The captains of the Roman republic, as compared with the great modern strategists; their campaigns, character, and conduct from the Punic wars to the death of Caesar

Front matter

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Preface

My Deak Feltow;

Neablt two years have elapsed since I had the pleasure of dedicating to you my "'Captains of the Old World," and as you will, I know, be gratified to hear, I feel myself justified, hy the cordial kindness with which that work was received, in proceeding to offer to the public its next successor, "The Captains of the Roman Republic."

I believe, I stated in my former preface with fiuflScient clearness, to render many words on this occasion unnecessary, what are my views, and what the principle on which I propose to act in this system of works.

I use the word system, you will observe, because I choose to avoid ihe word, series; and for this reason — that I notice, and do not wonder at, a daily growing disinclination on the part of the reading public to engage in the purchase, or even the perusal of works ostensibly serial; from the very natural and reasonable apprehension that the senes will never be concluded at all; or, if at all, not within the lifetime of the present generation — as seems likely to be the case with M. Thibes' brilliant history of the Consulate and Empire; or, Mr. Macaulay's no less brilliant history of England.

It is for this reason, then, that I have eschewed not to call, but to make my work serial. In as much as I propose that each volume shall contain the military history of the truly great Captains of one distinct period, in itself complete, disconnected from any preceding work, and perfectly intelligible in itself, without reference to that which has gone before, or which shall follow it.

In one sense, serial these volumes unquestionably are and will be; that they are intended to follow one another, and in some sort to grow out of one another, naturally, in the course of time, and in the current of events ; so that, of course, he who has read one will better understand the gist of arguments, and the narrative of events contained in the next succeeding it, than he who is wholly inexpert in my method of dealing with antique strategy and tactics.

Beyond this, each volume has its own interest, self-contained, and undivided; and possesses its own subject in itself unmingled and complete.

To what length this system of volumes may be carried is, as on its face must needs appear, uncertain in the highest ; for to insure its continuation, the continuation of all things else, and those the least" insurable, as life, health, leisure, means, ability, and, last in place though first in importance, popidar favor must he insured likewise. Suffice it to say, that it -is my plan, other things granted, to persevere in my undertaking until I have reached the period within which men may write partizan declamation, but cannot write history ; and that were I permitted to announce a termination so remote to my labors, I would announce the close of the Thirty Tears' "War, as the most recent date of which I would in any event desire to treat. For, in the first place, I do not believe that all the documents and archives, which are hereafter to throw light on the true history of subsequent events, are as yet attainable ; and, in the second, I am of opinion that personal, that patriotical, that political prejudices are not fully extinguished in families, or individuals, within a century at least; and that no man, while infiuenced by prejudices of party or even national friendship or hatred, can so write history as to leave it worth the reading.'

In order to descend, howevei', to the subject of my present volume, I would remind you of a principle which I laid down to myself in my last, and to which I ought perhaps to refer, as explaining the cause -of my passing over so many years of the Republic in total silence, before treating of a single captain. In the preface to that volume I used these words, 1*

" I have not, of course, dreamed of in'clnding in my list of captains, all the men who set battalions in the field, and fought gallantly, whether for patriotism or ambition ; but have selected those only who were, in my opinion, really eminent, really worthy of continued remembrance, really entitled to be enrolled in the annals of all time as great Generals," and by these words I propose to myself still to be governed. It is for this reason, therefore, that, while treating especially of " The Captains of the Koman Kepublic," I have entirely omitted the continually warlike, and almost continually victorious, magistrates of that republic, during the first three centuries of its existence ; and that I commence only with Publius Cornelius Scipio, subsequently surnamed Africanus, in the 545th year from the foundation of the city of Kome, the 301st of the Kepublic, and the 208th before the Christian era; being in fact little more than a century and a half previous to the extinction of the Commonwealth, and the erection of the long dynasty of Caesars on its ruins. For this reason, I mean— that I do not intend to deal with successful , soldiers, who conquered by brute valor, or by the inborn superiority of the men they led; and that before Scipio, the conqueror of Hannibal, theri^ was no Koman, who at all merited the style of a great captain.

This will doubtless astonish many of my readers who have been wont to believe as implicitly in the

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fabulous exploits of the Camilli, the Curii, and the Decii, as in the authentic campaigns of Julius Caesar; and who have been taught that the subjugation of all northern and middle Italy to the arms of Rome, a little prior to the date at which I commence, was due to the individual science and prowess of her generals, and not to the extraordinary constitution and peculiar organization of her people.

In this respect, it is admirably remarked by the lamented Arnold in the exordium to his 53d chapter on the second Punic war, that, " If Hannibal's genius may be likened to some Homeric God, who in his hatred of the Trojans rises from the d^pp to rally the fainting Greeks and to lead them against the enemy ; so the calm courage with which Hector met his more than human adversary, is no unworthy image of the unyielding magnanimity displayed by the aristocracy of Eome. As Hannibal utterly eclipses Carthage, so on the contrary Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero, nay Scipio himself, are as nothing when compared to the spirit and wisdom and power of Kome. The senate which voted its thanks to its political enemy Yarro, after his disastrous defeat, ' because he had not despaired of the Commonwealth,' and which disdained to solicit, or to reprove, or to threaten, or in any way to notice the twelve colonies, which had i-efused their accustomed supplies of men to the army, is far more to be honored than the conqueror of Zama."

And if this l)e l!hie — as true it is to the letter — of the great Scipio, of whom Niebuhr said in the preface -to his third volume that he "towers as far above his nation, as Hannibal above all nations^" so much the more correct is it of all those who preceeded him, and who, whether they conquered or fel'l, alike in their duty to their country, fought and fell, lived and died, by the genius of Eome, and by no peculiar virtue or inspiration of their own.

I do not precisely mean to say that no Eoraan prior to Scipio, known as Africanus, displayed any liigh soldierly qualities, or merited any praise either for strategy or tactics ; since several had done so during that very second Punic war, which he was born to terminate, — especially his own father, Publius Scipio, whose persistency in sending his army into Spain after Hannibal had already passed the Alps, was, it may well be, ultimately the cause of Rome's salvation; and, secondly, Claudius Nero, whose forced march from Yenosa in La Puglia, to the banks of the Metro in the marches of Ancona, and defeat of Hasdrubal, is the solitary specimen of true generalship on the part of the Romans during Hannibal's seventeen campaigns in Italy. But I do assert that prior to the conqueror at Zama, no single man displayed such qualities, in so high a degree, or in instances so numerous, as to justify us in attributing to him the praise of decided military genius.

In my last volume, " the Captains of the Old

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"World," you will remember that Pincluded Hannibal, whom I regard, and whom a far better judge than I, Napoleon the Great,- regarded as -the General unequalled of all ages, and this I did, rather perhaps for the sake of uniformity, than in order consistently to close an epoch.

The pages of this work will relate exclusively •to Eomans, unless in so far as the generals opposed to them are incidentally concerned ; and will contain accounts of the campaigns of all those, whom I hold worthy to be deemed captains, from the time of Scipio to that of Marc Antony.

Nor, if I have heretofore dealt with some of the greatest and most splendid heroes and leaders of antiquity, such as Miltiades, Xenophon, Epaminondas, Alexander, Hannibal, must my readers imagine that the tale of great men or mighty genei-als is nearly exhausted, or that the interest attached to the growth, the grandeur, and the decline of the Roman Commonwealth is in any degree inferior to that which clung around the immortal isles of Greece, until " all except

their sun was set ?"

Scipio, the conqueror of Hannibal, Flaminius, and PauUus, conquerors of Philip and Perseus, who first demonstrated the superiority of the Eoman legion to the far-famed Macedonian phalanx, Marius, the mighty democrat, Sylla, the last of the Patricians, the princely pride of Pompey, and the wondrous versatility of Caesar, should furnish ample topics for a more spacious margin and a more puissant pen than mine.

Tet I fear not, *that in depicting the close of the last struggle Eome was ever compelled to maintain on her own soil, fighting not for empire but existence ; in tracing the successive steps by which she subjugated, West and East, the known world, until, wearj with victory and seeing nothing more to vanquish, she tifrned her suicidal arms against her own unconquered bosom, I shall fail to offer something of more than common interest to such as choose to follow me.

It will seem strange — not to you of course — but to many of my readers, that I should apologize at this period, for the scantiness of the material from which I have now got to draw — for the many believe, doubtless, that the farther we descend the stream of time, the stronger shine the lights* of knowledge, the clearer beams the lamp of veritable history. Tou know, however, too well that I should need repeat it to you, that the descent from the clear, luminous and truthful histories of Herodotus, Thueydides, Xenophon and Arrian, to the brilliant and beautiftd but inexact romancings of the credulous and unquestioning Liv}^, to the bald, skeleton narratives of the partizan Polybius, and the cold condensations of Appian, is something similar to a return from the demonstrations of iCTewton or Laplace to the wild dreams of the Astronomers of old.

I have, moreover, from this time forth — so soon at least as I shall have conducted Scipio to his victory at Zama— no guide in . our own language, by whose

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intuitive skill in deciphering the mj'steries of ancient history, even suggestively, to profit. The history of Rome in its most interesting periods is yet to be written; for it seems indeed that an especial and peculiar fate cuts off untimely all who possess that singular combination of qualities natural, and abilities acquired, which fits them for so arduous an undertaking.

Twice within oui* own age, persons so qualified have come upon the stage, Niebuhr, the discoverer, and Arnold, the handler, of the key which might have unlocked to us, at least by close approximation, the hidden sense of that unfathomable mystery of historic treasures, among which, as yet, the most patient and laborious of us grope our way ignorant and darkling.

Twice have oui' hopes been raised to the highest, of having the veil lifted fi-om before our eyes — twice have they been cast down — yet in neither case wholly prostrated. Since the first great discoverer not only succeeded in making plain to oui' comprehension much of what seemed the dimmest and most incomprehensible in Home's darkest ages, but dying left to us the knowledge of his method, and the hope at least of in some sort applying it. Since the second great improver, advancing on Ms plan and progress, has converted what he left dififlcult and profound disquisition into easy and patent narrative ; and, his guidance ' ceasing, has given us in the history of Hannibal and the Second Punic War, the ablest, most accurate, most impartial, and most eloquent relation of events long since entombed in falsehood, worse almost than oblivion, that ever has graced our English language.

The times, to which I am coming in this volume, the struggles no longer between the ancient people and the ancient fathers, but between the proletarian populace and the moneyed nobility of Rome; the secret workings of the rival factions, aristocratic and democratic, as they were self-styled, from the days of Marius and Sylla, to those of Brutus and Octavius, are confessedly the most painful, I will not say desperate, to be unravelled, of all truly historic ages.

It is true, that, in my work, confining itself in the main to military history, political strife bears but a secondary interest ; but when the principles of war itself are political and partizan, politics and the secrets of partizanship must form an integral part of the narrative of the wars.

Feeling, therefore, that I am entering perhaps upon too bold an enterprise, with nothing whereon to depend but diligent research to the extent of my own unassisted powers, and nothing which to promise to my readers but the candid and faithful use of such authorities as I can command, with my own best deductions frorn. the same — premising always that I. have no preconcerted theories, with regard either to men or measures, to be bolstered by manufactured facts,, or misinterpreted quotations — I lay my work before you and the public, in the hope, at least^ that

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if of little value itself, it may contain something suggestive, to other and abler minds, of what may prove advantageous to the elucidation of historic truth hereafter.

Pray believe me, my dear Felton, Ever and most faithfully yours,

Henet William Heebeet.

The Ckdabs, AprU 20, 1854.

Contents

PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO, AFRICANUS.

Tlie Alps and the Ticinoe — Spain ; the Battle of the Ebro — ^Death of the Scipios — ^The Panic of the Canusium — Quells the Mutiny of Metellus — The Senate thanks Varro — How Elected Proconsul— His Character and PerBonal Appearance— Compared with Cromwell — ^Waa he a Hero ? — Compared with Mahomet— ^Roman Scepticism — ^Not a sincere Religionist — ^Elected Proconsul — Cause and Manner of his Election — ^His Torces and Abilities — Compared to Wellington-T-Carthaginian Spain — Topography of the War in Spain — ^Description of New Carthage — ^The Aid of Neptune — The Sortie — ^First Assault — ^The Storming — ^The Sack — ^Prizes of Victory — Close of the First Campaign — ^Hasdrubal's InacfiTity — Second Campaign — Operations at Bsecula — ^Influence of the Natives — Hasdrubal's Retreat — ^Hanno's Defeat — Capture of Oringis — Comparison of Forces — ^Plan of Battle — ^The Punic Elephants — Grand Manoeuvre— ^Return to Taragona — ^The Conduct of the Campaign — ^Neutrality Respected — Farther Movements — ^Encounter of Squadrons — Close of the Spanish .War — Scipio sails to Sicily — Scipio's African Army — Neutrahty re- Bpected— The Armistice— The Conflagration— The Truce — ^Zama — The Victory,

TrrUS QUINCTIUS FLAMININirS.