H. H. Scullard

The Oxford classical dictionary

A comprehensive reference book to all fields of ancient Greek and Roman civilization up to the death of Constantine.

Carthage and Rome

The Carthaginian state impressed the ancient world with its wealth, and also for its stability and endurance. Its tenacity evoked respect even from Greeks and Romans, its age-long enemies. This chapter first provides a glimpse of Carthaginian states public and private life. The district around the forum and harbours, which contained living quarters as well as public buildings, was the heart of the bustling commercial and industrial life of the city. Then, it discusses the Romano-Carthaginian treaties. Rome and Carthage lived in harmony during the centuries of their earliest contacts. During most of the sixth century Rome was politically controlled by Etruscan rulers, and Carthage and the Etruscan cities were united by a common rivalry against the Western Greeks. The First Punic War, in 264 BC, set in train a transformation of relationships throughout the Mediterranean world. This was the first phase of a new age of expansion, in which already Roman horizons had been extended beyond Italy.

The Oxford Classical Dictionary

A comprehensive reference book to all fields of ancient Greek and Roman civilization up to the death of Constantine.

The Second Punic War

While the Romans were advancing their frontiers from Apennines to Alps the Carthaginians were making an unexpected recovery from their recent disasters. After the suppression of the revolts in Africa, Hamilcar, whose influence was now paramount at Carthage, obtained a commission to extend the Punic dominions in Spain, by way of compensation for the territory lost to the Romans (237). The interest of the Carthaginians in the Iberian peninsula had hitherto been confined to the trade-routes along its southern coast and to the mines of Andalusia: their position in Spain might be compared to that of the early East India Company in Madras or-Bengal. Like Clive in India, Hamilcar gave a new turn to his state’s policy. In the remaining nine years of his life he laid the foundations of a Punic empire, which his son-in-law Hasdrubal (228–221), who established an impressive new base at Carthago Nova (New Carthage; modern Cartagena), and his son Hannibal (221–218) extended to the Ebro and the Sierra de Toledo.

Commodus and the Severi

The wisdom with which the emperors from Nerva to Antoninus had ordered the succession was partly due to the accident that none of them had sons to survive them. But no such play of chance intervened to insure M. Aurelius against a wrong choice. Though several of his sons died prematurely, a youth (nearly eighteen years old) named L. Aurelius Commodus remained to uphold the claims of heredity, and with the same excess of family loyalty as had previously prompted him to take L. Verus into partnership, the last of the ‘good emperors’ accepted the risk of transmitting his power to an untried man. In promoting Commodus over the heads of several competent generals and ministers M. Aurelius no doubt speculated on his son’s willingness to retain these right-hand men in his service.1

The Second Triumvirate

The tyrannicides had planned the murder of Caesar well, but they had planned nothing more. Their calculation had gone no further than this, that the forcible removal of the dictator Caesar would have the same effect as the voluntary abdication of the dictator Sulla, and that on the release of the brake the machinery of senatorial government would automatically resume work. But the senators, before whose eyes Caesar had been killed, stampeded out of the council chamber, not knowing where the next blow might fall. On the chance of rallying the fugitives by a demonstration of popular enthusiasm the conspirators sallied out to spread the glad news in the Forum; but they found the place of assembly almost deserted, and from the few bystanders they drew but the faintest of cheers. Completely baffled, and in growing apprehension for their own safety, they withdrew to the Capitol under the escort of a band of gladiators. The candle which they had lit was guttering ignominiously.

Latium and Rome

Latium, the cradle of Rome, consisted originally of the coastal plain from the mouth of the Tiber to the Circeian promontory, and its adjacent foothills. In the south its habitable zone was narrowed by the Pomptine marshes and by the Mons Lepinus, a spur from the Apennines extending toward the sea. On its northern and western border the lower valleys of the Tiber and of its tributary the Anio — the ‘Roman Campagna’ of the present day — formed a wider belt of open land. The centre of the region consisted of a group of volcanic hills, the principal of which, the Mons Albanus, rose to a little above 3000 feet.1

The Macedonian Wars

At the same time as the Romans were rounding off their possessions in the western half of the Mediterranean they were laying the foundations of a dominion in its eastern basin. Their principal antagonists in the eastern Mediterranean were the Greeks. Between 800 and 500 b.c. the Greek people had occupied by sporadic colonisation the greater part of the Aegean seaboard and of the Black Sea coast. Their inability to combine their numerous city-states into a durable confederacy had been a bar to further expansion, and in the fourth century it had facilitated their conquest by king Philip II of Macedon. But by virtue of their superior culture the Greeks soon absorbed their half-civilised masters, and in the political sphere they came to play the part of allies rather than of subjects to the Macedonians. It was in partnership with the Greeks that Philip’s son Alexander overthrew the Persian Empire (334–325); and although the principal dynasties established on the ruins of that dominion were Macedonian, yet as a soldier of adventure, as an administrator, as a civilian settler, it was the Greek that reaped the chief fruits of Alexander’s campaigns.