533 B.C. 146.] THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF AFRICÀ. ferred upon their allies-as they had rewarded Attalus with the conquests from Antiochus in Asia, and Masinissa himself with the kingdom of Syphax and the Libyphoenician cities, - nor, in disappointing the ambitious hopes of the Numidian princes, did the Romans reclaim from them any part of what they had won from Carthage.* The three sons of Masinissa were left in undisturbed possession of all the African shores and highlands and half-desert plains, between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, from the boundary of Mauretania to that of Cyrenaïca, except the north-eastern angle around Carthage, and a portion only of the sea-coast of Byzacium. Scipio drew a trench to the sea at Thenæ, opposite the southern point of the islands in the mouth of the Lesser Syrtis, and this boundary line left to Numidia the rich district of Emporia, besides the inner table-land of Byzacena, and the "Great Plain" about the upper course of the Bagradas. This wide Numidian kingdom was soon reunited under Micipsa by the death of his two brothers. Of its subsequent fortunes we shall have to speak presently in relating the usurpation and all of Jugurtha. We have already had occasion to notice the compliment paid to the Numidian princes, by presenting them with the books found among the spoils of Carthage, except the treatise of Hanno on Agriculture; and the literary reputation of the later kings, Hiempsal and Juba, proves that the treasure, despised by the givers, was not unworthily bestowed. Nor must it be forgotten that Rome had already been indebted to Carthage for the chief poet of that age, and the most elegant writer in her literature, the comedian Terence.† The limited territory along the coasts of Zeugitana and Byzacium, which formed the latest possessions of Carthage, was erected into the province of AFRICA, a name borrowed from the Carthaginians, and capable of indefinite extension. The pro • This is distinctly stated by Sallust:-"Igitur bello Jugurthino pleraque ex Punicis oppida, et finis Karthaginiensium quos novissume habuerant, populus Romanus per magistratus administrabat: Gætulorum magna pars et Numidæ usque ad flumen Mulucha sub Jugurtha erant."—(Jug. 19.) Of Mauretania the Romans knew nothing till the war with Jugurtha. Born at Carthage in B.C. 195, he was either by birth or purchase the slave of the Roman senator P. Terentius Lucanus, from whom, on his manumission, he received the name of P. Terentius Afer.. He became intimate with Scipio and Lælius. His plays are reproductions of the Greek comedies of Menander. The first of them, the Andria, was brought out in B.C. 166, and he died in B. C. 159. The name of Africa seems to have been unknown to the Greeks till they adopted it from the Romans, and it was long before even the latter used it to replace the Greek name of Libya for the whole continent. vince was placed under a prætor, whose seat of government was at Utica; and this most ancient Phoenician colony was rewarded for her early adhesion to Rome with part of the lands of her always envied rival. The other towns which had taken part with Rome, such as Hadrumetum, Leptis Parva, Thapsus, Acholla, and a few others, were made free cities; while of those that had adhered to Carthage, some were destroyed, and their lands added to the public domain of Rome (ager publicus) and let on lease to occupiers (possessores); while the rest, whose lands were equally forfeit in law, were allowed to retain them for the present, paying a fixed annual tribute (stipendium). The rich plains of Africa soon became even more important than Sicily for their supplies of corn to Rome, and the Roman merchants found themselves in possession, through the port of Utica, of the commerce of Carthage, both with the Mediterranean and Inner Africa. * Within twenty-four years after the destruction of Carthage, the plantation of a new colony on its site, under the name of JUNONIA, was one of the measures for improving the condition of the people carried by Caius Gracchus in his first tribunate (B.c. 123). In the following year he led 6000 colonists to Africa, and it was this absence that gave the aristocratic party the opportunity to effect his ruin. His death, the year after, caused the colony to be abandoned. Julius Cæsar revived the project the year before his death (B.C. 46); and, in B.C. 19, Augustus sent out a body of 3000 colonists to found the Roman city of Carthage, which was now made the capital of Africa in place of Utica. Under the empire, it vied with Rome and Constantinople in wealth and magnitude, and as a Christian bishopric it became as conspicuous as it had been for the worship of Baal and Melcarth. Taken by Genseric in A.D. 439, it was made the capital of the Vandal kingdom of Africa. In A.D. 533 it was retaken by Belisarius, and named Justiniana. A little more than a century later, it fell a prey to the Arabs under Hassan, by whom it was finally destroyed (A.D. 647). Quidquid de Libycis verritur areis."-Horat. Carm. I. 1. B.C. 200.] WAR IN GALLIA CISALPINA. 535 CHAPTER XXX. CONQUESTS OF ROME IN THE WEST, AND CONDITION OF THE REPUBLIC.-FROM THE END OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR TO THE FORMATION OF THE PROVINCE OF ASIA, AND THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER SCIPIO. TO B.C. 129. B.C. 200 "Rome had its heroic age: the Romans knew that they had such an age, and we may believe them. Polybius saw the end of it: he saw the destruction of Carthage and the savage sack of Corinth, and the beginning of a worse time. But he has recorded his testimony that some honesty still remained."-LONG. THE ROMAN DOMINIONS IN THE WEST-WAR IN CISALPINE GAUL-CONQUEST OF THE IN- THE half century during which Rome was contending for empire with the Hellenic and Semitic races was occupied with an incessant conflict for the mastery of her newly-acquired dominion in the West; and the same period-or rather the first two-thirds of the century-was signalized at home by events of the deepest interest, in which such actors as Cato and the Scipios play their part. The grand result was the extension of the Roman empire over the European shores of the Mediterranean from the Pillars of Hercules to the Hellespont, the acquisition of provinces both in Africa and Asia, and the supremacy of Roman influence over the vassal kings and tribes of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Numidia; till only Mauretania remained to complete the circuit of the Mediterranean, on whose waters the ships of the Republic no longer en countered any enemies but pirates. It was the reaction of this brilliant career abroad that mainly determined the course of events at home, and paved the way for the fall of the Republic. Cisalpine Gaul had to be re-conquered, and the tribes of Spain to be subdued. We have seen that a war was still in progress with the Gauls, when Hannibal's passage of the Alps roused them to a general revolt; and from that time Carthaginian influence had been predominant between the Alps and the Apennines. And now it seemed as if the last remnants of the Barcine spirit had found a refuge among the Celtic tribes. In the very year when the peace was ratified with Carthage, a certain Hamilcar united the Gauls and Ligurians in a general attack upon the fortresses which the Romans had continued to hold throughout the war (B.c. 200). Placentia was stormed and destroyed, and Cremona was besieged. It is needless to follow the ten years' contest which the Gauls maintained with the obstinacy of a last effort against the resources and discipline of Rome. The Insubrians and Cenomani— the two chief tribes on the left of the Po, in the modern Lombardy -were first defeated (B.c. 196); but the great nation of the Boii, between the right bank of the river and the Apennines, were only subdued by P. Scipio Nasica in B.C. 191. Their subjugation was followed by the foundation of the colonies, the names of which have become so famous in medieval and modern history, Bononia (Bologna), Mutina (Modena), and Parma; and the Flaminian Road was continued through their country from Ariminum (Rimini) to Mediolanum (Milan), under the name of the Via Emilia, by the censor M. Æmilius Lepidus (B.c. 179). The conquest of the hardy mountaineers of Liguria was a longer and more difficult task. In B.C. 187 the consul Lepidus, the same who has just been mentioned, marched against them with his colleague-such was the importance attached to the war-and from that period almost to the end of the century, we read of perpetual hostilities, in which the Roman generals for a long time gained no more than an occasional success, just sufficient to form the pretext for a triumph. The powerful tribe of the Apuani, in the Etruscan Apennines, eastward of the river Macra, submitted in B.c. 180, and were removed to the heart of Samnium, to the number of 40,000, while the Roman hold on their former country was made sure by colonies at Pisa (B.c. 180) and Luca (B.c. 179).† The See note to p. 140. + Luca, the modern Lucca, was reckoned the southernmost city of the Ligurians; but it belonged to the province of Cisalpine Gaul. B.C. 154.] SETTLEMENT OF LIGURIA. 537 Ingauni, in the Maritime Alps, west of Genoa, had been nominally subdued a year earlier (B.c. 181); but they long continued powerful enough, even by sea, to harass both the Romans and Massaliots with their piratical attacks. The armies of Rome gradually fought their way westward along the Riviera, till in B.c. 154 they crossed the Varus (Var), and for the first time came into contact with a Ligurian tribe (the Oxybii) within the limits of Transalpine Gaul. The wars in that country thirty years later, under the consul Sextius Calvinus, are again connected with triumphs over Ligurian tribes (B.c. 123-2); while the last triumph over those in Italy was won by the proconsul C. Marcius (B.c. 117). But, as always with such tribes, it was found that military roads were the most effectual instruments of subjugation, and in B.C. 109 the censor M. Æmilius Scaurus made the road along the coast from Luna (Luni) to Vada Sabata (Vado), and thence over the Apennines and down the valley of the Bormida to Dertona (Tortona). Strabo tells us that, after eighty years of warfare, the public officers of Rome, on their journeys through the country, could only command a space of twelve stadia (less than a mile and a half) in breadth; and the conquest of Liguria was only completed under Augustus (B.C. 14). A far more formidable resistance had to be encountered in Spain, before the country won for Rome by the elder Scipio Africanus was finally subdued through the destruction of Numantia, the stronghold of Iberian independence, by the younger (B.c. 205133). The Second Punic War had left the peninsula divided among a strange intermixture of elements, Celtic and Iberian, Phoenician, Hellenic, and Roman. The province within the Ebro, except the northern mountains, and the east coast as far as New Carthage, had been reduced by the arms of Rome; and the more quiet peoples of Bætica, long since brought under Phoenician culture, began to feel the influence of the Roman garrisons and of the Italian adventurers who came to work the silver mines. Here were founded the first Latin communities (except Agrigentum) beyond the limits of Italy: Italica (near Seville), where Scipio left the veterans of his army who, having married Spanish women, desired to remain in Spain (B.c. 205), and the colony of Carteia, which was founded by Tiberius Gracchus in B.c. 171. The regions. subject to Rome corresponded to the modern Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia, and Andalusia, or the districts between the eastern coast. * Italica was not a municipal town, but it had a market-place, and formed a kind of centrs for the Latin settlers of the neighbourhood - what the Romans called forum et conciliabulum civium Romanorum, |