Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/422

 406 ROME war being directed against Rome only. The Romans made Q. Fabius Maximus prodictator, and Hannibal, who marched south, was baffled by his strict defensive; but in 216 the consuls, Varro and L. ^Emilius Paulus, gave battle at Cannse, and were routed with immense slaugh- ter. The Romans showed much firmness, and took their measures with such promptitude and vigor that immediate danger was soon re- moved; but they never thereafter dared to meet Hannibal in a pitched battle while he re- mained in Italy. Most of southern Italy now declared fdr Hannibal. The great city of Ca- pua, which was almost capable of being the rival of Rome, opened her gates to him, and welcomed him as a deliverer. Had he been reinforced from home his purpose might have been accomplished ; btit at first it was impos- sible to send him assistance, and when it was sent the time for success had passed away. The Romans gradually recovered ground. They retook Capua after a long siege, which Han- nibal could not raise, though he marched to Rome for that purpose, and threatened the city. Marcellus reconquered Sicily. In Spain, which they had invaded, they were less fortu- nate, the brothers Scipio being there defeated and slain. Wherever Hannibal was present he was almost invariably successful. In 207 his brother Hasdrubal, following his route from Spain, entered Italy, but he was defeated and killed on the Metaurns. Hannibal was forced to remain in Bruttium. In Spain the war was renewed with great vigor and complete success by P. Cornelius Scipio, then a young man. He was elected consul, with Sicily for his prov- ince, and had permission to carry the war into Africa, in accordance with the policy which he supported, but which was opposed by the old Roman leaders. Nothing happened in his consulship, but at its close he was appointed proconsul, and it was resolved that he should retain his command until the end of the war. In 204 he invaded Africa, and his successes were so decisive that Hannibal was recalled, and the war was ended by the victory of the Romans at Zama in 202. Peace was then made, Carthage accepting humiliating terms (201). Rome had now become a conquering nation, and in 200 she made war on Mace- don, the king of which country had endeav- ored to assail her while she was engaged in the contest with Hannibal. She was victo- rious, Flamininus routing the army of Philip at Cynoscephalffl ; she granted the vanquished moderate terms of peace, and nominally re- stored the Greeks to freedom, but really es- tablished her influence over Greece. A Syrian war was begun in 191, and ended with the defeat of Antiochus the Great at Magnesia, the Romans having entered Asia in 190. The ^Etolians were reduced to submission, and the Galatians conquered without a declaration of war. The Italian Ligurians were also subdued, and the province of Cisalpine Gaul was crea- ted. In Spain the Roman dominion was great- ly extended, so that nearly the whole peninsula acknowledged it for many years. Istria was reduced in 177. The last Macedonian war be- gan in 171, and was closed in three years, by the victory of L. ^Emilius Paulus over Perseus at Pydna. Rome was now virtual mistress of the East and the West, and protected Egypt against Syria, and ruled Greece through the tyrants that were- established in her states. The legions crossed the Maritime Alps in 166, and took the first step toward the conquest of Gaul 12 years later. The Dalmatians were subdued in 155. A Macedonian rebellion was promptly quelled. The Achaean league was conquered in 146, and Corinth taken and de- stroyed ; and Greece became a Roman prov- ince, called Achaia. The third Punic war, long urged by the elder Cato, was begun in 149 and ended in 146, when Carthage was taken and de- stroyed by the second Scipio Africanus. The wars in Spain, renewed in 149, were brought to a close at the end of 16 years, by the siege and destruction of Numantia, the work of Scipio. Lusitania, too, was annexed after the assassination of its gallant defender Viriathus in 140. The servile wars of Sicily broke out in 134, and the first continued two years. In Asia the Romans gained the kingdom of Per- gamus, by will of its last monarch Attalus III. The tribune Tiberius Gracchus entered upon his course of agrarian legislation in 133. His object was to create a new body of Roman commons, by reviving the Licinian laws, with some modification. Though this was in fact a war against property holders, it was not a war against property, as the rich had obtained a monopoly of the public lands in defiance of law. Some of the best of the Roman states- men supported Gracchus, but the evil he wished to cure was too deep-seated to be removed by legal means. Nothing less than a revolution could have effected the proposed change. Du- ring the long time that had elapsed since the passage of the Hortensian laws, there had grown up in Rome the party of the opti- mateSi which was an exclusive aristocratical party, composed of both patricians and ple- beians, and which enjoyed all the power of the state. The success of Gracchus would have been the destruction of this party ; and its leaders opposed him until he was driven to the adoption of unconstitutional means of re- sistance, when he was slain by some of their number, in an outbreak which they had caused. The contest between the aristocracy and the people had now begun. The younger Scipio for a time acted as a moderator between par- ties, but he was assassinated ; and Caius Grac- chus resumed the projects of his brother, with additions, such as his law to distribute corn to the people, and another to transfer the judicial power from the senate to the equestrian order. He also purposed extending the Roman fran- chise. But he too failed, and was murdered in 121, while his adherents were put to death with every circumstance of illegality and cruel-