ITALY AND ITS EARLY INHABITANTS

Divisions of Italy.--The peninsula of Italy, like that of Greece, may be divided into three parts,--Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. The first comprises the great basin of the Po, lying between the Alps and the Apennines. In ancient times this part of Italy included three districts,--Liguria, Gallia Cisalpina, which means " Gaul on this [the Italian] side of the Alps," and Venetia.

The countries of Central Italy were Etruria, Latium, and Campania, facing the Western or Tuscan Sea; Umbria and Picenum, looking out over the Eastern or Adriatic Sea; and Samnium and the country of the Sabines, occupying the rough mountain districts of the Apennines.

Southern Italy comprised the ancient districts of Apulia, Lucania, Calabria, and Bruttium. Calabria formed the " heel,"[During the Middle Ages this name was transferred to the toe of the peninsula, and this forms the Calabria of to-day] and Bruttium the " toe," of the boot-like peninsula. The coast region of Southern Italy, as we have already learned, was called Magna Græcia, or " Great Greece," on account of the number and importance of the Greek cities that during the period of Hellenic supremacy were established on these shores.

The large island of Sicily, lying just off the mainland on the south, may be regarded simply as a detached fragment of Italy, so intimately has its history been connected with that of the peninsula.

Mountains, Rivers, and Harbors.--Italy, like the other two peninsulas of Southern Europe, Greece and Spain, has a high mountain barrier, the Alps, along its northern frontier. Corresponding to the Pindus range in Greece, the Apennines run as a great central ridge through the peninsula. Eastward of the ancient Latium they spread out into broad uplands, which in early times nourished a race of hardy mountaineers, who incessantly harried the territories of the more civilized lowlanders of Latium and Campania. Thus the physical conformation of this part of the peninsula shaped large sections of Roman history, just as in the case of Scotland the physical contrast between the north and the south was reflected for centuries in the antagonisms of highlanders and lowlanders.

Italy has only one really great river, the Po, which drains the large northern plain, already mentioned, lying between the Alps and the Apennines. The streams running down the eastern slope of the Apennines are short and of little volume. Among them the Aufidus, the Metaurus, and the Rubicon are connected with great matters of history. Among the rivers draining the western slopes of the Apennines, the one possessing the greatest historic interest is the Tiber, on the banks of which Rome arose.

The finest Italian harbors, of which that of Naples is the most celebrated, are on the western coast. The eastern coast has few good havens. Italy thus faces the west. What makes it important for us to notice this circumstance is the fact that Greece faces the east, and that thus these two peninsulas, as the historian Mommsen expresses it, turn their backs to each other. This brought it about that Rome and the cities of Greece had almost no dealings with one another for many centuries.

Early Inhabitants of Italy.--There were in early times three chief races in Italy,--the Italians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks. The Italians, a branch of the Aryan family, embraced many tribes (Latins, Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, etc.), that occupied nearly all Central, and a considerable part of Southern, Italy. Their life was for the most part that of shepherds and farmers

The Etruscans, a wealthy, cultured, and seafaring people of uncertain race and origin, dwelt in Etruria, now called Tuscany after them. [In early times they had settlements in Northern Italy and in Campania.] Before the rise of the Roman people they were the leading race in the peninsula. Certain elements in their culture - lead us to believe that they had learned much from the cities of Magna Graecia. The Etruscans in their turn became the teachers of the early Romans and imparted to them at least some minor elements of civilizations including hints in the art of building and various religious ideas and rites.

With the Greek cities in Southern Italy and in Sicily we have already formed an acquaintance. Through the medium of these cultured communities the Romans were taught the use of letters and given valuable suggestions in matters of law and constitutional government.

Some five hundred years B.C., the Gauls. a Celtic race. came over the Alps, and settling in Northern Italy, became formidable enemies of the infant republic of Rome.

The Latins.--Most important of all the Italian peoples were the Latins, who dwelt in Latium, between the Tiber and the Liris. These people, like all the Italians, were near kindred of the Greeks, and brought with them into Italy those customs, manners, beliefs, and institutions which seem to have been the early common possession of the various Aryan-speaking peoples. According to tradition there were in all Latium in prehistoric times thirty towns or petty city-states. These had formed an alliance among themselves known as the Latin League. At the dawn of history the leadership in this confederacy was held by Rome, which was situated on a cluster of low hills on the left bank of the Tiber, about fifteen miles from the sea. This little fortress town was intended doubtless as an outpost to protect the northern frontier of Latium against the Etruscans, the most powerful and aggressive neighbors of the Latin people.

Concerning the government and the religious and social arrangements of the Roman community, and concerning the fortunes of the city of Rome under its early kings, we shall give a brief account in the next chapter.

ROME AS A KINGDOM

SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT

The Roman Family; the Worship of Ancestors.--At the bottom of Roman society was the family. This was a very different group from that which among us bears the same name. The typical Roman family consisted of the father (paterfamilias) and mother, the sons together with their wives and sons, and the unmarried daughters. When a daughter married she became a member of the family to which her husband belonged.

The most important feature or element of this family group was the authority of the father. His power over each and all of its members was legally absolute. He could sell his wife or his son just as he could sell one of his slaves. He was the sole judge of the members of the family, and could put to death without appeal even a son grown to man's estate.

The father was the high priest of the family, for the family had a common worship. This was the cult of its dead ancestors (the Lares and Penates). The spirits of these were believed to linger near the old hearth. If provided with frequent offerings of meat and drink, they would, it was thought, watch over the living members of the family and aid and prosper them in their daily work and in all their undertakings. If they were neglected, however, these spirits became restless and suffered pain, and in their anger would bring trouble in some form upon their undutiful kinsmen.

It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of the family upon the history and destiny of Rome. It was the cradle of at least some of those splendid virtues of the early Romans that contributed so much to the strength and greatness of Rome, and that helped to give her the dominion of the world. It was in the atmosphere of the family that were nourished in the Roman youth the virtues of obedience and of deference to authority. When the youth became a citizen, obedience to magistrates and respect for law were with him an instinct and indeed almost a religion. And, on the other hand, the exercise of the parental authority in the family taught the Roman how to command as well as how to obey, --how to exercise authority with wisdom, moderation, and justice.

Dependents of the Family; Clients and Slaves.--Besides those members constituting the family proper there were attached to it usually a number of dependents. These were the clients and slaves. The client was a person standing to the head of the family, who was called his patron, in a relation which, in some respects, was like that of the medieval serf to his lord. The class of clients was probably made up of homeless refugees or strangers from other cities, or of freed slaves dwelling in their former master's house. They were free to engage in business at Rome and to accumulate property, though whatever they gathered was legally the property of the patron.

The slaves constituted merely a part of the family property. There were only a few slaves in the early Roman family, and these were held for service chiefly within the home and not in the fields. It was not until later times, when luxury crept into Rome, that the number of domestic slaves became excessively great.

The Clan, the Curia, the Tribe, and the City.--Above the family stood the clan, or gens. This was probably in the earliest times simply the expanded family, the members of which had outgrown the remembrance of their exact relationship. Yet they all believed themselves to have had a common ancestor and called themselves by his name, as, for instance, in the case of the Fabii, the Claudii, the Julii, and so on. The gens, like the family, had a common altar.

The next largest group or division of the community was the curia, which has been compared to the ward of the modern city. This was the most important political division of the people, as the family was the most important social group. It was so for the reason that levies for the army were made by curiae and that the voting in the primitive assembly of the people, as we shall explain presently, was done by these same bodies. There were thirty curiae in primitive Rome.

Above the curiae was the tribe, the largest subdivision of the community. In early Rome there were three tribes, each comprising ten curiae.

These several groups made up the community of early Rome. This city, like the cities of ancient Greece was a city-state,--that is, an independent sovereign body like a modern nation. As such it possessed a constitution and government, concerning which we will next give a short account.

The King and the Senate.--At the head of the early Roman state stood a king, the father of his people, holding essentially the same relation to them that the father of a family held to his household. He was at once ruler of the nation, commander of the army, and judge and high priest of his people. In theory his power was absolute. He was preceded by servants called lictors, each bearing a bundle of rods (the fasces) with an ax bound therein, the symbol of his power to punish by flogging and by putting to death.

Next to the king stood the Senate, a body composed of the " fathers," or heads of the ancient clans of the community. This was the king's advisory council.

The Popular Assembly.--The popular assembly (comitia curiata) comprised all the freemen of Rome. This was not properly a legislative body, but an assembly called together to hear announcements as to festivals, to ratify the nomination of a new king, to witness wills, and to authorize certain public acts.

The manner of taking a vote in this assembly should be noted, for the usage here was followed in all the later popular assemblies of the republican period. The voting was not by individuals but by curiae; that is, each curia had one vote, and the measure before the body was carried or lost according as a majority of the curiae voted for or against it.

It should be further noted that this assembly was not a representative body, like a modern legislature, but a primary assembly, that is, a meeting like a New England town meeting. All of the later assemblies at Rome were like this primitive assembly. The Romans never learned, or at least never employed, the principle of representation, without which device government by the people in the great states of the present day would be impossible. How important the bearing of this was upon the political fortunes of Rome we shall learn later.

The Patricians and the Rights of the Roman Citizen.--The heads of the ancient gentes at Rome, who constituted the Senate, were called patres, or " fathers," whence it probably came that all the members of these groups were called patricians. These patricians formed the hereditary nobility of the earlier Roman state. They alone possessed the full rights and privileges of citizenship.

And here we must acquaint ourselves with what the rights and privileges of Roman citizenship included. The rights of the Roman citizen were divided, first, into private rights and public rights.

The chief private rights were two, namely, the right of trade (jus commercii) and the right of marriage (jus connubii). The right of trade or commerce was the right to acquire, to hold, and to bequeath property (both personal and landed) according to the forms of the Roman law. This in the ancient city was an important right and privilege. [In some modern states aliens are not allowed to acquire landed property; in Roman terms there is withheld from them a part of the jus commercii.] The right of marriage was the " right of contracting a full and religious marriage." Such a marriage could take place in early Rome only between patricians.

The three chief public rights of the Roman citizen were the right of voting in the public assemblies, the right to hold office, and the right of appeal from the decision of a magistrate to the people.

Now in primitive Rome the patricians alone possessed all these rights of citizenship. Some of the private rights they shared with an inferior class in the state, as will appear in the following paragraph, but the political rights they jealously guarded as the sacred patrimony of their own order.

The Plebeians.--When Rome first appears in history, we notice a large class in the community, known as plebeians (from plebs, the multitude), who enjoy only a part of the rights of citizenship as given in the preceding section. The greater number of the plebeians were petty landowners, holding and tilling with their own hands farms of a few acres in extent in the near neighborhood of Rome. They possessed at least one of the most important rights of Roman citizenship, namely, the private right of engaging in trade. But from most of the other rights and privileges of the full citizen they were wholly shut out. A large part of the early history of Rome is made up of the struggles of these plebeians to better their economic condition and to secure for themselves social and political equality with the patricians.

The Chief Roman Deities.--The basis of the Roman religious system was the same as that of the Greek. At the head of the pantheon stood Jupiter, identical in all essential attributes with the Hellenic Zeus. He was the special protector of the Roman people. To him, together with Juno and Minerva, was consecrated a magnificent temple upon the summit of the Capitoline hill, overlooking the city.

Mars, the god of war, was the favorite deity and the fabled father of the Roman race, who were fond of calling themselves the " children of Mars." They proved themselves worthy offspring of the war-god. Martial games and festivals were celebrated in his honor during the first month of the Roman year, which bore, and still bears, in his honor, the name of March.

Janus was a double-faced deity to whom the month of January was sacred, as were also all gates and doors. The gates of his temple were always kept open in time of war and shut in time of peace.

The fire upon the household hearth was regarded as the symbol of the goddess Vesta. Her worship was a favorite one with the Romans. The nation, too, as a single great family, had a common national hearth in the temple of Vesta, where the sacred fires were kept burning from generation to generation by six virgins, daughters of the Roman state.

Oracles and Divination.--There were no true oracles at Rome. The Romans, therefore, often had recourse to those among the Greeks. Particularly in great emergencies did they seek advice from the celebrated oracle of Apollo at Delphi. From Etruria was introduced the art of the haruspices, or soothsayers, which consisted in discovering the will of the gods by the appearance of the entrails of victims slain for the sacrifice.

The Sacred Colleges.--The four chief sacred colleges or societies were the Keepers of the Sibylline Books, the College of Augurs, the College of Pontiffs, and the College of the Heralds.

The Sibylline Books were volumes written in Greek, the origin of which was lost in fable. They were kept in a stone chest in a vault beneath the Capitoline temple, and special custodians were appointed to take charge of them and interpret them. The books were consulted only in times of extreme danger.

The duty of the members of the College of Augurs was to interpret the omens, or auspices,--which were casual sights or appearances, particularly the flight of birds,--by which means it was believed that Jupiter made known his will. Great skill was required in the " taking of the auspices," as it was called. No business of importance, public or private, was entered upon without the auspices being first consulted to ascertain whether they were favorable. The public assembly, for illustration, must not convene, to elect officers or to enact laws, unless the auspices had been taken and found propitious.

The College of Pontiffs was so called probably because one of the duties of its members was to keep in repair a certain bridge (pans) over the Tiber. To the pontiffs belonged the superintendence of all religious matters. The head of the college was called Pontifex Maximus, or "Chief Bridge Builder," which title was assumed by the Roman emperors, and after them by the Christian bishops of Rome, and thus has come down to our times.

The College of Heralds had the care of all public matters pertaining to foreign nations. Thus, if the Roman people had suffered any wrong from another state, and war was determined upon, then it was the duty of a herald to proceed to the frontier of the enemy's country and hurl over the boundary a spear dipped in blood. This was a declaration of war.

Sacred Games and Festivals.--The Romans had many religious games and festivals. Prominent among these were the so-called Circensian Games, or Games of the Circus, which were very similar to the sacred games of the Greeks. They consisted, in the main, of chariot racing, wrestling, foot racing, and various other athletic contests. These festivals, as in the case of those of the Greeks, had their origin in the belief that the gods delighted in the exhibition of feats of skill, strength, or endurance; that their anger might be appeased by such spectacles; or that they might be persuaded bathe promise of games to lend aid to mortals in great emergencies. [The games were an entertainment offered to the guests, the gods, who Mere "the guests of honor", which were as certainly believed to be gratifying to their sight as a review of troops or a deer hunt to a modern European sovereign.]

The Saturnalia were a festival held in honor of Saturn, the god of sowing. It was an occasion on which all classes, including the slaves, who were allowed their freedom during the celebration, gave themselves up to riotous amusements; hence the significance we attach to the word saturnalian. The well-known Roman carnival of to-day is a survival of the ancient Saturnalia.

ROME UNDER THE KINGS (753?-509 B.C.)

The Legendary Kings.--The early government of Rome was a monarchy. The regal period, according to tradition, embraced nearly two and a half centuries (from 753 to 509 B.C.). To span this period the legends of the Romans tell of the reigns of seven kings,--Romulus, the founder of Rome; Numa, the lawgiver; Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Martius, both conquerors; Tarquinius Priscus, the great builder; Servius Tullius, the reorganizer of the government and second founder of the state; and Tarquinius Superbus, the haughty tyrant whose oppressions led to the abolition by the people of the office of king.

The traditions of the doings of these monarchs and of what happened to them blend hopelessly fact and fable. We cannot be quite sure even as to their names. Respecting Roman affairs, however, under the last three rulers (the Tarquins), who were of Etruscan origin, some important things are related, the substantial truth of which we may rely upon with a fair degree of certainty; and these matters we shall notice in the following sections.

Growth of Rome under the Tarquins.--The Tarquins extended their authority over the whole of Latium. The position of supremacy thus given Rome was attended by the rapid growth of the city in population and importance. The original walls soon became too strait for the increasing multitudes; new ramparts were built,--tradition says under the direction of the king Servius Tullius,--which, with a great circuit of seven miles, swept around the entire cluster of seven hills on the south bank of the Tiber, whence the name that Rome acquired of " the City of the- Seven Hills. "

A large tract of marshy ground between the Palatine and Capitoline hills was drained by means of the Cloaca Maxima, an arched canal, which was so admirably constructed that it has been preserved to the present day. It still discharges its waters through a great arch into the Tiber. The land thus reclaimed became the Forum, the public market place of the early city. At one end of this public square, as we should call it, was the Comitium, an inclosure where assemblies for voting purposes were held.

Standing on the dividing line between the Comitium and the Forum proper was the speakers' stand, later named the Rostra. [So called because decorated with the beaks (rostra) of war galleys taken from enemies.] This assembling place in later times was enlarged and decorated with various monuments and surrounded with splendid buildings and porticoes. Here more was said, resolved upon, and done than upon any other spot in the ancient world.

The Reforms of Servius Tullius: the Five Classes and the Four New Tribes.--It was the second king of the Etruscan house, Servius Tullius by name, to whom tradition attributes a most important change in the constitution of the Roman state. [The reform itself is an historical fact, but it is possible that it was not effected by the efforts of any particular king. It may have been the result of a long period of slow constitutional development.] He did here at Rome just what Solon at about this time did at Athens. He made property and residence, instead of birth or membership in the patrician clans, the basis of the duties and consequently of the privileges of citizenship.

Up to this time service in the army had been the duty and the privilege of the patricians. But the growing state had come to need a larger military force than the patrician order alone could maintain. Servius Tullius increased the army by requiring all landowners, whether patricians or plebeians, between seventeen and sixty years of age, to assume a place in the ranks. The whole body of persons thus made liable to military service was divided into five classes according to the amount of land each possessed. The largest landowners were enrolled in the first three classes, and were required to provide themselves with complete armor; the smaller proprietors, who made up the remaining two classes, were called upon to furnish themselves with only a light equipment.

At the same time in place of the three old patrician tribes there were now created four new ones, each made up of the landowners residing in a given district. Though these new divisions of the population were called tribes, still they were very different in character from the earlier divisions bearing this name. Membership in one of the old tribes was determined by birth or relationship, while membership in one of the new tribes was determined by place of residence. [Thus these new tribes were like our wards or townships. As new territory was acquired by the Romans through conquest, new tribes were created, until there were finally thirty-five, which number was never exceeded.]

The Army and the Comitia Centuriata.--The unit of the military organization was the century, probably containing at this time, as the name (centuria) indicates, one hundred men. Forty-two centuries were united to form the legion, which thus at this period probably numbered forty-two hundred men, its normal strength.

The assembling place of the military classes was a large plain just outside the city walls, called the Campus Martius, or " Field of Mars." The meeting was called the comitia centuriata, or the " assembly of hundreds." This body, which of course was made up both of patricians and plebeians as active members, came in the course of time to absorb most of the powers of the earlier assembly (comitia curiata).

Importance of the Servian Reforms.--The reforms of Servius Tullius were an important step towards the establishment of social and political equality between the two great orders of the state,--the patricians and the plebeians. The new constitution, indeed, as Mommsen says, assigned to the plebeians duties only, and not rights; but being called upon to discharge the most important duties of citizens, it was not long before they demanded all the rights of citizens; and as the bearers of arms they were able to enforce their demands.

The Expulsion of the Kings.--The legends, as already noted, make Tarquinius Superbus the last king of Rome. He is represented as a monstrous tyrant, whose arbitrary acts caused both patricians and plebeians to unite and drive him and all his house into exile. This event, according to the Roman annalists, occurred in the year 509 B.C. only one year later than the expulsion of the tyrants from Athens.

THE EARLY REPUBLIC; PLEBEIANS BECOME CITIZENS WITH FULL RIGHTS (509-367 B.C)

Republican Magistrates: the Consuls and the Dictator.-- With the monarchy overthrown the people set to work to reorganize the government. In place of the king there were elected (509 B.C.) two patrician magistrates, called at first prætors, or " leaders," but later, consuls, or " colleagues." These magistrates were chosen for one year, and were invested at first with all the powers, save some priestly functions, that had been exercised by the king. In public each consul was attended, as the king had been, by twelve lictors, bearing the " dread fasces ".

Each consul had the power of obstructing the acts or vetoing the commands of the other. This division of authority weakened the executive, so that in times of great public danger it was necessary to supersede the consuls by the appointment of a special officer bearing the title of dictator, whose term of office was limited to six months, but whose power during this time was as unlimited as that of the king had been. The dictator always named as his lieutenant and representative a magistrate known as " master of the horse " (magister equitum).

A consul could not be impeached, or reached by any legal process, while in office; but after the expiration of his term he could be prosecuted for any misconduct while holding his magistracy. This rule was applied to all the other magistrates of the Republic.

First Secession of the Plebeians (494 B.C.).--Taking advantage of the disorders which followed the expulsion of the Tarquins, the Latin towns rose in revolt, with the result that almost all the conquests that had been made under the kings were lost. Troubles without brought troubles within. The poor plebeians during this period of disorder fell in debt to the wealthy class, and payment was exacted with heartless severity. A debtor became the absolute property of his creditor, who might sell him as a slave to pay the debt, and in some cases even put him to death.

The situation was intolerable. The plebeians resolved to secede from Rome and build a new city for themselves on a neighboring eminence, known afterwards as the Sacred Mount. Having on one occasion been called to arms to repel an invasion, they refused to march out against the enemy, but instead marched away in a body from Rome to the spot selected beforehand, and began to make preparations for erecting new homes (494 B.C.)

The Covenant and the Tribunes.--The patricians well knew that such a division would prove ruinous to the state, and that the plebeians must be persuaded to give up their enterprise and come back to Rome. A commission was sent to treat with the insurgents. The plebeians were at first obdurate, but at last were persuaded to yield to the entreaties of the embassy to return, being won to this mind, so it is said, by one of the wise senators, who made use of the well-known fable of the body and the members.

The following covenant was entered into and bound by the most solemn oaths: The debts of the poor plebeians were to be canceled and debtors held in slavery set free; and there were to be chosen two plebeian magistrates (the number was soon increased to ten), called tribunes, whose duty it should be to watch over and protect the plebeians.

That the tribunes might be the protectors of the plebeians in something more than name, they were invested with an extraordinary power known as the jus auxilii, "the right of aid "; that is, they were given the right, should any patrician magistrate attempt to deal wrongfully with a plebeian, to annul his act or stop his proceeding.

The persons of the tribunes were made sacrosanct, that is, inviolable, like the persons of heralds. Any one interrupting a tribune in the discharge of his duties or doing him any violence was declared an outlaw whom any one might kill. That the tribunes might be always easily found, they were not allowed to go more than one mile beyond the city walls. Their houses were to be open night and day, that any plebeian unjustly dealt with might flee thither for protection and refuge.

The tribunes were attended and aided by officers called ædiles, who were elected from the plebeian order, and, like the tribunes, invested with a sacrosanct character. Among their duties was the care of the streets and markets and of the public archives.

We cannot overestimate the importance of this establishment of the plebeian tribunate. Under the protection and leadership of the tribunes, who were themselves protected by oaths of inviolable sanctity, the plebeians carried on a struggle for a share in the offices and dignities of the state which never ceased until the Roman government, as yet only republican in name, became in fact a real democracy, in which patrician and plebeian shared equally in all emoluments and privileges.

Border Wars and Border Tales; Cincinnatus.--The chief enemies of early Rome and her Latin allies were the Volscians, the Æquians, the Sabines, and the Etruscans. For more than a hundred years after the founding of the Republic, Rome, either alone or in connection with her confederates, was almost constantly fighting one or another or all of these peoples. But these operations cannot be regarded as real wars. They were, on both sides, for the most part mere plundering forays or cattle-raiding expeditions into the enemy's territories. We shall probably not get a wrong idea of their real character if we liken them to the early so-called border wars between England and Scotland. Like the Scottish wars, they were embellished by the Roman story-tellers with the most picturesque tales. One of the best known of these is that of Cincinnatus.

According to the tradition, while one of the consuls was away fighting the Sabines, the Æquians defeated the forces of the other and shut them up in a narrow valley whence escape seemed impossible. There was great terror in Rome when news of the situation of the army was brought to the city. The Senate immediately appointed Cincinnatus, a grand old patrician, dictator. The commissioners who carried to him the message from the Senate found him upon his little farm across the fiber, at work plowing. Cincinnatus at once accepted the office, gathered the Roman army, surrounded and captured the enemy, and sent them all beneath the yoke. [This was formed of two spears thrust firmly into the ground and crossed a few feet from the earth by a third spear. Prisoners of war were forced to pass beneath this yoke as a symbol of submission.] He then led his army back to Rome in triumph, laid down his office, having held it only sixteen days, and sought again the retirement of his farm.

The Decemvirs and the Twelve Tables of Laws (451-450 B.C.).--Written laws are always a great- safeguard against oppression. Until what shall constitute a crime and what shall be its penalty are clearly written down and well known and understood by all, judges may render unfair decisions or inflict unjust punishment, and yet run little risk of being called to an account; for no one but themselves knows what either the law or the penalty really is. Hence in all struggles of the people against the tyranny of a ruling class, the demand for written law is one of the first measures taken by them for the protection of their persons and property. Thus the commons of Athens, early in their struggle with the nobles, demanded and obtained a code of written laws (sec. I62). The same thing now took place at Rome. The plebeians demanded that the laws be written down and published. The patricians offered a stubborn resistance to their wishes, but finally were forced to yield to the popular clamor.

A commission, so tradition says, was sent to the Greek cities of Southern Italy and to Athens to study their laws and customs. Upon the return of this embassy, a commission of ten magistrates, known as Decemvirs, was appointed to frame a code of laws (451 B.C.). These officers, while engaged in this work, were also to administer the entire government, and so were invested with the supreme power of the state. The patricians gave up their consuls, and the plebeians their tribunes. At the end of the first year the task of the board was far from being finished, so a new decemvirate was elected to complete the work. The code was soon finished, and the laws were written on twelve tablets of bronze, which were fastened to the Rostra, or orator's platform in the Forum, where they might be seen and read by all.

Only a few fragments of these celebrated laws have been preserved, but the substance of a considerable part of the code is known to us through the allusions to it in the works of later writers and jurists. The provisions regarding the treatment o f debtors are noteworthy. The law provided that, after the lapse of a certain number of days of grace, the creditor of a delinquent debtor might either put him in the stocks or in chains, sell him to any stranger resident beyond the Tiber, or put him to death. In case of there being several creditors the law provided as follows: "After the third market day his [the debtor's] body may be divided." We are informed by later Roman writers that this savage provision of the law was, as a matter of fact, never carried into effect.

Touching the power of the father over his sons the law provided that " during their whole life he shall have the right to imprison, scourge, keep to rustic labor in chains, to sell, or to slay, even though they may be in the enjoyment of high state offices."

These " Laws of the Twelve Tables " were to Roman jurisprudence what the good laws of Solon were to the Athenian constitution. They formed the basis of all new legislation for many centuries, and constituted a part of the education of the Roman youth,--every schoolboy being required to learn them by heart.

Misrule and Overthrow of the Decemvirs; Second Secession of the Plebeians (450 B.C.).--The first decemvirs used the great power lodged in their hands with justice and prudence; but the second board, under the leadership of a certain Appius Claudius, instituted a most infamous and tyrannical rule. The result was a second secession of the plebeians to the Sacred Hill. This procedure, which once before had proved so effectual in securing justice to the oppressed, had a similar issue now. The situation was so critical that the decemvirs were forced to resign. The consulate and the tribunate were restored.

The Valerio-Horatian Laws; "the Roman Magna Carta" (449 B.C.).--The consuls chosen were Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, who secured the passage of certain laws, known as the Valerio-Horatian Laws, which were of such constitutional importance that they have been called " the Magna Carta of Rome.." Among the important provisions of the laws was the following: That the resolutions (plebiscita) passed by the plebeian assembly of tribes [The concilium tributum plebis. The origin of this assembly is obscure] should in the future have the force of laws and should bind the whole people the same as the resolutions of the comitia centuriata. Hitherto these resolutions had possessed no force save as expressions of opinion, like the resolutions of a mass meeting among ourselves.

Marriages between Patricians and Plebeians made Legal (445 B.C.).--Up to this time the plebeians had not been allowed to contract legal marriages with the patricians. But only three or four years after the passing of the Valerio-Horatian Laws, the tribune Gaius Canuleius carried a resolution known as the Canuleian Law, whereby marriages between the plebeians and the patricians were legalized. This law established social equality between the two orders.

Military Tribunes with Consular Power (444 B.C.).-- This same tribune also brought forward another proposal, which provided that plebeians might be chosen as consuls. This suggestion led to a violent contention between the two orders. The issue of the matter was a compromise. It was agreed that, in place of the two patrician consuls, the people might elect from either order magistrates that should be known as "military tribunes with consular powers." These officers, whose number varied, differed from consuls more in name than in functions or in authority. In fact, the plebeians had gained the consular office but not the consular name.

The patricians were especially unwilling that any plebeian should bear the title of consul, for the reason that an ex-consul enjoyed certain dignities and honors, such as the right to wear a particular kind of dress and to set up in his house images of his ancestors. These honorary distinctions the higher order wished to retain exclusively for themselves.

The Censors (443 B.C.).--No sooner had the plebeians secured the right of admission to the military tribunate with consular powers, than the patricians began scheming to rob them of the fruit of their victory. They effected this by taking from the consulate some of its most distinctive duties and powers, and conferring them upon two new patrician officers called censors.

The functions of these magistrates were many and important. They could, for immorality or any improper conduct, degrade a knight from his rank, expel a member from the Senate, or deprive any citizen of his vote by striking his name from the roll of the tribes; It was their duty to rebuke ostentation and extravagance in living, and in particular to watch over the morals of the young. From the name of these Roman officers s comes our word censorious, meaning fault-finding.

Siege and Capture of Veii (405-396 B.C.); the Romanization of Southern Etruria.--We must now turn our attention once more to the fortunes of Rome in war. Almost from the founding of the city we find its warlike citizens carrying on a fierce contest with their powerful Etruscan neighbors on the north. The war finally gathered around Veii, the largest and richest of the cities of Etruria. According to the tradition, the Romans, like the Greeks at Troy, laid siege to this city for ten years. The place was at length taken and the spoils carried to Rome. The siege of Veii forms a sort of landmark in the military history of Rome. The length of the siege and the necessity of maintaining a force permanently in the field, winter and summer alike, led to the introduction of pay into the army; for hitherto the common soldier had not only equipped himself but had sewed without pay. From this time forward the professional soldier came more and more to take the place of the citizen soldier.

The capture of Veii was followed by that of many other Etruscan towns, and all the southern portion of Etruria, divided into four tribes, was added to the Roman domain.

By this act of incorporation all the Etruscan freemen living in these regions and possessing the legal property qualification were made citizens of Rome, and were invested with that measure of the rights and privileges of Roman citizenship that up to this time had been secured by the plebeians.

Into this rich and inviting region thus opened up to Roman enterprise, Roman immigrants now crowded in great numbers, and soon all this part of Etruria became Roman in manners, in customs, and in speech. [Later, the rest of Etruria was absorbed by Rome, and the Etruscan people and the Etruscan civilization as distinct Actors in history disappeared from the world.] The Romanization of Italy was now fairly begun.

At this moment there broke upon the city a storm from the north which all but cut short the story we are narrating.

Sack of Rome by the Gauls (390 B.C.).--We have noticed how, in early times, Celtic tribes from Gaul crossed the Alps and established themselves in Northern Italy. While the Romans were conquering the towns of Etruria these barbarian hordes were moving southward any overrunning and devastating the countries of Central Italy.

They soon appeared in the neighborhood of Rome. A Roman army met them on the banks of the Allia, eleven miles from the capital. But an unaccountable panic seized the Romans and they abandoned the field in disgraceful flight. It would be impossible to picture the consternation and despair that reigned at Rome when the fugitives brought to the city intelligence of the terrible disaster. It was never forgotten, and the day of the battle of the Allia was ever after a black day in the Roman calendar. The sacred vessels of the temples were buried; the eternal fires of Vesta were hurriedly borne by their virgin keepers to a place of safety in Etruria; and a large part of the population fled in dismay across the Tiber. No attempt was made to defend any portion of the city save the citadel.

The little garrison within the Capitol, under the command of the hero Marcus Manlius, for seven months resisted all efforts of the Gauls to dislodge them. Finally news was brought the Gauls that enemies were overrunning their possessions in Northern Italy. This led them to open negotiations with the Romans. For one thousand pounds of gold the Gauls agreed to retire from the city. As the story runs, while the gold was being weighed out in the Forum the Romans complained that the weights were false, when Brennus, the Gallic leader, threw his sword also into the scales, exclaiming, "Væ victis!" (Woe to the vanquished !) Just at this moment, so the tale continues, Camillus, a brave patrician general who had been appointed dictator, appeared upon the scene with a Roman army that had been gathered from the fugitives. As he scattered the barbarians with heavy blows he exclaimed, " Rome is ransomed with steel, and not with gold."

The city was quickly rebuilt. There were some things, however, which could not be restored. These were the ancient records and documents, through whose irreparable loss the early history of Rome is involved in great obscurity.

The Licinian Laws (367 B.C.); the Final "Equalization of the Orders."--A great advance of the plebeians towards political equality with the patricians was effected through the passage of the Licinian Laws, so called from one of their proposers, the tribune Gaius Licinius. Among other provisions these laws contained the following: (1) That the office of military tribune with consular power should be abolished, that two consuls should be chosen yearly as at first, and that one of these should be a plebeian; [When the patricians saw that it would he impossible to prevent the passage of the proposals they had recourse to the old device. They lessened the powers of the consulship by taking away from the consuls their judicial functions and devolving them upon a new patrician magistrate bearing the name of prætor. The pretext for this was that the plebeians had no knowledge of the sacred formulas of the law.] (2) that in place of the two keepers of the Sibylline Books, there should in the future be ten, and that five of these should be plebeians.

The equalization of the two orders was now practically effected. The son of a peasant might rise to the highest office in the state. The plebeians gained with comparative ease admission to the remaining offices from which the jealousy of the patricians still excluded theme

The incorporation of the plebeians with the body of Roman citizens with full rights was a matter of immense import for the future of Rome. The strength of the state was thereby practically doubled, and the city was advanced a long way towards the goal of its destiny,--the making of all the world Roman.

THE CONQUEST OF ITALY (367-264 B.C.)

The Samnites.--The most formidable competitors of the Romans for supremacy in Italy were the Samnites, rough and warlike mountaineers who held the Apennines to the southeast of Latium. The successive struggles between these martial races are known as the First, Second, and Third Samnite wars. They extended over a period of half a century, and in their course involved almost all the states of Italy. Of the first war (343-341 B.C.) we know very little, although Livy wrote a long, but unfortunately unreliable, account of it.

The Revolt of the Latin Cities (340-338 B.C.).--In the midst of the Samnite struggle, Rome was confronted by a dangerous revolt of her Latin allies. [In the year 493 B.C. Rome had formed a most important league with the Latin towns (a renewal probably of an earlier alliance). At the outset this league was somewhat such a federation as the Delian League, which Athens just a few years before this had formed with her Ionian allies. There is an instructive parallel between the way in which Athens used her position in the Delian Confederacy to establish an empire and the way in which Rome used her position in the at first equal alliance between her and the towns of Latium to build up a like sovereignty.] Leaving the war unfinished, she turned her forces against the insurgents.

The strife between the Romans and their Latin allies was simply, in principle, the old contest within the walls of the capital between the patricians and the plebeians transferred to a larger arena. As the patricians, before the equalization of the orders, had claimed for themselves alone the right to manage the affairs of Rome, so now did the united orders claim for Rome alone the right to manage the affairs of all Latium. But the Latins had become dissatisfied with their position in the unequal alliance, and had resolved that Rome should give up the sovereignty she was practically exercising. Accordingly they sent an embassy to Rome, demanding that the association should be made one of perfect equality. To this end the ambassadors proposed that in the future one of the consuls should be a Latin, and that one half of the Senate should be chosen from the Latin nation. Rome was to be the common fatherland, and all were to bear the Roman name.

These demands of the ambassadors were listened to by the Roman senators with amazement and indignation. " O Jupiter ! " exclaimed one of the consuls, Titus Manlius by name, addressing the statue of the god; "canst thou endure to behold in thy own sacred temple strangers as consuls and as senators?" The demands of the Latin allies were refused, and war followed.

After about three years' hard fighting, the rebellion was subdued. The Latin League as a political body was now dissolved. Several of the towns were allowed to retain their independence; others with their territories were made a part of the Roman domain, and became municipia of different grades. The inhabitants of some of these cities were admitted at once to full Roman citizenship, while those of others were given only a part of the rights and privileges of citizens. To prevent any further combination among the cities, intermarriage and trade between them were forbidden. [......The essential principle involved in the arrangement is local self-government carried on under the paramount authority of the state. In working out this municipal system Rome laid not only the foundation of her owes greatness but, transmitting the system as a principle of government to later times, contributed an all-important element to the structure of the modern free state. We must not think that the problem here solved by Rome was one easy of solution. The difficulties met and overcome by her in working out this system were very much like those met and overcome by our statesmen of a century and more ago, when they devised the federal system and determined what should be the relations of the States of our Union to the general government at Washington. Indeed, this whole federal system is nothing more than the application to states of the principles of government that Rome applied to cities.]

One noted trophy of the war set up at Rome was the. beaks (rostra) of the ships of the city of Antium, which were attached to the orator's platform in the Forum; hence the name Rostra, by which this stand was ever afterwards known.

The Second Samnite War (326-304 B.C.).--In a few years after the close of the Latin contest, the Romans were at war again with their old rivals, the Samnites. The most memorable event of this struggle was the entrapping and capture of a Roman army at the celebrated Caudine Forks. The soldiers were deprived of their arms and sent beneath the yoke.

The war ended in 304 B.C., with the Romans as final victors. During its course Rome had added extensive territories to her domain, and had made her hold of t h e s e secure by means of colonies and military roads; for it was at this time that Rome began the construction of those remarkable highways that formed one of the most impressive features of her later empire. The first of the se roads, which ran from Rome to Capua, was begun in the year 3I2 B.C. by the censor Appius Claudius, and called after him the Via Appia.

The Third Samnite War (298-290 B.C.). - It was only a few years after the close of their second contest with Rome before the Samnites were again in arms and engaged in their third struggle with her for supremacy in Italy. This time they succeeded in forming against their old enemy a powerful coalition which embraced the Etruscans, the Umbrians, the Gauls, and other nations. It was easy for them to accomplish this, for the rapid advance of the power of Rome had caused all the different peoples of the peninsula to realize that unless her encroachments were speedily checked their independence would be lost forever.

The league was soon shattered by- the Roman legions. One after another the states and tribes that had joined the alliance were chastised, and the Samnites were forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. Within a few years after this almost all of the Greek cities of Southern Italy, save Tarentum, had also come under the growing power of the imperial city.

The War with Tarentum and Pyrrhus (282-272 B.C.).-- Nor did Tarentum long remain independent. The Tarentines having mishandled some Roman prisoners, the Roman Senate sent an embassy to Tarentum to demand amends. In the theater, in the presence of a great assembly, one of the ambassadors was grossly insulted, his toga being befouled by a clownish fellow amidst the approving plaudits of a giddy crowd. The ambassador, raising the soiled garment, said sternly, "Laugh now; but you will weep when this toga is cleansed with blood." Rome at once declared war.

The Tarentines turned to Greece for aid. Pyrrhus, king of Epirus and a cousin of Alexander the Great, who had an ambition to build up such an empire in the West as his famous kinsman had established in the East, responded to their entreaties, and crossed over into Italy with a small army of Greek mercenaries and twenty war elephants. .

The hostile armies met at Heraclea (280 B.C.). The battle was won for Pyrrhus by his war elephants, the sight of which, being new to the Romans, caused them to flee from the field in dismay. But Pyrrhus had lost thousands of his best troops. As he looked over the battlefield he is said to have turned to his companions and remarked, "Another such victory and I shall be ruined"; hence the phrase, " a Pyrrhian victory."

After a second victory as disastrous as his first, Pyrrhus crossed over into Sicily to aid the Greeks there, who were being hard pressed by the Carthaginians. At first he was everywhere successful, but finally fortune turned against him, and he was glad to escape from the island. Re-crossing the straits into Italy, he once more engaged the Romans; but at Beneventum he suffered a disastrous defeat (275 B.C.). Leaving a sufficient force to garrison Tarentum, Pyrrhus now set sail for Epirus. He had scarcely embarked before Tarentum surrendered to the Romans (272 B.C.). This ended the struggle for the mastery of Italy. Rome was now mistress of all the peninsula south of the Arnus and the Rubicon.

United Italy.--We cannot make out clearly just what rights and powers Rome exercised over the various cities, tribes, and nations which she had brought under her rule. [We refer here, not to those territories and communities which Rome had actually incorporated with the Roman domain, but to those communities to which was given the name of Italian allies.] This much, however, is clear. She took away from them the right of making war, and thus put a stop to the bloody contentions which from time immemorial had raged between the tribes and cities of the peninsula. She thus gave Italy what, after she had laid her restraining authority upon all the peoples of the Mediterranean lands, came to be called the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace).

This political union of Italy paved the way for the social and racial unification of the peninsula. The greatest marvel of all history is how Rome, embracing at first merely a handful of peasants, could have made so much of the ancient world like unto herself in blood, in speech, in custom, and in manners. That she did so, that she did thus Romanize a large part of the peoples of antiquity, is one of the most important matters in the history of the human race. Rome accomplished this great feat in large measure by means of her system of colonization, which was, in some respects, unlike that of any other people in ancient or in modern times. We must make ourselves familiar with some of the main features of this unique colonial system.

Roman Colonies and Latin Colonies.--The colonies that Rome established in conquered territories fall into two classes, known as Roman colonies and Latin colonies. Roman colonies were made up of emigrants, generally three hundred in number, who retained in the new settlement all the rights and privileges, both private and public, of Roman citizens, though of course some of these rights, as for instance that of voting in the public assemblies at Rome, could be exercised by the colonist only through his return to the capital. Usually it was some conquered city that was occupied by the Roman colonists, the old inhabitants either being expelled in whole or in part or reduced to a subject condition. The colonists in their new homes organized a government which was almost an exact imitation of that of Rome, and through their own assemblies and their own magistrates managed all their local affairs. These colonies were in effect just so many miniature Romes,--centers from which radiated Roman culture into all the regions round about them.

The Latin colonies were so called, not because they were founded by Latin settlers, but because their inhabitants possessed substantially the same rights as the old Latin towns enjoyed that had retained their independence at the end of the great Latin War (sec. 3I9). The Latin colonist possessed some of 'the most valuable of the private rights of Roman citizens, together with the capacity to acquire the suffrage by migrating to the capital and taking up, under certain conditions, a permanent residence there.

The Latin colonies numbered about twenty at the time of the Second Punic War. They were scattered everywhere throughout Italy, and were, even to a much greater degree than the Roman colonies, active and powerful agents in the dissemination of the Roman language, law, and culture. They were Rome's chief auxiliary in her great task of making all Italy Roman.

All these colonies were kept in close touch with the capital by means of splendid military roads, the construction of which, as we have seen, was begun during the Second Samnite War.

THE PUNIC WARS

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR (264-241 B.C.)

Carthage and her Empire.--Foremost among the colonies founded by the Phoenicians was Carthage, upon the northern coast of Africa. Its favorable location upon one of the best harbors of the African coast gave the city a vast and lucrative commerce. By the time Rome had extended her authority over Italy, Carthage held sway over the northern coast of Africa, and possessed the larger part of Sicily as well as Sardinia. She also collected tribute from the natives of Corsica and of Southern Spain. With all its shores dotted with her colonies and fortresses and swept in every direction by her war galleys, the Western Mediterranean had become a " Phoenician lake," in which, as the Carthaginians boasted, no one dared wash his hands without their permission.

The government of Carthage was democratic in theory but oligarchic in fact. Corresponding to the Roman consuls, two magistrates stood at the head of the state. The Senate was composed of the heads of the leading families; its duties and powers were very like those of the Roman Senate. The religion of the Carthaginians was the old Canaanitish worship of Baal. To this cruel fire-god they offered human sacrifices.

Rome and Carthage compared.--These two rival cities were now about to begin one of the most memorable struggles of antiquity. In material power and resources they seemed well matched as antagonists; yet Rome had elements of strength, hidden in the character of her citizens and embodied in the principles of her government, which Carthage did not possess. Carthage was a despotic oligarchy. The many different races of the Carthaginian Empire were held in an artificial union by force alone, for the Carthaginians had none of the genius of the Romans for political organization and state building. The Roman state, on the other hand, as we have learned, was the most wonderful political organism that the world had ever seen. It was not yet a nation, but it was rapidly growing into one. Every free man within its limits was either a citizen of Rome, or- was on the way to becoming a citizen. Rome was already the common fatherland of more than a quarter of a million of men

Again, the Carthaginian territories, though of great extent, were widely scattered, while the Roman domains were compact and confined to a single and easily defended peninsula.

As to the naval resources of the two states, there existed at the beginning of the struggle no basis for a comparison. The Romans were almost destitute of anything that could be called a war navy, [Polybius (i. 20) says that they did not have a single galley when they first crossed over to Sicily. He says they ferried their army across in boats borrowed from the Greek cities of Southern Italy.] and were practically without experience in naval warfare; while the Carthaginians possessed the largest, the best manned, and the most splendidly equipped fleet that had ever patrolled the waters of the Mediterranean.

And in another respect Carthage had an immense advantage over Rome. She had Hannibal. Rome had some great commanders, but she had none like him.

The Beginning of the War.--Lying between Italy and the coast of Africa is the large island of Sicily. At the commencement of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians held possession of all the island save a strip of the eastern coast, which was under the sway of the Greek city of Syracuse. The Greeks and the Carthaginians had carried on an almost .uninterrupted struggle through two centuries for the control of the island, but the Romans had not yet set foot upon it. In the year 264 B.C., however, on a flimsy pretext of giving protection to some friends, the Romans crossed over to the island. That act committed them to a career of conquest destined to continue till their armies had made the circuit of the Mediterranean lands.

The Syracusans and Carthaginians, old enemies and rivals though they had been, joined their forces against the newcomers. The allies were defeated in the first battle, and the Roman army obtained a sure foothold in the island. Hiero, king of Syracuse, seeing that he was upon the losing side, forsook the Carthaginians, formed an alliance with the Romans, and ever after remained their firm friend.

The Romans gain their First Naval Victory (260 B.C.).-- Their experience during the past campaigns had shown the Romans that if they were to cope successfully with the Carthaginians, they must be able to meet them upon the sea as well as upon the land. So they determined to build a fleet. A Carthaginian galley, tradition says, that had been wrecked upon the shores of Italy served as a pattern. [The Greek and Etruscan ships were merely triremes, that is, galleys with three banks of oars; while the Carthaginian ships were quinqueremes, or vessels with five rows of oars. The former were unable to cope with the latter, such an advantage did these have in their greater weight and height.] It is affirmed that within the short space of sixty days a growing forest was converted into a fleet of one hundred and twenty war galleys.

The consul G. Duillius was intrusted with the command of the fleet. He met the Carthaginian squadron near the city and promontory of Mylæ, on the northern coast of. Sicily. Now, distrusting their ability to match the skill of their enemy in naval tactics, the Romans had provided each of their vessels with a drawbridge. As soon as a Carthaginian ship came near enough to a Roman vessel, this gangway was allowed to fall upon the approaching galley; and the Roman soldiers, rushing along the bridge, were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their enemies, in which species of encounter the former were unequaled. The result was a complete victory for the Romans.

The joy at Rome was unbounded. It inspired in the more sanguine splendid visions of maritime command and glory. The Mediterranean should speedily become a Roman lake in which no vessel might float without the consent of Rome.

The Romans carry the War into Africa.--The Romans now resolved to carry the war into Africa. An immense Carthaginian fleet that disputed the passage of the Roman squadron was almost annihilated, and the Romans disembarked near Carthage (256 B.C.). At first they were successful in all their operations. Finally, however, Regulus, one of the consuls who led the army of invasion, suffered a crushing defeat and was made prisoner. A fleet which was sent to bear away the remnants of the shattered army was wrecked in a terrific storm off the coast of Sicily. A second expedition to Africa ended in like disaster to the Romans, with the loss of another great fleet.

Regulus and the Carthaginian Embassy.--For a few years the Romans refrained from tempting again the hostile powers of the sea, and Sicily became once more the battle ground of the contending rivals. At last, having lost a great battle (battle of Panormus, 251 B.C.), the Carthaginians became dispirited, and sent an embassy to Rome to negotiate for peace. Among the commissioners was Regulus, who, since his capture five years before, had been held a prisoner in Africa. Before leaving Carthage he had promised to return if the embassy were unsuccessful. For the sake of his own release, the Carthaginians supposed he would counsel peace, or at least urge an exchange of prisoners. But it is related that, upon arrival at Rome, he counseled war instead of peace, at the same time revealing to the Senate the enfeebled condition of Carthage. As to the exchange of prisoners, he said, " Let those who have surrendered when they ought to have died, die in the land which has witnessed their disgrace."

The Roman Senate, following his counsel, rejected all the proposals of the embassy; and Regulus, in spite of the tears and entreaties of his wife and friends, turned away from Rome, and set out for Carthage, to meet whatever fate the Carthaginians, in their disappointment and anger, might plan for him. The tradition affirms that he was put to a cruel death.

Loss of Two More Roman Fleets.--After the failure of the Carthaginian embassy the war went on for several years by land and by sea with many vicissitudes. At last, on the coast of Sicily, one of the consuls, Claudius, met with an overwhelming defeat [In a sea fight at Drepana, 249 B.C.] Almost a hundred vessels of his fleet were lost. The disaster caused the greatest alarm at Rome. Superstition increased the fears of the people. It was reported that just before the battle, when the auspices were being taken and the sacred chickens would not eat, Claudius had given orders to have them thrown into the sea, irreverently remarking, "At any rate, they shall drink." Imagination was free to depict what further evils the offended gods might inflict upon the Roman state.

The gloomiest forebodings might have found justification in subsequent events. The other consul just now met with a great disaster. He was proceeding along the southern coast of Sicily with a fleet of over nine hundred war galleys and transports, when a severe storm arising, the squadron was beaten to pieces upon the rocks. Not a single ship escaped.

Close of the First Punic War (241 B.C.).--The war had now lasted for fifteen years. Four Roman fleets had been destroyed, three of which had been sunk or broken to pieces by storms. It was several years before the Romans regained sufficient courage to again commit their fortune to the element that had been so unfriendly to them. A Meet of two hundred vessels was then built and equipped, entirely by private subscription, and intrusted to the command of the consul Catulus. He met the Carthaginian fleet near the Ægatian Islands, and inflicted upon it a crushing defeat (241 B.C.).

The Carthaginians now sued for peace. A treaty was at length arranged the terms of which required that Carthage should give up all claims to the island of Sicily, surrender all her prisoners, and pay an indemnity of 3200 talents (about $4,000,000), one third of which was to be paid down, and the balance in ten yearly payments. Thus ended (241 B.C.), after a continuance of twenty-four years, the first great struggle between Carthage and Rome.

One important result of the war was the crippling of the sea power of the Phoenician race, which from time immemorial had been a most prominent factor in the history of the Mediterranean lands, and the giving practically of the control of the sea into the hands of the Romans.

ROME AND CARTHAGE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR (241-218 B.C.)

The First Roman Province and the Beginning of the Provincial System (241 B.C.).--For the twenty-three years following the close of the first struggle between Rome and Carthage the two rivals strained every power and taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal of the contest.

The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing all of it, save the lands in the eastern part belonging to Syracuse, as a province of the Republic. This was the first Roman province, but as the imperial city extended her conquests, her provincial possessions increased in number and size until they formed at last a perfect cordon about the Mediterranean. Each province was governed by a magistrate exercising both civil and military authority, and paid an annual tribute in kind, or a money tax, to Rome, something that had never been exacted of the Italian allies.

This Roman provincial system presented a sharp contrast to that liberal system of federation and incorporation that formed the very corner stone of the Roman power in Italy. There Rome had made all, or substantially all, of the conquered peoples either citizens or close confederates. Against the provincials she not only closed the gates of the city but denied to the most of them all but the mere name of allies. She made them practically her subjects, and administered their affairs not in their interest but in her own. This illiberal policy contributed largely, as we shall learn, to the undoing of the Roman Republic.

Rome acquires Sardinia and Corsica; the Second Province(227 B.C.) .--The first acquisition by the Romans of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have created in them an insatiable ambition for foreign conquests. They soon found a pretext for seizing the island of Sardinia, the most ancient, and, after Sicily, the most prized of the possessions of the Carthaginians. This island in connecticn with Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman province (227 B.C.). With her hands upon these islands, the authority of Rome in the Western or Tuscan Sea was supreme.

War with the Gauls; Roman Authority extended to the Alps.--In the north, during this same period, Roman authority was extended from the Apennines and the Rubicon to the foot of the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of the Romans, who were pushing northward their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, Gallic tribes both sides the Alps gathered for an assault upon Rome. Intelligence of this movement among the northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of excitement. At Rome the terror was great; for not yet had died out of memory what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors of these same barbarians. An ancient prediction, found in the Sibylline Books, declared that a portion of Roman territory must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping sufficiently to fulfill the prophecy and satisfy fate, the Roman Senate caused two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of the capital.

Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravaging the country as they moved southward. At Telamon they were surrounded by the Roman armies and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The Romans, taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of the Po, captured the city now known as Milan, and extended their authority to the foothills of the Alps.

Carthage in the Truceless War (241-237 B.C.). - Scarcely had peace been concluded with Rome at the end of the First Punic War, before Carthage was plunged into a still deadlier struggle, which for a time threatened her very existence. Her mercenary troops, upon their return from Sicily, revolted on account of being unpaid. Their appeal to the native tribes of Africa was answered by a general uprising throughout the dependencies of Carthage. The extent of the revolt shows how hated was the rule of the great capital over her subject states.

The war was unspeakably bitter and cruel. It is known in history as " the Truceless War." But the genius of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca at last triumphed, and the authority of Carthage was everywhere restored.

The Carthaginians in Spain.--After the disastrous ending of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians sought to repair their losses by new conquests in Spain. Hamilcar Barca was sent over into that country, and for nine years he devoted his commanding genius to organizing the different Iberian tribes into a compact state, and to developing the rich gold and silver mines of the southern part of the peninsula. He fell in battle 228 B.C.

As a rule, genius is not transmitted; but in the Barcine family the rule was broken, and the rare genius of Hamilcar reappeared in his sons, whom he himself, it is said, was fond of calling the " lion's brood." Hannibal, the eldest, was only nineteen at the time of his father's death, and being thus too young to assume command, Hasdrubal, the son-in-law of Hamilcar, was chosen to succeed him.

Hannibal's Vow; he attacks Saguntum.--Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which occurred 221 B.C., Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by the unanimous voice of the army called to be its leader. When a child of nine years he had been led by his father to the altar, and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice, the little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race. He was driven on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard fate not only by the restless fires of his warlike genius but, as he himself declared, by the sacred obligations of a vow that could not be broken.

In two years Hannibal extended the Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a native city upon the east coast of Spain, alone remained unsubdued. The Romans, who were jealously watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and taken it, with some Greek cities at the foot of the Pyrenees, under their protection. Hannibal laid siege to the place in the spring of 2I9 B.C. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding him to make war upon a city that was an ally of the Roman people; but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, continued the siege, and after an investment of eight months gained possession of the town.

The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to demand of the senate that they give up Hannibal to them, and by so doing repudiate the act of their general. The Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of the embassy, gathering up his toga, said: " I carry here peace and war; choose, men of Carthage, which ye will have." " Give us whichever ye will," was the reply. " War, then," said Fabius, dropping his toga.

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR (218-201 B.C.)

Hannibal's Passage of the Alps.--The Carthaginian Empire was now all astir with preparations for the mighty struggle. Hannibal was the life and soul of every movement. His bold plan was to cross the Pyrenees and the Alps and descend upon Rome from the north. Early in the spring of 218 B.C., he set out from New Carthage with an army numbering about a hundred thousand men, and including thirty-seven war elephants. Traversing Northern Spain and crossing the Pyrenees and the Rhone, he reached the foothills of the Alps, probably under the pass known to-day as the Little St. Bernard. .The season was already far advanced,--it was October,--and snow was falling upon the higher portions of the trail, so that the passage of the mountains was accomplished only after severe toil and losses. At length the thinned columns, numbering barely twenty thousand men, issued from the defiles of the foothills upon the plains of the Po. This was the pitiable force with which Hannibal proposed to attack the Roman state,--a state that at this time had on its levy lists over seven hundred thousand foot soldiers and seventy thousand horse.

Battle of the Ticinus, of the Trebia, and of Lake Trasimenus.--The Romans had not the remotest idea of Hannibal's plans. With war determined upon, the Senate had sent one of the consuls, Tiberius Sempronius, with an army into Africa by the way of Sicily; while the other, Publius Cornelius Scipio, they had directed to lead another army into Spain.

While the Senate were watching the movements of these expeditions, they were startled by the intelligence that Hannibal, instead of being in Spain, had crossed the Pyrenees and was among the Gauls upon the Rhone. Sempronius was hastily recalled from his attempt upon Africa to the defense of Italy. Scipio, on his way to Spain, had touched at Massilia, and there learned of the movements of Hannibal. He sent his army on to Spain under the command of his brother, to prevent Hannibal's receiving any reenforcements from that quarter. He himself turned back, hurried into Northern Italy, and took command of the levies there. The cavalry of the two armies met upon the banks of the Ticinus. The Romans were driven from the field by the fierce onset of the Numidian horsemen. Scipio now awaited the arrival of the other consular army, which was hurrying up through Italy by forced marches. In the battle of the Trebia -(215 B.C.) the united armies of the two consuls were drawn into an ambuscade and almost annihilated.

The spring following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led his army, now recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, aid moved southward. At Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the Romans under the consul Gaius Flaminius between the hills and the lake, where, bewildered by a fog, the greater part of the army was slaughtered, and the consul himself was slain (217 B.C.).

Fabius "the Delayer."--The way to Rome was now open. Believing that Hannibal would march directly upon the capital, the Senate caused the bridges that spanned the Tiber to be destroyed, and appointed Fabius Maximus dictator. But Hannibal did not deem it wise to throw his troops against the walls of Rome. Crossing the Apennines, he pressed eastward to the Adriatic, and then marched southward into Apulia. The fate of Rome was in the hands of Fabius. Should he risk a battle and lose it, 'everything would be lost. He determined to adopt a more prudent policy,--to follow and annoy with his small force the Carthaginian army, but to refuse all proffers of battle. Thus time would be gained for raising a new army and perfecting measures for the public defense.

In every possible way Hannibal endeavored to draw his enemy into an engagement. He ravaged the fields far and wide and fired the homesteads of the Italians, in order to force Fabius to fight in their defense. The soldiers of the dictator began to murmur. They called him Cunctator "the Delayer." But nothing moved him from the steady pursuit of the policy which he clearly saw was the-only prudent one to follow.

The Battle of Cannæ (216 B.C.).-- The time gained by Fabius had enabled the Romans to raise and discipline an army that might hope to engage successfully the Carthaginian forces. Early in the summer of the year 216 B.C. these new levies, numbering eighty thousand men, under the command of the recently chosen consuls Paulus and Varro, confronted the army of Hannibal, amounting to not more than half that number, at Cannæ, on the banks of the Aufidus, in Apulia. It was the largest army Rome had ever gathered on any battlefield. Through the skillful maneuvers of Hannibal, the Romans were completely surrounded and huddled together in a helpless mass; then they were cut down by the Numidian cavalry. From forty to seventy thousand are said to have been slain; [Polybius (iii. 117) places the killed at 70,000 and the prisoners at l0,000, Livy (xxii. 49) puts the number of the slain at 42,700.] a few thousand were taken prisoners; only a handful escaped. The slaughter was so great that, according to Livy, when Mago, a brother of Hannibal, carried the news of the victory to Carthage, he, in confirmation of the intelligence, poured out on the floor of the senate house nearly a peck of gold rings taken from the fingers of Roman knights.

Events after the Battle of Cannæ.--The awful news flew to Rome. Consternation and despair seized the people. The city would have been emptied of its population had not the Senate ordered the gates to be closed. Never did that body display greater calmness, wisdom, and resolution. Little by little the panic was allayed. Measures were concerted for the defense of the capital, as it was expected that Hannibal would- immediately march upon the city. Swift horsemen were sent out along the Appian Way to gather information of the conqueror's movements, and to learn, as Livy expresses it, "if the immortal gods, out of pity to the empire, had left any remnant of the Roman name."

But Hannibal did not deem it prudent to fight the Romans behind their walls. He even sent an embassy to Rome to offer terms of peace. The Senate would not even permit the ambassadors to enter the gates. Hardly less disappointed was Hannibal in the temper of the Roman confederates. All the allies of the Latin name adhered to Rome through all these trying times with unshaken loyalty. Some tribes in the south of Italy, however, among which were the Lucanians and the Apulians, now went over to the Carthaginians. Capua also seceded from Rome and entered into an alliance with Hannibal, who quartered his army for the winter following the battle of Cannae in the luxurious city. A little later Syracuse also was lost to Rome.

The Fall of Syracuse (212 B.C.) and of Capua (211 B.C.).-- While Hannibal was resting in Capua and awaiting reenforcements, Rome was busy raising and equipping new levies to take the place of the legions lost at Cannae. The first task to be undertaken was the chastisement of Syracuse for its desertion of the Roman alliance. The distinguished general, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, called " the Sword of Rome," was intrusted with this commission. In the year 2 I4 B.C. he laid siege to the city. For three years it held out against the Roman forces. It is said that Archimedes, the great mathematician, rendered valuable aid to the besieged with curious and powerful engines contrived by his genius. But the city fell at last, and was given over to backhand pillage (212 B.C.). Syracuse never recovered from the blow inflicted upon it at this time by the relentless Romans.

Capua must next be punished for opening its gates and extending its hospitalities to the enemies of Rome. A line of circumvallation was drawn about the city, and two Roman armies held it in close siege. Hannibal endeavored to create a diversion in favor of his allies by making a dash on Rome,--legend says that he rang a defiant lance against one of the city gates,--but he failed to draw the legions from before Capua, and was forced to abandon the Capuans to their fate. The city soon fell, and paid the penalty that Rome never failed to inflict upon an unfaithful ally. The chief men of the place were put to death and a large part of the inhabitants sold as slaves (211 B.C.).

Hasdrubal attempts to carry Aid to his Brother; Battle of the Metaurus (207 B.C).--During all the years Hannibal was waging war in Italy, his brother Hasdrubal was carrying on a desperate struggle with the Roman armies in Spain. At length he determined to leave the conduct of the war in that country to others and go to the relief of his brother, who was sadly in need of aid. He followed the same route that had been taken by Hannibal, and in the year 207 B.C. descended from the Alps upon the plains of Northern Italy. Thence he advanced southward, while Hannibal moved northward from Bruttium to join him. Rome made a supreme effort to prevent the junction of the armies of the two brothers. At the river Metaurus, Hasdrubal's march was blocked by a large Roman army. Here his forces were cut to pieces, and he himself was slain (207 B.C.). His head was severed from his body and sent to Hannibal. Upon recognizing the features of his brother, Hannibal, it is said, exclaimed sadly, "Carthage, I read thy fate."

The Romans carry the War into Africa; Battle of Zama (202 B.C.).--Hannibal now drew back into the rocky peninsula of Bruttium. There he faced the Romans like a lion at bay. No one dared attack him. It was resolved to carry the war into Africa, in hopes that the Carthaginians would be forced to call their great commander out of Italy to the defense of Carthage Publius Cornelius Scipio (son of the consul mentioned above) led the army of invasion. He had not been long in Africa before the Carthaginian senate sent for Hannibal. At Zama, not far from Carthage, the hostile armies met. Hannibal here suffered his first and last defeat (202 B.C.).

The Close of the War (201 B.C.).--Carthage was now completely exhausted, and sued for peace. The terms of the treaty were much severe than those imposed upon the city at the end of the First Punic War. She was required to give up all claims to Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean; to surrender her war elephants, and all her ships of war save ten galleys; to pay an indemnity of four thousand talents (about 5,000,000) at once, and two hundred talents annually for fifty years; and not, under any circumstances, to make war upon an ally of Rome. Five hundred of the costly Phoenician war galleys were towed out of the harbor of Carthage and burned in full sight of the citizens.

Such was the end of the Hannibalic War, as called by the Romans. Scipio was accorded a grand triumph at Rome, and in honor of his achievements given the surname Africanus .

[Some time after the close of the Second Punic War, the Romans, persuading themselves that Hannibal was preparing Carthage for another war, demanded his surrender by the Carthaginians. He fled to Syria, and thence to Asia Minor, where to avoid capture, he committed suicide by means of poison (183 B.C.).]

Effects of the War on Italy.--Italy never entirely recovered from the calamitous effects of this war. Agriculture in some districts was almost ruined. The peasantry had been torn from the soil and driven within the walled towns. The slave class had increased, and the estates of the great landowners had constantly grown in size, and absorbed the little holdings of the ruined peasants. In thus destroying the Italian peasantry, Hannibal's invasion and long occupancy of the peninsula did very much to aggravate all those economic evils which even before this time were at work undermining the earlier sound industrial life of the Romans, and filling Italy with a numerous and dangerous class of homeless and discontented men.

EVENTS BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THE THIRD PUNIC WAR (201-146 B.C.)

Introductory.--The terms imposed upon Carthage at the end of the Second Punic War left Rome mistress of the Western Mediterranean. During the eventful half century that elapsed between the close of that struggle and the breaking out of the Third Punic War, her authority became supreme also in the Eastern Mediterranean. In an earlier chapter in which we narrated the fortunes of the most important states into which the great empire of Alexander was broken at his death, we followed their several histories until one after another they fell beneath the arms of Rome, and were successively absorbed into her growing dominions. We shall therefore in this place speak of these states only in the briefest manner, merely indicating the connection of their affairs with the series of events which mark the advance of Rome to universal empire.

The Battle of Cynoscephalæ (197 B.C.).--Rome came first into hostile relations with Macedonia. During the Second Punic War Philip V of that kingdom had entered into an alliance with Hannibal. He was now troubling the Greek cities which were under the protection of Rome. For these things the Roman Senate resolved to punish him

An army under Flamininus was sent into Greece, and on the plains of Cynoscephalæ, in Thessaly, the Roman legion demonstrated its superiority over the unwieldy Macedonian phalanx by subjecting Philip to a most disastrous defeat. The king was forced to give up all his conquests, and the Greek cities that had been brought into subjection to Macedonia were declared free. Unfortunately the Greeks had lost all capacity for self-government, and the anarchy into which their affairs soon fell afforded the Romans an excuse for extending their rule over all Greece.

The Battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.).--Antiochus the Great (223-187 B.C.) of Syria had at this time not only made important conquests in Asia Minor but had even carried his arms into Europe. As soon as intelligence of his movements was carried to Italy, the legions of the Republic were set in motion. At Magnesia, in Asia Minor, Antiochus was overthrown, and a large part of Lesser Asia fell into the hands of the Romans. Not yet prepared to maintain provinces so remote from the Tiber, the Senate conferred the greater part of the new territory upon their friend and ally, Eumenes, king of Pergamum. This " Kingdom of Asia," as it was called, was really nothing more than a dependency of Rome, and its nominal ruler only a puppet king in the hands of the Roman Senate.

The Battle of Pydna (168 B.C.).--And now Macedonia, under the leadership of Perseus, son of Philip V, was again in arms and offering defiance to Rome; but in the year 168 B.C. the Roman consul Æmilius Paulus crushed the Macedonian power forever upon the memorable field of Pydna. Twenty-two years later (146 B.C.) the country was organized as a Roman province. The short but great part which Macedonia as an independent state had played in history was ended. She now drops below the historical horizon.

The Destruction of Corinth (146 B.C.).--During the last war between Rome and Macedonia the cities of the Achaean League had shown themselves lukewarm in their friendship for Rome. Consequently, after the battle of Pydna, the Romans collected a thousand of the chief citizens of these federated cities and transported them to Italy, where they were held for seventeen years as hostages for the good conduct of their countrymen at home. Among these exiles was the celebrated ,historian Polybius, who wrote an account of all these events which we are now narrating and which mark the advance of Rome to the sovereignty of the world.

At the end of the period named, the Roman Senate, in an indulgent mood, gave the survivors permission to return home. They went back inflamed with hatred towards Rome, and became active in the cities of the league in stirring up feeling against her. In Corinth particularly the people displayed the most unreasonable and vehement hostility towards the Romans. There could be but one issue of this conduct, and that was war with Rome.

This came in the year 147 B.C. Corinth was soon in the hands of the Romans. The men were killed, and the women and children sold into slavery. Much of the booty was sold on the spot at public auction. But a large part of the rich art treasures of the city must have been destroyed by the rude and unappreciative soldiers. Polybius, who was an eyewitness of the sack of the city, himself saw groups of soldiers using priceless paintings as boards on which to play their games of dice.

The despoiled city, in obedience to the command of the Roman Senate, was given to the flames, its walls were leveled, and the very ground on which it had stood was accursed.

Effects upon Rome of her Conquest of the East.--In entering the lands beyond the Adriatic the Romans had entered the homeland of Greek culture, with which they had first come in close contact in Magna Graecia a century earlier. This culture was in many respects vastly superior to their own, and for this reason it exerted a profound influence upon life and thought at Rome. Greek manners and customs, Greek modes of education, and Greek literature and philosophy became the fashion at Rome, so that Roman society seemed in a fair way of becoming Hellenized And to a certain degree this did take place.

But along with the many helpful elements of culture which the Romans received from the Hellenic East, they received also germs of great social and moral evils. The simplicity and frugality or the earlier times were replaced by Graeco-Oriental luxury and dissoluteness. Evidences of this decline in the moral life of the Romans, the presage of the downfall of the Republic, will multiply as we advance in our story.

Cato the Censor.--One of the most noted of the Romans of this time was Marcus Porcius Cato (232-147 B.C.), surnamed the Censor. Cato set his face like a flint against all Greek innovations, and did everything in his power to keep Greek ideas and customs out of Rome. His life and services, especially those which he rendered the state as censor, were approved and appreciated by his fellow-citizens, who set up in his honor a statue with this inscription: " This statue was erected to Cato because when censor, finding the state of Rome corrupt and degenerate, he, by introducing wise regulations and virtuous discipline, restored it."

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR (149-146 B.C.)

"Carthage should be destroyed."--The same year that Rome destroyed Corinth she also blotted her great rival Carthage from the face of the earth. It will be recalled that one of the conditions imposed upon the city at the close of the Second Punic War was that she should under no circumstances engage in war with an ally of Rome (sec. 347). Taking advantage of the helpless condition of Carthage, Masinissa, king of Numidia and an ally of Rome, began to make depredations upon her territories. Carthage appealed to Rome for protection. The envoys sent to Africa by the Senate to settle the dispute, unfairly adjudged every point in favor of the robber Masinissa.

Chief of one of the embassies sent out was Marcus Cato the Censor. When he saw the prosperity of Carthage,--her immense trade, which crowded her harbor with ships, and the country for miles back of the city a beautiful landscape of gardens and villas, --he was amazed at the growing power and wealth of the city, and returned home convinced that the safety of Rome demanded the destruction of her rival. All of his addresses after this--no matter on what subject--he is said invariably to have closed with the declaration, "Moreover, Carthage should be destroyed."

Roman Perfidy.--A pretext for destroying the city was not long wanting. In I50 B.C. the Carthaginians, when Masinissa made another attack upon their territory, instead of calling upon Rome, from which source experience had taught them they could hope for neither aid nor justice, gathered an army with the resolution of defending themselves. Their forces, however, were defeated by the Numidians and sent beneath the yoke.

In entering upon this war Carthage had broken the conditions of the last treaty. The Carthaginian senate, in great anxiety, now sent an embassy to Italy to offer any reparation the Romans might demand. They were told that if they would give three hundred hostages, children of the noblest Carthaginian families, the independence of their city should be respected. They eagerly complied with this demand. But no sooner were these hostages in the hands of the Romans than the consular armies, thus secured against attack, crossed from Sicily into Africa, and disembarked at Utica, only ten miles from Carthage.

The Carthaginians were now commanded to give up all their arms. Still hoping to win their enemy to clemency, they complied with this demand also. Then the consuls made known the final decree of the Roman Senate,--"That Carthage must be destroyed, but that the inhabitants might build a new city, provided it were located ten miles from the coast."

When this resolution of the Senate was announced to the Carthaginians and they realized the baseness and perfidy of their enemy, a cry of indignation and despair burst from the betrayed city.

The Carthaginians prepare to defend their City.--It was resolved to resist to the bitter end the execution of the cruel decree. The gates of the city were closed. Men, women, and children set to work and labored day and night manufacturing arms. The entire city was converted into one great workshop. The utensils of the home and the sacred vessels of the temples, statues and vases, were melted down for weapons. Material was torn from the buildings of the city for the construction of military engines. The women cut off their hair and braided it into strings for the catapults. By such labor and through such sacrifices the city was soon put in a state to withstand a siege.

When the Romans advanced to take possession of the place, they were astonished to find the people they had just so treacherously disarmed, with weapons in their hands, manning the walls of their capital and ready to bid them defiance.

The Destruction of Carthage (146 B.C.) .--For four years the city held out against the Roman army. At length the consul Scipio Æmilianus [Grandson by adoption of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal. After his conquest of Carthage he was known as Africanus Minor.] succeeded in taking it by storm. When resistance ceased only fifty thousand men, women, and children, out of a population of seven hundred thousand, remained to be made prisoners. The city was set on fire, and for seventeen days the space within the walls was a sea of flames. Every trace of building which fire could not destroy was leveled, a plow was driven over the site, and a dreadful curse invoked upon any one who should dare attempt to rebuild the city.

Such was the hard fate of Carthage. Polybius, who was an eyewitness of the destruction of the city, records that Scipio, as he gazed upon the smoldering ruins, seemed to read in them the fate of Rome, and, bursting into tears, sadly repeated the lines of Homer:

The day shall be when holy Troy shall fall
And Priam, lord of spears, and Priam's folk [Iliad, vi. 448]

The Carthaginian territory in Africa was made into a Roman province, with Utica as the leading city; and by means of traders and settlers Roman civilization was spread rapidly throughout the regions that lie between the ranges of the Atlas and the sea.

The Capture and Destruction of Numantia (133 B.C.).--It is fitting that the same chapter which narrates the blotting out of Corinth in Greece and of Carthage in Africa should tell also the story of the destruction, at the hands of the Romans, of Numantia in Spain.

The Romans had expelled the Carthaginians from the peninsula, but the warlike native tribes--the Celtiberians and Lusitanians--of the North and the West were ready to dispute stubbornly with the newcomers the possession of the soil. The war gathered about Numantia, the siege of which was brought to a close by Scipio Æmilianus, the conqueror of Carthage. Before the surrender of the place, almost all the inhabitants had met death either in defense of the walls or by deliberate suicide. The miserable remnant which the ravages of battle, famine, pestilence, and despair had left alive were sold into slavery, and the city was leveled to the ground (133 B.C.).

Though ever since the Second Punic War Spain had been regarded as forming a part of the Roman dominions, still now for the first time it really became a Roman possession. Roman merchants and settlers crowded into the country. As a result of this great influx of Italians, the laws, the manners, the customs, and the language of the conquerors were introduced everywhere, so that the peninsula became in time thoroughly Romanized.