Rome, History Of, Iii - Rome And The Mediterranean States, 265-146 Bc
ROME, HISTORY OF, III - ROME AND THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES, 265-146 BC (a) Conquest of the West. Though marked out by her geographical position as the natural centre of the Mediterranean, Italy had hitherto played no active part in Mediterranean politics, but, now that she was for the first time united, it was felt throughout the Mediterranean world that a new power had arisen, and Rome, as the head and representative of Italy, found herself irresistibly drawn into the vortex of Mediterranean affairs. Egypt sought her alliance, and Greek scholars began to interest themselves keenly in the history, constitution, and character of the Latin Republic which had so suddenly become famous. But Rome looked naturally westward rather than eastward. The western coasts of the peninsula were the most fertile and populous and wealthy; and it was in this direction that the natural openings for Italian commerce were to be found. It was, however, precisely on this side that Rome had serious ground for anxiety. Carthage was now at the height of her power. Her outposts were threateningly near to Italy in Sardinia and in Sicily, while her fleets swept the seas and jealously guarded for the benefit of Carthage alone the hidden treasures of the West. In the east of Sicily, Syracuse still upheld the cause of Greek independence against the hereditary foe of the Greek race; but Syracuse stood alone, and her resources were comparatively small. What Rome had to fear was the establishment, and that at no distant date, of an absolute Carthaginian domination over the Western seas a domination which would not only be fatal to Italian commerce, but would be a standing menace to the safety of the Italian coasts.
It was above all things essential for Rome that the Carthaginians should advance no farther eastward. But already in 272 Tarentum had almost fallen into their grasp, plrst and seven years later Rome was threatened with the p u aic establishment of Carthaginian rule at Messana, within War, sight of the Italian coast. The intervention of both 26S g? s ',~, powers in a quarrel between the Mamertines, a body of Campanian mercenaries who had occupied Messana, and Hiero II.
8 Livy iv. 59.
7 This system was probably introduced in order to meet the charge of the Celtic swordsmen, but it was perfected during the Samnite wars. See Marquardt, Staatsverw. iii. 350 seq.; Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquites, s.v. " Legio " (Cagnat).
8 Livy viii. 23, " ut pro consule rem gereret quoad debellatum esset."
of Syracuse, led to the outbreak of war between Rome and Carthage in 264 B.C. The military history of the struggle which followed is treated in the article PUNJC WARS; it will suffice to note here that the war lasted until 241 B.C., when the Carthaginians were compelled to cede Sicily and the Lipari islands to Rome, and to pay an indemnity of 3200 talents (about 800,000).
The struggle was one in which both Rome and Carthage were serving an apprenticeship in a warfare the conditions of which were unfamiliar to both. The Roman legions were foes very unlike any against which the Carthaginian leaders had ever led their motley array of mercenaries, while Rome was called upon for the first time to fight a war across the sea, and to fight with ships against the greatest naval power of the age. The novelty of these conditions accounts for much of the vacillating and uncertain action observable on both sides. It is possible that Hamilcar had already made up his mind that Rome must be attacked and crushed in Italy, but his government attempted nothing more than raids upon the coast. There are indications also that some in the Roman senate saw no end to the struggle but in the destruction of Carthage; yet an invasion of Africa was only once seriously attempted, and then only a half-hearted support was given to the expedition. But these peculiarities in the war served to bring out in the clearest relief the strength and the weakness of the two contending states. The chief dangers for Carthage lay obviously in the jealousy exhibited at home of her officers abroad, in the difficulty of controlling her mercenary troops, and in the ever-present possibility of disaffection among her subjects in Libya dangers which even the genius of Hannibal failed finally to surmount. Rome, on the other hand, was strong in the public spirit of her citizens, the fidelity of her allies, the valour and discipline of her legions. What she needed was a system which should make a better use of her splendid materials than one under which her plans were shaped from day to day by a divided senate, and executed by officers who were changed every year, and by soldiers most of whom returned home at the close of each summer's campaign.
The interval between the First and Second Punic Wars was employed by both Rome and Carthage in strengthening their respective positions. The eastern end of Sicily was still left under the rule of Hiero as the ally of Rome, but the larger western portion of the island became directly subject to Rome, and a temporary arrangement seems to have been made for its government, either by one of the two praetors, or possibly by a quaestor. 1 Sardinia and Corsica had not been surrendered to Rome by the treaty of 241, but three years later (230), on the invitation of the Carthaginian mercenaries stationed in the islands, a Roman force occupied them; Carthage protested, but, on the Romans threatening war, she gave way, and Sardinia and Corsica were formally ceded to Rome, though it was some seven or eight years before all resistance on the part of the natives themselves was crushed. In 227, however, the senate considered matters ripe for the establishment of a separate administration in her oversea possessions. In that year two additional praetors were elected; to one was assigned the charge of western Sicily, to the other that of Sardinia and Corsica, 2 and thus the first stones of the Roman provincial system were laid. Of at least equal importance for the security of the peninsula was the subjugation of the Celtic tribes in the valley of the Po. These, headed by the Boii and Insubres and assisted by levies from the Celts to the westward, had in 225 alarmed the whole of Italy by invading Etruria and penetrating to Clusium, only three days' journey from Rome. Here, however, their courage seems to have failed them. They retreated northward along the Etruscan coast, until at Telamon their way was barred by the Roman legions, returning from Sardinia to the defence of Rome, while a second consular army hung upon their rear. Thus hemmed in, the Celts fought desperately, 1 Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 243 ; Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, ii. 209 ; Appian, Sic. 2. * Livy, Epit. xx.
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but were completely defeated and the flower of their tribesmen slain. The Romans followed up their success by invading the Celtic territory. The Boii were easily reduced to submission. The Insubres, north of the Po, resisted more obstinately, but by 222 the war was over, and all the tribes in the rich M2 Po valley acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. The conquered Celts were not enrolled among the Italian allies of Rome, but were treated as subjects beyond the frontier. Three colonies were founded to hold them in check Placentia (218) and Cremona in the territory of the Insubres, Mutina (183)' in that of the Boii; and the great northern road (Via Flaminia) was completed as far as the Celtic border at Ariminum.
On the Adriatic coast the immediate interests of Rome were limited to rendering the sea safe for Italian trade. It was with this object that, in 229, the first Roman expedition crossed the Adriatic, and inflicted severe chastisement on the Illyrian pirates of the opposite coast. 3 This expedition was the means of establishing for the first time direct political relations between Rome and the states of Greece proper, to many of which the suppression of piracy in the Adriatic was of as much importance as to Rome herself. Alliances were concluded with Corcyra, Epidamnus, and Apollonia; and embassies explaining the reasons which had brought Roman troops into Greece were sent to the Aetolians, the Achaeans, and even to Athens and Corinth. Everywhere they were well received, and the admission of the Romans to the Isthmian games 4 (228) formally acknowledged them as the natural allies of the free Greek states against both barbarian tribes and foreign despots. Meanwhile Carthage had acquired a possession which promised to compensate her for the loss of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. The genius of her greatest citizen and soldier, Hamilcar Barca, had appreciated the enormous value of the Spanish peninsula, and conceived the scheme of founding there a Carthaginian dominion which should not only add to the wealth of Carthage, but supply her with a base of operations for a war of revenge with Rome. The conquest of southern and eastern Spain, begun by Hamilcar (236-28) and carried on by his kinsman Hasdrubal (228-21), was completed by his son Hannibal, who, with all his father's genius, inherited also his father's hatred of Rome, and by 219 the authority g^g of Carthage had been extended as far as the Ebro (see Spain, History). Rome had not watched this rapid advance without anxiety, but, probably owing to her troubles with the Celts, she had contented herself with stipulating (226) that Carthage should not carry her arms beyond the Ebro, so as to threaten Rome's ancient ally, the Greek Massilia (mod. Marseilles), and with securing the independence of the two nominally Greek communities, Emporiae and Saguntum, 5 on the east coast.
But these precautions were of no avail against the resolute determination of Hannibal, with whom the conquest of Spain was only preliminary to an attack upon Italy, and who could not afford to leave behind him in Spain a state allied to Rome. In 219, therefore, disregarding the protests of a Roman embassy, he attacked and took Saguntum, an act which, as he had foreseen, rendered a rupture with Rome inevitable, while it set his own hands free for a further advance.
For the details of the war which followed, the reader may be referred to the articles PUNJC WARS, HANNIBAL, and SCIPJO. From the outbreak of hostilities until the crowning second victory of Cannae in 216 Hannibal's career of success Punk was unchecked; and the annihilation of the Roman army in that battle was followed by the defection of almost the whole of southern Italy, with the exception of the Latin colonies and the Greek coast towns. In 215, moreover, Philip V. of Macedon formed an alliance 538.
with Hannibal and threatened to invade Italy; in 214 Syracuse revolted, and in 212 the Greek cities in S. Italy went over to Hannibal. But the indomitable spirit Pplyb. ii. 8 seq. ' Ibid. ii. 12.
6 Livy xxi. 2, 5; Polyb. Hi. 15, 31.
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of the Romans asserted itself in the face of these crushing misfortunes. In 212 Syracuse was recovered; in 211 Capua fell after a long siege which Hannibal failed to raise, even by his famous march up to the gates of Rome, and in the same year a coalition was formed in Greece against Philip V. of Macedon, which effectually paralysed his offensive action. Hannibal was now confined to Lucania and Bruttium; and his brother Hasdrubal, marching from Spain to join him, was defeated and slain on the river Metaurus (207). The war in Italy was now virtually ended, for, though during four years more Hannibal stood at bay in a corner of Bruttium, he was powerless to prevent the restoration of Roman authority throughout the peninsula. Sicily was once more ,.g secure; and finally in 206, the year after the victory ' on the Metaurus, the successes of the young P. Scipio in Spain (211-6) were crowned by the complete expulsion of the Carthaginians from the peninsula. On his return from Spain Scipio eagerly urged an immediate invasion of Africa. The senate hesitated; but Scipio gained the day. He was elected consul for 205, and given the province of Sicily, with permission to cross into Africa if he thought fit. Voluntary contributions of men, money, and supplies poured in to the support of the popular hero; and by the end of 205 Scipio had collected in Sicily a sufficient force for his purpose. In 204 he crossed to Africa, where he was welcomed by the Numidian prince Massinissa, whose friendship he had made in Spain. In 203 he twice defeated the Carthaginian forces, and a large party at Carthage were anxious to accept his offer of negotiations. But the advocates of resistance triumphed.
Hannibal was recalled from Italy, and returned to fight his last battle against Rome at Zama, where Scipio, who had been continued in command as proconsul for 202 by a special vote of the people, won a complete victory. The war was over. The Roman assembly voted that the Carthaginian request for peace should be granted, and entrusted the settlement of the terms to Scipio and a commission of ten senators. Carthage was allowed to retain her territory in Africa; but she undertook to wage no wars outside Africa, and none inside without the consent of Rome. She surrendered all her ships but ten triremes, her elephants, and all prisoners of war, and agreed to pay an indemnity of 10,000 talents in fifty years. The Numidian Massinissa (q.v.} was rewarded by an increase of territory, and was enrolled among the " allies and friends " of the Roman people.
The battle of Zama decided the fate of the West. The power of Carthage was broken and her supremacy passed to Rome. The West Henceforth Rome had no rival to fear westward of under Italy, and it rested with herself to settle within what Roman limits her supremacy should be confined and what form it should take. For the next fifty years, however, Rome was too deeply involved in the affairs of the East to think of 63f extending her rule far beyond the limits of the rich inheritance which had fallen to her by the defeat of Carthage; but within this area considerable advance was made in the organization and consolidation of her rule. In Sicily and Spain, the immediate establishment of a Roman Sicily government was imperatively necessary, if these and possessions were not either to fall a prey to internal Spain. anarchy, or be recovered for Carthage by some second Hamilcar. Accordingly, we find that in Sicily the former dominions of Hiero were at once united with the western half of the island as a single province, 1 and that in Spain. SS3. after nine years of a provisional government (206-197), S48-S7. two P rov i nc es were in 197 2 definitely established, and each, like Sicily, assigned to one of the praetors for the year, two additional praetors being elected for the ' Liyy xxvi. 40. The union was apparently effected in 210. ! Ibid, xxxii. 27 ; cf . Marquardt, Stoatsverw. i. 252, and h in Hermes, i. 105 seq.
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purpose. But here the resemblance between the two cases ends. From 201 down to the outbreak of the Slave War in 136 there was unbroken peace in Sicily, and its part in the history is limited to its important functions in supplying Rome with corn and in provisioning and clothing the Roman legions. 3 It became every year a more integral part of Italy; and a large proportion even of the land itself passed gradually into the hands of enterprising Roman speculators. The governors of the two Spains had very different work to do from that which fell to the lot of the Sicilian praetors. The condition of Spain required that year after year the praetors should be armed with the consular authority, and backed by a standing force of four legions, while more than once the presence of the consuls themselves was found necessary. Still, in spite of all difficulties, the work of pacification proceeded. To M. Porcius Cato, the censor, and to Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (praetor and pro- SS9 praetor, 180-79), father of the two tribunes, is mainly due the credit of quieting the Celtiberian tribes of central Spain, and the government of Gracchus was followed by thirty years of comparative tranquillity. The insurrection headed by Viriathus in 149 was largely caused byexac- MS tions of the Roman magistrates themselves, while its obstinate continuance down to the capture of Numantia, in 133, was almost as much the result of the incapacity of the Roman commanders. 4 But the re-settlement of the country by Scipio Africanus the younger in that year left all Spain, with the exception of the highland Astures and Cantabri in the north-west, finally and tranquilly subject to Rome. Roman traders and speculators flocked to the seaport towns and spread inland. The mines became centres of Roman industry; the Roman legionaries quartered in Spain year after year married Spanish wives, and when their service was over gladly settled down in Spain in preference to returning to Italy. The first Roman communities established outside Italy were both planted in Spain, and both owed their existence to the Roman legions. 5 In Africa there was no question at first of the introduction of Roman government by the formation of a province (see AFRICA, ROMAN). Carthage, bound hand and foot by Africa the treaty of 201, was placed under the jealous watch Third of the loyal prince of Numidia, who himself willingly w r acknowledged the suzerainty of Rome. But it was 153-46= impossible for this arrangement to be permanent. 605-8. Every symptom of reviving prosperity at Carthage was regarded at Rome with feverish anxiety, and neither the expulsion of Hannibal in 195 nor his death in 183 did much to check the growing conviction that Rome would never be secure while her rival existed. It was therefore with grim satisfaction that many in the Roman senate watched the increasing irritation of the Carthaginians under the harassing raids and encroachments of their favoured neighbour Massinissa, and waited for the moment when Carthage should, by some breach of the conditions imposed upon her, supply Rome with a pretext for interference. At last in 151 , came the news that Carthage, in defiance of treaty obligations, was actually at war with Massinissa. The antiCarthaginan party in the senate, headed by M. Porcius Cato, eagerly seized the opportunity, and war was declared, and nothing short of the destruction of their city itself was demanded from the despairing Carthaginians. The demand was refused, and in 149 the siege of Carthage begun. During the next two years little progress was made, but in 147 P. Cornelius MJ Scipio Aemilianus, grandson by adoption of the conqueror of Hannibal; was, at the age of thirty-seven, and though 3 Livy xxvii. 5, " pace ac bello fidissimum annonae subsidium " ; cf. xxxii. 27.
4 Some fresh light has been thrown upon the later campaigns in Spain by the recently discovered fragment of an epitome of Livy (Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iv. 668; Kornemann, Die neue Liviusepitome aus Oxyrhynchos (1904).
6 Italica (206), Appian, Iber. 38; Carteia (171), Livy xliii. 3.
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only a candidate for the aedileship, elected consul, and given the command in Africa. In the next year (146) Carthage was taken and razed to the ground. Its territory became the Roman province of Africa, while Numidia, now ruled by the three sons of Massinissa, remained as an allied state under Roman suzerainty, and served to protect the new province against the raids of the desert tribes (see CARTHAGE).
In Italy itself the Hannibalic war had been followed by important changes. In the north the Celtic tribes paid for their sympathy with Hannibal by the final loss of all separate political existence. Cispadane Gaul, studded with colonies and flooded with Roman settlers, was rapidly Romanized. Beyond the Padus (Po) in Polybius's time Roman civilization was already widely spread. In the extreme northeast the Latin colony of Aquileia, the last of its kind, was founded in 181, to control the Alpine tribes, while in S73 - the north-west the Ligurians were held in check by the colony of Luna (180), and by the extensive settlements of Roman citizens and Latins made on Ligurian 581. territory in I73. 1 In southern Italy the depression of the Greek cities on the coast, begun by the raids of the Sabellian tribes, was completed by the repeated blows inflicted upon them during the Hannibalic struggle Some of them lost territory; 2 all suffered from a decline of population and loss of trade; and their place was taken by such new Roman settlements as Brundusium (Brindisi) and Puteoli (Pozzuoli). 3 In the interior the southern Sabellian tribes suffered scarcely less severely. The Bruttii were struck off the list of Roman allies, and nearly all their territory was confiscated. 4 To the Apulians and Lucanians no such hard measure was meted out; but their strength had been broken by the war, and their numbers dwindled; large tracts of land in their territories were seized by Rome, and allotted to Roman settlers, or occupied by Roman speculators. That Etruria also suffered from declining energy, a dwindling population, and the spread of large estates is clear from the state of 621 ' things existing there in 133. It was indeed in central Italy, the home of the Latins and their nearest kinsmen, and in the new Latin and Roman settlements throughout the peninsula that progress and activity were henceforth concentrated.
553-608 W Rome in the East > 200-133. Ever since the repulse of Pyrrhus from Italy, Rome had been slowly drifting 554-621. j nto closer con tact with the Eastern states. With one of the three great powers which had divided between them the empire of Alexander, with Egypt, she had formed an alliance in 273, and the alliance had been cemented by the growth of commercial intercourse between the two countries. 6 In S26 228 her chastisement of the Illyrian pirates had led naturally enough to the establishment of friendly re540 ' lations with some of the states of Greece proper. In 2 1 4 the alliance between Philip V. and Hannibal, and the former's threatened attack on Italy, forced her into war with Macedon, at the head of a coalition of the Greek states against him, which effectually frustrated his designs against herself; at the first opportunity, however (205), she ended the war by a peace which left the position unchanged. The results of the war were not only to draw closer the ties which bound Rome to the Greek states, but to inspire the senate with a genuine dread of Philip's restless ambition, and with a bitter resentment against him for his union with Hannibal. The 1 Livy xlii. 4.
2 E.g. Tarentum, Livy xliv. 16. A Roman colony was established at Croton in 194, and a Latin colony (Copia) at Thurii in 193 (Livy xxxiv. 45, 53).
* Brundusium was established in 246 (Liv. Epit. xix.) or 245 (Veil. i. 14). Puteoli was fortified during the Second Punic War and became a Roman colony in 194 (Livy xxxiv.
45 'Appian, Hann. 61 ; Aul. Cell. x. 3; cf. Beloch, ltd.
* Egypt had supplied corn to Italy during the Second Punic War (Polyb. ix. 44).
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events of the next four years served to deepen both these feelings. In 205 Philip entered into a compact with Antiochus III. of Syria for the partition between them of the dominions of Egypt,* now left by the death of Ptolemy Philopator to the rule of a boy-king. Antiochus was to take Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, while Philip claimed for his share the districts subject to Egypt on the coasts of the Aegean and the Greek islands. Philip no doubt hoped to be able to secure these unlawful acquisitions before the close of the Second Punic War should set Rome free to interfere with his plans. But the obstinate resistance offered by Attalus of Pergamum and the Rhodians upset his calculations. In 201 Rome made peace with Carthage, and the senate had leisure to listen to the urgent appeal for assistance which reached her from her Eastern allies. With Antiochus indeed the senate was not yet prepared to quarrel; but with Philip the senate had no thoughts of a peaceful settlement. Their animosity against him has been deepened by the assistance he had recently rendered to Carthage. Always an unsafe and turbulent neighbour, he would, if allowed to become supreme in the Aegean, prove as dangerous to her interests in the East as Carthage had been in the West. To cripple or at least to stay the growth of Philip's power was in the eyes of the senate a necessity; but it was only by representing a Macedonian invasion of Italy as imminent that they persuaded the assembly, which was longing for peace, to pass a declaration of war 7 (200).
The war began in the summer of 200 B.C., and, though the landing of the Roman legions in Epirus was not followed, as had been hoped, by any general rising against Philip, Second yet the latter had soon to discover that, if they were Maam not enthusiastic for Rome, they were still less inclined w"'*" actively to assist himself. Neither by force nor 20&-197 by diplomacy could he make any progress south of 554-57. Boeotia. The fleets of Pergamum and Rhodes, now the zealous allies of Rome, protected Attica and watched the eastern coasts. The Achaeans and Nabis of Sparta were obstinately neutral, while nearer home in the north the Epirots and Aetolians threatened Thessaly and Macedonia. His own resources both in men and in money had been severely strained by his constant wars, 8 and the only ally who could have given him effective assistance, Antiochus, was fully occupied with the conquest of Coele-Syria. It is no wonder then that, in spite of his dashing generalship and high courage, he made but a brief stand. T. Quinctius Flamininus (consul 198), in his first year of command, defeated him on the Aous, drove him back to the pass of Tempe, and in the next year utterly routed him at Cynoscephalae. Almost at the same moment the Achaeans, who had now joined Rome, took Corinth, and the Rhodians defeated his troops in Caria.' Further resistance was impossible; Philip submitted, and early the next year a Roman commission reached Greece with instructions to arrange terms of peace. These were such as effectually secured Rome's main object in the war, the removal of all danger to herself and her allies from Macedonian aggression. 10 Philip was left in possession of his kingdom, but was degraded to the rank of a second-rate power, deprived of all possessions in Greece, Thrace and Asia Minor, and forbidden, as Carthage had been in 201, to wage war without the consent of Rome, whose ally and friend he now became.
The second point in the settlement now effected by Rome was the liberation of the Greeks. The " freedom of Greece " was proclaimed at the Isthmian games amid a scene of The wild enthusiasm, 11 which reached its height when two liberation years later (194) Flamininus withdrew his troops even otare t.' from the "three fetters of Greece" Chalcis, Demetrias and Corinth. 12 There is no reason to doubt that, in acting thus, not only Flamininus himself, but the senate and people at home were influenced, partly at any rate, by feelings of genuine ' Polyb. iii. 2, xv. 20; Livy xxxi. 14.
7 Ibid. xxxi. 6, 7. Ibid, xxxiii. 3. Ibid. 18.
10 Polyb. xviii. 44-47; Livy xxxiii. 30^34.
11 Ibid, xxxiii. 32, 33. u Ibid, xxxiv. 48-52.
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sympathy with the Greeks and reverence for their past. It is equally clear that no other course was open to them. For Rome to have annexed Greece, as she had annexed Sicily and Spain, would have been a flagrant violation of the pledges she had repeatedly given both before and during the war; the attempt would have excited the fiercest opposition, and would probably have thrown the Asiatic as well as the European Greeks into the arms of Antiochus. But a friendly and independent Greece would be at once a check on Macedon, a barrier against aggression from the East, and a promising field for Roman commerce. Nor while liberating the Greeks did Rome abstain from such arrangements as seemed necessary to secure the predominance of her own influence. In the Peloponnese, for instance, the Achaeans were rewarded by considerable accessions of territory; and it is possible that the Greek states, as allies of Rome, were expected to refrain from war upon each other without her consent. 1 Antiochus III. of Syria, Philip's accomplice in the proposed partition of the dominions of their common rival, Egypt, War with ret urned from the conquest of Coele-Syria (198) to learn first of all that Philip was hard pressed by the Romans, and shortly afterwards that he had been decisively beaten at Cynoscephalae. It was already too late to assist his former ally, but Antiochus resolved at any rate to lose no time in securing for himself the possessions of the Ptolemies in Asia Minor and in eastern Thrace, which Philip had claimed, and which Rome now pronounced free and inde557-58. pendent. In 197-96 he overran Asia Minorand crossed into Thrace. 2 But Antiochus was pleasure-loving, S62 ' irresolute, and no general, and it was not until 102 that the urgent entreaties of the Aetolians, and the withdrawal of the Roman troops from Greece, nerved him to the decisive step of crossing the Aegean; even then the force he took with him was so small as to show that he completely failed to appreciate the nature of the task before him. 3 At Rome the prospect of a conflict with Antiochus excited great anxiety, and it was not until every resource of diplomacy had been exhausted that war was declared, 4 and the real weakness which lay behind the once magnificent pretensions of the " king of kings " was revealed. Had Antiochus acted with energy when in 192 he landed in Greece, he might have won the day before the Roman legions appeared. As it was, in spite of the warnings of Hannibal, 5 who was now in his camp, and of the Aetolians, he frittered away valuable time between his pleasures at Chalcis and useless attacks on petty Thessalian towns. In 191 Glabrio landed at the head of an imposing force; and a single battle at Thermopylae broke the courage of Antiochus, who hastily recrossed the sea to Ephesus, leaving his Aetolian allies to their fate. But Rome could not pause here. The safety of her faithful allies, the Pergamenes and Rhodians, and of the Greek cities in Asia Minor, as well as the necessity of chastising Antiochus, demanded an invasion of Asia. A Roman fleet had already (191) crossed the Aegean, and in concert with the fleets of S64 Pergamum and Rhodes worsted the navy of Antiochus.
In 190 the new consul L. Scipio, accompanied by his famous brother, the conqueror of Africa, led the Roman legion for the first time into Asia. At Magnesia ad Sipylum, in Lydia, he met and defeated the motley and ill-disciplined hosts of the great king. 6 For the first time the West, under Roman leadership, successfully encountered the forces of the East, and the struggle began which lasted far on into the days of the Settle- emperors. The terms of the peace which followed men tot the victory at Magnesia tell their own story clearly western enough. There is no question, any more than in Greece, of annexation ; the main object in view is that of securing the predominance of Roman interests and influence 1 For the conflicting views of moderns on the action of Rome, see Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, ii. 442; Holm, Hist, of Greece, iv. 349; and on the other side Ihne, Hist, of Rome, iii. 76 ff ., and C. Peter, Studien zur rom. Gesch. (Halle, 1863), pp. 158 seq.
1 Livy xxxiii. 38; Polyb. xviii. 50.
3 Livy xxxv. 43. * Ibid. xxxv. 20, xxxvi. I. 6 Ibid, xxxvi. 7.
6 Livy (xxxvii. 40) describes the composition of Antiochus's army.
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throughout the peninsula of Asia Minor, and removing to a safe distance the only eastern power which could be considered dangerous. 7 The line of the Halys and the Taurus range, the natural boundary of the peninsula eastward, was established as the boundary between Antiochus and the kingdoms, cities and peoples now enrolled as the allies and friends of Rome. This line Antiochus was forbidden to cross; nor was he to send ships of war farther west than Cape Sarpedon in Cilicia. Immediately to the west of this frontier lay Bithynia, Paphlagonia and the immigrant Celtic Galatae, and these frontier states, now the allies of Rome, served as a second line of defence against attacks from the east. The area lying between these " buffer states " and the Aegean was organized by Rome in such a way as should at once reward the fidelity of her allies and secure both her own paramount authority and safety from foreign attack. Pergamum and Rhodes were so strengthened the former by the gift of the Chersonese, Lycaonia,Phrygia,Mysia and Lydia, thelatter by that of Lycia and Caria as not only amply to reward their loyalty, but to constitute them effective props of Roman interests and effective barriers alike against Thracian and Celtic raids in the north and Syrian aggression in the south. Lastly, the Greek cities on the coast, except those already tributary to Pergamum, were declared free, and established as independent allies of Rome.
In a space of little over eleven years (200-189) Rome had broken the power of Alexander's successors and established throughout the eastern Mediterranean a Roman protectorate.
It was in the western half of this protectorate that the first steps in the direction of annexation were taken. The enthusiasm provoked by the liberation of the Greeks had died Third away, and its place had been taken by feelings of dis- / Macesatisfied ambition or sullen resentment. Internecine doaian feuds and economic distress had brought many parts of Greece to the verge of anarchy, and, above all, the very foundations of the settlement effected in 197 were threatened by the reviving power and aspirations of Macedon. Loyally as Philip had aided Rome in the war with Antiochus, the peace of Magnesia brought him nothing but fresh humiliation. He was forced to abandon all hopes of recovering Thessaly, and he had the mortification to see the hated king of Pergamum installed almost on his borders as master of the Thracian Chersonese. Resistance at the time was unavailing, but from 189 until his death (179) he laboured patiently and quietly to increase the internal resources of his own kingdom, 8 and to foment, by dexterous intrigue, feelings of hostility to Rome among his Greek and barbarian neighbours. His successor, Perseus, his son by a left-handed alliance, continued his father's work. He made friends among the Illyrian and Thracian princes, connected himself by marriage with Antiochus IV. of Syria and with Prusias of Bithynia, and, among the Greek peoples, strove, not without success, to revive the memories of the past glories of Greece under the Macedonian leadership of the great Alexander. 9 The senate could no longer hesitate. They were well aware of the restlessness and discontent in Greece; and after hearing from Eumenes of Pergamum, and from their own officers, all details of Perseus's intrigues and preparations, they declared war." The struggle, in spite of Perseus's courage and the incapacity at the outset of the Roman commanders, was short and decisive. The sympathy of the Greeks with Perseus, which had been encouraged by the hitherto passive attitude assumed by Rome, instantly evaporated on the news that the Roman legions were on their way to Greece. No assistance came from Prusias ot Antiochus, and Perseus's only allies were the Thracian king Cotys and the Illyrian Genthius. The victory gained by L. Aemilius Paulus at Pydnaji68) ended the war. 11 Perseus fg6 became the prisoner of Rome, and as such died in Italy a few years later. 12 Rome had begun the war with the 7 Livy xxxvii. 55, xxxviii. 38; Polyb. xxi. 17.
8 Livy xxxix. 24 seq. Ibid. xlii. 5. l Ibid. xlii. 19, 36. 1 Ibid. xliv. 36-41 ; Plut. Aemil. 15 seq.
12 Diod. xxxi. 9 ; Livy xlv. 42 ; Polyb. xxxvii. 16.
fixed resolution no longer of crippling but of destroying the Macedonian state. Perseus's repeated proposals for peace during the war had been rejected; and his defeat was followed by the final extinction of the kingdom of Philip and Alexander. 1 Macedonia, though it ceased to exist as a single state, was not, however, definitely constituted a Roman province. 2 On the contrary, the mistake was made of introducing some of "the main principles of the provincial system taxation, disarmament and the isolation of the separate communities without the addition of the element most essential for the maintenance of order that of a resident Roman governor. The four petty republics now created were each autonomous, and each separated from the rest by the prohibition of commercium and conubium, but no central controlling authority was substituted for that of the Macedonian king. The inevitable result was confusion 6os-8. an d disorder, resulting finally (140-48) in the attempt Mace- f a pretender, Andriscus, who claimed to be a son doniaa of Perseus, to resuscitate the ancient monarchy. 3 Roman Qn his defeat in 148 the senate declared Macedonia province, & R oman province, and placed a Roman magistrate at its head. 4 From 189 to the defeat of Perseus in 168 no formal change of importance in the status of the Greek states had been made by Affairs la Rome. The senate, though forced year after year to Greece, listen to the mutual recriminations and complaints of S6S-87. r j ya j commun iti es an( j factions, contented itself as a rule with intervening just enough to remind the Greeks that their freedom was limited by its own paramount authority, and to prevent any single state or confederacy from raising itself too far above the level of general weakness which it was the interest of Rome to maintain. After the victory at Pydna, however, the sympathy shown for Perseus, exaggerated as it seems to have been by the interested representations of the romanizing factions in the various states, was made the pretext for a more emphatic assertion of Roman ascendancy. All those suspected of Macedonian leanings were removed to Italy, as hostages for the loyalty of their several communities, 5 and the real motive for the step was made clear by the exceptionally severe treatment of' the Achaeans, whose loyalty was not really doubtful, but whose growing power in the Peloponnese and independence of language had awakened alarm at Rome. A thousand of their leading men, among them the historian Polybius, were carried off to Italy (see POLYBIUS). In Aetolia the Romans connived at the massacre by their socalled friends of five hundred of the opposite party. Acarnania was weakened by the loss of Leucas, while Athens was rewarded for her unambitious loyalty by the gift of Delos and Samos.
But this somewhat violent experiment only answered for a time. In 148 the Achaeans rashly persisted, in spite of warnSettle- i"S s ' in attempting to compel Sparta by force of meat of arms to submit to the league. When threatened by Greece, Rome with the loss of all that they had gained since 146=608. Cyrioscephalae, they madly rushed into war. 6 They were easily defeated, and a " commission of ten," under the presidency of L. Mummius, was appointed by the senate thoroughly to resettle the affairs of Greece. 7 Corinth, by orders of the senate, was burnt to the ground and its territory confiscated. Thebes and Chalcis were destroyed, and the walls of all towns which had shared in the last desperate outbreak were razed to the ground. All the existing confederacies were dissolved; no commercium was allowed between one community and another. Everywhere an aristocratic type of constitution, according to the invariable Roman practice, was established, and the pay- 1 Liyy xlv. 9.
a Ibid, xlv. 17, 29; Plut. Aemil. 28; Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, ii. 508; Ihne, Hist, of Rome, iii. 258; Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 316.
3 Polyb. xxxvii. 2 ; Livy, Epit. 1.
* For the boundaries of the province, see Ptolemy iii. 13; Marquardt, loc. cit, 318 f.
6 Livy xlv. 31. Ibid. Epit. li., Hi.
7 Ibid. Epit. Iii.; Polyb. xl. 9 seq.; Pausanias vii. 16; Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, iii. 270.
587.
ment of a tribute imposed. Into Greece, as into Macedonia in 167, the now familiar features of the provincial system were introduced disarmament, isolation and taxation. The Greeks were still nominally free, and no separate province with a governor of its own 8 was established, but the needed central control was provided by assigning to the neighbouring governor of Macedonia a general supervision over the affairs of Greece. From the Adriatic to the Aegean, and as far north as the river Drilo and Mount Scardus, the whole peninsula was now under direct Roman rule. 9 Beyond the Aegean the Roman protectorate worked no better than in Macedonia and Greece, and the quarrels and disorders which flourished under its shadow were aggravated by The its longer duration and by the still more selfish view Roman taken by Rome of her responsibilities. 10 At one period fj^orato indeed, after the battle of Pydna, it seemed as if inAsfa* the more vigorous, if harsh, system then initiated 189-46- in Macedon and Greece was to be adopted farther 66S-608. east also. The levelling policy pursued towards Macedon and the Achaeans was applied with less justice to Rome's two faithful and favoured allies, Rhodes and Pergamum. The former had rendered themselves obnoxious to Rome by their independent tone and still more by their power and commercial prosperity. On a charge of complicity with Perseus they were threatened with war, and though this danger was averted " they were forced to exchange their equal alliance with Rome for one which placed them in close dependence upon her, and to resign the lucrative possessions in Lycia and Caria given them in 189. Finally, their commercial pros- .
perity was ruined by the establishment of a free port at Delos, 12 and by the short-sighted acquiescence of Rome in the raids of the Cretan pirates. With Eumenes of Pergamum no other fault could be found than that he was strong and successful; but this was enough. His brother Attalus was invited, but in vain, to become his rival. His turbulent neighbours, the Galatae, were encouraged to harass him by raids. Pamphylia was declared independent, and favours were heaped upon Prusias of Bithynia. These and other annoyances and humiliations had the desired effect. Eumenes and his two successors his brother and son, Attalus II. and Attalus III. contrived indeed by studious humility and dexterous flattery to retain their thrones, but Pergamum (q.v.) ceased to be a powerful state, and its weakness, added to that of Rhodes, increased the prevalent disorder in Asia Minor. During the same period we have other indications of a temporary activity on the part of Rome. The frontier of the protectorate was pushed forward to the confines of Armenia by alliances with the kings of Pontus and Cappadocia beyond the Halys. In Syria, on the death of Antiochus Epiphanes (164), Rome intervened to place a minor, Antiochus Eupator, on the throne, under Roman guardianship. 13 In 168 Egypt formally ac- sgi \ knowledged the suzerainty of Rome, 14 and in 163 the senate, in the exercise of this new authority, restored Ptolemy Philometor to his throne, but at the same time weakened his position by handing over Cyrene and Cyprus to his brother Euegertes. 15 But this display of energy was shortlived. From the death of Eumenes in 159 down to 133 Rome, secure in the S9S-621 absence of any formidable power in the East, and busy with affairs in Macedonia, Africa and Spain, relapsed into an 8 Mommsen, loc. cit. note; Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 321 seq.; Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten, iii. 358.
9 North of the Drilo the former kingdom of Perseus's ally Gentmus had been treated as Macedon was in 167 (Livy xlv. 26) ; cf. Zippel, Rom. Herrschaft in Illyrien (Leipzig, 1877). Epirus, which had been desolated after Pydna (Livy xlv. 34), went with Greece; Marquardt i- 3I9- 10 Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, ii. 510 ff., iii. 274 ff.
11 Livy xiv. 20; Polyb. xxx. 5.
13 Polyb. xxxi. 7. The Rhodian harbour dues suffered severely.
18 Rome had already intervened between Syria and Egypt : Livy xlv. 12; Polyb. xxix. ii, xxxi. 12.
14 Livy xlv. 13, " Regni maximum ipraesidium in fide populi Romani." " Ibid. Epit. xlvi., xlvii.
inactivity the disastrous results of which revealed themselves in the next period, in the rise of Mithradates of Pontus, the spread of Cretan and Cilician piracy, and the advance of Parthia.
Both the western and eastern Mediterranean now acknowledged the suzerainty of Rome, but her relations with the two were from the first different. The West fell to her as the prize of victory over Carthage, and, the Carthaginian power broken, there was no hindrance to the immediate establishment in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and finally in Africa, of direct Roman rule. To the majority, moreover, of her western subjects she brought a civilization as well as a government of a higher type than any before known to them. And so in the West she not only formed provinces but created a new and wider Roman world. To the East, on the contrary, she. came as the liberator of the Greeks; and it was only slowly that in this part of the Empire her provincial system made way. In the East, moreover, the older civilization she found there obstinately held its ground. Her proconsuls governed and her legions protected the Greek communities, but to the last the East remained in language, manners and thought Greek and not Roman.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
