History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2. Napoleon III
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Название: History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

Автор: Napoleon III

Издательство: Public Domain

Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары

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СКАЧАТЬ excited by the ruins of twenty-one temples and of eleven theatres, among others that of Taormina, which contained 40,000 spectators.485

      This concise description of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, two or three hundred years before our era, shows sufficiently the state of prosperity of the different peoples who inhabited them. The remembrance of such greatness inspires a very natural wish, namely, that henceforth the jealousy of the great powers may no longer prevent the East from shaking off the dust of twenty centuries, and from being born again to life and civilisation!

      CHAPTER V.

      PUNIC WARS AND WARS OF MACEDONIA AND ASIA

(From 488 to 621.)

      Comparison between Rome and Carthage.

      I. ROME, having extended her dominion to the southern extremity of Italy, found herself in face of a power which, by the force of circumstances, was to become her rival.

      Carthage, situated on the part of the African coast nearest to Sicily, was only separated from it by the channel of Malta, which divides the great basin of the Mediterranean in two. She had, during more than two centuries, concluded, from time to time, treaties with Rome, and, with a want of foresight of the future, congratulated the Senate every time it had gained great advantages over the Etruscans or the Samnites.

      The superiority of Carthage at the beginning of the Punic wars was evident; yet the constitution of the two cities might have led any one to foresee which in the end must be the master. A powerful aristocracy reigned in both; but at Rome the nobles, identified continually with the people, set an example of patriotism and of all civic virtues, while at Carthage the leading families, enriched by commerce, made effeminate by an unbridled luxury, formed a selfish and greedy caste, distinct from the rest of the citizens. At Rome, the sole motive of action was glory, the principal occupation war, and the first duty military service. At Carthage, everything was sacrificed to interest and commerce; and the defence of the fatherland was, as an insupportable burden, abandoned to mercenaries. Hence, after a defeat, at Carthage the army was recruited with difficulty; at Rome it immediately recruited itself, because the populace was subject to the recruitment. If the poverty of the treasury caused the pay of the troops to be delayed, the Carthaginian soldiers mutinied, and placed the State in danger; the Romans supported privations and suffering without a murmur, out of mere love for their country.

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      1

      Montesquieu, Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, xviii.

      2

      Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.

      3

      “Cæsar resolved to pass into Britain, the people of which had, in nearly all wars, assisted the Gauls.” (Cæsar, Gallic War, IV. 20.)

      4

      Suetonius, Cæsar, 47.

      5

      Appian, Civil Wars, I. 110, 326, edit. Schweighæuser.

1

Montesquieu, Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, xviii.

2

Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.

3

“Cæsar resolved to pass into Britain, the people of which had, in nearly all wars, assisted the Gauls.” (Cæsar, Gallic War, IV. 20.)

4

Suetonius, Cæsar, 47.

5

Appian, Civil Wars, I. 110, 326, edit. Schweighæuser.

6

Cicero, Epistolæ ad Atticum, XIV. 10.

7

In fact, how many disturbances, civil wars, and revolutions in Europe since 1815! in France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Hungary, Greece, and Germany!

8

Grandeur et Décadence des Romains.

9

Titus Livius I. 44. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the portion of the rampart between the Porta Æsquilina and the Porta Collina, says, “Rome is fortified by a fosse thirty feet deep and a hundred or more wide in the narrowest part. Above this fosse rises a wall supported internally by a lofty and wide terrace, so that it cannot be shaken by battering rams, or overthrown by undermining.” (Antiq. Roman., IX. 68.)

10

“Since that time (the time of Servius Tullius) Rome has been no farther enlarged … and if, in face of this spectacle, any one would form a notion of the magnitude of Rome, he would certainly fall into error, for he would not be able to distinguish where the town ends and where it is limited, so close the suburbs come up to the town… The Aventine, till the reign of Claudius, remained outside the Pomœrium, notwithstanding its numerous inhabitants.” (Aulus Gellius, XIII. 14. – Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 13.)

11

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 49.

12

“By this treaty, the Romans and their allies engage not to navigate beyond the Bonum Promontorium (a cape situated to the north and opposite Carthage, and now called by navigators the Cape of Porto-Farino)… The Carthaginians undertake to respect the Ardeates, the Antiates, the Laurentes, the Circeii, the Tarracinians, and indeed all the Latin peoples subject to Rome.” (Polybius, III. 22.)

13

“When Tarquinius Priscus regulated, with the foresight of a skilful prince, the state of the citizens, he attached great importance to the dress of children of condition; and he decreed that the sons of patricians should wear the bulla with the robe hemmed with purple: but even this privilege was restricted to the children of those fathers who had exercised a curule dignity; the sons of other patricians had merely the prætexta, and it was necessary that even their fathers should have served the prescribed time in the cavalry.” (Macrobius, Saturnalia, I. 6.)

14

“The plebeians were excluded from all offices, and put only to agriculture, the breeding of cattle, and mercantile occupations.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9.) – “Numa encouraged the agriculturists; they were excused from service in war, and discharged from the care of municipal affairs.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 76.)

15

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9. – Plutarch, Romulus, 13.

СКАЧАТЬ

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See the work of the Duke of Serra di Falco, Antichità della Sicilia.