The Roman Republic. Michael Crawford

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СКАЧАТЬ in all this may well be doubted, though hardly the uniqueness of Ap. Claudius among the politicians of his generation, but another act of Ap. Claudius, which may be accepted implicitly,¹ places him in the context of other innovatory activities of the turn of the fourth and third centuries. This is his building of the temple of Bellona, vowed during a battle in the course of his second consulship in 296 (the year before the battle of Sentinum, see here); the building of this temple forms part of a whole pattern of interest in the honouring of the gods of war and victory, which shows Rome newly aware of her enormous power and, what is more, aware of the ideology of victory of the Hellenistic world. It is also interesting that the lifetime of Ap. Claudius saw Rome adopt the Greek device of coinage (see also Pl.1).

      It was no doubt his awareness of the enormous power of Rome which led Ap. Claudius, towards the end of his life and in perhaps its most celebrated incident, to reject the notion of peace with King Pyrrhus of Epirus (see here), addressing the Roman senate thus:

      Whither have your minds in madness turned aside, which stood four-square on the path hitherto? (Ennius, Annates, lines 202—3 V)

We have seen that by the time of Pyrrhus’ invasion, Rome controlled virtually all Italy south of the Po valley and thus possessed the power with which to defeat Pyrrhus and other enemies after him. Furthermore, the nature of Rome’s control of Italy goes far to explain the nature of Roman imperialism, of interest to us, but something the existence of which Polybius took for granted. With the Pyrrhic War, Rome faced for the first time an enemy from the civilized core of the Mediterranean world and, with his defeat, that world began to take notice of Rome (see here). Rome’s wars of the third century and after are relatively well-attested and took her between 280 and 200 from a position on the fringe of the Mediterranean world to one from which she can be seen, with the benefit of hindsight, to dominate it. We must consider for a moment the nature of Roman imperialism and then look at the course of Rome’s wars down to the defeat of Hannibal.

      Roman society can be seen as deeply militaristic from top to bottom, in a way and to an extent that is not true of any Greek state, not even Sparta. Whatever the Romans said and no doubt in part believed about their fighting only just wars, the value attached to successful wars of conquest found expression in a number of central institutions. It was an ancient custom, revived by Sulla, for those who had extended Roman territory in Italy to be allowed to extend the pomerium, the sacred boundary of the city of Rome; the censors at the end of their term in office prayed that the Roman state might be granted greater wealth and extent, and haruspices, priests from Etruria, were consulted at least from the late third century to say whether a sacrifice made at the beginning of a war portended (as hoped) extension of the boundaries of the Roman people; Ennius (Annales, line 465 V) talked of ‘you who wish Rome and Latium to grow’. That Roman territory did grow in extent throughout the period when Rome was establishing her hegemony in Italy is in any case obvious; the land taken from conquered peoples and used for the foundation of colonies or for individual assignation became ager Romanus, Roman territory, unless used for Latin colonies; its progressive extension can be plotted down to 200, after which year the pattern remained unchanged until 91. It seems in fact that the Romans supposed that success in wars of conquest was the reward for their piety and the justice of their cause.

At the level of the individual, a general who brought a war to a successful conclusion was of course rewarded with prestige, booty and the avenue to popularity which its distribution could bring, and clients among the defeated; he was also likely to be permitted to hold a triumph, an astonishing and spectacular public and religious celebration of his victory. None of this was unwelcome to an ambitious member of a competitive oligarchy; the pretensions of such a man are graphically documented by the frequency with which they are satirized by Plautus, as at Amphitruo 657 (compare 192 and 196):

      I routed them at the first attack by my divinely conferred authority and leadership.

      or at Epidicus 381 (compare 343):

      I am returning to camp with booty because of the bravery and authority of Epidicus.

      Another factor operated both at the level of the community and at the level of the individual, the urge to intervene far afield; faced with an appeal from Saguntum in 220, Rome could not resist hearing it, although Saguntum lay in the area of Spain which Carthage reasonably held to be within her sphere of influence; it was yet another factor which fed Carthaginian enmity towards Rome. Similarly, individual members of the oligarchy involved themselves in the internal affairs of the kingdoms of Macedon, Syria and Pergamum in the course of the second century. Again, the involvement was related to competition within the oligarchy.

      Furthermore, Rome had of course suffered defeats, some of them momentarily catastrophic; but that hardly explains why a desire for security, understandable in any community, amounted in Rome almost to a neurosis over her supposed vulnerability; in 149 Rome persuaded herself that Carthage was still a threat and duly annihilated her (see here).

      Sheer greed also often played a part, overtly expressed by a character in Plautus:

      Yes, you both go in, for I shall now summon a meeting of the senate in my mind, to deliberate on matters of finance, against whom war may best be declared, so that I can get some money thence (Epidicus 158–60).

But perhaps more important than any of these factors was the nature of the Roman confederation in Italy; Rome drew no tributum from any of her associates (other than from the cives sine suffragio) or allies, but demanded from them manpower. The origin of the institution is intelligible enough in a world in which Rome and Latium and the Hernici lived under permanent threat of invasion from marauding upland tribesmen; but the consequence of the institution was that the only way in which Rome could derive benefit from her confederation was by summoning troops. The only way in which she could symbolize her leadership, a factor of at least as great importance in an empire as its practical benefits, was by placing the troops of the confederacy under the command of the consuls. And then – what else but war and conquest?

      The Roman involvement with Pyrrhus came about because of the difficulties of Tarentum. Under increasing pressure from the barbarian tribes of the interior in the latter half of the fourth century, Tarentum turned to the Greek homeland and to the help of a series of Greek condottieri, Archidamus of Sparta, Alexander of Epirus, Acrotatus of Sparta, Cleonymus of Sparta (in Italy from 304 to 299) and finally Pyrrhus of Epirus (in the west from 280 to 275); this last general was summoned to help not against the barbarian tribes who were neighbours to Tarentum but against the expanding power of Rome.

      After a series of successes and an expedition to Sicily, Pyrrhus was finally defeated by the Romans at Beneventum and abandoned the Tarentines to their fate. The confrontation with Rome was in a sense marginal to the career of Pyrrhus; but it was a confrontation between Rome and a successor of Alexander the Great and marked the definitive emergence of Rome into the Greek world (see here).

      Not long after the defeat of Pyrrhus, Rome found herself in 264 led to intervention outside Italy for the first time:

The Mamertini (Italian mercenaries settled in Messana and under threat of attack from Syracuse) wanted, some of them, to appeal to the Carthaginians (the other great power apart from Rome in the western Mediterranean and known to the Romans as Poeni, Phoenicians, whence Bellum Punicum, Punic War) and to hand over themselves and the acropolis to them, others to send an embassy to Rome, handing over the city to them and asking them to help them as being men of the same race. The Romans were in a quandary for a long time because the СКАЧАТЬ