Book XXII, chs. Y, 54, 65, and 56, Spillan & Edmonds' trans.) — Trans- CHAP. IV.] OF THE ROMANS. 89 senate refused to enjoy the unhappy triumph which the occasion offered. Seeing how necessary it was in the existing circumstances to draw to itself the con- fidence of the people, this body went before Yarro and thanked him for not having despaired of the republic."
It is not ordinarily the actual loss which is occa- sioned by a battle — that is to say, some thousands of men — that is fatal to a state; it is the imaginary loss and the resulting discouragement which deprive it even of the resources which fortune has left it.
There are things which everybody says, for the reason that they have once been said. It is believed that Hannibal committed a signal error in not hav- ing laid siege to Eome after the battle of Cannae." It is true that at first the terror of the city was ex- treme; but the consternation of a warlike people, which nearly always changes into courage, is not like that of a vile populace, which feels nothing but its own weakness. One proof that Hannibal would not have succeeded is seen in the fact that the Eomans were yet in a condition to send out succors in every direction.
^' [The senate thanked him for this publicly; and from that moment it was resolved, according to the ancient maxims, to listen to no propo- sition of peace in this sad state of affairs. The enemy were astonished; the people took heart afresh, and believed that they possessed resources which the senate knew of in its wisdom. (Bossuet, Disc, mr I'JSist. Univ., troisi^me partie, ch. vi.)]
'^ [See Saint-Evremond, Reflexions sur Ics divers gSnies du peaple ro- main, etc., ch. vii.]
90 GEANDEUK AND DECADENCE [montesqtjibu.
It is further said that Hannibal committed a great mistake in leading his army to Oapna, where it became enervated. But it is overlooked that this view does not ascend to the true cause. Become rich after so many victories, would not the soldiers of this army have found Capua everywhere? Alexander, who com- manded his own subjects, adopted an expedient in a similar situation which Hannibal, who only had mer- cenary troops, could not resort to; he set fire to the baggage of his soldiers, and consumed aU their wealth and his own. We are told that Kublai Khan, after the conquest of India, allowed only one hundred rupees of silver to each soldier.'"
It was the very conquests which Hannibal made that commenced to change the fortunes of the war. He had not been sent into Italy by the magistrates of Carthage; and, whether from the jealousy of the one party, or from the too great confidence of the other, he received very little support from hgrne. So long as he kept his army together he beat the Romans. But, when it became necessary to garrison cities, to defend his allies, to besiege places or pre- vent them from being besieged, his forces were found to be too small, and he lost portions of his army in detail. Conquests are easy to make, for the conqueror achieves them with all his forces; they are difficult to preserve, for he only defends them with a part of his forces.
'» History of his life, Paris, 1742, p. 402.
BAKEH.] OF THE ROMANS.
91 NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR In order that we may form a completer, and in one instance a more acciirate, general idea of several of the important subjects which are embraced in the chapter just closed, it becomes necessary that I should add some observations to the text.
I. In assigning to the Eomans and the Gauls " the same obstinate resolve to conquer," and in making the difference between them to consist in the in- feriority of the wenpons of the latter, Montesquieu does not distinguish the salient points of character for which the two peoples M'ere noted. The will of tlie Gaul was much the more impetuous, that of the Roman much the more persistent. " Obstinate re- solve" was a Roman, but scarcely a Galhc, quality.
Machiavelli has a curious chapter, entitled, "The reason why the Gauls have been and still are adjudged to be more than men at the beginning of a battle, and afterwards less than women " ' — wherein he draws at- tention to that characteristic quality of the Gauls ' La mpionc pcrcht' i Franciosi sono stati c sono aiienra c/iiidicati nclle :iit/f da jmiiripio piU che tiomini, c dipoi ineiio chc fanmine. Discorsi, lib. iii, cup. xxxvi.
92 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
which is SO closely akin to a national trait ascribed by other modern nations to the French, and which indeed is best expressed by the French word, elm.
"The ferocity of that Gaul," says Machiavelli, "who, on the rirer Anio, challenged any Eoman whatever to single combat, and the fight which en- sued between him and Titus Manlius, remind me of what Livy several times says, that in the beginnuig of a battle the Gauls are more than men, and that they afterwards become, in the issue of the combat, less than women: and reflecting upon the cause of this, it is believed by many that nature may have made them thus— an opinion which may be correct; but it does not therefore follow, that this nature of theirs, which renders them ferocious in the beginning, might not be so regulated by art that it would finally enable them to maintain their ferocity to the last.'"
That affiliation of character which is traceable be- tween the ancient Gaul and the modern Frenchman is but one of a multitiide of instances going to show the persistence — I do not say the absolute immutar bility — of race characters. Whatever may be the origin of races, when once formed, they become, to say the least, pretty stable "facts — retaining their iden- tity for many thousands of years, and impressing their peculiar genius upon the history of the world. In the mental process of referring the phenomena of history to their proximate causes, it appears to me ''Idem.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 93 tbat race is an exceedingly important factor; and I am persuaded that Buckle and Mill set altogether too low a value upon this element.'
Quetelet, who has perhaps done more than any other man towards giving a character of precision to social science, recognizes the high value of race, as one of the modifying causes of social phenomena. "It seems to me," he says, "that one of the first distinctions to be taken in the study which occupies us is that of the difEerent races of men inhabiting the countries which we shall consider; it is, as we shall very soon see, of the highest importance, al- though it may not be that which first presents itself to the mind."* He adopts the estimate of Malte-Brun, that the population of France — at a time prior to the late Franco-Prussian war — was composed of three princi- pal race elements — ^the Keltic, the Germanic, and the Pelasgic, of which the first alone — ^being the modem representative of the ancient Gallic stock — constitutes nearly three fifths of the whole; and he quotes ap- provingly the opinion of the great geographer, that "the progress of civilization may alter the character of a people, but cannot change it entirely." ' Certainly the progress of civilization has done much, by means of that "art" of which Machiavelli speaks, to modify the military character of the Gaul ' Sist. of Civ. in Eiigland, ch.!i, note 1.
* Physique Social, Bruxelles and Paria. 1869, torn, ii, pp. 279-280.
' Idem, p. 280.
94 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakek.
as it was known and described by tbe Eomans; but it is none tbe less certain that the French elan of to-day is a reminder of an ancestral quality which may be traced back more than two thousand years.
According to the description given by Caesar in his Commentaries, the Gauls were larger and taller than the Eomans; and they looked with contempt upon the short stature of the latter." But, superior steadiness in character and purpose, no less than su- perior arms, gave the mastery to the smaller race of men.
II. It will be well to indicate, with a degree more of precision and particularity than is found in the text, the great salient features of the second Punic war. It is noteworthy that all the four battles referred to in this chapter — and which conducted Hannibal to the summit of his power — took place within about two years from the time when he first descended from the Alps. He entered northern Italy in the year 218 b. c, and gained, during that same year, the two victories of Ticinus and Trebia — ^both in cisalpine Gaul. The next year — 21Y b. c. — he advanced further south, and defeated the Komans at Trasymenus; and the year following — 216 b. c— having proceeded still further south, he inflicted upon them the terrible defeat of Cannge — at which time his ascendency attained its maximum. Thencefor- ' Pr<s magtdtudine corpo}-um suorum, brevitas nostra contemtui est, lib. ii, c. 30.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 95 ward, during tlie remaining thirteen years that he yet tarried in Italy, we may trace a gradual decline in his fortunes.
These celebrated victories, which thus marked the rapid rise of Hannibal's power, were very unequal.
Ticinus was an affair of no great importance in itself — a mere prelude to the shock of invasion which threatened to extinguish the Eoman name; Trebia and Trasymenus — especially the latter — were destruc- tive defeats; and Cannae was an appalling disaster. The signal celebrity of the last two of these battles will justify some more particular notice of each in this place.
According to the account of Livy, there was, on tlie part of the Romans, a total want of generalship at Trasymenus. Between the lake Trasymenus and the mountains of Cortona there was a narrow pass, which expanded into a confined plain terminated by some hiUs. The whole formed a sort of natural cul de sac. BTannibal occupied the hills in person, with his Span- ish and African troops — distributed his light infantry along the mountain in flank — and concealed his cav- alry in such a position that it could close the mouth of the defile in the rear of the advancing Romans. Into this trap Flaminius led his army a little before dawn, amid the fogs arising from the lake, and with- out the precaution of sending forward a reeonnois- sance. The consul and fifteen thousand Romans were killed outright upon the field, and as -many more were 96 GKAN'DEUR AND DECADENCE [bakek.
captured, whilst only fifteen hundred of the Cartha- ginians were slain.
Livy mentions a very extraordinary circumstance in connection with this battle, and one which is well calculated to show how utterly the mind of the sol- dier is absorbed by the interest of the struggle in which he is engaged: " and so great was the ardor of the conflict, so intent were their minds upon the bat- tle, that not one of the combatants felt an earthquake which threw down large portions of many of the cit- ies of Italy, turned rivers from their rapid courses, carried the sea up into rivers, and levelled mountains with a tremendous crash."
We also remark in the same writer's account of this battle — as in numerous other instances among the armies of antiquity — ^how completely similar was the behavior of the ancient and modem soldier when stricken with panic fear; and this notwithstanding the relatively greater ascendency of the purely mili- tary spirit among the ancients: "and now neither the lake nor the mountains obstructed their hurried retreat; they run through all places, confined and pre- cipitous, as though they were blind; and arms and men are tumbled one upon another.'"
The battle of Cannae took place on the Aufidus, — the modern Ofanto — a small stream flowing north- east into the Adriatic, and at a point about six miles ' Compare Lwy, Book XXII, chg. 4 to 7, Spillan & Edmonds' tran8. | and Arnold's Hist, of Rome, ch. xliii.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 97 from its mouth. The scene of the conflict laj"^ in a southeastern direction from Eome, and at a distance of about five days' march from the city. The force of the Eomans is variously estimated by their own authorities, some placing it as high as 87,200, which may be accepted as the more probable number. The Carthaginian army consisted of 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. In the order of battle, it is said that the Komans looked to the south, the Carthaginians to the north, and that a strong wind, blowing over the backs of the latter, carried blinding clouds of dust into the faces of the Eomans. The center of the Car- thaginian army giving way, the Eomans followed up in a dense column, until, finally checked in this for- ward movement by the troops which had first been beaten back, their fianks were at the same time en- veloped by the two powerful wings of the enemy, and their rear assailed by his formidable cavalry. The Eomans being thus surrounded, the contest — as at Trasymenus — became a slaughter rather than a battle. Their army was virtually annihilated. The debris, assembled a few days after under cover of the walls of the neighboring town of Canusium, seems not to have exceeded 10,000 men. The total loss, therefore, captured and slain, must have been about 77,000. Livy puts the number of killed on the Eoman side at 42,700, and on the side of the Carthaginians at 8,000. Considering the number of combatants, this was an enormous mass of dead to lie upon one field 6 98 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [baker.
—showing with what destructive ferocity some of the ancient battles were fought. There is a touch of hor- ror, 'felt anew after the lapse of so many ages, in Livy's brief description of the scene of slaughter at the dawn of the following morning. Some of the wounded, covered with blood and rising amid heaps of slain, were struck down by the unpitying hand of the foe; others, prostrate upon the field and unable to rise, laid bare their necks to the merciful blade which would end their suffering: some had excavated burrows for their heads in the dusty plain where they fell, and thus ended their agony by voluntary suffocation; and one instance is mentioned as attracting the special notice of the Carthaginians who explored the field — a dead Roman was found stretched upon the body of a living Numidian, whom he had torn With his teeth in the very act of expiring. A modern pen will be excused by humanity itself for thus recurring to the revolting details of an ancient battle. It is such details, rather than descriptions of carnage in gross, that touch the heart and quicken the feelings against the brutal work of war.
As to the oft mooted question, whether or not Hannibal could have taken Rome if he had pressed forward immediately after the battle, I think it is worthy of special notice that there was a strong opinion among the Romans ihemselves that he could have done so. " That day's delay," says Livy, refer- ring to the inaction of Hannibal just after the battle NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 99 of Cannae, " is firmly believed to have been the pres- ervation of the city and the empire." If the invest- ment of Rome at that moment would have led to the desertion of her Latin allies, as the defeat at Can- nse led to the desertion of the peoples of Southern Italy, it would seem that she must have succumbed. But who can now say what the action of the Latins would have been in such case? In favor of Montes- quieu's view it may be added, that the character of Hannibal, as it comes to us in histories written by his enemies, represents him as combining — like all first-rate generals and men of action — consummate audacity with conswmmate prudence; and that, being but thirty-one years of age at the time of his great victory, he had not yet reached that time in life when the latter quality would be likely to act as an undue check upon the former. On the whole, how- ever, there appears to be no certain means of deter- mining whether the Ilon>ans, at this awful crisis in their history, were or were not indebted to fortune for their escape from a Carthaginian master; and the one opinion may be as good as the other."
III. Here, too, it will be proper to add something further in relation to the comparative power and character of the two peoples who were thus engaged in a life and death struggle for the empire of the ' Comp. Livy, Book XXII, chs. 36 to 56, Spillan & Edmonds' trana.; Momrasen's Bomiache Oeschichte, Berlin, 1868, Vol. I, pp. 610-614; Arnold's Hist, of Rome, oh. xliii; Chambers' and Am. Encydopmdias, art. Oanrm; and Anthon's Glas. Die, arts. Aufidus and Oannce.
100 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
Mediterranean states — a struggle in -which the future interests of the world's civilization were deeply in- volved.
The single observation of Montesquieu, that "the establishment of Carthage in her territory was less solid than that of Eome in hers," goes far towards accounting for the ultimate triumph of the latter. The power of the one — while yet confined to Italy — rested at once upon the solid physical base of a ter- ritory which was continuous, and upon the solid so- cial base of a group of peoples who were similar in race, language, and political organization. The power of the other reposed upon a territory which was de- tached and straggling, and upon peoples between whom and' their masters there existed very wide ethnic, linguistic, and social differences. Carthage extended her power or her influence along the north- em margin of Africa for a distance of about eighteen hundred miles, and held scattered outposts in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, the Balearic Islands, and Spain. The power of Eome was massed in the pen- insula of Italy.
When we add to tliis that the Komans were in- tensely warlike, and thus took the lead in their own fighting, whilst the Carthaginians relied almost wholly upon mercenary troops, which they were enabled to subsidize by reason of their great gains in commerce, we can readily anticipate the final result. The matter of surprise is that Home was brought to such great NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 101 peril, and that the Carthaginians were not beaten sooner and easier. This, however, is sufficiently ac- coiinted for by two causes, the one special, the other general. The special cause was, that it so happened that the Carthaginian armies were commanded by a succession of remai'kably able men, closing with Han- nibal, the ablest of all. The general cause was, that the Cai'thaginian mercenaries — especially the Iberians, the Gauls, the Baleares and the Numidians — ^were the very best troops of the mercenary sort of which we have any account in ancient history — with the soli- tary exception of that famous Ten Thousand who fii-st dishonored the Greek name by marching for hire in aid of a despotic pretender, and then immortalized it by their unmatched retreat.
"With mercenary troops of such a character, con- tinuing in service for years together, and led by a great general whose command was permanent, the military appointment of the Carthaginians was for a time really superior to that of the Eomans them- selves— embarrassed as the latter were by their system of annual enlistments and annual chanse of com- manders.
In her best days, Cai-thage is said to have been 23 niilea in circumference, and to have contained 700,000 inhabitants. Being of Phcenician origin, her speech belonged to the Semitic family of languages, and was closely allied to the Hebrew. Commercial gain being her dominant idea, the leading feature of 102 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bamr.
her government was aristocracy based upon wealth. Aristotle speaks highly of her constitution; and Dr. Arnold detects the identity of the two Suffetes— the chief magistrates of the city — with those officers who are styled Judges among the Hebrews.
The disgraceful malignity which prompted the Romans to destroy Carthage, when it was at length prostrate at their feet, and no longer able to lift a hand in defense, is nearly equalled by that meanness of spirit which suffered the literature of the great people they had crushed to be blotted from exist- ence. After the destruction of the city, instead of transferring its libraries to Home, and there preserr- ing them as the repositories of a valuable part of the world's store of knowledge, it appears that the sen- ate distributed them among the half savage "princes of Africa "; and the result is that a few meagre fragments, in a version of Greek or Latin, is all that survives to represent the entire literature of a nation which was the most active and powerful branch of that same Phoenician stock which gave letters to Greece, to Eome, to Europe and America.
Taking, however, the most comprehensive view of these rival cities, two facts — the one probable and the other certain — are alone sufficient to show that the Carthaginians were less adapted than the Eomans to beneficial empire.
1. Hard as the Aryan Eomans were in their ex- actions upon subject peoples, these African Semites NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 103 appear to have been still more so. Under the later em- peroi-s, the land tax of the Eomans rose as high as thir- ty-three and one third per cent, of the net produce; whilst at the time of the first Punic War— if we are to credit Polybius — the like tax imposed by the Cartha- ginians upon their African subjects was fifty per cent. 2. Degrading and cruel as the Eoman supersti- tion was in some of its features, it was greatly less so than that of Carthage. The detestable rite of Human Sacrifice — which is at once the effect and the cause of the greatest debasement of spirit, al- though having too much place among the Greeks and Eomans themselves, had altogether a stronger hold upon the Carthaginians, and, in their case, was much more ingrained and organic. The worship of the sun-god, Moloch or Baal — brought by the Cartha- ginians from their mother country — was probably the most revolting of which all antiquity contains any account. Wherever their power extended, on either coast of the Mediterranean, or along the shores of its beautiful islands, they established the altars of this hideous god; and so inveterate was their attach- ment to his worship, that for a long time after the overthrow of Carthage the Eomans were unable to extirpate it. The following description — quoted from E. Simeon by Dr. IST. Davis in his work on Car- thage and her Eemains — gives a frightful idea of these rites — practiced by the Carthaginians in com- mon with their Phoenician progenitors: 104 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bazer.
"All the houses of idols were in the city of Jerusalem, except that of Moloch, which was out of the city, in a separate place. It was a statue with the head of an ox, and the hands stretched out as a man's who opens his hand to receive something from another. It was hollow within, and there were seven chapels raised, before which the idol was erected. He that offered a fowl or a young pigeon went into the first chapel; if he offered a sheep or a lamb, he went into the second; if a ram, into the third; if a calf, into the fourth; if a bullock, into the fifth; if an ox, into the sixth; but he only who offered his own son went into the seventh chapel, and kissed the idol Moloch, as it is said, ' Let the men that sac- rifice kiss the calves.' The child was placed before the idol, and a fire made under it till it became red hot. Then the priest took the child, and put him into the glowing hands of Moloch. But, lest the parents should hear his cries, they beat drums to drown the noise. Therefore the place was called Tophet, from Tho;ph, ITiuppim, that signifies drums. It was also called Hinnom, because of the children's cries, from the Hebrew word naham, to roar, or be- cause the priests said to the parents, ' Yehenelah,^ 'It will be of advantage to you.'"