BOOK 149-146 B.C. fully treated, and were not tortured like Perseus. They spent the rest of their days in peace, if they could enjoy peace, with the knowledge that their nation was annihilated, and their native town lay in ruins. The greater part of the Carthaginian territory was joined to Utica, which now became the capital of the Roman province of Africa. The towns which had re mained true to Carthage, like Hippo, Clupea, and others, were punished with loss of land. The germ of Semitic culture, the Phoenician language, art, literature, and religion gave way gradually, though slowly, to Roman influence, and at last quite disappeared. The Numidian kingdom, it seems, was not enlarged. It was left to internal disputes, which rendered it a safe neighbour. Thus peace was established in this quarter for a considerable time. that desperate band of men devoted to death, who, it seems, wished him to die with them, and if he asked for his life, let those condemn him who can look upon death indifferently. To us he appears, by his deeds, to have deserved the name of the last Carthaginian' in the best sense of the word, as a representative of the intensity of strength, endurance, and patriotism, as well as of the versatility of his race. CHAPTER VI. THE WARS IN SPAIN UP TO THE FALL OF NUMANTIA, 200-133 B.C. CHAP. VI. 200-133 B.C. Geogra dition of HISTORIANS have long been reluctant to recognise in the history of the world a development according to fixed laws, dependent on external nature. On the one hand a guiding Providence, on the other hand human free will, have been looked upon as altogether independent of laws, phical conand consequently unfathomable. It is true scientific re- political search, which has everywhere endeavoured to investigate Power. the laws which regulate phenomena, has not yet at its command sufficient materials to determine the results which, in spite of occasional deviations, must necessarily ensue from the reciprocal action of nature and man, results which might be looked upon as the intentions of the divine will. But in one respect man is confessedly so completely under the influence of nature that an entirely free course of action is quite out of the question. As every individual is under the influence of space, so every political association, being established in a particular region on the varied surface of the earth, is endowed from the very beginning with more or less capability of expansion, and has no choice as to the direction in which such a capability is to be manifested. We have had to notice. earlier in this history' how important the central position of Rome was for the establishment of her dominion over Italy. The position of the Italian peninsula, in the centre of the Mediterranean countries, was not less important 1 Vol. ii. p. 462. BOOK 200-133 B.C. Geogra phical seclusion of Spain. for the foundation of an empire including all these territories. The enemies of Rome, being thus separated, succumbed one by one to the central power. Hence the process of subjugation was continued almost uninterruptedly and equally on all sides when, with the victory over Pyrrhus, Rome had come out from her former isolation. The conclusion of the Hannibalic war hastened this process. We have traced its course in Greece, Illyria, Macedonia, Asia, and Africa. We have now to turn our eyes away from these civilised states to the barbarous countries of Spain and that part of Gaul which lies at the foot of the Alps. After this survey, we shall turn to the inner life of the Roman commonwealth, in order to investigate as far as possible the nature of the forces which produced such tremendous effects, and to study the influence of external power upon the inner national life, an influence which was visible during the whole of this time, weak at first, but gradually increasing until, after violent revolutions, it worked out a new constitution for the Roman world. We see plainly by the position which Spain occupied with regard to Italy, Greece, and the East, during the five centuries previous to our era, how geographical separation keeps nations apart from one another in an age when the means of communication are but feebly developed. Though, from the earliest ages, the rich country in the far West had been the subject of wonderful tales, yet the bold Phoenicians ventured but stealthily and rarely to steer their ships towards it, and to settle here and there on the coast. From Massilia their rivals, the Greeks, did not advance further than Emporia, where they were obliged to watch and defend their walls and their single gate day and night against the natives, who had settled all round. No arm of the sea opened access into the compact interior of the peninsula. Lofty mountain ranges rose up steep and wild, separating the fertile strip of low land by the sea from the vast table land of the interior. It was not until the unhappy issue of the first war with Rome CHAP. VI. B.C. that the Carthaginians succeeded in extending their dominion inland from a few fortified settlements on the coast. Had they been able to continue their work of 200-133 colonisation, and to touch and penetrate the rude natives with their spirit, they would probably have developed in this country forms of civil and political life which might have been of great influence as a new element in the Græco-Roman civilisation of antiquity. native Just as in climate and in the nature of the soil, in her Character unbroken coast line, her rarely navigable rivers, and the of the high lands in her interior, with their arid steppes, Spain Spaniards. represented in miniature the peculiarities of the opposite African continent, so the original inhabitants of both countries, whether through affinity of race, or through the influence of similar climate and soil, show similar mental qualities. The original Spanish tribes had the virtues and the vices of barbarians. The multiplicity of small states and almost unceasing wars fostered courage while, especially in the more mountainous parts, they kept the people in poverty. The men were occupied chiefly in warfare for the sake of plunder. Domestic work and agriculture were left to the women.1 At the same time we meet with a degree of contentment and simplicity of living, a perseverance in fatigues and dangers, which remind us of the hardy inhabitants of the African and Arabian deserts, and contrast strikingly with the Gauls, who were notorious for their fickleness, their gluttony, and their excitability. In spite of all wars and migrations, the character of the European nations has essentially remained what it was in antiquity. We may therefore be justified in Justin, xliv. 2. Appian speaks of the courage of the Spanish men and women, vi. 71 : συμμαχομένων τοῖς ἀνδράσι τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ συναναιρομένων καὶ οὔ τινα φωνὴν οὐδ' ἐν ταῖς σφαγαῖς ἀφιεισῶν. Ibid. c. 72 : καὶ ἅμα ταῖς γυναιξὶν ὡπλισμέναις ἐμάχοντο καὶ προθύμως ἔθνησκον, οὐκ ἐπιστρεφόμενος αὐτῶν οὐδεὶς οὐδὲ τὰ νῶτα δεικνὺς οὐδὲ φωνὴν ἀφιείς κ.τ.λ. It is also characteristic of them that they preferred death to slavery. Appian, vi. 77: тŵv aixμaλwtwv ovdels ὑπέμεινε δουλεύειν· ἀλλ ̓ οἱ μὲν αὑτοὺς, οἱ δὲ τοὺς πριαμένους ανῄρουν, οἱ δὲ τὰς vaûs év tập diánλw dieriтpwv. Even of the women it is reported, Appian, vi. 72: χαίρουσαι τῷ θανάτῳ μᾶλλον τῆς αἰχμαλωσίας. BOOK V. 200-133 B.C. First Ro man possessions in Spain. recognising in the chivalrous, proud, and frugal Spaniards of our time the true descendants of the old Iberians.' Among the inhabitants of the valleys and plains which slope towards the Mediterranean milder manners and more settled institutions were found than among the tribes of the interior. The Turdetanians, in what is now called Andalusia, exhibited even the beginnings of a national civilisation and literature. The fertility and the delightful climate of this favoured district almost spontaneously produced wealth, and attracted from the highlands hordes of mountaineers eager for plunder. Between these marauders and the foreigners who also collected with the hope of profit and plunder, the inhabitants of the coast districts had no chance of maintaining an independent position. The foreigners assumed the part of protectors of the weak and peaceably disposed against their troublesome neighbours,3 and as long as this protection did not degenerate into oppression the relation between them was mutually satisfactory and advantageous. The Carthaginian dominion lasted exactly long enough to excite the national aversion to foreigners. Then the Romans interfered as deliverers and allies of the Spaniards, and thus succeeded at the beginning in gaining the sympathies of the natives. The friendly understanding lasted until the Carthaginians were entirely driven out of Spain. But after the humiliation of Carthage the deluded Spaniards began to perceive that they had only exchanged one master for another. The Romans did not dream of giving The appellation Celtiberians indicates that in the north-eastern part of the peninsula there was a mixture of Celts and Iberians. Nevertheless the Iberians must have been the prevailing race, for we find no indications of Celtic characteristics in the people. 2 Strabo, iii. 1, 6: σοφώτατοι δ ̓ ἐξετάζονται τῶν Ἰβήρων οὗτοι οἱ Τουρδητανοὶ καὶ γραμματικῇ χρῶνται, καὶ τῆς παλαιᾶς μνήμης ἔχουσι συγγράμματα καὶ ποιήματα καὶ νόμους ἐμμέτρους ἑξακισχιλίων ἐπῶν, ὥς φασιν. 3 Frequent causes of war were furnished by the attacks of the free races of the interior upon those who were allied with the Romans. See Appian, vi. 48 51, 56, 57, 58; Polybius, xxxv. 2; Livy, xxxiv. 11. Similar was the position of the Campanians between the Romans, their protectors, and the Samnites, their enemies. |