History of Rome

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            ROME-On the river Tiber, about fifteen miles from its mouth, where its banks are fringed with low hills, there lay a Latin town somewhat apart from the other towns of League, on a hill called the Palatine.  This was Rome (Roma, which is thought to mean the Stream Town).  There are a great many stories about the founding of Rome, and about the different kings, which you will be told in the next chapter.  But we know nothing certain until after the Kings had been driven out, that is, two hundred and fifty years after Rome is supposed to have been founded; and even then a great deal of the history is very doubtful.  These Romans spoke the same language as the Latins, but according to tradition they were a mixture of Latins, Sabines and Etruscans.  This is not unlikely, for Rome lay near the borders both of the Etruscans and Sabines; and you will read in the legends how a number of Sabines, under their king, joined the Romans, and how, many years afterwards, an Etruscan became king of Rome.  Also many Roman customs, as you have been told, came from Etruria.  At any rate, whether they were pure Latins or not, the Romans, it seems, from a very early time were quite distinct from the League of the Latin cities; and during the time of the kings they fought and conquered Alba Longa, and took its place as the head of the League. 

            CLAND AND FAMILIES-NAMES-The Romans were divided into clans (gentes).  Each gens had a name, such as the gens Fabia, the gens Julia, and was supposed to be descended from a common ancestor.  Usually the gens was divided into a number of families (familioe), which also had a special name derived from some peculiarity of its founder; and as Romans also were called by personal, which were like our Christian names, such as Titus, Marcus, Quintus, we shall find that Romans usually had three names altogether.  Thus Marcus Tullius Cicero belonged to the Cicero family of the gens Tullia, and his own name was Marcus; his brother was called Quintus Tullius Cicero.  This, you see, is very different from the custom of the Greeks, who never had more than one name, as Pericles, Aristides.

            THE ROMAN RELIGON-The old Romans were very religious; but their religion was very simple, much simpler than that of the Greeks, for they were not clever enough to invent such beautiful stories and legends about their gods as the Greeks did.  The poems of Ovid and Virgil and other Latin poets are indeed full of stories about the Roman gods; but these were all borrowed from the Greeks, for when the Romans learnt about the religion of the Greeks they found that some of their gods were like the Greek ones, and so then they tried t make out that the two religions were exactly the same and took all the Greek stories.  The head of the Roman religion was the king; but many of the gods had a special priest, called a Flamen; there were also other priests called Pontificies with the Pontifex Maximus at their head.  We do not know what Pontifex I derived from; some people think it means bridge maker, from pons, a bridge, and facio, and that bridge making was a religious ceremony with the Romans. Then there were Augurs (from avis, a bird), whose duty it was to discover the will of heaven before anything important was undertaken, by the flight of birds or from the body of the victim; and the Vestal Virgins, virgins of the noblest birth who were not allowed to marry, and tended the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta, of Goddess of the Hearth, which was never allowed to go out.

            THE ROMAN HOME-Like the Latins, the Romans were chiefly farmers, living on their little farms round the alatine.  True Roman in the old days considered it unworthy to have anything to do with trade.  In each family the farther, at the head of it, had absolute power over all its members, even his grown up sons.  He could even put them to death if he chose.  For these stern old Romans had great belief in the power of law and the duty of obedience; and this was perhaps why they became such a great nation afterwards.  In Greece we read of children despising and ill-treating their parents; but the Greeks never learnt how to rule other nations.  Each family had its own worship, and the father was the priest, the mother the priestess; a fire was kept ever burning for Vesta, like the public fire tended by the Vestal Virgins; and little images of household gods were worshipped, called Lares and Penates.  The houses were of only one storey; they consisted of a large hall, called the “atrium,” with the sleeping rooms round it.  In peace of Roman was a close fitting tunic, and over that a large, white, woollen shawl called a “toga,” which was thrown round the body in graceful folds, as you see in the picture.

             SLAVERY AND THE LAW OF DEBT-The Romans employed slaves to do menial work; but they were few in number in these early days, though obedience was sternly enforced, they were not cruelly treated, but were regarded as members of the household.  Slaves were either the children of slave parents, or prisoners of war, or sometimes debtors who could not pay their debts.  For the Roman law about debt was very harsh; if a man could not pay a debt, his creditor could throw him into prison and sell his goods, or even make him a slave.  This law of debt sometimes caused great trouble in Roman history.

            THE ARMY-Every Roman citizen between the ages of seventeen and forty-six was obliged to fight in the army: he was called a young man (juvenis); when he was past forty-six he became an old man (senex).  Each soldier had to provide his own arms, helmet, breastplate, shield, and greaves on the legs, sword and spear.  Those who could afford a horse served as cavalry (equites); and you will find afterwards that rich men at Rome were called equites even though they were not soldiers at all.  The army was called the Legio, and is said to have originally numbered 3000 infantry and 300 cavalry.  Then, when the army increased in numbers, each division of about 3000 soldiers was called a Legio (Legion).  Afterwards the legion became still more numerous, and at last numbered about 6000.

            THE GOVERNMENT OF ROME- (I) THE KING-You must now hear how the Romans were governed.  At the head of the States was the King: he led the army in war, and administrated law and justice at home; he did not rule by right of birth but was elected.  His toga had a scarlet border; he sat on an ivory chair, called a curule (sella curulis), and was attended by twenty-four lectors.  The lectors were like our policemen; they kept order and arrested criminals.  When in attendance on the king, they carried a bundle of rods, called the fasces, with an axe in the middle, as a sign that the king could punish citizens by scourging or putting them to death.

             (2) THE SENATE-To give him advice the king used to summon an assembly of the heads of families (patres), called the Senate (senatus, from senex, an old man): it consisted of 300 members.  The senators could speak and advise the king, but could not prevent him doing what he wished; they also chose the new king.

            (3) THE ASSEMBLY OF THE PEIOPLE (Comitia Curiata). - When the king wished to pass the law, or declare war or make peace, after consulting the Senate, he called together a meeting (comitia) of the whole people in the market place (forum).  No man was allowed to make a speech; they might only vote yes or no.  The voting was done divisions, called curiae, each curia one vote.  So the assembly was called the Comitia Curiata.  It also formally accepted the king chosen by the Senate; and if anyone was condemned to death by the king he had the right to be tried by the people; this was called the provocatio ad populum (appeal to the people).  Thus though the king really managed everything, he had to regard the feelings of the subjects; and each Roman citizen felt that he was a free man, not a mere slave.

           THE PLEBEIANS-The Roman citizens who fought in the army and voted in Comitia Curiata were not the only inhabitants of Rome.  There was also, apparently from the earliest days of the city, an inferior population, known as the Plebs (the mass) or Plebeians.  The full citizens themselves Patricians (from Pater), which seems to mean belonging to the families of senators (patres).  The Patricians did not consider the Plebeians as citizens; they had no rights, and no vote in the assembly, and did not fight in the army.  But the Plebeians were not left utterly unprotected.  Each Plebeian was under the protection of some powerful Patrician, who was called his patron (patronus), and he was called the Patrician’s client (cliens).  A client had to perform certain duties for his patron, and if the client were wronged the patron could speak for him in the court of law and obtain him redress.  Who the Plebeians were is a disputed question.  Some seem to have been the remains of conquered peoples; some no doubt were settlers who came to Rome for trade; others, freed slaves.

            THE PLEBEIANS MADE CITIZENS-As time passed on the Plebeians increased in numbers, and the great body of them seem to have been under the protection of the King, instead of being clients of Patrician houses.  At last a king rose, said to have been Servius Tullius in the legends, which thought that they ought to fight in the army.  So he divided the whole people, Patricians and Plebeians alike, into classes, according to their wealth, and made them all fight.  First came the richest men of all, who, as before, were the cavalry (equites).  After them came the first class, those who could afford the full armour of the heavy armed foot soldier, as has been described; then four other classes of those who could not afford so much armour; down to the poorest, who had only darts, and slings, and cudgels.

            THE COMITIA CENTURIATA-Next (whether at the same of afterwards we do not know), the Plebeians were allowed to vote in the assembly; for if the fought in the wars, it was only fair that they should be allowed to say whether there was to be war or not.  A new assembly was now made of all the citizens in their classes: it was called the Comitia Centuriata, because the cavalry and the five classes of foot soldiers were also divided into smaller divisions called centuries (which properly means a hundred men, from centum), and each century had one vote.  There were eighteen centuries of the cavalry, and eighty-two in the first class, but only ninety-three in the other four classes.  So the rich people could always outvote the poor.  Still the Plebeians now had a vote, and that was something to begin with.  The Comitia Centuriata was now the assembly of the Romans instead of the Comitia Curiata, in which only the Patricians voted; but there were certain religious and other duties which could only be performed by the Comitia Curiata, and so it was kept up as a mere form.

            THE CITY OF ROME-Rome had now grown to be a much larger and stronger State than when it was the little settlement on the Palatine Hill.  Little by little it spread over the other hills, and at last became the famous “City of the Seven Hills”; these were the Palatine in the centre, and round it the Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Coelian, Aventine.  Opposite the Palatine Hill on the other side of the Tiber was a fortress on a hill called the Janiculum to protect the city against the Etruscans; it was joined to the city by a wooden bridge called the Pons Sublicius (Bridge of Piles).  Under the Capitoline and Palatine hills lay the market place (Forum), where the Comitia assembled, with the Senate House (Curia) close by, called the Curia Hostilia, because it was said to have been built by Tullus Hostilius.  A fig tree grew in Forum, which the Romans regarded with special reverence, because under it, according to the story, the she wolf sucked Romulus and Remus.  On the Capitoline Hill were the Capitol, a great temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and the Arx or citadel; at one end was the Tarpeian Rock (Rupes Tarpeia), a sheer cliff 80 feet high, from which criminals were dashed to death.  A road called the Sacred Way (Via Sacra) passed through the Forum and then wound it way up the slopes of the hill into the Capitol.  It was by this road that the solemn procession of a victorious general went with the long train of soldiers, spoil and prisoners-the famous Roman Triumph.  On the right of the road, at the foot of the hill, was a dungeon, the Tullianum; hither the prisoners were led and put to death, while the conqueror went on to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus to offer his thanks for the victory.  In a hollow between the Palatine and Aventine was the great circus (Circus Maximus), a racecourse 700 yards long, 135 broad, with sales along either side for spectators.  Here the great Roman games (Ludi Romani) were held-chariot races, foot races, and other contests.  There was also a great underground drain of arched brickwork, the Cloaca Maxima, to drain off the water from the low, swampy ground between the hills and the Tiber.  So wonderfully was this work built that parts of it still remain unharmed by time, big enough for a wagon to drive down.  When the city had at last spread over all the seven hills a rampart fortified it five miles in circuit.  This rampart is said to have been built by the King Servius Tullius and was called the Agger Servi Tulli (Wall of Servius Tullius).  It was the only wall that Rome had till long after the end of the Republic, when the Emperor Aurelian built more extensive fortifications. Close under the walls on the north, in the bend of the Tiber, was a level plain sacred to the god Mars, the Campus Martius.  Here the legions used to be drilled and reviewed, and the young Romans trained their limbs in racing, wrestling, and all war like sports.  The Comitia also used often to meet here instead of in the Forum.

            ARRIVAL OF AENEAS AND THE TROJAN EXILES IN ITALY-FOUNDATION OF LAVINIUM-When the city of Troy was taken by the Greeks under King Agamemnon after the ten years siege, Aeneas, one of the bravest Trojan warriors, son of Anchises, a prince of the royal house, and of the goddess Venus, escaped with a small band of followers.  Favoured by the special protection of Heaven, after many adventures, he landed in Italy at the mouth of the river Tiber, in the country of the Latins.  The Latins, with their King Latinus, received strangers kindly; and Latinus agreed that Aeneas should marry his daughter Lavinia.  But Lavinia was already betrothed to Turnus, prince of the neighbouring tribe of the Rutuli.  So a war broke out in which the Rutuli, who were now joined by the Latins, were defeated, and Turnus was killed by Aeneas.  Then Aeneas married Lavinia, and in her honour called the new city which he founded Lavinium.  Soon the old King Latinus died and Aeneas became king over the united people of the Latins and Trojans; but not long afterwards he was killed in battle and taken up to heaven.

           ALBA LONGA FOUNDED BY ASCANIUS- His son Ascanius, who left Lavinium, and founded Alba Longa on the Alban Mount, succeeded Aeneas.  Ascanius was a great warrior; he fought victoriously against the Etruscans and other surrounding nations.  So Alba Longa became the chief town of all Latium; and after Ascanius a long line of his descendants reigned they’re as kings of Latium. 

            AMULIUS AND NUMITOR-BIRTH OF ROMULUS AND REMUS-One of these kings left two sons, Numitor and Amulius.  Amulius was the younger but he was fiercer and stronger than Numitor, and he drove him from the throne and made his daughter, Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin.  But Rhena Silvia was secretly espioused by the war-god Mars, and she gave birth to twins.  Then the cruel Amulius ordered her to be buried alive and the infants to be thrown into the Tiber.  But it chanced that at that time the Tiber had overflowed its banks; so, when the water went down, the cradle with the infants in it was left on dry ground near the hill afterwards called the Palatine.  And when the helpless infants began to cry, a she-wolf down to drink heard them and came and gave them suck.  Then a shepherd of King Amulius by name Faustulus, who lived on the Palatine, found and took them home, and gave them to his wife to bring up, and called them Romulus and Remus.  Romulus and Remus when they grew up became distinguished for strength and courage above all the shepherds of the king.  One day by chance Numitor discovered that they were his grandsons; so at the head of a band of shepherds they attacked Alba Longa and killed Amulius.Thus Numitor was restored to his throne, and reined again over the Latins at Alba Longa.

            FOUNDATION OF ROME BY ROMULUS-DEATH OF REMUS-Then Romulus and Remus determined to found a new city on the spot where they had been saved by the she-wolf.  But they could not agree which should have the honour of founding this city; so they resolved to obtain a sign from the gods by means of birds.  Romulus therefore posted himself on the Palatine Hill and Remus on the Aventine.  And first of all Remus saw six vultures, and sent a messenger to tell Romulus; but at the moment the messenger came Romulus saw twelve vultures; so each claimed the chief honour, Remus because he saw a sign first, Romulus because his sign was the greater.  Romolus then began to build the wall for his city on the Palatine Hill; but Remus in scorn leapt over the wall as it was just beginning to rise.  Then Romulus in anger slew Remus, and exclaimed, “So perish whosoever else shall cross these walls”.  So Romulus founded his city on the Palatine Hill, and called it after his own name Rome.  Then, to make his city larger, he made a fortress on another hill afterwards called the Capitoline; this he proclaimed an asylum or place of refuge, and many outlaws and fugitives from the surrounding states flocked to it.

             RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMAN-WAR WITH THE SABINES-The next thing was to obtain wives for the new citizens. But they were little better than a band of robbers, and the neighbouring towns would not let them marry their daughters.  Then Romulus saw that he must use craft.  He proclaimed a great festival, and invited the Sabines of Cures and other towns.  In the midst of the games at a signal from Romoulus, a number of armed men suddenly rushed in and seized all the Sabine maidens. Thus the Romans obtained wives for themselves.  But the Sabine maidens were not left unavenged.  For the Sabines made war on Rome; but Romulus defeated them; he slew the king, who led them, with his own hand, and dedicated his arms to Jupiter calling them Spolia Opima (the Splendid Spoils); and only twice afterwards did a Roman general kill the enemy’s general and win the Spolia Opima.  Another Sabine army under Titus Tatius, King of Cures, marched against rome.  The commander of the Roman citadel, on the Capitoline Hill, had a daughter called Tarpeia; and the Sabines asked her to let them into the fortress.  Tarpeia consented if they would give her the bright things on their left arms, for she coveted their golden armlets.  But when she had opened the gate, they threw on her the shields, which they also carried on their left arms, and slew her.  Thus the Sabines gained the Capitoline Hill.  Then there was much fighting between the Sabines on the Capitoline and the Romans on the Palatine.  But at last the Sabine women with dishevelled hair ran in between their husbands and their fathers, and prayed them to make peace.

            UNION OF THE SABINES AND ROMANS-REIGN OF ROMULUS-So peace was made; the two nations became one under the two kings, Romulus and Titus Tatius, and were called by the two names of Romans and Quirites or men of Cures.  But in memeory of the wicked act of Tarpeia, the cliff at the end of the Capitoline Hill was called the Tarpeian Rock, and criminals were hurled to death from it.  Not long after Titus Tatius died, and Romulus reigned alone over the united peoples.  He saw a brave and warlike king, and made Rome powerful by conquering the nations round.  He arranged the government of the City, and instituted the Senate and Assembly of the People of which you have heard.  After a reign of forty years he was taken up to heaven while reviewing his army, and worshipped ever after as a god under the name of Quirinus.

            NUMA POMPILIUS, THE SECOND KING-After Romulus a Sabine named Numa Pompilius was elected king.  He was a very holy man, and taught the Romans the arts of peace and the worship of the gods.  He first made the priests of whom you have been told, the Pontifices, Flamens, and Augurs.  He also marked out the year by the course of the sun, dividing it into twelve months of twenty-eight days each by the course of the moon; and since the twelve months were not long enough, he taught the priests how to put in extra months.  In all that he did he was instructed by heaven; for every night he used to meet a holy nymph named Egeria in a grove near the city, and she used to tell him what to do.  Numa made peace with all the nations round, for no one dared to attack the Holy King.  And he built a temple to the two faced god Janus, the doors of which were to be open in time of war and shut in time of peace.  So they were shut all the days of Numa, but after his days only twice in all Roman history.

             TULLUS HOSTILIUS THE THIRD KING-CONQUEST OF ALBA LONGA-THE HORATII AND CURIATII-The next king was a Roman, Tullus Hostilius.  He was a great warrior like Romulus.  In his reign there was a war between Rome and its mother city, Alba Longa.  When the armies met, the Alban general proposed to settle the quarrel by combat chosen champions, and Tullus assented.  Now there were in the Alban army three brothers called Curiatii, and in the Roman army three brothers called Horatii of the same age, and their mothers were sisters.  So the Curiatii and Horatii were chosen as champions to fight, and settle whether Alba should govern Rome or Rome Alba.  In the battle two Horatii were killed, but all the Curiatii were wounded.  Then the remaining Horatius began to fly and the Albans shouted for joy, but the Romans were dismayed.  But the Curiatii, owing to their wounds, could not all pursue with equal speed; so Horatius round suddenly slew the nearest Curiatius before the other could help him; in the same way he slew the second, and lastly the third.  So Horatius returned to Rome in triumph with the spoils.  But his sister was betrothed to one of the Curiatii; and when she came out to meet him and saw her lover’s coat, the work of her own hands, all covered with blood, she wept and bewailed his fate.  There upon Horatius drew his sword and stabbed her to the heart, exclaiming.  “So perish every Roman woman who mourns over an enemy”.  For this deed Horatius was condemned to death; but he appealed to the people, who gave him his life.

            DESTRUCTION OF ALBA LONGA-END OF TULLUS HOSTILIUS-At first the Albans and their general Mettus submitted to the Romans as they had agreed, but afterwards they tried to revolt.  Then Tullus had Mettus torn to pieces by wild horses; and Alba Longa was destroyed except the temples, and all the Albans were brought to Rome, made Roman citizens, and settled on the Coelian Hill.  Thus Rome became the chief of Latium.  But Tullus grew more and more fierce and warlike and neglected the gods, so that at last they sent a pestilence on him and on the city. Then Tullus grew frightened, and he found the books of Numa, and tried to sacrifice according to them.  But Jupiter would not accept these sacrifices, and smote both him and his house with his thunderbolt.  So Tullus died after reigning thirty-two years. 

            ANCUS MARCIUS, THE FOURTH KING-then the Senate and people elected a grandson of the pious Numa, called Ancus Marcius.  He restored the worship of the gods, and tried to bring back the peaceful times of his grandfather.  But the Latins, despising this peaceful king, attacked and plundered the Roman land.  Then Ancus Marcius declared war on them in due form defeated them; and he carried off the citizens of the towns which he took and settle them on the Aventine Hill.  He also fortified the hill Janiculum, on the other bank of the Tiber, and joined it to Rome by a bridge called the Pons Subicius; and he built the port of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber.

            LUCIUS TARQUINIUS COMES TO ROME-In the reign of Ancus Marcius there came to Rome from the Etruscan town Tarquinii a stranger named Lucumo.  He was the son of Demaratus, an exile from Corinth in Greece; but the Etruscans despised him as a foreigner, so he came to Rome by the advice of his wife Tanaquil, who was a wise woman and could read the future.  He called himself Lucius Tarquinius, after his birthplace.  He soon made himself liked at Rome by his wealth and courteous manners, and rose to earth honour that King Ancus made him guardian of his sons.

            LUCIUS TARQUINIUS, THE FIFTH KING-But still Tarquinius was not contended; and, when Ancus Marcius died, he persuaded the Assembly of the people top elect himself as king, for the sons of Ancus were not yet grown up.  So Tarquinius the foreigner became King of Rome.  He had great wars against the Latins, and Sabines, and Etruscans, and took many towns from them.  He was a very energetic king, and made many changes at Rome, bringing in Etruscan customs.  He also began great buildings, especially the Cloaca Maxima and the Temple to Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, and made the Circus Maximus.

            TARQUINIUS AND THE AUGUR ATTUS NAVIUS-One day when King Tarquinius was intending to make some change in the States, the augur Attus Navius said that it could not be done unless the gods were favourable.  Tarquinius in a rage said, mocking, “Tell me by your augury whether what I am thinking of at the present moment can be done”.  Attus replied that it could; and Tarquinius replied, “I was thinking that you should cut through this whetstone with a razor”.  And lo! Attus took the razor and cut through the whetstone.  Then Tarquinius obeyed the directions of the augur; and ever afterwards the Romans always consulted augury before doing anything important.    

           DEATH OF TARQUINIUS-Now the cause of the death of Tarquinius was as follows.  In the early part of his reign there was a boy born in his palace called Servius Tullius, whose mother was a slave.  He was seen asleep one day, with a flame playing round his head.  The servants wished to extinguish it with water, but Queen Tanaquil forbade them, and told her husband that the boy was destined to a high fate.  So Tarquinius brought him up as his own son, and so noble did he grow that he gave him his daughter in marriage.  But the two sons of Ancus Marcius were still alive, and were much offended that Tarquinius, after first depriving them of their rights, should now make a slave his son-in0law instead of one of them.  So they hired two shepherds, who came to the king pretending to have a quarrel; and while he was listening to one the other raised an axe and struck Tarquinius on the head.  The guards seized the murderers, and the old king was laid on his bed, where he soon after died.

            SERVIUS TULLIUS, THE SIXTH KING-But the sons of Ancus, though they killed Tarquinius, were baulked of their object.  For Queen Tanaquil ordered the palace to be closed, and said to the people, “The king is only wounded, and will soon recover; meanwhile Servius Tullius will carry on the government”.  Then the sons of Ancus, thinking that they had failed fled from the city; but Tanaquil, when he saw that the power of Servius Tullius was firmly established, at last announced that the king was really dead.  So Servius Tullius became king.  He fought against the Etruscans of Veil and conquered them; but he made a treaty with the Latins by which Rome was acknowledged as the head of Latium, and the Romans and Latins instituted a common yearly festival to Diana on Mount Aventine.  He also built a wall round the city called the Agger Servii Tullii, and allowed the Plebeians to serve in the army and vote in the Assembly.

            MURDER OF SERVIUS-Servius reigned forty-four years, and his end was, like that of Tarquinius, one of violence.  When the sons of Tarquinius, Aruns and Lucius grew up, Servius married them to his two daughters.  Now Aruns was good, and Lucius was wicked; but Lucius wife was good, and Aruns wife, who was called Tullia, was wicked.  Then Lucius, encouraged by the wicked Tullia, murdered his own wife and his brother Aruns.  So Lucius and Tullia were free to marry one another and carry out their wicked designs together.  Now many of the Patricians were angry with Servius because he had given power to the Plebeians, so Lucius persuaded them to help him to make himself king.  When everything was ready he surrounded himself with a body of armed men, and called the Senate together in the name of King Tarquibius.  King Servius heard what was happening, and came down to the senate house.  A violent quarrel arose.  Tarquinius seized his old father-in-law and threw him down the senate house steps, and then sent some of his adherents after him, who murdered him as he was making the best of his way back to his palace.  Meanwhile the wicked Tullia drove in her chariot to the senate house to salute her husband as king; and as she was driving back she came to the street where her murdered father was lying; but she ordered her charioteer to drive on over the body, so that she was sprinkled with her father’s blood.  Henceforward the Romans called the street the Vicus Seeleratus, or “Street of Crime”.

            TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS, THE SEVENTH AND LAST KING-Thus Lucius Tarquinius obtained the throne by crime, not by the will of the people; and as you would expect, he governed very harshly, oppressing the people grievously, and never consulting the Senate, but acting just as he thought fit or his wife Tullia advised him.  So the Romans called him Superbus (the Proud).  But Tarquinius was a mighty soldier, and made Rome more powerful than ever by conquering many of the Latin cities round her; he also was very fond of building, as tyrants often are, and he forced the people to labour at the temples and other great works, which he built.  Thus by his wars and buildings he kept the people occupied, and prevented them from rising against him, and so reigned many years.

            TARQUINIUS AND THE SIBYLINE BOOKS-King Tarquinius was very impious, and held religion in great scorn; and when one day an old woman, a prophetess or Sibyl, came and said that she had nine books containing prophecies to sell, he sent her away contemptuously.  The next day she came again with only six, for she had burnt three, and offered them at the same price as the nine, but Tarquinius laughed at her all the more.  Then she burnt three more, and offered the remaining three still for the same price.  Then the king was astonished, and, thinking there must be something valuable in them, bought the books.  And the Romans kept these Sibylline books, and always consulted them in time of trouble.  After a time the gods troubled Tarquinius for his wickedness with dreams and omens.  So he sent his two sons and his nephew Junius, whom men called Brutus, because they thought him stupid, to consult the great Greek oracle at Delphi. And one question the young man asked the oracle was, which of them should succeed Tarquinius and the oracle replied, “He who first kisses his mother”.  Thereupon the two sons of Tarquinius determined to draw lots to decide which should first kiss their mother; but Brutus, as he was coming away from the oracle, pretended to stumble and fell on his face, for he perceived that the oracle meant the earth, the mother of all men.  How the oracle came true you will be told in the next chapter.         

            THE EXPULSION OF THE KINGS, B.C. 510-We do not known whether the story of Tarquinius Superbus is true; but it is certain that at last a king arose who tried to set himself above the laws and would not consult the Senate, and his name may have been Tarquinius Superbus.  At length the Romans rose against him and drove him out; and solemnly declared that there should never again be a King at Rome.

            THE CONSULTS-Henceforward there were to be two rulers instead of one, so that each would prevent the other from becoming too powerful; they were elected from the Patricians only by the Assembly of the People, and ruled for one year.  They were first called praetors (generals), and afterwards consuls, which is thought to mean conleagues (cum sedeo, “to sit together”).  The consuls had the same powers and duties as the old kings; twelve lectors with fasces and axes attended them each; they sat on ivory curule chairs, and wore a scarlet-bordered toga.  But soon after the expulsion of the kings, to show that the people were now sovereigns, it was ordered that when the consuls entered the Assembly of the People, the lectors should lower the fasces as a mark of respect.         

            THE SENATE UNDER THE REPUBLIC-THE DICTATOR-The Senate now really governed Rome, for, though the consuls had the same powers as the old kings, they could not have the same authority, as they only ruled for one year.  So, instead of advising the consuls as it had advised the kings, the Senate ordered them to do what it thought right.  Sometimes, as might have been expected, it was found inconvenient to have two heads to the State, especially when Rome was in great danger. On such occasions the Senate ordered the consuls to name a man to be a single ruler, who was called Dictator.  A Dictator could not rule for more than six months, and was always appointed to do some particular thing; he had supreme power over everyone, including the consults, and there was no appeal from his sentence.  So you see that the Dictator was more powerful than the kings themselves for the short time that he ruled.

             THE STORY OF THE EXPULSION OF THE KINGS-The story which the Roman historians tell of the expulsion of the kings is as follows; For many years the Romans bore the tyranny of Tarquinius Superbus, but at last his overthrow was brought about by the wickedness of his son Sextus.  Tarquinius, in one of his many wars with the Latins, was besieging the town of Ardea.  Sextus and the other princes were in their father’s camp, and also their cousin Tarquinius Collatinus.  Said that his wife was the most virtuous; so, to settle the question, they resolved to visit their wives suddenly and find out what they were doing.  They first went to Rome, where thy found the princes wives enjoying themselves with feasting and merriment.  Thence they rode to Collatinus home at Collatia, where they found Lucretia sitting among her maids spinning.  So they decided that Lucretia was the most virtuous.  But Sextus was seized with a wicked passion for Lucretia, and he returned and brutally outraged her.  And in the morning Lucretia sent for her husband Collatinus and her father, and when they had come and Brutus with them, she told them what had happened, and stabbed herself before their eyes.  Then Brutus persuaded the people to drive out the tyrant Tarquinius and his wicked family; and when the army at Ardea heard of it, they revolted from Tarquinius and returned to Rome.  So the people of Rome drove out their king; and instead of a king they elected two consuls, who ruled for one year only.  And the first elected were Brutus and Collatinus.  Thus the oracle was filoed, and Brutus succeeded Tarquinius.

            ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE THE TARQUINS (I)-CONSPIRACY OF BRUTUS SONS-there were some among the nobles who conspired to restore the Tarquinius, and among them were the sons of Brutus.  But the conspiracy was revealed to the Seante by a lsave, and the conspirators were all punished by death.  And Brutus did not try to save his sons, but ordered them to be put to death like the others before his eyes.  Then the Romans drove out of Rome everyone of the name of Tarquinius.  So even Collatinus was obliged to give up his consulship and leave the city, and Publius Valerius Poplicola (populus colo “to love the people”) was chosen cousul in his place.

            (2) VEII AND TARQUINII-But Tarquinius had tretired to his native town Tarquinni in Etruria, and he persuaded the people of Tarquinni and Veii to help him to regain his throne.  Then a fierce battle was fought between the Etruscans and Romans, in which Aruns, son of Tarquinius, and Brutus slew one another; and when the day ws ended the battle was still doubtful.  But in the middle of the night the voice of Silvanus, the god of the forest, was heard saying that the Etruscans were vanquished because they had lost one man more than the Romans.  Whereupon the Etruscans returned to Etruria.

           (3) LARS PORSENNA-STORIES OF HORATIUS AND MUCIUS SCAEVOLA-Then Tarquinius appealed for help to Lars Porsenna, king of Clusium, the greatest town in all Etruria.  Porsenna raised a great army, which the Romans could not resist, and marched, and marched against Rome.  And he came upon the Romans so suddenly that he seized the Janiculum, before the Pons Sublicius could be cut down.  But in this moment of peril three brave Romans-Horatius Cocles, Spurius Lartius, and Titus Herminius-held the whole Etruscan army at bay till the bridge was destroyed.  Then Lars Porsenna besieged Rome with his army, and ravaged the country all round.  The Romans were now in great straits; and one day noble Roman called Mucius determined to kill Lars Porsenna.  So he crossed the Tiber and entered the Etruscan camp by stealth, but he had never seen Lars Porsenna, and by mistake killed his secretary.  Then the soldiers seized him and brought him before the king, but he spoke out boldly and said that he had come to kill the king.  And when Porsenna began to threaten him, to show that he was not afraid of torture he put his right hand into the fire on the altar close by, and held it there till it was consumed.  Then Porsenna was so astonished at his fortitude that he pardoned him.  And Mucius told him that three hundred young men of the noblest blood of Rome were banded together to kill him.  Porsenna was so struck by the determination of the Romans that he made peace, without restoring the Tarquins.  And the Romans, in gratitude to Mucius, gave him a piece of land; and he was called Mucius Scaevola, or the left-handed, as his right hand had been consumed in the fire.

            (4) THE LATINS TRY TO RESTORE TARQUINIUS-THE BATTLE OF LAKE REGILLUS- Then Tarquinius turned to the Latins, for Mamilius, the prince of Tusculum, the most powerful town of Latium, had married his daughter.  So Mamilius persuaded the thirty cities of the Latin League to fight against Rome and force her to restore the Tarquins.  Then the Romans thought that while the danger lasted it would be better to have one man at the head of the State instead of two, so they made a dictator, named Aulus Postumius, who marched out with his army and met the Latins by a little lake called Lake Regillus, north of the town of Tusculum.  There a terrible battle was fought, and the Romans were hard pressed by the Latins; but suddenly two horsemen on white steeds were seen fighting in the thick of the fray, and the Latins could not withstand them, but fled from the field defeated.  The two strange horsemen rode back to Rome, bringing tidings of the victory, and the people wondered whom they were; but they washed their steeds by the well of Vesta, and then rode to her temple and vanished from sight.  So the people knew that they were Castor and Pollux, the great Twin Gods.  And they built a temple to them by the well, and instituted a festival in their honour on the ideas of Quintilis (July 15^th), the day on which the battle was fought.  And ever afterwards there was to be seen on a rock by Lake Regillus the print of a horse’s hoof greater than that of a mortal horse.  After the battle of Lake Regillus the Latins made no further attempt to restore the Tarquins, and a few years afterwards the old king died at Cummae, in Campania.  Thus was the Republic established at Rome.  

THE EARLY REPUBLIC-STRIFE AT HOME AND

                                                                             FOES ABROAD-THE DECEMVIRATE 

            RESULT OF THE EXPULSION OF THE KINGSDECLINE OF THE POWER OF ROME-No doubt the Romans were very glad when they had got rid of their tyrannical king, but they soon found that there were fresh troubles in store for them.  Tarquinius, as you have been told, had made Rome very powerful abroad; now she lost all her power.  She was no longer the head of Latium, but, as the legends tell us, had to fight for her existence, first against the Etruscans, and then against her old allies the Latins.  Even if the story of horatius keeping the bridge be true, it was all she could do to beat off the Etruscans; but it is much more likely that the story was an invention, and that the Etruscans for a time actually conquered Rome; for a Roman writer tells us if an old treaty by which the Etruscans for bade the Romans to have arms or any iron implement except such as were necessary for agriculture.   Whatever actually happened, Rome certainly lost all the towns won by the kings; her territory was limited to a few miles round the city; she had great difficulty in maintaining herself against her enemies on every side; and it was not till after many years that she began again her career of conquest.

            QUARRELS OF THE PATRICIANS AND PIEBEIANS-There were another great evil caused by the expulsion of the kings.  The kings before Tarquinius Superbus used to protect the Plebeians and prevent the Patricians ill using them; but now the Patricians had all the power in their hands, for the Senate and consuls were Patricians, so that the Plebeians found themselves worse off than ever.  Very soon a terrible struggle broke out, which lasted many years and did great harm to Rome; for both Patricians and Plebeians were so blinded by hatred of one another that they did not see they were making Romans weak against her enemies.

            GRIEVANCE OF THE RICH PLEBIANS-There was three things about which the Patricians and Plebeians quarrelled.  First all of many of the Plebeians had grown rich by trade, as rich as the Patricians; they wanted to be made equal to the Patricians, to marry with them, and become consuls and senators.  This was the grievance of the rich Plebeians.

            GRIEVANCES OF THE POORER PLEBEIANS-THE PUBLIC LAND AND THE LAW OF DEBT-The poorer Plebeians had two other grievances, and it was these that caused most of the trouble, for the poor Plebeians were far more numerous than the rich ones.  They formed the bulk of the Roman army, so if they were discontented Rome could not beat her enemies.  These grievances were about the Law of Debt and the Public Land (Ager Publicus).  You have been told about the cruel Law of Debt; many a Plebeian, after fighting for his city all the summer and receiving no pay, found himself on his return home arrested for debt, and the only reward he gained by his valour was slavery.  The Patricians were still unfair about the Public land.  This was land conquered from an enemy.  In the time of the kings part of it used to be distributed in small lots to the poorer citizens, and the rest was let out for tillage to the rich citizens, who had to pay a small rent.  But now much of this land had been lost; the Patricians, having all the government in their own hands, kept to themselves what was left and paid no rent for it.  So the Plebeians were robbed of their land to which they had a right, and had to pay more for taxes, for as the Patricians paid no rent, there was less money in the Treasury.  To pay the taxes they had often to borrow money, and so got into debt and were sold as slaves.  Is it surprising that there was great discontent among the Plebeians?

             THE SECESSION TO THE SACRED MOUNT, B.C. 494-At last the Plebeians, driven to despair, refused to go out and fight.  Twice to despair refused to go out and fight.  Twice they were persuaded to go by a promise that the law of debt should be abolished, and the Senate broke twice the promise.  The second time the Plebeians marched off in a body to a hill four miles east of Rome, called the Sacred Mount (Mons Sacer), to found there a new city for them.  The Senate were in great alarm, for there would not be enough soldiers left to defend Rome; so they sent a rich Plebeian named Menenius Agrippa, a very eloquent man, to persuade them to return.  This shows that the rich Plebeians did not always take the side of their poorest brethren.  Menenius, according to the story, told the Plebeians a fable.  “Once upon a time,” said he, “the members of the body all began to grumble, because they had all the work to do, while the belly lay idle and enjoyed the results of their labour; so they agreed among themselves to starve the belly into submission, but the more they starved it the weaker they themselves became.”  Thus Menenius persuaded the Plebeians that they would not be able to get on without the Patricians; and they agreed to return to Rome, if something was done to protect them against injustice and imprisonment for debt.

            THE TRIBUNES OF THE PLEBS-So the Plebeians returned to Rome; and a law was passed by which new protectors were given them instead of their old protectors the kings.  These new protectors were called tribunes of the Plebs (Tribuni Plebis).  Originally there were two, but afterwards they were increased to five, and later to ten.  They were of course Plebeians, and were elected for one year by an Assembly of the Plebeians.  The office of the tribunes was a very strange one.  They could do nothing themselves, but had the right of stopping the act of any magistrate, even of a consul, by “vetoing,” that is, forbidding it.  Thus if a man was being led off to prison for debt a tribune could order him to be released.  The tribunes were never to leave the city for twenty-four hours, and their doors were to be open day and night, so that anyone who was oppressed could take refuge there.  Finally, that the Patricians might not harm them, it was decreed that their persons should be held nacred.  The tribunes soon began to use their power to veto even public acts of government in times of discord, and also to bring forward motions in the Assembly of the Plebeians.

            THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR WITH THE AEQUI AND VOLSCI-during this time, after the war against Lars Porsenna and the battle of Lake Regillus, the great enemies of Rome were the warlike mountain tribes of the Aequi and Volsci.  The Aequi dwelt on the slopes of the Apennies east of Rome, the Volsci in the hill country of South Latium.  They were very terrible enemies, and at first seemed likely to overwhelm the Romans.  But fortunately the Latins were as much afraid of them as the Romans; and so, in B.C. 493 the Roman consul Spurius Cassius persuaded the Latins to renew the old alliance with rome, which had been broken by the battle of Lake Regillus.  This alliance is the first really historical fact in roman history; for the treaty, with the name of Spurius Cassius as its author, was inscribed on a pillar of brasses, which existed in the forum in the days of Cicero.  The Hernici, who lived between the Aequi and Volsci, joined the Roman alliance soon after.

            THE AGRARIAN LAW OF SPURIUS CASSIUS-Not content with saving Rome from her enemies, Spurious Cassius also tried to heal the troubles at home.  The appointment of tribunes had indeed alleviated the laws of debt, but it had not stopped the grievance about the public land.  This Spurius Cassius tried to heal.  He was re-elected consul twice, and in his third consulship (a.c. 486) proposed a law that some of the land, which the Patricians were holding unfairly, should be taken from them and distributed in small lots among the Plebeians.  Any law for doing this was called an Agrarian Law (Lex Agraria, from ager, “land”).  There were many agrarian laws in Roman history.  The Patricians fiercely opposed this law.  They could not stop it being passed by the Assembly of the people, but they managed to prevent it being carried into effect.  And when Spurius Cassius year of office was over, they accused him of trying to make himself a king; and the name of king had such terrors for the people that they forgot the gratitude, which they owed him, and allowed him to be condemned.  So Spurius Cassius was beheaded and his house razed to the ground.  Such was his reward for trying to put an end to the troubles at Rome.

            WAR WITH ETRURIA-Meanwhile year after year the Romans, Latins, and Hernici went on fighting against the Aequi and Volsci.  Year after year the Aequi, like the old Scotch Highlanders, poured down from their mountain strongholds, burning crops and carrying off cattle; while in the south of Latium the Volsci attacked the Latin frontier towns, and the Romans and Latins attacked the Volscian towns.  Two years after the death of Spurius Cassius a war also broke out with the southern states of Etruria, which lasted ten years, and then was ended by a truce.  Nothing is known for certain about what happened in those wars; the Romans and Latins seem to have been very hard pressed, and at times to have been hardly able to hold their own.  There are, however, three famous stories about them, which though mere legends, give some notion of what they were like.

            STORIES OF THE WARS-(I) CORIOLANUS AND THE VOLSCI-there was at Rome a brave soldier called Caius Marcius, a Patrician.  He had fought at the battle of Lake Regillus and saved the life of a fellow soldier, for which he had been rewarded with an oaken wreath, the civic crown.  When the war broke out against the Volsci, Marcius by his bravery took the town of Corioli.  So the Romans called him Caius Marcius Coriolanus.  Now Coriolanus was a very proud Patrician, and was very angry when the Plebeians were allowed to have tribunes.  And when a great famine arose, and corn was sent to the Senate by Greeks in Sicily, Coriolanus said, “If the people want corn let them give up their tribunes, and obey us as their fathers did” but when the people heard of it they made a great tumult, and the Senate gave up Coriolanus to be judged by them.  Then Coriolanus fled from Rome to the country of the Volsci, and led a great Volscian army against Rome, that he might take vengeance on the Plebeians.  The Romans could not resist this invasion; and many a Latin town did Coriolanus take, till at last he encamped within five miles of Rome.  Then the Romans tried to make peace, but the conditions, which Coriolanus demanded, were too hard.  At last his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia came out with a train of noble ladies to try to soften his heart.  And when Coriolanus saw his mother and wife, at last he relented, and said, “O mother, thou hast won a great victory for Rome, but hast ruined thy son”; and he led away the army of the Volscians and never attacked Rome again.  And he did in his old age a solitary exile among the Volscians; though some say that the Volscians in their anger put him to death.

            (2) CINCINNATUS AND THE AEQUI-In the year B.C. 458 the Aequi surrounded the Roman army on a mountain called Algidus, part of the Alban Mount.  So great was the danger that the Romans determined to make dictator a great soldier, Lucius Quinctius, called Cincinnatus because of his curled hair.  Cincinnatus did not care to live at Rome; he preferred to till his own farm on the other side of the Tiber.  And when the senators came to tell him that he had been named dictator, they found him working in the fields without his toga.  So he sent his wife to fetch his toga, and, when he had put it on, he received the senators and accepted the post.  When Cincinnatus reached Rome, he stopped all business and ordered that all men capable of bearing arms should assemble in the Campus Martius by sunset, with five days provisions and twelve sharp stakes.  Thus equipped the army started from Rome, and reached Mount Algidus by midnight.  And Cincinnatus posted his men, without being seen round the Aequi, and ordered them to plant their stakes and dig a ditch.  The they raised the war-cry, which the Aequi and their own comrades heard; and when the Aequi saw that they were caught, they fought fiercely for a long time, but at last they were compelled to surrender.  And Cincinnatus made the whole Aequian army with its general, go under “the yoke”.  This was a common sign of defeat among these old Italians.  Fixing two spears in the ground, and fastening one across formed a yoke; and the conquered soldiers were made to pass under it one by one, without their arms and armour.  Then, having accomplished in six days that for which he was appointed, he resigned the dictatorship and returned to his farm.

            (3) THE FABII AND THE ETRUSCANS-One of the greatest houses at Rome was the Patrician gens of the Fabii.  So great was it that at this time nearly every year one of the consuls was a Fabius.  One year the Plebeians would not fight properly; for they were angry because the land had not been distributed according to the law of Spurius Cassius.  Thereupon the consul Kaeso Fabius tried to have the law carried out; this made the other Patricians very angry.  Then the Fabii resolved to leave the quarrelsome city altogether.  They asked the Senate to be allowed to go and fight alone against the Etruscans and prevent them from ravaging the Roman lands.  The Senate consented; and Kaeso Fabius, at the head of the whole gens, three hundred and six in number, marched out of Rome and encamped by the little stream of the Cremera in Etruria.  There for a long time they beat back the attacks of the whole Etruscan army, which tried in vain to dislodge them.  Then they began to plunder the Etruscan territory; but after a time the Etruscans caught them in an ambush, and the three hundred and six Fabii were all killed fighting valiantly.  And ever afterwards, in memory of this day, the gate by which the Fabii left Rome was called “the unlucky way”.  But one little boy had been left behind at Rome, for he was too young to fight; and from him sprang the Fabian house which in after time did many glorious deeds in the service of Rome. 

            CONTINUED STRUGGLES BETWEEN THE PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS-the stories of Spurius Cassius, Coriolanus, and of the Fabii show that even after the appointment of the tribunes the troubles continued at Rome.  There was first of all the trouble about the land.  But besides that the Plebeians found that their tribunes could not always protect them.  For at this time the Laws were unwritten, and the Patricians kept the knowledge of them to themselves, and so were often able to thwart the tribunes.  In the year B.C. 462, therefore, a tribune proposed that the laws should be drawn up in writing and published in the Forum, so that every one might know them.  This the Patricians refused, and so the struggle went on; the tribunes obstructing the work of government, and the Patricians replying with violence and illegal acts.  At last it was agreed that ten men (decemviri) should be appointed to draw up the code of laws and govern instead of the consuls, and that the Plebeians should give up their tribunes.

            THE DECEMVIRATE AND THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES, B.C. 451-449-So the Decemvirs was appointed.  They were all of them Patricians, but they did their work in a very just spirit.  At the end of the year they had drawn up ten tables of laws, but their task was not ended; so a fresh body of Decemvirs was elected for the next year, under the presidency of a Patrician of the great Claudian gens, Appius Claudius.  The work was completed by the addition of two more laws, and it was expected that the Decemvirs would resign.  This they refused to do, and continued in office, carrying on the supreme government, and appearing in the Forum proceeded by a hundred lectors bearing the fasces with the axes.  They continued in this course even after their year of office had expired, and at last were only driven out by force.  How this came about is very doubtful; the story as told by the Roman historians runs thus:

            THE STORY OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS AND VIRGINIA-When Appius Claudius and the other Decemvirs refused to resign they made themselves so strong that no one dared to oppose them.  But the people hated them, and the armies in the field warring against the Sabines and Aequi allowed them to be defeated, and the Fecemvirs in revenge murdered a brave soldier, Siccius Dentatus, for complaining against their tyranny.  Meanwhile, Appius Claudius, who was governing at Rome, chanced to see a beautiful maiden named Virginia, and wished to get her into his power, so he made one of his freedmen swear that she was his slave.  The case was tried before Appius himself; and Virginius, her father, who had been summoned from the camp, seeing that he could not save his daughter in any other way, stabbed her before the judgement seat of Appius in the presence of all the people.  A furious outbreak followed, the Decemvirs were forced to resign, and Appius Claudius died by his own hand in prison.  Such is the story of Appius Claudius and Virginia, but the Roman historian Livy tells us that Appius Claudius was elected the second time by the support of the Plebeians, and that he got several Plebeians elected also.  So some people think that he set himself up as the champion of the Plebeians against the Patricians, and was driven out by the Patricians.  At any rate, after the overthrow of the Decemvirs the Plebeians again marched off to the Sacred Mount, and would not return until their tribunes had been restored.  The laws, which the decemvirs had drawn up, were written on twelve brazen tablets (tabuloe), and set up in the Forum.  They were called the Twelve Tables, and were the foundation of all Roman law.  Thus the Plebeians were in a safer position than ever; for the laws were now published, so that the Patrician magistrates could not do illegal acts; and at the same time they had their tribunes to protect them.          

           THE CANULEIAN LAW, B.C. 445-The Poorer Plebeians had freed themselves from the unjust oppression of the Patricians.  But now the struggles of the rich Plebeians began; they wanted two things, the right of being regarded as the equals of the Patricians and marrying with them, and the right of being elected to all the high offices of State.  Their first object they attained at once; C. Canuleius, a tribune, proposed a law, which the Patricians could not prevent being passed, that Patricians and Plebeians should be allowed to intermarry, and that the children of such a marriage should take the rank of the father.  For before, if a Patrician married a Plebeian wife, the marriage was not a legal one, and the children could not take their father’s rank, but became Plebeians.

            THE INSTITUTION OF CONSULAR TRIBUNES-Their second object the Plebeians could gain so easily.  C. Canuleius proposal also those Plebeians might be elected consuls.  This the Patricians would not allow, but they were obliged to make some concession.  So they adopted a very trange device.  They allowed a law to be passed that, instead of consuls, a number of magistrates might be elected from Patricians and Plebeians alike, with powers exactly like the consuls, who were called “military tribunes with consular power” (tribuni militares consulari potestate).  These must be carefully distinguished from the tribunes of the Plebs.  They were usually six in number.  This law remained in force for eighty years, but it could only said that consular tribunes that it was the Senate which had to decide.  So there was usually each year a furious wrangle on the question, and sometimes consuls, sometimes consular tribunes, were elected; and, strange to say, such was the position held by the Patricians owing to their long continued power, that, though the law was passed B.C. 445, no Plebeian was elected military tribune till B.C. 400.

            THE INSTITUTION OF CENSORS, B.C. 443-One of the duties of the consuls was to hold the census or register of the people, that is, make a list of them with all their property, arrange in their classes, and fill up the vacancies in the Sentae.  This was done every five years.  The Patricians did not like such an important task especially the filling up of the Senate, to be performed by consular tribunes who might be Plebeians.  So they made two new magistrates called censors (censores, which means registrars).  The censors had the power of degrading from his proper class or from the Senate anyone who had been guilty of a disgraceful act, By putting a mark against his name, called the censor’s mark (nota censorial), so they had a general superintendence over the public morals; and this is how in English the word “censure” has come to mean “find fault with”.  The censors were men of great dignity, usually of consular rank, that is to say, they had held the office of consul.  Though elected for five years they always resigned after a year and a half, for that was the time it took them to complete their work, and for the next three and a half years there were no censors.

            SOURIUS MAELIUS, B.C. 439-four years after the institution of the censors there was again great distress among the Plebeians owing to a famine; such was their misery, that it said numbers in despair threw themselves into the Tiber.  So Spurius Maelius, a rich Plebeian, bought corn in Etruria and gave it to the starving people free.  Thereupon the Patricians said that he was conspiring to make himself king, as they had said of Spurius Cassius.  So the aged Cincinnatus was appointed dictator, and next day took his seat on his tribunal in the Forum, and sent Servillus Ahala, his “master of the horse” (as the dictator’s second in command was called), to bring Spurius Maelius before him.  Spurius Maelius was in the Forum at the time with a large crowd of Plebeians, who had come together in surprise at the appointment of a dictator: when summoned by Servillus he implored their aid.  But Servilius stabbed him on the spot, and cincinnatus said that Spurius Maelius was rightly slain for refusing to come before the dictator.  But the people were so angry that Servilius was obliged to leave Rome.

            WAR WITH THE ETRUSCANS-The Romans was now getting the better of the Aequi and Volsci, and feared them no longer.  They even felt strong enough to attack their old enemies the Etruscans, especially the neighbouring towns of Fidenae and Veii (B.C. 445).  In a great battle the Roman general Cornelius Cossus killed the King of Fidenae with his own hand, who thus won the spolia opima Fidenae was taken and kept by the Romans.  After many years fighting peace was made B.C. 425.  The great Etruscan nation was now growing weak.  They had been beaten at sea by the Greeks of Syracuse (B.C. 474); then the Samnites drove them out of Campania (B.C. 424), and now the Gauls too were beginning to attack them in the North.  So when the Romans began the war again and attacked Veii (B.C. 406) the other Etruscans left it to its fate.

             SIEGE OF VEII, B.C. 406-396-Veii was a town in a very strong position, and its walls were asgreat in extent as those of Rome.  So the Romans found it very difficult to take.  It was no use levying an army in the beginning of the summer to invade the Veientine land and then disbanding it in the autumn.  The Veientines, secure in their fastness, laughed at them.  So the Romans made two great camps on either side of the city and kept an army in them all the year round; but as the soldiers could not serve all the year for nothing, for then their families would starve, the State determined to give them pay.  And this was how the Roman soldiers first came to receive pay.  But still the war went on for a long time with doubtful success.  For the Veientines were still very strong and more than once destroyed the Roman camps; and in the south the Aequi and Volsci were still unsubdued, and took advantage of the Veientine war to renew their attacks.  As last, after a war of ten years, the Romans, under a great soldier called Camillus, took Veil and utterly destroyed it.

            THS STORY OF THE CAPTURE OF VEII-The Roman historian tells the following story about the capture of Veii.  There was great alarm at rome in the eighth year of the siege of Veii, for the water of the Alban Lake, closed by Alba Longa, overflowed.  So the Romans sent to the great oracle at Delphi in Greece to ask what this marvel portended.  But, meanwhile, at Veii a Roman soldier heard an old man on the city wall say that, until the water of the Alban Lake had gone down Veii would never be taken.  Knowing that the Etruscans were skilled in prophecy, the soldier persuaded him to come down and then seized him.  The old man was carried to Rome and forced to repeat the prophecy, and when the messengers came back from Delphi they brought the same answer.  Then the Romans let the water out of the lake by digging a great tunnel, the remains of which can be seen to this day.  They also sent the great soldier Camillus to command the army besieging Veii.  Camillus saw that the walls of the city were too strong to be taken by storm, so he dug a tunnel under the town right into the citadel.  Then, when all was ready, all the people to Rome came to Veii to share in the plunder, and Camillus led his storming into the tunnel.  Now it happened that just at this moment the high priest of Veii was sacrificing to Juno, and Camillus heard him say to the King that the victory would belong to whose ever should offer the sacrifice.  Then Camillus burst out of the tunnel and slew the priest and offered the sacrifice himself.  Thus, after a ten years siege, Veii was taken.         

            CONQUEST OF SOUTH ETRURIA-After the capture of Veii the romans continued the war against the Etruscans, and Camillus who had now been elected consular tribune, attacked the town of Falerii some miles north of Veii.  It is said, that during this siege, a schoolmaster at Falerii, who taught the sons of the leading citizens, while taking them for a walk, one day led them all into the Roman camp, thinking that he would thus get a great reward for betraying them.  But Camillus, scorning to take such a mean advantage, made the boy’s flog their schoolmaster, with his hands tied behind him, back into the city again.  This cat of generosity so pleased the people of Falerii that they surrendered their city to Camillus.  Camillus took many other cities, so that Rome had now conquered all South Etruria up to the great Ciminian Forest, which no Roman army had yet crossed, and which formed a barrier keeping North Etruria from helping the South.

            THE PLEBS WISH TOSEETLE AT VEII-EXILE OF CAMILIUS-After the fall of Veii there were disputes at Rome between the Patricians and P,lebeians about the Veientine land, for the Plebeians considered that they were unfairly treated.  It is said that the Plebeians wished to settle at Veii, which was now standing empty, but the Patricians would not let them.  The Plebeians also were angry with Camillus because he made them give up a tenth of the spoils, saying that he had it to Apollo; it is also said that he became very proud and overbearing on account of his victory, and that he was accused of keeping some of the spoils to himself. The end was, that Camillus was forced to go into exile and retired to the Latin town of Ardea.  

            INVASION OF THE GAULS, B.C. 390-It seemed now as if Romans was going to triumph over all her enemies, but just at this moment a heavy blow struck her-a blow that would have utterly crushed most States.  It will be remembered that while Rome was besieging Veii the Gauls were attacking Etruria in the north; there is an Etruscan tradition that the same day that Room took Veii, their southern stronghold, the Gauls took Melpum, their northern one, the site of which is unknown.  The Gauls did not settle I their conquests, but went on conquering and plundering further south till they came to Clussium; there three Roman ambassadors, who had been sent to order the Gauls to retire, joined in the battle, and one of the Romans killed a Gaulish chief; so the Gauls, to punish this breach of the law of nations, marched on Rome.

            BATTLE OF THE ALLIA-when the Romans heard that the Gauls were approaching they got together the largest army they could of themselves and their allies, including both the regular legions and also the inferior troops, who generally stayed at home to defend the city.  The Gauls were advancing by the south bank of the Tiber, and the Romans posted themselves behind the Allis, a little stream which flows into the Tiber about twelve miles above Rome.  Now this was the first time that Romans had ever seen barbarians, for all their wars had hitherto been against nations fighting in the same way as themselves, and they were utterly appalled by the terrific charge of the Gauls, who hurled themselves on them with wild yells, and slashed right and left with their huge broadswords just as the Highlanders used to attack the English.  So the inferior troops who were assailed first and by the bravest warriors of the Gauls, were broken at once, and in their flight threw the good troops into disorder.  Ina moment the whole army was in headlong route, and the Gauls were among them slaughtering the like sheep.  Some of the fugitives fled to Rome, other plunged into the Tiber, but very few succeeded in getting across.  Those who escaped fled to Veii.  The Gauls were too much astonished at their victory to pursue immediately.

            CAPTURE OF ROME, AND DEFENCE OF THE CAPITOL-When the remains fo the army reached Rome it was evident that its numbers were too few to defend the whole circuit of the walls.  It was therefore determined to abandon the city and hold on the Capitol.  Those, therefore, who wished to fight retired to the Capitol; the rest of the population took refuge in Veii, which was now standing empty, and other neighbouring towns.  But some of the Patrician senators, too old to join in the defence of the Capitol, but unwilling to survive the disgrace of Rome, arrayed themselves in their official robes and took their seats at the entrance of their houses.  On the third day after the battle the Gauls entered Rome, and when they came into the city they saw the old senators seated before their houses, and at first they thought that they were gods as they gazed on them in wonder, and one of the Gauls began to stroke the long white beard of a senator named Marcus Papirius; but Papirius, in anger, struck him on the head with his ivory sceptre.  Thereupon the Gaul slew Papirius, and then they fell upon the others and killed them.  The the Gauls set to work to plunder and destroy the city, and ay last they attacked the Capitol; but it was too strong, and they were repulsed.  So they determined to blockade it, till the garrison should be obliged to surrender from famine, Meanwhile they sent an army plundering and destroying through Latium and the surrounding country.       

            MARCUS MANLIUS SAVES THE CAPITOL-After some months the Gauls made a second art on the Capitol. The Romans outside had sent a messenger to the defenders, who succeeded in climbing the rock and getting in.  But a Gaul saw him and marked his path; and in the night a body of Gauls mad their way up the same path in single file.  But, just as they were at the top, the sacred geese in the temple of Juno heard them, and made such a cackling that a brave soldier named Marcus Manlius was awakened and rushed to the spot just in time to cut down the leading Gaul.  Then the rest of the garrison was aroused, and the Capitol saved.

            THE GAULS ARE BRIBED TO DEPART- At last, after the blockade had continued eight months, the garrison could hold out no longer, so they agreed to pay the Gaula a large sum of money to go away; and; and the Gauls, who had heard tidings of dangers at home and were themselves suffering from famine and disease, agreed to go away for a thousand pounds weight of gold.  But when they were weighing the money the Romans complained that the weights were false; then Brennus, the Gaulish king, threw his sword in also, exclaiming, “Vae Victis” (Woe to the Conquered”). At this very moment Camillus arrived with an army, which he had been collecting, and fell upon the Gauls and utterly destroyed them.  This was the end of the siege, according to the Roman account.  But there is no doubt that the Gauls really took the ransom and retired with it, and the victory of Camillus was invented afterwards to wipe out the disgrace of Rome being obliged to buy her safety with money.

            REBUILDING OF ROME-When the Gauls had departed the Romans returned tor ebuild the city, and Camillus came back from exile.  But the Plebeians again wished to settle at Veii, where many of them had built themselves houses, and there was much disputing about it; but when the Senate was deliberating in the senate house a centurion chanced to be halting his men in the Forum, and the Senate heard him say, “Standard bearer, plant your standard here; this will be the best place to stop”; and they hailed the words as an omen sent from heaven, and decided to stop at Rome.  So the building began, and to help the poor people the Senate gave the roofing material and allowed them to cut wood and quarry stone on the public lands; there was no plan, but everyone built there he liked, so the new streets were very narrow and crooked. 

            RESULT OF THE INVASION OF THE GAULS-END OF THE WARS WITH THE AEQUAI AND VOLSCI-such was the end of the invasion of the Gauls, the most terrible danger that had hitherto threatened Rome.  Most States would have succumbed altogether; Rome merely bent before the whirlwind, and when it had passed, rose again with undiminished strength.  In fact, the invasion made her stronger than before.  We have seen how the Etruscans were weakened by the attacks of the Gauls.  The Aequi and Volsci also suffered severely.  After this time they grew weaker and weaker; from time to time joined Rome’s enemies, but gradually they disappeared.

            THE FATE OF MARCUS MANLIUS, B.C. 383-You would have thought that the Romans would have done a great honour to the brave Marcus Manlius, the saviour of the Capitol.  But on the contrary, they soon after put him to death.  This is how it happened.  The Plebeians had suffered severely from the invasion of the Gauls; their lands had been ravaged and their homes destroyed.  And though the Senate gave them some aid in the work of rebuilding it proved insufficient, and numbers of them fell victim to the cruel law of debt.  The tribunes could not help them; but at last Marcus Manlius saw a brave centurion, who had fought under him, dragged off to prison for debt.  He paid the debt himself on the spot, and was so shocked by the sight that he sold the best part of his property, and vowed that he would never allow a fellow citizen to be sold into slavery for debt.  So the Plebeians looked upon Manlius as their protector, and used to assemble in crowds at his house on the Capitol; and Manlius used to harangue them on their wrongs.  Then the Patricians said that Manlius was trying to make himself king.  The Plebeians themselves began to believe it, and two tribunes accused him before the assembly of the people; and when he pointed to the Capitol, which he had saved they adjourned the trial, and next day the assembly of the people was summoned in a place from which the Capitol was not visible.  Manlius was condemned to death, and hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.  Marcus Manlius, Spurius Maelius, and Spurius Cassius were all protectors of the Plebeians, and all three were put to death because the jealous Patricians said that they were trying to make themselves kings.  It shows what a dread the Romans had of the name King.

            FURTHER WARS AGAINST THE GAULS-For some years after the burning of Rome the Gauls remained quiet; then they renewed their raids; and the annalists relate many glorious victories over them in their desire to wipe out the disgrace of the Allia.  The great Camillus himself is said to have celebrated a triumph over them at the age of eighty.  There are stories, too, of Gaulish champions, giants like Goliath, who challenged the Romans to single combat.  On one occasion the challenge was accepted by Titus Manlius, a member of the same gens as Marcus Manlius; he slew the Gaul, and as a trophy took from his neck a golden collar or torques, whence he was called T. Manlius Torquatus.  He afterwards became a famous Roman general.  On another occasion the Roman champion was a Marcus Valerius, and just before the combat a crow appeared and perched on his helmet, and when the combat began it kept flying at the face of the Gaul, so that Valerius was easily able to kill him.  So the soldiers called him Marcus Valerius Corvus; he, too, because a great general.  It was after this last combat that the son of the great Camillus finally defeated the Gauls; they were never again a source of danger to Rome by themselves, but they more than once gave trouble as allies of her enemies.

            THE LICINIAN LAWS-STRUGGLE BETWEEN PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS-The long struggle between the Patricians and Plebeians was now approaching its end.  The rich Plebeians, who had several times gained the military tribune ship, were now determined to force the Patricians to throw the consulship open to them.  So they took up the cause of their poorer brethren, still suffering from the distress, which Manlius had tried to relieve, and both together made a combined attack on the privileges of the Patricians.  In the year B.C. 376 two tribunes of the Plebs, C. Licinius and L. Sextius, proposed a law decreeing-(1) that relief should be given to debtors; (2) that henceforth no man should hold more than 500 jugera (about 300 acres) of the public land, and that anyone who had more should give it up to be distributed among the poor; and (3) that in future there were to be consuls again instead of consular tribunes, and that one of the two consuls must be a Plebeian. 

            CAMILLUS ENDS THE STRUGGLE, B.C. 367-The Patricians resisted these laws by every means in their power.  For ten years the struggle went on; Licinius and Sextius, it is said, were so determined, that when the Senate would not pass the law they stopped all elections of magistrates by their veto.  At last, B.C. 367, Camillus, who had been appointed dictator advised the Senate to give in.  The law was passed, and Camillus, in commemoration of the event, consecrated a temple to Concord.  Two years afterwards he died of a plague; so the last act of the great warrior was to heal the discord of the State.  The Patricians, however, did not yield altogether.  When they gave up the consulship they tried to keep the judicial power to themselves, by making a new magistrate, called proetor, to act as judge.  But in thirty years the Plebeians won the praetorship also.  Soon after the passing of the Licinian laws they had obtained the dictatorship and censorship; and in B.C. 300 the priesthoods, with a few exceptions, were thrown open to them, and the union of the orders was complete.

            RESULT OF THE LICINIAN LAWS-Few laws has ever made such a great and lasting change in a State as these laws did at Rome.  First of all the poorer Plebeians were relieved from the debt that was crushing them, and were secured from the future prospect of debt by the plots of land distributed to them; so that from discontented citizens, ever expecting to be dragged off to prison, they became sturdy yeomen farmers, who proved the backbone of Rome in her long wars.  Secondly, the admission of the Plebeians to the consulship, and afterwards to the other offices mentioned above, strengthened the Senate by bringing all the rich families on to its side.  Henceforward, instead of the old nobility of the Patricians, there was gradually formed a new nobility made up of the Patricians and the powerful Plebeians.  The difference between Patrician and Plebeian became only a difference of name; the real difference was between the nobles or party of the Senate, and the people or Popular Party.  But the Popular Party was nearly always contended to leave the government to the Senate, and the nobles of the Senate showed themselves worthy of the trust by governing firmly and wisely.

            ROME READY FOR HER CAREER OF CONQUEST-Now that the bitter party strife was ended, and her old enemies were no longer dangerous, Rome was strong enough to begin her career of conquest, which you will read about in the following chapters.  Fist she conquered Italy, by subduing (1) her old allies, the Latins, and (2) the Samnites and other Italians; then she had to defend herself against two foreign assailants, (1) Pyrrhus and his Greeks, and (2) Carthage.  Triumphant over these foes easily conquered the other nations around the Mediterranean and established her great empire.  How after she became all powerful abroad, party struggles at home began again, fiercer than ever, and how they were again ended, will be told later on.   

            DISCONTENT OF THE LATINS-It will be remembered that about a hundred years before this time, when the Aequi and Volsci hard pressed Rome, Spurius Cassius, who renewed the old alliance with the Latin League, saved her.  While the Aequi and Volsci were strong and dangerous this alliance remained firm, but as Rome gradually grew more and more powerful and the Aequi and Volsci grew weaker, it became less friendly.  Rome was now stronger than the Latins, so she gradually began to manage the affairs of the League, as she liked without giving them any voice, and was especially unfair in the division of the spoils of their common victories, keeping the larger share to herself.  So after the invasion of the Gauls there were wars between Rome and the various Latin cities, such as Tibur, Praeneste, and Tusculum; and the Latins even aided their old enemies the Volsci in their last despairing struggle against Rome.  Little was known about these wars; most of the towns seem to have been reduced without much terrible.  The end of them was that in the year B.C. 358 the old alliance between Rome and Latins were renewed; but it was no longer an equal alliance; the Latins were fast becoming the subjects or Rome.

           THE CAMPAQNIANS ASK THE ROMANS FOR HELP AGAINST THE SAMNITES-It was lucky for Rome that she thus reduced the Latins, for soon afterwards she found herself at war with a new foe, the fierce Samnite mountaineers of the South of Italy, and the struggle which ensued proved to be the struggle for the headship of Italy.  The cause of the war was as follows: -You was told how, in the year B.C. 423, these Samnites conquered the Etruscans in Campania and settled in the country.  The sunny and soft climate of the Campaign plains wrought a great change in the invaders they lost their old rude valour, and many of them married with the Greeks and Etruscans.  So a new Campanian race grew up, which forgot its kinship with the Samnites of the mountains, regarding them only as savage marauders, for they continually suffered from their raids.  At last a regular was broke out between the two peoples.  The effeminate Campanians were not able to keep off the attacks of the Samnites, so in the year 343 B.C. they appealed to the Romans for assistance, and the Romans consented to help them.

            FIRST SAMNITE WAR, B.C. 343-I-The army, which the Romans sent into Campania, drove the Samnites out, but the accounts are very confusing. One story is that the Roman consul, Valerie Corvus, of whom you have already heard, was surrounded by the Samnites in a valley in Samnium; but an officer named Decius Mus scaled a very difficult height with some soldiers, and so, by distracting the attention of the enemy, enabled the army to escape; after that the consul conquered the Samnites in a great battle at Mount Gaurus in Campania.  Next year the Romans themselves could do nothing owing to a mutiny in the army, and the Campanians were obliged to rely on the help of the Latins alone.  The Latins succeeded in beating back the Samnites, and were so much elated at this proof of their strength that their old discontent returned, and they determined no longer to submit to the arrogance of Rome.  The Romans, seeing the storm that was brewing made peace and alliance with the Samnites, who were only too glad to end the war, because they were also fighting with the Greek city of Tarentum in the South.

            THE DEMANDS OF THE LATINS-Before having recourse to arms the Latins sent two ambassadors to Rome to state their demands.  These were, that the Romans and Latins should become one nation under the name of Romans, with Rome for the capital, and that one half of the Senate and one consul should be Latin.  At this insulting demand the consul Manlius Torquatus, the slayer of the Gallic champion, was seized with fury; he declared that if the Romans granted it, he would slay the very first Latin he saw in the senate house, and appealed to Jupiter Capitolinus, in whose temple the Senate was then sitting, to avenge the insult.  Annius, one of the Latin ambassadors, furious at the words of Manlius, mocked at the name of the god; but the next moment, and he was hurrying down the steps of the temple, a peal of thunder was heard, his foot slipped, and he struck his head against the bottom step, so that he died.  Thus Jupiter avenged himself; and Manlius hailed Annius’s fate as an omen of the downfall of the Latin nation.

            THE LATIN WAR, B.C. 340-So the war broke out.  The Samnites were now on the side of Rome, The Campanians on the side of the Latins, who were also aided by Rome’s old enemies the Volscians.  The two Roman consuls, Manlius Torquatus and Decius Mus, whose exploit had won him the consulship, at once took the field, and by a roundabout march through the mountains joined the Samnites in Campania without passing through Latium.  The hostile armies were soon encamped opposite each other near Mount Vesuvius.

            STORY OF MANLIUS TORQUATUS AND HIS SON-Now the Romans and Latins spoke the same language, and fought with the same arms, and most of them were known to one another personally, so that the war was like a civil war; so the Roman commanders, wishing to prevent any intercourse between the two armies, strictly forbade all single combats.  But young Manlius, the son of the council, provoked by the taunts of Metius, the commander of the Tusculans fought with him and slew him.  But when he brought the spoils in triumph, the consul said that he had been guilty of twofold disobedience, against his general and against his father, and ordered him off to execution.  The soldiers were horror struck, but the sentence was carried out: the “orders of Manlius” (Manliana Imperia) became a proverb and were never forgotten.  It was a long time before anyone ventured to disobey a Roman consul.

               BATTLE OF MOUNT VESUVIUS-DECIUS MUSSACRIFICES HIMSELF-The night before the battle a vision appeared to both the consuls, and told them that the general on one side and the army on the other were doomed to fall as victims to the gods below.  So I the morning the two generals, T. Manlius Torquatus and P. Decius Mus, determined that which ever of them saw his wing giving way should devote himself to death, so that the whole Latin army might be destroyed.  When the battle was joined the Romans were opposed to the Latins, the Samnites to the Camoanians.  The fighting was most obstinate, but at last the wing of Decius Mus began to give way.  Then Decius called for the Pontifex Maximus, who bade him wrap his toga round his head and repeat after him a solemn form of words.  Having thus devoted himself for the safety of the Roman army, Decius Mus mounted his horse, rode into the thick of the fight, and was slain.  Still the battle went on as fiercely as ever.  But Manlius kept a body of men in reserve to the last, and then ordered them to charge; and the Latins, taken by surprise, broke into utter rout. Thus the Latins were defeated at the battle of Mount Vesuvius, and the vision that appeared to the consuls came true.  The wreck of the Latin army retreated to Latium and abandoned all hope of holding Campania.  The Romans and Samnites followed them, and won a second victory, easy but decisive, at Trifanum, the site of which is unknown.  After this Manlius, the surviving consul returned home and celebrated his triumph; both there were no rejoicings at it, for especially the younger men regarded him with horror,, as the murderer of his son.

            END OF THE LATIN REVOLT-The Latins and Campanians could fight no more, and gradually their towns were forced to surrender.  The Romans took no cruel vengeance, having conquered in fair fight; they could afford to be generous.  All they wanted was to prevent the Latins revolting again; this they did by making peace with each Latin town separately, and ordering them I future to have no dealings with one another but only with Rome; thus the Latin League came completely to an end.  To most of the towns and inferior sent of Roman citizenship was given; they had the right of trading and marrying with the Romans, but now of voting in the comitia.  But some of the guiltier lost part of their land and had roman colonists settled among them.  The result was that though a few individual towns revolted from time to time, there was never again a general rising of the Latins. As the time of Rome’s greatest danger, viz, in the war with Hannibal, it was the fidelity of her Latin allies that proved her salvation.  Rome was clever about her allies in these wars.  After fighting against the Latins she had them for her allies in the first Samnite war; then with the help of the Samnites the conquered the Latins; and now she has the Latins again as faithful allies, ready for the final struggle with the Samnites.

            COLONIES PLANTED AMONG THE VOLSCI AND CAMPANIANS-The Volsci and Campanians were treated in the same way as the Latins.  Capua and the other towns became subject allies of Rome.  The nobles of Capua had remained loyal, and were rewarded with the full roman citizenship.  Rome now began to strengthen her southern frontier by sending colonies into the conquered territory.  The most important colony was the strong town of Fregellae in the Volscian territory on the river Liris, thus lying on the direct road from Samnium into Latium.

            ALARM OF THE SAMNITES-The Samnites were much alarmed at the way in which rome was making herself stronger and stronger, and especially at the founding of Fregellae.  But they could do nothing at present owing to their war with Tarentum, for that war was turning out much more difficult than they expected.  They fought that they could easily beat the unwarlike Tarentines; but the Tarentines appealed for aid to Greece, and a great soldier-Alexander, King of Epirus, uncle of Alexander the Great came to Italy, and won many victories over the Samnites.  He wanted to found a great Greek empire in Italy, and might perhaps have succeeded, but he perished by the dagger of an assassin (B.C. 326) So the Samnites were freed from this great danger; they gave up the war against Tarentum and prepared for their struggle with Rome. 

            OUTBREAK OF THE WAR, B.C. 326-ROMAN SUCCESSES-The war between Rome and the Samnites was not long in breaking out.  A quarrel arose between the little Greek town of Philaeopolis, close to Naples, on the Campanian coast, and the Roman settlers in the neighbourhood.  Palaeopolis appealed to the Samnites, who seized the chance and put a garrison in the town.  The Romans ordered them to withdraw the garrison; the Samnites refused, whereupon the Romans declared war.  They at once began to besiege Palaeopolis, and took it the next year.  After this the war went on in Campania, and on the Liris.  There were not many pitched battles, for the fighting consisted mainly in attacks on the strong frontier towns held by the two combatants, but the Samnites could not take Fregellae.  The Romans also made an alliance with the Apulians and Lucanians in the south of Italy.  Thus they could attack Samnium from two sides at once, and gained the strong town of Luceria in Apulia, on the eastern frontier of Samnium.  At last, B.C. 322, the Romans gained such decided successes that the Samnite general, Brutulus Papius, committed suicide, and the Samnites sued for peace, which the Romans refused to grant.

            THE CAUDINE FORKS, B.C. 321-The next year the Samnites gave the supreme command of their forces to a new general, C. Pontius.  He spread a report that the whole Samnite army was besieging Luceria, whereupon the two Roman consuls, who were both commanding in Campania , determined to march at once to its relief/  Now the shortest way from Campania to Luceria lay through the heart of Samnium, and Piontius calculated that the Romans, having been so successful lately, would prefer it to the long route round the north of Samnium.  He therefore posted his army on the heights commanding a valley called the Caudine Forks, near the town of Caudium, by which the Romans would have to enter Samnium.  The plan completely succeeded; the Romans took the short route, and marched into the Caudine Forks.  Suddenly the advanced guard found it confronted by a barricade, which the Samnites had thrown up across the defile leading out of the valley; and next, the defile in the rear and the heights around were discovered to be swarming with the enemy.  All efforts to escape from this trap were unavailing, and next morning the Romans were obliged to throw themselves on the mercy of their conqueror.  

            PONTIUS MAKES PEACE WITH THE CONSULS-The question now for Pontius was, how was he to make the best use of this great victory.  The story is that he sent to his aged father for advice, and received the unexpected reply, “Let them all go free”.  Thinking there must be some mistake, Pontius sent a second messenger, but this time the answer was very different, “Kill them all”.  More perplexed than ever, Pontius asked for an explanation of these two contradictory answers.  His father replied: “You have only two courses open to you-either to make them your friends by an act of overwhelming generosity, or to weaken them so that they can never be dangerous enemies”.  Pontius, however, preferred to try a middle course.  He said that he would let the Roman legions go, but they must give up all their arms and pass under the yoke, and the Romans must make peace with the Samnites and give back the towns which they had conquered.  The consuls accepted these conditions; but Pontius, instead of keeping the whole army until the Senate properly ratified them, was content to exact an oath from the consuls and officers and keep six hundred knights as hostages. 

           PERFIDY OF THE ROMANS-The result proved the wisdom of the advice given by Pontius father.  The news of the surrender of Caudium was received with shame and fury at Rome; the Senate refused to ratify it, and, to save itself from the charge of bad faith, sent as prisoners to Samnium the consuls and all the officers who had taken the oath.  Pontius, however, refused to receive the prisoners.  The Romans, he said, ought either to keep the treaty or restore the whole army to the position from which it had been set free.  So ended the affair of Caudium, one of the greatest military disasters that ever befell the Romans, and also one of the greatest blots on their national honour.  Before the Romans could recover the Samnites took Luceria, and soon afterwards Fregelle.  Next year, the Roman historians say, Papirius Cursor retook Luceria, with the six hundred hostages and all the spoil of Caudium; but as the Romans are said to have again retaken Luceria six years later, the whole story seems to have been made up to wipe out the disgrace of Candium, like the story of Camillus and the Gauls.

            SAMNITE VICTORY OF LAUTULAE, B.C. 315-ROMAN VICTORIES-Foe some years there was no great battle; then, in B.C. 315, when the main Roman armies were elsewhere engaged, the Samnites burst into Campania and advanced along the coast against Latium.  Q. Fabius Rullianus, appointed dictator, hurried with what troops he had to meet them, but at the Pass of Lautulae, which led from Campania into Latium, he was defeated.  The Samnites do not seem to have advanced further, but many towns in Campania fell into their hands.  Then the fortune of war changed, the Samnites were defeated and driven out of Campania; Fregellae and the other towns were retaken in the course of the next two years, fresh colonies were planted, and the Romans were securer in Campania than ever.

            THE ETRUSCANS JOIN THE SAMNITES, B.C. 311-CONQUEST OF NORTHERN ETRURIA-At this point, luckily for the Samnites, the attention of the Romans was distracted by the outbreak of a war against the Etruscans, who attacked the frontier town of Sutrium, south of the Ciminian forest.  Fabius Rullianus (consul, B.C. 310) was sent against them; and, instead of attacking the army besieging Sutrium, he determined to strike a decisive blow by invading Northern Etruria, over the Ciminian Forest, which hitherto no Roman general had dared to cross.  The Senate sent a message forbidding him, but when it reached him he was already across.  His boldness was justified by success-near Lake Vadimo he won a decisive victory (B.C. 310); several of the Etruscanb States submitted at once, the rest in the course of the next year.  So Northern Etruria was conquered; and the whole of Etruria was now in the power of Rome.

            PAPIRIUS CURSOR DEFEATS THE SAMNITES, B.C. 309-While Fabius was in Etruria the Samnites won a victory over his colleague, and the appointment of a dictator was necessary.  The Senate sent to Fabius and requested him to appoint Papirius Cursor, the greatest Roman general of the time.  Fabius had had a bitter quarrel with Papirius when commanding under him in the early years of the war, and Papirius had tried to have him executed for insubordination; but, setting his patriotism above his personal feelings, he did as he was requested.  Papirius took the field with the army, which had been raised to protect Rome when Fabius crossed the Ciminian Forest.  The Samnites, on their side, made the most desperate efforts to secure the victory in the coming conflict; one division took a solemn oath to conquer or die, and were distinguished by silvered shields, and had the post of honour on the right.  But all was of no avail.  Papirius won a complete victory; the sacred band of Samnites died where they stood, and their silvered shields died where they stood, and their silvered shields only served to decorate his triumph.  

            CAPTURE OF BOVIANUM-END OF THE SECND SAMNITE WARS, B.C. 305-For five more years the Samnites fought on with indomitable courage.  The Umbrians, and Marsians, and other Sabellian tribes in the centre of Italy took up arms in their behalf, but were separately defeated.  The Romans now carried the war into the heart of Samnium, which was ruthlessly ravaged; and at last (B.C. 305) the two consuls joined their armies before Bovianum, the Samnite capital.  A desperate battle ensued, in which one of the consuls was killed, but the Romans were victorious, and Bovianum was taken.  Then at last the Samnites and their allies were obliged to accept peace and leave Rome in possession of all the strong holds she had won.  Rome had proved herself stronger than the Samnites, but it requires another was before they were quite crushed. 

            CENSORSHIP OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS, B.C. 312-307-In the latter years of the war there was great excitement at Rome owing to the censorship of Appius Claudius, who was elected one of the censors (B.C. 312).  He was a very able man, a descendant of Appius Claudius the decemvir, and seems to have taken the side of the Popular Party, for filling up the vacancies in the Senate enrolled many men who were not nobles, and in making out the list of citizens he gave the full citizenship to many freemen (slaves freed by their masters) and foreigners.  Finally, though he ought to have resigned at the end if eighteen months, as his colleague did, he persisted in keeping his office for the five years until the next censors came into office.  Strange to say, no punishment was inflicted on Appius for his action, perhaps because there was no actual law about resigning.   

            THE “AQUA APPIA” AND “VIA APPIA,” ROME ROADS-The censorship of Appius Claudius was also famous for two great public works.  One was the Aqua Appia, an aqueduct by which water was brought to Rome partly on massive arches from the Sabine hills.  Many aqueducts were afterwards built in Italy after the example set by Appius; and the ruins of these high arches on which water was carried for miles show us very plainly what wonderful builders the Romans were.  His second great work was the still more famous Via Appia, the first of the great Roman roads.  It ran from Rome by the coast to Capua, so that troops might easily be sent there to hold it against the Samnites.  The Romans spent the years after the second Samnite war in making other roads through the districts they had conquered, and planting colonies on them.  These roads gradually spread over the whole of Italy as the Roman arms advanced, and made her hold over it secure; so Rome owed a great deal to Appius Claudius, who made the first road. 

            THIRD SAMNITE WAR, B.C. 299-GAULS ETRUSCANS, UMBRIANS, AND SAMNITES, ALLIED AGAINST ROME-Six years after the second Samnite war the struggle began again.  The Etruscans were the first to rise, and such was their desire to throw off the yoke of Rome that they called in their old enemies, the Gauls, who had been peaceful for many years (B.C. 299).  Next year war broke out between Rome and the Samnites, because the Samnites interfered with the Lucanian allies of Rome.  The Umbrians soon joined the Samnites.  Thus Rome had against her Gaulsm Etruscans, Samnites, and Umbrians; it was the last despairing struggle of the Italians against Rome; they fought no longer for supremacy, but for freedom, for their very existence.           

            THE ITALIANS MARCH AGAINST ROME, B.C. 296-The first campaigns were indecisive; then, B.C. 296 the Samnite general, Gellius Egnatius, leaving a small force in Samnium, boldly marched away north into Etruria, joined the Gauls, Etruscans, and Umbrians, and advanced on Rome.  Rome was in such danger, that for eighteen days all business was stopped; the legions were recalled from Campania, fresh levies were raised, and the consul Appius Claudius was able to repel the attack.  Next year Fabius Rullianus was elected consul, and by his own request his friend Decius Mus, son of the hero of the battle of Mount Vesuvius, was given him as his colleague.  The campaign opened badly for the Romans: a small force in Umbria was surprised and cut to pieces by the Gauls; and the first news the consuls had of the disaster was the sight of Roman heads at the end of the lances of some Gaulish troopers.  Gellius Egnatius now prepared to march again on Rome, but at the critical moment he found himself deserted by the Etruscans, who, frightened by the advance of a small Roman force into Etruria, retired to defend their own country.  Then Gellius Egnatius retreated over the Apennines to Sentinum a town in Umbria, and there the great battle, which decided the fate of Italy, was fought.

            BATTLE OF SENTINUM, B.C. 295-The day at first went against the Romans.  The Galus with their terrible scythe-chariots threw the left wing under Decius Mus into confusion, which the Romans had never seen before; while the Italians obstinately resisted Fabius on the right.  Then Decius Mus, remembering his father’s self sacrifice at Mount Vesuvius, in a similar way devoted himself to the gods below, rode into the thick of the fight, and was slain.  The Romans, rallied by this noble deed, drove back the Gauls.  Fabius had meanwhile overcome the resistance of the Samnites, and at last the victory was won.  Gellius Egnatius was killed, the Gauls fled to their own country, and the Samnites retreated to Samnium to defend it as best they could.

            END OF THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR, B.C. 290-Next year the Etruscans made peace, and all hope of crushing Rome by an Italian alliance was gone.  But still the Samnites would not give in: they heroically continued the unequal contest, and twice actually defeated the Romans; but it was hopeless struggle, and in B.C. 290, from utter exhaustion, they were obliged to make peace, and become the subject allies in Rome.  No cruel terms were exacted, but the Romans prolonged the Via Appia from Campua right through the heart of Samnium to Venusia, an important colony just founded in Apulia.

            SECESSION OF THE PEOPLE TO THE JANICULUM-HORTENSIAN LAW, B.C. 287-Three years after the conclusion of peace, the concord at Rome was for a time interrupted by an outbreak of the people (B.C. 287).  During the long wars their farms must have suffered greatly owing to the absence of their owners with the army; and when peace came and there was much land to be distributed, they said that the nobles took and unfair share.  An agrarian law was passed giving each citizen seven Jugera (about four and a half acres) of land, but still they were not satisfied: they seem to have wanted more power; so they marched off in a body from Rome to the Janiculum.  Then the senate made Hortensius, a Plebeian noble dictator; and a law was passed that the Assembly of the Plebeians should be able to pass laws proposed by the tribunes without the consent of the Senate.  Henceforward news laws were usually brought before the Plebeians Assembly, which thus became the chief assembly of the people; and the Comitia Centuriata now had little else to do except to elect consuls and other important magistrates.

            ETRUSCAN AND GALIC WARS B.C. 285-FINAL CONQUEST OF ETRURIA-Two years after the passing of the Hortensian law the Etruscans again rose, aided by a tribe of Gauls called Senones, whose settlements were the most southerly of all the Gauls.  In a battle at Arretium the Romans were signally defeated, and some ambassadors sent to the Gauls were ruthlessly put to death by the chief of the Senones to atone for the death of his father in the battle.  Then the Romans resolved to exact a terrible retribution.  An army was sent which conquered the Senones and exterminated the whole race; the men were killed, and the women and children sold into slavery (B.C. 283).  Then another Gallic tribe called the Boii joined the Etruscans. The invading army got within forty miles or Rome, but in great battle by Lake Vadimo, which had already seen one Etruscans defeat they were totally routed.  Very few of the Boii escaped, and the Gauls made peace.  This was the last of the many unsuccessful efforts of the Etruscans against Rome, the whole of Etruria was now completely conquered.  The Etruscans had for a long time fallen from their ancient greatness; they had never been properly united or had fought with the determination shown by the Samnites, and they now disappear for ever as an independent people.    

            THE BEGINNING OF ROME’S FOREIGN WARS-We have now reached a great landmark in Roman history-the first foreign war waged by Rome.  Hitherto all Rome’s struggles had been with the peoples of Italy.  The other nations of the world had been so busy their own affairs that they had left Italy almost wholly alone.  They had no idea of the great nation that was silently growing up in their midst, and that was soon to overshadow them all.  What the circumstances were that led to the first collision between Rome and a foreign foe we must now describe.

            TARENTUM-Of all the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia the greatest were Tarentum, situated in the north corner of the Bay of Tarentum.  It had a first rate harbour, and so had become a great commercial power.  Its government was a democ5racy-that is the power was in the hands of the people, who met together in the theatre to discuss and vote about their affairs.  They were an enterprising and wealthy people; but, like the other Greeks of this time, had become too fond of pleasures and luxury, and shrunk from the hardships and dangers of personal service in war.  So, when attacked by the Italians, on more than one occasion they had sent over to ask Greek kings for aid.  With Rome they had come into very little contact; but there was a treaty, when made we do not know, by which no Roman ship of war should pass the Lacinian promontory, the southern point of the Tarentine Gulf.  The Tarentines had been delighted to see the Romans and Samnites at war, and no doubt hoped that they would destroy one another.  But now Rome was victorious and stronger than ever, and was actually beginning to interfere with the cities of Magna Grecia.  The Tarentines, therefore, were getting very uneasy. 

            THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROMAN SQUADRON AND THE EMBASSY TO TARENTUM-One day in the year B.C. 282, when the Tarentine people were in their theatre, watching the performance of plays atone of their great festivals, suddenly to their amazement they saw a small Roman squadron of ten ships approaching the harbour.  Its purpose is not stated; probably it was putting in for shelter.  Furious at this violation of the treaty, the Tarentines rushed from the theatre, manned their ships, and fell unexpectedly upon the Romans, who were unprepared and too few in number to resist.  The commander was killed, half the ships were sunk or taken, and the crews killed or sold into slavery.  This news caused the greatest indignation at Rome.  An embassy was instantly sent to demand reparation.  The Tarentines Assembly in the theatre received the ambassadors; but when one of them, by name Postumius, began to make his speech, the Tarentines laughed at him for his bad pronunciation of Greek, and a drunken buffoon suddenly came up and befouled with dirt his white toga.  At this the peals of laughter were still louder; but Postumius, holding up his befouled toga, said: “Laugh on now if you will.  You will weep soon; for the stains on this toga will be washed out in your blood.”        Then the Roman ambassadors returned to Rome, and war was at once declared.

            THE TARENTINES INVITE OVER PYRRHUS, KING OF EPIRUS-Thus the Tarentines found themselves at last at war with Rome.  But alone they could not possibly hold their own, a single city against a powerful State.  Nor was there any hope in their old enemies the Samnites; the alliance of the Tarentines was not enough to rouse them to another effort against Rome.  So there was nothing to do but to turn to Greece.  As they had summoned Alexander, King of Epirus, to help them against the Samnites, so now they summoned his cousin and successor, Pyrrhus, to help them against Rome.

            PYRRHUS-Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was a great soldier, and a man of noble and chivalrous character.  He was related to Alexander the Great. He also claimed descent from Achilles, after whose son Pyrrhus he was named, and regarded himself as a new Achilles about to wage a new Trojan war.  The youth of Pyrrhus had been spent in troublous times.  His father had been driven out of his kingdom, and Pyrrhus himself, then a mere infant, was with great difficulty hurried out of the country.  Afterwards he succeeded in winning back by his sword the throne of his fathers.  Then he raised a large army of 50,000, and drilled it after the Macedonian fashion; fir he was ambitious to imitate the exploits of his kinsman, Alexander the Great, and to found a great empire in the West as Alexander had in the East.  So when the Tarentines asked for aid against Rome, and declared that there were thousands of Italian infantry ready to join him, he was only too ready to grant their request.  While he was preparing his army he sent across to Tarentum his famous advisor, the statesman Kineas, and a general Milo with 300 men; whereupon the Roman army, which had been ravaging the country, retreated to winter in Apulia.  At last in midwinter he himself crossed with his army, bringing with him some elephants, which the Romans had never yet seen, and after narrowly escaping shipwreck, landed at Tarentum.  Tarentum the pleasure loving became a vast arsenal, and preparations were vigorously carried on to begin the war in the spring.

            ROME AND PYRRHUS-THE LEGION AND THE PHALANX-Great was the contrast between the two combatants in this war.  On one side was a well-knit-self-governing nation, whose strength was the result of the growth of centuries, with a force of citizen soldiers, strong in numbers, but commanded by any man whom the people happened to have elected consul; on the other a Prince who had won his throne by the sword with a small but highly trained army fighting under its own victorious general.  Great too was the contrast between the methods of fighting.  The legion was drawn up in companies arranged in three separate lines, one behind the other; the men were loose order, and after hurling their javelin (pilum) fought with the sword; the Macedonian “phalanx” was a solid mass of soldiers, drawn up close together with their shields touching, sometimes twenty or thirty ranks deep; its weapons was a long spear, so long that the spear points the first five ranks all projected in front of the first rank.  On level ground the phalanx was invincible, but on rough ground the legion proved its superior.

           BATTLE OF HERACLEA, B.C. 280-The Romans under the consul Laevinus took the field early, and marched at once into Lucania to engage Pyrrhus before the Samnites could rise; but the latter had no intention of again attacking Rome before they saw how fortune of war went; Pyrrhus was therefore obliged to fight with his own troops and the Tarentines only, so that his numbers were inferior to the Romans.  The two armies met near Heraclea, a town on the river Siris close to the Gulf of Tarentum.  The River Sirus ran between them.  The Romans succeeded in forcing the passage of the river and a fierce battle ensued.  Pyrrhus himself was in great danger, so eagerly was his life sought by the Roman horsemen; at last he changed armour with one of his officers named Megacles; Megacles paid for this honour with his life, and the armour was triumphantly paraded through the Roman lines; then Pyrrhus rode bareheaded before his troops to show that he was alive.  Meanwhile the battle was fiercely contested; seven times, it is said, the two armies closed in the deadly strife and retreated again without advantage to wither, till at last Pyrrhus ordered his elephants to charge.  Then the Romans, unaccustomed to fight such monsters, broke and fled; they could not even hold their camp but retreated to Apulia.    This victory gave Pyrrhus the whole of South Italy.  The Samnites and Lucanians at last joined him, but not in the numbers he expected.  His own loss was very great, and the sight of the Roman dead with their wounds all in front made a deep impression on him.  “Were these my soldiers,” he said, “and I their general, I would conquer the whole world.”

            THE EMBASSY OF KINEAS TO ROME AND SPEECH OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS-So Pyrrhus determined to try to make peace.  He sent Kineas to offer the Romans alliance if they would leave Tarentum and the other Greek towns independent, and restore to the Samnites and the other Italians all the towns which they had taken.  Now Kineas was a wonderfully clever man; so persuasively could he talk that it is said that his tongue won more cities than the sword of Pyrrhus; and he had such a retentive memory that after one day he could address all the great men at Rome by name.  The simple roman senators succumbed to the magic charm, and were already discussing the peace, when Appius Claudius, the famous censor, now a blind old man, was led into the senate house by his sons, and by a powerful speech shamed them into rejecting Kineas offer; and ever afterwards it was a Roman maxim never to make peace with an enemy on roman soil.  The worlds of blind old Appius broke the charm, the offers of Pyrrhus were rejected, and Kineas ordered to leave the city the next day.  That statesman returned to Pyrrhus astonished at which he had seen at Rome.  “Rome,” he said, “is a Temple, the Senate is an assembly of Kings.”

            PYRRHUS ADVANCES ON ROME-Meanwhile Pyrrhus, with his army of Greeks and Italians, had advanced into Campania, ravaging and burning; but neither Capua nor any other city would open its gates.  From Campania he pushed on into Latium, still ravaging, and actually reached the town of Praeneste, only twenty miles from Rome.  But the Latin’s remained faithful; not a city would receive him; so at last, afraid of advancing further in a hostile country where defeat would have been ruin, he retreated to Tarentum, and the campaign ended.

            THE EMBASSY OF FABRICIUS-then the Romans sent an embassy to Pyrrhus to ask for an exchange of prisoners.  This Pyrrhus would not grant except on the conditions, which he had already offered.  It is said he tried in every way, by his winning manners and even by bribes, to gain over Fabricius, the chief of the ambassadors.  Finally he tried to frighten him: one day, when he was having an audience with the king, a curtain behind him was suddenly drawn back and the trunk and tusks of a huge elephant appeared, which began trumpeting loudly just over the head of the astonished ambassador.  But his Roman fortitude stood the test; he was neither to be tempted nor frightened.  Finally so desirous was Pyrrhus of gaining the friendship of the Romans, that he allowed all his prisoners to return to Rome with Fabricius to celebrate the Saturnalia (a festival in honour of the god Saturn at the end of December, celebrated as a general holiday), on the understanding that they would return if peace were not made, which promise was strictly kept, the Senate threatening death to any who broke it.

            BATTLE OF ASCULUM, B.C. 279-Next year the armies met near Asculum, in Apulia. There were two consular armies opposed to Pyrrhus, but the Romans were less successful against the phalanx than at Heraclea; they tried in vain to cut their way through the bristling line of pikes, and when at last exhausted, were charged by the elephants, and driven in rout to their camp.  But the victory was even more barren in results than Heraclea; this year Pyrrhus did not dare to invade Latium.

            PYRRHUS GOES TO SICILY, B.C. 278-6-The next year Rome was relieved of the presence of Pyrrhus altogether, for he went over to Sicily to help the Greeks there against the Carthaginians, their hereditary enemies, and left the Tarentimes and Samnites to shift for themselves.  In Sicily Pyrrhus was, as usual victorious at first, and almost swept the island of the Carthaginians.  But he could not take the impregnable seaport Lilybaeum, on the western corner of the island; dissensions broke out between him and the Greeks, and he returned disappointed to Italy (B.C. 276), after an absence of two years, during which the Romans had re-conquered all the south of Italy except Tarentum, held by Milo.  

            BATTLE OF BENEVENTUM, B.C. 275-In B.C. 275 the combatants met for the third time; but Pyrrhus troops were no longer the veterans of Epirus, but mercenaries raised in Sicily.  Curius Dentatus, the roman consul, lay in a strong position in the hill country of Samnium, near Beneventum.  Pyrrhus tried to surprise him by a roundabout night march, which only resulted to confusion and repulse.  Then Dentatus left the hills and attacked Pyrrhus on level ground.  At first the phalanx was invincible as ever, but finally it was thrown into confusion by the elephants, which were driven back on to it by the darts of the Romans, and so was easily routed.  The Roman victory was complete; the legion had proved its superiority over the phalanx.  Dentstus was rewarded with a magnificent triumph, the first over a foreign foe, in which the captured elephants followed the procession, a novel sight for the populace of Rome.

           PYRRHUS RETURNS TO EPIRUS-HIS END-Pyrrhus, leaving a small garrison under Milo in Tarentum, returned to Epirus.  The stubborn resistance of Rome had shattered his dreams of a western empire; but in the troubled state of Greece he found plenty of work for his sword.  Victories he won as in Italy and Sicily, but he gained no lasting success, and a few years afterwards, in an attack upon the city of Argos (B.C. 272), he perished miserably, struck by a tile thrown by the hand of a woman.  Such was the end of the brilliant soldier king of Epirus in the forty-sixth year of his age.    

            ITALY AFTER THE WAR WITH PYRRHUS-After the departure of Pyrrhus, all Italy lay at the mercy of Rome.  The garrison in Tarentum was at once besieged, and after four years Milo, finding the towns people almost as hostile as the Romans, agreed to surrender on condition of being allowed to retire unmolested to Epirus.  Then the walls of the once proud city were destroyed, its fleet carried off, and the inhabitants allowed dwelling in peace as the humble allies of Rome; the days of the garrison of Tarentum were gone forever.

            ITALY SECURED THE ROADS AND COLONIES-The Samnites and the other Italian allies of Pyrrhus suffered a similar fate.  Tribe after tribe they were gradually compelled to make their submission.  No cruel vengeance was taken, but as a punishment they were obliged to give a great deal of land, and they were not allowed to exist anymore as nations; each town was separately made a subject ally of Rome; bound to furnish money and men.  The conquered districts were secured in the usual way by roads and by planting colonies of Latins and Romans.  The most important new colony was Beneventum, in the heart of Samnium, the scene of the crowning victory against Pyrrhus, and the Via Appia was continued from Venusia to Tarentum.

            PROSPERITY OF ROME-The land taken from the Italians was distributed among the poorer Roman citizens; and so Rome became richer and more powerful than ever.  A silver coinage was introduced, and more magistrates appointed to carry on the increased work of government.  The years after the war with Pyrrhus were among the most prosperous that Rome ever enjoyed.  By her victory over her first foreign foe she had proved her right to be mistress of Italy, and, after centuries of struggle, had taken her place among the nations of the world.  But she had only a short breathing space allowed her; within ten years she found herself in collision with a new and more powerful foreign foe, the mighty republic of Carthage.     

            THE PHOENICIANS-We must now go back more than one thousand years, long before the year when Rome was supposed to have been founded.  In those days one of the greatest nations was the Phoenician.  The Phoenicians were great sailors and merchants; their home was on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean in the cities of Tyre and Sidon.  The Phoenicians were not of the same race as the Romans and Greeks and other nations that we have heard about; they were of the Semitic family of races to which the Jews and Arabs belong.  You will remember how Hiram, King of Tyre, was a friend and ally of Solomon, helping him in the building of the temple, and allowing him to share in the wealth gained by his fleets in their voyages to Tarshish and other places.  Like other commercial nations, the Greeks, and ourselves, for instance, the Phoenicians were not content merely to send their fleets to these distant lands, they also sent settlers to found colonies along their coasts and trade with the natives.  These colonies soon grew rich and powerful, and in time became independent of the mother country.  The most powerful of them was called Carthage, situated on the northeast corner of that part of Africa now called Tunis.

            THE STORY OF DIDO AND THE FOUNDATION OF CARTHAGE-A famous old story tells how Queen Dido, driven from Tyre after the death of her husband King Sychaeus, landed in Africa at the head of a band of exiles, and purchased from the native princes as much land as an oxhide would cover.  But she deceived the simple Africans by cutting the oxhide into thin strips, which she laid round as much land as she could, and so obtained enough to found a city on.  This city was called Byrsa, which means an oxhide, and ever afterwards Byrsa was the name of the citadel of Carthage.  There, the Roman poet Virgil tells us, Aeneas visited her on his way from the ruins of Troy to found the new home of his race.  Aeneas was smitten with love for Dido, and was beloved by her in return; but being warned by the gods that his new home was to be in Italy, not Africa, he basely deserted her.  Thereupon dido slew herself; having first prophesied that in the years to come her descendants would wreak a terrible vengeance on those of Aeneas.  What that vengeance was we should soon see.

            THE EMPIRE OF CARTHAGE-this story, like the early stories of Rome, is but legend.  All we know is that Carthage grew to be a mighty city of merchant princes, supreme over all the other Phoenician colonies, just a Rome was supreme over the Latins.  Carthage also conquered and ruled over the native Africans around her, who were called Libyans, and made alliance with the fierce but fickle nomads of the desert, the Numidians, whose princess she tried to keep friendly by presents and giving them the daughters of her nobles in marriage. Then Carthage herself began to send out colonies along the African coast, then to Spain, the islands of the Mediterranean, and lastly to Sicily.  But in Sicily the proud city met its match; for long before Carthage began to found its colonies Panormus, and others in the west of the island, Greece had sent its settlers to the east and founded Syracuse Agrigentum, and many other towns.  The Carthaginians could not turn the Greeks out of Sicily, and for a long time the Greeks held the eastern part of the island, the Carthaginians the western, and fought many fierce wars with varying success.  But by this time the Greeks of Sicily, like their kinsmen in Italy and Greece itself, had degenerated and lost their ancient greatness; and the Carthaginians had gained nearly the whole of the island, when Pyrrhus made his brilliant but unavailing attempt to drive them out.  After his departure (B.C. 276), only Syracuse and a few towns on the east coast remained independent.

            GOVERNMENT OF CARTHAGE-Carthage was, like Rome, a republic; there was a governing body like the Senate, two chief magistrates (called suffetes by the Roman historians, probably the same name as shofetim, the Hebrew “Judges”), and other inferior magistrates; and a popular assembly, which had not much to do except to elect the magistrates.  But the suffetes were only civil magistrates, they did not command the armies like the Roman consuls.  The Carthaginians used to appoint their best soldiers as generals, and leave a general many years in command if successful, and even allow him to hand down the command in his own family.  This, you will see, gave the Carthaginians a great advantage.

            CHARACTER OF THE CARTHAGINIANS-Carthage was the undisputed mistress of the Mediterranean; her fleet had no rival and her merchantmen sailed in every direction, bartering her wares with the natives of the different countries; so she was wealthy, far wealthier than Rome, on whom she looked with contempt.  But their wealth made the Carthaginians proud and unwarlike; they thought of nothing but making money, and hired mercenaries to fight their battles, and bought slaves to till their fields; and they oppressed their subjects in Africa, and made themselves hated by them, so that when an invader landed in Africa they were ready to join him at once.  What a contrast to the Romans; who worked on their own farms and fought their own battles; and who treated the conquered Latins so wisely that they remained loyal to her through far greater disasters than Carthage suffered.  But the Carthaginians, though preferring money making to fighting, were no cowards; we shall see that in the last hours of their country, when driven to bay and fighting for their very existence, they all, men and women alike, displayed a heroism only equalled by that of their kinsmen, the Jews, in their last struggle against Rome. As Rome was now mistress of Italy, and Carthage mistress of nearly all Sicily, they were at last neighbours; if the Romans did not drive the Carthaginians out of Sicily, the Carthaginians would probably invade the stir up the conquered against Rome. So it was plain that a war must soon break out between the two nations; and the war was the commencement of a struggle for the empire of the world, which was not finally ended till nearly one hundred and twenty years had elapsed.  The struggle consisted of three wars, which are called by the Roman historians the Punic Wars; for Punicus was a Latin word meaning Phoenician.               

             OUTBREAK OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR, B.C. 264-THE MAMERTINES-The first of the three wars between Rome and Carthage began in the following way.  Before the war between Rome and Pyrrhus some Campanian mercenaries, who had been in the service of Syracuse, when returning to their homes treacherously seized the town of Messana, murdered the inhabitants, and established themselves there, calling themselves Mamertini, or sons of Mamers (another name of Mars). After the defeat of Pyrrhus they were attacked by Hiero, the young King of Syracuse, and appealed for aid to Rome, but meantime admitted a Carthaginian garrison.  The Romans, after much deliberation, determined to help the Mamertines, to prevent a town so near Italy falling into the hands of Carthage.  They sent some troops, who succeeded in crossing the straits (B.C. 264), Hanno, the Carthaginian commander in Mesana, was invited by their commander to a conference and then treacherously seized, whereupon, to secure his own release, he agreed to give up the town to the Romans.

            CAPTURE OF AGRIGENTUM AND OTHER SICILIAN TOWNS, B.C. 262-So began the first Punic war.  The Carthaginians were quite unprepared; town after town in Sicily fell before the Roman armies, and Hiero, who had at first taken the Carthaginian side owing to his desire to conquer the Mamertines, quickly saw his mistake, and made an alliance with Rome, to which he remained faithful till his death, fifty years afterwards.  In B.C. 262 the Romans took Agrigentum, the second city of the island; but now the Carthaginian fleet appeared, and by its aid the Carthaginians recovered many coast towns of Sicily, and even ravaged the coasts of Italy.  It was plain to the Romans that if they were to conquer Carthage they must fight her by sea.

            THE ROMANS BUILD A FLEET, B.C. 260-THE DRAWBRIDGES-The Romans had already a few ships, but the largest were only triremes (i.e. ships with three banks of oars), while the great Carthaginian fleet was composed of quinqueremes (ships with five banks).  Nothing daunted, however, the Romans set to work in the year B.C. 260 to build a fleet of quinqueremes, taking as a model a Carthaginian vessel that had been wrecked on their coast.  Such was their energy that within sixty days after the timber felled the fleet is said to have been ready for sea; the crews had been taught to row on scaffolding set up on shore. Still the Romans felt that they would have little chance against the well-trained sailors of Carthgate; but they knew that their soldiers were better.  So they invented a machine by which they would bring the Carthaginian vessels to close quarters, and then the battle would be between the soldiers.  This was a sort of drawbridge with a long iron spike underneath at the end, which was to be let down directly an enemy’s ship came alongside.  The iron spike would go into the deck and hold the ship fast; the soldiers would pour onboard, and the skill of the Carthaginian sailors would be of no avail.  

            BATTLE OF MYLAE-Equipped with this strange engine, the newly built roman fleet put to sea in the spring of B.C. 260, under the consul Duilius off the town of Mylae, not far from Messana, they met the enemy, who were confident of victory.  But the drawbridges took them by surprise; unable to make any use of their skill the Carthaginians were utterly defeated, and fifty of their ships taken or sunk.  Duilius was granted a magnificent triumph, and to commemorate his victory a column was erected in the Forum adorned with the rostra or breaks of the captured warships called the Columna Rostrata.  Thus the Romans were victorious in their first great sea fight, and might now hope to conquer Carthage.  But for the next three years there was nothing decisive either by land or sea.

            EXPEDITION OF REGULUS-BATTLE OF ECNOMUS, B.C. 256-In the year 256 B.C. the Romans determined to carry the war into Africa.  They fitted out an enormous fleet of 330 ships, and embarked on it two consular armies, over 40,000 troops under the consuls Regulus and Manlius Volso.  Off the promontory of Ecnomus, on the south coast of Sicily, they found their way barred by a fleet said to have consisted of 350 ships.  Again the boarding bridges gave the victory to the Romans; they lost twenty-four ships, but sunk thirty and took sixty-four.  After putting back to Messana to repair their losses, the Roman armada succeeded in landing on Carthaginian soil, and occupied a small coast fortress called Clypea, about fifty miles east of Carthage, in the midst of the fairest and most fertile part of its territory.  The Carthaginians, trusting in their fleet, had made no preparations to resist an invasion; so the villas and gardens and vineyards were unmercifully plundered by the Roman legions.  20,000 prisoners were taken.  The Africans, in their hatred of Carthage, began to join the Romans, and all seemed easy.  The Senate with his fleet and the plunder recalled the consul Manlius. Regulus remained behind, defeated the forces which the Carthaginians had managed to collect and then took up his winter quarters at Tunis, close to Carthage itself.when his consulship was over he was made by the Assembly of the People a pro-consul, that is, a general acting for a consul (pro consule).  For several years the Romans had adopted the practice of making pro-consuls; for their territory was growing so large that they often had more than two armies in the field; besides it was most inconvenient to change every year the general of an army fighting far away in a distant land.

            DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF REGULUS, B.C. 255-The Carthaginians now wished to make peace, but Regulus, whose head was turned with success, demanded most extravagant terms; and when the ambassadors would not accept them, he insulted them, and drove them out of his camp.  The Carthaginians were then in great distress, but determined to resist.  Like the Moabites and the Israelites in their times of idolatry, they gave up their children to the flames to appease the cruel fire god Moloch.  But though Moloch could not help them, other aid came.  A Spartan soldier of fortune named Xanthippus arrived.  He, with a true soldier’s eye, saw that with their cavalry and elephants properly handled the Carthaginians would be more than a match for the Romans.  Hr was put in command, and next spring marched against Regulus, which, all unprepared, was obliged to fight at a great disadvantage.  The cavalry and elephants did their work; the Romans were routed with a terrible slaughter; thousands were slain on the field; five hundred, including Regulus himself, were made prisoners, and the shattered remnant escaped to Clypea.  Thus, by the overbearing self-confidence of Regulus, the African expedition ended in utter disaster.

            ROMAN FLEETS WRECKED-As soon as they heard of the defeat in Africa, the Romans sent out a fleet to carry off the survivors, who were being besieged in Clypea.  It accomplished its object after a victory over the Carthaginian fleet; but on the return voyage the consuls would not listen to the warnings of the pilot, and so the fleet was caught by a storm off the south coast of Sicily and dashed to pieces on the rocks, nearly everyone onboard perishing.  Two years afterwards another fleet was wrecked, and the Romans in despair gave up trying to fight by sea.  Nor were they any more successful on land.  They succeeded indeed, in taking the great fortress of Panormus; but then the Carthaginians sent to Sicily more than one hundred of the dreaded elephants that had routed the army of Regulus, and the Romans dared not face them again; so they could undertake nothing in Sicily, and for some years the war dragged on without any particular events.   

            THE BATTLE OF PANORMUS, B.C. 251-At length the Carthaginians took the offensive and marched with all their elephants against Panormus, where the Roman proconsul Metellus was in command.  Metellus allowed the enemy to approach the walls, and then, keeping the legions within the gates, attacked the elephants with his light troops, who so infuriated them by their showers of missiles that they became unmanageable and rushed back on their own infantry, trampling them down on all sides.  Then Metellus poured his legions through the gates on the disordered ranks of the enemy, and the rout was complete.  Many prisoners were taken, including thirteen Carthaginians of noble rank, and a hundred elephants were captured.

            EMBASSY OF REGULUS-Then the Carthaginians, wishing to recover the nobles who had been taken at Panormus, sent over an embassy to propose an exchange of prisoners, accompanied by the unhappy Regulus.  But Regulus atoned for his previous errors by a noble act of patriotic self-sacrifice, the memory of which will never die.  He made a speech to the Senate, in which he persuaded them not to agree to the Carthagian offer; and then, according to a promise he had made, in spite of the tears and entreaties of his family and friends, he calmly went back to Carthage.  There he soon after died.  The roman story says that the Carthaginians with most cruel tortures put him to death; but there is reason to suppose that the annalists made up this story afterwards.

            THE SIEGE OF LILYBAEUM, B.C. 250-241-The Romans now determined to drive the Carthaginians altogether out of Sicily.  Their only strongholds left were Lilybaeum, which had previously baffled Pyrrhus and Drepanum, close beside it.  After an unsuccessful attempt to take Lilybaeum by force, in which the enemy burnt their siege-works, the Romans determined to blockade it.  But to do this it was necessary to send out a fleet again, and conquer the Carthaginians by sea, to prevent them bringing supplies into the town.     

            BATTLE OF DREPANUM, B.C. 249-So in the next year (B.C. 249) the consul P. Claudius, who commanded the fleet, son of the old censor, attacked the Carthaginian fleet lying in the harbour of Drepanum, and was totally defeated, with a loss of ninety ships and 20,000 prisoners.  It is said that before the battle the Augur told Claudius that the sacred chickens would not eat a very bad omen.  “Then they shall drink,” exclaimed the consul, and threw them into the sea.  He was afterwards tried for impiety, but the trial was stopped by a thunderstorm.  After his death his sister finding her litter stopped one day in the Forum by the crowd of people, said, “I wish my brother was alive to lose another battle and clear the streets a little,” for which speech she heavily fined.  Such was the character of the haughty Claudian gens.  The same year as Drepanum, another disaster befell the Romans; another fleet, under the other consul, that was carrying stores to Sicily, was totally wrecked, while the Carthaginians, who were watching it, by superior seamanship escaped to a place of refuge.  Utterly discouraged by these two blows, the Romans determined, a second time, to give up the sea.  There was now no hope of taking Lilybaeum; all they could do was to blockade the Carthaginians there and in Drepanum, and prevent them overrunning Sicily.

            HAMILCAR BARCA IN SICILY, B.C 247-242-But in the year B.C. 247 a new general, Hamilcar Barca, whose family name Barca is the same as the Jewish Barak (Judges IV), and means “lightning,” was sent out from Carthage as commander-in-chief to Sicily.  Hamilcar knew his mercenaries could not face the Roman legions in pitched battles, so he determined to harass and tire out the Romans by raids and skirmishes.  In this he was most successful.  First of all he established himself on a mountain near Panormus, close to the sea, whence he mercilessly savaged the coasts of Sicily and Italy, often penetrating several miles inland.  Then he surprised the town of Eryx, close to Drepanum, and established himself there, watching the Roman camps before Drepanum and Lily baeum, continually engaging them and defying all their efforts to crush him.  So the war dragged on year after year.  The Roman treasury was failing, the number of her citizens decreasing, her trade being ruined, and yet the end seemed no nearer.     

            THE ROMANS BUILD A NEW FLEET-THE BATTLE OF THE AEGATIAN ISLANDS, B.C 242-At least in the year B.C. 242, the Romans built a fresh fleet, but so poor was the public treasury that the Senate was obliged to call upon the rich citizens to furnish the money, and the call was nobly responded to.  Fortunately for the Romans, the Carthaginians had since their last successes neglected their fleet; so the consul Lutatius Catulus, when he arrived before Drepanum found himself unopposed, and had time to thoroughly train his crews.  The Carthaginians, taken by surprise, hastily prepared a fleet; but their raw crews were no matches for the well-trained seamen of Lutatius.  Near the Aegatian islands, off Drepanum, the battle was fought, and the heroic efforts of the Romans crowned with success.  Now that the Romans had command to the sea, it was useless for the Carthaginians to continue the war, as Lilybaeum and Drepanum would soon be starved out.  So Hamilear was ordered to treat for peace, which was soon arranged.  Carthage was to give up her possessions in Sicily, and all Romand prisoners, and pay 3200 talents.  Thus ended this terrible struggle, in which Rome won because, though her generals were inferior to those of Carthage, her people far surpassed the Carthaginians in determination and energy; and her soldiers, fighting for their country, were better than the Carthaginian mercenaries-men of all sorts of races, who only fought for love and plunder and fighting, and hated Carthage herself. 

            THE FIRST ROMAN PROVINCE-The Carthaginian part of Sicily, the first territory that Rome ever conquered out of Italy, was made into a province; that is, it was not left half independent like the Latins and other Italian allies of Rome, but it was ruled a praetor sent from Rome as governor with a roman army under his command.  It sent no soldiers to the Roman armies, but paid it heavy tribute.  It was unfortunate that the first Roman province was taken from Carthage, for the Romans also took the Carthaginian notion that a province was simply a country of conquered people from which much money as possible was to be wrung.  It was a long time before the Romans could get rid of this notion, and it cost the provinces centuries of suffering.   

            HAMILCAR’S PLAN FOR CONQUERING ROME-The peace which ended the First Punic war was felt by the two combatants to be only a truce; the crushed.  Hamilcar Barca had not given up hope; he had only agreed to the peace because he saw that Carthage needed a breathing space to recover her strength.  Forced to abandon Sicily, he now bethought himself of Spain, where Carthage had a few trading colonies, such as Gades (Cadiz) on the south coast.  His plan was to train a great army by wars against the natives, and replenish the Carthaginian treasury by their tribute and the produce of the rich silver mines of Spain, and then to invade Italy through Gaul.

            THE INEXPIABLE WAR, B.C. 241-238-But this plan was delayed for a time.  Exhausted by the long wars ad the large sum which she was forced to pay Rome, Carthage was unable to furnish the money which she owed the mercenaries, who thereupon revolted and were joined by many of the Africans, as ready to turn against Carthage as in the days of Regulus.  Rome too took a mean advantage of her rival’s troubles; she gave aid to the rebels, and then pretending that Carthage had broken the treaty, forced her to surrender the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, and pay still more money.  Sardinia and Corsica became the second Roman province.  The Carthaginians dared not refuse, but how they must have longed for the day of reckoning, which Hamilcar promised them.  At last after three years Hamilcar completely crushed the revolt, by exterminating the rebels with such merciless severity that the war was called “The Inexpiable War”.  The power of Carthage in Africa was re-established.

            HAMILCAR BARCA IN SPAIN, B.C. 236-228-At last Hamilcar was able to continue his great plan.  He crossed over to Spain, taking with him three sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago, his “lion’s brood,” as he called them, which he was bringing up to prey on the Romans.  Hannibal was now nine years old; and it is said that before leaving Africa Hamilcar offered a great sacrifice to the gods, and made the boy swear at an altar eternal hostility to Rome.  How well he kept his vow we shall soon see.  For eight years Hamilcar fought in Spain and conquered a great part of it, but he was never able to carry out his plan himself, for he was killed in battle (B.C. 228).  His sons succeeded him in his command in law Hasdrubal.  You must not confuse this Hasdrubal with Hannibal’s brother of the same name.  The Carthaginians seem to have had a very few names.  Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Hanno are all the names, which occur several times over.  Hasdrubal continued the conquest of Spain, and founded New Carthage (Carthagena) as the capital of the new province.  At last the Romans woke up to what was going on in Spain, and they made a treaty with the Carthaginians, by which the Carthaginians might have as much as they could conquer in Spain south of the river Iberus (Ebro), but the country north of that river was to be considered as belonging to Rome.

            ROME CONQUERS CISALPINE GAUL, B.C. 225-222-While the Carthaginians were conquering in Spain and creeping on nearer to the Roman frontier, the Romans had not been idle.  They had several small wars with tribes on the coast of the Adriatic, among others with the pirates of Illyria.  There were also troubles with the Gauls of Cisalpine Gaul; so the Romans, to make their northern frontier more secure, sent a number of fresh colonists there and gave them grants of land.  An agrarian law, proposed by the tribune Flaminius, did this.  The Senate revisited because the land was already in the possession of the nobles, but the people in their Assembly carried the law, and by the Hortensian law the Senate was obliged to accept it.  The land was distributed, and Flaminius built a road to the new district called after him the Via Flaminia.  This alarmed the Gauls very much, for they thought it a sign that the Romans were going to attack them.  So, in year B.C. 255, they invaded Italy, but were utterly defeated in a great battle at Telamon in Etruria.  For three years the war went on.  In one battle the Roman general Marcellus, famous after wards in second Punic war, won the Spolia Opima by slaying the Gallic general, the third and last time they were won.  In B.C. 222 Gallia Cisalpina was conquered by Flaminius, and two colonies, Placentia and Cremona, founded to secure it.

            HANNIBAL BECOMES GENERAL IN SPAIN AND BESIEGES SAGUNTUM, B.C. 219-In Spain Hasdrubal died by the dagger of an assassin, and was succeeded by Hannibal, now twenty-six years old, B.C. 221. The time and almost come for carrying out Hamilcar’s great plan of invading Italy.  Hannibal spent the next two years in completing the conquest of the country south of the Iberus.  The last town, which he attacked, was Saguntum, near the east cast of Spain.  Though Saguntum was south of the Iberus the Romans, in violation of their treaty with Hasdrubal, had made an alliance with it.  They therefore ordered Hannibal to abandon the siege; he refused; and after a heroic resistance of eight months Saguntum was taken and destroyed; the inhabitants burnt themselves rather than fall into his hands.

               DECLARATION OF WAR-Then the Romans sent ambassadors to Carthage to demand the surrender of Hannibal for attacking a Roman ally.  The Carthaginian Senate replied that Rome had no right to call Saguntum an ally; whereupon one of the ambassadors, Quintus Fabius Maximus, afterwards the saviour of Rome from Hannibal, held up the fold of his toga, saying, “I carry here peace and war; choose which you will have”.  “We will take whichever you give,” was the answer.  “Then,” said Fabius, “we give you war”; and the Carthaginians, with loud shouts, accepted war.

            HANNIBAL’S PLAN-Little did those Roman ambassadors think what a war this was which they were thus lightly entering on-a war in which they were to see Italy overrun by the enemy for fifteen years, never entirely to recover, and from which they were only to emerge victorious after passing through trials and sufferings which perhaps no other nation could have endured.  They might well feel confident.  Rome was far stronger now than when the first Punic war begun; the Italians were more closely united to her; by the possession of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, she had the command of the Mediterranean.  Carthage had been exhausted by the First Punic and the Inexpiable wars, and had now no fleet to speak of.  What was it that made Carthgate strong enough to fight this second war?  Nothing but the wonderful skill of Hannibal aided by Hamilcar’s years of preparation in Spain.  Hannibal, not Carthage, fought Rome; from the time he entered Italy he received hardly any support from home.  How did Hannibal expect to crush Rome?  His plan was this.  After he had carried out Hamilcar’s design and invaded Italy from Spain, he would be joined by the Cisalpine Gauls, eager for an opportunity of throwing off the Roman yoke; he would defeat the Romans in the field; and then the Latin’s, Samnites, and other Italians who, he thought, hated Rome as her subjects hated Carthage, would join him. Finally, his brother Hasdrubal would bring a fresh army to Spain into Italy, and Rome would be overpowered.  Such was young general’s plan.  How far it was successful, and where it failed, the narrative of the war will show.    

            THE ROMAN PLANS-In the spring of B.C. 218 both sides prepared for the struggle.  The Romans had not heard of Hannibal’s intention of invading Italy, or else did not believe in it.  Their plan was that one consul, Publius Cornelius Seipio, should attack the Carthaginians in Spain, while the other, Sempronius, was to invade Africa.  Each commands an ordinary consular army of two legions and allies, about 20,000.  Sempronius got as far as Sicily, but Scipio was delayed by a rising among the Gauls and did not embark till September.

            HANNIBAL’S MARCH TO THE RHONE, B.C. 218-Hannibal left New Carthage at the beginning of the summer at the head of 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 37 elephants.  His infantry were Spaniards and Africans, many of them Hamilcar’s veterans; the heavy cavalry were Spaniards; for light cavalry he had the Numidians, the most famous light cavalry of the world, who rode without bit or bridle and guided their horses with their sword.  He crossed the Pyrences with 50,000 foot and 9000 horses, for he left his brother Hasdrubal behind with 10,000 men, and sent back some Spanish troops whom he could not trust.  By the end of September he reached the Rhone.  There he found his way barred by the Gauls of the neighbourhood, who not being subject to the Romans, regarded him as an invader, not a deliverer.  Hannibal easily outmanoeuvred them and crossed the river.

            SCIPIO FINDS HANNIBAL IN GAUL-A few days afterwards some of his Numidians, who were out scouting, rode back into camp hotly pursued by a large number of roman horse who had met and beaten them.  They belonged to Scipio’s army who, touching at Massilia (Marseilles), an ancient Greek colony friendly to Rome, on his voyage to Spain, had learnt to his surprise that Hannibal was actually in Gaul.  He had landed his army, and was marching against him.  But Hannibal had no intention of fighting on the west of the Alps and retreated up the Rhone.  Scipio gave up the pursuit.  He sent his army on to Spain under his brother, Cnaeus, while he himself returned to Cisalpine Gaul, and took command of the troops there, to confront Hannibal should he cross the Alp’s, a proceeding that he probably thought hardly conceivable.  By thus sending his army to Spain Scipio saved Rome; for we shall see that it kept Hasdrubal employed in Spain, until Rome had time to recover from her first defeats by Hannibal.

            HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS-Hannibal after his brush with the Roman cavalry marched up the Rhone valley under the direction of Gallic guides to the foot of the Alps.  It was now October-a terrible time for his soldiers, men of the sunny south, to scale these snowy mountains.  The Gauls, too, were hostile, and tried to bar his passage.  But Hannibal pressed on.  On the fourth day of the ascent he reached a valley inhabited by a tribe, who received him most amicably, but, when he had started again and was in the most difficult part of the pass, treacherously attacked him, rolling down great stones on the struggling column.  At length, after terrible suffering, the top of the pass was reached. Here Hannibal gave his sorely tried troops two days rest and cheered their drooping spirits.  “All is now downhill,” he told them; “Italy lies before you.”  But the downhill was even more difficult than the uphill.  They were unmolested indeed by the Gauls; but the paths on the Italian side of the Alps were steeper and covered with snow and ice, and men and animals were continually losing their footing and falling over the precipice below.  At last the plain was reached; but of the 60,000 men who had crossed the Rhone only 20,000 foot and 6000 horses were left; of the beasts of burden and elephants the loss had been equally terrible.  The passage had taken just a fortnight.  The Pass we probably the Little St. Bernard close top Mount Lane.

            FIRST CAMPAIGN; SKIRMISH OF TICINUS, B.C. 218-Hannibal was now joined by some of the Gauls.  He encamped by the river Tieinus, and Scipio, who were at Placentia, marched against him.  A cavalry action took place, in which the Romans were beaten and the superiority of the Carthaginian cavalry shown.  Scipio himself was dangerously wounded and his life was only saved by the bravery of his son, Publius, a youth of seventeen, the future conqueror of Hannibal.  Scipio retreated over the Padus to a secure position in the hills near the little river Trebia.

            SEMPRONIUS SENT AGAINST HANNIBAL-During all the summer the other consul, Sempronius, had been in Sicily preparing for the invasion of Africa.  He was now recalled, and succeeded in joining Scipio with his fresh forces.  Hannibal was very anxious to force on battle, for it was now December, and he wished to win a victory, so as to make more of the Gauls join him, before he was obliged to retire into winter quarters.  But the Romans were in such a strong position behind the Trebia that, as long as they remained where they were, it was hopeless for Hannibal to attack them.  Scipio know all this, but unfortunately he was wounded, and so the command was in the hands of Sempronius, who, being at the head of superior forces, was burning with a desire to punish the insolent invader and win a great victory in a few months of his consulship that remained.    

            BATTLE OF TREBIA-Hannibal knew Sempronius’s character, and determined to draw him from his position.  For several days he plundered the neighbouring villages, and so still further excited him.  Then one morning, having made his men breakfast comfortably before their camp fires, he sent some of the Numidian cavalry across the Trebia to attack the Roman camp, and posted an ambush of 2000 men, under the brother Mago, near its banks.  The Numidians were of course driven back.  Sempronius, excited at this success, at once ordered the whole army to advance.  There was no time for breakfast.  The legionaries hastily armed themselves, and waded through the icy-cold Trebia, fifty yards wide, swollen breast high by the winter rains; on the other side they found the Carthaginian army drawn up to receive them, the infantry, as usual, in the centre, cavalry and elephants on the wings.  Cold, wet, hungry as they were, the legionaries, by their superior valour and numbers, were steadily gaining ground.  But their cavalry were routed, the elephants charged their unguarded flanks, and suddenly the ambush under Mago burst upon their rear.  10,000 men in the centre cut their way right through the enemy and reached Placentia; the rest were driven across the Trebia with frightful loss to their camp.  The Carthaginians also suffered severely from the cold, and nearly all the elephants perished.  The consul succeeded in reuniting their shattered troops, and retired from Gaul.  So ended the first campaign; but it needed some more severe lessons to teach the Romans what sort of a man they had to deal with.  Hannibal, satisfied with his victory, went into winter quarters.  Several Gallic tribes now joined him; and many enlisted in his army and filled up its terribly reduced numbers. 

            SECOND CAMPAIGN: HANNIBAL CROSSES THE APENNINES, B.C. 217-Meanwhile at Rome the elections for the new consuls took place.  Unfortunately the danger of the State was increased by a party quarrels.  The popular party succeeded, in spite of the Senate, in electing as one of the consuls their champion flaminius.  Having conquered the Gauls, they thought that he would be the best man to conquer Hannibal.  The other was an aristocrat, Servilius.  The late consul, P. Scipio, was sent to Spain to reinforce his brother, who had been successful there against Hasdrubal.  Of the unfortunate Sempronius we hear no more.  To bar the way from Cisalpine Gaul into Italy, Flaminius posted himself at Arretium in Etruria, his colleague Servilius at Ariminum, on the Adriatic.  But Hannibal avoided both the armies by crossing the Apennies in the extreme west, and marching for four days through the swamps of the river Arnus (Arno) where the troops could only find a dry place to sleep by piling up their baggage.  Many men and horses perished of disease, and Hannibal himself lost an eye from ophthalmic.  Hannibal then, to tempt Flaminius, marched southward past Arretium as if towards Rome.       

            BATTLE OF LAKE TRASIMENUS-Flaminius reported Hannibal’s movements to his colleague and then closely followed the enemy.  The route lay along the northern shore of Lake Trasimenus.  Flaminius reached the lake in the evening, and then next morning pressed forward.  On his right were the waters of the lake, on his left hills hidden by mist; but he never thought of examining the ground.  Slowly the column wound its way along.  The advanced guard had already passed the lake and was advancing up the hills, when it suddenly found the enemy in its front; then loud war cries were heard, and the long column was assailed with showers of missiles from the hills.  The Roman army was caught in a trap.  In another moment the fierce Gauls and Hannibal’s dreaded cavalry were upon them.  The Romans had no time to form.  It was not a battle, but butchery; many fled into the lake, but sank under the weight of their armour, or were mercilessly cut down by the cavalry.  Flaminius died a soldier’s death, vainly endeavouring to rally his troops.  The advanced guard cut their way through the force in their front to the top of the hills, but the mist lifted and they saw the work of slaughter behind.  They had nowhere to escape to, and being pursued, were obliged to surrender next day.  15,000 prisoners were taken and the rest of the army destroyed, while Hannibal only lost a few Gauls.  The Romans were kept as prisoners, the Italian allies set free.

            FABIUS CUNCTATOR APPOINTED DICTATOR-Great was the dismay at Rome at the news of this second defeat.  The praetor announced it to the people in the Forum.  “We have lost a great battle, our army is destroyed, Flaminius is killed.”  In this time of danger the people turned to the great Fabian house which had so often saved the State, and the aged Quintus Fabius Maximus, the ambassador who had offered peace or war to the Carthaginian Senate, had offered was appointed dictator.  The city was put in a state of defence, and fresh troops were enrolled, but not a man was withdrawn from the Scipios in Spain.  But Hannibal did not attack Rome; he marched plundering through the centre of Italy to the Adriatic, not a single city opening its gates.  After resting his troops, and, it is said, re-arming his Africans after the Roman fashion from the spoils of Trasimenus, he invaded Apulia, where he found himself confronted by Fabius.  Fabius plan was not to fight Hannibal, but to watch and worry him and prevent him from taking any towns.  So he was called henceforth Cunctator (the delayer), and a Roman poet sang of him, “One man by delaying restored the fortune of our State.”  Finding that Fabius would not fight, Hannibal advanced into Campania; still no city would join him, and he suddenly found himself surrounded in a valley by Fabius, who had occupied all the defiles out of it.  But Hannibal was not so easily caught; suddenly in the night the Roman soldiers saw a number of moving lights on the hill.  Thinking it was Hannibal’s army escaping across the hills they left the defile in order to attack it, but it was only a number of oxen turned loose by Hannibal with lighted faggots on their heads, and before they could return to their post he had passed through the unguarded defile and escaped.  After some time he returned to Apulia, and began collecting supplies for the winter.

           FABIUS AND MINUCIUS-Thus the year was passing away without another disaster.  But there was great discontent at Rome, because Hannibal had been allowed to plunder where he liked.  Soon Minucius, the master of the horse, sent home-exaggerated reports of some trivial successes, which he had won in Fabius absence.  So the people passed a foolish decree giving Minucius equal power with Fabius; and they divided the army between them.  Hannibal soon tempted Minucius into a battle, and would have destroyed his army had not Fabius come up and saved him.  Then Minucius generously acknowledged his error, and resigned the whole command again into Fabius hands.

            THIRD CAMPAIGN: THE PEOPLE MAKE VERRO CONSUL, B.C. 216-In spite of Minucius failure, the roman people were still unconvinced of the wisdom of Fabius policy; they determined to fight Hannibal again, and elected as consul for the next year (B.C. 216) a popular favourite named Varro, said to have been a butcher’s son, who had been one of the chief champions of Minucius.  His colleague, however, was a noble of some military experience named Aemilius Paullus, who, the Senate hoped, might check his rashness.  To make the victory more certain, double the usual number of legions was raised, but the people forgot that Hannibal’s strength lay in his cavalry.  Hannibal was still in Apulia, near the little town of Canne on the river Aufidus, and there the Romans faced him.  They numbered 80,000 infantry, comprising however a great many recruits, and 6000 cavalry.  Hannibal had 40,000 veteran infantry and 10,000 cavalry, and the level plains of Apulia were peculiarly suited for cavalry.  The roman consuls, instead of dividing their forces as usual, took command an alternate days, an arrangement if possible worse than the other.  Aemilius wished to draw Hannibal away to more hilly country, where he could not use his cavalry so well, but Varro was determined to fight him where he was.  So on his day of command the red ensign, the Roman signal for battle, was seen flying from his headquarters.

            BATTLE OF CANNAE-When Hannibal saw the Roman army forming for battle, he at once accepted the challenge and formed his army against them; he was in great spirits and confident of victory.  Hannibal noticed that the Roman infantry were drawn up much closer and deeper than usual, probably on account of the number of recruits among them; so he drew up his infantry, though only half their number, in a line rather long than the Roman, the Gauls and Spaniards in the centre the Africans on the flanks.  In the battle the Roman infantry at first drove back the Gauls and Spaniards, but as they advanced they pressed and crowded closer together, until they found themselves attacked in flank by the Africans; the Gauls and Spaniards soon rallied and charged them again in front; ad lastly the Carthaginian cavalry, who had overpowered and routed the Romans, fell upon their rear.  Thus assailed on all sides, the Roman army was reduced to a confused and struggling mass; all order was lost; the brave legionnaires, packed close together and unable to use their arms, fell where they stood.  All day the work of butchery went on, and in the evening the consul Aemilius Paullus, 80 senators and 70,000 men lay on that fatale field.  Varro, who commanded one wing of the cavalry, rode off the field when they were routed.  Hannibal lost less than 6000 men.

            THE SOUTHERNITALIANS JOIN HANNIBAL-It seemed as if Rome must now fall.  “Send me on with the cavalry,” said Maharbal, the commander of the cavalry, “and in four days you shall sup in the capitol.”  But Hannibal refused his offer.  Cavalry could not storm a city; the Romans would be sure to defend their walls, and failure would be ruin to him.  So he preferred to adhere to his original plan of uniting the Italians against Rome; this was at last beginning to succeed; most of the southern Italians, with the exception of Tarentum and other Greek cities, now joined him.  He sent to Carthage with the news of the victory, and a request for reinforcements, and also an embassy to Rome in the hope that she might be sufficiently cowed to be ready to treat for peace.

            DESPAIR AT ROME-The battle of Cannae reduced the people of Rome to utter despair.  Many wished to abandon the city, as was done after the defeat of Allia; but the Senate remained firm, and under the leadership of Fabius Cunctator, took prompt measures.  A dictator was appointed; troops were collected to man the walls by freeing slaves and enrolling criminals and debtors; no women were allowed to appear in the streets; and mourning was restricted to thirty days, for there was scarcely a house that had not lost a member.  At last came news that Hannibal was not marching on Rome.  There was still hope; men again began to breathe freely.  Hannibal’s embassy was not allowed to enter the walls; and the unfortunate Varro being brave enough to return was thanked by the senate for not having despaired of the Republic.

            THE REVOLT OF CAPUA-After securing his allies in the south of Italy, Hannibal invaded Campania, and inflicted another blow on rome by persuading Capua, the second city of Italy, to revolt.  He took several other towns of Campania; but Marcellus, the hero of the Gallic war, who had been sent against him at the head of what troops could be collected, secured the important town of Nola, and inflicted on Hannibal his first defeat when he tried to attack it.  Hannibal then retired to winter quarters in Capua, which the Roman historians say, by its luxury ruined the health of his army.  But there is no evidence of this in the account of the war.

            HASDRUBAL DEFEATED BY THE SCIPIOS IN SPAIN, B.C. 216-From Spain came the one gleam of hope that was vouchsafed the Romans in this terrible year; for Hasdrubal, who now felt himself strong enough to carry out his part of the plan of the invasion of Italy, marched against the Scipios, but was severely defeated just about the time of the battle of Cannae.  So Hasdrubal had to give up all thought of his march for the present, and devote all his energy to defending the Carthaginian empire in Spain, and the reinforcements which Mago was to have brought to Hannibal had to be sent to Spain instead.  We now see how wise it was of Scipio to send on his army to Spain when he met Hannibal in Gaul; for it Hasdrubal had come the year after Cannae, what hope would there have been for Rome?     

            THE WAR AFTER CANNAE, B.C. 215-213-CHANGE IN THE ROMAN PLANS-With the exception of Hasdrubal’s defeat in Spain, Hannibal had been perfectly successful so far in carrying out his plan.  He had beaten the Romans in several great battles, and many of the Italians had joined him; Capua was in his hands.  But the end had not come yet; the Latin towns and colonies in the centre of Italy remained faithful, as did Tarentum and the other Greek towns in the south.  The Roman people had learnt a lesson from Trasimenus and Cannae; they gave up interfering in the war, and left the conduct of it to the Senate, under the leadership of Fabius Cuncator.  No dangerous, like Varro or flaminius, were now elected consuls, but experienced soldiers, who did not attack Hannibal in the field, but harassed and plundered the Italians who had joined him, and occasionally won victorious over his lieutenants.  Hannibal himself was obliged to march to and fro to protect his allies, a task almost too much for his little army, deprived of the expected reinforcements from home and from Spain; and everywhere he was confronted by the Latin colonies, into which the roman armies could retire, for he had no means of besieging them.  Nor was his brother more successful in Spain; he was again defeated by the Scipios (B.C. 215), and then had to return to Africa, owing to a rebellion, which had broken out in Numidia.  While he was away the Scipios conquered nearly all Spain.  Hasdrubal’s march seemed further off than ever.

         REVOLT OF SICILY-SIEGE OF SYRACUSE, B.C. 214-212-But a great blow fell on the Romans in Sicily.  In B.C. 216 their faithful ally, Hiero, King of Syracuse, died.  On his death Syracuse was convulsed with civil strife, and in the year B.C. 214 declared for Carthage against Rome, and was followed in its defection by most of the other towns of Sicily.  Marcellus, at that time governor of Sicily, marched against Syracuse; a Carthaginian army, which came to its relief, was destroyed by fever; and after a siege of over two years Syracuse fell (B.C. 212).  By B.C. 210 Sicily was conquered, and the whole of it, including Syracuse, now became a roman province.

            HANNIBAL TAKES TARENTUM-THE ROMANS BESIEGE CAPUA, B.C. 212-The same year that Marcellus took Syracuse gained his first great success in Italy since Cannae.  Tarentum, the most important city in Italy after Capua, was betrayed to him.  There had long been a Carthaginian party in the town, and at last, owing to the carelessness of the Roman governor, they succeeded in opening the gates to Hannibal.  The example of Tarentum was followed by many other Greek cities.  The Romans however, succeeded in holding the citadel; Hannibal began to besiege it, but while the siege was going on he was called away by an appeal for aid from Capua.  For the Romans now felt themselves strong enough to besiege that city; if they could take it and punish it for its revolt, it would be the death blow of Hannibal’s hopes; for the Italians would see that he could not protect them against Rome.     Hannibal first sent one of his lieutenants with a convoy to Capua, but the Romans surprised and took it, so he was obliged to go himself.  The Romans retired at his approach, but when he departed to continue the siege of the citadel of Tarentum they again closed round Capua.  60,000 men were employed in the siege, and a double line of fortifications built right round the town.

            HANNIBAL MARCHES ON ROME-SURRENDER OF CAPUA, B.C 211-By the summer of B.C. 211 their provisions were almost exhausted, and the Capuans were in despair.  The weeks passed on, but there was no sign of Hannibal and his relieving army.  At last a Numidian succeeded in scaling the roman lines and carrying a message to him. Hannibal at once marched on Capua.  This time the Romans did not retreat; secure in their fortifications they could defy Hannibal and his cavalry.  A desperate battle took place, the Capuans attacking from within, Hannibal from without.  But all in vain; the Roman lines were impregnable.  Then, at last, Hannibal marched on Rome, hoping thus to make the Romans loosen their grip on Capua.  The dismay at his approach was terrible: crowds of fugitives came flying into the city before the dreaded Numidians.  But amid all the confusion the Senate did not lose its head.  The city walls were strong; there were troops enough to hold them against a sudden assault, without withdrawing the armies from Capua.  So Hannibal as disappointed, an attack on Rome was hopeless.  He leisurely rode round the walls, to show how the proud city was humbled, and then returned to the south of Italy, burning and plundering.  Capua soon after surrendered.  Many of the guilty leaders committed suicide; others were put to death; most of the population were sold into slavery.

               DEFEAT AND DEATH OF THE TWO SCIPIOS IN SPAIN, B.C 212-thus in Italy the crisis was past.  Hannibal could be held at bay, for no town would join him with the fearful fate of Capua before its eyes.  The danger now lay in Spain; for there, the year of the beginning of the siege of Capua, the two Scipios, who had fought so long and so well, and saved Rome on her hour of need, were both at last defeated and slain (B.C. 212), and Hasdrubal was again preparing to join his brother in Italy.  A fresh general had to be sent thither, and when all shrank from the dangerous post, young Publius Scipio came forward; and though he was only twenty-four years of age, and so had never been a consul, the people accepted him with enthusiasm, and he was sent with the rank of proconsul to avenge his father and uncle, and keep Hasdrubal out of Italy.

            THE YOUNG SCIPIO TAKES NEW CARTHAGE, B.C. 210-Scipio determined to begin by striking a deadly blow.  Marching 300 miles along the coast, from his quarters at Tarraco (Taragona), he surprised and captured New Carthage, the Carthaginian capital of Spain, before Hasdrubal could come to its aid.  Immense amounts of money and supplies fell into the hands, and the Carthaginian power in Spain was seriously shaken.  The Carthaginian prisoners he sent to Rome; the rest of the captives he treated very kindly, especially some Spanish hostages.  In this way Scipio won the hearts of the Spaniards, who hated the Carthaginians, and they begun to come over to the Romans.  Hasdrubal gave up all thought of opposing him in Spain, and continued his preparations for his march into Italy.

            RECAPTURE OF TARENTUM-HANNIBAL LOSING GROUND IN ITALY, B.C 209-since the fall of Capua Hannibal had been steadily losing ground; he could no longer protect the Samnites and his other allies from the attacks of the Romans, and they were gradually returning to their allegiance.  Tarentum too, whose citadel had remained unconquered, was recaptured (B.C. 209) by old Fabius Cunctator, his last service in the field to Rome.  But the strain on Rome’s resources was terrible; the Senate had to appeal to the wealthy to contribute their private property; at this time over 160,000 men, one-fourth of the citizens and allies, were in arms.     

            HASDRUBAL ENTERS ITALY, B.C 207-Hasdrubal was now ready to begin his march.  Scipio attacked and defeated him.  But in spite of his defeat he continued his project, and by crossing the west end of the Pyrences eluded Scipio, who expected him to have followed Hannibal’s route by the east coast.  Scipio, utterly ignorant of his movements, was engaged in his work of gaining over the Spanish tribes to the side of Rome.  In the spring of the next year, B.C. 207, Hasdrubal crossed the Alps; and the long dreaded moment had come when Rome would have to face the two sons of Hamilcar on the soil of Italy.  No less than twenty-three legions were put into the field; the consuls were Claudius Nero, who had fought in Spain against Hasdrubal, and Livius Salinator, who was an enemy of Nero, but was publicly reconciled to him before the campaign began.  Nero was sent south to watch Hannibal, Livius north to bar Hasdrubal’s advance.  Hasdrubal sent off three troopers from Cisalpine Gaul to inform his brother of his plans; the troopers failed to find Hannibal, but fell into the hands of Nero; thus all Hasdrubal’s plans were known to the Romans and not to Hannibal.

              NERO’S MARCH-Nero instantly made up his mind.  Hasdrubal must be crushed before Hannibal knew that he was in Italy.  Giving out that he was going to attack one of Hannibal’s posts in Lucania, he started by night, with a picked force of 8000 men, to join Livius, who was 300 miles away.  Before starting he sent messengers to the Senate to warn them to put the city in state of defence, and also to the tribes through whose territory he would pass to order them to bring down all the provisions they could to the roadside.  The soldiers on being informed of the real object of their march showed the utmost enthusiasm.  They pressed forward, hardly giving themselves time to sleep.  The whole countryside crowded the line of March, provisions were brought in abundance, which the soldiers ate standing in their ranks, and prayers were offered for victory.  In the incredibly short time of the week the camp of Livius was reached, 300 miles across the roughest country I Italy.  No such march had ever been done before.

             BATTLE OF THE METAURUS-DEATH OF HASDRUBAL-Livius was confronting Hasdrubal just south of the little river Metaurus.  Nero’s men entered the camp by night that Hasdrubal might not know of their arrival.  But in the morning he heard the trumpet sound twice, and guessed what had happened.  But the river was behind him so he could not retreat; his men fought bravely but the Romans were too strong.  At last he saw that all was lost; and, spurring his horse into the midst of the enemy, fell fighting to the last.  Nero at once marched back to his own army, and it is said, announced the victory of Hannibal by brutally throwing his brother’s head into his camp.   At the news of the victory the whole city of Rome burst into transports of joy.  The senate ordered a public thanksgiving of three days.  They felt that Hannibal’s great plan was wrecked and all danger was over.  Hannibal could affect nothing during the rest of the campaign, and when it was over the consuls returned to the city and celebrated their triumph, the first since Hannibal entered Italy.  By the end of the next year Scipio conquered the whole of Spain.  He now returned to Rome to stand for the consulship.  The Senate refused him a triumph because he had held no high office.  So he entered the city as a private person; but such crowds came to witness his entry that it was like a triumphal procession.  The brilliancy of his exploits made people forget that he had allowed Hasdrubal to invade Italy, the one thing that he was sent to Spain to prevent.

            SCIPIO INVADES AFRICA, B.C. 204-Scipio was consul in B.C. 205.  Hannibal, since the battle of the Metaurus, had been forced to retire into Bruttium, the toe of Italy.  Cooped up, there, he could do no harm, but it might be dangerous to attack him.  So Scipio formed the bold plan of ending the war by an invasion of Africa.  The Senate, led by old Fabius Cuncatator, opposed the project as too dangerous; but the people forced them to give in.  He had on his side a Numidian prince named Masinissa, who had joined him in Spain to obtain his help against his rival Syphax, prince of another tribe of Numidians.  But before Scipio’s arrival Syphax and the Carthaginians had conquered Masinissa and driven him out of his dominions.  Scipio spent the year of his consulship in Sicily in preparation, landed in Africa in the spring of B.C. 204, and began to besiege the towns of Utica.  Utica proved too strong, and at the end of the summer Scipio was compelled to abandon the siege owing to the approach of a Carthaginian army under Hasdrubal son of Gisgo, and Syphax. 

            CARTHAGINIAN DEFEATS-HANNIBAL RECALLED FROM ITALY, B.C. 203-The Roman and Carthaginian armies lay encamped near one another during the winter.  Suddenly one night Scipio attacked his foes; their encampment, which was composed of wooden huts, was set ablaze, and in the confusion more than 40,000 men perished by the flames and swords of the Romans.  Hasdrubal and Syphax got together another army, but were again defeated.  Not long afterwards Masinissa captured Syphax, and so made himself king of all Numidia; the dreaded Numidian cavalry were now on the side of the Romans.  Scipio gave up all thoughts of taking Utica, and marched plundering and ravaging through the country.  The Carthaginians in despair sent orders to Hannibal to return and defend his country in her extremity; without a murmur he obeyed the call, though it meant the ruin of all his hopes.  Thus Italy was freed at last from the terrible foe that had ravaged her soil for fifteen long years; and the people’s trust in Scipio was justified.

             BATTLE OF ZAMA-CARTHAGE MAKES PEACE, B.C. 202-Next summer the two great generals encountered each other near the town of Zama.  They had an interview to try and arrange terms of peace, but it was impossible.  Hannibal was obliged to fight, though the odds were against him; his veterans were few, the Numidian cavalry were in the ranks of the enemy, his only hopes were in his elephants, of which he had eighty.  But the elephants, as so often happened, did more harm than good; they were driven back on his cavalry on the wings and threw it into confusion, so that the roman cavalry won an easy victory.  In the centre the veterans of Italy, in spite of the flight of the rest of the infantry, maintained a stubborn fight against overwhelming numbers, till the victorious Roman cavalry fell upon their rear and cut them to pieces.  Hannibal rode off the field and advised his countrymen to make peace.  The terms of peace were very hard.  Carthage had to surrender all her possessions out of Africa, all her fleet and elephants to pay 10,000 talents in ten years; to acknowledge Masinissa as king of Numidia and an ally of Rome; and to engage not to make war with out the consent of Rome.  Scipio at last enjoyed the triumph before denied him; he received the name of Africanus in honour of his victory; the people regarded him almost as a god, but the nobles were still jealous.  Thus Hannibal’s plan for conquering Rome ended in failure.  It failed because (1) the Latin towns and colonies remained loyal, and Hannibal, whose strength lay in his cavalry, could not besiege and take them; (2) Rome, when unable to fight Hannibal in Italy, nevertheless carried the war into Spain, and thence, when the right general was found, into Africa; (3) Hannibal was fighting unsupported from home, with a small army of mercenaries against a nation in arms.   

            ITALY AFTER THE SECOND PUNIC WAR-You has been told of the punishment of Capua.  The fate of the Bruttians, who had been loyal to Hannibal to the last, was almost cruel; the whole nation became serfs, tilling the land for their Roman masters.  The other Italians lost large tracts of land, on which were settled Scipio’s victorious soldiers and other colonists.  But Rome herself and the loyal Latin’s had suffered almost as severely.  Their ands had been mercilessly ravaged for fifteen years, and the brave yeomen farmers, the mainstay of the state, had almost entirely disappeared.    

            CISALPINE GAUL AND SPAIN-The most useful allies of Hannibal had been the cisalpine Gauls, who had joined him immediately on his arrival in Italy.  At the close of the war they were still in arms; fighting at once began and went on for ten years, for they made a gallant resistance, winning several victories.  But at last, utterly worn out, they submitted, and never rebelled again; soon afterwards the Ligurians east of the Alps were conquered after a long struggle.  Fresh colonies were sent into Cisalpine Gaul, but it was apparently not made into a regular province for another hundred years.  Spain, at the conclusion of peace, was made into two provinces-Hither Spain, the eastern part, and further Spain, the southwestern part.  But the Romans only held the coasts; inland the barbarian tribes, though they had been won over for a long time by Scipio’s charm of manner, reasserted their independence and would not submit to the Roman yoke.  For more than twenty years they revisited like the Gauls, often defeating the Romans.  At length, in B.C. 178, they were persuaded by the Roman general Tiberius Gracchus to submit.  But Spain was not yet really conquered.

            THE EAST-Rome, now mistress of the West, began to turn her thoughts to the East.  It was now about 130 years since Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, had conquered the Persians and founded his mighty empire.  When he died without leaving an heir, his empire broke up, and his ablest generals, after much fighting against one another, made themselves kings over different parts of it.  Their successors still held sway; the most important of them at this time, were Philipm King of Acedonia; Antiochus, called the Greek, King of Syria and a great part of Asia Minor; and Ptolemy Philopator, King of Egypt.  Greece, now sadly fallen from its ancient glories, was for the most part subject to Macedonia; but there were two states which still maintained their independence; they were the Aetolian League, a wild band of freebooting mountaineers, northwest of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Achaean League, a more orderly league of cities in the Peloponnesus.

            PHILIP, KING OF MACEDON-Philip was an able and ambitious king.  During the second Punic war he had joined Carthage against Rome, but the Romans, by setting the Aetolians against him, had kept him occupied, and his alliance was of no use to Hannibal.  But they were not likely to forget his conduct.  The year of the peace between Rome and Carthage, Philip began a fresh scheme of aggression.  Ptolemy Philopator, King of Egypt, had lately died, and his successor was a mere boy; so Philip made an agreement with Antiochus that they should divide his dominions, which included Phoenicia and many cities on the Aegean Sea.  Antiochus invaded Phoenicia and Philip attacked Thrace and sent a fleet into the Aegean under a Greek mercenary named Dicaearchus, a brutal man, who set up altars to the goddesses of lawlessness and godlessness.  Dicaearchus sailed about the Aegean massacring and plundering with frightful cruelty.  Thereupon the island of Rhodes, famous at this time for its fleet and commerce, and Attalus, King of Pergamus, a little state on the west coast of Asia Minor, that had arisen out of the break up of Alexander’s empire, took up arms, but they were not strong enough to stop Philip’s progress.

            THE ROMANS INTEREFERE-Meanwhile embassies came to Rome from Egypt and the Greeks imploring aid.  The Senate wished to punish Philip for his alliance with Carthage, but the people were loath to begin a fresh war just after the conclusion of their terrible struggle with Hannibal.  However, something must be done.  Ambassadors were sent to the East and Egypt was persuaded to make peace with Antiochus by giving up Phoenicia.  Antiochus, having got what he wanted, at once deserted his ally.  Philip, however, would not give way; he believed himself strong enough to brave the enmity of Rome.

            WAR AGAINST PHILIP, B.C 200-BATTLE OF CYNOSCEPHALAE, B.C. 197-Still the Romans hesitated.  But next year Philip attacked Athens. Then, at last, they declared war.  The fleet, with the help of the Rhodians, drove Philip from the sea, and saved Athens; but the army, which was composed of only legions, at first affected nothing.  For two years it struggled in vain in the mountains between Epirus amd Thessaly; but in the third year the consul Flamininus, joined by the Aetolians, forced his way over, and next year, his command having been prolonged, he totally defeated Philip, near a hill called Cyniscephalae (Dogs Head), in Thessaly.  The two armies, nearly equal in numbers, encountered one another unexpectedly on a misty day.  The Romans, on this occasion, had elephants in their army, and by their aid, and also that of some Aetolian cavalry, the legion again proved its superiority to the phalanx.   Philip fled to Macedonia; his only army was destroyed, so he had to submit to the Roman terms.  He was obliged to give up all his foreign possessions; to promise not to have more than 5000 soldiers, or to make war without the consent of the Roman Senate; and to pay a large sum of money.  Thus the fortune of a single day had reduced the proud successor of Alexander the Great to the level of a subject ally of Rome.

            FLAMININUS PROCLAIMS THE FREEDOM OF GREECE, B.C. 196-Then Flamininus returned to Greece, and at the great festival of the Isthmian games, near Corinth, which happened to be held that year, proclaimed to the assembled multitude that Greece was now free from the Macedonian yoke.  This proclamation was received with the wildest joy and enthusiasm, and Flamininus was hailed as the Liberator of Greece.  It seemed as if the old days of Greek independence had returned.  But soon the sad truth became plain, that the Greeks were not fit for independence; in fact, they were merely exchanging the yoke of Macedon for the yoke of Rome.

            WAR AGAINST THE AETOLIANS AND ANTIOCHUS, B.C. 192-HANNIBAL-Amid the general rejoicing the Aetoliane held himself or herself sullenly aloof.  These proud but ignorant mountaineers imagined that they, not the Romans, had conquered Philip; and when Flamininus settled the peace with Philip without consulting them, they were so angry that they turned against Rome and invited Antiochus to come and help them to drive the Romans out of Greece.  Antiochus was already on bad terms with Rome, for he had begun again to make conquests in Asia Minor, and was fighting with the Rhodians and Eumenes, the successor of Attalus.  About this time, too, Hannibal, forced to flee from Carthage, came to his court, still burning to avenge himself on his old foes.  So Antiochus was only too ready to listen to the Aetolians.  The war broke out B.C. 192, and he crossed over with an army into Greece.  But both he and the Aetolians found one another’s forces much weaker than they expected; and Philip would not join them, for he had not forgotten how Antiochus had before deserted him.  The Roman Consul, by the skill of an officer named Cato, whom you will hear of again, defeated them in the famous pass of Thermopylae, B.C. 191; and Antiochus had to flee back to Asia.  Hannibal could give no help, for Antiochus only allowed him to command the fleet.

            BATTLE OF MAGNESIA, B.C. 190-In the spring of B.C. 190 the Romans invaded Asia.  The consul in command was L. Scipio, brother of the great P. Scipio Africanus, who accompanied him.  The army marched through Thessaly and Macedonia to the Hellespont.  The Rhodian and Roman fleet won a victory at sea in spite of Hannibal’s efforts.  Antiochus withdrew his troops to defend the great fortress of Sardis, and the Romans crossed the Hellespont unopposed.  Near the town of Magnesia in Lydia Antiochus met them, with an unwidely host of Asiatics with elephants and scuthe-chariots, but the battle was never in doubt for a moment; 40,000 Asiatics were killed, and only a few hundred Romans.  This cheap but decisive victory made Rome the mistress of the East.             Antiochus was obliged to pay a large sum of money and surrender his dominions in Asia, most of which were given to Eumenes, and some to the Rhodians as a reward for their services; but Philip received nothing at all.  In honour of his victory L. Scipio received the surname of Asiaticus, in imitation of his brother Africanus.  The unhappy Aetolians continued the hopeless contest the year after Magnesia.  In the stronghold of Ambracia for a long time they heroically held out.  When at last they were starved into submission the Romans contended themselves with enrolling them as subject allies.  The only free power now left in Greece was the Achaean League.

            THE END OF HANNIBAL AND OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS, B.C. 183-One of the conditions of peace to which Antiochus was compelled to submit was that he should surrender Hannibal.  But this he was unable to do, for Hannibal, who knew well the undying hatred with which the Romans pursued him, had already fled.  He went first to Crete, and thence to the court of Prusias, King of Bithynia, a small kingdom in the north of Asia Minor, whom he aided in a war against Rome’s ally, Eumenes of Pergamus.  But the Romans presently ordered Prusias to give him up, and he dared not refuse.  So one day Hannibal found his house surrounded by soldiers; he attempted to escape by a side door, but it was too late.  But Hannibal was fully prepared for the worst; by means of a poison, which he always carried about with him he saved himself from the shame of falling into the hands of his relentless foes.  Thus, in lonely exile, abandoned by his countrymen and by all whom he tried to serve, having seen all his schemes ruined and Rome triumphant everywhere, perished the victor of Cannae, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.  The same year died Hannibal’s great opponent Scipio Africanus.  Though his brilliant victories had saved Rome, he offended his countrymen by his haughty manners, for he treated them almost as a king might treat his subjects.  After the conquest of Asia Minor a charge was brought against him and his brother, L. Scipio, of keeping some of the money to them.  So in disgust he retired to his country house in Campania, where he died.  Besides his other distinctions, it should be recorded that he was one of the first Romans to study the language and writings of the Greeks, and he was one of the best-educated men of his time.

            RENEWED PLOTTING AND DEATH OF PHILIP-Philip was deeply hurt that he received no reward for his help against Antiochus, like Eumenes and the Rhodians.  It was plain that Rome intended sooner or later to humble him still more; so he determined to try to regain his old power.  Macedonia was recovering from the defeat of Cybosephalae, and Philip began to intrigue with the enemies of Rome, helping Prusias in his war against Eumenes.  Eumenes complained to Rome, and the Senate punished Philip by taking some towns away from him.  Convinced at last of the hopelessness of the struggle the old king died of a broken heart (B.C. 179).

            ACCESSION OF PERSEUS, B.C. 179-WAR BETWEEN ROME AND PERSEUS, B.C. 172-He was succeeded by his son Perseus, a less able and very avaricious man.  He continued his father’s task of gradually strengthening Macedonia; but in the year B.C. 172 Eumenes, complained to Rome that Perseus was increasing his army, and Rome declared war.  The Romans as usual began the war by sending out bad generals, the men who happened to be elected to the consulship, and too few troops.  They made repeated attempts to cross the mountains between Thessaly and Macedonia, but met with nothing but defeat, till Perseus, in a moment of cowardice, abandoned the famous pass of Tempe.  Eumenes and the Rhodians began to think the Romans were not so strong after all.  The Rhodians actually had the hardihood to declare that the war must cease, and that they would declare war on whichever side was responsible for its continuance.  Eumenes very nearly sent troops to the assistance of Perseus, but the two kings could not agree as to the price to be paid for this assistance.

            BATTLE OF PYDNA, B.C. 168-The Senate took no notice at the time of the arrogance of the Rhodians or the treachery of Eumenes, but despatched larger forces than before.  Aemilius Paullus, son of the consul killed at Cannae, the new consul, was an able general.  The Roman army advanced from Tempe, and near the town of Pydna the decisive battle was fought.  Like Cynoscephalae it was brought on accidentally and was soon over; the phalanx being on rough ground fell into confusion, and could not make no resistance to the swords of the legionaries.  The army of Perseus was destroyed.  The phalanx with which Alexander the Great had won victories had again found its match in the Roman legion, and henceforward we hear of it no more.

            END OF PERSEUS, MACEDON MADE A ROMAN PROVINCE-Macedonia submitted at once to the conquerors.  The unhappy Perseus, hunted like a beast of prey, carried his treasures with him wherever he went, but was at length captured at the island of Samothrace.  He was brought to the camp of Aemilius Paullus, who treated him kindly, but he carried him to Rome and made him walk as captive behind his car in the triumph.  Afterwards he was allowed to live in honourable captivity at Alba Longa, where he died in a few years, according to some accounts by voluntary starvation.  The famous old kingdom of Macedon was destroyed; the country was split up into four districts which were declared “free” by the Romans, but all nobles land leading men were transported to Italy, and the poor tillers of the field were left.  The four districts were kept quite distinct, the inhabitants not being allowed even to intermarry; but some years afterwards Macedonia was made into a single province under a Roman governor.

            THE RHODIANS AND EUMENES-The sudden collapse of Perseus was a grievous blow to the Rhodians and Eumenes; for mercy was the last thing to expect from Rome.  The Rhodian envoys made a piteous appeal to the Senate, confessing their fault in the last war, but recalling their previous services against Philip and Antiochus.  But unfaithful allies, especially when they had so grievously insulted the majority of Rome, were not to be forgiven; they lost all their possessions on the mainland of Asia, and were enrolled as subject allies of Rome.  Eumenes hurried to Italy to plead his cause, but when he landed at Brundisium he was coldly informed that a law had just been passed that no king might enter Rome.  He returned to Pergamus greatly humbles; his proud position among Eastern kings as the friend of Rome was gone, and he died ten years afterwards.

            GREECE AFTER THE MACEDONIAN WARS-Greece was left in a very unsettled condition; in most of the states partisans of Rome were set over the government, but they were continually quarrelling among themselves and appealing to Rome to interfere.  The only strong state now left was the Achaean League; but its loyalty was suspected, and 1000 of its leading citizens were summoned to Italy to be tried for not having given proper help to Rome against Perseus.  But when they arrived, instead of being tried, they were kept as prisoners and settled in various Italian towns.  One of them was named Polybius; he was an accomplished literary man, and soon became friends with many leading Romans.  He employed his time in writing a history of Rome, which has become very famous.

             CARTHAGE AFTER THE SECOND PUNIC WAR-When their great struggle with Rome ended in their utter defeat and the loss of their empire, the Carthaginians gave up as hopeless all thoughts of becoming again a great power.  They now devoted themselves to their old pursuit of commerce; and such was their wonderful energy that their prosperity soon returned; their wharves were again crowded with ships; their warehouses teemed with merchandise, and the streets were thronged with a busy crowd of merchants.  It Rome would only leave Carthage alone, it seemed that a happy peaceful career was before her.  But that Rome would not do.  It will be remembered that after the war Rome had set up her ally Masinissa on the throne of Numidia, with all the territory which had ever been Numidian, but it was never distinctly stated what that territory was.  So, from time to time, Masinissa was continually seizing some little bit of Carthaginian territory.  The Carthaginians were forbidden to make war without the consent of the Romans; so they were obliged to be always sending embassies to Rome with no hope of redress.  On one occasion they complained that Masinissa had taken no less than seventy towns in two years.  “Give us permission to defend ourselves,” they said, “or at least say, once for all, how much Carthaginian territory you wish to present to Masinissa.”

            EMBASSY OF CATO, B.C. 157-DELENDA EST CARTHAGO-At last the Senate thought Masinissa had gone far enough.  They sent an embassy to definitely fix the Carthaginian frontier (B.C. 157).  But this embassy led to a most unexpected result.  Among the ambassadors was Cato.  On his arrival he was thunderstruck by the prosperity, which met his eyes.  Carthage must, he thought, be meditating a war of revenge; while she existed Rome would never be safe.  The embassy failed in its object; and Cato, on his return to Rome, set himself to impress his discovery on the minds of his countrymen; and being the most respected and influential man in Rome, he soon succeeded.  In his first speech in the Senate he is said to have taken from the folds of his toga a bunch of figs, still quite fresh and green.  “These figs,” he said were picked at Carthage; so near is the danger to our door.”  After that every speech of his in his Senate, on whatever subject, was concluded by the words, “Delenda est Carthago”: “Carthage must be destroyed”.  In spite of some opposition, the Senate was gradually won over to Cato’s view, and determined to destroy Carthage upon the first pretext.  Probably the Romans were really not so much afraid of Carthage as jealous of her commercial prosperity.

             OUTBREAK OF THE THIRD PUNIC WAR-UNFAIR TREATMENT OF CARTHAGE, B.C. 149-In six years a pretext was found.  Masinissa renewed his attacks, and Carthage, despairing of redress, was guided into taking up arms (B.C. 151).  Failure was the result; for her troops, now unaccustomed to war, were first surrounded by Masinissa in the desert and compelled to surrender, and then treacherously attacked and slaughtered on their march home.  Notwithstanding, the Senate at once charged the Carthaginians with having broken the treaty by going to war without leave, and the Carthaginians in despair put to death the men who had persuaded them to take up arms, and sent embassy after embassy to Rome entreating to be told what else they were to do to atone for their fault.  After some time they were informed (B.C 149) that if they sent three hundred boys of the noblest families as hostage to Rome, and obeyed the orders of the consul Censorinus, who had already started with his army for Africa, their country and their liberties would be spared.  These hard conditions they had to accept but they thought that now, at any rate, they knew the worst.  Censorinus landed.  First he ordered all their ships, arms, and war material to be surrendered.  This was done and 200,000 suits of armour were brought to the Roman camp.  The Carthaginians being thus disarmed and defenceless, he said that the will of the roman people was that their city should be destroyed, and they should build another ten miles away from the sea.

           THE CARTHAGINIANS DEFEND THEIR CITY-Ill-SUCCESS OF THE ROMANS-When they heard these cruel words, an outburst of grief and fury seized the Carthaginians; to bid them leave their beloved city, the home of their nation for centuries the shrines of their gods, and live away from the sea, cut off from their favourite trade and commerce, was too much.  To the first wild outburst succeeded the calm resolution of despair.  Defenceless as they were, they would not yield; if they might not live by the sea, they would die there.  But time was wanted for fresh means of defence; so they succeeded in obtaining from Censorinus a respite of thirty days on pretence of sending an embassy to Rome.  During these thirty days the whole population-men, women, and children-worked with heroic energy to make arms the place of those which they had been deceived into surrendering; the women are said to have given their long hair to make strings for the catapults.  And when the time expired, the Romans found to their surprise an armed city, prepared to resist to the last.  Twice they tried to storm the walls, only to be ignominiously repulsed with loss; so they were reduced to try the effect of starvation and blockade.  But the Carthaginians were able to get in provisions through their harbour; they weakened the Roman fleet with fire ships, worried the legions with continual attacks, while fever ravaged the crowded camps of the besiegers.

            SCIPIO AEMILIANUS SENT TO CARTHGATE, B.C. 147-For two years this went on.  But at the end of the second year an able young officer, who had done good service in the siege, came home from the army as a candidate for the aedileship: his name was P. Scipio Aemilianus; he was the son of Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Perseus, but had been adopted by the son of Scipio Africanus.  There was a general belief at Rome that no one but a Scipio could take Carthage; so, in spite of his youth, he was unanimously elected consul and sent back to Africa.  The first thing that Scipio did when he entered on his command was to set about reorganising the army; he expelled the crowd of camp followers, which hampered all military movements and demoralised the soldiers, and restored the discipline, which had become terribly lax owing to the general discouragement.  Then he began the attack in right earnest.  But even he could not make much progress by land, so he contended himself with building a double wall across the neck of the isthmus that joined Carthage to the mainland, thus completely shutting Carthage on that side.  The next thing was to shut the city also in sea; so he began to build a mole or breakwater in the water across the mouth of the harbour, which was not very wide.  It was a tremendous work, and at first the Carthaginians laughed at his efforts; but soon, to their dismay, the mole began to appear above the waves.  But they were not to be beaten; the harbour was only separated from the sea by a narrow neck of land; so while the Roman’s were working at their mole, the whole population, unknown to them, were set to work to cut a fresh outlet; and, when the mole was finished, the Romans were amazed to see the Carthaginian fleet sail out of a new entrance.  But the ingenuity of the Carthaginians was of no avail; in a few days a sea fight took place and their fleet was defeated.  Carthage was now entirely surrounded by sea and land, and it was only a question of time when it would fall.

             CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE, B.C. 146-All through the winter the miserable remnant that was still alive held out.  In the spring of the next year (B.C. 146) Hasdrubal, the Carthaginian commander, found himself so hard pressed that he set the town on fire and retired to the citadel Byrsa.  Scipio then advanced through the narrow streets, which surrounded the citadel.  For nearly a week a desperate battle raged, as the Romans fought their way from house to house.  Step by step the Carthaginians had to give way, till at last the survivors threw themselves on the mercy of Scipio and surrendered.  But there were some Roman deserters who could expect no mercy; they, with Hasdrubal and his family, shut themselves up in a temple and set it on fire over their own heads.  Hasdrubal himself succeeded in escaping, and surrendered to Scipio; but his wife, it is said, mounted the roof of the burning temple, and having reproached the cowardice of her husband, threw herself and her children into the flames in the sight of the Roman army.  The city was given up to plunder and the prisoners sold into slavery, except Hasdrubal and a few others, who, having adorned the triumph of the conqueror, were allowed to live in Italy.  Then by the orders of the Senate, Scipio, sorely against his will, burnt the town to the ground: for seventeen days the fire raged, and then the plough was drawn over the site of the busy streets and markets and warehouses and quays of Carthage.  Its territory was made into a province called Africa, under a Roman governor, with the town of Utica as its capital.  Rome’s great rival was no more; but her two chief enemies, Cato and Masinissa, did not live to see her downfall; they both died in the first year of the war.  Cato aged eighty-five, Masinissa aged ninety.

            REBELLION OF THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE, B.C. 146-The year of the conquest of Carthage witnessed also the final conquest of Greece.  Greece, you remember, had been left in a very unsettled state after the conquest of Perseus.  After a time Rome sent the Achaean exiles back to their own country; but they only made matters worse, and stirred up the minds of their countrymen against Rome.  So in B.C. 146, owing to the interference of Rome in a quarrel between it and Sparta, the Achaean League declared war.  But it was vain that they tried to stand against the Romans legions.  They were easily defeated, first by Metellus, the praetor of Macedonia, and again at the isthmus of Corinth, by the consul Mummius, a coarse, ignorant man, who had been sent from Italy to suppress the rebellion.

            DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH-GREECE MADE A ROMAN PROVINCE-By order of the Senate Corinth, being a member of the League, and the richest city in Greece owing to its commerce, was destroyed and burnt.  The city was full of the most splendid pictures and statues, those wonderful works of art, which only the Greeks could produce.  These were carried off to adorn Rome, except such as were destroyed by the ignorant soldiers, who knew nothing of their value, and are said to have used the pictures as dice-boards.  This was the only cruel act of the Romans.  The leaders of the revolt were put to death; all the states were disarmed and obliged to pay tribute, but they were left to govern themselves under the praetor of Macedonia.  Under the Empire Greece was made into a province by itself and called Achaia.

            REBELLION OF SPAIN-The last thing we heard of Spain was that in the year 178 B.C. the tribes were induced by Tiberius Gracchus to submit to the rule of Rome.  In B.C. 153 some of the tribes rebelled again, and it was twenty years before the country was subdued.  The Romans sent very bad generals to this war, and they were often beaten; but besides being bad generals, some of them were treacherous and cruel.  One of them, Sulpicius Galba, persuaded the Lusitani to submit, a powerful tribe dwelling in what is now Portugal (B.C. 150); but when 7000 had come over to him unarmed he killed them all.  For this Cato accused him at Rome; but after the roman fashion he appeared in mourning, surrounded by his weeping children, and the people acquitted him out of pity.

            VIRIATHUS BECOMES KING OF THE LUSITANI B.C. 149-Among the few Spaniards who escaped from the massacre was a young shepherd named Viriathus.  Next year the Lusitani were surrounded by a Roman army, and were about to surrender; but Viriathus warned them not to trust to the treacherous enemy.  Then they made Viriathus their general, who, by directing them to steal away in small parties, eluded the vigilance of the Romans.  Next, when the Roman general pursued him, Viriathus drew him into an ambush, and killed him with half his men.  From that time Viriathus became the king of all the Lusitani.  He was a skilful general and brave soldier, beloved by his men, whose toils and hardships he shared, for he was one of them by birth.  Year after year he fought against the Roman generals: the incapable ones he defeated over and over again; the able ones he kept at bay.  At last (B.C. 141) he forced the Romans to make peace, and acknowledge him as king of the Lusitani.

            MURDER OF VIRIATHUS, B.C. 139-But the Romans had no intention of keeping this peace, and the war soon began again.  They sowed dissensions among his followers, who were growing weary of the long struggle; and Viriathus soon found himself obliged to sue for peace.  The Roman consul ordered him to give up his arms; but Viriathus, remembering Galba’s treachery, preferred to die fighting, and so the war went on.  But it did not last long; for one night Viriathus was murdered in his bed by three of his own officers, who had been bribed by the Roman consul; to such a depth of infamy did he descend to rid himself of his brave and skilful enemy.  Deprived of their king, the Lusitani could make no further résistance, and soon laid down their arms.  All but the wildest parts of Spain had now submitted, except the town of Numantia.   

            THE SIEGE OF NUMANTIA, B.C. 141-133-TREACHERY AND DEFEAT OF THE ROMANS-Numantia was a town near the source of the river Durius (Douro),belonging to the tribe of Celtiberi.  The Celtiberi had taken up arms to help Viriathus, but they had been compelled to submit (B.C. 141).  Numantia alone, with less than 10,000 fighting men, held out.  A Roman general named Pompeius attacked the town with a large army.  He was so badly beaten that he agreed to make peace.  The Numantines had performed their part, by giving up hostages and money, when a new Roman general arrived; then Pompeius disavowed the peace, and the war began again (B.C. 139).  The Numantines won victory after victory.  Two years afterwards the Romans were guilty of a fresh act of treachery.  The general Mancinus was surrounded by a small force, and only freed after making a treaty, which all his officers were made to sign.  But, just as after the Caudine Forks, the Senate refused to ratify the peace.  Mancinus, stripped of all his robes, was brought to the gates of Numantia as a prisoner, but the Numantines refused to receive him.

              SCIPIO AEMILIANUS TAKES NUMANTIA-At last, the Romans, weary of the wretched story of defeat, treachery, and disgrace, turned to Scipio Aemilianus, the conqueror of Carthage, and sent him to Spain as consul (B.C. 134).  As at Carthage, Scipio’s first task was to bring the army into order; when discipline was restored he closed round Numantia.  Even then he would not let his men fight, though more than ten times the number of the enemy; but he built fortifications right round the town to starve it into submission.  The end came at last; fifteen months after Scipio took the command Numantia surrendered, and its eight years heroic defence is the most disgraceful page of roman history.  The town was destroyed, and the miserable remnant of its inhabitants sold into slavery.  Spain was again quiet for a time.

           THE ROMAN EMPIRE, B.C. 133-Seventy years had now passed since the struggle for mastery between Rome and Carthage had ended on the field of Zama.  In those seventy years Rome had carried her conquering arms in every direction; no state, barbarian or civilised, could resist her in the end, so overpowering were her strength and resources.  Weak and divided among themselves, the peoples round the Mediterranean, her old enemy Carthage itself, the once mighty kingdom of Macedon, the mountaineers of Spain, had fallen one by one, and Rome had established an empire over them very like the empire which England has established over the people of India.  The provinces, which Rome now ruled were Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, the two provinces of Spain Macedonia, and Africa, that is the territory round the ruins of Carthage.  To these was added very soon (B.C. 219) Asia, not, of course, the whole continent, but the kingdom of Pergamus, left as a legacy to Rome by its king.  Attalus III, nephew of Eumenes, the Balearic Isles; and a province in Transalpine Gaul, at the mouth of the Rhodanus (Rhone). Called properly Gallia Narbonensis, from its capital Narbo, but often simply “Provincia, the Province, whence comes the modern French name for the district, Province.  Lastly there were some kingdoms dependent on Rome, but at present left her unsubdued-Numidia, Syria and Egypt.

            GROWTH OF LUXURY AT ROME-But the Rome that ruled this wide empire was very different from the old Rome that fought the Samnites, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal.  The old stern simplicity that had carried Rome through all those dangers was gone.  The Romans were growing more refined, but at the same time more luxurious.  Wealth was pouring in from the conquered countries; Roman families that in old days had been content with homely earthenware now loaded their tables with services of silver plate, and instead of the old simple fare, sea and land were ransacked for delicacies for their banquets.  The belief in the simple Roman religion was dying out; new and licentious forms of worship were introduced from Greece and the East.  In B.C. 186 the Senate itself was obliged to interfere, and to put down the wild orgies in honour of the god Bacchus.

             SLAVERY-Slavery, too, was growing to a frightful extent; and the lot of a slave was very different to what it had been in the early days.  Rome’s victorious wars had brought numbers of prisoners to the market, when rising of the Sardinians was crushed (B.C. 177) so many thousands of them were for sale that “cheap as a Sardinian” passed into a proverb.  The wholesale employment of slaves was one of the bad lessons that the Romans learnt from Carthage and the nations of the East.  Everywhere the labour of slaves was taking the place of the labour of freemen.  Instead of the many little farms, each supporting its family of freemen, there were now huge dreary estates belonging to the nobles and tended by slaves; estates far larger than permitted by the Licinian law, which had long ago become a dead letter.  They worked in huge gangs, often loaded with chains, and at night were kept in an underground dungeon called ergas tulum.  So great was the number of these wretched and desperate creatures that they were becoming a source of danger to the state.  In Sicily, indeed the country was quite unsafe for travellers; and about this time they broke out into open rebellion.  One hundred thousand banded together and made one of their number kings, and for four years resisted the generals and armies of Rome (B.C. 135-131).

              GLADIATORIAL SHOWS-One great sign of the generacy of these times was the cruel gladiatorial shows, in which wretched men, slaves, or prisoners of war were forced to fight and kill one another for the enjoyment of the Roman populace.  This custom, which seems to horrible to us, is said to have come from Etruria; originally gladiators were only exhibited at funerals, but gradually they became part of the public performances in the circus, together with wild beast fights.  Gladiators generally fought in pairs, and when one was vanquished, the Spectators, if they wished him slain, held down their thumbs in silence and the victor gave the death stroke.   The giving these shows was part of the duties of the magistrates, called aediles.  The aedileship was a lower office to which a man was elected before he became praetor and consul.  The aediles naturally wished to make themselves as popular as possible, that they might not lose their election to the praetorship and consulship; so they used to spend vast sums of money, and often ruined themselves, to give as magnificent shows as possible.

            THE INFLUENCE OF GREECE-Nothing worked such a change on the Romans as the influences of Greece; for the Greeks were very clever and famous for their wonderful writings, and pictures, and statues.  And so when their conquest of the East revealed all these treasures to Romans the effect was magical.  Everything Greek was now the fashion at Room; as a Roman poet afterwards wrote, “Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror”.  The Romans began to imitate the Greek writings, and so the foundation was laid of that famous literature which is still read and admired.  Ennius (B.C. 240-170) is called the Father of Roman Poetry; he was a friend of Scipio Africanus, who as you have read, was a great admirer of Greek Writings’ and he wrote an account of the second Punic war in imitation of Homer.  Thus Rome owed a great debt to Greece.  But there was another side of the picture; the Greeks of this time were degenerate and frivolous; their clever men, or philosophers, were fond of discussing about religion and right and wrong, and often sought rather to show their own cleverness in arguing, than to teach at they really thought right.  And so, owing to the teaching of these philosophers, the Romans began to lose their belief in religion and their old simple notions of right and wrong.

            CATO THE CENSOR-There was one man at Rome who saw all this change with sorrow, and fought hard against it.  This was Cato (M. Porcius Cato), the enemy of Carthage.  He was true Roman of the old stamp, and hated everything Greek, though even he in his old age began to study Greek writings; but he could not bring back the simple old days for which he sighted.  Cato had fought in the second Punic war with distinction, and you will remember his victory at Thermopylae over Antiochus army (B.C. 191).  Afterwards (B.C. 184), he was Censor, and was so strict in punishing the faults of his fellow citizens, that ever afterwards he was known as Cato the Censor.

            THE BAD GOVERNMENT OF THE SENATE-From the time that the Licinian Laws ended the old quarrel between the Patricians and Plebians, more than 200 years ago, you have heard little about internal troubles at Rome; for during all those years of danger and difficulty, while Rome was fighting for her existence, the Senate had governed wisely and well, and the people had interfered but little.  But now that the danger was over and the Roman character was changed, it is not surprising that a change came also over the government.  The nobles, corrupted by the prevailing luxury, and seeing the state secure from all enemies, no longer thought it their duty to care for the state; their only object was to make themselves rich by the spoil of enemies or the plunder of oppressed provinces, and to keep all the offices to themselves, and not to let anyone who was not a noble be elected.  So the government of the Senate had been growing bad, and you will see that it continued to grow worse and worse.  Throughout this century bad generals were often put in command, and Roman armies shamefully beaten, as we have seen in Spain and at Carthgate, till for very shame the Senate had at last to select a good soldier to end the war.

            THE POPULAR PARTY-The popular party, too, which had so patriotically refrained from interfering with the Senate in the work of preserving the state, was now greatly changed.  In old days it consisted mainly of the class of yeomen farmers, tilling their own little farms in the neighbourhood of Rome and Latium; but owing to the ravages of Hannibal and then the increased employment of slaves, this class had disappeared.  In its place was a rabble that crowded into Rome and other towns; this rabble had no idea of political power, except to use it for its own ends, and hated military service, and so made bad soldiers; thus, with bad soldiers and bad generals, it is not surprising that the Roman armies were often beaten.  Thus though the rule of the Senate was becoming bad and selfish, the Popular Party was in a still worse state and little good could be expected from it.  At present it had no leader, and therefore could do nothing at all.

            THE DISCONTENT OF THE ITALIANS-There was another source of coming trouble.  The Latin’s, who had been so loyal in the hour of danger, and the other Italians, who now formed the greater part of the armies of Rome, were growing discontented and bearmies of Rome were growing discontented and beginning to demand equal rights of citizenship with the Romans, and a share in the benefits of the empire.  It was a fair demand, for there was now very little difference between the Romans and Italians; but the Romans, especially the Popular Party were selfish, and would not let the Italians share their privileges.  How it all ended you will see later on.

            THE OPPRESSION OF THE PROVINCES-Most to be pitied of all was the provinces.  You will remember how, when the Romans conquered Sicily, they adopted the notion that a province was merely a country to get money from; and as their empire grew, they carried out this principle only too faithfully.  The unhappy provincials, utterly unable to stand against the might of Rome, had no choice but to submit.  First there was the regular tribute, generally a land tax; this in itself was fair enough, but it was collected in a most unfair way.  It was the custom of the Roman government not to collect the taxes of the provinces by its own servants, but to put them up to auction; whoever bid the highest for a tax paid the sum which he bid to the government, and kept himself all that he could collect from the province, such men were called publicans; and as they of course wished to make as much money as possible, they were most cruel and unjust in their exactions.  You will remember the publicans of the Gospels so despised by the Jews: these were not the publicani themselves but their servants.  Secondly there were the extortions of the Roman governors, who usually considered that they had only come to the province to make money, and pay the debts which they had incurred at Rome, especially in giving the shows to gain their election; and having unlimited power, they plundered their subjects unmercifully.  It was useless for the provincials to accuse the oppressors before the Senate, for the Senate was composed of men who had been or would be governors of provinces, and sad to say, they were also ready to take bribes.  It was said that a Roman governor had to make these fortunes out of his province; one to pay his debts, one to bribe his judges, and one to live on for the rest of his life.  Sometimes, but very rarely, a governor was prosecuted and convicted.  The most famous cause was that of Verres, governor of Sicily, who was accused by the great orator Cicero (B.C. 70).  By his rapacity and brutality, he is said to have injured Sicily more than the slave war.  So tremendous was the indicement of Cicero that Verres, without attempting any defence, left Rome and went into voluntary banishment.      

            CONCLUSION-To sum up, Rome was all-powerful over a great empire, but used her power to oppress her subjects.  The nobles were rich, luxurious, and selfish, and so unfit to govern; the Popular Party was a city rabbie, and huge slave-worked estates had taken the place of the small farmers; lastly, the Italians were clamouring for the roman citizenship.

           THE GRACCHI-At length a man arose who tried to find a remedy for the evils of the state, a young noble named Tiberius Gracchus.  Tiberius Gracchus, who has been already mentioned as having brought back the fierce Spanish tribes to their allegiance (B.C. 178), married Cornelia, the daughter of the great Scipio Africanus, and died leaving her a widow with two sons, Tiberius and Caius, who was ten years the younger.  Cornelia was a most able and accomplished lady, and devoted all her life and energies to educating her boys, and training them to be good and useful citizens of their country.  One day a great roman lady, who cared for nothing but dress and amusements, was visiting Cornelia; she showed her all the splendid ornaments she had one, and asked to see Cornelia’s jewels.  Cornelia did not refuse, but sent her two boys, and when they came into the room from their studies she said.  There are my jewels”.  When his education was finished.  Tiberius, like all other young nobles, began his career by serving in the army.  He fought at the siege of Carthage, where he was the first to mount the walls, and in the Numantine war; it is said that when riding through Etruia on his way from Rome to join the army in Spain, he was so struck by the wretched appearance of the huge slave-tended tracts of land, that he determined when he became a statesman at Rome to get the land back again for the people.  After his return to Rome, being of Plebeian family, he succeeded in being elected a tribune B.C. 133.

            THE AGRARIAN LAW OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS, B.C. 133-Tiberius now brought forward an agrarian law.  It was simply that the Licinian law should be again enforced; that is, that no one should have more than 500 jugera, and that the spare land thus recovered by the state should be divided among the poor citizens.  This sounds at first fair enough; but it must be remembered that it was now nearly 250 years since the Licinian have had been passed, and during nearly all that time they had been disregarded, and people had possessed estates of more land than 500 jugera, and these estates had been bought and sold just like private property.  So though Tiberius object in dividing up the great estates was very good and patriotic, this was a most unfair and violent way of carrying it out; for in many cases land would be taken from a man for which he or his ancestors had paid a large sum of money.  The nobles, of course, opposed the law might and main; but as you have been already told the Assembly of the people was able to pass laws without the consent of the Senate; another tribune, however, a Plebeian noble on the side of the Senate, named Octavius, put his “veto” on the law, that is, forbade its being proceeded with.

            HIS ILLEGAL ACTION-Tiberius ought now to have dropped his law, for Octavius was acting quite legally; but he was so sure that he was in the right, and so impatient, that he would not give in; so he persuaded the people to pass a law in their Assembly deposing Octavius from his office.  This was his first unlawful act; it succeeded for the time, for the agrarian law was passed by the Assembly; and a commission of three men, Tiberius, his brother Caius, and his father-in-law Appius Claudius, was appointed to carry it out.  But Tiberius year of office was drawing to a close, and he knew that as soon as it was over the nobles would prosecute him for the deposition of Octavius.  Now the law at Rome was that no one could be elected tribune a second time till after an interval of ten years; however Tiberius determined to brave the law, and put himself up for re-election.  This was his second illegal act.

            HIS MURDER-The result was that on the voting day there was a riot; the nobles, armed with sticks and clubs, marched down into the Forum, the adherents of Tiberius fled in all directions, and the unhappy tribune, stumbling in his flight, was felled by a blow from a club and his body thrown into the Tiber.  So perished Tiberius Gracchus, a victim to his own rashness and folly in trying to carry out a good object by unlawful means.  He was a man of gentle nature and noble character, and there can be little doubt that he thought he was acting for the good of his country but his action showed the people their strength and set the example of unlawful acts, and thus began the struggle between the people and the nobles by which Rome was torn for the next hundred years, and which only ended in both the people and the nobles, having to submit to the military rule of an emperor.    

            SCIPIO AEMILIANUS, B.C 129-The people were thoroughly cowed by the death of their champion, and for a time the nobles were triumphant.  About this time Scipio Aemilianus returned to Rome from the conquest of Numantia.  He had married a sister of the Grecchi and was known to be a man of moderate views, so everyone at Rome looked to him to get the state out of its present troubles.  Scipio sympathised with the people, but he was shocked by the illegal acts of Tiberius, and felt that he deserved his fate; he also sympathised with the Italians in their demand for the Roman citizenship, and probably thought Tiberius law unfair to them, for the land would have been distributed to roman citizens only.  At any rate he opposed the carrying out of the law; but before he could affect anything to heal the troubles of the state he was found one morning dead in his bed.  Many believed, but probably without any reason, that he had been poisoned. 

            CAIUS GRACCHUS BECOMES TRIBUNE, B.C. 123-Caius Gracchus was serving under Scipio in Spain at the time of his brother’s death.  He returned to Rome to serve on the Land Commission.  He was too young at present to come forward as champion of the people and avenger of his brother, but men felt that he was only biding his time.  In B.C. 126 he began his public career by going to the province of Sardinia as quaestor.  The Senate, wishing to keep him away from Rome, tried to prolong his appointment; but he returned without orders (B.C. 124), and was elected tribune for the next year.  The struggle had began again.  Caius Gracchus was an abler and more far seeing statesman than his brother, but his character was not so noble, nor his motives so unselfish.  Tiberius had wished to put an end to a great evil, the huge slave tended estates; Caius object was to wreak his vengeance on his brother’s murderers, the nobles, and to take the government out of their hands and give it to the people, and so, perhaps, to win for himself the supreme power at Rome.

             THE LAWS OF CAIUS GRACCHUS- (1) He revived the old law that no citizen could be put to death without an appeal to the people; and so drove into exile the surviving consul of the year when Tiberius was killed.

            (2) The next law of Caius was a most foolish one, and did more harm than almost any other law ever passed at Rome.  There was very little corn grown in Italy, most of the large estates being used for raising cattle; what was required was imported from Sicily and Africa.  Caius thought that he would make the people very fond of him if he gave them this corn cheap; so he proposed a law that the state should but it and sell it to the poor citizens below the cost price.  The law was carried; and as a natural consequence the city was filled more than ever with a mob of idle vagabonds who would not work, but considered they had right to be fed by the state.  And the law could not be abolished, for no statesman would dare to do such an unpopular thing as to ask the Comitia to repeal it.

            (3) Another very important law was passed by Caius, to weaken the Senate and gain him fresh allies.  It was the custom for courts composed of senators to try criminal cases instead of the people in their Comitia, who really ought have tried them, but were not fitted to do so.  Caius took this privilege from the senators and gave it to the rich traders.  These rich traders were called equites (knights), because in old days everyone who had a certain income served in the cavalry, not in the infantry.  At the present time the allies supplied the cavalry of the Roman army, but the rich men still kept the name of equites as a mark of their rank.  This of course made the equites support Caius; but the law did harm, because, though the senators had not judged very fairly, the equites made still worse judges; for as their chief aim was to make money, they were much readier than the senators to take bribes.

            (4) Lastly, he tried to carry further his brother’s work improving the condition of the people by new means.  Tiberius land law was re-enacted; roads were also built through the country districts and colonies founded in Italy, and also for the first time outside Italy in the part of Transalpine Gaul, which had just been conquered, and thirdly, in Africa on the site of the ill-starred city of Carthage.

            CAIUS GRACCHUS TAKES UP THE CAUSE OF THE ITALIANS-THE PEOPLE TURN AGAINST HIM-All these laws took some time to pass, and Caius succeeded in getting himself re-elected tribune (B.C. 122), being in this respect more fortunate than his brother.  He now seemed triumphant.  The people were on his side, and also the equites; he seemed to be able to do anything he liked.  So he proposed a law, which was really the wisest of all his laws; it was to give the full roman citizenship to all the Italians.  But at once the selfish Roman mob turned upon their champion, and said that it was an invasion of their rights.  Caius was obliged to drop the law; the nobles of course were delighted at the blow, which he had received.  The Caius left Rome to superintend the founding of the colony at Carthage.  In his absence, the Senate persuaded another tribune to outbid him for the people’s favour by passing a law in the comitia founding more colonies in Italy.  This still further weakened his popularity; and when he returned from Carthage and tried to be elected tribune a third time he was unsuccessful.

            HIS DEATH-Then his enemies began to attack his measures; the Senate said that it was impious to found a colony on the accursed soil of Carthage, and many of the people believed it; so it was proposed that the Comitia should repeal the law.  On the day of voting there was a riot.  Then the friends of Caius collected an armed force and seized the Aventine Hill; next day the nobles, aided by the ungrateful equites, attacked and stormed the Aventine.  Caius fled, followed by a slave, and got safely across the river; but finding escape hopeless, he bade the slave kill him.  His body 3was found by the enemy, dragged through the streets, and thrown into the Tiber; and about three thousand of his adherents were slain.  So perished Caius Gracchus, and the people by their selfishness and fickleness lost their able leader.  He had tried to overthrow the government of the Senate, and put in its place the government of the people led by himself.  But if the Senate were bad rulers, the people were worse, and so the attempt failed.  The struggle went on for many more years, and the Senate were not overthrown till Julius Caesar arose, and he overthrew it not by the votes of the fickle Roman mob, but by the sword of the legionary.  For the present the Senate regained its power; the laws of the Gracchi were gradually abolished except those about the equites being judges and the corn distribution; and ten years afterwards a law was passed, that the land possessed by a man, however large, should be his absolute property.  The poor mother, Cornelia, broken hearted by the loss of her two sons and the ingratitude of the Roman people, left Rome and lived in her country villa; but in time the people repented of their conduct, and began again to look upon Tiberius and Calius as their greatest champions, and when Cornelia died they set up a statue to her with the title, “The Mother of the Gracchi.”  

            USURPATION OF JUGURTHA IN NUMIDIA, B.C. 118-The Senate was now for a time secure at home, but soon had a troublesome war in Numidia.  There Jugurtha-a grandson of Rome’s old ally, Masinissa, a brave and energetic man, but treacherous, like all Numidians-had seized the throne.  The rightful heirs were his cousins, two young princes, of whom he was guardian; but he seized and murdered one, and made war o the other, who was called Adherbal.  The Romans, being appealed to, decided that Jugurtha and Adherbal should divide the country.  But in a few years (B.C. 112) Jugurtha again attacked Adherbal and besieged him in his capital Cirta.  Adherbal again appealed to Rome, and fresh embassies were sent to Africa; but Jugurtha continued the siege, Cirta surrendered, and Adherbal was killed on cold blood, with the entire garrison, which included many Italians.  At this the people at Rome were furious and forced the Senate to declare war.  So an army was sent to Numidia; but Jugurtha knew how to deal with the Romans, for he had served in the Roman army before Numantia, and he soon bribed the general to make peace.  

            JUGURTHA AT ROME, B.C. III-The fury of the people was now greater than ever, and Jugurtha was ordered to come to Rome to answer for his conduct.  He came; but by his knowledge of roman politics, and by bribing the principal senators, he escaped punishment, and actually caused a Numidian prince living at Rome to be murdered from fear that he might be a possible rival.  This was too much, and he was ordered to leave Rome.  “Thou purchasable city,” he is said to have exclaimed on his departure, “soon with thou perish, if thou canst only find a purchaser.”  A fresh army was sent to Numidia, but the soldiers were, as usual, disorganised and the general unskilful and open to bribes.  Next year the army was surrounded in the desert and sent under the yoke.

            METELLUS IN NUMIDIA-BATTLE IN THE DESERT, B.C. 109-Luckily the new consul sent to Numidia Metellus, was an able and upright man, though one of the product of the nobles.  He made great preparations to improve the state of the army, and took with him many new officers.  Among these officers was a rough soldier Caius Marius, a native of Arpinum who had risen from the ranks; he was already nearly fifty years old, and had been all his life in the army; he had served under Scipio at the same time as Jugurtha before Numantia, where he had shown great bravery, and Scipio had foretold great things of him.  Marius had also taken part in politics, and had been elected a tribune some time before by the influence of Metellus.  Jugurtha, according to his usual plan of fighting, enticed the Roman army into the desert, and then attacked it with the famous Numidian cavalry.  But Metellus was too strong for him, and succeeded in beating off his attacks, though the Romans suffered great loss.  Jugurtha who knew how powerful Rome really was, began to despair, and tried to make peace.  Metellus made him give up several cities, with arms and elephants; then he told him that he must surrender unconditionally: Jugurtha of course refused, and the war went on again.

            MARIUS STANDS FOR THE CONSULSHIP-Metellus, in spite of his victory, could accomplish nothing decisive mind the burning deserts, so Marius, who had again greatly distinguished himself, thought that he should like to try what he could do.  He asked Metellus for leave to go to Rome and become a candidate for the consulship.  Metellus at first laughed at him for his presumption.  “It will be time enough for you to be consul,” he said, “when my son is old enough to be your colleague.”  But Marius persisted, and Metellus was obliged to let him go; and the people at Rome had heard so much of his bravery and skill in Numidia that, though he was not a noble, they elected him.  When Metellus heard that he had been superseded by his own legatus he shed tears of vexation.  On his return to Rome he was given a triumph for the battle in the desert, and took the name Numidicus, but Numidia was as unconquered as when he went there.

            MARIUS CONSUL-SURRENDER OF JUGURTHA, B.C. 107-6-Marius took with him large reinforcements, and soon drove Jugurtha out of the civilised parts of Numidia.  Next year the desert warfare began again; several times Marius penetrated a long way into the desert and beat off the attacks of Jugurtha in some desperate battles, in which all his skill was required to prevent the roman army from being overwhelmed.  But the end seemed as far off as ever; when it was suddenly brought about by the treachery of Jugurtha’s ally and father-in-law Bocchus, King of the neighbouring country of Mauretania, who promised to betray him into the hands of a roman officer.  For this mission a cavalry officer, called Lucius Cornelius Sulla, was chosen; it was a most dangerous enterprise, for Bocchus might have again turned traitor, and it was a difficult matter to decisive such a man as Jugurtha.  But Sulla was a man of the greatest bravery and coolness.  With Bocchus help, Jugurtha was enticed into an ambush and brought a prisoner to the roman camp.  So the long war was over at last.  As a reward of his perfidy, Bocchus obtained the desert part of numidia; the eastern part was given to another prince, who ruled as a dependent of Rome.  Marius returned to Rome, and in his triumph the unhappy Jugurtha, who had successfully defied the arms of Rome and only yielded to treachery, was led in chains in all his royal robes; he was then stripped and thrown naked into the dungeon under the Capitol.  “Oh, what a cold bath,” he exclaimed.  For six days he lingered till cold and hunger put an end to his sufferings.  It is said that Sulla felt very jealous of the honours of Marius; for he considered that by his daring enterprise he had done much more to bring the war to an end.

               THE CIMBRI IN GAUL-THE ROMANS DEFEATED AT ARAUSIO, B.C. 105-The conqueror of Jugurtha now found himself called to face another and far more difficult task.  The new province of Gallia Narbonensis suddenly (B.C. 109) found itself assailed by a strange and fierce tribe called the Cimbri, tall, fair haired, blue eyed barbarians of German nationality, who for some unknown reason had started southwards from their settlements in the north of Germany, carrying their families and goods with them in wagons.  These formidable invaders defeated army after army; and at last (B.C. 105), in a terrible battle at Arausio (Orange) on the Rhodanus, 60,000 Romans perished.

            MARIUS ELECTED CONSUL A SECOND TIME-THE CIMBRI GO OFF TO SPAIN, B.C. 104-The alarm at Rome was increased tenfold, and there was absolutely nothing to prevent the barbarians crossing the Alps.  Just at this time Marius was returning from Africa after his victory over Jugurtha.  The people naturally turned to their victorious champion; the nobles did not dare to make any objection; so on the very day of his triumph he was, contrary to the law of Rome, elected consul a second time to save Rome from the Cimbri, and re-elected year after year till his task was done.  Fortunately the Cimbri turned away from the road to Italy.  For some reason they crossed the Pyrenees into Spain.  Thus the immediate danger passed away, and Marius had time to train his soldiers before the shock of battle came.

            MARIUS REORGANISES THE ROMAN ARMY-Marius, from the time he first became consul against Jugurtha, made a great many changes in the Roman army.  Previously every Roman citizen had been a soldier; but according to the old custom only those who had a certain amount of money were allowed to serve in the legions, the poorer classes had to be light troops; and the same arrangement existed among the Italian allies.  Marius did away with all these distinctions.  In future no one was compelled to serve in his army, but any citizen who wished to take up soldiering as a regular profession, could enter the army and become a legionary, whether he had any property of not.  The result was s standing army of professional soldiers quite distinct from the citiaen, men hardened by service, inured to hardships, dangers, and privations; men who could face fierce barbarians in Gaul and cross the sandy deserts of Numidia.  As soon as Rome had fund the right sort of men for her soldiers we hear no more of continual defeats and disgraces.  The new army saved Rome; but it was devoted to its generals and not to the state, and, as we shall see, it gradually became stronger than the state itself, and at last became its master.  Marius made various other changes in the drill and organisation of the legion.  It was he also who made the famous eagle the standard.

            MARIUS SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH CONSULSHIPS, B.C. 104-102-HE DEFEATS THE TEUTONES AT AQUAE SEXTIAE, B.C. 102-During two consulships (B.C. 104, 103), Marius lay with his newly organised army in Transalpine Gaul unmolested by the barbarians, who were still in Spain.  But he did not allow his men to be idle; he employed them in making useful public works, especially a canal near Massilia, called from him the Fossa Mariana.  At the end of B.C. 103 he was elected to his fourth consulship; and now at last the Cimbri appeared, joined by another tribe called the Teutones, and the invasion of Italy began.  The Teutones advanced against Marius, while the Cimbri marched round the north of the Alps to penetrate into Italy on the east.  Marius remained in his fortified camp, and though attacked by the enemy, kept his men within the ramparts.  Wearied by his obstinate defence, the barbarians gave up the attempt, and marched away towards the road to Italy.  Six days the host took passing the camp, with their wagons laden with spoil, women, and children, and many were the taunts they hurled at its defenders, asking them weather they had any messages for their wives at Rome.  But still Marius would not stir.  When the last of the horde had passed, he cautiously followed, and at Aquae Sextiae (Aix) near Marseilles he gave them battle.  Here the skill of Marious and the steady training he had given his army prevailed.  The whole tribe of the Teutones, over 100,000 men, was destroyed, and the women killed themselves rather than fall into the hands of their conquerors.

           MARIUS FIFTH CONSULSHIP-HE DEFEATS THE CIMBRI AT VERCELLAE, B.C. 101-Meanwhile the Cimbri had crossed the alps in the northeast, and were at last on the soil of Italy.  There was an army in Cisalpine Gaul under Marius colleague in the consulship, Catulus; but the soldiers were seized with panic, and fled across the Padus (Po).  So the fertile plain of Cisalpine Gaul between the Alps and the Padus was abandoned to the barbarians, who ravaged it without mercy.  Marius had gone to Rome after his victory after his victory over the Teuntones, where he was elected consul for the fifth time.  In the following summer (B.C. 101) he joined Catulus, and the united armies crossed the Padus.  Near the town of Vercellae, between the modern towns of Turin and Milan, the battle was fought.  Marius again was victorious; the Cimbri, like the Teutones, were utterly destroyed.  Thus the danger, which for the last few years had hung like a nightmare over Rome, was finally dispelled.  Marius, the new saviour of Rome, celebrated a magnificent triumph for the double victory.  In the procession was carried the best of the spoil which the barbarians had spent so many years in amassing, and with the spoil walked in chains the gigantic king of the Teutones, a man of such strength that he is said to have been able to leap over six horses at once.

            THE SIXTH CONSULSHIP OF Marius-he joins the leaders of the popular party, B.C 100-But as the people watched and cheered the triumphal, procession, they felt that they were triumphing not over the barbarians, but also over the Senate.  The victor of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae was one of themselves; he was supplying the place of the lost Gracchis, and leading them in triumph against the nobles.  Marius had no wish to mix in politics; he felt that his place was the camp, not the city.  But the Senate tried to make light of his triumph, and said that the victory of Vercellae was due to Catulus; and the young aristocrats laughed at his boorish manners and insulted him in the Senate.  So a bitter feeling of indignation and revenge forced him to take an active part against the Senate.  He made an alliance with Saturninus, a clever but reckless man, then leading the Popular Party.  Saturninus was elected tribune of the people; and Marius was elected consul for the sixth time for B.C. 100, this time without sufficient cause for breaking the law.  At first all went well; Saturninus brought forward two laws, one for making the price of corn still lower, and the other for giving lands in Africa to Marius veterans.  The laws were passed, but only after a riot at the Comitia, in which the veterans soon carried the day.  Then they began to arrange for the elections for the next year.  Saturninus was to be again tribune, and his friend Glaucia consul.

            RIOT AT ROME AND FALL OF MARIUS, B.C 100-On the day of the elections there was as usual a riot, and the senatorial candidate for the consulship was actually beaten to death.  Then the Senate solemnly called on the consuls to save the republic.  Marius began to waver; he felt that his friends had gone too far, and that it was his duty as consul to obey the command of the Senate.  So he put himself at the head of the forces of the nobles, and engaged his former friends in a regular battle in the Forum.  Saturninus and his followers were driven into the Capitol, where they were forced to surrender to their old ally Marius.  He tried to save their lives by confining them as prisoners in the senate house; but the furious nobles tore off and pelted them to death with tiles.  Thus, for a third time, the Senate was victorious over the Popular Party.  But Marius found that he was utterly ruined.  His old friends would not forgive him for having betrayed their champions to death; his new friends the nobles, having used him as their tool, had now no more need of him, and treated him with more contempt than ever.  Unable to endure the humiliation of his position, the veteran general went away to the East; but the story says that he still treasured up in his heart a prophecy once given him that he would be consul seven times.  The seventh consulship was still to come, and when it came his revenge would be terrible.   

            DRUSUS TRIED TO GIVE THE CITIZENSHIP TO THE ITALIANS, B.C. 91-After their defeat by the Senate and the loss of their leaders, the Popular Party remained quiet at Rome.  But the Italians were now becoming louder and more persistent in their demands for the Roman citizenship, and threatened that they would go to war if Rome would not give way.  In the year B.C. 91 a friend appeared for them at Rome; a young noble named Livius Drusus, a man of high character, had been elected tribune of the people, and manfully set himself to try to heal the troubles if the state.  To win the favour of the Popular Party, he proposed and passed the usual laws about distributing corn cheap, about giving land to the poor, and founding colonies.  He also passed another law about the judges, by which only one-half were to be equites, the other half senators; this he thought would put an end to the quarrel between the equites and the Senate, which had been caused by the law of Caius Gracchus.  There was much opposition to these laws; but they were carried, though only after the usual rioting.  Then, finally, he proposed the law giving the citizenship to the Italians; but, just as in the time of Caius Gracchus, the selfish Popular Party were against the law, and as the day of voting approached the excitement grew greater and greater.  Suddenly one evening Drusus perished at his own door, stabbed, it was said, by the dagger of an assassin, as he was returning home escorted by a crowd of followers.  The law was immediately dropped.  With Drusus died all hope of peacefully settling the question.

            THE SOCIAL WAR-FIRST CAMPAIGN, B.C. 90-In a few months the storm burst and the standard of the revolt was raised.  The first to take the field were the Marsi, a small mountain tribe in the centre of Italy; so the war is sometimes called the “Marsian War”.  They were soon joined by the Samnites, who had forgotten their old struggles against Rome, and by most of the other tribes of South Italy.  The insurgents no longer wanted to be made citizens of Rome; they resolved to make themselves into a new nation independent of Rome.  They chose a new capital for their nation, a country town called Corfinium, to which they gave the name of Italica; there they made a Senate like that at Rome, and elected consuls and praetors and struck a new Italian coinage.  Meanwhile they strained every nerve to bring into the field a force able to cope with the gigantic power of Rome.  At first Romans, suddenly weakened by the loss of their Italians soldiers, could barely hold their own.  They still held several fortresses in the revolted countries, and their first object was to relieve them.  Their great general Marius had returned to Rome from the East, expecting by some brilliant victory to blot out all recollection of his failure in politics.  But, according to the usual Roman custom, the command was given to the consuls, who were not great generals.

            ILL-SUCCESS OF THE ROMANS-Ojne consul was in Latium, fighting against the Marsi and their neighbours, and Marius was given a command under him; the other consul confronted the Samnites in Campania.  In his army was Sulla, the captor of Jugurtha.  There was desperate fighting, but no decisive battle.  The Marsi were repulsed, but the consul was killed, and the army only saved from destruction by the skill of Marius.  In Campania, also the Romans lost several towns, and were defeated by the Samnites in spite of some brilliant exploits of Sulla.  The Etruscans and Umbrians in the north, encouraged by these events, showed signs of joining the insurgents; and political quallrels were still going on at Rome.  The Senate, therefore, felt that they had better try gentle means.  So, in December, a law was passed giving the citizenship to all Italians who had remained faithful, and also to anyone who should submit within two months.  But the Italians might only be enrolled in eight of the thirty-eight tribes, and as each tribe had one vote in the Assembly of the people it gave them very little real power.  At this the Etruscans and Umbrians returned to their loyalty, and the Italians were weakened by many defections; but they still determined to resist.

               SECOND CAMPAIGN, B.C. 89-SULLA IN COMMAND-The Romans made great efforts during the winter to collect forces sufficient to crush the revolt.  When they came to appoint new commanders, Marius was left out altogether.  The people seem to have expected more of him than he accomplished, and now thought him too old.  To add to his disappointment, his old officer Sulla, though not consul, was made commander-in-chief in Campania.  From this point began the famous rivalry between these two men.  L. Cornelius Sulla was the very opposite of Marius; he was of noble birth and good education, well versed in Greek literature.  He was equally at home both in politics and war, and joined a most wonderful military ability with an absolutely cool daring.  But he was a man wholly cold, blooded, without scruple or pity.  In figure he was tall and athletic, with piercing blue eyes.

            SUPPRESSION OF THE REVOLT-The tide now turned.  Sulla drove the Samnites out of all Campania except a few towns, and followed them into the heart of Samnium, where he defeated them near their capital Bovianum, which he took.  In central Italy though one of the consuls was killed, the Marsi were repeatedly defeated; and the other consul, Pompeius Strabo, the father of the great Pompeius, won a great victory under the walls of Asculum in Picenum over 60,000 Italians who were trying to relieve it.  Asculum was compelled by famine to surrender.  Its leading citizens were put to death; the rest lost all their property.  All was now over; one by one the different tribes laid down their arms and accepted the conditions offered by the Senate.  Early next year (B.C. 88) Italica surrendered, and became agai8n the simple country town Corfinium.  Only the Samnites remained in arms.  Those brave mountaineers, remembering their ancient struggles with Rome, resolved to resist to the last.

            MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS-At this point the Samnites were saved for a time, and the whole course of events changed by alarming news from the East, to explain which we must go back a little.  On the southeast shore of the Black Sea (Pontus Euxinus) was a barbarian kingdom, called by the Greeks the country on the Pontus, and afterwards simply Pontus.  In the year B.C. 121 a boy of eleven years succeeded to the throne, which afterwards became famous as Mithridates the Great.  Though a barbarian, he had received a Greek education, and he is said to have been able to speak twenty-five different languages.  On his accession, owing to his youth, he was threatened on all sides by the plots of designing relations, but he escaped all dangers, unscrupulously murdering his adversaries, even his own mother and brother.  He was a man of immense stature and strength, skilled in horsemanship and all athletic exercises.  As soon as he was firmly settled on the throne he began to extend his dominions in all directions.  This soon brought him into collision with Rome, which was now all-powerful in Asia Minor.  So (B.C. 92) Sulla, who was in Cilicia, was told by the Senate to order Mithridates to surrender his conquests, and Mithridates submitted.  But, taking advantage of the Social war in Italy, he renewed his aggressions, and in B.C. 89 was rapidly overrunning all Asia Minor.  It was absolutely necessary to send an army against him.

            SULLA CONSUL AGAINST MITHRIDATES, B.C. 88-MARIUS AND SULPICIUS-Accordingly Sulla was elected consul for the year B.C. 88, with orders first to march to Campania, where the Samnites held Nola and other towns, and having completely stamped out the revolt, to sail with his army to Asia.  Marius was furious at being again passed over.  Party spirit just ran high at Rome, the people at last having taken the side of the Italians against the Senate.  Marius took advantage of this state of things and joined the Popular Party again.  He was supported by Sulpicius Rufus, a tribune, who persuaded the people to pass a law in favour of the Italians, allowing them to be enrolled in all the tribes instead of only eight, thus giving them equal power with the Roman citizens, and also another law taking the command of the war against Mithridates from the consul Sulla and giving it to Marius, who was only a private citizen.  The second law was a most unheard of interference with the acknowledged right of the Senate to confer the difficult commands in war; and it is difficult to imagine how Sulpicius and Marius could have expected Sulla to obey it.  If they did, they were quickly and unpleasantly undeceived.

            SULLA MARCHES ON ROME-Sulla was at this time with his army encamped before Nola.  Two tribunes set out for Nola and brought him the orders of the people to hand over his command to his rival Marius.  But Sulla did not hesitate a moment; he called together his soldiers and told them that he was not to lead them to Asia, for the people had given the command to Marius, and Marius would raise an army of other soldiers who would win all the glory and all the spoils of this new war.  And the soldiers who, since Marius reform of the army, were no longer citizens serving in the legions for a time, but professional soldiers whose only home was the camp, and who cared nothing for the Senate or the Comitia, but adored their victorious general, furious at the thought of being robbed of the rich spoils of Asia, tore the envoys of the people in pieces, and shouted to be led against Rome.  This was what Sulla wanted.  Then, for the first time, a Roman consul at the head of a roman army marched against his own city.  For the first time the sword of the legionary was unsheathed in a civil dispute.  The brawls and riots of the Forum had given place to the shock of battle.  The civil war had begun.

            FLIGHT OF MARIUS-Marius and Sulpicius tried desperately to get together a force able to resist Sulla’s legions.  But after very little fighting he entered Rome, and the Senate was again triumphant.  The laws of Sulpicius were repealed, for Sulla was master of the city, and the people dared not vote against him.  Marius and Sulpicius and a few other leaders were proclaimed, and a price was set on their heads.  That was the only vengeance Sulla took.  Sulpicius was caught and slain, and Sulla had his head hung up in the Forum.  But Marius succeeded in escaping to the seacoast; there he tried to find a ship, but in vain.  After many adventures he reached Minturnae, and wandered about in some marshes near the town.  Suddenly some troops of Sulla appeared, and the poor old man tried to hide by plunging up to his neck in the marsh.  But he was discovered, and thrown into prison in Minturnae.  Then, in accordance with Sulla’s proclamation, the magistrates sent a slave, a Cimbrian whom Marius himself had captured, to kill him, but when he entered the prison Marius glared at him, saying, “Man, darest thou kill Caius Marius?” and the slave fled terror-stricken and said to the magistrates, “I cannot do it”.  Then they repented, and put Marius on a ship and sent him out of the country.  The unhappy exile came next to Sicily, then to Africa, everywhere driven away by the authorities.  It is said that he landed at the ruins of Carthage; as usual a messenger came from the Roman governor ordering him to depart.  But Marius replied: “Go, tell your master that you have seen Caius Marius sitting amid the ruins of Carthage.”  At last he fell in with his son, and succeeded in joining the other exiles in the little island of Cercina, near Carthage.  There be awaited his time, and the seventh consulship, which he knew was to come.    

            SULLA TRIES TO RE-ESTABLISH THE POWER OF THE SENATE AND DEPARTS FOR AISA-Sulla wished to leave the Senate secure against the Popular Party, when he and his legions had sailed for Asia.  So he had several laws passed, one of which was that no tribune might propose a law to the Comitia Tributa without the consent of the Senate.  Then the elections for the consulship of the next year took place; and Sulla could not prevent a democrat named Cinna from being elected as one consul, though the other, Octavius, was an aristocrat.  This boded ill for the future.  The Samnites, also, since the laws of Sulpicius, had made common cause with the Popular Party against the Senate, and had taken the field again, and Nola was still unconquered.  But had as things were in Italy, Sulla could not stay, for the news from Asia was worse.  While the Romans were quarrelling as to who should command against him, Mithridates conquered the whole of Asia Minor.  Greeks and Asiatics welcomed him as their deliverer from the Romans.  Intoxicated by success, he issued a decree from Ephesus that all Italians, men, women, and children, should put to death.  The decree was carried out, and no less than 80,000 were massacred.  He then prepared to invade Greece.  So Sulla was obliged to leave affairs at Rome to take their chance, and having made the consuls take an oath not to break the peace, he sailed from Brundisium at the head of six legions, about 30,000 men, early in the year B.C. 87.   

            THE RETURN OF MARIUS, B.C. 87-Cinna was not troubled with scruples about his oath; he at once proposed a law revealing the exiles and re-enacting the law of Sulpicious.  His colleague Octavius vehemently opposed it.  As usual, there was fighting in the Forum.  Thousands were slain and Cinna was driven from Rome.  Thus at first the Senate seemed triumphant.  But Cinna at once began to raise forces in Italy.  The Samnites of course joined him; and even the Roman army besieging Nola was persuaded to desert to his standard.  At the same time Marius and the other exiles landed in Etruria, and with a force of freed slaves marched on Rome from the north.  The Senate were now in terrible straits; from all sides rebel armies were closing round the city.

            MASSACRE AT ROME-A tlast, after continual fighting under the walls of Rome, the Senate was obliged to surrender.  Cinna, seated oin his curule chair and surrounded by his lectors, received their envoys, and promised that he would be no party to bloodshed.  Marius, clad in rags as an exile, stood by in sullen silence; but when he entered the gates he ordered the massacre to begin.  The consul Octavius was murdered and his head hung up i9n the Forum.  Marius old colleague, Catulus, in spite of the entreaties of his friends was compelled to commit suicide.  For five days the bloody work went on.  Bands of ruffians roamed about the streets slaughtering whom they would, till at last Cinna allowed his officer Sertorious to cut them to pieces.  Many nobles, including Sulla’s wife and children, fled to Greece; his house and property were confiscated.

            SEVENTH CONSULSHIP AND DEATH OF MARIUS, B.C. 86-Then Cinna and Marius named themselves consuls without election for the year 86 B.C.  Thus Marius dream about his seventh consulship came true; but he only lived to enjoy it sixteen days.  In the beginning of the year he was seized with fever brought on by excitement and dissipation; in his delirium he thought he was fighting Sulla in Asia.  After seven days illness he died at the age of seventy-one.  Such was the sad end of the man who saved Rome from the Cimbri and Teutones.  Cinna chose Valerius Flaccus to the vacant consulship, and despatched him with an army to the east.  His orders were to reduce Sulla to submission, and then to conquer Mithridates.

            SULLA IN GREECE-SIEGE OF ATHENS-BATTLES OF CHAERONEA, B.C. 86, AND ORCHOMENUS, B.C. 85-When Sulla landed in Greece, he found the whole country already in the hands of Mithridates general, an able Greek named Archelaus.  Mithridates himself was collecting a huge host to send to his assistance.  Soon came news of the return of the Marians to Rome, and Sulla knew that he had no help to expect from home; but aided by some of the Greek States, he obtained provisions for his army.  After besieging and taking Athens, he utterly defeated two huge Asiatic hosts in two successive battles, at Chaeronea (B.C. 86), and Orchomenus (B.C. 85), both towns in Boeotia.  In the second battle the legions began to give way before the overwhelming numbers of the foe.  But Sulla leapt from his horse and seized a standard, and rushed towards the enemy, saying, “Tell your friends at home that you deserted your general at Orchomenus”.  Then the Romans rallied, and the victory was won.

            FLACCUS, THE MARIAN CONSUL, MURDERED BY HIS SOLDIERS-Meanwhile the consul Flaccus had crossed over to Greece with two legions; he at once sent a detachment southwards ordering Sulla in the name of the Senate to surrender his command; but the only result was that the detachment deserted to the side of the victorious general.  Then Flaccus in despair determined to attack Mithridates in his own dominions in Asia; but he hardly reached the other side of the Bosphorus when his second in command, Fimbria, stirred up a mutiny among the soldiers.  Flaccus was killed, and Fimbria took the command.

            MITHRIDATES MAKE PEACE, B.C. 84-SULLA RETURNS TO ITALY, B.C. 83-Sulla now began to march northwards to carry the war into Asia, but Mithridates was appalled by the loss of his two armies in Greece. He was being attacked with some success by Fimbria near the Hellespont, and the Asiatics, disgusted by his cruelties, were turning against him.  So in despair he ordered his general Archelaus to treat for peace.  The negotiations took some time, and Sulla continued his march to the Hellespont.   On reaching Asia he had an interview with Mithridates himself and peace was at last made (B.C. 84).  Mithridates agreed to surrender all his conquests and all his ships and pay 2000 talents.  Then Sulla turned upon Fimbria.  His soldiers deserted in crowds; and he himself, after an attempt to have Sulla murdered, put an end to his own life.  Thus by his wonderful skill and good fortune Sulla emerged triumphantly from his difficulties.  After concluding peace he had sent a friendly message to the Senate, but Cinna and the popular leaders had refused to make any terms.  So after spending a year in settling the affairs of Asia Minor, rewarding those states that had remained faithful, and punishing the perpetrators of the cruel massacre, he started back to Italy, and landed at Brundisium in the spring of B.C. 83, at the head of five legions, accustomed to victory and enthusiastically devoted to their general. 

            THE CIVIL WAR-ADVANCE OF SULLA-At Rome all was excitement and alarm.  The Popular Party knew what they had to expect if Sulla came back victorious.  In the year B.C. 84, when Sulla’s proposals were rejected, Cinna tried to collect an army to attack him in Greece, but his soldiers mutinied and he was murdered.  The other consul, Carbo, who prevented all the attempts of the Senate to make peace, continued the preparations.  When Sulla landed the weakness of the Popular Party was soon shown.  Desertions began at once.  The son of Pompeius Strabo, a young man only twenty-three years, joined him with three legions that he had himself raised.  Sulla issued a proclamation granting the Italians all their demands, and so was able to march unopposed to Campania.  There he defeated one of the consuls of the year.  The other consul tried to negotiate, but his men deserted to Sulla, and he and his officers were made prisoners.  Sulla then retired into winter quarters in Campania.

            DEFEATS OF THE MARIANS, B.C. 82-During the winter Carbo with desperate energy collected forces for the coming campaign.  He did not even scruple to rifle the treasure of the temples to get money.  In the elections he succeeded in obtaining the consulship, with the son of Marius as his colleague.  When the fighting began Carbo marched north against Pompeius, while young Marius opposed Sulla, who was advancing into Latium from Campania.  At Sacriportus near Praeneste the armies met: Marius was totally routed and fled into Praeneste.  Leaving a force to blockade him there, Sulla hurried onto Rome.  The democrats fled in consternation, but before they left they took a cowardly vengeance by murdering several of the leading senators.  Having made himself master of Rome, Sullam advanced against Carbo.  Surrounded by more than one hostile army, Carbo fought desperately, and sometimes with success, but the tide gradually turned against him.  At last in despair he fled to Africa.  His army was soon after cut to pieces by Pompeius.

            DEFEAT OF THE SAMNITES AT COLLINE GATE-But the war was not yet over.  The Samnites determined to make one more effort to save their friends the Marians; and so the social war, which had ceased since Sulla’s departure for Asia, began again.  An army of 70,000 marched to relieve Praeneste.  Finding the way barred by Sulla, they made a sudden and unexpected dash on Rome, like Hannibal during the siege of Capua; but Rome was not so well fortified as in those days.  Sulla followed hard after, and at noon came up with them encamped before the Colline Gate at Rome.  Wearied ah his men were, he gave the order for immediate attack-he dared not wait.  The Samnites fought with the courage of despair, and when night came, Sulla found himself repulsed; news of his defeat actually reached Praeneste.  But hearing that his right wing had been victorious he renewed the conflict, and by the morning the Samnite army was destroyed, except 8000 that were made prisoners on conditions of their lives being spared.  Triumphant at last over all his enemies, Sulla entered the city and called together the Senate.  While he was addressing them shrieks were heard from the Campus Martius.  Sulla told the senators not to be alarmed, it was only a few rebels who were being punished.  The rebels were the Samnite prisoners, whom he had ordered to be butchered in cold blood.    

            END OF THE CIVIL WAR-Praeneste soon surrendered.  Young Marius committed suicide, and all the male population was butchered.  A few other places in Italy, which still held out, were reduced one by one and treated with like severity.  In several of the provinces the Marian leaders still resisted, notably in Spain, Sicily, and Africa.  But they were crushed during the next year.       Pompeius was Sulla’s general in Sicily.  While he was there Carbo, the late consul, was captured and brought before him.  Pompeius at once had him executed.  Having conquered Sicily, he crossed to Africa, and speedily conquered the Marians there.  He then determined a triumph.  This Sulla refused, as he was still a simple knight and had never held any office.  But his soldiers became so mutinous at the refusal that Sulla was obliged to yield, and saluted the young conqueror with the title of Great; he was called Pompeius Magnus.

            DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA-THE PROCSRIPTIONS-Sulla caused himself to be named Dictator at Rome, not for six months, which was the legal time, but for long as he chose.  This gave him absolute power.  He then issued a proclamation that everyone who had been in arms at the end of the civil war was an enemy to the state, and might be killed and his property forfeited.  So the bloody work began; bands of soldiers roamed about the country carrying out the decree.  No one’s life seemed safe: so great was the alarm and uncertainty that one day Sulla was asked in the Senate to publish the names of the guilty.  Sulla said he would post up a list.  The first day a list of 80 names was posted, then a list of 200, and so on, for he said that he could not remember all the names at once.  The Latin for a list is proscriptio, so these similar massacres were called proscriptions.  From December 82 B.C., to June 81 B.C., the proscriptions went on, and nearly 5000 citizens are said to have perished.  Sulla showed the utmost carelessness about the crimes of his followers, many of who enriched themselves enormously by means of the proscriptions and many innocent people perished.  In the ranks of the Popular Party was a nephew of Marius, eighteen years of age, who had married Cinna’s daughter.  Sulla ordered him to divorce his wife, but he sturdily refused.  He would have been proscribed but for the entreaties of many friends, for his family was one of the greatest in Rome.  Sulla spared him, saying at the same time, “In that boy there is more than one Marius”.  That boy’s name was Caius Julius Caesar.

            END OF THE SOCIAL WAR-The end of the Civil War was also the end of the Social War.  The Italians retained the citizenship as Sulla had promised, that is, those who survived the war and the proscriptions; but the Samnites were utterly destroyed and their country laid desolate, and many towns were punished by the loss of territory, in which Sula settled his victorious soldiers, said to have numbered 120,000.  Thus the Italians obtained their object, but as separate peoples they disappeared.  Instead of there joining Rome, Rome spread all over Italy; and henceforward it was the capital of Italy, as London is of England.

            THE REFORMS OF SULLA-Sulla now set himself to put the government into order again.  First of all, to make the Senate strong enough to keep the reins of power without any interference from tribunes or Assembly, he enacted his former laws that no measure could be proposed to the people without the consent of the Senate; and in various ways he greatly lessened the power of the tribunes.  Secondly, since the administration, which was made for Rome when it was a small state,  was unsuitable, now that she was head of a large empire and capital of Italy, Sulla made some changes here also.  The consuls were not to be generals, but to stay in Italy and govern with the help of the praetors, whom he increased in number.  After their year of office the consuls and praetors were to govern the provinces and command the armies as proconsuls and pro-praetors.  The Senate was to arrange which provinces they should govern; and it was treason for any governor to quit his province without leave or disobey the Senate.  By this means he hoped that the Senate would be able to rule peacefully in Italy without being threatened again in future by the legions of a victorious general like himself.  Finally, he re-arranged the administration of justice and made courts of law for trying criminal cases; and the judges were to be senators as before the days of Caius Gracchus.  But at the same time he promoted many of the equites to fill the numerous vacancies in the Senate caused by the Civil War; and so the rivalry between the two orders started by Casius Gracchus came to an end.

             ABDICATION OF SULLA-HIS DEATH, B.C. 78-Having finished all his reforms, and as he hoped restored the power of the Senate, in the year 79 B.C., Sulla resigned his dictatorship.  He made a speech to the people, in which he asked whether anyone had any complaints against him.  No one course dared to say anything.  Sulla then dismissed his lectors and walked away a private citizen.  He settled at his country house near Cumae in Campania, where he spent the rest of his lifein writing his memoirs, which unfortunately have not come down to us.  His dissipated mode of life hastened his end.  He was seized with a loathsome disease, and died of a broken blood vessel the next year, B.C. 78, at the age of 60.  Such was the end of this extraordinary man.  He well deserved the title of Felix, which he took; for he died in the height of his glory, having overcome all his enemies.  Bad and depraved as he was, he was certainly the ablest of all the Romans before Julius Caesar.  He was given a funeral such as had never before been seen at Rome.  His body was burnt on the Campus Martius, the burial place of the kings of Rome, and the Roman matrons mourned for him for a whole year.           

            THE SENATE AFTER SULLA’S DEATH-FOUR WARS AT ONCE-If Sulla had lived longer, he might perhaps, by the support of his great name, have restored the Senate to its former power, and established a firm government.  But with his death all hope vanished.  The troubles began again the very next year by the revolt of Lepidus, one of the consuls, who, though one of his followers demanded the repeal of his laws.  He, however, was easily defeated by Pompeius, who seemed to be stepping into Sulla’s place as protector of the Senate.  Soon afterwards the Senate found itself engaged in four wars at once.  There were against (1) Sertorious, a Marian in Spain; (2) Spartacus, an escaped gladiator in Italy; (3) the pirates of the Mediterranean; and (4) Sulla’s old enemy, Mithridates, king of Pontus.  Not a single one of these wars was promptly and successfully dealt with.  Thus attacked, by foreign foes, unable to prevent rebellion in the provinces, or to keep the fields of Italy from devastation, or the merchant ships from capture, the Senate deservedly fell into contempt.  Never did the restored Senate worse govern than an empire for eight years after Sulla’s death.  Men soon began to see that the only way to save the State was to put the supreme power into the hands of some man of ability whom they could trust.  The days of the Republic were numbered, and the way was being prepared for the Empire.

             SERTORIUS REBELS IN SPAIN, B.C. 80-Sertorius, one of the most moderate of the Marians who had escaped the proscriptions, was invited to Spain, B.C. 80, by the native tribe Lusitani.  A most able soldier and statesman, of noble character and winning manners, he gained the enthusiastic loyalty of the Spaniards, and, by repeated victories over the generals sent against him, gradually extended his authority over almost the whole of Spain.  So formidable did he become that, after the defeat of Lepidus, the Senate determined to have recourse again to Pompeius, and sent him to Spain as proconsul, B.C. 76, although he had as yet held no office.  This was a violation of the laws of Sulla.  Pompeius was not particularly successful at first, and even suffered a defeat; but the Spaniards, as Ciriathus had found were difficult even for a man like Sertorius to keep together during a prolonged struggle.  Slowly, but steadily, the Romans advanced, and by the end of the year 75 B.C. Sertorius had been driven back into Lusitania; but here, by skilful guerrilla warfare, he successfully kept Pompeius at bay.

            THE INSURRECTION OF THE GLADIATORS UNDER SPARTACUS, B.C. 73-You have been told about the gladiatorial shows in which wretched men, mostly barbarian prisoners, were made to fight and kill each other for the amusement of their conquerors. The gladiators were kept in schools or training places (called ludi), where they were taught to fight as skilfully as possible.  Inone of these ludi at Capua there was a Thracian gladiator named Spartacus, who, hating the horrible life to which he was doomed, persuaded his comrades to break loose.  Seventy followed his lead.  Spartacus took up a position in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, at that time thought to be an extinct volcano.  Here he was joined by a number of runaway slaves and brigands.  A force of 3000 men was sent to suppress the rising; but Spartacus by a sudden attack put them to flight and captured their arms, of which he was in the greatest need.  The fans of this victory soon swelled Spartacus followers to tents of thousands.  A large army sent against him under a praetor was defeated; and next year (B.C. 72) the two consuls shared the same fate; and Spartacus, treating the Romans as they had treated him, forced his prisoners to fight together as gladiators for the entertainment of his victorious soldiery.  All Italy was now exposed to plunder and devastations, such as she had not suffered since the days of Hannibal.  Had Spartacus force been a regular disciplined army instead of a horde of barbarians bent on plunder, rapine, and revenge, Rome itself could hardly have been saved.

            THE PIRATES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN-For many years the Mediterranean had been infested with bands of these pests.  Their home was in the mountain fastnesses of Illyria and Cilicia, whence they issued in their light vessels and preyed upon the trading ships, which crowded the neighbouring seas.  Julius Caesar himself when on a journey to the East fell into the hands of one of these bands.  Expecting a ransom, they treated him well; and by his agreeable manners he made himself a most amusing guest.  His most appreciated joke was that as soon as he was free he would return and extirpate them.  The ransom came, and the pirates bade farewell to their noble guests.  Caesar at once collected some ships and carried out his promise by destroying the band.  During the civil wars their power had grown enormously.  Altogether the different bands are said to have possessed over a thousand vessels.  Not content with stopping defenceless merchantmen in their own waters, they began to venture into the western part of the Mediterranean, and actually attacked the coast of Italy itself.  They are said to have on one occasion carried off a Roman praetor.  They attacked Ostia, the port of Rome, and destroyed a fleet there, and even plundered travellers on the Appian road.  From time to time the Senbate made efforts to put a stop to this disgraceful state of things; but hitherto they had met with nothing but failure.  The last attempt had been in B.C. 74, and proved a greater failure than ever.

            BEGINNING OF THE SECOND MITHRIDATIC WAR, B.C. 74-In the year B.C. 75 the King of Bithynia died, and left his dominions as a legacy to Rome.  Mithridates, taking advantage of the difficulties of the Senate, already struggling with Sertorious and the pirates, at once invaded Bithynia on behalf of a supposed son of the late king.  At first he was most successful; he advanced unopposed right up to the Hellespont, where he defeated the Roman admiral, Cotta, and besieged the town of Cyzicus by land and sea, B.C. 74.

             LUCULLUS DEFEATS MITHRIDATES, B.C. 73-But the Roman general in Asia, Lucullyus, an able soldier but haughty noble, came to the rescue of Cyzicus; Mithridates, besieged in his turn for a whole winter, was glad to be able to escape to Pontus with the remnant of his army, and all his years of preparation were utterly thrown away (B.C. 73).  Lucullus followed him into Pontus, and next year (B.C. 72) defeated him at Cabira.  Mithridates fled for safety into Armenia, to his son-in-law, Tigranes; their Lucullus left him to his own devices and devoted the next two years to reducing the towns of Pontus and arranging the government of Asia Minor.  In this task he offended the equites at Rome, because he prevented them from enriching themselves by unfairly collecting the taxes of the Province of Asia.  How the equites revenged themselves you will soon hear.

            LUCULLUS CONQUERS TIGRANES AT TIGRANOCERTA, B.C. 69-In B.C. 69 the war began again.  Tigranes having refused to surrender Mithridates, Lucullus invaded Armenia, but his forces were very weak.  Owing to the garrisons, which he had to leave in Pontus and the long line of communications, which he had to guard, he reached Tigranocerta, the capital of Tigranes, with only 15,000 men.  “They are too few for an army, too many for an embassy,” exclaimed Tigranes, who commanded 150,000 infantry and 50,000 mailed cavalry, and he ordered Lucullus head to be brought to him.  But the numbers of the Asiatics were only a source of confusion, and could not prevail against Roman discipline.  Tigranes unwieldy host was routed; Tigranocerta, with the king’s treasury, taken.  The Romans are said to have lost only five men.

            ILL-SUCCESS OF LUCULLUS, B.C. 68-66-Tigranes did not give in after this defeat, but, by the advice of Mithridates, retired further into the mountainous country of Armenia, and there set about training another army.  So next year (B.C. 68) Lucullus started from Tigranocerta to cross the mountains and attack Artaxata, the old capital of Armenia; but the difficulties of this march, into a rugged and unknown country, were tremendous; the legionaries, with whom Lucullus had always been unpopular, at last broke into open mutiny, headed by the afterwards notorious P. Clodius, and Lucullus found that there was nothing for it but to retrace his steps.  But meanwhile Mithridates, taking advantage of Lucullus distant expedition into Armenia, had again invaded Pontus and defeated the Roman troops left there.  And when in the following spring (B.C. 67) Lucullus himself arrived in Pontus, he still could do nothing owing to the mutinous spirit of his troops.  A fresh mortification was in store for him.  The Popular Party had always hated him for his haughtiness, and we learnt lately how, by his strict justice, he had offended the equites.  These enemies, taking advantage of his failure in Armenia, had a new general named Glabrio sent out to take his place.  Glabrio could do nothing.  Mithridates won back Pontus, and all the brilliant exploits of Lucullus were undone.     

            END OF THE WARS AGAINST SERTORIUS AND SPARTACUS, & MURDER OF SERTORIUS, B.C. 72-For three years Sertorius had been holding Pompeius at bay in Lusitania.  How much longer he could have held out we cannot say; but luck, as usual, favoured Pompeius.  Jealousy and disunion broke out in Sertorius camp; his second in command a Roman named Perpenna, formed a plot against him, and he was assassinated at a banquet (B.C. 72).  It was a foolish as well as a wicked act, for the death of Sertorius destroyed all hope of resistance.  Perpenna was soon defeated and captured by Pompeius.  He tried to save his life by surrendering papers containing all the secrets of Sertorius.  But Pompeius refused to read them, and ordered his instant execution.  There was no more resistance.  Pompeius quickly re-established the government of Spain, and then hurried back to Italy to take part in the war against Spartacus.

             DEFEAT AND DEATH OF SPARTACUS, B.C. 71-But he found that war practically over.  After the defeat of the consuls by Spartacus (B.C. 72), the command had been given to a rich noble named Crassus.  He was a follower if Sulla, his father having been murdered by Marius.  He had gained great wealth in the proscriptions.  Wealth was his great object, but he was not devoid of ability as a general, having commanded Sulla’s victorious wing at the Colline Gate.  Crassus defeated Spartacus and tried to shut him up in Bruttium, the toe of Italy, by building a wall across the narrowest part.  Spartacus, however, managed to cut his way out, and was again at large, roaming through Italy.  But, as with Sertorius in Spain, disunion began to show itself; his army broke up into two divisions.  Crassus routed one and then fell upon Spartacus himself.  The old gladiator, now fairly at bay, fought like a lion till he fell, covered with wounds.  His followers were dispersed; but one body retreating northwards fell in with Pompeius army returning from Spain, and was cut to pieces.  So Pompeius wrote to the Senate, “Crassus has defeated the enemy; I have plucked up the war by the roots”.  Thus Rome was saved from its most formidable dangers, and could breathe again freely.  But no credit was given to the Senate.  The hero of the day was Pompeius, and after him Crassus.

            CONSULSHIP OF POMPEIUS AND CRASSUS, THEY ABOLISH THE LAWS OF SULLA, B.C. 70-Pompeius wished for the honour of a triumph, but the Senate opposed it, because he had not been a consul.  But the army and people, whose favourite he owed to the brilliancy of his successes, wished him to have it.  So Pompeius determined to desert the Senate, on whose side he had hitherto been, and joins the Popular Party, whose object now was to abolish the laws of Sulla, which took away the power of the People.  Crassus, who owing to his wealth was supported by the equites, also joined him jealous of him though he was.  They remained outside Rome without disbanding their armies, and the Senate, being powerless against them, was obliged to submit to its own generals, the very thing which Sulla had tried to prevent.  Pompeius obtained his coveted triumph (his second illegal one); and he and Crassus were elected consuls for the next year (B.C. 70).

            HIS ELECTION-this was another illegal act on the part of Pompeius, for he was under the proper age, and though often in the command of armies, had never held any of the inferior offices which it was necessary to hold before a man could be elected consul.  When consuls, Pompeius and Crassus repealed Sulla’s laws against the people and tribunes, and gave them back their power.  Julius Caesar, who had returned to Rome, and was beginning his political career as one of the Popular Party, supported them in these measures.  Thus his own follower undid Sulla’s great work.  The old struggle between the Senate and the people began again, and would not be ended till some man arose strong enough to seize the reins of government.  Pompeius might at this time have been the man; but though fond of popularity, he did not know to use it properly.  When his consulship was over he retired into private life, and rested on his laurels for two years, till events called him out again.  These events were connected with the remaining two of the four wars-those against the pirates and Mithridates.

            END OF THE WARS AGAINST THE PIRATES AND MITHRIDATES-THE GABINIAN LAW-POMPEIUS DESTROYS THE PIRATES, B.C. 67-The disgust of the people at the failures of the Senate, especially in the last expedition against the pirates, was so great that after a time they began to turn again to their natural saviour, the ever victorious Pompeius.  This seemed an excellent opportunity for the Popular Party to strike a fresh blow against the Senate.  So Gabinius, a tribune, proposed a law that, to clear the seas of the pirates, a single general (whom it was perfectly well known was to be Pompeius) should be given supreme command of all the coasts of the Mediterranean for 50 miles inland with all the forces, naval and military, for three years.  This was a most unheard of proposal, for it put the whole Roman Empire at the mercy of one man.  It was also contrary to the usual Roman practice by which, as he been mentioned already, the Senate, not the people, appointed generals to commands.  So the Senate resisted desperately; the meeting of the Assembly to vote on the law was very stormy; one of the tribunes, a supporter of the Senate, tried to interpose his veto; but, owing to the furious opposition excited, he withdrew it, Caesar and Crassus supported the law; the great orator Cicero spoke enthusiastically for it.  And it was carried.  Pompeius took the work in hand; and most skillfully did he employ the vast forces placed under his command.  Starting from the Straits of Gibraltar he searched every nook of the Mediterranean, and swept all the pirates eastwards; then he crushed them in a great battle off the coast of Cillcia, and piracy was a thing of the past.  The whole was done in a few months.

            THE MANILIAN LAW, B.C. 66-The overwhelming success of Pompeius against the pirates and the retreat of Lucullus from Pontus happened about the same time and so, though Lucullus if he had been given a sufficiently large army could easily have conquered Mithridates, men’s minds again turned to Pompeius.  Another tribune, called Manilius, brought in a law exactly like the Gabinian, putting the East, with all the forces there, under Pompeius command, that he might end the Mithridatic war.  This law, called the Manilian, was easily carried.  Pompeius was in Cilicia when the news of his new appointment reached him.  He at once marched north with an army of 50,000 men.  On his way he met Lucullus, who reproached him for snatching the laurels from the real victor, as he had done in the war against Spartacus.  Lucullus returned to Rome.  He obtained the triumph, which he deserved so well, but not till after three years.  Utterly disgusted by his unfair treatment, he retired into private life, and sought to console himself by enjoying the vast wealth, which he had acquired.

            FINAL OVERTHROW OF MITHRIDATES, B.C. 66-HIS DEATH-The task, which Pompeius now had to perform, was by his usual luck made easy for him, owing to the quarrel, which broke out between Mithridates and Tigranes; so he had only Mithridates to deal with.  The king, whose forces were inferior in number to the Romans, adopted the plan, which he had recommended to Tigranes against Lucullus.  He retired into the mountains of Pontus, where he led the Romans many weary marches.  But in vain; for at last Pompeius skilfully managed to surround his camp.  Suddenly in the middle of the night the Asiatics found themselves assailed on all sides.  Everywhere the terrible war cry of the legions was heard.  The camp was stormed and the defenders cut to pieces.  Mithridates, with a few attendants, rode from the scene of slaughter.  He at first thought of taking refuge with Tigranes, in spite of their quarrel; but hearing that his son-in-law had set a price on his head, he fled to the Crimea.  There he lived a few years more, plotting schemes of vengeance against his relentless foes.  But dissensions broke out in his own family.  His favourite son Pharnaces rebelled and conquered him; and Mithridates, to escape worse death, committed suicide in the sixty-sixth year of his age (B.C. 63).  Piompeius ordered him a royal funeral. 

            POMPEOUS SETTLES THE GOVERNMENT OF THE EAST-Tigranes submitted immediately after the defeat of Mithridates.  He was obliged to pay a large sum of money and surrender some of his dominions, but was left on his throne, and remained ever afterwards a loyal ally of Rome.  Pompeius now set about the work of organisation.  He arranged the government of Pontus, making it into a roman province.  He then marched south into Syria, at this time ruled by a feeble descendant of Antiochus the Great.  This country with Judaea attached, he also made into a province. 

            THE POSITION OF POMPEIUS-Pompeius had now completed the work for which his great powers had been given him; and he had completed it most successfully, showing what a Roman commander could do with a large force at his disposal and unfettered by political factions at home.  He had cleared the sea of the pirates; he had crushed Mithridates, and organised all Asia as Far East as the Euphrates firmly under Roman rule.  He is said to have founded nearly forty cities, and brought the sum of £2,000,000 into the Roman treasury, after distributing over £3,000,000 among his soldiers.  He was now (B.C. 63) about to return to Rome.  The four wars that had proved too difficult for the Senate were over.  Three of them Pompeius had himself concluded, and he had a hand in concluding the fourth.  He had restored peace to the Empire, and seemed the one man destined to rule it.  But during his long absence in the East other men had come to the front at Rome, and events had happened which upset all his calculations.   

            THE LEADING MEN AT ROME-CATO-While Pompeius was engaged in his career of conquest in the East, The Senate was with difficulty holding its own at Rome.  The leading man on the side of the Senate was M. Porcius Cato, the great grandson of the famous old censor, Cator the great enemy of Carthage.  Cato was a man of the strictest virtue, both in public and private life.  He worshipped the memory of his great ancestor and, like him, sought to present an example of the old Roman simplicity and sternness in the midst of a luxurious and profligate age.  He sighted for the good old days when the Senate really ruled the State, for he was too narrow minded to see how changed both Rome and the Senate were; and so, throughout his life, he fought to the last for the degenerate Senate of his day with an obstinate courage worthy of a better cause.  As Roman post sang, “The gods fought for the victors, Cato for the vanquished”.

            CRASSUS AND CAESAR-On the other side were Crassus, with all the power his vast riches gave him, whose idea of wealth was that “no one could call himself a rich man unless he could keep an army,” and Caesar, already rising rapidly into public notice.  Caesar, now rather more than thirty years of age, was distinguished even among the frivolous young nobles of the day by his extravagance and love of pleasure; but his extravagance was deliberately intended to win popularity, and with all his apparent pursuit of pleasure he cherished a firm resolve to end the misgovernment of the Senate, and to raise himself to power as head of the Popular Party.  In B.C. 65 he was aedile, and showed what his purpose was by restoring, to the great delight of the people, with greater splendour than ever, the statues of his uncle Marius which Sulla had thrown down; he won a still firmer place in their affections by the unprecedented magnificence of the games which it was his duty to provide, in which aided by the wealth of Crassus, he exhibited gladiators armed with silver and wild beasts in silver cages.

            CICERO-Very different from Caesar was the great orator M. Tullius Cicero, six years his senior in age.  Cicero was not a noble, but belonged to the other of the equites, being the son of a wealthy citizen of Arpinum, in Latium, the birthplace of Marius.  He was of blameless life, a man of peace rather than of war, and had forced his way up by his wonderful eloquence.  He was a moderate man, and had not yet quite made up his mind which side he was going to take.  His greatest achievement had been his successful prosecution of the infamous proprietor Verres, for misgovernment in Sicily (B.C. 70); and as Verres had been an adherent of Sulla, this action won him the good will of the people.  In B.C. 66 he held the office of praetor. 

            CATILINA-Besides the party of Crassus and Caesar, there was another small but desperate faction, who desired more violent methods against the Senate’s government, and aimed at nothing less than revolution.  This faction was under the leadership of L. Sergius Catilina, originally a follower of Sulla.  He was a man of great bravery and strength, but of an utterly abandoned character, if we are to believe a tithe of the stories told against him any Roman historians.  Disappointed I an attempt to be elected consul, he rallied round himself all the desperate characters in Rome-men who had nothing to lose everything to gain by revolution-ruined and profligate young nobles, and old soldier’s of Sulla, who had run through their fortunes, or failed as farmers, and thirsted far more proscriptions.  Catilinia’s object was to overthrow the hated and despised Senate by a rising and massacre in Rome, and under pretence of establishing a democracy to make himself master of the State like Sulla had been.  The Senate were aware of the plot; but, for fear of the people, they dared not do anything.  It is said that even Crassus and Caesar were privy to it, but this is probably false; though, like Catilinia, they aimed at the overthrow of the senate.

             CICERO CONSUL, B.C. 63-At last the crisis came.  At the end of B.C. Catilina again stood for the consulship, together with C. Antonius, one of his adherents.  The Senate were in great straits.  They could not put forward a noble, for they were afraid that the people, in that case, would prefer Catilina; so they asked Cicero to be a candidate, who would be acceptable to the people, and would be supported by all respectable men.  The plan was successful; Cicero and Antonius were elected.  Antonius, though a follower of Catilina, was a weak man, and Cicero won him over to his side by promising that, when their consulship was over, and they had to decide to which provinces they would go as governors, he would give him the one which he wanted, instead of casting lots according to the usual practice.

             HE FIGHTS THE CONSPIRACY-Then Cicero set himself to fight the conspiracy tooth and nail.  He succeeded in getting information as to what was going on; but during the greater part of the year, Catilina remained quiet; the time was not yet ripe for action.  When the time for the next consular elections came in the autumn of B.C. 63, Catilina again stood as a candidate.  Cicero as consul, presided, and Catilina’s plan was to have him murdered, and, in the confusion, get himself elected; but Cicero, by means of his private information, was fully prepared.  He went to the Comitia, armed with a coat of mail, and surrounded by a bodyguard of nobles; and when he displayed the coat of mail to the people, they rallied round him, and Catilina was again rejected.  Catilina now determined to act at once; he arranged that there should be a rebellion in Etruria, where many of Sulla’s veterans were collected, and an outbreak in Rome, in which the city was to be fired, and the consuls murdered.  But the consuls were ordered by the Senate to take measures for the protection of the state.  Cicero put the city into a state of defence; and made a great speech in the Senate, denouncing Catilina to his face.  He attempted to reply, but no one would sit near him or listen, whereupon he rushed out, and hurried to join his forces in Etruria, leaving two conspirators-Lentulus and Cethegus-both nobles, and the former, an ex-consul, to carry out the rising at Rome, as soon as he should appear before the walls.  The Senate proclaimed him a public enemy, and C. Antonius was despatched against him.

            CICERO CRUSHES THE CONSPIRACY AT ROME-Cicero remained to fight the conspiracy at Rome.  In spite of his informers he had no legal proof of the guilt of the conspirators, until through some Gaulish ambassadors, who happened to be at Rome and were tampered with by them, he obtained some of their actual letters.  At once he determined to act.  Lentulus and Cathegus were arrested.  A debate was held in the Senate as to their fate.  Caesar was in favour of imprisonment for life, but Cato spoke for death, which the Senate voted.  To prevent rescue, the very same night Cicero had them taken to the prison Tullianum and strangled, without any appeal to the people, to which, as Roman citizens, they were entitled.  When all was over, Cicero came out and announced the result to the people in the Forum with the word Vizerunt, “they have lived”.  The news was received with shouts of joy, and he was escorted home triumphantly with torches.

            DEFEAT AND DEATH OF CATILINA, B.C. 62-The news of the execution fell as a thunderbolt in Catilina’s camp in Etruria.  Many of his levies deserted him.  He tried to retreat into Gaul, but found the road barred.  Then he turned to bay at Pistoria.  C. Antonius, unwilling to fight against his old confederate, pretended to be ill, and left the command to his second in command Peterius.  Catalina drew up his small force with skill and fought with the courage of despair; but he was killed and his army destroyed. 

            PRAETORSHIP OF CAESAR-HE ATTACKS CICERO-The only result of the conspiracy was to discredit the Popular Party and strengthen the cause of the Senate for a time by bringing the moderate men, headed by Cicero, on to its side.  Cicero had shown the greatest skill and coolness in suppressing the conspiracy; but he had made one mistake-the execution of Lentulus and Cethegus without a trial.  Caesar was now praetor, but could do little against the power of the Senate; so, eager to do something to recover his lost ground, he at once seized on this point, and began to attack Cicero.  In this a tribune, Metellus Nepos, an adherent of Pompeius, aided him.  On the last day of his consulship Cicero tried to make his speech in the forum about his exploit, but Metellus stopped him by his veto.  All Cicero could do was to swear an oath, “I alone have saved the State,” and Cato saluted him “Father of his country,” amid loud shouts of assent from the assembled multitude.  After vainly struggling against the Senate during his year of office, Caesar went as governor to further Spain, Crassus having helped him to pay some of his debts, said to have amounted at this time to £2,000,000.

            RETURN OF POMPEIUS, B.C. 61-In the spring of B.C. 61, about the time that Caesar started for Spain, Pompeius at last returned from the East.  Instead of coming as was feared, at the head of his victorious legions like Sulla, he disbanded his army, trusting that the glory of his achievements would enable him to carry all before him.  But he was sadly mistaken.  The Senate still regarded him as an enemy, and now felt strong enough to defy him; Crassus, his old ally, was jealous; Lucullus, whom he superseded in the Mithridatic war, was thinking for revenge; and the people, to whom hr owed his command in the East, had a new favourite, Julius Caesar.  So he found himself thwarted at every turn.  He wanted three things; first, a triumph; secondly, that his arrangements in the East should be ratified; and thirdly, that lands should be given to his soldiers.  The triumph he at last obtained after nine months mortifying struggles; but the ratification of his acts in the East and the giving of lands to his veterans were so fiercely opposed by Lucullus in the Senate, that for the present he failed to obtain them.

            ALLIANCE OF CAESAR, POMPEIUS AND CRASSUS-THE “FIRST TRIUMVIRATE,” B.C. 60-In the autumn of the next year Caesar returned from Spain, where he had successfully fought against some native tribes and wrung enough money out of them to repay Crassus his loan.  Finding Pompeius in difficulties, he struck a secret bargain with him, that he would help Pompeius to obtain his objects if Pompeius would help him in his struggle against the Senate.  Pompeius, considering, doubtless, that Caesar would be a convenient tool that might be thrown away when done with, consented.  Then Caesar reconciled Crassus with him, and the three made an alliance, engaging to use their influence to support one another’s designs in opposition to the Senate.  This secret alliance is often, but incorrectly, called the first Triumvirate, the reason for which name will be given later.  It was further commented the next year by the marriage of Caesar’s beautiful daughter Julia to Pompeius.  In spite of more than twenty years difference in their ages, and the fact that politics, not affection, was its cause, the marriage was an exceedingly happy one.

              FIRST CONSULSHIP OF CAESAR, B.C. 59-The first result of the alliance was that, in spite of all the efforts of Cato and the sensational party, Caesar was elected consul for the year 59 B.C.  His colleague was M. Bibulus, a narrow minded but determined aristocrat, son0in0law of Cato; he had been his colleague also as aedile and as praetor.  Then the struggle began.  Caesar introduced into the Senate an agrarian law, giving lands in Campania to Pompeius soldiers.  Pompeius and Crassis spoke in its favour; Cato and Bibulus strongly opposed it, and wasted time in taking till the day was over.  Then Caesar withdrew his law from the Senate and brought it before the Assembly.  The aristocrats tried to stop the voting by force but were defeated.  Next Bibulus retired to his house, and declared that he was examining the heavens to see if there were any bad omens, a proceeding which, according to law, prevented any public business being done; but Caesar took no notice, and the law was carried.  Thereupon Bibulus refused to act as consul any more; so Caesar, wholly unmoved, continued to act alone, and carried other laws in defiance of the Senate, one of which was for ratifying Pompeius acts in the East.  And the wits of Rome declared that it was the consulship not of Bibulus and Caesar, but of Julius and Caesar.

            CAESAR OBTAINS GAUL AS HIS PROVINCE-When his consulship was over Caesar would, under Sulla’s law, be governor of a province for a year; but he wished for a special command like Pompeius had had against the pirates and Mithridates.  It happened just as this time that dangers were a second time threatening the province of Gallia Narbonensis.  So by the influence of Pompeius a law was passed by the people giving that province to Caesar with Cisalpine Gaul for five years instead of only one.  In the spring of B.C. 58 Caesar started for his governorship, leaving Pompeius and Crassus to manage his interests at Rome.  Of the two new consuls one was his own father-in-law, the other an adherent of Pompeius; so there was not much chance of the Senate getting the better of him. 

            BANISHMENT OF CICERO, B.C. 58-To make things quite secure, it was determined to remove from Rome the two formidable men on the side of the Senate, Cicero and Cato.  Cato was given a commission to annex Cyprus, which he accepted.  Strong hints were given to Cicero.  Caesar, wishing to spare him humiliation, even offered him a post on his staff; but he obstinately refused, and declared that he would stay at Rome.  So a reckless young noble named Clodius, a follower of Caesar, and at this time tribune, who had for some time been attacking Cicero for his execution of the Catilinarian conspirators, was now encouraged to bring in a law that anyone who should have put to death to a Roman citizen without special should be forbidden fire and water that is, banished.  Cicero was in despair; he put on mourning, and many of the senators and knights followed his example.  But the consuls were against him; Caesar and his army were still outside the gates ready to support Clodius if necessary.  As a last resource he appealed to Pompeious, but with no better success.  The Senate advised him to bow before the storm.  In the deepest dejection he sailed from Brundisium for Greece, whence he wrote letters to his friends full of the keenest grief and bitter reflections on the ingratitude of the Romans, who could thus banish the “Father of his Country”.  He was at once declared an exile, his property confiscated, and his favourite villa destroyed.  Could there be any greater proof of the utter weakness of the Senate than its powerlessness to save Cicero from such unworthy treatment?    

            CAESAR’S OFFERS TO THE SENATE-At Rome Caesar’s enemies, now that they had got Pompeius on to their side, were full of confidence.  Cato declared his intention of prosecuting him when his governorship was over, and the consul Marcellus proposed in the Senate that he should be recalled at once (B.C. 51).  But it was determined to put the question off for a year.  So in the spring of B.C. 50 the attacks began again.  Caesar’s chief supporter at Rome, now that Clodius was dead, was an able but profligate young noble named Curio.  His father had been a follower of Sulla an enemy of Caesar, and he himself was elected tribune for this year by the influence of Pompeius and the Senate; but Caesar had won him over to his side by paying his debts, and his services proved most valuable.  It had been arranged between Caesar and Pompeius at the conference of Luca that Caesar should remain proconsul of Gaul till the end of B.C. 49, and in the autumn of B.C. 49 should be elected consul.  Caesar wished to be elected consul without coming to Rome, though it was contrary to law, because he knew that if he became a private citizen for ever so short a period, while Pompeius, as proconsul of Spain, still had an army, he would be at the mercy of his enemies.  The year passed in fruitless negotiations.  Caesar, through Curio, said that he would give up his army and province if Pompeius would do the same but Pompeius refused.  Then the Senate, by an unworthy trick, weakened Caesar’s army.  On the pretence of a Parthian war to avenge Crassus, he and Pompeius were requested to give up a legion each.  Pompeius named a legion, which he had lent to Caesar at the time of the rebellion of Vercingetorix, and Caesar promptly sent it home with one of his own.  Piompeius kept the two legions thus taken from Caesar in Italy, and never sent them to Syria at all.  He was at this time most confident.  “I have but to stamp my foot,” he said, “and legions will spring from the soil of Italy.”  

            THE SENATE ORDERS CAESAR TO GIVE UP HIS PROVINCE-CAESAR CROSSES THE RUBICON, JAN 49-On the 1^st of January, B.C. 49, Curio brought a letter from Caesar, who was with one legion at Ravenna, in the east of Cisalpine Gaul, renewing his offer to resign if Pompeius would do so also; but the Senate passed a decree that Caesar must give up his province on pain of being declared a public enemy.  This decree was voted by two of the tribunes of the New Year.  Marcus Antonius, afterwards so famous, and Q Cassius; but they were obliged to flee to Caesar to save their lives.  Caesar at once put himself at the head of his legion and crossed the Rubicon, the little stream that divided his province from Italy, and the Civil War began.  The Senate hoped that when the decisive moment came many of his troops would abandon him; but the only deserter was Labienus, the ablest of his legati.  Caesar, without a word of reproach, sent his baggage after him.

            CAESAR DRIVES POMPEIUS OUT OF ITALY-When Caesar crossed the Rubicon the odds seemed greatly against him.  Pompeius and the Senate held Italy and most of the provinces; they had a large army of seven legions in Spain, and the fleet, and Pompeius had a greater reputation as a general.  Caesar had only his Gallic legions.  But Pompeius, in spite of his boast, was still unprepared.  The rapidity with which Caesar was advancing utterly upset all his plans, so he abandoned Rome, breathing vengeance against Caesar, followed by the consuls and his other adherents, including Cicero.  In such haste were they to escape that they did not even take the money out of the treasury.  Pompeius soon found that his boast had been an idle one; he could not trust the two legions, which he had taken from Caesar, and dared not pit his recruits against the veterans of Gaul.  So he continued his retreat to the port of Brundisium, and prepared to cross over to Greece, for he thought that in the East, where the glory of his victories was still great, he might collect fresh forces and return in triumph to Italy like Sulla.  Caesar, without approaching Rome, hurried onto Brundisium to try to capture Pompeius, every town he approached expelling its Pompeian commander and welcoming him.  But Pompeius with his ships was too quick for him, and made his escape to Greece.  Thus, in sixty days, Caesar had conquered the whole of Italy his clemency, and the strict discipline, which he exacted from his soldiers, had won the population over to his side.  He now made his entry into Rome.  Contrary to the general expectation, no proscriptions followed, but he summoned what was left of the Senate and declared to them that he had been forced to take up arms in self-defence, and was ready for peace if terms could be arranged.

            CAESAR CONQUERS SPAIN-SUMMER B.C. 49-Caesar now started for Spain, where Pompeius main army was under his legati, Africanus and Petreius.  On his march thither, Massilia (Marseilles) shut its gates against him.  Leaving behind Decimus Brutus and Trebonius to besiege it, he hurried on to Spain; there he found Africanus and Petreius encamped near Ilerda, a town on the right bank of Sicoris, which runs from the Pyrenees into the Iberus (Ebro).  For a time he was in great straits for provisions, as a flood, and rumours of his defeat washed his bridges away actually reached Rome.  But he succeeded in crossing the river, and used his cavalry so skilfully that the Pompeians, cut off in their turn from supplies, knew not which way to turn.  The two armies, in spite of all Africanus and Petreius could do, began to fraternise, and there was nothing for them to do but surrender.  Caesar gave them the easiest terms; those who wished joined his army; the rest were allowed to go where they liked.  Afracanus and Petrieus at once went off to Pompeius.  Another Pompeian army in the south of Spain surrendered at Caesar’s approach and he returned to Gaul.  Meanwhile the fleet of the Massilians, which was their only hope, had been destroyed by the energy and resource of Decimus Brutus, the conqueror of the Veneti, and on his arrival the town surrendered and was treated most leniently, in considerations of his antiquity.  Thence he returned to Rome, where he was elected consul for the next year, B.C. 48 (the consulship which had been the cause of the war}, and then after eleven days, hurried onto his army at Brundisium to prepare for the crossing into Greece.  In this year he had marched nearly 4000 miles, conquered Italy and Spain captured three armies and the almost impregnable fortress of Massilia.  It was perhaps the most wonderful campaign in history.

            DEFEAT AND DEATH OF CURIO IN AFRICA-In Africa the fortune of war had gone against Caesar.  Juba, the king of Numidia, had joined Pompeians, and Curio, who commanded Caesar’s forces, fell into a trap and with only a part of his forces, wearied with long marching, was suddenly attacked by the whole Numidian army.  Seeing his men falling fast, and unable to bear the thought of facing Caesar after losing the army entrusted to him, he spurred into the thickest of the fight and was slain.  A very few of the army escaped to Italy; the rest, after surrendering to the Pompeian general, were massacred by Juba, a very different fate to that of the Pompeians in Spain.  The death of the clever young Curio, the man in all Rome most like Caesar himself, was a great to Caesar, and perhaps to Rome also. 

            CAESAR CROSSES OVER TO GREECE, JANUARY 48-It was now late autumn.  Caesar, with about 30,000 men, lay at Brundisium, with Antonius as his second in command.  Pompeius had collected an army double the number of Caesar’s, and was at Thessalonica, a seaport of Macedonia, surrounded by the Senatorial exiles.  To prevent Caesar crossing he had a large fleet cruising in the Adriatic under Bibulus, Caesar’s former colleague in the consulship.  Caesar himself had no men-of war, and only a few transports.  On these he embarked with half an army and was across before Bibulus could stop him; the transports were sent back to fetch the other half under Antonius, but Bibulus, now on the alert, caught some of the empty ships and vented his disappointed rage by burning them crews and all.  Caesar at once seized Oricum and Apollonia, two important ports of Epirus, and Pompeius, hurrying to Epirus with his superior forces, was only just in time to save the great town of Dyrrhachium from also falling into his hands.  But Pompeius dared not attack Caesar.  The two armies lay opposite each other; the winter was passing away; Antonius, in spite of urgent messages from Caesar, feared to put to sea.  So persistently did the Pompeian fleet keep the sea in spite of the wintry weather, that Bibulus fell ill, refusing to be put ashore, died of his exertions.  At last, taking advantage of a southerly wind, Antonius started; the Pompeians hotly pursued, and the two fleets were carried by the gale along the coast of Epirus in full sight of both armies.  A lucky shifting of the wind enabled Antonius to land and wreaked the Pompeians, and he and Caesar succeeded in eluding Pompeius and uniting their forces. 

            CAESAR’S DEFEAT AT DYRRHACHIUM-Pompeius still would not fight; so Caesar got between him and Dyrrhachium, and, with his inferior forces, had the audacity to blockade him on the coast with lines of fortifications over fifteen miles in extent.  His boldness brought Greece and Macedonia over to his side; but he paid the penalty for it; for Pompeius broke through his lines at one end by landing troops behind them, and won a victory over part of his forces.  The prisoners taken were cruelly insulted and then killed by Labienus.  Caesar now retreated into Thessaly; Pompeius followed, and the two armies encamped opposite one another, near the town of Pharsalus, on the Enipeus. 

            BATTLE OF PHARSALIA, AUGUST, B.C. 48-Labienus and the other nobles were in high spirits after their victory at Dyrrhachium, and were already quarrelling over the spoils of the expected victory, but Pompeius himself seemed far from confident, and for some time refused battle.  At length, when Caesar in despair of bringing him to action, was just going to march away, Pompeius, on 9^th August B.C. 48, drew out his forces, and the decisive day had come.  Pompeius trusted chiefly to his cavalry, 7000 strong, which he put on his left; his infantry, 47,000 strong were drawn up, according to the Roman custom, in three lines.  Caesar had only 22,000 infantry, but he made a small fourth line as a reserve, and also mixed some of his most active men with his cavalry, who numbered only 1000.  The battle began; Caesars legions advanced at the double, but the Pompeians remained halted; so the Caesarians stopped half way to take breath, and then closed with the enemy, and, in spite of numbers, held their own.  Meanwhile, the Pompeian cavalry overpowered Caesar’s, in spite of the infantry mixed with them.  The battle seemed won, and they were just about to charge the legions in rear, when Caesar gave the signal to his reserve.  Though they were infantry, their onset was so unexpected that they utterly routed the cavalry, numerous as it was, and drove it right off the field.  Pompeius at once gave up all for lots, and retired to defend the cam.  Caesar’s reserve then continued its victorious career by falling upon the rear of the Pompeian infantry, who quickly broke and fled to the camp; but the Caesareans pressed on after them, the camp was stormed, and Pompeius mounted a horse and rode out of the opposite gate.  In the camp Caesar’s men found tables spread for a banquet, and tents decked with ivy, to celebrate the victory.  But Caesar did not let them linger over the spoils; he hurried them after the enemy, lest they should have time to rally, and by the next morning fifteen thousand Pompeians had fallen, and twenty-four thousand surrendered.  Pompeius army was no more, and Caesar was now master of the Roman world.

            MURDER OF POMPEIUS-Pompeius fled to Egypt.  There a civil war for the throne was in progress between a young brother and sister, Ptolemy and Cleopatra.  Pompeius appealed to Ptolemy for protection, but he was afraid of the illustrious exile; so he had him enticed on shore and murdered in the sight of his wife and son, who had joined him in his flight.  It was a sad end to a great career.  Pompeius was a good man, far better than most of the Romans of his time, and an able general; but his want of firmness and decision prevented him from being a great statesman.  Accident made him for a time the greatest man at Rome; he wished to remain so, but knew not how.  So he became jealous of every rival, especially Caesar.  Caesar bore no personal ill will to Pompeius, the husband of his dearly loved daughter.  But he was resolved to overthrow the Senate; he would have preferred to do so in alliance with Pompeius; but when Pompeuis joined the Senate, he was obliged to fight him.  All though the war he had been anxious for a personal interview to settle their differences as they had settled them before; but Pompeius had always refused.

CAESAR IN EGYPT-CLEOPATRA-CONQUEST OF PHARNACES, B.C. 47-Caesar, hearing whither Pompeius had fled, followed hard after, and landed with a small force in Alexandria.  There he was shown the head of Pompeius, with his ring; he gazed on it with deep sorrow, and ordered it to be burned.  In the Egyptian Civil War he took the side of Cleopatra, fascinated by her wonderful beauty, and soon found that he had all Egypt against him.  For some months he could barely hold his own in Alexandria; on one occasion, in the harbour, he had to swim for his life.  Meanwhile, he had been made dictator for the second time, and had named Antonius his Master of the Horse, to govern Italy.  In the spring of B.C. 47, help reached Caesar; a battle was fought on the Nile, the Egyptian were conquered, and Ptolemy drowned.  Some months afterwards Caesar left Egypt and started homewards through Syria and Asia Minor.  On the way he reduced Pharnaces, king of Pontus, son of the great Mithridates, who had thought to take advantage of the Civil War, and extend his dominions.  A five days campaign and a single battle reduced Pharnaces to submission, and Caesar announced the result to the Senate in the words, “Veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered).

            MUTINY OF CAESAR’S VETERANS-THE POMPEIANS IN AFRICA-Labienus, Cato and the other Pompeians who had survived Pharsalia, had made their way to Africa, and were gathering strength for a fresh resistance.  At Utica they had assembled a sort of Senate.  The more hopeless their cause became, the more furious their threats of vengeance against their enemies.  In the autumn of B.C. 47 Caesar reached Rome, and at once began to prepare for the invasion of Africa.  But the legionaries, his favourite Tenth among them, weary of the long war, and having now for a year enjoyed the luxuries of peace, did not relish the thought of another campaign, and marched on the city, demanding their dismissal.  Caesar went out to meet them, and said to them: “Your request is granted; you shall have all the rewards promised you; but you will not be able to share in my triumph”.  And then he addressed them, not as usual, “fellow soldiers,” but citizens”.  To be thus disowned by their general was too much.  With tears and protestations they begged him to punish them in any way he chose, but not to dismiss them from his service.  Caesar kept them in suspense for a time as a punishment, and then yielded.  The mutiny was over, quelled with a word. 

            BATTLE OF THAPSUS-SUICIDE OF CATO, B.C. 48-Before the close of the year he had landed in Africa, near Thapsus, south of Carthage; but such was his haste that he had only been able to bring one legion and a handful of cavalry.  The other legions could not join him for some time, owing to the wintry weather.  The Pompeians had ten legions with the elephants and Numidian cavalry of Juba.  Metellus Scipio, Pompeius father-in-law, a man of no ability, aided by Labienus, commanded them.  Cato was left in command of the garrison of Utica.  In spite of their numbers, Caesar held his own with wonderful skill until his other legions had arrived.  At Thapsus, in the spring of B.C. 46, the battle was fought.  Caesar’s men, impatient to end the war, charged before the word of command on their own infantry, and, with a loss of only fifty men, Caesar won a complete victory; his men in spite of his orders would give no quarter.  Labienus and the two sons of Pompeius escaped to Spain; all the other chiefs perished in various ways.  When the news reached Cato at Utica, he recognised that his cause was now lost.  Determined not to survive the Republic and see his old enemy Caesar ruling at Rome, he passed the night in reading a famous book of the philosopher Plato about immortality, and then stabbed himself.  So he perished the only high-minded leader of the sensational party.  From the place of his death, he is commonly known as Cato of Utica, to distinguish him from his ancestor, Cato the censor.

            JULIUS CAESAR SUPREME AT ROME-THE TITLE OF IMPERATOR-On his return to Rome in July Caesar celebrated a magnificent fourfold Triumph for his conquest of Gaul, Pontus, Egypt, and the Juba king of Numidia.  His victories over his fellow citizens were thus kept carefully out of sight.  In this Triumph the unhappy Vercingetorix was led a prisoner, and afterwards put to death.  The Roman state now lay at Caesar’s feet; but instead of imitating Sulla’s cruelty, he continued his policy of mercy.  Cicero and many other senatorial leaders submitted and were pardoned.  A general amnesty was proclaimed; Pompeians and Caesarians were treated alike.  He was now made a dictator for ten years.  But it was felt that some name was wanted for his extraordinary position; so the Senate conferred on him the title of Imperator (impero, “I command”).  It was a roman custom after a victory for the soldiers to salute their general as “imperator,” so that it was a sort of complimentary title; and the general on whom it was conferred always put it after his other names; but in the scene in which it was given to Julius Caesar, meaning “a man vested with supreme power,” it was usually put before the names, as Imperator Caius Julius Caesar.  From Imperator comes our word emperor; so Julius Caesar may be said to have been the finest Roman Emperor.

            CAESAR’S LAWS-Caesar now proceeded to pass more laws.  One was to check the oppression of the governors of provinces; for he wished the provinces to take in pride in belonging to the great Roman Empire, and no longer to look on Rome and the Senate as their hated mistress and oppression.  Another was to give the promised grants of land to his veterans; but he did not, as was often done, take away land from people already in possession of it; but those of his veterans for whom there was not room in Italy he sent abroad as colonists, and settled them where the famous old towns of Carthage and Corinth had been, which were thus again rebuilt.      

            REFORM OF THE CALENDAR-amid all the stress and turmoil of politics, this wonderful man found time for another reform, which lasts even to the present day.  This was the reform of the calendar.  Hitherto the roman year had consisted of only 355 days, that is ten days short, and to correct this error it was the priests business from time to time to insert an extra or, as it was called, an “intercalary” month.  But this insertion was not always properly made, and the result was that the civil year became quite different from the solar year, and was now eighty days behind it.  Farmers had to give up going by the civil year, and were obliged to count only by the seasons, for the 1srt of January came somewhere in autumn instead of the beginning of winter.  Caesar, who was Pontifex Maximus, determined to remedy this strange state of things, and asked the advice of an Alexandrian astronomer.  So a law was passed that the year B.C. 45 should consist of 445 days by putting in three intercalary months.  This brought the 1^st of January to its right place.  To make the year the proper length in future, all the months except February were lengthened, and February was to have an extra day every four years.  This was so nearly exact that it was 1600 years before any change, and that only a small one, had to be made.  The Romans called the year B.C. 45 the year of confusion, but it ought more properly to be called the last year of confusion.

            WAR IN SPAIN-BATLE OF MUNDA, B.C. 45-All this work was done between July and September 46, and then Caesar was called away by the news that Labienus and Cnaeus and Sextus, the two sons of Pompeius, were at the head of a large army in Spain.  Taking with him his great nephew Caius Octavius, a young man seventeen years old, who he destined to be his heir and successor, he hurried thither by forced marches.  His opponent’s were skilful soldiers, especially his old officer Labienus, and they fought with desperation, for they knew that this was their last chance.  After a campaign of some months, in which neither side gained much advantage, Caesar attacked Labienus and Cnaeus Pompeius in a very strong position near the town of Munda in the south of Spain.  So strong was the position that Caesar’s men were time after time driven back.  Defeat stared him in the face, and at one moment he actually thought of killing himself; but he rallied his men, and the valour of the Tenth legion at last won the day.  Labienus, his old officer, and afterwards the most relentless of all his foes, was at last killed. Cnaeus Pompeius fled wounded, and was killed soon after.  Sextus Pompeius was not present at the battle and so escaped, and we shall hear of him again.  After some time spent in completely reducing Spain to submission, Caesar returned, after a year’s absence, and celebrated a Triumph, though he could not now pretend that the vanquished were not Roman citizens.

            CAESAR EMPEROR OF ROME-Fresh honours now awaited him.  He was made dictator for life and consul for ten years.  His head was put on the coins, and the month Quintilis was changed in his honour to Julius (July), and he was almost worshipped as a god.  Caesar was not satisfied with merely enjoying the honours of his position; he wished to carry out his work of making Rome the real capital of the world.  He made all the Cisalpine Gauls and many provincials Roman citizens, and introduced many even into the Senate, which had been much reduced in the Civil War, much to the disgust of the Romans.  He also wished to heal the great evils of Italy-the debt, and the slave labour, and free distribution of corn; and he succeeded in reducing by half the number of people who received corn, but he dared not abolish the custom altogether.  Lastly, the frontiers of the empire needed to be made secure.  The two enemies of Rome still unsubdued were the Germans and Parthians.  Caesar determined to conquer the Parthians first, and win back the standards, which were lost under Crassus at Carrhae.  So an army was collected at Apollonia in Epirus, whither he sent Octavius, intending himself to take the field the next summer.

            CAESAR BELIEVED TO BE AIMING AT ROYALTY-But though his rule was wise, Caesar’s position was by no means secure.  The mass of the people did not, indeed, mind his having such great power, for he used it on their side against the Senate; but he let it be known that he intended young Octavius to succeed to his power after him, which was an unheard of thing at Rome; so they thought from his conduct that he wished to become king, and since the time of the Tarquins the name king had been hateful to the Romans.  He also offended his own followers by treating Pompeians and Caesarians exactly alike; and the most worthless of his party were disappointed that there were no proscriptions.  In February, B.C. 44, a crown was actually offered him, at a feast called Lupercalia, by his adherent Antonius, who was consul.  Perhaps he would have liked to take it, but the people looked angry, and he put it aside, saying, “Jupiter alone is king of the Romans”.

            THE CONSPIRACY-Taking advantage of this feeling, a number of nobles, some of them his own followers and most trusted friends, who were jealous of his power, and thought that they could restore the rule of the Senate, made a conspiracy to kill him.  The chiefs of the conspiracy were C. Cassius, who had rescued the remains of Crassus army at Carrhae, and Decimus Brutus, his old officer in Gaul, and they drew into the plot Marcus Brutus, nephew and son-in-law of Cato.  Marcus Brutus was a favourite of the people, and traced his descent from Brutus, the expeller of the Tarquins.  He had taken the side of Pompeius, but after Pharsalia had come over to Caesar, and was much beloved by him and treated almost as a son.  It was believed that on the Ides (I.e. the 15^th) of March the Senate was going to bestow the title of king on Caesar everywhere but in Italy, so that day was selected for the deed.  There were a great many in the plot, and rumours of it got abroad and even reached Caesar, who was told by a soothsayer to beware the Ides of March; but he treated all warnings with contempt.  “It is better to die once,” he used to say, “than to live always in fear of dying.”

            MURDER OF CAESAR, MARCH 15^TH, B.C. 44-When the morning came, the conspirators assembled at his house to escort him to the Senate.  It is said that, owing to a dream of his wife, at first he did not wish to go, but Decimus Brutus was sent to overcome his scruples.  On his way several people tried to warn him.  In the crowd he caught sight of the soothsayer, and remarked to him; “The Ides of March have come”.  “Yes, Caesar, but not gone,” was the reply.  The Senate house was reached, and Caesar took his seat.  One of the conspirators, under pretence of a private conversation, kept Antonius, who was still loyal to Caesar, outside talking, for they did not wish to kill him too.  Another presented a petition to Caesar for the recall of his brother from exile.  It was rejected, and the others, as if to second the appeal, crowded round him.  A blow from behind, struck by one called Casca, gave the signal.  At once all the daggers flashed in the air.  For a moment Caesar tried to defend himself; but, when he saw Marcus Brutus dagger among the rest, he exclaimed, “You too, my son,” then drawing his toga over his head, he sank, pierced with twenty-three wounds, at the foot of his old enemy Pompeius statue.  There was wild confusion in the senate house.  The senators fled.  Antonius escaped to his own house.  The Liberators, as they called themselves, brandishing their dripping daggers, and shouting, “Rome again is free,” rushed into the forum to gain the approval of the people, but the people had fled in horror.  At last, fearing for their own safety, for there were soldiers encamped outside under Lepidus, an old general of Caesar’s who was going as governor to Gaul, the Liberators retired for the night into the Capitol.  Thus fell Julius Caesar, the greatest of all the Romans.  He was ambitious, it is true, but he saw plainer than other men the evils of his time, the bad government of the Senate, and the oppression of the provinces.  He saw that his own side, the Popular Party, were a mere mob and could not govern, and so the only hope for Rome was for the government to be in the hands of one strong man; and of he determined to make himself that man by his sword we cannot blame him.  The time, it is true, was not ripe for the change; there were still many Romans who believed in the old republican government.  But that Caesar was right is proved by the events, which followed his murder.  The freedom, which the Liberators proclaimed, was no real freedom; it was only a change of one master for several.  And within fifteen years, after Roman swords had again made rivers of Roman blood flow, the republic disappeared unregretted, and the empire was finally established.

            ROME AFTER CAESAR’S MURDER-At Rome all was dismay and consternation; no one knew what was going to happen next.  Everyone feared for himself.  The people were in doubt whether to approve the murder or not.  Antonius was the first to recover from the panic; he obtained all Caesar’s papers from his widow Calpurnia and seized his treasury.  All the old leaders of the Senate had perished in the civil War except Cicero; he now took the lead.  Negotiations were carried on between the Liberators, Antonius, and the Senate; and a meeting of the Senate was held, in which all Caesar’s acts were confirmed.  An amnesty was promised to the Liberators, and Antonius was permitted by the Senate to celebrate a public funeral in honour of Caesar.  But that public funeral was a fatal blow for the Senate.  For Antonius made a speech in which he recounted all that Caesar had done for the people; then he showed an effigy of Caesar clad in his torn and blood stained toga; and lastly, he read his will, in which Caesar left his palace and gardens to the people, and a sum of money to every citizen.  At this the crowd, among who were many of Caesar’s veterans, were seized with fury, and tearing firebrands from the funeral pile, rushed to the house of Brutus, and the Liberators were obliged to flee from the city.

            SUPREMACY OF ANTONIUS-OCTAVIUS COMES TO ITALY-Antonius was now supreme.  The Senate had decreed that all Caesar’s “Acts” should be carried out; and as Antonius was in possession of his papers, he could do what he liked; for the did not scruple to forge new “Acts” if necessary, having bribed Caesar’s clerk.  Caesar’s money he spent himself, instead of distributing it among the people.  There seemed no one to oppose him; for the chiefs of the Liberators went away to the provinces which Caesar had allotted to them: Decimus Brutus to Cisalpine Gaul, Marcus Brutus to Macedonia, and Cassius to Syria.  Cicero, indeed made some eloquent bitter speeches, and roused much feeling against him; and Octavius with his school friend Agrippa landed at Brundisium and claimed his inheritance.  But Cicero was an old man, and Octavius a raw youth of nineteen, who knew nothing of war and politics, and Antonius feared neither of them.  But Octavius, in spite of his youth, and the entreaties of his mother, boldly put himself forward and demanded of Antonius an account of Caesar’s money, and, when he refused, he paid the legacies himself, by the help of his friends, and by selling all his own property, which gave him great popularity.  Many of Caesar’s friends began to rally him, some of Antonius legions, among which were many of Caesar’s veterans, deserted to him, and the Senate supported him, thinking him a useful tool against Antonius.

            CICVIL WAR OF MUTINA-END OF DECIMUS BRUTUS-At last, in the spring of the next year, B.C. 43, Antonius, finding that his position at Rome was growing insecure, put himself as the head of the legions still faithful to him, and marched off to Cisalpine Gaul to drive out Decimus Brutus; and again the flames of civil war blazed up in Italy.  Decimus threw himself into the town of Mutina (Modena), where Antonius besieged him.  The Senate sent an army to attack Antonius under the new consuls, and Octavius joined them with his legions.  There was desperate fighting round Mutina; both the consuls were killed, but Antonius was defeated, and retreated to Gaul to join Lepidus, who had been sent there as governor by Caesar.  The Senate now seemed triumphant; but it was not to be.  For Octavius, instead of joining Decimus, now threw off his allegiance to the Senate, and marched on Rome at the head of his legions and those of the late consuls, and demanded the consulship, and the Senate were obliged to submit.  At the same time Antonius re-entered Cisalpine Gaul in alliance with Lepidus.  Decimus, finding his men deserting tried to escape to the other Liberators in the east, but was caught and put to death by Antonius.

              OCTAVIUS, ANTONIUS, AND LEPIDUS ELECTED TRIUMVIRS-Then Antonius, Octavius and Lepidus met near Bononia (Bologna), and agreed to divide the empire.  Antonius had found that the youth Octavius was stronger than he expected, and Octavius did not yet feel strong enough to oppose Antonious, so they agreed to sink their quarrel for the present, like Caesar and Pompeius had done, and Lepidus, happening to be at the head of an army, was admitted into the alliance.  The three then marched on Rome, and caused themselves to be elected “triumvirs to settle the state” triumviri reipublicoe constituendoe, for five years.  Historians often call this alliance of Octavius, Antonius, and Lepidus, the second triumvirate, giving the name first triumvirate to the somewhat similar alliance of Caesar, Pompeius and Crassus, B.C. 60, although the latter was never really elected or called triumvirs.

            PROSCRIPTIONS AT ROME-MURDER OF CICERO-The Senate was now utterly crushed, and never recovered the blow.  The only result of the number of Caesar was that, instead of one master, Rome now had three.  Bloodshed began at once; for the triumvirs did not like Caesar, feel strong enough to do without proscriptions.  A list of 300 senators and 2000 knights was drawn up, each triumvir giving up a friend or relation.  Octavius also gave up Cicero, whom Antonius hated, on account of his recent speeches against him.  The poor old man, utterly broken down and hopeless, tried feebly to escape to a ship from his villa on the coast; but the litter in which he was being carried was overtaken by the murderers.  His bearers were numerous enough to resist but he ordered them leave him, and putting out his grey head, submitted without a murmur.  His head was sent to Antonius, whose wife, Fulvie, it is said, drove the needles through and through his tongue, in revenge for the bitter words it had uttered against her husband.  It was a sad end to a life that had begun so brightly.  Cicero’s victory over Catiline seemed the commencement of a great career.  It was really the end.  It wanted a man of resolution, and a soldier, to hold his own in those troubled times; and he was neither.  Like Cato, he made the mistake of thinking that restoring the power of the Senate could heal the evils of Rome; and so he failed.  Cicero was the greatest orator and writer of Rome; his private life, in a dissolute age, was blameless, and he approaches the Christian character more than any other of the old Romans.

            BRUTUS AND CASSIUS DEFEATED AT PHILIPPI B.C. 42-Having secured themselves at home, the triumvirs prepared to crush their enemies abroad.  In the east, Brutus and Cassius had collected a large army; in the west, Sextus Pompeius had reappeared.  He had a large fleet, and with his headquarters in Sicily was harrying the Mediterranean like the pirates of former days.  It was arranged that Lepidus should stay at Rome, while Antonius went against the Liberators; Octavius was to put down Sextus, but he found him too strong, and so giving up the attempt, joined Antonius.  Near the town of Philippi, in the east of Macedonia between the mountains and the sea, the two triumvirs with 100,000 men faced Brutus and Cassius with 80,000.  The triumvirs had difficulty about provisions, and Cassius saw that the best thing to do was not to fight, but to leave the enemy to be broken up by famine, but the impetuous Brutus overbore him.  In the battle Octavius was driven back by Brutus, but Antonius beat Cassius, who, thinking all was lost, killed himself.  For three weeks more the two armies lay opposite one another; then a second battle took place, the triumvirs were again victorious, and Brutus committed suicide.  Such was the end of the Liberators and their attempt to restore freedom to Rome.

            MEETING OF ANTONIUS AND CLEOPATRA, B.C. 41-After the battle of Philippi Octavius, who was very ill, returned to Italy; Antonius remained in the East to organise the government of the different provinces.  While he was at Tarsus he ordered Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, who had supported the Liberators, to appear before him and answer for her conduct.  Cleopatra determined to fascinate him by her charms as she had fascinated Caesar.  Attired like Venus, surrounded by Cupids and Graces, she sailed up the river Cydnus in a gilded galley with purple sails and rowed by silver oars to the sound of flutes and pipes.  The whole city rushed to the riverside to see the wondrous sight.  Antonius went onboard, and at once fell an easy victim.  He followed Cleopatra to Egypt, and there, amid the feasting and dissipation of an Eastern court forgot all his schemes for power and his rivalry with Octavius.

            OCTAVIUS IN ITALY-It was the Romans would naturally regard a very foolish of Antonius to stay in the East and let Octavius return to Italy, for whoever ruled at Rome as their chief.  Octavius saw his advantage and set himself to win the affection of the Italians, and make them feel that the only way to escape from the present troubles was to submit to his rule and support him against all rivals.  He had great difficulties to contend with; his veterans were clamouring for lands, and to satisfy them he had to deprive many farmers of their farms.  At the same time Sextus ompeius with his fleets cut off the corn supplies and caused great distress, and he had no fleet to fight him.  But he persevered, and by his mild and firm rule Italy was again gradually beginning to enjoy the blessings of peace and order.

            OCTAVIUS AND ANTONIUS DIVIDE THE EMPIRE, B.C. 40-ANTONIUS MARRIES OCTAVIA-Antonius soon became jealous and civil war almost broke out.  But the soldiers on both sides forced their generals to make an agreement.  They divided the empire between them, Octavius keeping the West, Antonius the East; and Antonius, whose wife, Fulvia, had lately died, married Octavia, sister of Octavius, the very noblest of roman ladies.  Then they had a meeting with Sextus on a ship in the harbour of Misenum in the Bay of Cumae, and agreed to allow him to have Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, and also Greece.  It is said that at the meeting Sextus captain sent in privately to ask him “whether he should carry the triumvirs off to sea”; Sextus replied: “You should have done it without asking for leave”.

            DEFEAT AND DEATH OF SEXTUS POMPEIUS, B.C. 36-Antonius went off to the East with Octavia intending to keep away from Cleopatra, and busied himself with the preparations for a war against the Parthians.  In the West the peace with Sextus was soon broken; Agrippa, Octavius general spent over a year in building a fleet, and Antonius sent 100 ships in return for soldiers for the Parthian war.  In B.C. there was a great naval war round the coasts of Sicily; Octavius with one fleet was defeated, but Agrippa won a great victory off Naulochus, near Messana.  Sextus fled to the East, and was captured and killed by Antonius men.  The sea was captured and killed by Antonius men.  Italy was at rest now clear for the corn ships.  Italy was at rest, and Octavius was growing stronger and more popular everyday.  Lepidus, the third triumvir, of whom you have heard very little, tried to assert his independence.  After the war with Sextus; but his men at once deserted to Octavius, who treated him with contemptuous kindness, and he lived for thirty years in unnoticed retirement, being allowed to retain his office of Pontifex Maximus.

             FAILURE OF ANTONIUS IN PARTHIA, B.C. 36-HE RETURNS TO CLEOPATRA-Antonius all this time was steadily losing ground.  He grew tired of Octavia, and returned to Cleopatra.  His Parthian was turned out an utter failure.  He advanced with 100,000 men 300 miles beyond the Tigris, but was obliged to retreat again over the mountains of Armenia.  He returned to Alexandria, and sought to drown his disappointment in pleasure and gaiety, reigning like an Eastern despot with Cleopatra.

            INDIGNATION AT ROME AGAINST ANTONIUS-Exaggerated reports of all this reached Rome, where the slighted wife Octavia was living a quiet and virtous life, busying herself with bringing up her own and Fulvia’s children.  And so men’s minds were turned more and more against Antonius.  His conduct, they said, was an insult to the majesty of Rome; he had turned himself into an Egyptian; if he had his way Italy would become a province of Egypt, and Cleopatra would reign as queen of the Roman Empire.  Octavius saw his advantage; but still he held his hand, for time was on the side, and the indignation at Rome was growing louder and louder.  At last (B.C. 32) Antonius wills was brought to Rome, in which he ordered that after his death his body should be buried at Alexandria beside Cleopatra.  This last insult to Rome and the noble Octavia was too much.  War was declared against Cleopatra.  Antonius took up the challenge by divorcing Octavia.  The last act of the civil wars had begun.

            BATTLE OF ACTIUM, B.C. 31-Antonius had been reforming his army on the pretence of another Parthian war, and Celopatra had joined him with a large contingent of Egyptian ships.  These forces he moved to the west coast of Greece.  He had over 100,000 men and 500 ships, many of them of immense size.  Octavius, with the faithful Agrippa, succeeded in crossing the Adriatic, and the two hosts and fleets lay opposite one another on either shore of the Ambracian gulf.  Octavius had not so many troops as Antonius, and only 150 small and light ships; but he was fighting for Rome against the barbarian East, and very soon Antonius officers began to desert to him in crowds.  At this Antonius lost heart; and not knowing whom to trust, yielded to the advice of Cleopatra to escape to Egypt with the fleet.  On September 2^nd there was a calm, and Agrippa put to sea and attacked him.  Aggrippa’s fleet made up in quickness what they lacked in numbers and size; but the battle was still undecided when a breeze sprang up.  Cleopatra hoisted her sails and made off, followed by Antonius and the Egyptian ships.  The rest of the fleet made a gallant fight, but by the end of the day were all taken or destroyed.  The army abandoned by its general, surrendered.  The great contest for the sovereignty of the world was over, and had been won by Octavius more by the mistake of his rival than by his own skill.  The battle was called the battle of Actium, from a temple of Apollo of that name on the southern promontory of the Ambracian Gulf. 

            DEATH OF ANTONIUS AND CLEOPATRA, B.C. 30-Antonius and Cleopatra reached Egypt, and prepared for resistance; but Antonius felt that all was over.  At times he gave way to moodiness and despair, and would not see her; then again he tried to drown his mortification in her society.  For a time Octavius came not.  He was occupied in receiving the submission of the different countries of the East and in revisiting Italy, where he was welcomed with acclamation.   At last, after eleven months, Octavius landed in Egypt.  Antonius attempted to resist, but the Egyptian fleet deserted to Octavius.  Cleopatra felt that her only hope was to subdue Octavius by her charms as she had subdued Antonius.  She sent to him, asking for mercy, but the answer was that the must abandon Antonius.  She then shut herself up in a building in which she had erected for her tomb, called a mausoleum; and sent a message to Antonius, saying that she had died by her own hand.  He at once stabbed himself; and when Cleopatra heard of it she sent for him.  Her dying lover was conveyed to her chamber in the mausoleum and breathed his last in her arms.  The Octavius came to her; but her fascinations were powerless over him, and she found out that his purpose was to keep her alive and exhibit her in his triumph.  So she resolved to die.  All means of death were carefully kept from the mausolemn.  One morning it was found that se had peacefully expired; and the story was that she slew herself by the bite of a sap that had been brought to her in a basket of figs.  She was given a royal funereal.  And her body was laid beside Antonius.  She was the last queen of Egypt.  The story of Antonius and Cleopatra is one of the most famous of antiquity, and has been made immortal by the pen of Shakespeare.  When we read it we cannot doubt that it was his love of her that ruined Antonius.  It turned the Romans from him and sapped all his energies.  Originally he was a brave and able soldier, trained in the wars of Julius Caesars, a skilful though unscrupulous statesman; but from the time he met Cleopatra on the river Cydnus, he was a changed man, and had no chance against his cool and wary opponent, ready to take full advantage of every mistake he made.     

            TIBERIUS, A.D. 14-37-THE EARLY YEARS OF HIS REIGN-GERMANICUS-At last, after many years of neglect and disappointment, Tiberius found himself Emperor or Rome at the age of fifty-six.  He was the best general of his age, and well trained in the art of government; and during the first years of his reign he ruled admirably, attending so closely to all the details of government that he hardly ever left Rome.  But his mind had been permanently soured by his treatment by Augustus, so that he was never popular, and he could not help being jealous of his nephew Germanicus, whom he knew the people greatly loved and wished to have as emperor.  Germanicus was commanding the legions on the Rhine, where he won great glory by recapturing the standards of Varus; and the legions were eager to proclaim him emperor, but he was loyal to Tiberius, and would not kindle the flames of civil war.  Tiberius then sent him to the East, where he died, A.D. 19; and many said that he was poisoned.  He left many children, of whom you need only remember a son, Caius, and a daughter, Agrippina.  Caius had passed his first years in the camp of the German army; he was the pet of the rough soldiers, who called him Caligula (from caliga a soldier’s boot.)

            TIBERIUS GOES TO CAPREAE-SEJANUS-In the middle of his reign two terrible blows fell upon Tiberius, which increased his melancholy into what was nothing else than madness.  Firstly, in A.D. 23, his only son Drusus died; Tiberius tried to console himself by working, if possible, harder than before, but the strain was too great, and, in A.D. 26, he went away from Rome to the beautiful island of Capreae, in the Bay of Naples, leaving the government of Rome in the hands of his only friend, Sejanus, a man of low birth whom he had raised to the post of commander of the Praetorian Guards, a force of 10,000 men kept at Rome as a body guard for the emperor.  Secondly, while at Capreae, he received proofs that Sejanus had all the time been plotting to make himself emperor, and that Drusus had not died a natural death, as was imagined, but had been poisoned by him.  Utterly prostrated by the discovery, Tiberius wrote a long letter to the Senate, which showed the depth of his misery.  “If I known what to write to you on this occasion, Senators,” it began, “or how to write, or what not to write, may all the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than I feel I am daily being destroyed.”  The letter ended by ordering the Senate to put Sejanus to death.  The order was at once carried out, for Sejanus was universally hated; in a single day he passed from the height of power to a traitor’s doom (A.D. 31). 

           THE INFORMERS-LATTER YEARS OF TIBERIUS-But henceforth Tiberius suspected everybody, and the nobles at Rome lived in daily dread of sharing the fate of Sejanus.  In the early years of Tiberius a law had been passed making it “treason” not only to plot against the life of the emperor, but even to speak or write disrespectfully of him.  And so there had sprung up at Rome a class of men called informers (delatores), who made it their business to bring charges against men for crimes of treason.  At first Tiberius had kept the informers in check, but now he readily listened to them.  Many men of noble birth suffered death, or were compelled to commit suicide, and as in the days of the proscriptions, groundless charges were often brought against men simply for their wealth, for the informers were rewarded by part of the property of their victims.  Till the end of the century these informers were the curse of Rome.   During this reign of terror Tiberius lingered on at Capreae.  Once he tried to return to Rome; but when his ship was ascending the Tiber, his feelings were too strong for him; he could not face his life of unpopularity there; he turned back once more to Capreae.  There, according to the Roman stories, he tried to overcome his misery by indulging in the most horrible vice and cruelty, but most of the stories, we may hope, are false.  Everyone longed for his death and the accession of his great nephew, young Caius, whom he had adopted as his successor.  It came at last (A.D. 37); but it was whispered at Rome that Caius, who at the suggestion of an officer smothered the old emperor with a pillow as he lay dying, hastened it.

            CALIGULA, A.D. 37-41-Caius, or Caligula, as he is generally called by historians, young, handsome and popular, gave promise of an excellent reign.  He put down the informers for a time, and did many other just and wise things.  But his high position overthrew his reason too.  He had a severe illness, which threatened his life, and recovered from it a madman.  He now revealed in the wildest extravagance and cruelty, putting to death his best friends; and it was even worse than the days of Tiberius.  In A.D. 40, after crushing a rebellion on the Rhine, he prepared to invade Britain, which had never been molested since Julius Caesar’s landing, 100 years before.  He reviewed his army on the coast of Gaul; all was ready for the embarkation, when suddenly the emperor ordered the soldiers to pick up the shells on the beach.  He then returned to Rome, sending the shells to the Senate as the spoils of the ocean.  His mad freaks were wilder than ever; once he declared that he would have his horse elected consul; he nearly drove the Jews to rebellion by ordering his statue to be set up in the Temple.  At last his conduct became unbearable; two tribunes of the praetorians, in revenge for a stupid insult, got together a number of soldiers and murdered him (A.D. 41).

            Claudius, A.D. 41-54-In the imperial palace, after the murder, all was terror ad confusion, when some praetorians, roaming about, suddenly came upon the emperor’s uncle Claudius, hidden behind a curtain, trembling with fear.  Claudius, though he had some literary talent, had al