THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY, 367-266 B.C.

(Napisao: gosp. Marko Marelić - S. Francisco - USA)
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Gains under the Kings, and the Reaction to 449 B.C.
The story of Rome's early wars is full of patriotic legends, but the general trend of her growth is fairly clear. Under the kings she had conquered widely; but after 510, the Latin towns became independent again and much territory also was seized by the Etruscans. For the next sixty years Rome fought for life. Etruscan, Volscian, and Sabine armies often appeared under her very walls, and many times the peril was made more deadly by the fierce conflict of classes within the city.

In 493, it is true, the Latin League was united to Rome by treaty, as an equal ally, and so a bulwark was provided against the Volscians. But the main danger was in the Etruscans, and from this enemy Rome was saved mainly by outside events. Just at this time the Gauls of the north broke the power of Etruria on land, and the tyrants of Syracuse shattered her superiority on the sea.

The Period 449-367 B.C.: Slow Gains; the Brief Interruption by the Gauls.
After the reforms of the period of the decemvirs, when the bitterest internal dissensions were past, Rome began to make steady gains. By slow degrees she became again the mistress of the Latin League; and in 396, after fourteen long wars, she finally destroyed Veii, a dangerous rival, only a few hours' walking distance, in Etruria.

Six years later the city was again for a time in danger of utter destruction. In 390, a horde of Gauls who had overrun Etruria, defeated the Roman army in the battle of Allia, twelve miles from the walls, and cut it off from the city. Fortunately the barbarians squandered three days in pillage, and so gave time to save Rome. The sacred fire was hastily removed; the helpless inhabitants fled; and a small garrison under the soldier Marcus Manlius, garrisoned the Capitoline citadel.

The Gauls sacked the rest of the city and held it for seven months. But their host was ravaged by the deadly malaria of the Roman plain (which has more than once been Rome's best protection); they had little skill or patience for a regular siege; and finally they withdrew on the payment of a ransom. Rome was left free to complete her work.

THE REAL ADVANCE, 367-266 B.C.

United Rome and her Rapid Growth.
Rome recovered rapidly from the Gallic conquest and the slow growth of territory up to this time contrasts strikingly with the swift advance that was to come in the next hundred years. The difference was due mainly to the difference in internal conditions. The long strife of classes closed in 367 B.C. The process of amalgamation that had originally fused the three separate hill towns into the patrician state had at length fused this patrician and the newer plebian state into one Roman people. Now this united Rome turned to her proper work of uniting Italy.

Latium and Southern Etruria.
The Latin towns had seized the opportunity of the Gallic invasion to throw off Roman leadership. War followed between Rome and the Latins. Several cities were captured and some of them were incorporated bodily in the Roman state. For all the rest, the old league was restored in a new form. Rome came out of the struggle the acknowledged mistress of Latium. The southern half of Etruria too, was soon annexed to the territory of Rome; and on both north and south the new acquisitions were garrisoned by the Roman colonies.

The Winning of Campania, 343 B.C.
Rome was now recognized as the natural champion of the other lowland civilized states against the ruder tribes of the mountains. From this fact came her next expansion. Some time before, the hill-Samnites had reconquered the fertile plains of the Campania from the Etruscans and Greeks. They had themselves however, taken on the lowland civilization, and they were now attacked by the other Samnites of the mountains. In these straits the men of Campania appealed to Rome for aid. Rome repulsed the mountain tribes, and in return, the cities of the Campanian plain became her tributaries.

The Last Latin Revolt, 338 B.C.
Now that the Samnites were no longer dangerous, the Latins, ill content with the recent settlement of their affairs, once more broke into revolt. This led to the great Latin War of 338 B.C. In the end, the rising was crushed and the Latin League was dissolved. Its public land became Roman. Some of its cities were brought into the Roman state - their inhabitants being listed as citizens in the Roman "tribes." All the remaining cities were bound to Rome as subjects, each by its separate treaty, and they were allowed no intercourse with each other (except through Rome) either in politics or in trade.

The Last Struggle for Supremacy in Central Italy: the Samnite Wars.
The leadership of central Italy now lay between Rome, the great city-state of the lowlands, and the rude Samnite tribes, which were spread widely over the southern Apennines. The decisive struggle between the two began in 326 and lasted, with brief truces, to 290. The combatants were both warlike and they were not equally matched. The Samnites trusted partly for defense to their mountain fastnesses; and Rome found safety in the chains of fortress colonies she had been building.

Early in the war the Samnites won an overwhelming victory. The whole Roman army was entrapped at the Caudine Forks in a narrow pass between two precipices and was forced to surrender. The Samnite leader, Pontius, made a treaty with the consuls by which the Romans were to withdraw all their posts from Samnium and to stop the war. He then let the captives go after sending them "under the yoke." The fruits of victory however were lost, because the Romans refused to abide by the treaty.

According to the Roman story, the Senate declared that only the Roman Assembly, not the consuls alone, had the power to make such a treaty. In place of their rescued army, they delivered to the Samnites the two consuls, naked and in chains, saying - through the herald: "These men have wronged you by promising, without authority, to make a treaty with you. Therefore we hand them over to you." Then one of the consuls (who is said to have suggested the whole plan) pushed against the Roman herald and said, "I am now a Samnite, and, by striking the Roman herald, I have given the Romans the right to make war upon the Samnites." The Romans pretended that these forms released them from all obligations, and resumed the war.

Then the Samnites built up a great alliance, which soon came to count nearly all the peoples of Italy, together with the Cisalpine Gauls. But taking full advantage of her central position, Rome beat these foes in detail; and at the close of the long conflict she had become the mistress of the entire true peninsula, except the Greek cities of the South.

Magna Graecia: The War with Pyrrhus.

Ten years later began the last great war for territory in Italy. The Greek cities at this moment were harassed by neighboring mountaineers, and they called in Roman aid as Campania had done sixty years before. Thus Roman lordship became established throughout the south, except in Tarentum. That great city wished to keep her independence and sought help from Pyrrhus, the chivalrous king of Epirus.

Pyrrhus was one of the most remarkable of the Greek military adventurers who arose after the death of Alexander. He had come to Italy with a great armament and with great designs. He hoped to unite the Greek cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily, and then to subdue Carthage, the ancient enemy of Hellenes in the West. That is, he planned to play in western Hellas and in Africa the part already played by Alexander in eastern Hellas and in Asia.

Pyrrhus knew little of Rome; but at the call of Tarentum he found himself engaged as a Hellenic champion with this new power. He won some victories, chiefly through his elephants, which the Romans had never before encountered. Then most of southern Italy deserted Rome to join him; but, anxious to carry out his wider plans, he offered a favorable peace. Under the leadership of an aged and blind senator, Appius Claudius, a defeated Rome answered haughtily that she would treat with no invader while he stood on Italian soil. Pyrrhus chafed at the delay, and finally hurried off to Sicily, leaving his victory incomplete. The steady Roman advance called him back and a great Roman victory at Beneventum in 275 B.C. ruined his dream of empire and made Rome mistress of the Italy whose sovereignty she had just claimed so resolutely. By 269 the last resistance from the Greek cities had ceased; and then in 266, Rome rounded off her work by the conquest of that part of Cisalpine Gaul which lay south of the Po.

THE WINNING OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN, 264-146 B.C.

1. The rivals-Italy and Charthage
Italy in 264 B.C., one of Five Great Mediterranean States. When Rome completed the union of Italy, in 266, Alexander the Great had been dead for nearly fifty years. The long Wars of the Succession had closed and the dominion of the eastern Mediterranean world was divided between the three great Greek kingdoms, Syria, Egypt and Macedonia with their satellites. In the western Mediterranean, Carthage held undisputed sway. Now, between the three powers of the East and the single mistress of the West stood a new state, Roman Italy, destined to absorb them all. The struggle for supremacy between these five Mediterranean powers filled the next one hundred and twenty years. The first half of the period went to Roman conquests in the West at the expense of Carthage. Carthage the Natural Rival of Rome in the West. Carthage and Rome had been allied - just before - against Pyrrhus, their common enemy. But that gallant adventurer had seen that they were natural rivals; and as he abandoned the West, he exclaimed longingly, "How fair a battlefield we are leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians!" In less than ten years the hundred-year conflict began. Carthage was an ancient Phoenician colony on the finest harbor in North Africa. Her government in form was a republic, somewhat like Rome, but in reality it was a narrow oligarchy controlled by a few wealthy families. Carthage was now at the height of her power. Polybius called her the richest city in the world.

To her old naval supremacy she had added a vast land empire, including North Africa, Sardinia, Corsica, half of Sicily, and the coasts of Spain. The western Mediterranean she regarded as a Punic Lake; foreign sailors who were caught trespassing were cast into the sea. Her Roman foes represented Carthage as lacking honesty; and with biting irony they invented the term "Punic faith," as a synonym for treachery. The slander became embalmed in speech, but it seems baseless. Carthage herself is "a dumb actor on the stage of history." She once had poetry, oratory and philosophy but none of it escaped Roman hate, to tell us how Carthaginians thought and felt. Rome wrote the history, but even from the Roman story the charge of faithlessness and greed is most apparent against Rome. However, the civilization of Carthage was of an Oriental type. Her religion was the cruel and licentious worship of the Phoenician Baal and Astarte. Her armies were a motley mass of mercenaries. And though like the mother Phoenician states, she scattered wide the seeds of a material culture, like them also, she showed no power of assimilating inferior nations. The conquests of Rome were to be Romanized, but six centuries of Punic rule left the Berber tribes of Africa wholly outside Carthaginian society. The contrast between the political systems of the two rivals is equally striking. Even her nearest and best subjects Carthage kept in virtual slavery. Theodor Mommsen says: "Carthage dispatched her overseers everywhere and loaded even the old Phoenician cities with a heavy tribute, while her subject tribes were practically treated as slaves. In this way there was not in the compass of the Carthagino-African state a single community, with the exception of Utica, that would not have been politically and materially benefited by the fall of Carthage. In the Romano-Italic there was not one that had not much more to lose than to gain in rebelling against a government which was careful to avoid injuring material interests, and which never, at least by extreme measures, challenged political opposition." The Issue at Stake. Thus, whatever our sympathy for Carthage and her hero leaders, we must see that the victory of Rome was a necessary condition for the welfare of the human race. The struggle was the conflict of Greece and Persia repeated by more stalwart actors on a western stage.

2. The first Punic war (the wae for Sicily)
Occasion. When Rome conquered South Italy she came necessarily into relations with the Greeks in Sicily and so with Carthage. The great island of Sicily is really a continuation of the Italian peninsula. It reaches to within ninety miles of the African coast. A sunken ridge on the bed of the sea shows that it once joined the two continents and it still forms a stepping-stone between them. For this middle land, European and African struggled for centuries. For two hundred years now it had been divided with Syracuse holding the eastern half and Carthage the western. While Rome was still busy with the Pyrrhic war, an event happened which renewed the conflict for Sicily and drew Rome in as a chief actor. A band of Campanian mercenaries on their way home from service under the tyrant of Syracuse, seized the city of Messana. The robbers called themselves Mamertines ("Sons of Mars") and for several years they ravaged and plundered the northeast corner of Sicily. Now, in 265, they were hard pressed by Hiero II, the ruler of Syracuse, and one faction called in Carthage while another party appealed to Rome. Both Syracuse and Carthage were allies of Rome, and it was not easy for that state to find an excuse for defending the robbers. The desire to check Carthage and to extend Roman power however outweighed all caution as well as all moral considerations. The Senate indeed could come to no decision; but the people to whom it referred the question, voted promptly to send troops to Sicily and in 264 Roman legions for the first time crossed the seas. The war with Carthage that followed is known as the First Punic War. Strength of the Parties. Carthage was mistress of an empire huge but scattered and heterogeneous. Rome was the head of a small but compact nationality. The strength of Carthage lay in her wealth and her navy. Her weak points were: the jealousy felt by the ruling families at home toward their own successful generals; the difficulty of dealing with her mercenaries; the danger of revolt among her Libyan subjects; and the fact that an invading army, after one victory, would find no resistance outside her walls, since her jealousy had leveled the defenses of her tributary towns in Africa.

Rome was strong in the patriotism and vigor of her people, in the discipline of her legions, and in the fidelity of her allies. Her weakness lay in the want of a better military system than the one of annually-changing officers and short-term soldiers and in the total lack of a navy. General Progress; Value of the Control of the Sea. The war lasted twenty-three years, and is ranked by Polybius above all previous wars for severity. Few conflicts illustrate better the value of naval superiority. At first the Carthaginians were undisputed masters of the sea. They therefore reinforced their troops in Sicily at pleasure, and ravaged the coasts of Italy to the utter ruin of seaboard prosperity. Indeed, for a time they made good their warning to the Roman Senate before the war began, - that against their will no Roman could dip his hands into the sea. Rome Becomes a Sea Power. But the Romans, with sagacity and boldness, built their first war fleet and soon met the ancient Queen of the Seas on her own element. Winning command there temporarily in 256, they invaded Africa itself. The consul Regulus won brilliant successes there and even laid siege to Carthage. But as winter came on, the short-term Roman levies were mostly recalled, according to custom, and the weak remnant was soon crushed. Rome's Patriotism and Enterprise. Rome's first attempt upon the sea had been surprisingly successful, but soon terrible reverses befell her there also. In quick succession she lost four great fleets with large armies on board. One sixth of her citizens had perished; the treasury was empty; and in despair, the Senate was about to abandon the effort to secure the sea. In this crisis Rome was saved by the public spirit of private citizens. Lavish gifts built and outfitted two hundred vessels and this fleet won an overwhelming victory - which closed the war.

Peace; Sicily Becomes Roman. Carthage had lost command of the sea and could no longer reinforce her armies in Sicily. Moreover, she was weary of the war and of the losses it brought to her commerce; and in 241 she sued for peace. To obtain it she withdrew from Sicily and paid a heavy war indemnity. Hiero, who after the first years of the war had become a faithful ally of Rome, remained as master of Syracuse. The rest of Sicily passed under the rule of Rome.

3. From the First to the second Punic war 241-281 B.C.
The Addition of Sardinia and Corsica. Sagacious Romans looked forward to another struggle with Carthage. That conflict however, did not come for twenty-three years. Meanwhile, Rome pushed wider the borders of Italy. When the mercenaries of Carthage were withdrawn from Sicily to Africa, they were left unpaid and they soon broke into revolt. The Libyan tribes joined the rising, and a ferocious struggle followed between Carthage and the rebels. The war is known at the War of the Mercenaries, and sometimes referred to as the Inexplicable War. At last the great Carthaginian leader, Hamilcar Barca, stamped out the revolt in Africa; but meantime the movement had spread to Sardinia and Corsica and in 238 the rebels offered these islands to Rome. The temptation was too much for Roman honor. The offer was shamelessly accepted and a protest from distracted Carthage was met sternly by a threat of war. The islands became Roman possessions and the Tyrrhenian Sea was turned into a Roman lake. The Adriatic - a Roman Sea. This period also marks the first Roman enterprise on the east of Italy. Illyria had risen into a considerable state in friendly relations with Macedonia. The Illyrian coasts were the homes of countless pirates who swarmed forth in great fleets to raid the commerce of the adjoining waters. Finally these pirates even captured Corcyra (Kerkira). Other Greek towns complained loudly to Rome. Rome sent a haughty embassy to demand order from the Illyrian queen. The embassy was assaulted murderously and Rome declared war. In a brief campaign in 229 B.C. she swept the pirates from the Adriatic and forced Illyria to sue for peace. The Adriatic had become a Roman water-way. At this time Rome kept no territory on the eastern coast; but the Greek cities had learned to look to her for protection and accordingly Macedonia began to regard her with a jealous eye. The Addition of Cisalpine Gaul. A few years later came a great addition of territory on the north. Rome had begun to plant colonies on the border of Cisalpine Gaul. Naturally the Gauls were alarmed and angered and in 225 for the last time they threatened Italy. They penetrated to within a three day march of Rome; but Italian patriotism rallied around the endangered capital and the barbarians were crushed. Then Rome resolutely took the offensive and by 222 Cisalpine Gaul had become a Roman possession, garrisoned by numerous colonies and traversed by a great military road. At last Rome had pushed her northern boundary from the low Apennines to the great crescent wall of the Alps. Organization of the Conquests Outside Italy; the Provincial System. On the whole, Rome had been generous and wise in her treatment of united Italy; but all her conquests since the war with Pyrrhus (Cisalpine Gaul as truly as the islands) were looked upon as outside of Italy. The distance of the new possessions from Rome and the character of the countries seemed to make impossible in them the kind of Government given to the "allies" and municipia in Italy proper. Unfortunately, Rome proved unable to devise a new form of government, and she fell back upon the idea of praefectures. The new acquisitions became strictly subject possessions of Rome, and they were ruled much as the praefectures were in Italy.

Sicily, the first possession outside of Italy (241 B.C.) was managed temporarily by a Roman praetor but in 227 when some semblance of order had been introduced into Sardinia and Corsica, the Senate adopted a permanent plan of government for all these islands. Two additional praetors, it was decided, should be elected each year - one to rule Sicily, the other for the two other islands. The two governments received the name of provinces. This was the beginning of the provincial system that was to spread finally far beyond these "suburbs of Italy." Soon afterward Cisalpine Gaul was organized in a like manner, though it was not given the title of a province until much later.

(to be continued)

Compiled by Marko Marelich
Retired Mechanical Engineer
San Francisco, California USA
July 27, 2005, (allthecookies@mindspring.com)