CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.

WAR WITH THE MACEDONIANS. PROCLAMATION OF THE FREEDOM OF
GREECE BY FLAMINIUS. WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS. DEATH OF HANNIBAL,
AND OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS.

ar being still the theme of our history, we are obliged to ask the reader to accompany us into the field, though we are aware that battles, and their deadly details, cannot inspire a very lively interest.

Philip of Macedonia had become jealous of the power of Rome, which had now got a footing in the boot of Italy; and, as Greece lay nearly under the heel, it was natural that the Grecians should prepare to resist being trampled on. Philip, therefore, concluded a treaty with Hannibal, and sent ambassadors with the document; but, instead of delivering it into the hands for which it was designed, they themselves fell into the hands of the Romans.

Rome at once despatched to Illyricum a fleet of 50 sail, when Philip, observing that the vessels were being wafted over by a favourable breeze, saw there was something in the wind, and resolved—whatever the blow—to be prepared for it. This was the commencement of the Macedonian War, which became extremely unpopular with the Romans; for the people at large regarded it as a bitter cup, though the nobles desired it for the sake of the "bubble reputation" that the few might find in it. In vain did the tribes protest against the proposed war, declaring they were no enemies to Philip, for the Senate insisted he was an enemy of theirs, and that it was accordingly their duty to fight with him.

The campaign was opened by P. Sulpicius Galba, who crossed the Adriatic, but did little, and was succeeded by Villius Tappulus, who did nothing. Fortune had hitherto observed a sort of stiffness towards both sides, leaning neither to the right nor to the left, when she suddenly took a turn under the consulship of T. Quinctius Flaminius. This individual was, comparatively, young in years, but superlatively old in cunning; and he possessed in an eminent degree the low arts of deceit which are usually held to constitute the high art of statesmanship. He could electrotype falsehood with the external appearance of truth, and he had no lack of that lacquer which brazens out a fraud with the brass of impudence. Everything in the shape of rust had been rubbed off his manners, which had become smooth in the extreme, and had acquired that high state of polish which is frequently associated with a very slippery character. He slid, as it were, into the confidence of all, with the easy lubricity of the serpent, and with not a little of its wiliness. His smile won, or rather lost, those whom he wished to deceive, and he tried its fascination with such effect on some of the Greek chiefs, that they permitted him to enter Thebes, and either did not see what he had in his eye, or were induced to wink at it. He pretended that he wished to parley with the authorities; but, when the citizens were waiting to see what would take place, they found the place itself quietly taken by Flaminius.

Thessaly now became the scene of war, and the Romans met the Greeks near a line of small hills, called, from their shape, the Dogs' Heads, or Cynocephalæ. Here both parties fought with a dogged obstinacy, which was quite in character with the place, until the Greek phalanx, or Macedonian heavies, gave way before the Roman legions. The principle of the phalanx was to pack the soldiers so closely together that their shields touched, and their spears being upwards of twenty feet long, the arms of the rear ranks leaned on the shoulders of those in advance, so that they went forth arm in arm, as it were, to meet the enemy. The Romans, on the contrary, preserved a sort of open order, in which there was room for the exercise of their limbs; while the Greeks, if they were able to raise their arms at all, were very likely to lift them against each other. If the Romans were in need of assistance, there was space left in their ranks for reinforcements to come up. But, amidst the density of a Greek phalanx, nothing could make its way except a panic, which will always find room to run through an entire army. Though presenting, by these means, a formidable front, their line was no sooner broken than they offered a most unprotected rear to an active foe, and the Greek files on the occasion in question bore marks of a special endorsement at the hands of the Romans. Having been packed as closely as cards, 8000 Macedonians fell upon the field, or rather upon one another, and Philip fled to Tempe, as if he was desirous to hide his face in its well-known vale after his discomfiture. Here he negotiated an arrangement, which may be termed the peace of the valley, though it was a kind of peace with which he could scarcely be contented, for it stipulated that he should give up all his ships except five; but he was, nevertheless, permitted to retain 500 men of war in the shape of that number of heavy-armed soldiers.

Flaminus restoring liberty to Greece at the Isthmian Games. Flaminus restoring liberty to Greece at the Isthmian Games.

He was also to pay 1000 talents, which would have taken every talent he possessed, and put him to his wit's end at once, if he had not been allowed ten years, within which to find the money. He was furthermore compelled to send his son Demetrius to Rome for his education—a stipulation, of which the object is not particularly clear, unless it was thought that while the offspring was being schooled, a lesson was also being given to the father. Flaminius, laying aside the character of the warrior, proceeded to Greece as a tourist; and, though in private life he was as gentle as a lamb, he was everywhere received as a lion. Having visited the Isthmian games, he interrupted the herald who was about to open the proceedings with the usual proclamation, and putting into the hands of the officer a scroll, desired him to "read it out" before proceeding with the programme. The document was an announcement of the freedom of the Greek cities over which Macedonia had domineered; and the people, finding that Flaminius had made them free, resolved on making him welcome. Frantic with joy, they nearly deafened him with cheers, and almost buried him in flowers; nor could he keep at bay those who pressed forward to crown him with laurel. So dense was the throng, that he must have felt a smothered satisfaction, if he felt any at all; and even if he could have found words to return thanks, he could find no breath to give them utterance.

In order that the Greeks might be shown the use of their new freedom, Flaminius remained behind, to give an illustration of the method of taking a liberty. Calling to his aid ten commissioners from Rome, he proceeded to apportion the free cities of Greece in the manner most agreeable to his own views; for it is a peculiarity of all freedom imported from abroad, that it must be a freedom in conformity with the taste of the importers, and not of those for whose use the article is required. It thus frequently happens that what is recommended as a luxury from abroad proves far from palatable to a people not accustomed to the new commodity; and, though efforts may be made to force it down their throats, at the point of the sword, the morsel is not easy of digestion, and is only revolting to those whom it may have been intended to satisfy.

After completing the independence of Greece, by forcing republics on some of its cities, taking possession of some others, and establishing internal discord in nearly all, Flaminius returned to Rome in the year of the City 559, and enjoyed the honours of a triumph.

As no one is at times louder in his denunciations of dishonesty than the practised rogue, so the Romans, who were for enslaving and plundering all the world, found it convenient, occasionally, to protest against the rapacity of such as were rivals in the game of conquest. Philip had already been dealt with on the principle that it is impossible for two of a trade to agree; and a quarrel was now picked with Antiochus, who was doing a somewhat extensive business as a wholesale appropriator of what did not rightly belong to him. Flaminius, therefore, while declaring, after his own fashion, the independence of Greece, stipulated that freedom should be restored by Antiochus to all the Greek cities in Asia,—an arrangement that would have left the cities at liberty to be made free with by Rome in her usual manner. Antiochus justified his own wrong by denying the right of any one else to interfere, and continued appropriating to himself other places to which he had no legal or equitable title. He seized on the Thracian Chersonesus, on the ground that one of his ancestors had seized it once before,—a principle about as just as if the grandson of a thief, who had been transported for stealing a watch, should, on the strength of his ancestral crime, rob the owner anew of the same property.

Finding Lysimachia deserted, he took it as his own desert; when the Romans, growing jealous of his success in the predatory line, declared that they should regard, as a direct opposition to Rome, any further acts of plunder.

While matters were in this state, Hannibal was living in scarcely any state at all, as an ordinary member of the Carthaginian Senate. He had taken the opposition side of the house; and though he was a proposer of many useful reforms, he was frequently coughed down, and in a minority always. Finding little sympathy amongst his own countrymen, who were all for peace and quietness, he entered into a negotiation with Antiochus, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they could arrange to create a joint disturbance, and thus weaken the Roman power. Treachery was, however, going on in all directions; for, while Hannibal was plotting with Antiochus against Rome, some of the Carthaginians were plotting with Rome against Hannibal; and a further breach of trust in some other quarter made him acquainted with his danger. He accordingly resolved to escape; and having a small tower—or marine residence—on the coast, he sent orders that a ship should be ready to sail, and a berth secured for him. He walked about the streets of Carthage all day, as if nothing had happened, and nothing was likely to occur; for the Roman ambassadors were continually dogging his footsteps; and he led them about so perseveringly all day, that when the evening arrived they had scarcely a leg to stand upon. Hannibal had, however, ordered his horse, which flew with him across the country to the spot where the ship was in waiting; and, after a difficult passage, by land as well as by sea, he arrived at the Court of Antiochus.

True to his infantine oath, Hannibal did his utmost to excite hostility against the Romans; and asked Antiochus to lend him a trifle, in the shape of 10,000 men, as if they were so many counters, that the game of war required. Antiochus, however, like a boy jealous of his toys, refused to hand over the 10,000 men, whose lives might be required as playthings for himself; and he was not long in making use of them.

Hannibal leads the Ambassadors rather a fatiguing Walk round Carthage. Hannibal leads the Ambassadors rather a fatiguing Walk round Carthage.

The Greeks, being unable to appreciate the sort of independence they had received at the hands of Rome, sent an invitation to Antiochus; for it is the characteristic of slavery, as a moral disease, to seek relief from the existing cause of oppression by the introduction of some more violent form of the same malady.[55]

As the interference of strangers will usually lead to family quarrels, so the effect of foreign influence on Greece was to keep the people continually involved in disputes with each other. Part of the population would have welcomed Antiochus warmly, while others received him coldly; and the king, who had penetrated into Thessaly, had sufficient penetration to see that he had better go a considerable part of the way back again.

By way of narrowing the ground of dispute, he took his position in the Pass of Thermopylæ, and had, for some time, maintained an advantage over the Romans, when M. Porcius Cato, ascending the heights, ran round to the rear, and, by a decisive blow on the enemy's back, changed the whole face of the engagement. Antiochus fled in dismay, and never stopped to look behind him, until he reached Asia Minor, when he sat down, and took a gloomy retrospect of all that had happened. While he met with reverses on land, he heard of the reverse, or rather the same thing, that had happened to his fleet at sea; and he fairly gave up, not only his cause, but the Chersonesus, Lysimachia, Sestos, and Abydos, with all their contents and non-contents; the latter of which included the inhabitants.

Antiochus, though subdued in spirit, was not quite beaten in form; and a large army was sent to Asia, under the command of the two consuls, L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Lælius. L. C. Scipio, though without any acknowledged merit of his own, had the good fortune to be the brother of the celebrated Scipio Africanus, who got him the place; but it is manifest that such an illegitimate step to an appointment will often end in a grievous disappointment of one kind or another. To provide against the ill consequences of this flagrant job, the celebrated Scipio went out in the capacity of legate, to counteract the consequences of his brother's general incapacity in the capacity of general. The Romans had 20,000 men, who, having arrived in Asia, met 70,000 soldiers of Antiochus, at Magnesia, where the latter received a dose from which they never recovered. Peace was granted to them on very humiliating terms; but, however bitter the cup prescribed for Antiochus, so disagreeable was the recollection of Magnesia, that he was obliged to swallow almost anything that came after it.

Rome continued her system of giving independence to various places and people, many of whom seemed so little to appreciate the proffered boon, that in some cases money was tendered and accepted as the price of exemption from the proposed advantages. The Cappadocians were so alarmed at the prospect of their new freedom, that, being still free to confess their dislike to it, they sent 200 talents to the Romans, who, no doubt, mentally impressed with the proverbial baseness of the "slave who pays," quietly pocketed the money.

While the principles of independence were being promulgated in the East, the Romans were also employed in carrying their notions of emancipation into the North, where several tribes were cut to pieces, in order that they might feel the interest which Rome condescended to take in them. In some places the old inhabitants were rooted up like old trees, while the younger branches were transplanted to other soils; and a large quantity of Ligurian offshoots were carried off from their parent stems to fill some vacant ground at Samnium. Many places were thoroughly destroyed; and among others, Cremona was so unmercifully played upon, that it was utterly broken up, and the lamentations of its inhabitants were regarded no more than the moanings of a set of old fiddle-strings.

Not satisfied with being the masters of Italy and the tyrants of Greece, the Romans aimed at establishing their dominion in Spain, which was partly achieved by the treachery of some of the inhabitants, and the cowardice of others. Some of its most powerful men entered into an alliance with Rome, and were treated as insurgents or rebels, when they dared to revolt against the foreign authority that had either cowed or corrupted them.

The subjugation of Spain was mainly effected by M. Porcius Cato, who took a rather remarkable way of reducing the country to submission; for he induced several places to commit a sort of moral suicide; and after condemning them in his own mind, he arranged that they should become, as it were, their own executioners. He sent circulars to a large number of fortified towns in Spain, with instructions that the communications were not to be looked into before a certain day; and the inhabitants of every town experienced the agony of suspense, in the fear that their doom was sealed in a letter they were not allowed to open. At length, when the day arrived for penetrating the envelope in which the mystery was enclosed, every circular was found to contain a command that the walls of the town to which it was addressed should be razed to the ground, or, in case of disobedience, that the heaviest punishment should light on its inhabitants. The authorities not being able to communicate with each other, fancied their own town the only one that was doomed, and proceeded to pull the place about their own ears, until it was reduced to a heap of dry rubbish.

When the mischief was done, it was too late to discover that it need not have been done at all; and though unity is in ordinary cases strength, the unity with which the Spaniards had acted in demolishing their own towns, had reduced them to a condition of utter feebleness.

For some time they lived in peace, though their homes were knocked to pieces; but a war broke out again, in the year of the City 572 (B.C. 181). The Spaniards, however, were not thoroughly reduced until four years after, though they were being continually killed, beaten, cut to pieces, and otherwise dealt with, in a manner from which their reduction would seem to flow as a natural consequence. It was Tib. Sempronius Gracchus—the father of the two great Gracchi, of whom we shall have something to say hereafter—that concluded peace with several of the Spanish tribes, who were brought down so low, that their being otherwise than peaceable was almost impossible.

The Romans continued to intrude themselves and their system on different parts of Europe, and planted a colony at Aquileia, in Istria, which caused the Istrians to try and put a full stop to the disposition which Rome had shown to colon-ise. A war ensued, which resulted in the loss of three towns and one king, when the Istrians came to the conclusion that they had had enough of it, and immediately submitted to the Roman authority.

Hannibal requesting the Cretan Priests to become his Bankers. Hannibal requesting the Cretan Priests to become his Bankers.

Having, for a time, lost sight of the illustrious Hannibal, we begin to look about for him once more, and find him living in a Court, kept by one Prusias, the greedy and needy king of Bithynia. After the treaty made by Antiochus and the Romans, Hannibal had fled to Crete, where he could not long remain; and, though history is silent as to the cause, we may conjecture something from the fact, that he effected a clandestine removal of all his wealth, though he pretended to leave behind him a vast amount of treasure. Tradition states that, having procured a number of earthen jars, he filled them with lead, and, strewing a little gold, or loose silver, over the top, he carried them to the temple of Diana, and requested the Cretan priests to become his bankers, for the purpose of his entrusting to them this valuable deposit. The priests assured him, with many protestations, that he would find it all right on his return; and Hannibal, having previously packed all his real gold into the hollow insides of some statues of brass, which he pretended to carry with him, in his character of an admirer of the arts, got clear off with all his money.

He continued to travel from place to place, and had spent the contents of nearly all his statues, except a small one, so that his means had literally come down to the lowest figure. In this dilemma he found himself at Bithynia, where Prusias gave him house-room for a short time; taking advantage of the visit, to render his guest useful in a war that was being carried on against Eumenes, king of Pergamus. Hannibal, however, could not persuade the parsimonious Prusias to go to the expense of conducting hostilities in an effective style; and, indeed, there being no money to carry on the war, it was impossible to do so with credit; for nobody would make any advance on the security of a bad sovereign. The Romans regarding Hannibal as a dangerous agitator, which he had indeed proved himself to be, required that he should be given up; but Prusias, declining to be at the expense of carriage, intimated that whoever wanted Hannibal had better come for him. The Carthaginian general, foreseeing his fate, endeavoured to make his escape by one of seven secret passages leading from his house; but his enemies had found them out, and were therefore certain of finding him at home; for they had taken care to bar his egress.

Hannibal makes the usual neat and appropriate Speech previous to killing himself. Hannibal makes the usual neat and appropriate Speech previous to killing himself.

Though possessing all the courage of a soldier, he was miserably destitute of a superior kind of fortitude, and he always carried a bottle of poison about with him. Finding escape impossible, he drew the fatal phial from his pocket, and, as he shook it up, he indulged in one of those speeches which are usually attributed by classical historians to men on the point of suicide. "I will," he said—or is said to have said, for nobody could have heard him, as he was quite alone, and nobody could have been listening, or the bottle would have been snatched out of his hand; "I will deliver the Romans from the dread which has so long tormented them, since they think it too long to wait for the decease of a worn-out old man." Here he may be supposed to have paused; and, after giving the bottle another final shake, to have continued as follows: "Flaminius's victory over a foe, unarmed and betrayed, will not redound much to his honour;" and, with a mental once, twice, thrice, and away, the wretched Hannibal may be imagined to have raised the nauseous draught to his lips, and to have tossed it off with desperate energy.

Hannibal had certainly, in his lifetime, shown proofs of greatness, though, in the manner of his death, he gave evidence of lamentable littleness. On the admirable principle of "look to the end," we are unable to agree with those classical enthusiasts who regard Hannibal as one of the most illustrious of mankind, because he was more daring and more skilful in the art of exterminating his fellow-creatures than many of his competitors. His personal ambition brought misery on his own, as well as other countries, and his obstinate hatred to Rome was not justified by his juvenile oath, for the taking of which he deserved rather the birch than the laurel. The first public act of his life was to swear when he was too young to have known what he was about, and the last act was to poison himself at the age of sixty-two, when he was quite old enough to have known better. He made a bad beginning, but a worse ending, and he proved that, though aspiring to rule over others, he was unable to command himself, and was in nearly every respect a melancholy specimen of ill-regulated humanity.

Within about a year of Hannibal's death, Scipio Africanus also died in exile. This great man, as it has been customary to call him, because he was a large destroyer of the human race, was taken up before the Senate on a charge of embezzlement. The case happened to be appointed for hearing on the anniversary of some battle he had won, when he declared the day was ill-suited for litigation, and the people, who are always ready for an excuse for a holiday, immediately agreed with him. His brother Lucius was involved in the same accusation, which he met by producing his accounts; but, the popular idol seizing the books, declared it was shabby for a nation to be too particular with those who had served it so well, and tore up the whole of the financial statement. Lucius Scipio remained in Rome; but Africanus ran away to a villa in Campania, leaving his brother to undergo the confiscation of the whole of his property. The innocence of Lucius was subsequently established, and, though no "money returned," is generally the motto of the law, he succeeded in getting back a part of what he had been unjustly deprived of. He, however, having lived without his income, had no sooner got the means restored to him of living within it, than he died, with the melancholy satisfaction of having had justice done when it was too late to be of the smallest earthly use to him.

The merits and demerits of Scipio Africanus have been differently estimated by different authorities; and though it is charitable to give to any man the benefit of a doubt, no one would be thankful for the admission that his was a doubtful character. Scipio Africanus was a great patron of letters; but he seems to have been a despiser of figures, if the story relating to his contempt for the accuracy of his accounts is to be relied upon. Cicero has spoken eloquently of the simple habits of Scipio Africanus, in his marine retirement, throwing stones into the sea, and skimming with them the surface of the water; but this innocent pastime does not relieve him from the accusation of making "ducks and drakes" of the public money, which was the charge that Cato had endeavoured to bring home to him.

He is said to have been generous to his relatives; but to help them, after freely helping himself, may have been nothing more than nepotism, under the disguise of a domestic virtue. It is stated that he showed his disregard for wealth by relinquishing to his brother his own share of his patrimony; but there is little merit in his having despised the comparatively mean contents of his family purse, if he was unscrupulous during the time that he had the public pocket to dip into.

FOOTNOTE:

[55] This is, in fact, the homœopathic principle applied to politics; the counteracting of like by like, similia similibus.