Chapter 13
In This Chapter
● Rome sorts out northern Italy
● Establishing power in Spain - Roman style
● Why Rome dispatched Carthage to the dustbin of history
● Rome moves into Asia Minor
Rome, having got Greece, Macedonia, and the Seleucids thoroughly under control, was by 146 BC a major power in the eastern Mediterranean (refer to Chapter 12 for details on these events). Rome’s dominance was to have serious consequences for Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and Egypt. But history’s never straightforward. Even though Greece, Macedonia, and the Seleucids were sewn up, Rome hadn’t conquered the world - yet.
Rome still had problems, particularly in Italy, and also to the west in Spain, and in North Africa, Carthage’s home. Despite being well and truly thrashed in both the First and Second Punic Wars (refer to Chapter 12), Carthage wasn’t finished.
What happened between 200 and the 130s BC in the western Mediterranean and North Africa - the focus of this chapter - is the story of how Rome’s power spread across the whole of the Mediterranean.
Conquering the Mediterranean was, by any standards, a simply flabbergasting achievement. No other ancient society (or any modern society for that matter) ever managed anything remotely like it. Even at the height of their power, the Egyptians had little influence beyond the Levant and Asia Minor. The Greeks, despite extensive colonisation around the Mediterranean, never had an organised political system to rival Rome’s. The Greeks could hardly rule themselves, let alone anyone else. It was only thanks to the Roman fascination with Greek culture that Greek art, literature, and knowledge of Greece’s experiments with democracy and philosophy were handed down at all.
How the West Was Won
Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) was something of a sideshow for the Romans whose main energies in the first half of the second century BC were concentrated on Macedonia and Greece. But northern Italy was still a vitally important area to the Romans. It was rich and fertile and part of the important overland route along the coast to southern France and Spain.
First stop: Northern Italy
At the end of the Second Punic War in 202 BC, Rome’s first problem was to sort out and punish Rome’s allies that had defected to Hannibal. Rome was in constant dread of Hannibal, fearing he planned to destroy Rome during his march through Italy (refer to Chapter 12).
Rome did what it had to do, meting out the punishment, which the defectors accepted. The turncoat city of Capua, for example, lost its right to selfgovernment. And like other cities that had rebelled, Capua also lost much of its land as new Roman colonies were set up on Capuan territory.
Cisalpine Gaul was a different matter. No-one told the Cisalpine Gauls that the Second Punic War was over, so they carried on fighting for another ten years in an effort to fend off Roman reprisals for the help they’d given Hannibal. It took until 191 for the Gaulish Boii tribe to be knocked out. The man who did so was Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica (a cousin of Scipio Africanus, who defeated the Carthaginians in the decisive Battle of Zama; see Chapter 12). Rome imposed heavy fines and took half the Boii’s land as a punishment. What was left of the Boii drifted north-east and ended up in what is now Bohemia.
Northern Italy was resettled. Rome set up new colonies, like the one at Parma in 183 BC, and the land was broken up into individual parcels. New roads were built across the region, and within 50 years the whole area looked little different from the rest of Romanised Italy.
Relaxing by the Riviera
As usual, the Romans found that winning one bit of new territory, like northern Italy, meant that they had no choice but to take the next bit along as well. That’s exactly what happened with the Italian Riviera, known as Liguria. Liguria was an undeveloped area with primitive inhabitants, but it was essential to Rome that Liguria should be under Roman control. Sailors in the ancient world liked to hug the coasts for safety and to make sure they didn’t get lost. The Romans needed Liguria to guarantee the journey from Liguria to Spain was safe from enemies.
The Romans much preferred to fight great set-piece battles, but wearing down the tribes in this mountainous region meant they had to fight incessant small-scale skirmishes. After 186 BC, one Roman army after another was sent into Liguria. By 180, the tribes were exhausted by Rome’s relentless ability to keep up the fight, and large numbers of tribal inhabitants gave up and moved away. Even so, it took Rome another 70 years before the coast road as far as Genua (Genoa) was completed and safe.
On the other side of Italy, the area we know as the Venetian Riviera, named after the Veneti tribe that lived there, was stable and generally friendly. The only problems came from Alpine tribes, so the Romans set up a colony at Aquileia (modern Aquila) - which became the major commercial centre of the region and the port-of-entry from Italy into Illyria, on the Adriatic.
The Reign in Spain, 197-179 BC
At first, Rome didn’t have any great ambitions in Spain. But in the end, the Romans decided it was easier to take the place over to make sure that bolshie locals towed the line. Scipio Africanus had fought in Spain during the Second Punic War to stop the Carthaginians from establishing a power base in Spain that could be used to attack Italy. Hannibal had already tried to do this, and the Romans wanted to prevent him trying again (refer to Chapter 12).
Also, the Romans had been in Spain long enough to spot that the Iberian peninsula was heaving with mineral resources: tin, iron, gold, and silver. Strabo, the ancient historian and geographer, who wrote a description of the Roman world about 200 hundred years later, said Spain had the best and richest supply of metals of anywhere he knew.
Conquering Spain's tribes
In 197 BC, Rome created two new provinces: Hispania Citerior (Nearer Spain) and Hispania Ulterior (Further Spain). The locals in the new provinces didn’t take too kindly to the idea of the Romans replacing the Carthaginians. Also, the nasty side of Roman administration came into play after Scipio Africanus left. The next few decades in Spain were brutal, oppressive, and unpleasant.
The Celtiberians
Celtiberians were tribes of Celtic origin living in defended hilltop centres in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal). Celtiberian was a name the Romans gave to a whole lot of different Celtic tribes living in the region, such as the Carpetani and Oretani. Like most Celts, the Celtiberians avoided fighting pitched battles, preferring to operate in small bands, using their knowledge of the local terrain to harass the Roman forces.
Constant rebellions by different tribes, especially the Celtiberians (people who lived in Hispania Citerior), followed. It took two Roman armies in 179 BC to corner the Celtiberians and Lusitanians (people from Hispania Ulterior, nowadays Portugal) into giving up the fight and accepting Roman rule. (Of course, it may have helped that the Roman commander Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, who claimed to have captured 300 Celtiberian settlements, earned the Celtiberians’ respect by his fair-mindedness.) Even so, Celtiberian guerrillas were trouble for decades to come.
Return to war
The peace Gracchus installed in Spain left the Romans in control of almost the whole Iberian peninsula (apart from the Atlantic coast), and lasted until 154 BC. The peace fell apart because, after Gracchus left, a number of Roman governors who followed abused their powers. Every time the Spanish tribes complained to the Senate, nothing was done. The Celtiberians and Lusitanians returned to war, and the situation worsened when some Roman commanders made unprovoked attacks.
The unrest in Spain became even more significant because, by 151 BC, the Third Punic War had broken out (see the section ‘The Third Punic War (151-146 BC)’ later in this chapter), placing greater pressure on Roman military resources. But ironically, it was the general who destroyed Carthage in the Third Punic War who brought his experience to Spain and brought the conflict to an end.
The Lusitanians were led by Viriathus, a herdsman, who through sheer force of personality became the Lusitanians’ leader. From 146-141 BC, Viriathus beat the Romans every year. His success brought the Celtiberians back into the fight in 143 BC (they’d originally come to peace terms with the Romans in 153 after a year of fighting), though by 142 BC the Romans had driven the Celtiberians back to their hilltop settlements.
The Roman solution to the Lusitanians was sneaky. In 140 BC, the Roman leader, Servilius Caepio, bribed traitors in the Lusitanian camp to murder Viriathus. Without him, Lusitanian resistance collapsed in 139 BC.
All that remained were a few cities that refused to give up. Numantia, sitting between two rivers in deep ravines, was practically impregnable and managed to hold out for nine years. Despite Roman trickery and weight of forces, the siege of Numantia went nowhere until 133 BC.
The destruction of Numantia
Numantia’s end came in 133 BC. The destroyer of Carthage in 146 BC, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the adopted grandson of Scipio Africanus (see Chapters 12 and 23 for more on Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War), arrived at Numantia with a force of 60,000 made up of Roman soldiers, Spanish, and other allies. Aemilianus built seven forts around the town (some of which still survive), starved out the 4,000 Numantians who were sold into slavery, and destroyed the town.
Roman names are easily confused because they’re often so similar, especially in the same family. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus got his title from his victories in the Second Punic War. His adopted grandson, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, was also given the title Africanus for his efforts in the Third Punic War, and was confusingly called Africanus the Younger. But this man, Aemilianus the grandson, was also awarded the title Numantinus for the victory at Numantia. For Scipio Aemilianus’s mysterious death, see Chapter 14.
Why the Spanish wars were different
The Roman wars in Spain were an ugly affair. They dragged on, and the Roman custom of appointing a new commanding officer each year didn’t help. The Romans had a reputation, on the whole, for being magnanimous in victory and keeping their word. Not so in Spain. The Romans broke treaty after treaty, and the Senate did nothing to stop it. The sheer number of men conscripted for military service caused discontent at home in Italy and had a serious impact on Roman domestic politics.
The Third Punic War (151-146 BC)
While the war in Spain dragged on, Rome had another war on her hands: the Third, and final, Punic War. Rome had been remarkably generous in her peace terms with Carthage (refer to Chapter 12) at the end of the Second Punic War, given that Rome could have finished off Carthage as a trading power. In addition, Rome left Hannibal in power - he probably couldn’t believe his luck.
Hannibal patches up Carthage
The Carthaginians soon got themselves on their feet again. In North Africa, Hannibal introduced more efficient farming and administrative reforms which meant that Carthage was able to start paying off its fines to Rome. Carthage even offered free gifts of corn to Roman armies fighting in Greece and Macedonia. Carthage had become so servile that Hannibal’s political enemies decided to go to Rome and tell the Senate that Hannibal was doing deals with the ambitious king of Syria, Antiochus III (see Chapters 12 and 25 for more on Antiochus). A Roman deputation turned up to investigate, but Hannibal escaped and went to Antiochus III’s court (see the later section ‘Mopping Up the East’ for information on Rome’s problems with Antiochus).
Rome was clearly satisfied with the way things were in Carthage. But the aged King Masinissa of Numidia, Carthage’s neighbour, had other ideas.
The ambitions of Masinissa:
Provoke Carthaginians
King Masinissa did well in the peace at the end of the Second Punic War: The Romans made him King of Numidia. Over the next 50 years, Masinissa built up an army and improved the Numidians’ standard of living. But then, like most rulers, power went to his head, and he thought his kingdom wasn’t big enough. Masinissa had his eyes on North Africa where there were numerous Carthaginian settlements.
Thanks to Rome’s peace terms at the end of the Second Punic War in 202 BC (refer to Chapter 12), the Carthaginians weren’t allowed to defend themselves without Roman permission. Masinissa started helping himself to Carthaginian settlements and fended off Roman objections by falling over backwards to look pro-Roman by sending food and troops to the Roman armies in the East.
Naturally, the Carthaginians were provoked and in 150 BC attacked Masinissa, which was exactly what he wanted to happen. Masinissa knew the Romans had an obsessive fear of the Carthaginians and that Hannibal was Rome’s ultimate bogeyman. The slightest suggestion of trouble from the Carthaginians meant that the Romans would crush the Carthaginians mercilessly.
Lucius Hostilius Mancinus's one-man show
Lucius Hostilius Mancinus was the first soldier over Carthage's walls in the campaign of 146 BC. When Lucius got back to Rome, he infuriated Scipio Aemilianus by holding live shows in the Forum telling a public audience all about the siege and his exploits. Lucius even put up a plan of the assault and displays of scenery. Lucius's one-man show was so popular that Lucius ended up as Consul at the next election.
Rome's response: Wipe out Carthage!
Marcus Porcius Cato, an 84-year-old veteran of the Second Punic War and the wars in Spain, and leader of anti-Carthaginian fervour in Rome, denounced the Carthaginians as proven treaty-breakers. Cato famously declared delenda est Carthago, which means ‘Carthage ought to be wiped out’ (for more on Cato, see Chapters 4 and 23). Cato’s opponents disagreed, thinking Carthage ought to be left as it was because it presented no real threat to Rome and fear of Carthage would hold the Roman people together. But Cato won the day, though he died almost as soon as the war started (as did King Masinissa, who had started the whole thing in the first place).
A Roman army arrived at Carthage in 149 BC. The Carthaginians promptly surrendered and handed over hostages and their military equipment. But the Romans demanded more and more. To destroy the Carthaginians once and for all, the Romans demanded that the Carthaginians abandon their city and move inland, which meant that Carthage as a trading power would cease to exist.
The Carthaginians were enraged by Rome’s demands. Deciding they had nothing to lose, the Carthaginians prepared for war. Unfortunately for Carthage, most of their neighbours had already sided with Rome. The Carthaginian fortifications helped to keep the Romans back, and they sent out bands of soldiers to slow up the Roman supply lines. They held out until 147-146 BC when a new campaign began. The Roman commander Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus arrived and utterly wiped out the city.
The final indignity: Salt on the wounds
There was no grand battle in Scipio Aemilianus’s campaign of 147—146 BC. Aemilianus simply wore the Carthaginians down, smashing his way through Carthage’s outer defences. Then, inch by inch, his troops fought hand-to-hand
to reach the inner citadel. Only 50,000 Carthaginian citizens were left, which came to a tiny number, given the trouble Rome thought Carthage was. The citizens were captured and sold into slavery. The city library was broken up and its books given to neighbouring African rulers. According to legend, the Romans sowed salt on the land round Carthage to sterilise it and make it into a wasteland. Whether this legend is true or not makes no difference: Carthage was finished and in ruins. The ruins which can still be seen today lie not far from the city of Tunis. Some time later, a Roman colony was founded nearby: the final insult.
Mopping Up the East
Asia Minor (modern Turkey) was only as far away from Rome as Spain. However, the difference was that Asia Minor had a long history and established cities and kingdoms. Rome first got involved in Asia Minor during the Macedonian Wars when the Seleucid king Antiochus III ‘the Great’ (242-187 BC) made an alliance with Philip V of Macedon (check out Chapter 12).
The ambitions of Antiochus III
Antiochus III had been seen off by the Romans in the Second Macedonian War (200-197 BC; see Chapter 12). But he remained powerful in Asia and for the moment concentrated his ambitions in the East instead. Antiochus had married his daughter to Ptolemy V Epiphanes, Pharaoh of Egypt, as part of a treaty that secured Antiochus’s conquest of Syria and Palestine, and he had also added the south coast of Asia Minor to his land.
The wealthy Greek communities of the island of Rhodes and the city of Pergamon, which headed the Aetolian League in Asia Minor, were starting to get twitchy. In the aftermath of the Second Macedonian War, the Romans had guaranteed the liberty of Greek mainland cities. Now in 196 BC, Pergamon asked the Roman Senate to guarantee the liberty of cities in Asia Minor. It was an extraordinary request and shows how powerful Rome had become. It was also an amazing gesture of confidence in Rome, now seen as a benign and honourable power.
Rome protested to Antiochus III, but this wily operator brandished a new treaty he had signed with Egypt to show he was acting with Egypt’s approval. So it was impossible for Rome to pretend it was acting to defend Egypt’s interests. Flamininus, the Roman commander in charge of the Roman forces in Greece, fell for the story. Others, like Scipio Africanus, weren’t so sure, especially as Antiochus had now been joined by Hannibal who’d fled from Carthage in 195 BC (Hannibal later committed suicide in 183 BC).
Rome carried on negotiations with Antiochus for the next few years without getting anywhere. In the meantime, Roman forces were withdrawn from Greece. By 191 BC, however, the Romans had to return to Greece.
Cramping Antiochus Ill's style
The Aetolian League felt cheated by the outcome of the Second Macedonian War; they’d helped out but had been prevented by the Romans from acquiring part of Greece as a reward. So the Aetolian League invited Antiochus III to invade Greece. He did, but was met by a Roman army under the command of Scipio Africanus the Elder, who soundly saw Antiochus off at Thermopylae and Magnesia with almost the total loss of the Seleucid forces. The peace of 188 BC ended Seleucid ambitions in Europe. Antiochus had to hand over most of his fleet, pay a vast fine to Rome (the biggest Rome ever imposed on an enemy), withdraw from much of his territory, and was left only with a right to defend himself. The Seleucids remained a force to be reckoned with in Asia, but the reality was that they were so damaged Rome was bound to be able to move into the power vacuum before long.
Antiochus was crushed and humiliated by the peace imposed by Rome. He had to say goodbye to his navy and pay a record-breaking fine of 15,000 talents. Antiochus had to pull out of western Asia Minor and was denied the right to hold any territory in Europe or the Aegean or have any allies there.
A talent was a unit of weight of gold or silver. It’s hard to get an exact equivalent but suggested figures range from 25 kilograms to 42 kilograms (about 57-93 pounds) of gold for each talent. These days, gold has been hitting prices of more than £270 an ounce, which comes close to £280,000 a talent at the lowest estimate. Which means Antiochus faced the modern equivalent of about £4.2 billion in fines.
Scipio throws a sickie
Scipio Africanus threw a sickie on the day of the battle that defeated Antiochus III. The overall Commander of the Roman force was his brother, the Consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio. Probably Scipio Africanus wanted to make sure that his brother got all the credit, but on the other hand, the real reason may have been that it suited Scipio Africanus not to be there, because he had cut a deal with Antiochus who was holding Africanus's son as hostage.
The Romans then pulled out of Asia Minor. Pergamon did the best out of the peace in territorial terms, but what really happened is that the whole area was broken up into small units. By destroying Antiochus’s power in the west, the Romans wrecked his prestige, and he lost some of his eastern provinces as well.
After this, the Romans only intervened occasionally in Asia Minor’s affairs, despite having done a lot to destabilise the region. When Rhodes tried to act as a peacemaker in the Third Macedonian War, Rome destroyed the island’s trading interests and power, and Rhodes’s traditional role of policing the seas as well.
Winning the tottery: Gaining Pergamon
In 133 BC, Rome found it was the owner of Pergamon and its territory - without a drop of blood being spilled. King Attalus III of Pergamon (reigned 138-133 BC) had no heirs, and in his will he left his kingdom to the Romans on the basis that they were the only people likely to make good use of it. Because Pergamon and its other cities were amongst the wealthiest communities in the Greek-speaking East, it wasn’t difficult for Rome to accept.
Pergamon became part of the Roman province of Asia, and Rome now had a gateway to the East. This gateway turned out to be
● A source of fabulous wealth
● Where some of Rome’s greatest enemies would emerge
● The site for Constantinople, the new Rome, some 440 years in the future
● Where in AD 1453 the Roman Empire would fall and ultimately die
But that was yet to come. To date, Rome had faced some of her greatest trials so far, but other challenges were on the horizon. Unlike most of Rome’s previous problems, these trials were to come from within Rome herself.