Napoleon III
History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2
Peopled at first by Latins, it was not long before these colonies received Roman citizens who were induced by their poverty to exchange their title and rights for the advantages assured to the colonists. These did not figure on the lists of the censors. The formula fixed simply the tribute to pay and the number of soldiers to furnish. What the colony lost in privileges it gained in independence.180
The isolation of the Latin colonies, placed in the middle of the enemy’s territory, obliged them to remain faithful to Rome, and to keep watch on the neighbouring peoples. Their military importance was at least equal to that of the Roman colonies; they merited as well as these latter the name of propugnacula imperii and of specula,181 that is, bulwarks and watch-towers of the conquest. In a political point of view they rendered services of a similar kind. If the Roman colonies announced to the conquered people the majesty of the Roman name, their Latin sisters gave an ever-increasing extension to the nomen Latinum,182 that is, to the language, manners, and whole civilisation of that race of which Rome was but the first representative. The Latin colonies were ordinarily founded to economise the colonies of Roman citizens, which were charged principally with the defence of the coasts and the maintenance of commercial relations with foreign people.
In making the privileges of the Roman citizen an advantage which every one was happy and proud to acquire, the Senate held out a bait to all ambitions; and this general desire, not to destroy the privilege, but to gain a place among the privileged, is a characteristic trait of the manners of antiquity. In the city not less than in the State, the insurgents or discontented did not seek, as in our modern societies, to overthrow, but to attain to. So every one, according to his position, aspired to a legitimate object: the plebeians to enter into the aristocracy, not to destroy it; the Italic peoples, to have a part in the sovereignty of Rome, not to contest it; the Roman provinces to be declared allies and friends of Rome, and not to recover their independence.
The peoples could judge, according to their conduct, what lot was reserved for them. The paltry interests of city were replaced by an effectual protection, and by new rights often more precious, in the eyes of the vanquished, than independence itself. This explains the facility with which the Roman domination was established. In fact, that only is destroyed entirely which may be replaced advantageously.
A rapid glance at the wars which effected the conquest of Italy will show how the Senate made application of the principles stated above; how it was skilful in profiting by the divisions of its adversaries, in collecting its whole strength to overwhelm one of them; after the victory in making it an ally; in using the aims and resources of that ally to subjugate another people; in crushing the confederacies which united the vanquished against it; in attaching them to Rome by new bonds; in establishing military posts on all the points of strategic importance; and, lastly, in spreading everywhere the Latin race by distributing to Roman citizens a part of the lands taken from the enemy.
But, before entering upon the recital of events, we must cast a glance upon the years which immediately preceded the pacification of Latium.
Submission of Latium after the first Samnite War.
IV. During a hundred and sixty-seven years, Rome had been satisfied with struggling against her neighbours to re-conquer a supremacy lost since the fall of her kings. She held herself almost always on the defensive; but, with the fifth century, she took the offensive, and inaugurated the system of conquests continued to the moment when she herself succumbed.
In 411, she had, in concert with the Latins, combated the Samnites for the first time, and commenced against that redoubtable people a struggle which lasted seventy-two years, and which brought twenty-four triumphs to the Roman generals.183 Proud of having contributed to the two great victories of Mount Gaurus and Suessula, the Latins, with an exaggerated belief in their own strength and a pretension to equality with Rome, went so far as to require that one of the two consuls, and half of the senators, should be chosen from their nation. War was immediately declared. The Senate was willing enough to have allies and subjects, but it could not suffer equals; it accepted without scruple the services of those who had just been enemies, and the Romans, united with the Samnites, the Hernici, and the Sabellian peoples, were seen in the fields of the Veseris and Trifanum, fighting against the Latins and Volsci. Latium once reduced, it remained to determine the lot of the vanquished. Livy reports a speech of Camillus which explains clearly the policy recommended by that great citizen. “Will you,” he exclaims, addressing the members of the assembly, “use the utmost rigour of the rights of victory? You are masters to destroy all Latium, and to make a vast desert of it, after having often drawn from it powerful succours. Will you, on the contrary, after the example of your fathers, augment the resources of Rome? Admit the vanquished among the number of your citizens; it is a fruitful means of increasing at the same time your power and your glory.”184 This last counsel prevailed.
The first step was to break the bonds which made of the Latin people a sort of confederacy. All political communalty, all war on their own account, all rights of commercium and connubium, between the different cities, were taken from them.185
The towns nearest Rome received the rights of city and suffrage.186 Others received the title of allies and the privilege of preserving their own institutions, but they lost a part of their territory.187 As to the Latin colonies founded before in the old country of the Volsci, they formed the nucleus of the Latin allies (socii nominis Latini). Velitræ, alone, having already revolted several times, was treated with great rigour; Antium was compelled to surrender its ships, and become a maritime colony.
These severe, but equitable measures, had pacified Latium; applied to the rest of Italy, and even to foreign countries, they will facilitate everywhere the progress of Roman domination.
The momentary alliance with the Samnites had permitted Rome to reduce the Latins; nevertheless the Senate, without hesitation, turned against the former again as soon as the moment appeared convenient. It concluded, in 422, a treaty with the Gauls and Alexander Molossus, who, having landed near Pæstum, attacked the Lucanians and the Samnites. This King of Epirus, the uncle of Alexander the Great, had been called into Italy by the Tarentines; but his premature death disappointed the hopes to which his co-operation had given rise, and the Samnites recommenced their incursions on the lands of their neighbours. The intervention of Rome put a stop to the war. All the forces of the Republic were employed in reducing the revolt of the Volscian towns of Fundi and Privernum.188 In 425, Anxur (Terracina) was declared a Roman colony, and, in 426, Fregellæ (Ceprano?), a Latin colony.
The establishment of these fortresses, and of those of Cales and Antium, secured the communications with Campania; the Liris and the Vulturnus became in that direction the principal lines of defence of the Romans. The cities situated on the shores of that magnificent gulf called Crater by the ancients, and in our days the Gulf of Naples, perceived then the dangers which threatened them. They turned their eyes towards the population of the interior, who were no less alarmed for their independence.
Second Samnite War.
V. The fertile countries which bordered the western shore of the peninsula were destined to excite the covetousness of the Romans and the Samnites, and become the prey of the conqueror. “Campania, indeed,” says Florus,189 “is the finest country of Italy, and even of the whole world. There is nothing milder than its climate. Spring flourishes there twice every year. There can be nothing more fertile than its soil. It is called the garden of Ceres and Bacchus. There is not a more hospitable sea than that which bathes its shores.” In 427, the two peoples disputed the possession of it, as they had done in 411. The inhabitants of Palæopolis having attacked the Roman colonists of the ager Campanus, the consuls marched against that place, which soon received succour from the Samnites and the inhabitants of Nola, while Rome formed an alliance with the Apulians and the Lucanians. The siege dragged on, and the necessity of continuing the campaign beyond the ordinary limit led to the prolongation of the command of Publilius Philo with the title of proconsul, which appeared for the first time in the military annals. The Samnites were soon driven from Campania; the Palæopolitans submitted; their town was demolished; but they formed close to it a new establishment, at Naples (Neapolis), where a new treaty guaranteed them an almost absolute independence, on the condition of furnishing a certain number of vessels to Rome. After that, nearly all the Greek towns, reduced one after another, obtained the same favourable conditions, and formed the class of the socii navales.190
Yet the war was protracted in the mountains of the Apennine. Tarentum united with the Samnites, the only people who were still to be feared,191 and the Lucanians abandoned the alliance of the Romans; but, in 429, the two most celebrated captains of the time, Q. Fabius Rullianus and Papirius Cursor, penetrated into the country of Samnium, and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity for the war and accept a year’s truce.
At this epoch, an unforeseen event, which changed the destinies of the world, came to demonstrate the difference between the rapid creation of a man of genius and the patient work of an intelligent aristocracy. Alexander the Great, after having shone like a meteor, and brought into subjection the most powerful kingdoms of Asia, died at Babylon. His fruitful and decisive influence, which carried the civilization of Greece into the East, survived him, but at his death, the empire he founded became in a few years dismembered (431); the Roman aristocracy, on the contrary, perpetuating itself from age to age, pursued more slowly, but without interruption, the system which, binding again the peoples about a common centre, was destined by little and little to secure her domination over Italy first, and then over the universe.
The defection of a part of the Apulians, in 431, encouraged the Samnites to take arms again; defeated in the following years, they asked for the restoration of friendly relations, but the haughty refusal of Rome led, in 433, to the famous defeat of the Furcæ Caudinæ. The generosity of the Samnite general, Pontus Herennius, who granted their lives to so many thousands of prisoners on condition of restoring to force the old treaties, had no effect upon the Senate. Four legions had passed under the yoke – a circumstance in which the Senate only saw a new affront to revenge. The treaty of Caudium was not ratified, and subterfuges little excusable, although approved at a later period by Cicero,192 gave to the refusal an appearance of justice.
Meanwhile the Senate exerted itself vigorously to repair this check, and soon Publilius Philo defeated the enemies in Samnium, and, in Apulia, Papirius, in his turn, caused seven thousand Samnites to pass under the yoke. The vanquished solicited peace, but in vain; they only obtained a truce for two years (436), and it had hardly expired, when, penetrating into the country of the Volsci, as far as the neighbourhood of Terracina, and taking a position at Lautulæ, they defeated a Roman army raised hastily and commanded by Q. Fabius (439). Capua deserted, and Nola, Nuceria, the Aurunci, and the Volsci of the Liris took part openly with the Samnites. The spirit of rebellion spread as far as Præneste. Rome was in danger. The Senate required its utmost energy to restrain populations whose fidelity was always doubtful. Fortune seconded its efforts, and the allies, who had proved traitors, received a cruel chastisement, explained by the terror they had inspired. In 440,193 not far from Caudium, a numerous army encountered the Samnites, who lost 30,000 men, and were driven back into the Apennine territory. The Roman legions proceeded to encamp before their capital, Bovianum, and there took up their winter quarters.
The year following (441), Rome, less occupied in fighting, profited by this circumstance to seize upon advantageous positions, establishing in Campania and Apulia colonies which surrounded the territory of Samnium. At the same epoch, Appius Claudius transformed into a regular causeway the road which has preserved his name.194 The Romans turned their attention to the defence of the coasts and communication by sea; a colony was sent to the isle of Pontia,195 opposite Tarracina, and the armament of a fleet was commenced, which was placed under the command of duumviri navales.196 The war had lasted fifteen years, and, although Rome had only succeeded in driving back the Samnites into their own territory, she had conquered two provinces, Apulia and Campania.
Third Samnite war. Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Hernici (443-449).
VI. A struggle so desperate had produced its effect even in Etruria, and the old league was formed again. Inured to war by their daily combats with the Gauls, and emboldened by the reports of the defeat of Lautulæ, the Etruscans believed that the moment had arrived for recovering their ancient territory to the south of the Ciminian forest; they were further encouraged by the attitude of the peoples of Central Italy, who were weary of the continual passing of legions. From 443 to 449, the armies of the Republic were obliged to face different enemies at the same time. In Etruria, Fabius Rullianus relieved Sutrium, a rampart of Rome on the north;197 he passed through the Ciminian forest, and by the victories of Lake Vadimo (445)198 and Perusia compelled all the Etruscan towns to ask for peace. At the same time, an army laid waste the country of the Samnites; and a Roman fleet, composed of vessels furnished by the maritime allies, took the offensive for the first time. Its attempt near Nuceria Alfaterna (Nocera, a town of Campania) was unfortunate.
War next breaks out again in Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria, where the aged Papirius Cursor, named dictator anew, gains a brilliant victory at Langula (445). The year following Fabius penetrates again into Samnium, and the other consul, Decius, maintains Etruria. Suddenly the Umbrians conceive the project of seizing Rome by surprise. The consuls are recalled for the defence of the town. Fabius meets the Etruscans at Mevania (on the confines of Etruria and Umbria), and, the year following, at Allifæ (447). Among the prisoners were some Æqui and Hernici. Their towns, feeling themselves thus compromised, declared open war against the Romans (448). The Samnites recovered courage; but the prompt reduction of the Hernici allowed the Senate to concentrate its forces. Two armies, penetrating into Samnium by way of Apulia and Campania, re-established the old frontiers. Bovianum was taken for the third time, and during six months the country was delivered up to devastation. In vain Tarentum tried to raise new quarrels for the Republic, and to force the Lucanians to embrace the cause of the Samnites. The successes of the Roman arms led to the conclusion of treaties of peace with all the peoples of Southern Italy, constrained thenceforward to acknowledge the majesty of the Roman people. The Æqui remained alone exposed to the wrath of Rome; the Senate did not forget that at Allifæ they had fought in the ranks of the enemy, and, once freed from its more serious embarrassments, it inflicted on this people a terrible chastisement: forty-one places were taken and burnt in fifty days. This period of six years thus terminated with the submission of the Hernici and Æqui.
Five years less agitated left Rome time to regulate the position of its new subjects, and to establish colonies and ways of communication.
The Hernici were treated in the same manner as the Latins, in 416, and deprived of commercium and connubium. Prefects and the law of the Cærites were imposed on Anagnia, Frusino, and other towns guilty of desertion. The cities which had remained faithful preserved their independence and the title of allies (448);199 the Æqui lost a part of their territory and received the right of city without suffrage (450). The Samnites, sufficiently humiliated, obtained at last the renewal of their ancient conventions (450).200 Fœdera non æqua were concluded with the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, the Frentani (450), the Vestini (452), and the Picentini (455).201 Rome treated with Tarentum on a footing of equality, and engaged not to let her fleet pass the Lacinian Promontory to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum.202
Thus, on the one hand, the territories shared among the Roman citizens; on the other, the number of the municipia were considerably augmented. Further, the Republic had acquired new allies; she possessed at length the passages of the Apennines and commanded both seas.203 A girdle of Latin fortresses protected Rome and broke the communications between the north and south of Italy; among the Marsi and the Æqui, there were Alba and Carseoli; Sora, towards the sources of the Liris; and Narnia, in Umbria. Military roads connected the colonies with the metropolis.
Fourth Samnite War. Second coalition of the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls (456-464).
VII. Peace could not last long: between Rome and the Samnites it was a duel to death. In 456, these latter had already sufficiently recovered from their disasters to attempt once more the fortune of arms.204 Rome sends to the succour of the Lucanians, suddenly attacked, two consular armies. Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at Maleventum by Decius, the Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country. Still they do not lose courage; their chief, Gellius Egnatius, conceives a plan which places Rome in great danger. He divides the Samnite army into three bodies: the first remains to defend the country; the second takes the offensive in Campania; the third, which he commands in person, throws itself into Etruria, and, increased by the junction of the Etruscans, the Gauls, and the Umbrians, soon forms a numerous army.205 The storm roared on all sides, and, while the Roman generals were occupied some in Samnium and others in Campania, despatches arrived from Appius, placed at the head of the army of Etruria, announcing a terrible coalition formed in silence by the peoples of the north, who were concentrating all their forces in Umbria for the purpose of marching upon Rome.
The terror was extreme, but the energy of the Romans was equal to the danger. All able men, even to the freedmen, were enrolled, and ninety thousand soldiers were raised. Under these grave circumstances (458), Fabius and Decius were, once again, raised to the supreme magistracy, and gained, under the walls of Sentinum, a brilliant victory, long disputed. During the battle, Decius devoted himself, as his father had done before. The coalition once dissolved, Fabius defeated another army which had issued from Perusia, and then came to receive the honour of a triumph in Rome. Etruria was subdued (460), and obtained a truce of forty years.206
The Samnites still maintained an obstinate struggle of mingled successes and reverses. In 461, after having taken an oath to conquer or die, thirty thousand of them were left on the field of battle of Aquilonia. A few months later, the celebrated Pontius, the hero of Furcæ Caudinæ, re-appeared, at the end of twenty-nine years, at the head of his fellow-citizens, and inflicted upon the son of Fabius a check, which the latter soon retrieved with the assistance of his father.207 Finally, in 464, two Roman armies re-commenced, in Samnium, a war of extermination, which led for the fourth time to the renewal of the ancient treaties and the cession of a certain extent of territory. At the same epoch, an insurrection which broke out in the Sabine territory was put down by Curius Dentatus. Central Italy was conquered.
The peace with the Samnites lasted five years (464-469). Rome extended her frontiers, and fortified those of the peoples placed under her protectorate; and at the same time established new military forts.
The right of city without suffrage was accorded to the Sabines, and prefects were given to some of the towns of the valley of the Vulturnus (Venafrum and Allifæ).208 A Latin colony, of twenty thousand men, was sent to Venusia to watch over Southern Italy.209 It commanded at the same time Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. If, owing to the treaty concluded with the Greek towns, the Roman supremacy extended over the south of the peninsula, to the north the Etruscans could not be reckoned as allies, since nothing more than truces had been concluded with them. In Umbria, the small tribe of the Sarsinates remained independent, and all the coast district from the Rubicon to the Æsis was in the power of the Senones; on their southern frontier the Roman colony of Sena Gallica (Sinigaglia) was founded; the coast of Picenum was watched by that of Castrum Novum and by the Latin fortress of Hatria (465).210
Third coalition of the Etruscans, Gauls, Lucanians, and Tarentines (469-474).
VIII. The power of Rome had increased considerably. The Samnites, who hitherto had played the first part, were no longer in a condition to plan further coalitions, and one people alone could hardly be rash enough to provoke the Republic. Yet the Lucanians, always hesitating, gave this time the signal for a general revolt.
The attack on Thurium, by the Lucanians and Bruttians, became the occasion of a new league, into which entered successively the Tarentines, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and even the Gauls. The north was soon in flames, and Etruria again became the battle-field. A Roman army, which had hastened to relieve Arretium, was put to rout by the Etruscans united with Gaulish mercenaries. The Senones, to whom these belonged, having massacred the Roman ambassadors sent to expostulate on their violation of the treaty with the Republic, the Senate sent against them two legions who drove them back beyond the Rubicon. The Gaulish tribe of the Boians, alarmed by the fate of the Senones, descended immediately into Umbria, and, rallying the Etruscans, prepared to march to renew the sack of Rome; but their march was arrested, and two successive victories, at Lake Vadimo, (471) and Populonia (472), enabled the Senate to conclude a convention which drove back the Boians into their old territory. Hostilities continued with the Etruscans during two years, after which their submission completed the conquest of Northern Italy.
Pyrrhus in Italy. Submission of Tarentum (474-488).
IX. Free to the north, the Romans turned their efforts against the south of Italy; war was declared against Tarentum, the people of which had attacked a Roman flotilla. While the consul Æmilius invested the town, the first troops of Pyrrhus, called in by the Tarentines, disembarked in the port (474).
This epoch marks a new phase in the destinies of Rome, who is going, for the first time, to measure herself with Greece. Hitherto the legions have never had to combat really regular armies, but they have become disciplined in war by incessant struggles in the mountains of Samnium and Etruria; henceforth they will have to face old soldiers disciplined in skilful tactics and commanded by an experienced warrior. The King of Epirus, after having already twice lost and recovered his kingdom, and invaded and abandoned Macedonia, dreamt of conquering the West. On the news of his arrival at the head of twenty-five thousand soldiers and twenty elephants,211 the Romans enrolled all citizens capable of bearing arms, even the proletaries; but, admirable example of courage! they rejected the support of the Carthaginian fleet with this proud declaration: “The Republic only entertains wars which it can sustain with its own forces.”212 While fifty thousand men, under the orders of the consul Lævinus, march against the King of Epirus, to prevent his junction with the Samnites, another army enters Lucania. The consul Tiberius Coruncanius holds Etruria, again in agitation. Lastly, an army of reserve guards the capital.
Lævinus encountered the King of Epirus near Heraclea, a colony of Tarentum (474). Seven times in succession the legions charged the phalanx, which was on the point of giving way, when the elephants, animals unknown to the Romans, decided the victory in favour of the enemy. A single battle had delivered to Pyrrhus all the south of the Peninsula, where the Greek towns received him with enthusiasm.
But, though victor, he had sustained considerable losses, and learned at the same time the effeminacy of the Greeks of Italy, and the energy of a people of soldiers. He offered peace, and asked of the Senate liberty for the Samnites, the Lucanians, and especially for the Greek towns. Old Appius Claudius declared it impossible so long as Pyrrhus occupied Italian soil, and peace was refused. The king then resolved to march upon Rome through Campania, where his troops made great booty.
Lævinus, made prudent by his defeat, satisfied himself with watching the enemy’s army, and succeeded in covering Capua; whence he followed Pyrrhus from place to place, looking out for a favourable opportunity. This prince, advancing by the Latin Way, had reached Præneste without obstacle,213 when, surrounded by three Roman armies, he found himself under the necessity of falling back and retiring into Lucania. Next year, reckoning on finding new auxiliaries among the peoples of the east, he attacked Apulia; but the fidelity of the allies in Central Italy was not shaken. Victorious at Asculum (Ascoli di Satriano) (475), but without a decisive success, and encountering always the same resistance, he seized the first opportunity of quitting Italy to conquer Sicily (476-78). During this time, the Senate re-established the Roman domination in Southern Italy, and even seized upon some of the Greek towns, among the rest Locri and Heraclea.214 Samnium, Lucania, and Bruttium were again given up to the power of the legions, and forced to surrender lands and renew treaties of alliance; on the coast, Tarentum and Rhegium alone remained independent. The Samnites still resisted, and the Roman army encamped in their country in 478 and 479. Meanwhile Pyrrhus returns to Italy, reckoning on arriving in time to deliver Samnium; but he is defeated at Beneventum by Curius Dentatus, and returns to his country. The invasion of Pyrrhus, cousin of Alexander the Great; and one of his successors, appears as one of the last efforts of Grecian civilisation expiring at the feet of the rising grandeur of Roman civilisation.
The war against the King of Epirus produced two remarkable results: it improved the Romans in military tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of civilised nations which teach men to honour their adversaries, to spare the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended. The King of Epirus treated his Roman prisoners with great generosity. Cineas, sent to the Senate at Rome, and Fabricius, envoy to Pyrrhus, carried back from their mission a profound respect for those whom they had combated.
In the following years Rome took Tarentum (482),215 finally pacified Samnium, and took possession of Rhegium (483-485). Since the battle of Mount Gaurus, seventy-two years had passed, and several generations had succeeded each other, without seeing the end of this long and sanguinary quarrel. The Samnites had been nearly exterminated, and yet the spirit of independence and liberty remained deeply rooted in their mountains. When, at the end of two centuries and a half, the war of the allies shall come, it is there still that the cause of equality of rights will find its strongest support.
The other peoples underwent quickly the laws of the conqueror. The inhabitants of Picenum, as a punishment for their revolt, were despoiled of a part of their territory, and a certain number among them received new lands in the south of Campania, near the Gulf of Salernum (Picentini)(486). In 487, the submission of the Salentines allowed the Romans to seize Brundusium, the most important port of the Adriatic.216 The Sarsinates were reduced the years following.217 Finally, Volsinium, a town of Etruria, was again numbered among the allies of the Republic. The Sabines received the right of suffrage. Italy, become henceforth Roman, extended from the Rubicon to the Straits of Messina.
Preponderance of Rome.
X. During this period, the conquest of the subjugated countries was ensured by the foundation of colonies. Rome became thus encircled by a girdle of fortresses commanding all the passages which led to Latium, and closing the roads to Campania, Samnium, Etruria, and Gaul.218
At the opening of the struggle which ended in the conquest of Italy, there were only twenty-seven tribes of Roman citizens; the creation of eight new tribes (the two last in 513) raised finally the number to thirty-five, of which twenty-one were reserved to the old Roman people and fourteen to the new citizens. Of these the Etruscans had four; the Latins, the Volsci, the Ausones, the Æqui, and the Sabines, each two; but, these tribes being at a considerable distance from the capital, the new citizens could hardly take part in the comitia, and the majority, with its influence, remained with those who dwelt at Rome.219 After 513, no more tribes were created; those who received the rights of citizens were only placed in the previously existing tribes; so that the members of one individual tribe were scattered in the provinces, and the number of those inscribed went on increasing continually by individual additions, and by the tendency more and more apparent to raise the municipia of the second order to the rank of the first order. Thus, towards the middle of the sixth century, the towns of the Æqui, the Hernici, the Volsci, and a part of those of Campania, including the ancient Samnite cities of Venafrum and Allifæ, obtained the right of city with suffrage.
