A History of the Roman World

by Scullard, H. H.

  Such in brief was the scheme of taxation and administration which the Romans adopted in their first province, though many of the details were naturally only elaborated in the course of time and the quarter of the island which Hiero ruled was not added to the tithe-paying portion till after his death. With their interests protected the Sicilians prospered, and many must have realized that they were receiving considerable compensation for the tithe they now paid to Rome. They were freed from the heavy hand of Carthage who had sought to monopolize their trade; they were immune from exploitation by tax-gatherers; they were ruled efficiently by governors who for many years were just and honourable men; and when Rome again entered the lists with Carthage, their loyalty to Rome showed which of the two Republics they preferred as mistress.

  2. CARTHAGE AND THE SARDINIAN QUESTION

  The First Punic War had levied but a light toll in blood on the citizens of Carthage, but the Truceless War which followed endangered the city’s very life. Twenty thousand mercenaries, who had returned from Sicily, mustered at Sicca Veneria (modern El Kef) and clamoured loudly for arrears of pay. This motley crew of Libyans, Iberians, Celts, Ligurians, Balearic Islanders and half-breed Greeks, who had found a common bond in their claims on Carthage, marched on Tunis under the joint leadership of a Libyan named Matho, and Spendius, who was said to be a runaway Roman slave. The standard of revolt was raised throughout the country. The subject Libyans rushed to arms against their oppressors. The Numidians swept over the western frontier. Utica and Hippo Diarrhytus, which alone remained loyal, were besieged; the mercenaries were masters of the open country and cut the communications of Carthage with the rest of Libya. Other mercenaries in Sardinia also revolted.

  In desperate plight the Carthaginians raised an army under Hanno, who failed to relieve Utica (spring 240). Carthage was further isolated when Spendius camped at the only bridge over the river Bagradas, which ran between Utica and Carthage. Hanno’s ill-success led to the appointment of his rival Hamilcar Barca, who had been eclipsed after the war with Rome, partly from dissatisfaction with the peace terms he had arranged and with his promises to the mercenaries, partly by the prominence of Hanno, who represented a party which saw the future of Carthage in expansion in Africa rather than in foreign exploitation which clashed with the interests of Rome.

  By a decisive victory near the Bagradas Hamilcar opened up communications beyond the river. Then instead of joining his rival Hanno who was operating against Matho at Hippo he again tricked Spendius who was hanging on his heels. By showing great leniency after the victory Hamilcar tried to check the revolt, but Spendius destroyed all hope of compromise by torturing seven hundred prisoners. So the war was renewed with the utmost barbarity and cruelty on both sides.

  When Utica and Hippo capitulated, the mercenaries moved against Carthage itself from their base at Tunis; but without the command of the sea they had little prospect of success. Carthage was further embarrassed by the revolt in Sardinia, but Hamilcar, who had been given the sole command after an ineffective attempt to co-operate with Hanno, soon rounded up and annihilated Spendius’ force at Prione. Moving to Tunis he camped at the south end of the isthmus on which the town lay; Hannibal, whom he had left to cover Carthage, was at the north end. But Matho, goaded into action by the gruesome sight of the crucifixion of his fellow-mutineer, Spendius, and his companions, skilfully captured Hannibal’s camp before Hamilcar could move. Hamilcar, thus forced to raise the siege of Tunis, withdrew to the mouth of the Bagradas to protect the communications of Carthage (239).

  During the winter Carthage made her final effort. New troops were raised; Hamilcar and Hanno were reconciled. An energetic strategy gradually drew Matho to the neighbourhood of Leptis Minor; both sides wearied of guerrilla warfare and met on the field of battle, where the mercenaries were destroyed. The rebellious subject towns were reduced; Utica and Hippo surrendered after a short siege. Peace was restored after three years’ fighting which far surpassed in cruelty and inhumanity any other struggle known to Polybius. The Carthaginians themselves had for once to fight for their city’s preservation. The tenacious fury of the Semite had been roused to good effect; disciplined and scientific warfare had worn down the resistance of mercenaries whom common interests alone held together. But Carthage had paid a heavy price for victory, especially in her weakness after the war with Rome.2

  During this life-and-death struggle Carthage had maintained friendly relations with Rome. True, some slight trouble had arisen when Italian merchants supplied arms and food to the rebels. The Carthaginians had captured 500 of them, but on receiving representations from Rome had released them. In return Rome sent back the Punic prisoners that were still in Italy, forbade further contraband running and allowed Carthage to trade with Italy and possibly to hire troops there. Possible friction was avoided for the moment in Sardinia, where the Punic mercenaries had revolted from Carthage and taken most of the island (240). They appealed to Rome for help, probably in 239, when Hamilcar’s victory over Spendius suggested that Carthage was finishing her war in Africa. But Rome rejected their appeal and that of Utica which also proffered submission. She probably regarded the mercenaries as an international danger and preferred to respect the treaty of 241.

  When Carthage had crushed the African rising, the mercenaries in Sardinia, being hard-pressed by the natives, again appealed to Rome (238). It was known that the Carthaginians would attack them soon, so that if Rome wished to prevent the reoccupation of the island by Punic forces, this was the time to act. For Carthage was worn out by her recent struggles; her fleet had been lost in the war with Rome and her revenues were reduced by the Truceless War. There was little likelihood that she would face another war if Rome insisted. The Romans, therefore, bluntly declared war on her when she objected to their claim to intervene in Sardinia.3 In vain the Carthaginians protested that they had prior claims; in vain they offered to submit to arbitration (by Ptolemy III of Egypt?). Finally they were granted peace only at the price of 1,200 talents and the surrender of Sardinia; an additional clause was added, as it were, to the Peace of Lutatius. This act was strongly denounced by Polybius as ‘contrary to all justice’. It would be idle to suggest that by abandoning Sardinia for a year or more Carthage had forfeited her rights to it; the successful mercenaries could hardly claim to dictate the future of the island. Nor could it be classed among ‘the islands between Sicily and Italy’ which had been ceded to Rome by the treaty of 241, though Roman annalists patriotically may have tried to stretch the point. It may be true that the severe treatment by Carthage of Italian merchants, who continued to run contraband, gave Rome a pretext:4 but it was no more than a pretext. Sardinia was so closely connected geographically with Italy that the Romans could not allow Carthage complete control of the island; the First Punic War had shown the danger which might arise from an enemy fleet based there. When the moment was ripe Rome acted with decision and without scruple and thus permanently embittered relations with her old rival just when they were becoming more friendly.

  The Romans’ troubles started when they set out to conquer Sardinia and with it Corsica whose capital they had taken in 258. The courage of the natives and the mountainous country rendered conquest a slow task. Ti. Sempronius Gracchus occupied the coastal cities once held by Carthage (probably in 237); but the conquest of the interior progressed slowly. Not till 231 was a semblance of peace imposed, when the consul gained a doubtful reputation by employing manhunting dogs against the natives. In the same year Corsica was pacified. In about 227 the two islands were constituted a Roman province like Sicily and a praetor was appointed annually to supervise them. This caused another revolt in Sardinia, which was, however, pacified by 225; by the Second Punic War the island was officially conquered, except for a few highland tribes. The province was administered like Sicily, except that no towns had obtained freedom or immunity. Apart from territory confiscated by Rome, a tithe on the products of the soil was levied on the rest, and Sardinia became, with Sicily, and later Af
rica, one of the three granaries of the Republic. This tax was not severe for a people which had been subjected to exploitation by Carthage, but the economic life of the island declined when its produce could no longer be shipped to the Punic markets of the west.

  3. ROME AND THE GAULS

  During Rome’s struggle with Carthage the Italian federation had remained loyal; one exception merely emphasized the solidarity of the whole. Falerii waited till the end of the war and then revolted in 241; perhaps the occasion was the recent expiration of its fifty-years’ alliance with Rome. But it did not have to wait long for its punishment. The consuls who had returned from Sicily stormed it in six days and forced the inhabitants to abandon their strong hill site (modern Civita Castellana) and to rebuild in the plain where the solitary church of Santa Maria di Falleri within the circuit of the Roman walls today preserves the name. Half the territory of Falerii was annexed as ager publicus, and a Latin colony was planted at Spoletium on the road to Ariminum and the north.

  In contrast with the fate of Falerii, the loyalty of the Picentes and Sabines (p. 134) was rewarded by the grant of two wards in the Comitia Centuriata: two new tribes named Velina and Quirina were established in 241, bringing the total up to thirty-five, a number that was never increased. The fixing of the total had an important result, because the citizens of districts enfranchised thereafter had to be assigned to one of the existing tribes; this involved the gradual disappearance of the local significance of the tribes, which became merely administrative divisions. It is probable that the Comitia Centuriata was reformed at the time when these last two tribes were established, and that the reform was the work of the censors. Its main object was to correlate the centuries and tribes, possibly to make the Comitia Centuriata somewhat more democratic. The five ‘Servian’ classes were retained, but the centuries were rearranged. The first class was reduced from 80 to 70 centuries, two to a tribe, one of seniors and one of juniors (35 in each). Either the other four classes were treated similarly; if so, there would be 350 groups, and with the eighteen centuries of knights and five of proletarians, etc., a grand total of 373; or else the total number of centuries remained fixed at 193 and the ten centuries of the first class were redistributed among some or all of the other four (although the method of redistribution remains uncertain). The century which voted first (praerogativa) and generally had considerable influence on those that followed, was chosen by lot from the first class; then the knights and the five classes voted in order until a majority of the centuries’ votes was obtained. But this would not be reached until at least part of the third class had voted; and if the voting was not solid for or against the motion even lower classes might get a chance to vote, whereas hitherto the knights and the first class had had a clear majority. Thus if the centuries numbered 350, the middle classes who predominated in the hitherto more democratic Comitia Tributa could now exercise a vote in the Centuriata. Probably the property ratings were adjusted at the same time. Wealth still remained predominant, though its influence was limited, while age received undue recognition since the number of seniores would be less than the iuniores. The will of the people still could not find such complete expression in the Comitia Centuriata as in the Tributa, but the working of the two assemblies was brought more into line.5

  The peasant middle classes and the rural democracy were championed in 232 by a tribune named C. Flaminius, who attacked the patricioplebeian nobility. He proposed that the ager Gallicus (et Picenus ?), the district south of Ariminum which had been confiscated from the Senones, should be divided into small allotments and distributed to poor citizens; and he forced this measure through the plebeian assembly in the teeth of bitter senatorial opposition. This was aroused partly perhaps by the consideration that it would be fairer to found a Latin colony on this territory, but more because individual senators were unwilling to lose their valuable leaseholds there, and above all because of Flaminius’ disregard of the Senate and of the Comitia Centuriata. Tradition relates that this measure caused the beginning of ‘the demoralization of the people’ and hastened the Gallic invasion of 225 because it annoyed the Gauls. Of these statements, which derive from an aristocratic tradition hostile to Flaminius, the first is at least doubtful, for although in his disregard of the Senate Flaminius was the forerunner of the Gracchi, yet his measure was far from revolutionary. The second is demonstrably false: the Gallic invasion had threatened four years before and did not mature till seven years after the enactment, and the Gauls can have cared little whether territory so far south was occupied by individual Roman farmers or was controlled by wealthy Roman nobles. Flaminius’ proposal was a timely measure of self-defence against the Gauls rather than a provocation.

  Flaminius crossed swords with the Senate on another question. A tribune, Q. Claudius, carried a measure which prevented senators engaging in overseas trade to any extent: senators and their sons were forbidden to own ships other than small ones to transport the produce of their estates. Flaminius alone supported this measure in the Senate. It was designed to prevent private financial interests distracting or perverting the interests of the governing classes; it had the effect of forcing them to concentrate more on their lands. At the same time – the date is uncertain – senators were prohibited from taking state contracts.6

  Flaminius’ agrarian law focused attention on the north, where the Celts were restless. The Senones and Boii had taken to heart the bitter lesson taught by the campaigns which had ended in 282, and providentially for Rome they remained quiet during her struggles with Pyrrhus and Carthage. But a new generation of Celts had now grown up and Rome was free to consider the safety of her northern frontier. During the century the Ligurians, who had inhabited the sweep of hills from the French Alps along the Italian Riviera, had thrust the Etruscans back from Pisa and the River Arno, and had had dealings with their kinsmen in Corsica, which Rome had determined to master. Further, Rome’s friend Massilia would be grateful to have the Tyrrhenian Sea cleared of the pirates who frequented its shores. Thus many considerations led the Romans to make some demonstration against the Ligurians, and we hear of engagements in 238, 236, 234, 233 and 230, which led to the freeing of Pisa, now probably a member of Rome’s confederacy; the partial submission of the Apuani; and the occupation of Luna. But the Ligurians were not really overcome until after the Hannibalic War. More serious were the movements of the Boii, who, reinforced by Transalpine tribes, ventured to move against Ariminium in 236. But dissension among the tribesmen led to the withdrawal of the army, so that the threat of a Gallic peril was removed for the moment. Instead of taking the opportunity of marching against the Boii and of advancing their frontier to the Po, the Romans preferred peace. Skirmishes might continue against the Sardinians and Ligurians, but real warfare was at an end. In 235–234 with due solemnity the gates of the Temple of Janus were closed for the first time since the reign of Numa Pompilius.

  During the next few years Rome’s attention was directed towards the Adriatic (see pp. 172–5), but it was sharply drawn back to the north where the storm clouds lowered so ominously in 226 that Rome hastily reached an agreement with Hasdrubal whose empire-building in Spain was raising visions of renewed trouble with Carthage (see pp. 176ff). The Gallic clans were gathering. The Boii and the neighbouring Lingones had summoned to their aid the war-like Insubres from beyond the Po; from further west came the Taurini and the Gaesati from beyond the Alps. Memories of Allia and the sack of Rome caused panic throughout Italy. At Rome two Gauls and a Greek were buried alive in the Forum Boarium in an attempt to anticipate literally a statement from the Sibylline books that Rome ‘must twice be held by a foreign enemy’. A more sensible measure was the taking of a census of all the available forces throughout Italy; the citizens amounted to 250,000 infantry and 23,000 cavalry, the allies to 350,000 men excluding reserves, the Bruttians and Greek allies. Further, the Cenomani who dwelt north of the Boii did not join their kinsmen, but with the non-Celtic Veneti of the north-east remained at peace with Rome.
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  Rome hastened to defend Italy. One consul was absent in Sardinia, but the other, L. Aemilius Papus, was stationed at Ariminum; Etruscan and Sabine forces, commanded by a praetor, protected the passes of the western Apennines; four legions covered Rome; two others guarded southern Italy and Sicily against the possibility of Carthaginian intervention. Instead of attacking Ariminum as they had done eleven years before, the Celts advanced over the Apennines into Etruria, their forces numbering 50,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry. Devastating the country on their march they took the road to Rome and slipped past the two Roman armies. These hastened in pursuit, intending to converge at Clusium, where however the Gauls turned and tricked the praetor into battle near Montepulciano before the consul’s arrival. Then, resolving not to face the consular army in battle, they retired with their booty to the Etruscan coast, south of the massif of Mte Amiata; it would have been too dangerous to retreat by the way they had come, while the coast route offered further booty and forage for their horses. From Orbetello they proceeded northwards, closely followed by Aemilius, when they were surprised to find another consular army facing them at Telamon. It was the legions of Atilius Regulus, who had been recalled from Sardinia and was marching south from Pisa. A great battle was fought. The Gauls formed two lines back to back to meet the double attack. The naked bodies of the Celts, their fine physique, their flashing gold necklaces and bracelets, the blare of their trumpets, all impressed the Romans. But discipline and superior equipment at length overcame their desperate valour. Though Atilius was killed, 40,000 Gauls were left on the field and 10,000 were captured; only part of their cavalry broke away. Never again did a Gallic army cross the Apennines.7