The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

the Aediles in the Capitol was preserved a commercial

treaty between Carthage and Rome, inscribed on tables of brass in old

Latin; in the time of Polybius it could scarcely be understood, for it had

been drawn up twenty eight years before Xerxes invaded Greece. When

Pyrrhus invaded Italy the Carthaginians had taken the Roman side, for the

Greeks were their hereditary enemies. There were Carthaginian shops in

the streets of Rome, a city in beauty and splendour far inferior to

Carthage, which as called the metropolis of the Western world. The

Romans were a people of warriors and small farmers, quaint in their

habits and simple in their tastes. Some Carthaginian ambassadors were

much amused at the odd fashion of their banquets, where the guests sang

old ballads in turn while the piper played, and they discovered that there

was only one service of plate in Rome, and that each senator borrowed it

when he gave a dinner. Yet there were already signs that Rome was

inhabited by a giant race. The vast aqueducts had been constructed; the

tunnel-like sewers had been hollowed out; the streets were paved with

smooth and massive slabs. There were many temples and statues to be

seen; each temple was the monument of a great victory; each statue was

the memorial of a hero who had died for Rome.

 

The Carthaginian army was composed entirely of mercenary troops.

Africa, Spain and Gaul were their recruiting grounds, an inexhaustible

treasury of warriors as long as the money lasted which they received as

pay. The Berbers were a splendid Cossack cavalry; they rode without

saddle or bridle, a weapon in each hand; on foot they were merely a horde

or savages with elephant-hide shields, long spears, and bear-skins floating

from their shoulders. The troops of Spain were the best infantry that the

Carthaginians possessed; they wore a white uniform with purple facings;

they fought with pointed swords. The Gauls were brave troops but were

badly armed; they were naked to the waist; their cutlasses were made of

soft iron and had to be straightened after every blow. The Balearic

Islands supplied a regiment of slingers whose balls of hardened clay

whizzed through the air like bullets, broke armour, and shot men dead.

We read much of the Sacred Legion in the Sicilian wars. It was

composed of young nobles, who wore dazzling white shields and

breastplates which were works of art; who even in the camp never drank

except from goblets of silver and of gold. But this corps had apparently

become extinct, and the Carthaginians only officered their troops, who

they looked upon as ammunition, and to whom their orders were

delivered through interpreters. The various regiments of the Carthaginian

army had therefore nothing in common with one another or with those by

whom they were led. They rushed to battle in confusion, “with sounds,

discordant as their various tribes,” and with no higher feeling than the

hope of plunder or the excitement which the act of fighting arouses in the

brave soldier.

 

In Rome the army was the nation: no citizen could take office unless he

had served in ten campaigns. All spoke the same language, all were

inspired by the same ambition. The officers were often small farmers like

the men, but this civil equality produced no ill effects; the discipline was

most severe. It was a maxim that the soldier should fear his officer more

than he feared his foe. The drill was unremitting; when they were in

winter quarters they erected sheds in which the soldiers fenced with

swords cased in leather with buttons at the point and hurled javelins, also

buttoned, at one another. These foils were double the weight of the

weapons that were actually used. When the day’s march was over they

took pick-axe and spade, and built their camp like a town with a twelve-foot stockade around it, and a ditch twelve feet deep and twelve feet

broad. When the red mantle was hung before the general’s tent each

soldier said to himself, “Perhaps to-day I may win the golden crown.”

Laughing and jesting they rubbed their limbs with oil, and took out of

their cases the bright helmets and the polished shields which they used

only on the battle-day. As they stood ready to advance upon the foe the

general would address them in a vigorous speech; he would tell them that

the greatest honour which could befall a Roman was to die for his country

on the field, and that glorious was the sorrow, enviable the woe of the

matron who gave a husband or a son to Rome. Then the trumpets pealed,

and the soldiers charged, first firing a volley of javelins and then coming

to close quarters with the solid steel. The chief fault of the Roman

military system at that time was in the arrangement of the chief

command. There were two commanders-in-chief, possessing equal

powers, and it sometimes happened that they were both present on the

same spot, that they commanded on alternate days, and that their tactics

differed. They were appointed only for the year, and when the term drew

near its end a consul would often fight a battle at a disadvantage, or

negotiate a premature peace, that he might prevent his successor from

reaping the fruits of his twelve month’s toil. The Carthaginian generals

had thereby an advantage, but they also were liable to be recalled when

too successful by the jealous and distrustful government at home.

 

The wealth of Carthage was much greater than that of Rome, but her

method of making war was more costly, and a great deal of money was

stolen and wasted by the men in power. In Carthage the highest offices

of state were openly bought from a greedy and dangerous populace, just

as in Pompey’s time tables were set out in the streets of Rome at which

candidates for office paid the people for their votes. But at this time

bribery was a capital offence at Rome. It was a happy period in Roman

history, the interlude between two aristocracies. There had been a time

when a system of hereditary castes prevailed; when the plebeians were

excluded from all share in the public lands and the higher offices of state;

when they were often chained in the dungeons of the nobles, and marked

with scars upon their backs: when Romans drew swords on Romans and

the tents of the people whitened the Sacred Hill. But the Licinian Laws

were carried; the orders were reconciled; plebeian consuls were elected;

and two centuries of prosperity, harmony, and victory prepared Rome for

the prodigious contest in which she was now engaged.

 

To her subject people Carthage acted as a tyrant. She had even deprived

the old Phoenician cities of their liberty of trade. She would not allow

them to build walls for fear they should rebel, loaded them with heavy

burdens grievous to be borne, treated the colonial provinces as conquered

lands, and sent decayed nobles as governors to wring out of the people all

they could. If the enemies of Carthage invaded Africa they would meet

with no resistance except from Carthage herself, and they would be

joined by thousands of Berbers who longed to be revenged on their

oppressors. But if the enemies of Rome invaded Italy they would find

everywhere walled cities ready to defend their liberties and having

liberties to defend. No tribute was taken by Rome from her allies except

that of military service, which service was rewarded with a share of the

harvest that the war brought in.

 

The Carthaginians were at a greater distance from the seat of war than the

Romans, who had only to sail across a narrow strait. However, this was

counterbalanced by the superiority of the Punic fleet. At that time the

Carthaginians were completely masters of the sea; they boasted that no

man could wash his hands in the salt water without their permission. The

Romans had not a single decked vessel, and in order to transport their

troops across the straits they were obliged to borrow triremes from the

Italian-Greeks. But their marvellous resolution and the absolute

necessities of the case overmastered their deficiencies and their singular

dislike of the sea. The wreck of a Carthaginian man-of-war served them

as a model; they ranged benches along the beach and drilled sailors who

had just come from the plough’s tail to the service of the oar. The vessels

were rudely built and the men clumsy at their work, and when the hostile

fleets first met the Carthaginians burst into loud guffaws. Without taking

order of battle they flew down upon the Romans, the admiral leading the

van in a seven-decker that had belonged to Pyrrhus. On they went, each

ship in a bed of creamy foam, flags flying, trumpets blowing, and the

negroes singing and clanking their chains as they laboured at the oar. But

presently they perceived some odd-looking machines on the forecastles of

the Roman ships; they had never seen such things before, and this made

them hesitate a little. But when they saw in what a lubberly fashion the

ships were worked their confidence returned; they dashed in among the

Roman vessels, which they tried to rip up with their aquiline prows. As

soon as they came to close quarters the machines fell down upon them

with a crash, tore open their decks, and grappled them tightly in their iron

jaws, forming at the same time a gangway over which the Roman soldiers

poured. The sea fight was made a land fight, and only a few ships with

beaks all bent and broken succeeded in making their escape. They

entered the harbour of Carthage with their bows covered with skins, the

signal of defeat.

 

However, by means of skilful manoeuvring the invention of Duilius was

made of no avail, and the Carthaginians for many years remained the

masters of the sea. Twice the Roman fleet was entirely destroyed, and

their treasury was now exhausted. But he undaunted people fitted out a

fleet by private subscription, and so rapidly was this done that the trees,

as Florus said, were transformed into ships. Two hundred five-deckers

were ready before the enemy knew that they had begun to build, and so

the Carthaginian fleet was one day surprised by the Romans in no

fighting condition, for the vessels were laden to the gunwales with corn,

and only sailors were on board; the whole fleet was taken or sunk, and the

war was at an end. Yet when all was added up it was found that the

Romans had lost two hundred vessels more than the Carthaginians. But

Rome, even without large ships, could always reinforce Sicily, while the

Carthaginians, without a full fleet, were completely cut off from the seat

of war, and they were unable to rebuild in the manner of the Romans.

 

The war in Sicily had been a drawn game. Hamilcar Barca, although

unconquered, received orders to negotiate for peace. The Romans

demanded a large indemnity to pay for the expenses of the war, and took

the Sicilian settlements which Carthage had held for four hundred years.

 

Peace was made, and the mercenary troops were sent back to Carthage.

Their pay was in arrear, and there was no money left. Matters were so

badly managed that the soldiers were allowed to retain their arms. They

burst into mutiny, ravaged the country, and besieged the capital. The

veterans of Hamilcar could only be conquered by Hamilcar himself. He

saved Carthage, but the struggle was severe. Venerable senators, ladies

of gentle birth, innocent children, had fallen into the hands of the brutal

mutineers, and had been crucified, torn to pieces, tortured to death in a

hundred ways. During those awful orgies of Spendius and Matho the

Roman war had almost been forgotten; the disasters over which men had

mourned became by comparison happiness