Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/529

 GAPUA. sebcs up within their walls, and in their torn imptore the asbiatance of the Romans. The hitter ^esdily relieved them from their Samnite enemies; bat the citizens af Capua were very near falling Tictiins to the treacheiy of a Roman (prison sta- tioned in their city, who are said to have meditated jnaking themselves masters of it bj a nuuisacre rimihir to that by which the Somnites had them- selves obtained its possession. (Liv. vii. 38.) The subsequent revolt of the Campanians, their alliance vith the Latins, and the defeat of their combined armies have already been related under CAMrANiA. Bj the treaty which followed, Capua lost the pos- session of the rich Falemian plain ; but obtained in retom the right of Roman citizenship; the knights, who had been throughout opposed to the war, re- ceiring apparently the full franchise, while the rest of the population obtained only the " civitas sine Bufingio." (Liv. viii. 11, 14; Madvig, de Colon. pp. 240, 241.) At the same time it is clear that Capua did not (like some of the cities in this con- dition) lose its separate municipal organisation; k continued to be governed by its own magistrates, the chief of whom bore the Oscan title of " Meddiz Tuticus," and though we are told that in b. c. 317 tbey were reduced by internal dissensions to apply for the interference of the Roman senate, the new r^ulations then introduced by the praetor L. Fu- rins appear to have been successful in restoring tran- quiUity. (Id. ix. 20.) There was nothmg in the condition of Capua as thus constituted to check its internal prosperity, and accordingly it was so far from declining under the Roman rule that it continued to increase in opulence: and at the period of the Second Punic War, was considered to be scarcely inferior to the two great rival cities of Rome and Carthage. (Flor. i. 16. § 6). But this very power rendered its dependent condition more galling, and there were not wanting ambitions spirits who desired to place it on a footing at least of equality with Rome itself. The successes of Hannibal during the Second Punic War appeared to open to them a prospect of attaining this object: and shortly after the battle of Cannae (b. c. 216), the popular party in the city, headed by Pacuvius Cala- vius and Vibius Virrius, opened the gates of Capua to the Carthaginian general. (Liv. xxiii. 2 — 10.) Such was the power of Capua at this time that (including the forces of her dependent cities) she was deemed capable of sending into the field an army of 30,000 foot and 4000 horse {lb. 5): yet Han- nibal seems to have derived little real additional strength from her accession: the other most con- fiideiRable cities of Campania, Kola, Neapolis, and Cumae, refused to follow her example, and success- fully resisted the cfitnts of Hannibal. The ensuing winter spent by the Carthaginian troops within the "Walls of Capua is said to have produced a highly injurious effect upon their discipline, and though there is the grossest exaggeration in the statements of Roman writers on this subject, it is certain that Hannibal would never again expose his soldiers to the luxuries and temptations of a winter in the Campanian capital. The operations of the following campaigns were on the whole favourable to the Koman arms: and instead of the citizens of Capua finding themselves as they had hope<l placed at the bead of the cities of Italy, in the spring of B.C. 212, they were themselves besieged by the Roman armies. The arrival of Hannibal from Apulia this time re- lieved the city, and Qompelled the Romans to retreat: CAPUA. 511 but no sooner had he again withdrawn his forces than the consuls Fulviiis and Appius Claudius re- newed the siege, and invested the dty, notwithstand- ing its great extent, with a double line of circum- vdlation all round. All the efforts of Hannibal to break through these lines or compel the consuls to raise the siege, proved fruitless : famine made itself severely felt within the walls, and the Capuans were at length compelled to surrender at discretion B.C. 211. The revolt of the faithless city was now punished with exemplary severity. All the senators, and other nobles, were put to death, or thrown into dungeons, where they ultimately perished : the other citizens were removed to a distance from their homes, the greater part of them beyond the Tiber ; and the whole territory of the city confiscated to the Roman state : all local magistracies were abolished, and the mixed population of strangers, artisans, and new settlers, which was allowed to remain within the walls was subjected to the jurisdiction of the Roman praefect. (Liv.xxvi. 15, 16, 33, 34 ; Cic. de Leg, Agr. i. 6, 11, 28, 32.) The city itself was only spared, says Livy, in order that the most fertile lands in Italy might not be left without inhabitants to cultivate them : but its political importance waA for ever annihilated, and the proud capital of Cam- pania reduced to the condition of a provincial town of the most degraded class. The policy of the Romans in this instance was eminently successful : while the advantages which Capua derived from its position in the midst of so fertile a plain, and on the greatest high road of the empire, soon raised it again into a populous and flourishing town, and vir- tually, though not in name, the capital of Campania, it continued to be wholly free from domestic troubles and seditions, and its inhabitants were remarkable for their fidelity and attachment to Rome, of which they gave signal proof during the trying period of the Social War. (Cic. de Leg. Agr. ii. 33.) It is probable that they were on this occasion restored to the possession of municipal privileges, for though Velleius represents them as ^rst recovering these, when they became a colony under Caesar, they certamly appear to have been in possession of them in the time of Cicero. (Veil. Pat. ii. 44 ; Cic. pro Seat. 4, m Pison. 12.) Its importance at this period is sufficiently attested by the repeated notices of it that occur during the Civil Wars of Rone. Thus it was at Capua that Sulla had assembled his army for the Mithridatic War, and from whence he turned the arms of his legions against Rome: it was here, too, that the next year Cinna first raised the standard of revolt against the Senate. (Appian, B. C. L 56, 57, 63, 65.) Again, on the outbreak of the war between Caesar and Pompey, the partisans of the latter at first made Capua a kind of head-quarters, which they wero, however, soon constrained to abandon. (Id. B. C. ii. 29, 37 ; Caes. B. C. i. 14 ; Cic. ad A it. vii. 14.) It is also mentioned on occasion of the conspiracy of Catiline, as one of the places whera his emissaries were most active : in consequence of which, after the suppression of the danger, the municipality spontaneously adopted Cicero as their patron. (Cic. pro Seat. 4.) Capua is at this time termed by the great orator Agr. 28.) But the territory which had once belonged to it, the fertile " ager Campanus," was retained by the Romans as the property of the state, and was guazded with jealous care as one of the
 * ' urbs amplissima atque omatissima." (Id. de Leg.