Chapter 9
The expansion of Roman power and territory up to the end of the First Punic War had been imperialistic to this extent: the Romans had sought to impose their will on others by force of arms or the establishment of alliances in which they were the dominant partners. Still, the Romans had not created what most people think of as an empire: a collection of separate or dependent territories subject to officials regularly appointed by a dominant external power to exercise supreme military and judicial authority over them. Nor had the Romans developed an attitude that they had a right to exercise such authority over anyone whom they chose.
A Roman magistrate’s power to exercise supreme military and judicial authority and enforce obedience to it is summed up in the Latin word imperium. From it are derived empire and imperialism in English. Imperium was granted by a vote of an assembly representing the sovereignty of the Roman People and was the expression of the community’s supreme authority over its individual members. With the acquisition of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, the Romans had begun to extend the permanent operation of magisterial imperium over territories and people who had no hand in conferring it. Thus, they began to practice a more direct and explicit imperialism than they had exercised before. Eventually, they came to believe that they had a right to impose their imperium anywhere.
Still, the Romans had no consistent policy or program of overseas expansion. Their motives and actions follow a complex pattern similar to that which has been traced through their rise in Italy and their first two wars with Carthage. There is no single explanation for Roman expansion. Several factors operated at once. Sometimes one and sometimes another was more prominent. All interacted to reinforce each other.
Provincial governors
The Romans first instituted direct rule over foreign territory when they created two permanent provinces in the western Mediterranean after the First Punic War. One comprised Sicily, the other Sardinia and Corsica. The Romans first attempted to govern Sicily by quaestors reporting to higher magistrates at Rome. Rome was too far away, however, and a quaestor did not have the power required to deal with such problems as defense and the maintenance of law and order. Only a magistrate possessing the imperium, such as a consul or a praetor, could do so. Accordingly, after 227 b.c.e., the Centuriate Assembly annually elected two additional praetors, one as governor of Sicily, the other for the combined province of Sardinia–Corsica. In 198, the Romans created two more praetors to govern the territories acquired in Spain at the end of the Second Punic War. After that, the primary meaning of the Latin word provincia (pl. provinciae) changed. It originally meant only the task to which a magistrate was assigned. Now, it became a defined territory governed by Roman officials.
The provincial edict
The Roman senate laid down the general principles concerning provincial administration. It left the details to be filled in by the praetor who governed a province. The usual term was only a year. On taking office, each newly elected praetor would publish an edict that set forth the rules and regulations which he intended to follow during his year in office. The edict also specifically stated the rules of procedure that he would apply in his administration of justice. These edicts varied little from year to year and were changed only under special conditions.
Duties and powers
The provincial praetor was assisted by one or more quaestors. They served as treasurers and receivers of revenues derived from taxes. Three legati (legates, lieutenants) of senatorial rank were appointed by the senate after nomination by the praetor. They acted as liaison officers between him and the senators. They also served as his advisors and often as his deputies. In addition, the praetor brought with him a number of comrades or young family friends. As members of his staff, they could gain insights into the workings of provincial administration. The remaining staff included clerks, secretaries, and household slaves. The praetor commanded the armed forces within the province, supervised the quaestors, and was responsible for the administration of justice in all civil and criminal cases involving Roman citizens. He also arbitrated disputes arising between the subject communities.
Inside the province, the powers of the praetor were practically absolute. There was no colleague of equal rank to oppose his decisions or acts, no plebeian tribune to interpose his veto in defense of private individuals, no senate to restrain his abuse of arbitrary power, and no popular assembly to pass laws that he had to obey. The provincials had neither the right of appeal nor legal guarantees to the rights of life, liberty, and property. Some cities had local liberties guaranteed in charters granted them by the Roman senate. Still, an unscrupulous governor could easily circumvent them. As the number of provinces grew, the Romans stopped creating more praetors. They began to appoint propraetors (officials with praetorian power) as governors of provinces. If particularly important military campaigns had to be conducted, even consuls or proconsuls (officials with consular power) became governors.
Theoretically, the provincials had the right to bring charges of misgovernment and extortion against a Roman governor after his term of office. During the second century b.c.e., such prosecutions were rare, however, and then only under the most unusual circumstances and for the most flagrant abuse. In time, the practically unlimited power of Roman provincial governors was dangerous to Rome’s republican form of government. It depended on the willingness of individual members of the ruling aristocracy to respect the equal authority of their colleagues in times of conflict and disagreement. Men accustomed to almost royal independence abroad became impatient with republican restrictions at home.
Roman imperialism in the East
The Romans worked out a system of direct Imperial rule in the West. At the same time, they tried to assert their will in the eastern Mediterranean without acquiring permanent territorial possessions. Two local factors frustrated Roman efforts to establish a secure eastern frontier: the Imperial ambitions of kings descended from Alexander the Great’s generals and the attempts of smaller powers to use Rome against them. Also, the Romans’ own increasing arrogance, arbitrariness, and avaricious brutality promoted the chaos they abhorred. In the end, they could not avoid establishing permanent Imperial rule in the East, too.
The Hellenistic background
The empire created by Alexander the Great had originally embraced Macedon, Greece, most of Asia Minor, Egypt, and the entire ancient Near East, extending from the Mediterranean to central Asia and northern India. Alexander’s death in 323 b.c.e. ushered in the Hellenistic Age. His empire soon fell apart in a struggle for power among his generals. None of them was able to establish himself as sole ruler and preserve its unity. By 275 b.c.e., three dynasties, descended from three of his generals (Antigonus the one-eyed, Ptolemy son of Lagus, and Seleucus Nicator), had established powerful kingdoms: Antigonid Macedon embraced Macedon and, from time to time, large parts of Greece; Ptolemaic, or Lagid, Egypt included Egypt, Cyrene, bridgeheads along the Red Sea and East Africa, Phoenicia, several islands in the Aegean, and some cities along the coast of Asia Minor and the Thracian Chersonese (Gallipoli Peninsula); Seleucid Syria laid claim to most of Persia’s old empire, embracing the western and southern parts of Asia Minor, northern Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and, at one time, even northwestern India (Pakistan), Afghanistan, and Turkestan, in central Asia.
Among the minor Hellenistic states was Pergamum, in the northwest corner of Asia Minor. Under Attalus I and his successors in the second half of the third century b.c.e., Pergamum was enriched by agriculture and flourishing foreign trade. It blossomed as a center of art and literature and became a champion of Hellenism. Another important small state was the island republic of Rhodes, which lay off the southwestern tip of Asia Minor. Like Pergamum, it, too, was a brilliant cultural center. It owed its material prosperity to seaborne trade, which it guarded with a small but efficient navy.
In Greece, the once-powerful city-states of Thebes, Athens, and Sparta still maintained a precarious independence. There were also two political and military federations. One was the Aetolian League of small townships and rural communities along the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth. By 250 b.c.e. it controlled most of central Greece north of the Gulf. The other federation was the rival Achaean League. It included many minor cities of the Peloponnesus, but not Sparta, Elis, and Messene.
The existence of the small Hellenistic states depended upon the balance of power established among the three big kingdoms of Egypt, Syria, and Macedon between 277 and 225 b.c.e. If one of the major powers succeeded in expanding its influence and territory, the other two combined against it. Although none of the three liked this balance of power, it was the salvation of Pergamum, Rhodes, the Achaean and Aetolian leagues, and, toward the end of the century, even Egypt. When it was finally disturbed, Pergamum, Rhodes, the two Greek leagues, and Egypt repeatedly appealed to Rome to help restore the balance. They never dreamed that eventually all, both great and small, would become subject to Roman domination.
Antiochus III (the Great) of Syria and Philip V of Macedon
While the Second Punic War was raging in the West, the balance of power was being disturbed in the East by two young monarchs, Antiochus III of Syria and Philip V of Macedon. As a youth of eighteen, Antiochus ascended the Seleucid throne in 223 b.c.e. The Seleucid Empire had already fallen into almost total disorder. By 205, however, he had completed the conquest of large areas of Asia Minor and had reconquered Armenia and northern Iran. He had even crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains into the valley of the Indus. There he received 150 valuable war elephants as a tribute. On his way back to Syria, he assumed the title of Antiochus the Great. His exploits were hailed throughout the Greek world as second only to those of Alexander.
In Macedon, Philip V was understandably apprehensive about the Roman attitude toward him at the end of the First Macedonian War (205 b.c.e., p. 146). To strengthen his position on the Adriatic coast vis-à-vis the Roman protectorates, he apparently acquired some additional Illyrian territory shortly after the war. In the winter of 203/202 b.c.e., Philip turned his attention eastward to an opportunity to restore Macedonian control over the Aegean. That had always been a major object of Antigonid ambitions in competition with the Ptolemies of Egypt. Egypt had enjoyed amicitia (friendship) with Rome since 273 b.c.e. during the war against Pyrrhus (pp. 109–11). It was now badly governed under the child-king Ptolemy V (Epiphanes).
In 203/202 b.c.e., Philip sought to acquire naval power by supporting the raids of Aetolian pirates in return for a share of their profits. He then used his share to build a fleet of his own. On the Greek mainland, he boldly strengthened his position wherever he could. He also reneged on his agreement to restore certain territories to the Aetolian League. The Aetolians asked the Romans to intervene in Greece again, but the latter refused. They were still occupied with Hannibal. Also, many Roman senators were resentful that the Aetolians had made a separate peace with Philip in 206 b.c.e.
Having acquired a fleet, however, Philip overplayed his hand. He was not content with attacking Egyptian possessions in the Aegean. He also attacked many free Greek cities, enslaved their populations, threatened the naval power of Rhodes, and seized control of the Black Sea trade lanes. The latter were of vital importance to the grain trade of both Rhodes and Athens. Rhodes declared war and persuaded Attalus I of Pergamum, an old friend of Rome, to do likewise. After a number of naval engagements, Attalus and the Rhodians concluded that they were unable to defeat Philip without outside help. They appealed to Rome and sent embassies to wait upon the senate in 201 b.c.e., only a year after it had rudely rebuffed the similar request of the Aetolians. Now, after the defeat of Hannibal, many senators were in a more receptive mood.
The Pergamene and Rhodian ambassadors did more than charge Philip with harming their states. They took full advantage of the hysterical atmosphere caused by the Hannibalic War and the bitter resentment engendered by Philip’s opportunistic alliance with Hannibal after Cannae. They accused Philip of having made a secret pact with Antiochus III to carve up the foreign possessions of Egypt, which had aided Rome with food in the darkest days of the Hannibalic War. They even insinuated that the pact was ultimately aimed at Rome. Although this “pact” may have been a propagandistic lie to scare the Romans, it fell on open senatorial ears.
The Romans had used Greek allies during the First Macedonian War and used them badly. Roman prestige among those allies had suffered, and Philip had gotten off rather easily. Now was a chance to refurbish Rome’s reputation by clipping Philip’s wings in ways that would help Rome’s friends, punish an enemy who had not suffered much before, and preserve the beneficial balance of power that Philip was now upsetting in the East. To show that they were serious, the senators voted to send an embassy of three men to make the rounds of the Greek East. They were to gain support for the conditions that the senate decreed Philip would have to accept to avoid war: he must not make war against any Greeks and must submit any disagreements with them to arbitration. In the elections for 200 b.c.e., P. Sulpicius Galba, who had commanded Roman forces in Greece during the First Macedonian War, succeeded in becoming consul for the second time. Macedon again was his assignment. The pattern of Roman expansion that was established in the fourth century in Italy and continued in the third century in Spain, Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia was about to repeat again: the Romans’ alliance with smaller states would bring them into conflict with a powerful rival, whom Rome would ultimately defeat and whose territory Rome would ultimately control.
The Second Macedonian War, 200 to 196 b.c.e.
When Galba took office and proposed that the Centuriate Assembly declare war on Macedon, the proposal was rejected by those who controlled the top two classes of centuries: war-weary veterans and wealthy creditors to whom the state had not repaid money loaned to fight Hannibal. Philip, convinced that he had nothing to fear, ignored repeated warnings and attacked the Greeks more boldly. Now the senatorial leaders had to obtain a declaration of war at all costs. They placated the rich by paying off creditors with public land and mollified many veterans by exempting from service those who had served under Scipio. These measures and, perhaps, reports of Philip’s stepped-up attacks were enough to obtain a declaration of war at a second vote of the comitia.
Motives and miscalculations
The last thing that Philip wanted was another war with Rome while he was expanding eastward. He probably thought that Roman interests in Greece were too slight and the Romans’ exhaustion after the Second Punic War too great to make them choose war over peace if he called their bluff. Philip miscalculated. The Romans chose war, but not from any need for more land or alleged philhellenism (love of Greek culture). The Romans had shown no interest in keeping territory in Greece after the First Macedonian War, and they were conquering more than enough needed land in northern Italy and Spain. Moreover, Roman senators did not go to war out of love for someone else’s culture. There were, however, many reasons why Roman leaders and even Roman voters would be willing to go to war once their immediate concerns were satisfied.
Those reasons aptly illustrate the general motives for Roman imperialism after the Second Punic War. As was so often the case, fear, pride, and revenge were at work. Although the Romans were not so greatly influenced by concern for markets and raw materials as modern imperial powers have been, economic motives also existed. Rome’s maritime allies among the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily were very interested in eastern Mediterranean trade, which Philip was disrupting. At the beginning of the Second Punic War, the Romans had taken Malta, which Carthage had used to control maritime trade with the Levant and Egypt. During the war, access to grain from Egypt had become important for Rome. Also, as the lex Claudia of 218 shows (p. 170), many individual Romans were now involved in overseas trade. Such individuals would not have been reluctant to speak and vote in favor of a war that could improve their economic opportunities. Moreover, supplying Roman armies during a war could be a lucrative business.
In addition, the Greek East was the source of the most skilled and the best educated slaves. Galba had already profited handsomely from capturing slaves during the First Macedonian War. The Roman market for such slaves was growing rapidly. Another war with Macedon would also be the source of other valuable booty, which always attracted many Romans, noble and common. Furthermore, as the experience with Carthage had shown, rich states could be made to pay lucrative indemnities when defeated in war.
Overseas wars had also whetted aristocratic ambitions at Rome. The great military glory won by Scipio against Hannibal had given him preeminent dignitas and auctoritas. Publius Sulpicius Galba and those who would be eligible for consulships after him could hope to equal Scipio’s exploits in another great overseas war. The huge armies involved in such wars also increased the numbers of ex-soldiers who could become useful clients in the political struggles of the Forum. Finally, the acquisition of rich and powerful friends abroad would increase the resources and prestige necessary for success in competition with other aristocrats. Those who advocated another war with Philip were probably not unmindful of those facts.
The first two years, 200 to 198 b.c.e.
The delay in gaining approval for the war meant that the campaigning season was almost over before Galba could assemble an army. Nevertheless, he went to Greece and established winter quarters to demonstrate Rome’s commitment. In the course of the next year, Galba’s good behavior and the Romans’ determination persuaded the wary Aetolians to join in the new war. Athens, which Philip had earlier attacked, also joined. Other Greeks remained neutral and waited to see which horse they should back in an uncertain race.
Titus Quinctius Flamininus
In 198 b.c.e., the war took a dramatic turn with the arrival of the new consul Titus Quinctius Flamininus. Charismatic, cultured, and fluent in Greek, Flamininus electrified the Greek world with the slogan “Freedom and self-determination of all Greeks.” With wider support, Flamininus maneuvered Philip from nearly all of Greece except the key fortresses of Demetrias in Thessaly, Chalcis in Euboea, and Corinth in the Peloponnesus. Philip, now confined to Thessaly, sought a peace conference with Flamininus. Although the two men understood and admired each other, the conference itself achieved nothing. It broke up over Philip’s refusal to surrender the three fortresses, which he had inherited from his ancestors. Flamininus, however, was rewarded for his military success by being made a proconsul to continue the war.
The Battle of Cynoscephalae, 197 b.c.e.
The war was decided the next year at Cynoscephalae (Dog’s Heads), a ridge of hills in Thessaly. The two armies were about equally matched. The right wing of the Macedonian army made a brilliant breakthrough on the Roman left, but the Roman right, augmented by a squadron of ten elephants, routed the Macedonian left before it could close ranks. The Romans gained the victory, however, because of a quick-thinking tribune. He detached some maniples from the rear of the successful Roman right and attacked the ponderous phalanx of the Macedonian right wing from behind. The greater tactical flexibility of the Roman manipular legion, not the elephants, proved decisive. Therefore, elephants did not become a permanent feature of Roman warfare.
Peace terms
Philip lost the Battle of Cynoscephalae and the war. He had no other army, Macedon was exposed to invasion, and peace had to be obtained at any price. The terms were better than expected. Flamininus and the majority of Roman senators did not want to destroy the Macedonian state (as the Aetolians demanded) now that Philip had been humbled. Macedon served as a buffer against the restless Balkan tribes to the north. Also, Philip might be a useful ally to Rome someday, perhaps more useful than the Aetolians.
Late in 197 b.c.e., Philip was compelled to recognize the freedom and independence of the Greeks; to withdraw all his garrisons from Greece, the Aegean, and Illyria; to surrender his fleet; to reduce his army to 5000 men; and to pay an indemnity of 1000 talents, half at once and the rest in ten annual installments. The infuriated Aetolians demanded the whole of Thessaly as their share of victory. Flamininus would concede them only Phocis and the western part of Thessaly. Even worse, he allowed Philip to make jokes at their expense during the peace negotiations.
Flamininus’ proclamation of Greek freedom
In July of 196 b.c.e., Flamininus made a grand appearance at the Isthmian Games at Corinth. These games, like the Olympic Games, were one of the four quadrennial athletic and cultural festivals that attracted visitors from all over the Greek world. They would carry Flamininus’ words back to their home cities. In the name of the Roman senate, Flamininus proclaimed the promised freedom and independence of the Greek states. They were to be subject to their own laws, without garrisons and without tribute. In joyous thanksgiving, Greek states struck gold coins imitating the famous gold staters of Alexander but bearing the portrait of Titus Flamininus. In some cities, he was even worshiped as a god. He was the first Roman to receive divine honors, a point not lost on other ambitious Roman aristocrats.
For a while, some of the Greeks, especially the pro-Roman aristocrats, enjoyed their newly proclaimed freedom enormously. As a Roman aristocrat, Flamininus understood and admired the aristocrats of Greece. He desired to perpetuate their domination of the masses. He knew little about the poor and cared less. He regarded their struggle for the cancellation of debts, the redistribution of land, and other social and economic reforms as subversive activity.
Aristocratic Greek friends even prevailed upon Flamininus to declare war on Sparta. King Nabis of Sparta had tried to increase the number of landholding citizens. They were needed to serve in an enlarged Spartan army and restore ancient Spartan glory. He had abolished debts, broken up large estates, distributed the land fairly, enfranchised the helots (Spartan serfs), and proclaimed liberty to captives and slaves. His kingdom had become a refuge to homeless exiles. Sparta had become a fairly strong power in a short time. It was, however, unable to resist the might of Rome. The victorious Flamininus reaped even greater glory, Roman soldiers carried off much plunder, and the Roman treasury received a hefty indemnity of 500 talents.
Flamininus and the Romans had no romantic notions about Greek freedom. Their concern was to keep Greece, with its strategic location and valuable manpower, politically fragmented and out of the hands of any strong power. Indeed, they expected that the various Greek states, as grateful clients, would follow Roman policy and preserve the status quo. They wanted hegemony, not the trouble and expense of direct rule. Unfortunately, there was always someone trying either to upset things within Greece or to take advantage of the Greeks from without.
The aggressions of Antiochus III (the Great), 196 to 192 b.c.e.
No sooner had Flamininus pulled his legions out of Greece and celebrated a glorious triumph in Rome than the senate became alarmed at the activities of Antiochus III as he continued to reconstitute the empire of Seleucus I. While Philip had been occupied with fighting Rome, Antiochus had attacked and defeated the Egyptians at Panium in northern Palestine in 200 b.c.e. Seven years later, he concluded a marital alliance between his daughter, Cleopatra I, and the young Egyptian king, Ptolemy V. Then he began to annex the few free coastal cities like Ephesus still left in Asia Minor and Thrace.
The growth of Antiochus’ power alarmed Pergamum. It had once formed part of the old Seleucid domains. Pergamum’s new king, Eumenes II, decided to follow his father’s example of appealing to Rome. In response to the appeals of Eumenes and some Greek cities in Asia Minor, the senate authorized Flamininus to negotiate with Antiochus in 196 b.c.e. Flamininus warned the king to keep his hands off the independent Greek cities in Asia Minor, not to cross the Hellespont (Dardanelles), and to evacuate all towns recently taken from Egypt. The king replied correctly that Flamininus had no right to speak on behalf of the Greek cities in Asia Minor. If, he said, the Romans would leave him alone, he would gladly leave them alone. The Romans were not yet ready to go to war. Still, influential men were laying the basis of future military action, which was eagerly anticipated and promoted by Scipio Africanus and his supporters.
Hannibal tries to help Antiochus
A year later (195 b.c.e.), Hannibal, forced into exile from Carthage (p. 150), arrived at Ephesus. In response to a question from Antiochus, Hannibal replied that the only chance for victory against Rome lay in the creation of a united front of all its enemies. Antiochus would have to come to terms with Philip V, with Egypt, with Pergamum—perhaps even make concessions. Antiochus thanked Hannibal for his sage advice and ignored it. He decided to ally himself instead with the little powers of Greece. That decision was extremely unwise.
The war with Antiochus III (the Great), 192 to 188 b.c.e.
In Greece, the disgruntled Aetolians had become violently anti-Roman. In particular, the peace settlement of 197 b.c.e. restricted their favorite occupation, plundering their neighbors. They tried to enlist Philip’s help in throwing off the hated Roman yoke. He, remembering how they had urged Flamininus to dismantle his kingdom, rejected their overtures. Antiochus was so ill advised as to accept their invitation. In 192 b.c.e., he landed in Greece with a force of 10,000 men and was promptly elected Aetolian commander in chief.
By such actions, Antiochus had triggered the responses that characterized Roman imperialism: fear, vengefulness, greed, and desire for glory. The Romans immediately made common cause with Philip against Antiochus. The Romans were now allied with Philip, Pergamum, Rhodes, the Achaean League, Numidia, and even Carthage. They easily defeated Antiochus at Thermopylae, a position historically impossible to hold (191 b.c.e.). One of those who contributed to the victory was Cato the Elder, who was serving again as a military tribune even after he had reached the consulship (p. 168). Antiochus managed to escape to Ephesus.
In view of the probable magnitude of further struggles with Antiochus, it would have been advantageous for Rome to elect Scipio Africanus, the greatest living Roman general, to the consulship. Unfortunately, Africanus had been consul in 194. He was not eligible for reelection until ten years later. The people elected his younger brother, Lucius Cornelius Scipio. They expected that Lucius would nominate Africanus as his legate and permit him to assume actual command. Lucius did just that. Early in 190 b.c.e., the Scipios sailed from Brundisium with a small army, took command of the larger army already in Greece, and began their march through Macedon to the Hellespont with Philip’s active assistance.
The conquest of the East would have been impossible for the Romans without command of the sea. They secured it partly through their own tactical skill and the effective assistance of the Rhodian and Pergamene navies and partly through Antiochus’ failure to utilize the talents of Hannibal effectively as a general and strategist. Hannibal had requested a fleet and an army to open up a second front against Rome in the West. Antiochus merely entrusted him with bringing naval reinforcements from Syria to the northern Aegean. A Rhodian fleet quickly defeated Hannibal. The Scipios’ naval forces defeated Antiochus’ main fleet a few weeks later. Having no naval opposition, the Roman army easily crossed the Hellespont.
Antiochus offers peace terms
In 190 b.c.e., Antiochus offered to abandon Thrace, break off relations with the Aetolian Greeks, and recognize the independence of the Greek cities in Asia Minor. In addition, Antiochus agreed to pay half the costs of the war. Six years earlier, Flamininus would have made peace with him had he merely agreed not to cross the Hellespont and not to attack the cities of Thrace. Now, his far more sweeping offers came too late. Nothing would satisfy the ambitious Scipios short of the surrender of all Asia Minor north and west of the Taurus Mountains and payment of the entire costs of the war, terms that Antiochus rejected.
The Battle of Magnesia
The battle for Asia Minor took place near Magnesia ad Sipylum in 190 b.c.e. The Romans easily won despite the absence of the Scipios because of illness. Antiochus was hampered by poor generalship, poor equipment, and lack of coordination among the various units of his huge but ill-assorted army. At Magnesia, Antiochus lost the war, and the Seleucid Empire lost its power.
The peace treaty of Apamea, 188 b.c.e.
A peace treaty was finally worked out at Apamea in 188 b.c.e. The king was obliged to give up all his possessions in Asia Minor north of the Taurus Mountains and west of the Halys River, to surrender his navy, and to pay 15,000 talents, one of the largest indemnities exacted in ancient times. The Romans were not prepared to administer the vast territory that Antiochus surrendered in Asia Minor. They gave some of it to the Greek cities and the republic of Rhodes in return for their help. The lion’s share went to Pergamum. Its original size was increased tenfold to an area almost equal to modern Great Britain’s. The enlarged kingdom of Pergamum, writes Polybius, was now inferior to none.
The deaths of Antiochus III, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, and Philip V
Antiochus III was assassinated after robbing a temple at Susa in 187 b.c.e. After Magnesia, Hannibal had escaped first to Crete and then to Bithynia, which was at war with Pergamum. He soon won a naval battle for his friend Prusias I of Bithynia, but Flamininus arrived in 183 b.c.e. and compelled Prusias to help him capture Hannibal. The still-defiant Carthaginian frustrated the plan by taking poison and dying as proudly as he had lived.
Earlier in the same year, Hannibal’s greatest opponent, Scipio Africanus, also died under unhappy circumstances. Cato the Elder had never agreed with Scipio’s aggressive overseas policy and unorthodox political career. He kept up relentless political and judicial attacks on Scipio, his family, and his friends. In 183 b.c.e., Africanus finally retired to his country estate and died a short time later.
Philip V had done comparatively well since his defeat at Cynoscephalae, although he did not reap many permanent advantages from his alliance with Rome against Antiochus. He received only a few paltry talents and the promise of a few towns in Thessaly—a promise that the Romans ultimately failed to keep. He did try, when it was almost too late, to cultivate good relations with the other Hellenistic states—Egypt, Syria, and even Pergamum. He also changed the Macedonian constitution to permit the towns under his rule the right of local self-government. In that way, he could pose as the champion of the oppressed masses in Greece. At the same time, Philip set about building up the economic life of Macedon.
Philip’s last days, however, were far from happy. He had put his son Demetrius to death on charges of treason, later found to be false. After learning the horrid truth, Philip was tortured with remorse. He could no longer sleep and fell an easy victim to illness. He died in 179 b.c.e., and his eldest son, Perseus, succeeded to the throne.
The Third Macedonian War, 171 to 168/167 b.c.e.
The Third Macedonian War was caused partly by the reawakening power of Macedon, partly by the intrigues of Pergamum’s King Eumenes II, and partly by the chaotic conditions in Greece after the dismal defeat of Antiochus and the Aetolians. Those factors gave convenient pretexts for war to ambitious aristocrats in the senate. They saw Macedon as their next opportune target after intervening wars in Spain and northern Italy had come to a close (pp. 165–8). Moreover, many senators were concerned that disorder in Greece provided tempting opportunities for the expansion of Macedonian power. After Flamininus’ proclamation of Greek freedom at the Isthmian Games of 196, the Greeks thought that they were free to pursue their own interests and resume their old internal and interstate conflicts. The Romans had meant that they were free to live in peace in a world ordered to suit Rome’s interests. Many Greeks, however, were not disposed to follow the lead of the Romans. They considered Romans barbarians, useful at times but still barbarians.
The first three years of the Third Macedonian War showed much incompetence on both sides. The Roman commanders made mistakes that a more resolute and daring enemy than King Perseus could have turned into disastrous defeats. Perseus’ excessive caution and misguided hope that he could placate Rome without a humiliating capitulation prevented him from taking these opportunities.
Lucius Aemilius Paullus and the Battle of Pydna, 168 b.c.e.
Lucius Aemilius Paullus had been consul in 182 b.c.e. He accepted a second consulship in 168 only on the condition that his conduct of the war not be hampered by unsolicited and unwanted advice. He brought Perseus to a decisive battle at Pydna on the southeast coast of Macedon. This battle demonstrated once more, as did those at Cynoscephalae and Magnesia, that the phalanx was now a thoroughly obsolete battle formation.
Perseus escaped to the island of Samothrace but was captured a little later. In 167, Aemilius Paullus proudly displayed him along with other captives and huge amounts of booty in his triumphal procession. Rome profited so greatly from the confiscation of Perseus’ treasury and the yearly tribute imposed on the Macedonians that all Roman citizens ceased to be subject to direct taxes. Imperialism could be lucrative.
Rome and the Hellenistic East After Pydna (168 b.c.e.)
No one in the Hellenistic East was able to mount effective resistance to Rome after Pydna. Those who tried to resist were summarily crushed. Those who did not only prolonged their decline.
Macedon and the Fourth Macedonian War, 149 to 148 b.c.e.
In Macedon, the Romans decided to try an experiment apparently modeled after the Greek leagues. They abolished the monarchy and replaced it with four independent republics—separate; partially disarmed; and deprived of the rights of alliance, intermarriage, or trade with each other. The Romans also made the royal mines and domains the property of the Roman state. They closed the royal gold and silver mines for ten years, forbade the export of timber, and exacted an annual tribute of hundred talents, half the amount of the land tax formerly paid to the kings.
The Macedonians resented their loss of unity. They had never regarded their monarchy as an oppressive evil. It was the symbol of their national unity. Hellenistic Macedon had more nearly resembled a nation than any other state in the ancient world. It was not a land of city-states like Greece or Italy; it was not a loose confederation of cities like the Achaean League; nor was it a multiethnic state held together solely by the king like the empire of the Seleucids. It was one people in ethnic background, language, religion, customs, and government. The Roman experiment violated the very nature and traditions of the Macedonian people.
It is little wonder, then, that within two decades the Roman experiment failed. Andriscus, an upstart pretender, probably the son of a cloth-maker, was able to convince the Macedonian people that he was the son of Perseus. They rallied around him. He restored the monarchy in 149 b.c.e., reunited the kingdom, and even overcame a small Roman army sent against him. After defeating him with a larger army, the Romans converted Macedon into the province of Macedonia in 148 b.c.e. Thus, they ended the political existence of Macedon for the rest of antiquity.
Greece and Epirus
The treatment of Macedon was mild compared with the punishment inflicted on others after Pydna. In Aetolia, the Romans lent troops to their supporters to carry out a purge of pro-democratic, pro-Macedonian activists. In Achaea, they deported to Italy 1000 of the leading citizens (including the historian Polybius). Their names were found among the papers that Perseus had neglected to destroy. For sixteen years, the Achaean hostages were kept interned without a trial or hearing. None was released until after 700 of them had died. In 167 b.c.e., the most horrible and revolting brutality was inflicted on Epirus. Rome had no legitimate complaint against it. Yet, seventy towns were destroyed, and 150,000 people were dragged off to the slave market, to the profit of Aemilius Paullus and his soldiers.
The worst was yet to come. In 146 b.c.e., Lucius Mummius arrived in Corinth to punish it for joining the Achaean League in a Greek rebellion against Rome. He turned his troops loose upon it, sacked it, and razed it to the ground. He massacred many of its inhabitants, sold many more as slaves, and shipped its priceless art treasures to Rome. Polybius’ account of Mummius’ soldiers using famous paintings as gaming tables did nothing to improve the Greeks’ view of the Roman “barbarians.”
After the destruction of Corinth, the Romans dissolved the Achaean League and most of the other Greek leagues. They destroyed the anti-Roman democracies and set up petty tyrants or aristocratic oligarchies in their place. Each city-state now had separate relations with Rome. The governor of Macedonia was empowered to intervene for settling disputes and preserving public order. In 27 b.c.e., Augustus finally made Greece a separate province (p. 371).
The Seleucids
Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), the third son of Antiochus III, came to the throne in 175 b.c.e. He tried to restore Seleucid fortunes, which had suffered badly after his father’s disastrous war with Rome. In 168 b.c.e., he was about to take over Egypt. The Romans, freed by their victory at Pydna, intervened to save the throne of the Ptolemies, their longtime friends. The Roman envoy, C. Popillius Laenas, found Antiochus besieging Alexandria. He conveyed the senate’s “request” that Antiochus withdraw from Egypt. When the king asked for time to consider, Popillius haughtily drew a circle around him in the sand and demanded a reply before he stepped out of it. Swallowing his pride, Antiochus prudently withdrew in the face of Roman might.
The Jewish revolt of the Maccabees, 164 to 161 b.c.e.
Antiochus IV had tried to turn Judea into a strongly Hellenized city-state as a buffer between Egypt and Syria. This program aroused some discontent among the Jews. Yet, no open revolt occurred until Antiochus tried to strengthen his position after being forced out of Egypt in 168. He not only stationed a garrison in Jerusalem but even converted the temple of the Judean god to the worship of Baal Shamin (“Lord of the Heavens”), a universal deity whom the Greeks identified with Olympian Zeus and Hellenized Jews with their singular god. Simultaneously, he revoked the decree of his father, Antiochus III, which had permitted the Jews to live and worship according to the Law of Moses.
A priestly landowner named Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, Jonathan and Simon, aroused non-Hellenized Jews to rebellion. They gathered together an army and inflicted a series of defeats upon the king’s troops. The Maccabees were aided by the death of Antiochus IV in Armenia late in 164 b.c.e. and by the subsequent disruption of the Seleucid Empire. They rooted out every last vestige of Seleucid rule in Jerusalem and restored the ancient temple state. In 161 b.c.e., the Romans saw a chance to erect a barrier to further Seleucid ambitions in Palestine and Egypt by recognizing the Jewish temple state as an ally.
Decline of the Ptolemies
From ca. 200 b.c.e. onward, the kingdom of the Ptolemies had been wracked by internal revolts and dynastic intrigues that kept it weak. Various Ptolemies maintained friendly relations with Rome to protect themselves from external enemies, as in 168 b.c.e. Eventually, Rome would intervene to prop up one favorite or another in the turmoil, often to the great profit of Roman politicians and moneylenders.
Rhodes
After Pydna, the hand of Rome fell heavily upon Rhodes. That old friend had made one mistake. Just before Pydna, it had tried to mediate between Rome and Perseus. It acted not so much out of sympathy toward Perseus as out of fear that Rome might become the unbalanced power in the eastern Mediterranean. Rome took offense at this attempted mediation. A praetor even proposed a declaration of war. It was defeated only after old Cato stood up and made a strong plea in defense of the Rhodians.
Although Rhodes humbly repented of its mistakes, it did not escape Roman vengeance. It was stripped of the territories given to it in Asia Minor after Magnesia, and the importation of vital shipbuilding timber from Macedon was prohibited. The island of Delos was given to Athens in 167/166 b.c.e. and made a customs-free port. The resulting competition from Delos reduced the income of Rhodes as a banking, shipping, and commercial center from about 166 talents annually to about 25. The loss of revenue from its Asiatic possessions and from harbor dues and banking crippled the finances of Rhodes. It had to reduce its navy and was no longer able to keep piracy in check in the eastern seas.
Pergamum
Eumenes II, king of Pergamum, who had done so much to place the Hellenistic world into the increasingly ruthless hands of the Romans, also incurred their wrath. Suspected of collusion with Perseus, he was punished by confiscation of territory and hounded by hostile Roman commissions sent to Asia Minor to gather evidence against him. Still, he had no other alternative than to remain subservient to Rome. When Eumenes died in 159 b.c.e., his brother and successor, Attalus II, followed the same policy. He also continued to promote Pergamum as a cultural and intellectual capital and maintained a Greek cultural offensive against the resurgence of native Near Eastern cultures. He was followed in 138 b.c.e. by Attalus III, whose parentage is uncertain. Like Louis XVI of France, he preferred his studies and hobbies to being a king. He did serious research in botany, zoology, medicine, scientific agriculture, and gardening. Having no direct heirs, he bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman People. His early death in 133 b.c.e. thereby closed the history of Pergamum as a separate state. It soon became the province of Asia, Rome’s second eastern province.
Roman imperialism in the West, 200 to 133 b.c.e.
After the Second Punic War, many of the same motives drove Roman imperialism in the West as in the East. In the West, however, the Romans often took a different approach to establishing control, particularly in northern Italy and Spain. There they actively sought territorial acquisition and gave land to thousands of veterans and settlers. In both northern Italy and Spain, people were still loosely organized in agrarian tribes. There were no large city-states or territorial monarchies that the Romans could manipulate to maintain hegemonic control. There was no sophisticated political elite whom they could co-opt and no shared body of concepts or values that could provide a basis for peaceful coexistence. Therefore, in those regions, the only way to achieve security, from the Roman point of view, was through outright conquest and direct rule.
Northern Italy
The Gallic tribes of northern Italy had periodically attacked Roman territory or sided with Rome’s enemies ever since 390 b.c.e. Under the leadership of Gaius Flaminius just after the First Punic War, the Romans had begun to satisfy the need for both land and security. They systematically subdued the Cisalpine tribes and colonized the area that they called the “near side of the Po” (the Cispadana, as opposed to the Transpadana). This effort had been interrupted and undone by the war with Hannibal, whom the Gauls supported. As soon as the Romans were free of the Second Macedonian War, therefore, they began to settle the score with the Gauls of northern Italy. They founded colonies on both sides of the Po between 197 and 175 b.c.e. Small market towns and administrative centers rapidly sprang up as the many individual farmers who were encouraged to move north and take up land settled the area.
After the conquest and settlement of the central region of northern Italy, the Romans turned to the coastal areas. In 181 b.c.e., they founded a Latin colony at Aquileia, at the head of the Adriatic. It served as a springboard for the later conquest of Istria and the Dalmatian coast. During the late Republic and early Empire, Aquileia was one of the busiest shipping and commercial harbors of Italy (map, p. 114).
On the west coast, the conquest of the hardy but culturally backward Ligurian tribes was a long and difficult operation. There were several Roman defeats, some victories, and some notorious atrocities. By 172, the Romans had subdued both the Italian and what is now the French Riviera as far as the borders of Massilia. Roman and Latin colonies were planted on the northwest coast at places like Pisa. At the same time, 40,000 Ligurians were moved south to be settled on vacant public land near Beneventum in central Samnium (map, p. 114).
The building of many roads was equally important for the occupation and settlement of the North. After the final conquest of Cisalpine Liguria in 155 b.c.e., the wars ceased, and the use of the Latin language spread. Rome was rapidly consolidating its control over continental Italy.
Successes and failures in Spain
The Romans had driven the Carthaginians from Spain in the Second Punic War. They stayed to prevent any other state from using it as a base for another attack on Italy. They were also influenced by tales of its fabulous mineral wealth and the remarkable fertility of its soil. They hoped to extract enough wealth from Spain to pay for the costs of its occupation, to recoup the staggering losses suffered from the Second Punic War, and perhaps to finance future wars as well.
The Romans encountered unexpected difficulties. Spain had no large self-governing states or kingdoms that could be held responsible for the collection of tribute or the maintenance of law and order. Also, the Carthaginians had claimed large areas in the interior and in the western part of the peninsula that they had never governed or even explored. The tribes living in these areas had long been in the habit of raiding the richer and more civilized parts of Spain now controlled by the Romans. To provide security for their recent gains, the Romans found it necessary to make further conquests.
Spain, however, was cut up by its mountains into thousands of small communities and as many separate clans. Communications among them were difficult. Access to them was practically impossible. The Romans could not conquer them in a few pitched battles, as they had conquered Macedon or Asia Minor. The Spaniards engaged in guerrilla warfare that Rome’s conventional armies were ill equipped to counter.
Nearer and Farther Spain
For purposes of administration and defense, the senate decided in 197 b.c.e. to divide Roman Spain into two separate provinces known as Nearer and Farther Spain (Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior). Normally, each was to be governed by a praetor but, in time of war and crisis, by a magistrate with consular power. The Mediterranean seaboard from the Pyrenees to a point slightly south of New Carthage (Cartagena) formed Nearer Spain. It was rich in silver mines but agriculturally somewhat poor. Farther Spain was roughly coextensive with modern Andalusia. It embraced the fertile Guadalquivir valley as far north as the silver-mining region of the Sierra Morena range. Neither province extended very far into the interior.
The costs of provincial administration and defense were defrayed by revenue derived from tribute and regular taxes. The tribute (stipendium) was imposed on all tribes, semi-urban communities, and a few municipalities such as Malaca (Malaga) and Gades (Cadiz). It sometimes consisted of farm products, such as wheat or barley, but more often of payments in silver or gold bullion or coin. Until 195 b.c.e., the amount of tribute varied from year to year according to the needs of the provincial government and the rapacity of the governor. As a rule, it was too high for primitive rural communities. It often provoked unrest and rebellion. The regular tax, on the other hand, was fairly low, being only one-twentieth of farm crops and payable in kind. All communities were required to furnish troops to the Roman army in addition to paying tribute and taxes.
In the year in which the two provinces were created, war broke out in each. The extortions and tyrannies of the Roman praetors were unbearable. The Romans, who had been welcomed as deliverers under Scipio, proved less tolerable than the Carthaginians had been. Even Gades and Malaca, finding themselves denied the promised status of allies, supported the inland tribes in the fight for independence.
Cato the Elder’s pivotal governorship of Nearer Spain
As a praetor in 198, Cato the Elder had already earned a reputation for being an honest and effective provincial governor in Sardinia. Consul in 195, he was sent to restore order in Spain as governor of the nearer province (Hispania Citerior). With an army of 50,000 men, he was successful in stamping out the rebellion in his own province. He even subdued the region as far west as the headwaters of the Tagus. Still, his military achievements were not so outstanding or so permanent as his economic and administrative reforms. They applied to both provinces because he was the senior magistrate.
Cato did not reduce the tribute but set a fixed amount for each administrative district. Therefore, the people would know long in advance what they would have to pay. More important, he reopened the mines, which had been shut since the Carthaginian defeat. He placed most of them under public ownership and operation. They provided new income for the provincial administrations and employment for the poorer people living in New Carthage and other mining districts. Cato may also have anticipated Rome’s need to finance the war brewing against Antiochus III (pp. 159–61).
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, 180 to 178 b.c.e.
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was another successful governor in Spain. He was the son-in-law of Scipio Africanus and father of the famous reforming tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (see Chapter 12). As governor of Nearer Spain, he removed the causes of unrest. Founding many new towns and villages, he gave the peasants and workers in Nearer Spain good land for settlement. By 178, the people had become fairly content under the more enlightened policies of governors like Cato and Tiberius Gracchus. They remained relatively peaceful for over twenty years.
Revolt and the brutal Roman response, ca. 155 to 150 b.c.e.
Unfortunately, the corruption and outrages of many governors after Gracchus eventually became unbearable. The senate’s efforts to check corrupt governors proved ineffectual despite the repeated appeals of the Spanish people. Frustration finally touched off a series of rebellions. They began in Farther Spain about 155 b.c.e. and spread to Nearer Spain in 153.
In 151 the consul L. Licinius Lucullus arrived to find that the rebellious tribes in Nearer Spain had come to terms with his predecessor. Eager for a triumph, he made an unjustified attack on a tribe that had not rebelled. The victims of his aggression agreed to terms and surrendered. Then, he treacherously massacred about 20,000 of their men. In the next year, with Lucullus’ help and example, the governor of Farther Spain, Servius Sulpicius Galba induced some of the Lusitanians to surrender on generous terms. When they had laid down their arms, he massacred them. Cato the Elder, in 149, supported an effort to prosecute Galba. The effort failed.
The Third Punic War, 149 to 146 b.c.e.
While the Romans were trying to crush native resistance to their rule in the Iberian Peninsula, they tried to maintain indirect control over Carthage in North Africa. Their efforts led to the final and sorriest chapter in Rome’s long history of conflict with that great city. Even after Zama, Carthage remained a busy industrial and shipping center. It controlled the trade between Africa and the Hellenistic world. With peace and order in North Africa, Carthage enjoyed a better market for its manufactured products than ever before. The crops grown on its farms and plantations were the envy of the Mediterranean world.
In an effort to please the Romans and cooperate with them, the Carthaginians had scrupulously observed all their treaty obligations. They had disavowed Hannibal and had supplied grain for the Roman armies on numerous occasions. They had helped Rome wage war against Philip V, Antiochus III, and Perseus by furnishing both military and naval assistance. Perhaps they would have remained on good terms had it not been for the ambitions and aggression of Masinissa. He unscrupulously expanded his kingdom of Numidia at the expense of the Carthaginians, whose hands were tied by their treaty with Rome.
Masinissa
The Romans had used Masinissa’s small kingdom as a check on Carthage in the same way that they had used the smaller Hellenistic states to exercise indirect control over Macedon and the Seleucid Empire. The end result was also the same: the smaller power manipulated Rome and helped to precipitate a major war.
The treaty that ended the Second Punic War left Carthage in possession of many ports and trading posts along the African coast. Its home territory, however, was confined to what is now the northern half of Tunisia within frontiers known as the Phoenician Bounds. They enclosed an area of about 30,000 square miles. Masinissa, on the other hand, was permitted to occupy any land that either he or his ancestors had previously held. Another clause forbade Carthage to wage war without the consent of Rome. Masinissa, with Roman connivance, took full advantage of both clauses of the treaty.
One by one, Masinissa seized most of the Carthaginian coastal colonies. Not permitted to resist these aggressions by armed force, Carthage appealed to Rome, which sent commissions to arbitrate. These commissions sometimes decided in favor of Masinissa and sometimes left the dispute unsettled. By 154 b.c.e., Masinissa had whittled Carthage down to about 9000 square miles, one-third of its former area. In answer to an urgent Carthaginian appeal, the Romans sent out a boundary commission reportedly headed by Cato the Elder in 153 b.c.e. The commission left the matter undecided.
Before returning to Rome, the commissioners made an inspection tour in and around Carthage. The proud city—overflowing with wealth and luxury, teeming with fighting men, filled with arms and military supplies, and humming with busy shipyards—is said to have stirred in Cato an unreasonable hatred. The man who condemned Galba’s brutal acts in Spain and had often opposed unjustified imperialistic adventures in the East demanded an unjust declaration of war against Carthage. Thereafter, he supposedly ended all his speeches, regardless of the subject, with the hysterical refrain censeo Carthaginem esse delendam (“In my opinion, Carthage must be destroyed!”).
Motives for war
For some Romans like Cato, an irrational fear and hatred, not imperial expansion per se, may have been a motive for war against Carthage, their great enemy in two previous wars. Cato, as mentioned, had often opposed Imperial adventurism in the East. Again, however, economic considerations, though often denied, and the traditional aristocratic desire for glorious triumphs must not be underestimated. Cato, for example, had lucrative investments in shipping firms and companies engaged in foreign trade. (He used a dummy to get around the lex Claudia of 218 b.c.e., which forbade senators from engaging in foreign trade.) Carthaginians were the Romans’ major foreign competitors in the West. Therefore, senators like Cato, probably with the support of many wealthy equestrians who had major interests in foreign trade, would have favored a new war against Carthage. Furthermore, only a short sail from Italy, Carthage was a major exporter of agricultural products to the huge Roman market. Many large senatorial and equestrian landowners could have been concerned about competition with the products of their own rural estates.
An even greater concern may well have been ensuring that Rome had unhindered access to sufficient food supplies. By 150 b.c.e., the population of the city had swollen to about 400,000. Food, particularly grain, from the easily accessible parts of Italy, southern Gaul, Sicily, and Sardinia probably was no longer enough to feed it. Having direct control over Carthage’s highly productive hinterland would have been very desirable for ensuring that Rome’s huge population could be fed.
Finally, in 152 b.c.e., Carthage had finished paying the huge indemnity imposed after the Second Punic War. The rich, fat goose was no longer going to lay golden eggs. Many Romans may have found it attractive to carve up the goose itself. Certainly, the general victorious in a war with Carthage would celebrate a magnificent triumph and contribute a vast hoard of plunder to the commonwealth.
There is no reason to doubt Polybius’ statement that a majority in the Roman senate had been bent on war well before the event (Book 36.2.1). All that was lacking was a pretext that could decorously mask naked aggression. Such a pretext was conveniently provided as a result of Rome’s tacit encouragement of Masinissa’s unscrupulous seizures of Carthaginian territory. In Carthage, popular, anti-Roman leaders were exasperated by the aggressions of Masinissa and the indifference of Rome. They had seized power from pro-Roman oligarchs in 151 b.c.e. In 150, war broke out between Carthage and Masinissa with disastrous results for the Carthaginian army. Worse still, in waging war against Masinissa, the Carthaginians had violated the treaty of Zama. That gave Rome a convenient excuse for war.
Hearing that the Romans were preparing to send an army to Africa, the Carthaginians hastened to undo the mischief that they had done. They returned their pro-Roman oligarchs to power and executed popular leaders. Envoys from Rome arrived to investigate the situation. They obscured Roman intentions by vague replies when the Carthaginians asked how they could make amends. Meanwhile, the Roman senate, goaded by Cato, prepared for war, which the comitia centuriata finally declared in 149. The Carthaginians sent ambassadors to Rome to request peace terms. The ambassadors were told that Carthage would be permitted to retain its territory and independence. It had to hand over 300 noble hostages and carry out all future orders of the consuls. The consuls demanded the surrender of all arms and weapons. After the Carthaginians complied, the consuls grimly announced the senate’s secret final terms: the Carthaginians must abandon and destroy their city and rebuild at least ten miles from the sea—a death sentence for people who made their living by commerce. The Romans probably calculated that Carthage would not submit willingly. It mattered little whether the city did or not. Either way, Rome would have a position of great superiority.
The siege of Carthage and rise of the younger Scipio Africanus
Beside themselves with fear and rage, the Carthaginians prepared to defend their beloved city. Supplies of food were hurriedly brought into the city from the surrounding countryside. People toiled day and night to make new weapons. Prisons were opened and slaves freed. Even temples were turned into workshops as the Carthaginians frantically prepared for a siege.
The siege lasted three years. Carthage was situated in an excellent defensive location. Its walls were enormously thick and strong. One of the junior Roman officers at the start of the siege was the man who became the younger Scipio Africanus, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemelianus. He was the son of Aemilius Paullus and adopted grandson of the elder Scipio Africanus. In 148, he protected Rome’s interests when the dying Masinissa asked him to arrange Numidia’s future. He divided Numidia among the king’s three sons to prevent a strong, united kingdom from taking the place of Carthage in North Africa. He returned to Rome in 147 b.c.e. to stand for election as curule aedile. He was only about thirty and ineligible for any higher office. A special law was passed clearing the way for his election as consul and placing him in command of the besieging army. The current commanders were criticized for incompetence and lack of discipline.
The young consul finally took Carthage by storm in the spring of 146 b.c.e. For six days and nights, the struggle raged inside the city from street to street, from house to house, until the old city was in flames. All survivors were enslaved, the site was cursed, and Carthage’s territory became the province of Africa.1
According to the historian Polybius, who was there, Scipio wept at the final destruction of the once-magnificent city. He wept not for the suffering of the Carthaginians, which he was only too happy to inflict. Rather, he reflected that Rome might someday suffer a similar fate. At the time, however, Rome was invincible. Scipio had just conquered Rome’s newest province. He would return home in glory as the new Scipio Africanus, Rome’s most admired citizen.
The Viriathic and Numantine Wars in Spain, 151 to 133 b.c.e.
At the same time that Scipio was destroying Carthage, wars of resistance in the Spanish provinces were still raging. In Farther Spain (Hispania Ulterior), the Lusitanians found a skillful and inspiring leader by the name of Viriathus. He was a shepherd and a hunter who had escaped the massacre perpetrated by Galba (p. 168). He knew intimately the mountains, glens, and winding paths through which he led 10,000 guerrilla soldiers. For eight years, Viriathus and his followers held the Romans at bay and cut down one army after another.
In 141 b.c.e., Viriathus trapped a Roman army of 50,000 men. He spared them in return for a treaty respecting the freedom and independence of his people. The Romans cynically broke the treaty in the following year and renewed the war. The new Roman commander bribed two traitors to slit the throat of the sleeping Viriathus. The Lusitanians, left without a leader, submitted to Rome. Some of the captives were forced to go with Roman veterans to found a Latin colony at Valentia (Valencia). There they could not easily resist Roman authority again.
The siege of Numantia
Meanwhile, Viriathus had inspired an uprising of Celtiberian tribes in Nearer Spain (Hispania Citerior). The war was particularly fierce around the fortress town of Numantia. Even for its small garrison of about 4000 men, Numantia was easy to defend. It was on a hill at the junction of two rivers that flowed between deeply cut banks through thickly wooded valleys. The commander besieging Numantia in 137 b.c.e. was C. Hostilius Mancinus. His army of 20,000 was caught in an ambush by a much smaller Celtiberian force. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, son of the former governor of the same name, was a young officer among the Roman captives. Relying on the goodwill created by his father, Tiberius negotiated a treaty with the Numantines. This treaty saved a large Roman army from utter destruction. In the next year, after the men had been released on good faith, the senate, which had to approve Tiberius’ treaty for it to be binding, refused to accept the terms and renewed the war. That act had major implications for Tiberius’ later career as a popular tribune.
In 134 b.c.e., after several more defeats, the Romans sent to Spain the best general of the time, Scipio Aemilianus, the destroyer of Carthage. He had helped to block Tiberius’ treaty in order to gain another opportunity to earn military glory and prestige. He revitalized the demoralized Roman army and surrounded Numantia with fortifications. During 133, he starved Numantia into unconditional surrender and set the town on fire. Thus, he earned a new triumph and an additional cognomen, Numantinus. He had made Rome supreme in the West.
Overview and assessment
After the First Punic War, Rome had developed a system of direct rule over Sicily and Sardinia–Corsica. The Romans had no desire to extend this system to the Hellenistic Greek East. During the Second Punic War, however, Philip V of Macedon had touched off the inconclusive First Macedonian War (215–205 b.c.e.). Afterward, Rome and the smaller Greek powers attempted to use each other to maintain a precarious balance of power among Macedon, Syria, and Egypt. That attempt resulted in three more Macedonian wars (200–196, 171–168, and 149–148 b.c.e.) and a war with Antiochus III of Syria (192–188 b.c.e.). Between 148 and 146, Rome made Macedon into a province and placed Greece under its governor’s watchful eye. In the meantime, Syria slowly crumbled, dynastic struggles weakened Egypt, and Rome undercut the smaller powers when they showed any independence of action.
The Romans often pursued imperialism more directly in the West during this period. They successfully resumed the conquest of northern Italy. At the same time, they fought to subdue Spain after taking it from Carthage. Corrupt and oppressive governors often undid the work of responsible ones and drove Spanish tribes to long and bitter uprisings.
All the while, the Romans tried to check and weaken Carthage by favoring Masinissa’s Numidian kingdom in North Africa. Driven to desperation, the Carthaginians went to war once more. Carthage finally fell to the troops of Scipio Aemilianus after a brutal siege from 149 to 146 b.c.e. The former territory of Carthage then became the Roman province of Africa.
Finally, the destruction of Numantia in Spain and the inheritance of Attalus’ kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor in 133 b.c.e. terminated the remarkable period of a little less than seventy years during which Rome had acquired Imperial control over much of the Mediterranean world. By the end of that period, many Romans may well have believed that their imperium was, as Vergil later phrased it, sine fine, “without limit” (Aeneid, 1.279). Imposing Roman imperium was often a brutal process. Subjugating others, particularly those of different cultural backgrounds, often produces brutality. Such brutality certainly was not unprecedented in Roman history. The destructions of Alba Longa and Veii, for example, were prominently featured in patriotic, historical tradition. Nevertheless, the level of brutality that Roman commanders used against both highly civilized and less civilized peoples seem to have increased as Rome expanded abroad. Even the ancient historian Appian (Book 6.10.60) commented on the paradoxically barbarous brutality of the Romans, who later justified their imperialism by touting it as a civilizing force.
Many factors combined to increase the Romans’ use of mass enslavements, wholesale massacres, and total destruction to subdue their adversaries: frustration that other people would not conform to Roman preconceptions of peace and order, Roman leaders’ desire for glory, the need to keep abreast of political rivals in wealth, and the profits that accrued to Romans in general from successful wars. An increase in brutality against non-Romans, however, was not the only change produced by Rome’s Imperial expansion. The changes produced in Rome’s internal life were even greater and often equally lamentable. The following chapters will treat them in detail.
Note
1 Orosius (fifth century c.e.) exaggerated the ritual acts of cursing into the story that the whole city was sown with salt and plowed into oblivion. Actually, the ruins remained visible for generations afterward: in fact, Plutarch says that Marius once sat among them. They remained on such an immense scale that for centuries the old walls, temples, and other buildings were a quarry of ready-dressed stone. Far more thorough agents of demolition, therefore, than Scipio’s soldiers were the builders of Roman Carthage, which was founded on the Punic site in 28 b.c.e., and the insatiable stone hunters of later centuries.
Suggested reading
Champion . C. Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
Eckstein , A. M. Rome Enters the Greek East: From Anarchy to Hierarchy in the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Gruen , E. S. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1984.
Harris , W. V. War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 B.C. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.