The Second Punic War 2

It was afterward not doubted but that Rome might have seen its last day and that Hannibal, within five days, might have feasted in the Capitol.

Continuing Rome Versus Carthage,
our selection from Florus. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Rome Versus Carthage.

Time: 264-149 BC
Place: Western Mediterranean

It was afterward not doubted but that Rome might have seen its last day and that Hannibal, within five days, might have feasted in the Capitol, if — as they say that Adherbal, the Carthaginian, the son of Bomilcar, observed — “he had known as well how to use his victory as how to gain it.” But at that crisis, as is generally said, either the fate of the city that was to be empress of the world or his own want of judgment and the influence of deities unfavorable to Carthage, carried him in a different direction. When he might have taken advantage of his victory, he chose rather to seek enjoyment from it, and, leaving Rome, to march into Campania and to Tarentum, where both he and his army soon lost their vigor, so that it was justly remarked that “Capua proved a Cannae to Hannibal”; since the sunshine of Campania and the warm springs of Baiae subdued — who could have believed it? — him who had been unconquered by the Alps and unshaken in the field. In the mean time the Romans began to recover and to rise, as it were, from the dead. They had no arms but they took them down from the temples; men were wanting but slaves were freed to take the oath of service; the treasury was exhausted but the senate willingly offered their wealth for the public service, leaving themselves no gold but what was contained in their children’s bullae * and in their own belts and rings. The knights followed their example and the common people that of the knights; so that when the wealth of private persons was brought to the public treasury — in the consulship of Laevinus and Marcellus — the registers scarcely sufficed to contain the account of it or the hands of the clerks to record it.

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

But how can I sufficiently praise the wisdom of the centuries in the choice of magistrates, when the younger sought advice from the elder as to what consuls should be created? They saw that against an enemy so often victorious and so full of subtlety, it was necessary to contend, not only with courage but with his own wiles. The first hope of the empire now recovering, and, if I may use the expression, coming to life again, was Fabius, who found a new mode of conquering Hannibal, which was, not to fight. Hence he received that new name, so salutary to the commonwealth, of Cunctator or Delayer. Hence too it happened that he was called by the people the shield of the empire. Through the whole of Samnium and through the Falerian and Gauran forests, he so harassed Hannibal that he who could not be reduced by valor was weakened by delay. The Romans then ventured, under the command of Claudius Marcellus, to engage him; they came to close quarters with him, drove him out of his dear Campania and forced him to raise the siege of Nola. They ventured likewise, under the leadership of Sempronius Gracchus, to pursue him through Lucania and to press hard upon his rear as he retired; though they then fought him (sad dishonor!) with a body of slaves, for to this extremity had so many disasters reduced them but they were rewarded with liberty and from slaves they made them Romans.

O amazing confidence in the midst of so much adversity! O extraordinary courage and spirit of the Roman people in such oppressive and distressing circumstances! At a time when they were uncertain of preserving their own Italy, they yet ventured to look to other countries; and when the enemy were at their throat, flying through Campania and Apulia and making an Africa in the middle of Italy, they at the same time both withstood that enemy and dispersed their arms over the earth into Sicily, Sardinia and Spain.

Sicily was assigned to Marcellus and did not long resist his efforts; for the whole island was conquered in the conquest of one city. Syracuse, its great and, till that period, unconquered capital, though defended by the genius of Archimedes, was at last obliged to yield. Its triple wall and three citadels, its marble harbor and the celebrated fountain of Arethusa, were no defense to it, except so far as to procure consideration for its beauty when it was conquered.

Sardinia Gracchus reduced; the savageness of the inhabitants and the vastness of its Mad Mountains — for so they are called — availed it nothing. Great severity was exercised upon its cities and upon Caralis, the city of its cities, that a nation, obstinate and regardless of death, might at least be humbled by concern for the soil of its country.

Into Spain were sent the two Scipios, Cnaeus and Publius, who wrested almost the whole of it from the Carthaginians; but, being surprised by the artifices of Punic subtlety, they again lost it, even after they had slaughtered the enemy’s forces in great battles. The wiles of the Carthaginians cut off one of them by the sword as he was pitching his camp and the other by surrounding him with lighted fagots after he had made his escape into a tower.

Continued.

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