Europe: A History (34 page)
In the First Punic War (264–241) Carthage itself remained relatively immune from Roman landpower, although its hold on Sicily was lost. Rome learned the arts of naval warfare. In the Second Punic War (218–201), which followed Hannibal’s spectacular expedition across the Alps from Spain to Italy, Rome recovered by sheer persistence from the brink of annihilation. The Celts of northern Italy were in revolt, as was much of Sicily; and the road to Rome was left almost undefended. The two battles of Lake Trasimeno (217) and Cannae (216) belong to Rome’s most crushing defeats. Only the tactics of Q. Fabius Maximus ‘Cunctator’, ‘The Delayer’, the dogged nursing of resources, and the capture of Syracuse (see pp. 142–4) enabled Rome to survive. Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal was thwarted in a second attempt to invade Italy from Spain, and in 203 Hannibal himself was forced to withdraw. He was followed to Africa by the young Publius Cornelius Scipio ‘Africanus’, survivor of Cannae, conqueror of Cartagena. At Zama in 202, Hannibal met his match. Taking refuge with the enemies of Rome in Greece, he was eventually harried to suicide.
Carthage, deprived of its fleet and paying heavy tribute, survived for sixty years more. But in the Third Punic War (149–146
BC)
the elder Cato raised the call for the enemy’s complete destruction.
Carthago delenda est
. The deed was carried out in 146. The city was razed, the population sold into slavery, the site ploughed, and salt poured into the furrow. In Tacitus’ words on another occasion, the Romans ‘created a desert and called it peace’. Scipio Aemilianus, watching the scene in the company of the historian Polybius, was moved to quote the words of Hector in the
Iliad:
‘The day shall come when sacred Troy shall fall.’ When asked what he meant he replied: ‘This is a glorious moment, Polybius, yet I am seized with foreboding that some day the same fate will befall my own country’.
5
As the challenge of Carthage was neutralized, and then removed, the triumphant legions of the Republic began to pick off the remaining countries of the Mediterranean. Cisalpine Gaul was conquered between 241 and 190. Iberia and much of northern Africa came as a prize in 201. Illyria was conquered between 229 and 168. Macedonia, together with mainland Greece, was taken over by 146. Transalpine Gaul was invaded in 125
BC,
and finally subdued by Caesar in 58–50
BC.
The independent kingdoms of Asia Minor were annexed in 67–61
BC,
Syria and Palestine by 64
BC. [
EGNATIA
]
In the last hundred years of the Republic’s existence the foreign campaigns became entangled in a series of civil wars. Successful generals sought to control the central government in Rome, whilst would-be reformers sought to satisfy the demands of the lower orders. The resultant strife led to intermittent periods of chaos and of dictatorial rule. In 133–121
BC
the popular tribunes Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and his brother, G. Sempronius Gracchus, attempted to allocate public lands to displaced peasants who had served in the Republic’s conquests. Both were opposed by the ruling oligarchy, and both were slain. In 82–79 L. Sulla Felix declared himself Dictator after defeating the partisans of G. Marius (157–86), the greatest soldier of his age. In 60
BC
three rival soldier-politicians, M. Licinius Crassus, Pompeius Magnus, and C. Iulius Caesar, formed the first ruling triumvirate. But in 48
BC
Caesar claimed the title of
Imperator
after crushing the faction of the remaining triumvir, Pompey. Finally, in 31
BC,
after the fall of the second triumvirate, Octavian brought the civil wars to a close. His victory at Actium brought about the surrender of Egypt, the death of Antony and Cleopatra, the end of opposition, and his assumption of the title of ‘Augustus’. In this way the last gasp of the Roman Republic coincided with the capture of the last piece of the Mediterranean coast which had remained at least nominally independent. In almost 500 years the gates of the Temple of Janus had been closed on only three occasions,
[
AQUILA
]
EGNATIA
O
F all the Roman roads, the Via Egnatia proved to be one of the most vital. Built in the second century
BC,
it linked Rome with Byzantium and hence, in a later age, the Western with the Eastern Empire. It took its name from the city of Egnatia in Apulia, the site of a miraculous fiery altar and a main stage between Rome and the Adriatic port of Brindisium. In Italy it provided an alternative route to the older Via Appia, which reached the same destination through Beneventum and Tarentum. On the eastern Adriatic shore, its starting-point was at Dyracchion (Durres), with a feeder road from Apollonia. It crossed the province of Macedonia, passing Lychnidos (Ochrid) and Pella to reach Thessalonika. It skirted the Chalkidike peninsula at Amphipolis and Philippi, before terminating at Dypsela on the Hebros (Maritsa) in Thrace.
1
The final section into Byzantium did not originally carry the name of Egnatia, and made a long inland detour to avoid the coastal lagoons. The direct route between Rhegion and Hebdomon was only paved by Justinian I, bringing the traveller to the Golden Gate of Constantinople after twenty days and over 500 miles. It was proverbial that ‘all roads lead to Rome’. But all roads led away from Rome as well.
The civil strife was the outward expression, above all, of a shift in political attitudes, which is well illustrated from the careers of the two Catos, both of whom supported the losing side. Marcus Porcius Cato, ‘The Censor’ (234–149
BC),
became a byword for the old Roman virtues of austerity and puritanism. After twenty-seven years of soldiering he retired to his farm to write books on history and agriculture. He railed against the wave of hellenistic luxury and sophistication, and in particular against the unprincipled careerism, as he saw it, of the Scipios. In his last years he called unrelentingly for the annihilation of Carthage. His great-grandson M. Porcius Cato Uticensis (95–46
BC)
showed the same rectitude and obstinacy of character. A Stoic by training, he joined Pompey in the campaign to check the dictatorial ambitions of Caesar. When Pompey’s cause was lost, he killed himself rather than submit, after a heroic journey across the Libyan desert which led only to encirclement in the town of Utica. He had spent his last night reading Plato’s
Phaedo
, on the immortality of the soul. In this way he became a symbol of republican opposition to tyranny, of principled opposition. Cicero praised him. Caesar, in his
Anticato
, tried meanly to discredit him. The poet Lucan
(AD
39–65), who also committed suicide rather than submit to a despot, makes him the champion of political freedom. Dante, after Lucan, makes him the guardian of Mount Purgatory, and hence of the path to spiritual liberty.
AQUILA
T
HE
eagle’s ranking as ‘king of the birds’ is as ancient as the lion’s as ‘king of the beasts’. In Roman lore, it was Jupiter’s ‘storm-bird’, carrier of the thunderbolt. Eagles figured as emblems of power and majesty in Babylon and Persia, and were adopted by the Roman general, Marius, after his oriental conquests. The legions of the Roman Empire marched behind eagle ensigns; and Roman consuls carried eagle-tipped sceptres.
1
(See Appendix III, p. 1228.)
In Slavonic folklore, the three brothers, Lekh, Chekh, and Rus, set out to find their fortune. Rus went to the east, Chekh to the south to Bohemia, whilst Lekh crossed the plain to the west. Lekh stopped beside a lake under a great tree where a white eagle had built its nest. He was the father of the Poles; and Gniezno, the ‘eagle’s nest’, was their first home.
In Wales, too, the peak of Mount Snowdon, the heart of the national homeland, is called
Eryri
, ‘the place of eagles’.
In Christian symbolism the eagle is associated with St John the Evangelist (alongside the Angel and Axe of St Matthew, the Bull of St Luke, and the Lion of St Mark). It appears on the lecterns of churches, upholding the Bible on its outspread wings to repel the serpent of falsehood. According to St Jerome, it was the emblem of the Ascension.
Throughout European history, the imperial eagle has been co-opted by rulers who claimed superiority over their fellow princes. Charlemagne wore an eagle-embossed cloak; and Canute the Great was buried in one.
2
Both Napoleon I and Napoleon III used eagle symbolism with relish. Napoleon’s heir, the-King of Rome, received the sobriquet of
aiglon
or ‘eaglet’. Only the British, to be different, betrayed no aquiline interests.
Eagles recur throughout European heraldry, having been present at an earlier date in Islamic insignia.
3
Both Serbia and Poland boast a white eagle, the Polish one crowned (and temporarily uncrowned by the Communist regime). Both Tyrol and Brandenburg-Prussia sported a red eagle, the Swedish province of Varmland a blue one. The Federal Republic of Germany took a single stylized black eagle from the city arms of Aachen. Under the dynasty of the Palaeologues, the Byzantine Empire took on the emblem of a black, double-headed spread eagle, symbol of the Roman succession in East and West. In due course this passed to the Tsars of Moscow, ‘the Third Rome’, to the Holy Roman Emperors in Germany, and to the Habsburgs of Austria.
Ein Adler fängt kerne Mücken
, runs the German proverb: ‘an eagle catches no midges’.
C. Iulius Caesar (100–44
BC)
led the decisive attack on the established procedures of the Republic. A successful general and administrator, he shared the first triumvirate from 60
BC
with Pompey and Crassus, served as Consul and, from 59, Proconsul of the two Gauls. Caesar’s enemies were disgusted by his shameless bribing of the Roman populace, by his manipulation of politicians, by the ‘smash-and-grab’ policy of his military campaigns. Cicero’s protest—’O tempora! O mores!’—is still with us. On 10 January 49
BC,
when Caesar crossed the frontier of the province of Italia on the River Rubicon, he declared war on Rome. He shunned the outward trappings of monarchy, but his dictatorship was a reality, his name became synonymous with absolute power. He even succeeded in changing the calendar. He was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44
BC,
by a group of republican conspirators headed by M. Brutus and C. Cassius Longinus, whom admirers have called the ‘Liberators’. Brutus was a descendant of Rome’s first Consul, who overthrew the Tarquins. Shakespeare called him ‘the noblest Roman of them all’. Dante put him in the lowest circle of Hell for his betrayal of Caesar’s friendship.
After Caesar’s death, the leadership of the Caesarian party was assumed by his nephew, Octavian. C. Octavius (b. 63
BC),
whose name had been changed to C. Iulius Caesar Octavianus, when he was adopted as Caesar’s official heir, was to change it again when all the battles were won. He served for twelve years in a second, shaky triumvirate with M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Antonius (c.82–30
BC),
who together at Philippi suppressed the republican faction of Brutus and Cassius. But then he turned on his partners, and attacked the dominant Mark Antony. Octavian was master of the west, Mark Antony of the east; and the naval battle of Actium was a rather tame conclusion to a confrontation in which the combined forces of almost all the Roman world were ranged. But Actium was decisive: it ended the civil wars, finished off the Republic, and gave Octavian the supreme title of Augustus.
The Empire, whose early years are widely referred to as ‘the Principate’, begins with the triumph of Augustus in 31
BC.
It saw the marvellous
Pax Romana
, the ‘Roman Peace’, established from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. Although turbulent politics and murderous intrigues continued, especially in Rome, the provinces were firmly controlled, and wars were largely confined to the distant frontiers. A few new territories were acquired—Britannia in
AD
43, Armenia in 63, Dacia in 105. But in the main the Empire was content to protect itself in Europe behind the
limes
or ‘frontier line’ from Hadrian’s Wall to the Danube delta, and to fight in Asia against Rome’s most formidable enemies—the Parthians and Persians,
[AQUINCUM]
AQUINCUM
L
IKE
neighbouring Carnuntum, Aquincum started life as a legionary camp on the Danube in the reign of Tiberius. It soon attracted a cluster of
canabae
or ‘informal settlements’, and in the second century
AD
was given the formal status of
municipium
. As a gateway to the Empire from the plains of Pannonia, it thrived mightily, both as a legionary base and as a commercial centre. Its prosperity is reflected in its twin amphitheatres, military and civilian, and the mural paintings which adorned its more opulent houses.
1
The ruins of Aquincum lie in the suburbs of modem Budapest
[
BUDA
]
Like the English, the Hungarians had no direct experience of the Roman world, having migrated to their present homeland after the Empire’s fall. But they cherish their ‘Roman heritage’ all the more.
2
[BARBAROS]
Eventually, the imperial retreat had to begin. And retreat led to crumbling at the edges and demoralization at the centre. Already in the third century
AD
a rash of short-lived emperors signalled the weakening of the monolith. A partial recovery was staged by ordering the division of the Empire into East and West. But in the fourth century a marked shift of resources in favour of the East was accompanied by the decision to transfer the capital from Rome to Byzantium. That was in
AD
330. Rome had reached its term as a political centre. The ‘eternity’ of its rule over Kingdom, Republic, and Empire lasted exactly 1,083 years.
The motor of Roman expansion was far more powerful than that which had fuelled the growth of the Greek city-states or of Macedonia. Although the overall dimensions of Alexander’s empire may briefly have exceeded those of the later Roman world, the area of land which Rome systematically settled and mobilized was undoubtedly the larger. From the outset Rome applied a variety of legal, demographic, and agrarian instruments which ensured that an incorporated territory contribute to the overall resources of the Roman war-machine. According to circumstance, the inhabitants of conquered districts would be granted the status either of full Roman citizenship, or of half-citizenship
(civitas sine suffragio)
or of Roman allies. In each case their duty to contribute money and soldiers was carefully assessed. Loyal soldiers were rewarded with generous grants of land, which would be surveyed and divided into regular plots. The result was a growing territory that needed ever more troops to defend it, and a growing army that needed ever more land to support it. A militarized society, where citizenship was synonymous with military service, developed an insatiable agrarian appetite. A fund of state land, the
ager publicus
, was held back to reward the state’s most devoted servants, especially senators.