the greatest of all Greek cities. It contained within its walls four distinct towns-the island of Ortygia, the oldest and the strongest part of the city; Achradina, or the city proper, crowded with magnificent buildings; and the two suburbs of Tycha and Neapolis. The whole had been recently surrounded by a wall eighteen miles in circumference, which, in part, abutted on the sea, but was, in part, carried over rugged hills or low-lying marshes, defensible in themselves, and now rendered doubly strong by art. The city possessed two harbours, in the larger of which the Carthaginian fleet, under Bomilcar, was riding at anchor, while a Carthaginian army, under Himilco, hovered near the walls, or made flying expeditions to other parts of Sicily, thus distracting the attention of the besiegers. The blockade, therefore, was never effective or complete, and it is not to be wondered at that it was nearly three years before the city fell.

It was indeed treachery from within rather than force from without which ultimately enabled Marcellus, in the year B.C. 212, to gain possession of the heights of Epipole to the rear of the city, and, making these his basis, to conquer in succession its different portions.1 The two suburbs fell first, and the plunder which they yielded whetted the appetites of the soldiery for the still richer stores which lay behind the walls of Achradina and Ortygia. It was now too late for Bomilcar or Himilco to save the city. Bomilcar sailed away without striking a blow, and the army of Himilco, which lay encamped on the low grounds of the Anapus, fell victims to the fever which had so often before saved Syracuse from a besieging force. By a curious caprice of fortune, the best defence of the city was now turned against its defenders, while it left its assailants on the higher ground unscathed. The Roman deserters and the mercenaries had long established a reign of terror within the city. Having nothing to hope, and little therefore to fear, they were bent on holding the place to the bitter end. But when Marcellus had been admitted by some of his partisans into the island I Livy, xxv. 23, 24. 2 Livy, xxv. 26, 27.

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253

of Ortygia, Achradina could no longer offer resistance. The deserters and the mercenaries, the only portion of the inhabitants who deserved punishment, managed to escape by night, and the remainder threw themselves on the mercy of Marcellus. They might well expect to receive it, for they had been involved in hostilities which were not of their own seeking, and it would be hard if the short-lived folly of Hieronymus should be held by Marcellus to have effaced the recollection of the fifty years fidelity of Hiero his grandfather. But it seldom suited the Romans to remember past services or extenuating circumstances when they had anything to gain by forgetting them. Marcellus, as Livy tells us, had burst into tears when he first stood on Epipolæ and saw Syracuse, as he fancied, in his power beneath him. But these were not tears of compassion, or, if they were, they were not forthcoming now, when they were most needed. The city was given over to plunder, and the death of the venerable Archimedes while intent upon a problem, a man whom-just as Alexander bade his troops spare the house of Pindar in the sack of Thebes—even the rough Marcellus had wished to save, gave proof that plunder was not the only object of the infuriated soldiery.1

So fell Syracuse, the virgin city, which had seen two Athenian armaments perish beneath its walls; which had, for centuries, saved Sicily from becoming altogether, what its greater part then was, a Carthaginian appanage; which had, once and again, when its turn came, under Dionysius or Timoleon, almost driven those same Carthaginians from the island; and once, under Agathocles, had threatened the existence of Carthage herself. It fell to rise no more, at least to its former opulence. Its temples were left standing, because they would not pay for moving; and they belonged to the conqueror as much where they were as if they had been transferred to Rome; but the choicest works of art-vases and columns, paintings and statues

I

Livy, xxv. 31; Florus, ii. 6. 33, 34; Zonaras, ix. 5.

were

swept off to adorn the imperial city. It must have been an additional drop in the cup of bitterness which the Syracusans had to drain, that these works of art were carried off by men who could not appreciate them at their proper value. Sixty years later, the surpassing excellence of Hellenic art and literature had begun to make a deep impression on the more cultivated classes at Rome; but if, even then, a victorious general could stipulate, that any of the works of art taken by him from Corinth should, if broken on the passage to Rome, be replaced by others of equal worth, we can hardly believe that it was their intrinsic excellence which recommended the treasures of Syracuse to the attention of the rude and uncultured Marcellus. Anyhow Marcellus set an example only too fatally followed by the conquerors who succeeded him. It was a practice new in Roman warfare then, and to be condemned at all times and under all circumstances: a practice cruel and destructive to the states despoiled, and useless for all moral or high artistic purposes to the despoiler. It is equally reprehensible whether it be the plunder of half Europe by the representative of one of its most enlightened nations, the arch robber of modern times, Napoleon; or the sack of a Chinese palace by those whom the Chinese had a right, in this instance at least, to style barbarians. If good men and great nations have hitherto often followed the example of Cicero in drawing a broad contrast between the extortions of a Verres and the high-handed plunder of a Marcellus, a Warren Hastings, or a Napoleon, it is because they have not yet reached the moral standard which condemns the public robber; they look askance only at a thief.

1 Polyb. ix. 10. 3-13; Livy, xxv. 40; Cicero, Verres, ii. 2. 3; ii. 4. 54, etc

WAR IN SPAIN.

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CHAPTER XV.

SIEGE OF CAPUA AND HANNIBAL'S MARCH ON ROME.

(212-208 B.C.)

Importance of war in Spain-Successes and death of the two ScipiosRenewed activity of Hannibal-Siege of Capua-Hannibal attempts to relieve it—His march on Rome-Fate of Capua-" Ovation" of Marcellus-The Numidian cavalry at Salapia-Continued superiority of Hannibal in the field-Death of Marcellus-Influence of family traditions at Rome-Patriotism of Romans-Latin colonies show symptoms of exhaustion.

WE have hitherto concentrated our attention as much as possible on the main current of the war in Italy; but it must not be forgotten that throughout these first six years which we have described in detail, a side conflict was raging in Spain, the result of which might go far to decide that in Italy. To the importance of the Spanish contest the Romans and the Carthaginians were equally alive. It was from Spain, if from any country, that Hannibal must draw his reinforcements; and it was in Spain, if anywhere, that those reinforcements must be intercepted and cut down. The Romans saw that if a second army crossed the Alps and swooped down upon the north of Italy, while Hannibal was, at his pleasure, overrunning the south, the city would be taken between two fires, and could not long resist. To Hannibal, on the other hand, Spain was the new world which the genius of his family had called into existence. The names of his father, Hamilcar, and of his brother-inlaw, the elder Hasdrubal, were still names of power among the Spanish tribes whom they had conquered or conciliated,

and the younger Hasdrubal, a worthy member of the same family, had been left in Spain by Hannibal when he started on his great expedition, to preserve the family traditions there, and to raise fresh levies for the Italian war.

P. Scipio, as we have seen, instead of returning in the autumn of B.C. 218 with all speed and with all his forces from Massilia to Italy, where he might possibly have met and crushed the worn-out troops of Hannibal as they descended from the Alps, had sent the bulk of his army straight to their Spanish destination, while he himself returned to Italy with only a few followers. To have altogether set aside the orders of the Senate would have been a step quite alien to the character of an ordinary Roman general, and could only have been justified by the most complete success. But, failing this, there is no doubt that Cn. Scipio took the next best course in hastening off to Spain;1 and the Roman Senate showed forethought which was quite out of the common with them, in determining, whatever the danger nearer home, to carry on this distant war with vigour. After his defeats at the Ticinus and the Trebia, and while the memories of the Trasimene Lake were still fresh in the Roman minds, Publius was sent off to Spain with a naval and military force, which a less courageous and self-reliant people would have been unwilling to spare. There he joined Cnæus, and, henceforward, the two brothers carried on the war in common, bringing over Spanish tribes as much by their address as by their arms, and winning, if the accounts they sent home were true, an almost unbroken series of successes. After making sure of the country to the north of the Ebro, the Scipios crossed that boundary river, sent to their homes the Spanish hostages which having been deposited by Hannibal in Saguntum, fell by the caprice of a Saguntine citizen into. their hands, and in the autumn of the year B.C. 216—the year, it should be remembered, of the battle of Cannadefeated Hasdrubal in a pitched battle near a town called Polyb iii. 494; Livy, xxi. 60, 61. 2 Livy, xxii. 22; xxiii. 26--28.

2