The Beginnings of Rome

Third Punic War, 153-146.--In

Africa there was no question at first of the introduction of Roman government by the forma tion of a province (see AFRICA, ROMAN). Carthage, bound hand and foot by the treaty of 201, was placed under the jealous watch of the loyal prince of Numidia, who himself willingly acknowl edged the suzerainty of Rome. But it was impossible for this arrangement to be permanent. Every symptom of reviving pros perity 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 increas ing irritation of the Carthaginians under the harassing raids and encroachments of their favoured neighbor 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 anti-Carthaginian 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 Scipio Aemili anus, grandson by adoption of the conqueror of Hannibal, was, at the age of 37, and though 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 im portant 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 north-east the Latin colony of Aquileia, the last of its kind, was founded in 181, to control the Alpine tribes, while in the north-west the Ligurians were held in check by the colony of Luna (18o), and by the extensive settlements of Roman citizens and Latins made on Ligurian territory in 173. 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' ; all suffered from a decline of popu lation and loss of trade; and their place was taken by such new Roman settlements as Brundusium (Brindisi) and Puteoli (Poz zuoli ). 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. 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 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.

(b) Rome in the East, 200-133.—Ever since the repulse of Pyrrhus from Italy, Rome had been slowly drifting into closer contact with the eastern states. With one of the three great powers which had divided between them the empire of Alexander, with Egypt, she had friendly relations since 273, and the friend ship had been cemented by the growth of commercial intercourse '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, XXX1V. 45,", 5.1) .

between the two countries. In 228 her chastisement of the Illyrian pirates had led naturally enough to the establishment of friendly relations with some of the states of Greece proper. In 214 the alliance between Philip V. and Hannibal, and the former's threat ened attack on Italy, forced her into war with Macedon, at the head of a coalition of the Greek states against him, which effec tually frustrated his designs against herself ; at the first opportu nity, 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 ambi tion, and with a bitter resentment against him for his union with Hannibal. The 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 acquisi tions 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 calcu lations. 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 sen ate was ready to have a serious discussion despite the depletion of all resources. Philip had compelled Rome to give way to him in Illyricum, and he had proved by his attack on Egypt that he would prove to be a dangerous neighbour in time of peril. Furthermore philhellenism had grown very strong at Rome since Livius, Naevius and Ennius had translated scores of Greek plays for production at the Roman festivals. To the nobles who were now eagerly reading Homer, Plato and Euripides, the appeal of the old Greek cities for protection of independence, democracy and culture in Greece came to open ears. The people, to be sure, remembering all too well what they had suffered in the last war, at first rejected the senate's proposal to aid the Greeks, but the nobles, insisting that postponement would only result in a Mace donian invasion of Italy', finally secured a declaration of war (20o).