In these days sober students of history wisely leave the oft-told stories of war and battle, and busy themselves rather with questions of social life, public and private economy, and the history of religion, morals and scientific inquiry. But there are a few wars, great struggles of nation against nation, which will always have an absorbing interest: partly because of their dramatic character, partly because of their far-reaching consequences; and the long fight between Rome and Carthage is assuredly one of these. On the Carthaginian side it produced two of the most extraordinary men, father and son, of whom history has anywhere to tell; and on the Roman side it gives us a vivid picture of the most marvellous endurance during long years of extreme peril that we can find in the annals of any people. And probably no war was ever so pregnant of results for good and ill alike. It welded the whole of Italy south of the Alps into a united country under the rule of Rome, and launched the Romans on a new career of conquest beyond the sea; it laid the foundations of the Roman Empire as we now think of that great system. Yet it left Italy in a state of economic distress from which it is hardly untrue to say that she has never fully recovered, and it changed the character of the Roman people, rich and poor alike, for the worse rather than the better.

In order to see clearly how it came about, we must once more look at the map of Italy; a map of modern Italy will do well enough. Let the reader remember that as yet Rome had control only over the central and southern parts of the whole of what is now the kingdom of Italy, and that two other parts of that kingdom, which every Italian now regards as essential to its unity, were in other hands. These were: first, the great alluvial plain of the river Po (Padus); secondly, the island of Sicily: strategically speaking, these lie on the two flanks of the Roman dominion, to north and south respectively. Any power holding central Italy, to be safe from invasion, must be in possession of these two positions, as a long series of wars has clearly shown, beginning with the two now to be sketched. The magnificent plain of the Po, stretching from the great Alpine barrier to the Apennines which look down on the Gulf of Genoa, the richest land in all Italy, was then in the hands of warlike Gallic tribes, who had settled there before the time when they struck southward and captured Rome itself; these might again become a serious danger, as indeed they proved to be in this very war. The island of Sicily was, and had long been, a bone of contention between the Greek settlers who had long ago built cities on the most favourable points of its coast, and the traders of the Phoenician city of Carthage just opposite to it on the coast of Africa. Sicily was rich in harbours, and like the plain of the Po, also rich in corn, olive, and vine; and the Greeks had held on to it so persistently that with the recent help of Pyrrhus they had for a moment been in almost complete possession of the island. But they foolishly deserted Pyrrhus at the critical moment, and now again the Carthaginians had recovered it, all but the kingdom of Hiero of Syracuse, stretching along the eastern coast under Mount Etna. Carthaginian fleets cruised round the island, and were often seen off the coasts of Italy as well. For Carthage was the mistress of the seas in all the western part of the Mediterranean basin.

Carthage was a daughter of the Canaanite city of Tyre, belonging to that seafaring people known in history as Phoenicians, whom the Israelites had pushed down to the coast of Palestine without subduing them. The genius of the Phoenicians was for trade, and the splendid position of Carthage, near the modern Tunis, with a rich corn-growing country in the rear, had helped her merchant princes to establish by degrees what may loosely be called an empire of trading settlements extending not only along the African coast, but over that of Sardinia and southern and eastern Spain, and including Sicily, as we have seen. To maintain this empire she had to keep up great fleets, and huge docks in her own port; but as her Phoenician population was largely occupied with trade, she had to rely for her crews and also for her land forces largely on the native Africans whom she had subdued, or on mercenaries hired from other races with whom she came in contact. Though this was a weak point in her armour, she was far the greatest power in the western seas, and any other people ambitious of power in that region would have to reckon with her. So far she had been on friendly terms with Rome, and we still have the text of three treaties between the two states; but the latest of these shows signs of mutual distrust, and Rome had now risen so high that a collision was all but inevitable. A people ruling in Italy cannot afford to have a rival in Sicily and also in undisputed command of the sea.

The collision came in the year 264 B.C., and it was the immediate result of an act of bad judgment and also of bad faith on the part of the Romans. There would be no need to mention this here if it did not illustrate a trait in the Roman character which is becoming more marked as Rome is drawn more and more into diplomatic relations with other states. The habit of order and discipline at home did not bring with it a sense of justice and honour in dealing with foreigners. The Roman practical view of life, which did not include education of the mind and feeling, was not favourable to the growth of generous conduct except towards a fellow-citizen. The Latin word virtus, which expresses the practical duties of a citizen, does not suggest honourable dealing outside the civic boundary. Some mental imagination was needed for higher aims to make themselves felt in public life; “slimness,” as the Boers of the Transvaal used to call it, is too often characteristic of Roman diplomacy; and hardness, not always stopping short of cruelty, is henceforward constantly to be found in their conduct towards a beaten foe.

A rascally band of mercenaries, Italians by birth, who had been in the Syracusan service, had seized on the old Greek city of Messana—the same Messina which quite recently met with so terrible a fate in the great earthquake. The city lay on the Sicilian side of the strait which still bears its name, and looked at from an Italian point of view, might be called the key to Sicily. Exactly opposite to it was Rhegium (Reggio), another Greek city which had been treated in the same way by another band of brigands; but these had been at once cleared out by orders from Rome. In the case of Messana the task naturally developed on Hiero, the king of Syracuse, a young man of ability who had lately made a treaty with Rome; but when he made the attempt, the brigands appealed for help both to Rome and to Carthage. The plain duty of the Senate was to support their ally Hiero, or to leave the applicants to their fate. But the Carthaginians might then establish themselves at Messana, and that must have seemed to a Roman a thing not to be permitted. The Senate hesitated for once, and finally referred the matter to the people, who voted to support the mercenaries against an ally of the Roman State. This act of bad faith and bad policy cost the Romans a valuable ally, and a war with Carthage that lasted without a break for twenty-three years.

It would be waste of space in this little book to go into the details of this long and wearisome war, which can be read in any history of Rome. It was, of course, in the main a naval war, and the Romans had as yet no fleet to speak of. But now was seen the advantage of a united Italy. The difficulty was overcome by enlisting the services of Greek and Etruscan sailors and ship-builders; a Carthaginian war-vessel, wrecked on the Italian coast, served as a model, and a large fleet was soon ready for sea, with which, strange to say, the Roman commanders succeeded in the course of a few years in clearing the Italian and Sicilian seas of the enemy, and even contrived to transport an army of invasion to Carthaginian territory. This astonishing feat was accomplished simply by the invention of a device for grappling with the enemy’s ships, so that they could be boarded by Roman soldiers acting as “marines.” And during this first half of the war they also renewed their alliance with Hiero, and conquered the whole of Sicily, with the exception of the strong city of LilybÆum (now Marsala).

But all these good results were thrown away by the folly of the Roman Senate. Now that they had crossed the sea and entered on a new sphere of action, they seemed for the moment to have lost the prudence and wisdom that had won them the headship of Italy. They had two consular armies in Africa which seemed to have Carthage herself in their grip; but when she sued for peace they offered her impossible terms, and about the same time actually recalled one of the two consuls with his army to Italy. The old Phoenician spirit revived, and turned to desperate courage: an able Greek soldier of fortune, Xanthippus, took the Carthaginian army in hand, and before long, the remaining Roman army was utterly destroyed and its commander Regulus was a prisoner. This is the Regulus of one of the most famous of Roman stories, and one of the most beautiful of Horace’s Odes. He is said to have gone to Rome on parole with an embassy, and on its failure to have returned a captive to Carthage, where he was put to a cruel death. Many critics now reject this tale as pure legend, without sufficient reason. It is probably true in outline, and it is certain that it took firm possession of the Roman mind. It thus bears witness to the strong Roman feeling of the binding power of an oath, even when given to an enemy; for Regulus had sworn to return if the mission failed.

It took Rome many years and enormous efforts to recover from this disaster, and from the destruction of her fleets by tempests which unluckily followed and gave Carthage once more the mastery of the sea. Carthage, too, had found a man of genius, Hamilcar Barca, whose intense hatred of Rome, ever growing as she gradually prevailed, inspired his people to continue the struggle by sea, and his own forces to hold on grimly to a mountain fortress in the north-west of Sicily, Mount Eryx, the scene of the games in the fifth book of Virgil’s Æneid. Both sides were exhausted and indeed permanently damaged; but the strength of Rome was more enduring, and in 241 B.C. Hamilcar consented himself to negotiate a peace, by which Sicily and the adjacent smaller islands passed into the hands of Rome for ever. Soon afterwards, taking advantage of a deadly war which Carthage had to wage with her own mercenaries, Rome contrived, in that spirit of “slimness” already noticed, to get possession of both Sardinia and Corsica. This shows that the Senate understood the importance of these islands for a power in command of the western seas; but unjust dealing brought its own reward. It is possible that the great Hamilcar might have forgiven Rome her injuries to his country but for this. As it was, his hatred of her sunk into his soul more deeply than ever, and that hatred, springing up afresh in the breast of his son Hannibal, all but destroyed his enemy off the face of the earth. He retired to Spain, to organise a Carthaginian dominion there, of which he was himself practically king, and which he destined as a base of operations against Rome in another war; and before he started, as Hannibal himself told the story long afterwards, the father made his boy of nine years old take a solemn oath to cherish an eternal hatred of the enemies of his country.

The plan of invading Italy from Spain was forced upon Hamilcar by the fact that Rome was in command of the sea; it was no longer possible for Carthage to strike at her from Africa without a greater effort to recover that command than her government of merchant princes was now disposed to make. And the fact that Hannibal was actually able to carry out the invasion by land was due to the genius and personal influence of his father in building up a solid dominion in southern Spain with New Carthage (now Cartagena) as its capital. Some historians have thought that of these two extraordinary men the father was the greatest; and it is at least true that his was a noble work of construction, while his son’s brilliant gifts were wasted in the attempt to destroy the great fabric which Rome had reared in Italy. The attempt was unavailing; the solid Roman structure survived all the assaults of the greatest captain of the ancient world. The glamour of Hannibal’s splendid victories must not blind us to the fact that he made two serious miscalculations: he believed that the Italians hated Rome as he did himself, and would join him to crush her; and he hoped, if he did not believe, that Carthage would give him substantial help. Had he judged rightly on the former point, Rome’s fate was sealed. But the Italian kinsmen of Rome, who had come to recognise in her their natural leader, never even faltered in their loyalty,[5] and Carthage did but little to help him till it was too late. Thus we have in this terrible war the strange spectacle of a single man of marvellous genius pitting himself against the whole strength of a united Italy with military resources, as we know from the accurate Greek historian, Polybius, amounting to some 770,000 men capable of bearing arms.

Fascinating as we may find Hannibal’s wonderful career, much as we may admire his nobility of character, a sober judgment must lead to the conclusion that no great man ever did less for the good of his fellow-creatures. During the fifteen years of his stay in Italy he did irreparable damage to the fair peninsula, and he hardened the hearts of the Romans for all their future dealings with their foes. When at last he left it he was unable to save his own country, and spent his last years in exile, ever plotting against the enemy that had escaped him. A man who is actuated all his life through by a single motive of hatred and revenge, can never be reckoned among those who have done something for the benefit of humanity.

While Hannibal was gaining the loyalty of the southern Spaniards, and organising their resources, Rome was occupied in trying to extend her power over the Gauls settled in the plain of the Po, and so to make sure of her northern flank, as she had already secured Sicily in the south. The Senate knew something of Hannibal’s design, and hoped to anticipate him in getting a hold on that valuable region, the strategical key to Italy. But here there was no question of gaining the loyalty of the tribes; the Gauls were restless and hostile, and had quite lately made another determined attempt to reach Rome; they actually came within three days’ march of the city before they were defeated in a great battle. In 219-218 B.C. Roman armies were still busy in driving roads northward, and planting two colonies, Placentia and Cremona, on Gallic soil and on the Po, when Hannibal descended on them from the Alps. He had found a pretext for war, gathered a force of 100,000 men, passed the Pyrenees and reached the Rhone before the Senate knew what he was about, and eluded a consular army dispatched to stop him. Scipio, its commander, with true military instinct, sent his army on to Spain, to cut his communications with the base he had been preparing so long. This line of communication Hannibal never recovered for ten years, and was forced to maintain and recruit his army on Italian soil.

That army, from a purely military point of view, was without doubt one of the best known to history. It consisted chiefly of thoroughly trained Spanish infantry, officered by Carthaginians, and of the best cavalry in the world, recruited from the Numidians of the western region of North Africa. It was one of those armies that can go anywhere and do anything at the bidding of its general, because entire trust in him was the one motive actuating it. It was a professional army, a perfect instrument of war, a weapon admirably fitted to destroy, but without constructive value—with no sap of civilisation giving it permanent vital energy. Luckily for Rome, this army had shrunk to very moderate dimensions when it reached Italy; the length of the march, the necessity of leaving some troops in Spain, and the terrible trials of the crossing of the Alps, where the native tribes combined with rock, snow and ice to wear it out, had reduced it to less than 30,000 men.

Yet after a few days’ rest Hannibal went straight for the nearest Roman force. This force was now on the north bank of the Po under Scipio, who had returned from the Rhone to Italy. Pushing it back to the new colony of Placentia, where it was joined by that of the other consul Sempronius, Hannibal utterly defeated the combined Roman armies on the little river Trebbia which runs down to that city (now Piacenza) from the Apennines. The Roman power in the plain of the Po was instantly paralysed by this defeat, and the victor at once set himself to organise alliances with the Gallic tribes while he rested and recruited his weary troops. But from the Gauls he got no substantial help; that fickle people had no great reason to welcome an invader when once he was in their territory. And perhaps this was fortunate for him; for if he had marched into central Italy as leader of a Gallic army he would have strengthened, not weakened, the resistance of the whole Italian federation that Rome had so solidly organised. His knowledge of the motives which held this federation together must surely have been seriously imperfect.

But in the spring he crossed the Apennines, and made his way through the marshy and malarious district around the lower Arno, where it is said he lost an eye from ophthalmia, to meet the consul Flaminius, who had been sent to cover the approach to Rome with a large army. Slipping past Flaminius, Hannibal concealed his army among the hills and woods on the eastern shore of the lake of Trasimene, along the western bank of which the railway now runs on its way from Florence to Rome; and here he lay in wait for his prey. Flaminius walked into the trap laid for him; his army was totally destroyed, and he himself was killed. There was now nothing to stop the conqueror if he chose to march straight on Rome.

But Hannibal’s plans did not include a siege of Rome; he had brought no siege apparatus, and at no time during the war did he succeed in getting any from Carthage, or in making it in Italy. His real object was to bring the Italians over to his side, to isolate Rome, and to put a free Italy (so he is said to have phrased it) in place of a Roman dominion. So he turned his back on Rome, and made his way at leisure down the eastern coast of central Italy to the corn-lands of Apulia, which were henceforward to serve as his chief base of operations. Hence he might easily reach the great sea-ports of Tarentum and Croton, and so get into touch once more with Carthage, and perhaps, too, with another power from whom he was already looking for help, Philip, king of Macedon. But during this southward march he learnt, apparently for the first time, that Italy was studded with Roman and Latin colonies, each a fortress, each provisioned and ready to resist him: each, too, a miniature Rome, disseminating among the Italians the honour and pride of Roman citizenship, and the animating spirit of Italian unity under Roman leadership. One or two of these fortresses he vainly tried to take, and he must at this time have begun at last to realise that the mortal hatred of an individual is no match in the long run for the organised vitality of a practical people.

His one chance was to win another great battle, and so to overawe south Italy, to make his base absolutely secure, and to force gradually northward the leaven of anti-Roman feeling on which he calculated. For the rest of that year, 217 B.C., he could not get this chance; the Senate, still cool-headed, had appointed a cool-headed dictator,[6] who knew that his slow and steady citizen soldiers were no good match for a mobile professional army skilfully handled, and steadily refused to accept battle. Not even when Hannibal forced his way northward to the rich plain of Campania, and tried to gain over the wealthy city of Capua, would Fabius be tempted to fight; he dogged the enemy’s footsteps, and once tried to catch him in a snare, from which Hannibal escaped by a clever ruse. But next year the Senate dispatched the two new consuls, with an army not far short of 100,000 men, to deal with the enemy in southern Italy; and here, reluctant though one at least of them was, Hannibal enticed them into a battle by seizing a valuable dÉpÔt of stores at a town called CannÆ, near the sea, in the plain of Apulia. Though far inferior in numbers, he contrived by consummate tactics to draw the solid Roman legions into a net, and then used his mobile Numidian cavalry to prevent their escape to the rear. The fight became a butchery, in which 80,000 Romans are said to have fallen. The largest army ever yet sent out from Rome was totally destroyed, and it would seem as if she could no longer escape from her deadly foe.