of Syracuse, led to the outbreak of war between Rome and Carthage in 264 B.C. The military history of the struggle which followed is treated in the article Punic Wars; it will suffice to note here that the war lasted until 241 B.C., when the Carthaginians were compelled to cede 490.Sicily and the Lipari islands to Rome, and to pay an indemnity of 3200 talents (about £800,000).
The struggle was one in which both Rome and Carthage were serving an apprenticeship in a warfare the conditions of which were unfamiliar to both. The Roman legions were foes very unlike any against which the Carthaginian leaders had ever led their motley array of mercenaries, while Rome was called upon for the first time to fight a war across the sea, and to fight with ships against the greatest naval power of the age. The novelty of these conditions accounts for much of the vacillating and uncertain action observable on both sides. It is possible that Hamilcar had already made up his mind that Rome must be attacked and crushed in Italy, but his government attempted nothing more than raids upon the coast. There are indications also that some in the Roman senate saw no end to the struggle but in the destruction of Carthage; yet an invasion of Africa was only once seriously attempted, and then only a half-hearted support was given to the expedition. But these peculiarities in the war served to bring out in the clearest relief the strength and the weakness of the two contending states. The chief dangers for Carthage lay obviously in the jealousy exhibited at home of her officers abroad, in the difficulty of controlling her mercenary troops, and in the ever-present possibility of disaffection among her subjects in Libya—dangers which even the genius of Hannibal failed finally to surmount. Rome, on the other hand, was strong in the public spirit of her citizens, the fidelity of her allies, the valour and discipline of her legions. What she needed was a system which should make a better use of her splendid materials than one under which her plans were shaped from day to day by a divided senate, and executed by officers who were changed every year, and by soldiers most of whom returned home at the close of each summer’s campaign.
The interval between the First and Second Punic Wars was employed by both Rome and Carthage in strengthening their respective positions. The eastern end of Sicily was still left under the rule of Hiero as the ally of Rome, but the larger western portion of the island became directly subject to Rome, and a temporary arrangement seems to have been made for its government, either by one of the two praetors, or possibly by a quaestor.[1] Sardinia and Corsica had not been surrendered to 513, 515. Rome by the treaty of 241, but three years later (239), on the invitation of the Carthaginian mercenaries stationed in the islands, a Roman force occupied them; Carthage protested, but, on the Romans threatening war, she gave way, and Sardinia and Corsica were formally ceded to Rome, though it was some seven or eight years before all resistance on the part of the natives themselves was crushed. In 227, however, the senate considered matters ripe 527. for the establishment of a separate administration in her oversea possessions. In that year two additional praetors were elected; to one was assigned the charge of western Sicily, to the other that of Sardinia and Corsica,[2] and thus the first stones of the Roman provincial system were laid. Of at least equal importance for the security of the peninsula was the subjugation of the Celtic tribes in the valley of the Po. These, headed by the Boii and Insubres and assisted by levies from 529. the Celts to the westward, had in 225 alarmed the whole of Italy by invading Etruria and penetrating to Clusium, only three days' journey from Rome. Here, however, their courage seems to have failed them. They retreated northward along the Etruscan coast, until at Telamon their way was barred by the Roman legions, returning from Sardinia to the defence of Rome, while a second consular army hung upon their rear. Thus hemmed in, the Celts fought desperately, but were completely defeated and the flower of their tribesmen slain. The Romans followed up their success by invading the Celtic territory. The Boii were easily reduced to submission. The Insubres, north of the Po, resisted more obstinately, but by 532. 222 the war was over, and all the tribes in the rich Po valley acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. The conquered Celts were not enrolled among the Italian allies of Rome, but were treated as subjects beyond the frontier. Three colonies were founded to hold them in check—Placentia (218) and Cremona in the territory of the Insubres, Mutina (183) in that of the Boii; and the great northern road (Via Flaminia) was completed as far as the Celtic border at Ariminum.
On the Adriatic coast the immediate interests of Rome were limited to rendering the sea safe for Italian trade. It was with this object that, in 229, the first Roman expedition crossed the Adriatic, and inflicted severe chastisement on the Illyrian pirates of the opposite 525. coast.[3] This expedition was the means of establishing for the first time direct political relations between Rome and the states of Greece proper, to many of which the suppression of piracy in the Adriatic was of as much importance as to Rome herself. Alliances were concluded with Corcyra, Epidamnus, and Apollonia; and embassies explaining the reasons which had brought Roman troops into Greece were sent to the Aetolians, the Achaeans, and even to Athens and Corinth. Everywhere they were well received, and the admission of the Romans to the Isthmian 526. games[4] (228) formally acknowledged them as the natural allies of the free Greek states against both barbarian tribes and foreign despots. Meanwhile Carthage had acquired a possession which promised to compensate her for the loss of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. The genius of her greatest citizen and soldier, Hamilcar Barca, had appreciated the enormous value of the Spanish peninsula, and conceived the scheme of founding there a Carthaginian dominion which should not only add to the wealth of Carthage, but supply her with a base of operations for a war of revenge with Rome. 518–26. 526–33. 535. The conquest of southern and eastern Spain, begun by Hamilcar (236–28) and carried on by his kinsman Hasdrubal (228–21), was completed by his son Hannibal, who, with all his father’s genius, inherited also his father's hatred of Rome, and by 219 the authority of Carthage had been extended as far as the Ebro (see Spain, History). Rome had not watched this rapid advance without anxiety, but, probably owing to her troubles 528. with the Celts, she had contented herself with stipulating (226) that Carthage should not carry her arms beyond the Ebro, so as to threaten Rome’s ancient ally, the Greek Massilia (mod. Marseilles), and with securing the independence of the two nominally Greek communities, Emporiae and Saguntum,[5] on the east coast.
But these precautions were of no avail against the resolute determination of Hannibal, with whom the conquest of Spain was only preliminary to an attack upon Italy, and who could not afford to leave behind him in Spain a state allied to Rome. In 219, therefore, disregarding the protests of a Roman embassy, he attacked and took Saguntum, an act which, as he had foreseen, rendered a rupture with Rome inevitable, while it set his own hands free for a further advance.
For the details of the war which followed, the reader may
be referred to the articles Punic Wars, Hannibal, and Scipio.
Second Punic War, 218–1 = 536–53.
538. 539. 540.
From the outbreak of hostilities until the crowning
victory of Cannae in 216 Hannibal’s career of success
was unchecked; and the annihilation of the Roman
army in that battle was followed by the defection
of almost the whole of southern Italy, with the exception
of the Latin colonies and the Greek coast towns. In
215, moreover, Philip V. of Macedon formed an alliance
with Hannibal and threatened to invade Italy; in
214 Syracuse revolted, and in 212 the Greek cities
in S. Italy went over to Hannibal. But the indomitable spirit
