Appius Claudius’ speech as it is presented has been shaped by the Roman tradition of the war. The Senate’s rejection of peace, inspired by Claudius, is likewise shaped by the needs of the pro-Roman narrative. They first assert that there will be no negotiations until Pyrrhus vacates Italy, laying claim to the peninsula as Roman space. But they could hardly say that they controlled Italy at this point as vast areas still remained beyond their influence in both the south and north. The speech foreshadows the subsequent battle at Ausculum by saying that the Romans would fight on in the face of defeat, preemptively easing the reader’s anxiety at the future loss there. (Or predicting the victory some sources insist it was.) The narrative reinforces Roman greatness by having Cineas return to Pyrrhus telling him that the Senate was a council of kings.20 Pyrrhus himself (in Plutarch’s account) says that he was fighting a hydra, and was intimidated when he witnessed the Romans raising new larger armies to oppose him. This is a patriotic and moving tale of Roman virtue inspired by a man they would claim elsewhere was one of the greatest generals of the age. For Appius though, Pyrrhus was no Alexander. He was merely fleeing men who had once served under the Macedonian conqueror. He does not deny the danger Pyrrhus represents, but insists that the Roman people could beat him regardless. However, the inspiring speech of Claudius belies a much more complex and dynamic political situation that involved internal and regional politics.
Rome was still beset with the internal political discord that had characterized the Struggle of the Orders. Appius Claudius had made his career in the turmoil of the late fourth and early third centuries, and had capitalized on popular support. Fabricius too was of a similar vein. It may be that Pyrrhus released his Roman prisoners in an attempt to strengthen a popular faction that had appointed Fabricius to seek peace.21 Pyrrhus was attempting to take advantage of the disputes that existed within the political leadership of Rome’s elites. Cineas’ efforts before his formal presentation to the Senate were meant to secure individual support for peace, an effort that was evidently somewhat effective, only to be torpedoed by Claudius and those that supported continuation of the war. The internal political turmoil was no doubt significant in the face of Cineas’ mission, and the king’s envoy sought to bend it to his favor. Just as factionalism is evident in other cities during the war, it is found in Rome as well. The Roman community was not a unified monolith, but one whose factions could potentially be manipulated by an outside power.
The regional political situation was likewise complex and fluid. That volatility created further potential prospects for Pyrrhus. At least a few Etruscan cities, which had only made peace with the Romans a few months prior, would have been keen to take advantage of any Roman weakness. Pyrrhus could have also made an excellent case of an alliance between those cities and himself as protection against future Roman aggression. Pyrrhus’ existing Italian allies too would have been very interested in these negotiations and their potential impact on the future balance of power on the peninsula. Pyrrhus’ immediate need was to match the power of Rome and with the Samnites and Italiote Greeks. The king’s approach was carefully considered and aimed at exploiting the divided nature of the Italian peoples for his own benefit. By balancing out the powers of Italy and tying at least some of them to himself through alliances and personal relationships, Pyrrhus would have created a very favorable situation for himself.
However, acceptance of Cineas’ proposal would have threatened Roman gains made in central and southern Italy over the previous 40 years. The wars of Italy had been brutal, but the Romans had fought hard to come out on top. Ending the war would also see the stabilization of an alliance network at least partially under Tarentine control that could potentially threaten Rome. Peace endangered Rome’s immediate position and presented long-term dangers beyond the suggestion of indirect subordination to Pyrrhus. Continuing to fight certainly meant more immediate hazards against an able general, but it was the lesser of two evils. Besides, the Romans had only been defeated once in battle so far.
It is likely enough that the Romans seriously considered making peace with Pyrrhus. The situation was somewhat grim. Later generations could not deny that some Romans at the time advocated peace, which they found distasteful. Those sources insist that it was the patriotic speech of Appius Claudius that ended any such thoughts and reinvigorated the Roman will to fight. However, his speech is more a reflection of later Roman idealism and anachronism than the reality of the early third century. The Romans were in a poor position in the winter of 280/279, but peace threatened the influence the Romans had fought and died for in the preceding century. Italy was a dangerous place, with the only sure means of survival being military power enhanced through military alliances. Pyrrhus’ proposals would have exposed Rome to her enemies once more by undermining her alliance network and creating a rival one.
But their first loss at Heraclea was followed by a second at Ausculum the next year, and by the winter of 279/278 the Romans were now in a more difficult position. Pyrrhus’ own position was only growing stronger as he consolidated control of the south. It was during this time that the Romans found support from a source that later generations considered distasteful, Carthage.
Rome and Carthage
The Roman narrative emphasizes the conflict as one between the Romans and Pyrrhus, but the potential end of the Pyrrhic War in the winter of 280/279 had implications beyond Italy. In particular, the Carthaginians were anxious about the impact on their own Sicilian holdings of a weakened regional power (Rome), the establishment of a new one (Pyrrhus), and a resurgence of the western Greeks. Friendly relations, reinforced by treaties, had long existed between the cities of Rome and Carthage. As such, The Carthaginians dispatched a diplomatic mission and a fleet to Rome led by the admiral Mago in an attempt to make sure the situation in Italy did not disrupt the Carthaginians’ own interests.
Italy, Sicily, and Punic Africa were closely tied together long before Pyrrhus’ campaign. The Carthaginians had political and economic ties with the peoples of Italy, which had focused on the Etruscans before the fifth century as the dominant Italian power.22 The Carthaginians had also been active in Italy in opposition to Syracusan expansion in the peninsula. The Carthaginians and Sicilian Greeks found Italy, especially Campania, a ready recruiting ground for mercenaries to fight in their wars with one another.23 The city of Rome was a significant power and as such the Carthaginians had negotiated treaties with them. Over time the Romans were increasingly active beyond Italy, which made matters more challenging from a Carthaginian standpoint. By the late fourth century, Roman power was supported by a modest navy. Nevertheless, the Romans and Carthaginians remained on friendly terms. The various peoples and states of the western Mediterranean in the centuries before the Pyrrhic War were connected in a dynamic diplomatic and economic network. What occurred in Italy had repercussions beyond the peninsula.
The Carthaginians and Romans concluded three treaties prior to the Pyrrhic War: in 509, 348, and 306.24 The first two treaties dealt mostly with commerce and defined relative spheres of influence. These agreements demonstrated the greater influence of the Carthaginians, who claimed control of large areas of Libya and the western Mediterranean islands. The Romans meanwhile were a growing regional power in central Italy after the collapse of Etruscan hegemony, deserving of continued Carthaginian attention. When Roman influence spread to Campania in 343 during the First Samnite War, the Carthaginians sent a congratulatory golden crown.25 Such an action was no doubt meant to ensure continued Carthaginian access to valuable Campanian markets and mercenaries, while reinforcing positive relations with the Romans.
The third Romano-Carthaginian treaty, the so-called Philinus treaty, has important implications for the Pyrrhic War but is problematic.26 Polybius denied its existence because the Sicilian historian Philinus claimed that it dictated that the Romans and Carthaginians could not cross into Sicily and Italy respectively, making the Romans to blame for starting the First Punic War. In the narrative of the Pyr
rhic War, some Roman historians claimed that in fact the Carthaginians had first violated Roman Italy before the Romans became involved in Sicily.27 Polybius claimed that he could find no copy of the treaty in the treasury of the aediles, although given the haphazard nature of Roman record keeping at the time it would not be surprising if it was lost or purposely destroyed.28 Livy does record a treaty renewal between Roman and Carthage in 306, which is probably that mentioned by Philinus.29 There is reason to believe that a third treaty was negotiated between Rome and Carthage in 306, but it is very unlikely that the Romans would have claimed the entire Italian peninsula as its sphere of influence at such an early date. To be sure Rome dominated central Italy, but her influence at the time was still minimal in the further reaches of the peninsula. Likewise, the Carthaginians did not control all Sicily. Whatever the precise nature and wording of the Philinus treaty, it has been twisted irrecoverably into the narrative of the Punic Wars. The same anti-Carthaginian bias also pervades the Pyrrhic War and shapes the way the Carthaginians are portrayed.
Taken as a whole, the Romans and Carthaginians maintained a friendly relationship that had lasted over 200 years by the time of Pyrrhus’ Italian campaign. The Carthaginians had extensive economic ties to the peoples of Italy and would have taken a keen interest as Pyrrhus began to gather the Italiote Greeks under his control. The interconnectedness of the Greeks of Italy and Sicily represented a significant threat to the war between the Carthaginians and Syracusans taking place at this time if Pyrrhus, who had familial ties to Agathocles, decided to intervene.
The Carthaginians reached out to the Romans to renew their treaty, probably in the summer of 279 after the battle of Ausculum.30 Of course this was not an altruistic interest in Rome’s well-being. The Carthaginians dispatched a fleet of ships under the admiral Mago to the city of Rome. Polybius says that the two parties renewed their previous treaties, adding the clause that:
If they make a written alliance with Pyrrhus, both parties shall make it, in order that it shall be permissible to bring aid to each other in the territory of the party attacked. Whichever party has need of aid, the Carthaginians shall furnish the ships both for the outward journey and for the return journey, but either party shall furnish the pay for its own men.31
The second part of the agreement is relatively straightforward. Both parties agreed to send aid to the other in case of attack, with Carthage’s obligations focused on their navy. In such circumstances, previous treaty restrictions on military activity in each other’s territory present in earlier treaties were suspended. The last section ensures that the Carthaginians would not have to pay the Romans like other Italians they used as mercenaries. For the Romans it is an assertion that they were not mercenaries but equal allies.
The first part of the agreement, the part concerning Pyrrhus, is more difficult in its meaning. Grammatically, the passage συμμαχία πρὸς Πύρρον reads as ‘an alliance with Pyrrhus’, rather than ‘against Pyrrhus’.32 To be sure, the Romans and Carthaginians did not subsequently cooperate much against the king. Instead the pact was intended to prevent one side from making peace with Pyrrhus without the other.33 The Carthaginians would have been aware of the negotiations between the Romans and Pyrrhus in the previous year, and feared the strength of Rome being turned against them by the king. Further, it was after Ausculum that the Sicilian Greeks began to reach out to Pyrrhus for assistance in their own war against the Carthaginians. Setting aside the grandiose rhetoric that Pyrrhus had intended to conquer Sicily and Africa from the very onset, he represented a serious threat to the Carthaginians in Sicily. The pact with Rome, on the Carthaginian side, was intended to keep Pyrrhus in Italy, or, if peace was made, to prevent him from going to war against the Carthaginians who would become an ally of an ally.
The benefits and motivations on the Romans’ side are made more difficult due to the hostility of the Roman tradition towards the Carthaginians. The shadow of the later Punic Wars weighs heavily on Carthaginian involvement. Mago offered some sort of direct aid for the Roman war effort, which the Senate rejected.34 He is then said to have reached out to Pyrrhus, acting in a stereotypically duplicitous fashion. The implication is clear: Carthaginians were not to be trusted even before the Punic Wars. Long before those wars, they were actively trying to undermine the Romans in Italy by attempting to play both sides of the Pyrrhic War. Even when the Carthaginians seemed to be allies, they were still enemies. The Roman Senate was able to see through their intentions and, in patriotic fashion, rejected their (insincere) offer of aid. They did, nevertheless, renew the treaty, an undeniable fact due to its documentation.
It is useful to compare a later offer of help from the Carthaginians and the Roman response to it. Livy says that during the war with Antiochus in 190 BCE the Carthaginians offered naval support, grain, and to pay off their war indemnity in support of the Roman war effort. Here too the Senate rejected the offer. But notably they accepted a similar offer from a more trustworthy source, the Numidian King Masinissa. The help they accepted or rejected was not dictated by need; they were strong enough to stand alone. Even though they had suffered badly at the hands of Pyrrhus, the Romans would persevere without help from the vile Carthaginians. The Senate in 190, Livy says, would only take the ships that were required of Carthage by their treaty even though no such stipulation is indicated anywhere else.35 The Romans refused the offer of help; they dictated what they wanted. Help from true allies, like Masinissa, was welcome. By rejecting the Carthaginian offers of aid, an image of Roman autonomous strength is created.
The mission of Mago and the renegotiation of the treaty are not specifically connected in the ancient sources, although the timing indicates this was the case.36 The size of Mago’s fleet (120 ships) was meant to impress the Romans and reinforce their resolve in the face of their recent defeats.37 A buttressing of the Roman-Carthaginian relationship, with assurances that neither would make peace with Pyrrhus and turn against the other, is logical given the situation. While there was no explicit agreement that the two peoples would fight Pyrrhus in cooperation, the understanding that the Carthaginians would soon be involved is clear. The Carthaginians were undoubtedly already aware of Syracusan overtures to Pyrrhus to come to their aid in Sicily. However these events came down to subsequent Roman generations, later historians found them distasteful. The narrative was reshaped into one of anti-Carthaginian animus. Carthaginian aid was not wanted or needed, and was in fact a trick. Luckily the Roman Senate was wise enough to reject the offer of aid, a caution that is confirmed by Mago’s supposed visit to Pyrrhus. (Pyrrhus too was not taken in by fides Punica, sending the admiral away.) Despite these depictions, the Romans and Carthaginians found themselves effectively on the same side as Pyrrhus became involved in the disputes of Sicily as he had in Italy.
The diplomatic situation in 279
There were diplomatic contacts between the Romans and Pyrrhus following the battle of Ausculum, which had ended in another victory for Pyrrhus. Plutarch, Appian, and Zonaras refer to a second attempt at peace by the king, which is missing in the epitomized accounts of Justin and the Periochae of Livy. Unfortunately, those that record a second round of negotiations differ significantly in detail. Further, they bear a great many similarities to the negotiations of 280, with some clear duplication of materials.38 The Romans certainly had reason to again meet with the king after a second defeat. Pyrrhus, our Roman sources insist, was now desperate for peace, which was fueled by a sense of futility in the face of Roman manpower and a desire to seek easier conquests. Of course such assertions are meant to bolster the positive portrayal of the Romans by making Pyrrhus the one pursuing peace. But, given the strategic situation, Pyrrhus had ample reason to want an end to the fighting beyond the anachronisms of the sources. In 279, the king sought to shore up his control of southern Italy in order to move onto a new phase of his campaign beyond Italy.
As with so much surrounding the Pyrrhic War, the impetus for the negotiations in 279 found in
the sources is unbelievably fanciful. In sum, Pyrrhus’ doctor approached the consul Fabricius offering to poison the king in return for money.39 Fabricius refused the offer and informed Pyrrhus, who was so impressed that he attempted again to make peace with the virtuous Romans. Pyrrhus, we are told, was already regretful of getting involved in the war and so this was a perfect excuse for him to reach out again. In general, the story as described is too far-fetched to give any historical credence. In addition, Fabricius was not the consul in 279 but 278.40 The most likely explanation is that this story of incredible Roman nobility, whatever its original form, was attached to the noblest character of the war without regards to whether it fit the timeline or not.
Pyrrhus did not need some fabulous proof of Roman virtue in 279 in order to desire peace. He was in a strong position having defeated the Romans in two battles, invaded Latium, and firmly held much of southern Italy. His battlefield casualties may have been serious and the recruitment of new armies by the Romans a concern, but the war was clearly still in his favor. Pyrrhus’ growing interest in Sicily is only surprising if we accept the idea that he had up to this point desired to conquer all of Italy. However, this claim is later Roman tradition meant to give the impression that the Romans had through their perseverance blunted his aspiration to conquer Italy. Historic attempts to unify the Greeks of Italy and Sicily provided a useful model for Pyrrhus, making this shift in theaters a natural extension of the king’s current efforts. Pyrrhus wanted peace in 279 for the same reasons he had in 280; he desired the resources of the western Greeks, not to conquer Rome. As such, he once again dispatched envoys (perhaps led by Cineas) to approach the Senate about ending the fighting.
A History of the Pyrrhic War Page 12