Kitabı oku: «Hannibal», sayfa 12

Anecdotes.

Various other anecdotes are related of Hannibal during the time of his first appearance in Syria, all indicating the very high degree of estimation in which he was held, and the curiosity and interest that were every where felt to see him. On one occasion, it happened that a vain and self-conceited orator, who knew little of war but from his own theoretic speculations, was haranguing an assembly where Hannibal was present, being greatly pleased with the opportunity of displaying his powers before so distinguished an auditor. When the discourse was finished, they asked Hannibal what he thought of it. "I have heard," said he, in reply, "many old dotards in the course of my life, but this is, verily, the greatest dotard of them all."

Hannibal's efforts prove vain.

Antiochus agrees to give him up.

Hannibal failed, notwithstanding all his perseverance, in obtaining the means to attack the Romans again. He was unwearied in his efforts, but, though the king sometimes encouraged his hopes, nothing was ever done. He remained in this part of the world for ten years, striving continually to accomplish his aims, but every year he found himself farther from the attainment of them than ever. The hour of his good fortune and of his prosperity were obviously gone. His plans all failed, his influence declined, his name and renown were fast passing away. At last, after long and fruitless contests with the Romans, Antiochus made a treaty of peace with them, and, among the articles of this treaty, was one agreeing to give up Hannibal into their power.

Hannibal's treasures.

Hannibal resolved to fly. The place of refuge which he chose was the island of Crete. He found that he could not long remain here. He had, however, brought with him a large amount of treasure, and when about leaving Crete again, he was uneasy about this treasure, as he had some reason to fear that the Cretans were intending to seize it. He must contrive, then, some stratagem to enable him to get this gold away. The plan he adopted was this:

His plan for securing them.

He filled a number of earthen jars with lead, covering the tops of them with gold and silver. These he carried, with great appearance of caution and solicitude, to the Temple of Diana, a very sacred edifice, and deposited them there, under very special guardianship of the Cretans, to whom, as he said, he intrusted all his treasures. They received their false deposit with many promises to keep it safely, and then Hannibal went away with his real gold cast in the center of hollow statues of brass, which he carried with him, without suspicion, as objects of art of very little value.

Hannibal's unhappy condition.

Hannibal fled from kingdom to kingdom, and from province to province, until life became a miserable burden. The determined hostility of the Roman senate followed him every where, harassing him with continual anxiety and fear, and destroying all hope of comfort and peace. His mind was a prey to bitter recollections of the past, and still more dreadful forebodings for the future. He had spent all the morning of his life in inflicting the most terrible injuries on the objects of his implacable animosity and hate, although they had never injured him, and now, in the evening of his days, it became his destiny to feel the pressure of the same terror and suffering inflicted upon him. The hostility which he had to fear was equally merciless with that which he had exercised; perhaps it was made still more intense by being mingled with what they who felt it probably considered a just resentment and revenge.

The potion of poison.

Hannibal fails in his attempt to escape.

He poisons himself.

When at length Hannibal found that the Romans were hemming him in more and more closely, and that the danger increased of his falling at last into their power, he had a potion of poison prepared, and kept it always in readiness, determined to die by his own hand rather than to submit to be given up to his enemies. The time for taking the poison at last arrived. The wretched fugitive was then in Bithynia, a kingdom of Asia Minor. The King of Bithynia sheltered him for a time, but at length agreed to give him up to the Romans. Hannibal learning this, prepared for flight. But he found, on attempting his escape, that all the modes of exit from the palace which he occupied, even the secret ones which he had expressly contrived to aid his flight, were taken possession of and guarded. Escape was, therefore, no longer possible, and Hannibal went to his apartment and sent for the poison. He was now an old man, nearly seventy years of age, and he was worn down and exhausted by his protracted anxieties and sufferings. He was glad to die. He drank the poison, and in a few hours ceased to breathe.

Chapter XII.
The Destruction of Carthage

B.C. 146-145

Destruction.

The third Punic war.

The consequences of Hannibal's reckless ambition, and of his wholly unjustifiable aggression on Roman rights to gratify it, did not end with his own personal ruin. The flame which he had kindled continued to burn until at last it accomplished the entire and irretrievable destruction of Carthage. This was effected in a third and final war between the Carthaginians and the Romans, which is known in history as the third Punic war. With a narrative of the events of this war, ending, as it did, in the total destruction of the city, we shall close this history of Hannibal.

Chronological table of the Punic wars.

It will be recollected that the war which Hannibal himself waged against Rome was the second in the series, the contest in which Regulus figured so prominently having been the first. The one whose history is now to be given is the third. The reader will distinctly understand the chronological relations of these contests by the following table:

TABLE.

Character of the Punic wars.

Intervals between them.

These three Punic wars extended, as the table shows, over a period of more than a hundred years. Each successive contest in the series was shorter, but more violent and desperate than its predecessor, while the intervals of peace were longer. Thus the first Punic war continued for twenty-four years, the second about seventeen, and the third only three or four. The interval, too, between the first and second was twenty-four years, while between the second and third there was a sort of peace for about fifty years. These differences were caused, indeed, in some degree, by the accidental circumstances on which the successive ruptures depended, but they were not entirely owing to that cause. The longer these belligerent relations between the two countries continued, and the more they both experienced the awful effects and consequences of their quarrels, the less disposed they were to renew such dreadful struggles, and yet, when they did renew them they engaged in them with redoubled energy of determination and fresh intensity of hate. Thus the wars followed each other at greater intervals, but the conflicts, when they came, though shorter in duration, were more and more desperate and merciless in character.

Animosities and dissensions.

We have said that, after the close of the second Punic war, there was a sort of peace for about fifty years. Of course, during this time, one generation after another of public men arose, both in Rome and Carthage, each successive group, on both sides, inheriting the suppressed animosity and hatred which had been cherished by their predecessors. Of course, as long as Hannibal had lived, and had continued his plots and schemes in Syria, he was the means of keeping up a continual irritation among the people of Rome against the Carthaginian name. It is true that the government at Carthage disavowed his acts, and professed to be wholly opposed to his designs; but then it was, of course, very well known at Rome that this was only because they thought he was not able to execute them. They had no confidence whatever in Carthaginian faith or honesty, and, of course, there could be no real harmony or stable peace.

Numidia.

Numidian horsemen.

There arose gradually, also, another source of dissension. By referring to the map, the reader will perceive that there lies, to the westward of Carthage, a country called Numidia. This country was a hundred miles or more in breadth, and extended back several hundred miles into the interior. It was a very rich and fertile region, and contained many powerful and wealthy cities. The inhabitants were warlike, too, and were particularly celebrated for their cavalry. The ancient historians say that they used to ride their horses into the field without saddles, and often without bridles, guiding and controlling them by their voices, and keeping their seats securely by the exercise of great personal strength and consummate skill. These Numidian horsemen are often alluded to in the narratives of Hannibal's campaigns, and, in fact, in all the military histories of the times.

Masinissa.

Among the kings who reigned in Numidia was one who had taken sides with the Romans in the second Punic war. His name was Masinissa. He became involved in some struggle for power with a neighboring monarch named Syphax, and while he, that is, Masinissa, had allied himself to the Romans, Syphax had joined the Carthaginians, each chieftain hoping, by this means, to gain assistance from his allies in conquering the other. Masinissa's patrons proved to be the strongest, and at the end of the second Punic war, when the conditions of peace were made, Masinissa's dominions were enlarged, and the undisturbed possession of them confirmed to him, the Carthaginians being bound by express stipulations not to molest him in any way.

Parties at Rome and Carthage.

Their differences.

In commonwealths like those of Rome and Carthage, there will always be two great parties struggling against each other for the possession of power. Each wishes to avail itself of every opportunity to oppose and thwart the other, and they consequently almost always take different sides in all the great questions of public policy that arise. There were two such parties at Rome, and they disagreed in respect to the course which should be pursued in regard to Carthage, one being generally in favor of peace, the other perpetually calling for war. In the same manner there was at Carthage a similar dissension, the one side in the contest being desirous to propitiate the Romans and avoid collisions with them, while the other party were very restless and uneasy under the pressure of the Roman power upon them, and were endeavoring continually to foment feelings of hostility against their ancient enemies, as if they wished that war should break out again. The latter party were not strong enough to bring the Carthaginian state into an open rupture with Rome itself, but they succeeded at last in getting their government involved in a dispute with Masinissa, and in leading out an army to give him battle.

Masinissa prepares for war.

Fifty years had passed away, as has already been remarked, since the close of Hannibal's war. During this time, Scipio – that is, the Scipio who conquered Hannibal – had disappeared from the stage. Masinissa himself was very far advanced in life, being over eighty years of age. He, however, still retained the strength and energy which had characterized him in his prime. He drew together an immense army, and mounting, like his soldiers, bare-back upon his horse, he rode from rank to rank, gave the necessary commands, and matured the arrangements for battle.

Hasdrubal.

Carthage declares war.

The name of the Carthaginian general on this occasion was Hasdrubal. This was a very common name at Carthage, especially among the friends and family of Hannibal. The bearer of it, in this case, may possibly have received it from his parents in commemoration of the brother of Hannibal, who lost his head in descending into Italy from the Alps, inasmuch as during the fifty years of peace which had elapsed, there was ample time for a child born after that event to grow up to full maturity. At any rate, the new Hasdrubal inherited the inveterate hatred to Rome which characterized his namesake, and he and his party had contrived to gain a temporary ascendency in Carthage, and they availed themselves of their brief possession of power to renew, indirectly at least, the contest with Rome. They sent the rival leaders into banishment, raised an army, and Hasdrubal himself taking the command of it, they went forth in great force to encounter Masinissa.

Parallel between Hannibal and Hasdrubal.

It was in a way very similar to this that Hannibal had commenced his war with Rome, by seeking first a quarrel with a Roman ally. Hannibal, it is true, had commenced his aggressions at Saguntum, in Spain. Hasdrubal begins in Numidia, in Africa, but, with the exception of the difference of geographical locality, all seems the same, and Hasdrubal very probably supposed that he was about to enter himself upon the same glorious career which had immortalized his great ancestor's name.

There was another analogy between the two cases, viz., that both Hannibal and Hasdrubal had strong parties opposed to them in Carthage in the incipient stages of their undertakings. In the present instance, the opposition had been violently suppressed, and the leaders of it sent into banishment; but still the elements remained, ready, in case of any disaster to Hasdrubal's arms, or any other occurrence tending to diminish his power, to rise at once and put him down. Hasdrubal had therefore a double enemy to contend against: one before him, on the battle-field, and the other, perhaps still more formidable, in the city behind him.

Battle with Masinissa.

Defeat of the Carthaginians.

The parallel, however, ends here. Hannibal conquered at Saguntum, but Hasdrubal was entirely defeated in the battle in Numidia. The battle was fought long and desperately on both sides, but the Carthaginians were obliged to yield, and they retreated at length in confusion to seek shelter in their camp. The battle was witnessed by a Roman officer who stood upon a neighboring hill, and looked down upon the scene with intense interest all the day. It was Scipio – the younger Scipio – who became afterward the principal actor in the terrible scenes which were enacted in the war which followed. He was then a distinguished officer in the Roman army, and was on duty in Spain. His commanding general there had sent him to Africa to procure some elephants from Masinissa for the use of the army. He came to Numidia, accordingly, for this purpose, and as the battle between Masinissa and Hasdrubal came on while he was there, he remained to witness it.

The younger Scipio.

A spectator of the battle.

This second Scipio was not, by blood, any relative of the other, but he had been adopted by the elder Scipio's son, and thus received his name; so that he was, by adoption, a grandson. He was, even at this time, a man of high consideration among all who knew him, for his great energy and efficiency of character, as well as for his sound judgment and practical good sense. He occupied a very singular position at the time of this battle, such as very few great commanders have ever been placed in; for, as he himself was attached to a Roman army in Spain, having been sent merely as a military messenger to Numidia, he was a neutral in this contest, and could not, properly, take part on either side. He had, accordingly, only to take his place upon the hill, and look down upon the awful scene as upon a spectacle arranged for his special gratification. He speaks of it as if he were highly gratified with the opportunity he enjoyed, saying that only two such cases had ever occurred before, where a general could look down, in such a way, upon a great battle-field, and witness the whole progress of the fight, himself a cool and disinterested spectator. He was greatly excited by the scene and he speaks particularly of the appearance of the veteran Masinissa, then eighty-four years old, who rode all day from rank to rank, on a wild and impetuous charger, without a saddle, to give his orders to his men, and to encourage and animate them by his voice and his example.

Negotiations for peace.

Scipio made umpire.

Hasdrubal retreated with his forces to his camp as soon as the battle was over, and intrenched himself there, while Masinissa advanced with his army, surrounded the encampment, and hemmed the imprisoned fugitives in. Finding himself in extreme and imminent danger, Hasdrubal sent to Masinissa to open negotiations for peace, and he proposed that Scipio should act as a sort of umpire or mediator between the two parties, to arrange the terms. Scipio was not likely to be a very impartial umpire; but still, his interposition would afford him, as Hasdrubal thought, some protection against any excessive and extreme exorbitancy on the part of his conqueror. The plan, however, did not succeed. Even Scipio's terms were found by Hasdrubal to be inadmissible. He required that the Carthaginians should accord to Masinissa a certain extension of territory. Hasdrubal was willing to assent to this. They were to pay him, also, a large sum of money. He agreed, also to this. They were, moreover, to allow Hasdrubal's banished opponents to return to Carthage. This, by putting the party opposed to Hasdrubal once more into power in Carthage, would have been followed by his own fall and ruin; he could not consent to it. He remained, therefore, shut up in his camp, and Scipio, giving up the hope of effecting an accommodation, took the elephants which had been provided for him, and returned across the Mediterranean to Spain.

Hasdrubal surrenders.

Terms imposed by Masinissa.

Soon after this, Hasdrubal's army, worn out with hunger and misery in their camp, compelled him to surrender on Masinissa's own terms. The men were allowed to go free, but most of them perished on the way to Carthage. Hasdrubal himself succeeded in reaching some place of safety, but the influence of his party was destroyed by the disastrous result of his enterprise, and his exiled enemies being recalled in accordance with the treaty of surrender, the opposing party were immediately restored to power.

Carthaginian embassy to Rome.

Under these new councils, the first measure of the Carthaginians was to impeach Hasdrubal on a charge of treason, for having involved his country in these difficulties, and the next was to send a solemn embassy to Rome, to acknowledge the fault of which their nation had been guilty, to offer to surrender Hasdrubal into their hands, as the principal author of the deed, and to ask what further satisfaction the Romans demanded.

Their mission fruitless.

In the mean time, before these messengers arrived, the Romans had been deliberating what to do. The strongest party were in favor of urging on the quarrel with Carthage and declaring war. They had not, however, come to any positive decision. They received the deputation, therefore, very coolly, and made them no direct reply. As to the satisfaction which the Carthaginians ought to render to the Romans for having made war upon their ally contrary to the solemn covenants of the treaty, they said that that was a question for the Carthaginians themselves to consider. They had nothing at present to say upon the subject. The deputies returned to Carthage with this reply, which, of course, produced great uneasiness and anxiety.

Another embassy.

The Carthaginians were more and more desirous now to do every thing in their power to avert the threatened danger of Roman hostility. They sent a new embassy to Rome, with still more humble professions than before. The embassy set sail from Carthage with very little hope, however, of accomplishing the object of their mission. They were authorized, nevertheless, to make the most unlimited concessions, and to submit to any conditions whatever to avert the calamity of another war.

The Romans declare war.

But the Romans had been furnished with a pretext for commencing hostilities again, and there was a very strong party among them now who were determined to avail themselves of this opportunity to extinguish entirely the Carthaginian power. War had, accordingly, been declared by the Roman senate very soon after the first embassy had returned, a fleet and army had been raised and equipped, and the expedition had sailed. When, therefore, the embassy arrived in Rome, they found that the war, which it was the object of their mission to avert, had been declared.

Negotiations for peace.

The Romans demand hostages.

The Romans, however, gave them audience. The embassadors expressed their willingness to submit to any terms that the senate might propose for arresting the war. The senate replied that they were willing to make a treaty with the Carthaginians, on condition that the latter were to surrender themselves entirely to the Roman power, and bind themselves to obey such orders as the consuls, on their arrival in Africa with the army, should issue; the Romans, on their part, guarantying that they should continue in the enjoyment of their liberty, of their territorial possessions, and of their laws. As proof, however, of the Carthaginian honesty of purpose in making the treaty, and security for their future submission, they were required to give up to the Romans three hundred hostages. These hostages were to be young persons from the first families in Carthage, the sons of the men who were most prominent in society there, and whose influence might be supposed to control the action of the nation.

The embassadors could not but consider these as very onerous terms. They did not know what orders the consuls would give them on their arrival in Africa, and they were required to put the commonwealth wholly into their power. Besides, in the guarantee which the Romans offered them, their territories and their laws were to be protected, but nothing was said of their cities, their ships, or their arms and munitions of war. The agreement there, if executed, would put the Carthaginian commonwealth wholly at the mercy of their masters, in respect to all those things which were in those days most valuable to a nation as elements of power. Still, the embassadors had been instructed to make peace with the Romans on any terms, and they accordingly acceded to these, though with great reluctance. They were especially averse to the agreement in respect to the hostages.

Cruelty of the hostage system.

This system, which prevailed universally in ancient times, of having the government of one nation surrender the children of the most distinguished citizens to that of another, as security for the fulfillment of its treaty stipulations, was a very cruel hardship to those who had to suffer the separation; but it would seem that there was no other security strong enough to hold such lawless powers as governments were in those days, to their word. Stern and rough as the men of those warlike nations often were, mothers were the same then as now, and they suffered quite as keenly in seeing their children sent away from them, to pine in a foreign land, in hopeless exile, for many years; in danger, too, continually, of the most cruel treatment, and even of death itself, to revenge some alleged governmental wrong.

Return of the embassadors.

Consternation in Carthage.

Of course, the embassadors knew, when they returned to Carthage with these terms, that they were bringing heavy tidings. The news, in fact, when it came, threw the community into the most extreme distress. It is said that the whole city was filled with cries and lamentations. The mothers, who felt that they were about to be bereaved, beat their breasts, and tore their hair, and manifested by every other sign their extreme and unmitigated woe. They begged and entreated their husbands and fathers not to consent to such cruel and intolerable conditions. They could not, and they would not give up their children.

Its deplorable condition.

The husbands and the fathers, however, felt compelled to resist all these entreaties. They could not now undertake to resist the Roman will. Their army had been well-nigh destroyed in the battle with Masinissa; their city was consequently defenseless, and the Roman fleet had already reached its African port, and the troops were landed. There was no possible way, it appeared, of saving themselves and their city from absolute destruction, but entire submission to the terms which their stern conquerors had imposed upon them.

The hostages were required to be sent, within thirty days, to the island of Sicily, to a port on the western extremity of the island, called Lilybæum. Lilybæum was the port in Sicily nearest to Carthage, being perhaps at a distance of a hundred miles across the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. A Roman escort was to be ready to receive them there and conduct them to Rome. Although thirty days were allowed to the Carthaginians to select and send forward the hostages, they determined not to avail themselves of this offered delay, but to send the unhappy children forward at once, that they might testify to the Roman senate, by this their promptness, that they were very earnestly desirous to propitiate their favor.

Selecting the hostages.

The hour of parting.

The parting scene.

Grief and despair.

The children were accordingly designated, one from each of the leading families in the city, and three hundred in all. The reader must imagine the heart-rending scenes of suffering which must have desolated these three hundred families and homes, when the stern and inexorable edict came to each of them that one loved member of the household must be selected to go. And when, at last, the hour arrived for their departure, and they assembled upon the pier, the picture was one of intense and unmingled suffering. The poor exiles stood bewildered with terror and grief, about to part with all that they ever held dear – their parents, their brothers and sisters, and their native land – to go they knew not whither, under the care of iron-hearted soldiers, who seemed to know no feelings of tenderness or compassion for their woes. Their disconsolate mothers wept and groaned aloud, clasping the loved ones who were about to be torn forever from them in their arms, in a delirium of maternal affection and irrepressible grief; their brothers and sisters, and their youthful friends stood by, some almost frantic with emotions which they did not attempt to suppress, others mute and motionless in their sorrow, shedding bitter tears of anguish, or gazing wildly on the scene with looks of despair; while the fathers, whose stern duty it was to pass through this scene unmoved, walked to and fro restlessly, in deep but silent distress, spoke in broken and incoherent words to one another, and finally aided, by a mixture of persuasion and gentle force, in drawing the children away from their mothers' arms, and getting them on board the vessels which were to convey them away. The vessels made sail, and passed off slowly from the shore. The mothers watched them till they could no longer be seen, and then returned, disconsolate and wretched, to their homes; and then the grief and agitation of this parting scene was succeeded by the anxious suspense which now pervaded the whole city to learn what new dangers and indignities they were to suffer from the approaching Roman army, which they knew must now be well on its way.

Advance of the Roman army.

Surrender of Utica.

The Roman army landed at Utica. Utica was a large city to the north of Carthage, not far from it, and upon the same bay. When the people of Utica found that another serious collision was to take place between Rome and Carthage, they had foreseen what would probably be the end of the contest, and they had decided that, in order to save themselves from the ruin which was plainly impending over the sister city, they must abandon her to her fate, and make common cause with Rome. They had, accordingly, sent deputies to the Roman senate, offering to surrender Utica to their power. The Romans had accepted the submission, and had made this city, in consequence, the port of debarkation for their army.

As soon as the news arrived at Carthage that the Roman army had landed at Utica, the people sent deputies to inquire what were the orders of the consuls, for it will be recollected they had bound themselves by the treaty to obey the orders which the consuls were to bring. They found, when they arrived there, that the bay was covered with the Roman shipping. There were fifty vessels of war, of three banks of oars each, and a vast number of transports besides. There was, too, in the camp upon the shore, a force of eighty thousand foot soldiers and four thousand horse, all armed and equipped in the most perfect manner.

Demands of the Romans.

The deputies were convinced that this was a force which it was in vain for their countrymen to think of resisting. They asked, trembling, for the consuls' orders. The consuls informed them that the orders of the Roman senate were, first, that the Carthaginians should furnish them with a supply of corn for the subsistence of their troops. The deputies went back to Carthage with the demand.

The Carthaginians comply.

The Carthaginians resolved to comply. They were bound by their treaty and by the hostages they had given, as well as intimidated by the presence of the Roman force. They furnished the corn.

The consuls, soon after this, made another demand of the Carthaginians. It was, that they should surrender to them all their vessels of war. They were more unwilling to comply with this requisition than with the other; but they assented at last. They hoped that the demands of their enemies would stop here, and that, satisfied with having weakened them thus far, they would go away and leave them; they could then build new ships again when better times should return.

The Romans demand all the munitions of war.

Their great number.

But the Romans were not satisfied yet. They sent a third order, that the Carthaginians should deliver up all their arms, military stores, and warlike machines of every kind, by sending them into the Roman camp. The Carthaginians were rendered almost desperate by this requisition. Many were determined that they would not submit to it, but would resist at all hazards. Others despaired of all possibility of resisting now, and gave up all as lost; while the three hundred families from which the hostages had gone, trembled for the safety of the captive children, and urged compliance with the demand. The advocates for submission finally gained the day. The arms were collected, and carried in an immensely long train of wagons to the Roman camp. There were two hundred thousand complete suits of armor, with darts and javelins without number, and two thousand military engines for hurling beams of wood and stones. Thus Carthage was disarmed.