The Romans make war upon the Latins; the latter are subjugated. Manlius, one of the Roman consuls, condemns his son to death for a breach ofdiscipline. 

338. Athens and Thebes form an alliance to resist Philip of Macedon, whohad passed Thermopylae and seized Elatea. The allied forces areoverwhelmed at Chaeronea, and Philip establishes the Macedonian dominionin Greece. 

Artaxerxes III is succeeded by Arses in Persia. 

337. Philip of Macedon declares himself commander of the Greeks againstthe Persians; he repudiates his wife Olympias; their son Alexanderattends his mother into Epirus. 

336. Assassination of Philip of Macedon, by Pausanias at Aegae, whilepreparing to invade Persia; he is succeeded by his son, Alexander theGreat. 

Arses is succeeded by Darius III (Codomannus) in Persia. 

335. Thebes, revolting against the Macedonian authority, is subdued anddestroyed by Alexander, who, however, spares the house of Pindar thepoet. 

Rome concludes a peace with Gaul. 

334. Alexander enters upon the conquest of Persia; he is victorious overDarius at the Granicus. 

333. Lycia and Syria reduced by Alexander; Damascus captured byParmenio, Alexander's general, and the siege of Tyre begun. 

Darius is defeated at Issus; his family are among Alexander's captives. 

332. "ALEXANDER REDUCES TYRE: LATER FOUNDS ALEXANDRIA. " See ii, 133. Hetakes Gaza and occupies Egypt. 

The Lucanians and Bruttians defeat and slay Alexander of Epirus, hisambitious designs in Italy having been betrayed. 

331. "THE BATTLE OF ARBELA, " in which Alexander the Great conquersDarius and overthrows the Persian empire. See ii, 141. 

330. The Spartans, under Agis III, revolt against the Macedonians;Antipater defeats the Spartans and their allies at Megalopolis; Agis isslain. 

Darius is seized and laden with chains by Bessus, a Bactrian satrap whosoon after slays him. 

Alexander captures Bessus and delivers him to Oxathres, the brother ofDarius, by whom he is executed. 

Alexander pursues his conquests in Parthia, Media, Bactria, and on theshores of the Caspian. 

329. The Oxus and Jaxartes are crossed by Alexander; he drives back theScythians; he founds new cities in the countries adjacent, and wintersin Bactria. 

The consuls at Rome are granted a triumph and the surname of"Privernas, " for the conquest of Privernum. 

328. Sogdiana, Central Asia, occupies Alexander during this, his seventhcampaign, and he winters there at Nautaca. 

327. Marriage of Alexander to Roxana, daughter of Oxyartes, a Bactrianruler. 

326. Alexander invades India and defeats Porus; his soldiers refuse toproceed farther. 

Rome begins the Second Samnite War. 

325-4. Alexander marches from the Indus to Persepolis; his fleet issailed to the Euphrates by Nearchus. 

Harpalus flees from Babylon with immense treasures, which he conveys toAthens. 

323. Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon. His principal generalsendeavored to obtain, each for himself, a portion of his empire. Ptolemyfirst secures Egypt and establishes his dynasty firmly there. PhilipAridaeus, half-brother of Alexander, succeeds him on the throne ofMacedon, with Perdiccas as regent. Demosthenes returns to Athens androuses the Greek states to recover their freedom; under Leosthenes theyoverpower Antipater, who takes refuge in Lamia, whence this is calledthe Lamian War. 

The Samnites sue for peace, but reject the terms on which it is offeredby the Romans. 

322. The body of Alexander is entombed at Alexandria. 

The confederate Greeks are defeated by Antipater at Crannon; end of theLamian War. 

Demosthenes, who was accused by the Macedonians of being privy to thelooting of the treasury by Harpalus, after the battle of Crannon fled toCalauria; he was captured by the Macedonian troops and thereuponpoisoned himself. 

321. Beginning of the wars between Alexander's successors; Perdiccas andEumenes oppose themselves to Antipater, Craterus, Antigonus, andPtolemy. 

Perdiccas assails Ptolemy in Egypt; Perdiccas is slain in a mutiny. InAsia Minor, Eumenes triumphs over Craterus, who is killed. 

Victory of the Samnites over the Romans at the Caudine Forks. These weretwo narrow gorges, united by a range of mountains on each side. TheRomans went through the first pass, but found the second blocked up; onreturning they found the first similarly obstructed. Being thus hemmedin they passed under the yoke. 

320. Eumenes, defeated by Antigonus, shuts himself up in the castle ofNora, where he sustains a year's siege. 

319. Polysperchon is appointed by Antipater to succeed him as regent forPhilip Arrhidaeus and Alexander Aegus, half-brother and son of Alexanderthe Great, on his, Antipater's, death. 

Polysperchon's elevation to power is followed by a league against him, formed by Antipater's son Cassander, Antigonus, and Ptolemy. Eumeneslends his support to Polysperchon, after escaping from Nora. 

318. The Romans and Samnites make a truce. 

Polysperchon prevailed over by Cassander in the struggle for power inGreece and Macedonia. Athens he places under the rule of Phalereus. 

317. Phocion, an Athenian general who wisely advised in vain for peacewith Antipater, became regarded as a traitor; he fled to Phocis, enteredinto the intrigues of Cassander, who delivered him up to the Athenians, who condemned him to drink hemlock. Olympias, mother of Alexander theGreat, aided by Polysperchon and the Epirotes, seizes Macedonia. 

Olympias is put to death by Cassander. Eumenes, being betrayed toAntigonus, is put to death; Antigonus holds the supreme power in Asia. 

315. The rebuilding of Thebes undertaken by Cassander. 

314. Commencement of the struggle against Antigonus waged by Cassander, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus. 

313. Tyre surrenders to Antigonus. Ptolemy engages with him and conquersCyprus. 

The Romans take Fregellae and other towns from the Samnites. 

312. Seleucus Nicator establishes the realm of the Seleucidae, the armyof Antigonus, under his son Demetrius Poliorcetes, being defeated byPtolemy and Seleucus. Babylon is made the capital. 

Ptolemy conquers Judea; he transplants many Jews to Alexandria andCyrene, where their industry is encouraged and their religion protected. 

At Rome Appius Claudius, the blind, constructs the Via Appia, the firstaqueduct, and a canal through the Pontine marshes. 

Zeno institutes the sect of Stoics at Athens. 

311. A temporary peace among the competitors for power in Asia. Greeceis declared to be free, and Ptolemy resigns Phoenicia to Antigonus. 

Roxana, the widow of Alexander the Great, and her young son AlexanderAegas, are put to death by Cassander. 

The Roman consul Bubulcus penetrates into Samnium, where he issurrounded, and cuts his way through with great courage. 

310. Agathocles, the Syracusan ruler, defeated by the Carthaginians atHimera, passes over to Africa and carries the war into their owncountry. 

The Etruscans take up arms in favor of the Samnites. 

Civil war in the little kingdom of Bosporus; Satyrus II, king for a fewmonths, falls in battle. 

An eclipse of the sun, August 15th. 

309. Hercules, a natural son of Alexander, proclaimed king of Macedon;he is murdered by Cassander. 

The Romans are victorious over the Samnites and the Etruscans. 

308. The Romans, under Fabius, compel the Etruscans to make peace;Fabius then turns against the Samnites, whom he defeats. 

307. Demetrius Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus, arrives with a fleet atAthens, expels Demetrius Phalereus, and restores the democracy, theAthenians throw down Phalereus' statues and condemn him to death. 

306. Ptolemy's fleet is destroyed by Demetrius Poliorcetes at Salamis;but Antigonus fails in his attempt on Egypt. Antigonus assumes the titleof king of Asia; Ptolemy Lagi, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, the rulers ofEgypt, Thrace, and that part of Alexander's empire east of theEuphrates, likewise assume the royal title. Cassander of Macedon ishailed king by his subjects. 

305. War between Seleucus and India, under Sandrocottus, ends in atreaty of amity. 

Flavius reconciles all orders of the Roman state and erects a temple ofConcord. 

Demetrius Poliorcetes besieges Rome. 

304. The Romans triumphantly end the Second Samnite War. 

302. The priesthood at Rome is opened to the plebs. 

300. [90] Battle of Ipsus. Seleucus and Lysimachus overwhelm the army ofAntigonus and his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes; Antigonus is slain. Hisdominions are divided among the victors. Lysimachus takes a largeportion of Asia Minor; Seleucus appropriates Upper Syria, Capuadocia, and other territory. 

[Footnote 90: The date is usually given as 301. ]

Seleucus Nicator builds Antioch, which he makes the capital of hiskingdom of Syria. 

299. Rome engages in the Third Samnite War, which becomes one ofextermination, but the Samnites bravely resist in their mountain holds. 

295. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, espouses Antigone of the house of Ptolemy;he returns to his dominions, out of which he had been driven by theMolossi. 

The Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls unite against Rome. Q. Fabius Rullianus and P. Decimo Mus defeat the Samnites and Gauls atSentinum. 

Demetrius Poliorcetes retakes Athens; Lysimachus and Ptolemy deprive himof all he possesses. 

294. The Macedonian throne is seized by Demetrius Poliorcetes; byviolence or treachery the sons of Cassander are slain. 

293. Many towns of the Samnites are so utterly destroyed by the Romansthat their sites are unknown; a portion of the spoil is cast into abrazen colossus, and placed in front of the Roman Capitol. 

The Roman census is 272, 308 citizens. 

The first sun-dial at Rome is placed on the temple of Quirinus. 

290. The end of the Third Samnite War, which results in the submissionof the Samnites to Rome. 

287. Birth of Archimedes, celebrated mathematician. [Est]

Lysimachus and Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, wrest Macedonia from DemetriusPoliorcetes; immediately after, Lysimachus expels Pyrrhus. 

286. The Hortensian law, passed by Q. Hortensino, affirmed thelegislative power granted the plebeians B. C. 446 and 336. 

285. Completion of the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Scriptures, called "the Alexandrian. "

The length of the solar year first accurately determined by Dionysius, in the astronomical canon. 

283. Death of Ptolemy Lagi (Ptolemy Soter); Ptolemy Philadelphus(jointly on the throne with his father since 295) succeeds him as Kingof Egypt. He further encourages the immigration of the Jews, whoflourish exceedingly. 

282. The Tarentines attack a Roman fleet and insult the ambassadors, whodemand satisfaction. Rome prepares for war; the Tarentines engagePyrrhus to assist them. 

281. Lysimachus, at war with Seleucus Nicator, is defeated and slain inPhrygia. 

The Roman consul Aemilius invades the territory of Tarentum. 

280. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, invades Italy; he makes the cause ofTarentum his own and wars on Rome. Laevinus, the Roman consul, isdefeated. See "FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN GREEKS AND ROMANS, " ii, 166. 

Revival of the Achaean League. The Achaei originally inhabited theneighborhood of Argos; when driven thence by the Heraclidae, theyretired among the Ionians, expelled the natives, and seized theirthirteen cities, forming the Achaean League. 

279. Pyrrhus, who had tried to mediate between Tarentum and Rome, meeting with non-success, advances on Rome. He fails to make anyimpression and returns to Tarentum; the Romans follow him, and he gainsan unimportant victory over them at Asculum. See "FIRST BATTLE BETWEENGREEKS AND ROMANS, " ii, 166. 

Irruption of Gauls into Macedonia; King Ptolemy Ceraunus offers battleto them, in which he is killed. [91]

[Footnote 91: The date usually given is B. C. 280. ]

278. The Gauls under Brennus invade Greece; they are cut to pieces nearDelphi. 

Alliance formed between Rome and Carthage. 

Pyrrhus wars against Carthage in Sicily. 

277. A body of Gauls enter Northern Phrygia, of which they takepossession. 

Pyrrhus expels the Carthaginians from most of their possessions inSicily. 

276. Other Grecian cities join the Achaean League. 

275. Pyrrhus, on the arrival of Carthaginian reenforcements, returns toItaly; he is totally defeated by M. Curius Dentatus (at Beneventum), whoexhibits in his triumphs the first elephants ever seen in Rome. 

273. Ptolemy Philadelphus, of Egypt, sends an embassy to congratulatethe Romans on their victory and to ask an alliance with them. 

272. Pyrrhus attempts the siege of Sparta; he is repulsed. In an attackon Argos, Pyrrhus is slain. 

Tarentum surrenders to the Romans. 

Lucania and Brittium also submit to Rome. 

269. The first silver coinage at Rome. 

266. The Romans capture and destroy Volsinii; Rome controls all Italy. 

264. War between Rome and Carthage. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

Gladiators first introduced into Rome. 

263. Antigonus Gonatus, King of Macedon, captures Athens. 

The Romans compel Hiero, King of Syracuse, to withdraw from the supportof Carthage. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

Philetaerus at his death appoints his nephew, Eumenes, King of Pergamus;the competition for books between him and Ptolemy Philadelphus causesthe latter to prohibit the export of papyrus from Egypt; this leads tothe invention of parchment at Pergamus, whence it takes its name. 

Hiero makes peace with the Romans; he becomes their most trusted ally. 

260. Ships-of-war first built by the Romans; the naval power of Romeinaugurated by the decisive victory of Duilius over the Carthaginians atMylae. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

259. The Romans invade Corsica; they carry off much rich spoil fromthence and Sardinia, but make no permanent conquests. The island ofMelita (Malta) is captured by the Romans. 

258. Atilius, the Roman consul, surrounded by the Carthaginians inSicily, escapes with difficulty. 

257. A drawn battle between the fleets of Rome and Carthage off Tyndariscauses the Romans to prepare larger ships, in order to strike a decisiveblow. 

256. Total defeat of the Carthaginian fleet near Ecnomus; the victoriousRoman consuls land in Africa. The Carthaginians hire troops from Greeceand give the command to Xanthippus. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

255. Regelus and his Roman legions are vanquished by Xanthippus; Regelusis taken captive. The Romans fit out a large fleet, which gains anothervictory and brings off the remains of the army from Africa. Many of theships are wrecked. 

254. Another fleet consisting of 220 ships is equipped in three monthsby the Romans; Panormus (Palermo) is captured. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

253. The Romans again land in Africa and ravage many Carthaginian coastcities; on their return most of their ships are wrecked; the Romansresolve to abstain from naval warfare. 

252. Birth of Philopoemen, called the "Last of the Greeks. "

251. Aratus restores the freedom of Sicyon; joins the Achaean League, which becomes a powerful body. 

250. Arsaceo founds the kingdom of Parthia. 

The Romans begin the siege of Lilybaeum; the Carthaginians successfullydefend it till the close of the war. Metellus, the Roman proconsul, commanding in Sicily, gains a great victory over Hasdrubal nearPanoramus; over one hundred elephants form part of his triumphalprocession. 

249. Naval victory of the Carthaginians over the Romans at Drepanum. 

Regelus is sent to Rome to propose an exchange of prisoners; on hisreturn the Carthaginians put him to death with the utmost cruelty. 

The war between Syria and Egypt, which had been ruinous to the former, is ended by a treaty between Antiochus II and Ptolemy Philadelphus. Oneof the conditions was that Antiochus repudiate Laodice and marryBerenice, Ptolemy's daughter. 

248. Parthia becomes an independent kingdom. 

247. Birth of Hannibal, the famous Carthaginian general. 

Ptolemy Euergetes succeeds his father Ptolemy Philadelphus on the throneof Egypt. 

243. Corinth, delivered by Aratus from the yoke of Macedon, joins theAchaean League; other states follow the example. 

241. Agis IV, of Sparta, assists the Achaeans in their war against theAetolians. 

Rome, having again assembled a great fleet, under Lutatius Catalus, vanquishes the Carthaginians in a naval encounter off the Aegates. Endof the First Punic War; Sicily is relinquished by Carthage to Rome. 

240. The Carthaginian mercenaries in Africa revolt; Hamilcar Barcacrushes it out. 

237. Carthage is compelled to cede Sardinia to Rome. 

236-221. Celomenes III of Sparta institutes great political reforms andengages in a struggle with the Achaean League. 

236-220. Hamilcar Barca and Hasdrubal, his son-in-law, conquer a greatpart of Spain. 

235. Rome, at peace with all the world, closes the temple of Janus, forthe first time since Numa, according to legend, the second king of Rome. 

234. Birth of Cato the Elder. 

Scipio Africanus born. 

230. Ambassadors sent by Rome to protest against the piracies of theIllyrians are murdered by the order of Queen Teuta. 

229. A successful war is waged by the Romans against the Greek kingdomof Illyria; the Roman power is extended across the Adriatic. 

On the death of Hamilcar, his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, takes his place inSpain; he founds Carthago Nova (Carthagena). 

227. Sparta makes war with the Achaean League. 

225-222. Cisalpine Gaul is conquered by the Romans. 

221. Cleomenes III is crushed by Antigonus Doson, ruler of Macedon, atSellasia; the Spartan power is utterly destroyed. 

220. Social war; the war made by the Aetolian League on the AchaeanLeague. 

219. Hannibal lays siege to Saguntum, which he destroys; this is thereal commencement of the Second Punic War. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

Philip V, of Macedon, is victorious in his campaigns against theAetolian League. 

218. Hannibal crosses the Alps into Italy; he defeats the Romans on theTicinus and Trebia. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

217. Philip V continues his victorious way against the Aetolian League. 

Hannibal defeats the Romans at the Trasimene Lake. 

Antiochus the Great cedes Coele-Syria and Palestine to Egypt. 

216. Crushing defeat of the Romans by Hannibal at Cannae. See "THE PUNICWARS, " ii, 179. 

214. Rome has her first encounter with Macedon; Philip V allies himselfwith Hannibal and begins the war. 

Marcellus is sent into Sicily and besieges Syracuse, which had declaredagainst Rome. 

213. Aratus, strategus of the Achaean League, is poisoned by Philip V ofMacedon; this alienates from him many Greek states. 

Hwangti crushes out literature in China. 

212. After a two-years' siege the Romans under Marcellus take Syracuse. 

The two Scipios defeated and killed in Spain. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

211. Hannibal before the gates of Rome. See "THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

The Aetolian League with its allies assists Rome against Macedon. 

210. Aegina taken by the Romans; the inhabitants reduced to slavery. 

Agrigentum, being conquered by Caevinus, places all Sicily again underRoman subjection. 

Scipio, victorious in Spain, takes Carthago Nova. See "THE PUNIC WARS, "ii, 179. 

208. Suspension of his operations against Scipio--the future ScipioAfricanus--in Spain by Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, who sets out torelieve his brother Hannibal in Italy. 

207. Hasdrubal is defeated and slain on the Metaurus. See "BATTLE OF THEMETAURUS, " ii, 195. 

A signal victory is achieved by Philopoemen, general of the AchaeanLeague, with Macedon, over the Spartans at Matinea. 

206. Birth of Polybius, Greek historian. 

The Carthaginian power in Spain completely destroyed by Scipio. 

205. End of the first Romo-Macedonian war. 

204. Scipio carries the war into Africa; he defeats the Carthaginiansand the Numidians. 

203. Hannibal, recalled from Italy, arrives at Carthage. 

202. The Carthaginian power is completely broken, ending the SecondPunic War. See "SCIPIO AFRICANUS CRUSHES HANNIBAL AT ZAMA AND SUBJUGATESCARTHAGE, " ii, 224. 

201. A war is begun by Rome for the resubjugation of the Boii andInsubres of Cisalpine Gaul, who had attained freedom owing to theCarthaginian invasion. 

The Jews become subject to the Seleucid monarchy. 

200. Declaration of war by Rome against Macedon; the second Macedonianwar. 

198. Antiochus the Great, of Syria, conquers Palestine and Coele-Syriafrom Egypt, defeating Scopas and the Aetolian allies. 

197. Decisive Roman victory over the Macedonians at Cynoscephale; PhilipV of Macedon makes a humiliating peace. 

196. The Roman general Flaminius proclaims the freedom of the Greeks. 

195. [Est] Birth of Terrence, Roman comic poet. 

Ptolemy V, Epiphanes, King of Egypt. See i, 1, "The Rosetta Stone. "

192. In concert with the Aetolians, Antiochus the Great takes up armsagainst Rome. 

191. Antiochus is defeated by the Romans under Acilius Glabrio, atThermopylae, in Greece. The resubjugation of Cisalpine Gaul is completedby Rome. 

All the Peloponnesus is included in the Achaean League, which attainsits apogee. 

190. Scipio Asiaticus takes command of the Romans in Greece, with hisbrother Africanus as lieutenant; Antiochus is vanquished at Magnesia andhe is compelled to release his hold on the greater part of Asia Minor. Most of the conquered territory is annexed to Pergamus. Scipio Asiaticustakes his surname for the courage and ability he showed. 

189. Fall of the Aetolian League. 

185. Birth of Scipio Africanus the Younger. 

179. Death of Philip V of Macedon. His son Perseus negotiates secretlywith other states against Rome. The Celtiberians and Lusitanians laydown their arms. 

177. Rome suppresses a revolt in Sardinia. A colony settled at Lucca. The Achaeans contract an alliance with Rome. 

Thessaly relapses under the Macedonian influence. 

176. The consul Scipio dies, and C. Valerius Laevinus takes his placefor the rest of the year. His colleague Petilius is slain in battleagainst the Ligurians. The Orchian and other sumptuary laws fail torepress the luxury of the Romans. 

175. Disgraceful struggles for the high-priesthood of Jerusalem;Antiochus sells it to Jason, the brother of Onias, who is deposed. 

174. Masinissa, after many encroachments, seizes the Carthaginianprovinces of Tyssa, with fifty cities; Roman ambassadors sent to settlethe dispute. Others deputed to ascertain the intentions of Perseus. 

Mithridates VI of the Arsacidae begins his reign and prepares theelevation of Parthia to great power. 

173. The Roman ambassadors return, Perseus having refused to receivethem. 

Death of Cleopatra, who, in the name of her young son, had been regentof Egypt. 

172. The Ligurians are subdued and Northern Italy filled with Romancolonies. Eumenes honorably received at Rome; on his way back he isattacked by assassins near Delphi. 

Menelaus, another brother, supplants Jason in the high-priesthood ofJerusalem. 

171. Commencement of the Third Macedonian War; King Perseus begins hisstruggle with Rome. 

Antiochus invades Egypt and takes Memphis. 

170. Hostilius, who takes the command in Macedon, makes no progress; theRoman fleet ravages the sea-coast. 

Perseus negotiates with Antiochus, Prusias, and many Greek states toform a coalition against Rome; even Eumenes begins to treat with him. 

Ptolemy Physcon is associated with his brother as joint King of Egypt. 

169. The manoeuvres of Marcius Philippus drive Perseus from his strongposition in Tempe. 

Antiochus lays siege to Alexandria; the Egyptians apply to Rome for aid. 

168. Battle of Pydna; complete defeat of Perseus, King of Macedon, bythe Romans, under L. Aenilius Paulas. Macedon becomes a Roman province. 

Antiochus, awed by the Roman ambassador Popillius and the fate ofPerseus, evacuates Egypt. In his retreat he plunders Jerusalem anddespoils the Temple, in which he sets up the statue of Jupiter Olympias. 

167. Deportation of a thousand Achaeans to Rome; among them is Polybius, the historian, who there finds patrons and friends. The first libraryopened in Rome, consisting of books plundered from Macedon. 

Arms are taken up by the Asmoneans against Antiochus, King of Syria. 

165. Judas Maccabaeus enters Jerusalem; he purifies the Temple. See"JUDAS MACCABEUS LIBERATES JUDEA, " ii, 245. 

160. Defeat and death of Judas Maccabaeus in battle. 

158. Roman citizens are almost entirely relieved of direct taxation bythe revenues from Macedon and other conquests. 

149. Commencement of the Third Punic War between Rome and Carthage. See"THE PUNIC WARS, " ii, 179. 

First Roman law against bribery at elections. 

147. [Est] Viriathus, the Lusitanian leader, has his first great victoryover the Romans. 

146. Scipio Africanus the Younger completely destroys Carthage. 

Mummius, commanding in Greece, defeats the Archaeans at Leucopetra; hecaptures and destroys Corinth. The treasures of Grecian art conveyed toRome. Greece becomes a Roman province. 

Demetrius Nicator slays Alexander Bala in battle and becomes king ofSyria. 

141. Simon Maccabaeus captures the citadel of Jerusalem. 

Silanus, accused by the Macedonians of corrupt practices, is condemnedby his father, Torquatus, and takes his own life. 

140. The Jews proclaim Simon Maccabaeus hereditary prince; with thisdignity is united the office of high-priest. 

[Est]Viriathus, the Lusitanian leader against the Romans in Spain, isassassinated by order of the consul Caepio. 

135. Simon Maccabaeus is assassinated; John Hyrcanus, his son, succeedshim as ruler at Jerusalem. 

134-133. Antiochus Tidetes, King of Syria, besieges Jerusalem; he isrepulsed. 

134-132. Servile War in Sicily, caused by the inhuman treatment of theslaves by their owners; two great battles were fought before the risingwas suppressed. 

133. Tiberius Gracchus attempts his great political and agrarian reformsin Rome. See "THE GRACCHI AND THEIR REFORMS, " ii, 259. 

Scipio Africanus the Younger reduces Numantia. 

Attalus III of Pergamus bequeaths his kingdom, which embraces a greatpart of Asia Minor, to the Romans. 

125-121. The southeastern portion of Transalpine Gaul conquered by theRomans. 

123-122. Caius Gracchus commences his agrarian reforms in Rome. See "THEGRACCHI AND THEIR REFORMS, " ii, 259. 

118. Rome extends her dominion beyond the Rhone; the colony of NarboMartius (Narbonne) founded. 

113. Hordes of the Cimbri and Teutons threaten the Rome dominion by aninvasion of Illyrium. 

112. Jugurtha, King of Numidia, kills Adherbal, who has been restored tothe throne of Numidia after being driven thence by Jugurtha. 

111. The consul Calpurnius proceeds with a Roman army into Numidia;bribed by Jugurtha, he makes a peace and withdraws his forces. 

109. Jugurtha is opposed in Numidia by the Roman army headed byMetellus. 

John Hyrcanus, the Jewish Prince and high-priest, defeats PtolemyLathyrus and captures Samaria. [Est]

The Cimbri request an allotment of land from the Romans, whereon tosettle; it is refused; they ravage the country, but are checked inThrace by Nimicus Rufus. 

108. Metellus, as proconsul, continues the war in Numidia. 

The Cimbri defeat the consul Scaurus in Gaul. 

Mithridates of Pontus secretly prepares to regain by force the provinceof Phrygia, which the Romans took from him during his minority. 

107. Marius vigorously carries on the war against Jugurtha; Marius isconsul, Sylla his quaestor. 

Cassius, Roman consul, is defeated and slain by the Cimbri in Gaul. 

106. Birth of Cicero. Birth of Pompey the Great. 

Jugurtha is betrayed by Bocchus, King of Mauretania, into the hands ofthe Romans, which ends the Jugurthine War. 

105. The Cimbri and Teutones defeat the consul Manilius and proconsulCaepio, near the Rhone, with great loss. 

Aristobulus, son of John Hyrcanus, succeeds his father and assumes thetitle of king of Judea. 

104. Alexander Jannaeus succeeds his brother Aristobulus in Judea. 

102. Marius overwhelmingly defeats the Teutones, while they wereretreating from Spain, at Aquae Sextiae (Aix). 

Another revolt of the slaves in Sicily (Second Servile War). 

101. Marius utterly crushes the Cimbri on the Raudian Fields, after theyhad previously defeated the proconsul Lutatius Catulus. 

100. The Second Servile War continues. 

Birth of Julius Cæsar. 

99. M. Aquilius finally crushes out the slave uprising in Sicily. 

94. Mithridates makes his son king of Cappadocia. 

93. Cappadocians appeal to the Romans, who give them Ariobarzanes fortheir king. Mithridates seizes Galatia. 

92. Sulla is sent by the Romans into Cappadocia to observe Mithridates'proceedings; ambassadors from Parthia meet him there. 

91. M. Livius Drussus, people's tribune, advocates giving the rights ofcitizenship to the Roman allies; he is assassinated. 

90. Social or Marsic War, a conflict of the Italian states against Rome, begins, the cause being the refusal of the franchise by Rome. Cæsar, theconsul, is unfortunate against the Samnites, and Rutilius is defeatedand slain by the Marsi. Marius retrieves these disasters. Citizenshipgranted to the states which remain faithful to Rome. 

The Roman senate promises aid to Cappadocia against Mithridates. 

89. The consul Pompeius (father of Pompey the Great) gains decidedvictories over the Picentines; his colleague, Cato, defeats the Marsi, but is killed in the battle; Sulla takes the command, and is sosuccessful that he is elected consul for the ensuing year. Cicero is acadet in the army of Pompeius. 

Cleopatra is put to death by her son Alexander, who is expelled fromEgypt, and Ptolemy Soter restored. 

88. End of the Social War. Most of the refractory states admitted toRoman citizenship. 

Mithridates, King of Pontus, occupies Phrygia; he asks all Asia Minor tojoin him; a general massacre of the Romans occurs. 

Quarrel between Sulla and Marius which causes war between them for thecontrol of the Roman army. The first Roman civil war. 

87. Sulla proceeds to Greece to conduct the war against Mithridates;Sulla besieges Athens. 

The consul Cinna, deposed by the senate, calls Marius from Africa, raises an Italian army, and reinstates himself in office; bloodyproscriptions by Marius and Cinna follow. 

86. Death of Marius, in the beginning of his seventh consulate; Flaccus, appointed in his place, is assassinated on his march to the east, by C. Fimbria, who assumes command of the Roman army. 

Sulla captures the revolted city of Athens and defeats the army ofMithridates under Archelaus. 

A sedition of the Jews is quelled with merciless severity by AlexanderJannaeus. 

85. The Romans are successful against Mithridates in Asia. 

84. End of the First Mithridatic War; Mithridates, finding himselfbetween two victorious Roman armies, agrees to peace and relinquishesall his acquisitions. 

83. Sulla makes war against the Marian party in Italy. 

The Roman senate refuses to send Mithridates a formal ratification ofthe treaty. He retains a part of Cappadocia. The Second Mithridatic Warbegins. 

82. Sulla becomes dictator at Rome, after crushing the Marian party; heinflicts a bloody vengeance on his enemies. 

End of the Second Mithridatic War. 

81. Pompey, having been successful in Africa, is granted a triumph inRome. 

80. Sertorius, the Marian leader, sets up an independent state in Spain. 

Cæsar serves as a cadet at the siege of Mitylene; he receives a civiccrown for saving the life of a citizen. 

79. Sulla resigns the dictatorship, but remains master of Rome. 

Alexander Jannaeus, King of Judea, is succeeded on his death by hiswidow Alexandra. 

78. Death of Sulla. 

76. Pompey is sent into Spain to oppose Sertorius. 

74. Mithridates renews hostilities; he enters into an abortive alliancewith Sertorius. Third Mithridatic War. Lucullus commands the Romanforces. 

73. Lucullus routs the army of Mithridates. 

Rising of the gladiators; Spartacus collects, on Mount Vesuvius, anumerous army of slaves and gladiators; they overcome the forces sentagainst them and ravage Southern Italy. The Third Servile War. 

72. Sertorius is assassinated in Spain; the Spaniards submit to Pompey. 

King Mithridates is driven from his dominions by Lucullus; the Kingtakes refuge in Armenia. 

71. Crassus defeats and slays Spartacus; the gladiators are crushed. 

70. Death of Alexandra, widow of Jannaeus; she nominates her son, Hyrcanus, as her successor; but his brother, Aristobulus, usurps thethrone of Judea. 

Pompey and Crassus, previously at variance, are reconciled during theirjoint consulship. 

Cicero's six orations (the first only being actually delivered) againstVerres, who, when governor of Sicily, had plundered the island ofproperty, art treasures, etc. 

Birth of Vergil. 

69. Lucullus crosses the Euphrates, captures Tigranocerta, and defeatsTigranes, who had succored Mithridates in Armenia. 

68. Lucullus defeats Tigranes and takes Nisibis. 

67. A mutiny in the Roman army caused by the appointment of Glabrio tosucceed Lucullus. 

Pompey crushes the pirates of Cilicia and makes it a Roman province. 

Julius Cæsar is quaestor in Spain. 

Metellus completes the conquest of Crete for the Romans. 

Mithridates makes a successful advance. 

66. Pompey, after a conference with Lucullus, completely crushesMithridates and drives him over the Cimmerian Bosporus. 

65. End of the Third Mithridatic War. 

Antiochus XIII is deposed by Pompey; this puts an end to the kingdom ofthe Seleucidas (Syria). 

Hyrcanus takes up arms against his brother Aristobulus in Judea. 

64. Pompey takes possession of Syria; he is recalled thence to opposeMithridates, who, returned to his states, prepares for furtherresistance. 

63. Having intervened between the brothers John Hyrcanus II andAristobulus II, and decided in favor of Hyrcanus, Pompey lays siege toJerusalem, where Aristobulus reigns, captures it, and makes Judea aRoman province. 

Mithridates, betrayed by his son, poisons himself. 

Cicero frustrates the conspiracy of Catiline, having for its object thecancellation of debts, the proscription of the wealthy, and thedistribution among the conspirators of all the offices of honor andemolument. 

62. Catiline is defeated and slain, after having collected an army inEtruria. 

Discord arises between Cæsar, now prætor, and Cato, tribune of thepeople. 

60. First Triumvirate in Rome, formed of Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar, equally dividing the power. 

59. Consulship of Cæsar at Rome; he carries his agrarian law andingratiates himself with the people; he is given the command in Gaul andIllyrium for five years. 

58. Cæsar begins his campaigns in Gaul. See "CÆSAR CONQUERS GAUL, " ii, 267. 

Cicero exiled from Rome; he had saved the Republic at the time of theCatiline conspiracy, but had broken the constitution, which forbadecapital punishment without the sentence of the assembly of the people. 

57. The Belgae conquered by Cæsar. 

Cicero recalled to Rome. 

56. Roman conquest of Aquitaine. 

55. Cato is imprisoned for opposing the vote giving the triumvirs fivemore years in their respective provinces: Pompey in Spain; Cæsar inGaul; Crassus in Syria. The triumvirs meet at Lucca. 

Caesar's first expedition into Britain. See "ROMAN INVASION AND CONQUESTOF BRITAIN, " ii, 285. 

54. First campaign of Crassus; he plunders the Temple of Jerusalem andproceeds against the Parthians. 

Mithridates of Parthia is murdered by his brother Orodes. 

Cæsar's second invasion of Britain. See "ROMAN INVASION AND CONQUEST OFBRITAIN, " ii, 285. 

53. Crassus defeated and slain in the war against the Parthians atCarrhae. 

52. Vercingetorix, at the head of various Gallic tribes, makes aformidable effort to drive Cæsar out of Gaul; he is unsuccessful, andCæsar, besieging him in his stronghold Alesia, forces him to surrender. 

51. Peace between Rome and Parthia. Cæsar completes his conquest ofGaul. 

Cleopatra, on the death of her father, Ptolemy Auletes, becomes queen ofEgypt. See "CLEOPATRA'S CONQUEST OF CÆSAR AND ANTONY, " ii, 295. 

50. Cæsar returns to Italy; jealousy between him and Pompey arouses thepeople of Rome. 

49. War breaks out between Cæsar and Pompey; the second civil war inRome. 

48. Pompey is defeated by Cæsar at Pharsalia; Pompey flees to Egypt, where he is assassinated. 

47. The Roman senate appoints Cæsar dictator, M. Antony as his master ofthe horse. Cæsar subdues Egypt. 

46. Cæsar overwhelms the Pompeians in Africa at the battle of Thapsus;Juba, King of Numidia, on the defeat, takes his own life. [92]

[Footnote 92: Other authorities say he fell in battle. ]

Death of Cato. 

The calendar is reformed by Cæsar. 

45. Cæsar conquers the sons of Pompey at Munda, Spain. He is appointeddictator for life. 

44. Brutus, Cassius, and other conspirators murder Cæsar in Rome. See"ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR, " ii, 313. 

Conflict for power between Antony and Octavius; Cicero's oration securesOctavius' success in Rome. 

Antony resorts to arms to regain his lost ascendency. See "ROME BECOMESA MONARCHY, " ii, 333. 

43. Second Triumvirate at Rome, formed by Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus. 

Murder of Cicero. Birth of Ovid. 

42. Brutus and Cassius are defeated at the two battles of Philippi. See"ROME BECOMES A MONARCHY, " ii, 333. 

41. Octavius and Antony's party war in Italy. 

Fulvia, the wife of Antony, and the consul Lucius, his brother, opposeOctavius, who drives them from Rome. See "ROME BECOMES A MONARCHY, " ii, 333. 

40. Herod I, in his absence at Rome, is proclaimed by Antony andOctavius king of Judea. 

Antony accompanies Cleopatra to Egypt. See "ROME BECOMES A MONARCHY, "ii, 333. 

39. Herod lands in Syria to take the throne of Judea. 

38. Pompey is defeated in a naval engagement and loses all his fleet. 

37. Herod conquers Jerusalem; the Asmonean house ends. 

36. Lepidus, aspiring to greater power, is deserted by his soldiers andejected from the triumvirate. 

31. War of Antony and Octavius; Octavius is victorious at Actium: hebecomes master of the Roman dominions. Flight of Antony with Cleopatrato Egypt. See "ROME BECOMES A MONARCHY, " ii, 333. 

30. Death of Antony and Cleopatra. See "ROME BECOMES A MONARCHY, " ii, 333. 

Egypt becomes a Roman province. 

27. Octavius has a triumph at Rome and receives the title of Augustus. 

The temple of Janus is closed. 

24. Aelius Gallus, governor of Egypt, fails in an expedition intoArabia. 

19. Final subjugation of the Cantabri by Agrippa; the whole Spanishpeninsula subject to Rome. 

15. The Rhaetians and Vindelicians subdued by Drassus and Tiberius, atthe head of the Roman troops. 

12. Victorious advance of Drusus in Germany. 

9. Pannonia completely subdued by Tiberius. 

Last German campaign and death of Drusus. 

4. Death of Herod the Great, King of Judea. 

Probable date of the birth of Jesus. 

A. D. 

1. Beginning of the Christian era. 

4. Emperor Tiberius' campaign in Germany. 

6. Archelaus, the Herodian ethnarch, is deposed; Judea becomes adistrict of the Roman prefecture of Syria. 

9. Arminius annihilates the army of Varus in Teutoburg Forest. See"GERMANS UNDER ARMINIUS REVOLT AGAINST ROME, " ii, 362. 

12. Tiberius leaves Germanicus to prosecute the war, and returns toRome. 

END OF VOLUME II