Transcript HIS 31 – Part 13

AFTER THE SECOND PUNIC WAR
Let us revisit the TERMS Rome imposed on the Carthaginian
state in 201 BC at the end of the “War against Hannibal”
1. Carthage was forced to give up ALL of its interests in the
IBERIAN PENINSULA.
2. Carthage was forced to pay a war indemnity of 10,000
talents [300 tons] in silver.
3. Carthage’s navy was limited to 10 ships (so that the state
could ward off pirates).
4. Carthage was forbidden to raise an army or engage in
military activity without Rome’s permission.
[The fourth term allowed Carthage’s neighbour, the kingdom of NUMIDIA (Rome’s
‘client’), to engage in low-level raiding of Carthaginian territory for decades]
The Period after the Second Punic War
ROME’S EMPIRE ca 200 BC
(immediately after the Second Punic War [218 – 201 BC])
1. Having ousted Carthage from the Iberian Peninsula
and having added two new “provinces” (overseas possessions
subject to taxation) to its empire
a) HISPANIA CITERIOR (“Nearer Spain”) – for now
no more than a narrow strip on the eastern side of the
peninsula; and
b) HISPANIA ULTERIOR (“Farther Spain”) – the south
and south-east of Iberia……
2. … the Roman state now became involved even more
heavily in the Balkan Peninsula.
3. The young PHILIP V had brought MACEDON into
conflict with Rome by siding with Hannibal.
4. Philip V had continued to assert his kingdom’s interests
and had become involved in war
a) with the kingdom of PERGAMUM, under the Attalids
(in western Asia Minor);
and
b) with RHODES (the territory of which extended to the mainland
of Asia
Minor).
5. Both were firm Roman allies.
6. Philip’s refusal to end hostilities against them provided
Rome with the pretext to begin “the SECOND
MACEDONIAN WAR” (200 – 197 BC)
[The “First Macedonian War” with Rome had been during the
conflict with Carthage]
7. During the war the Roman state was allied with “the
AETOLIAN LEAGUE” – a league of northern Greek
city- states.
8. The war came to an end in 197 BC after Rome’s military
victory at CYNOSCEPHALAE
CYNOSCEPHALAE
9. The victory over MACEDONIA led to a peace treaty
(“the Treaty of Flaminius”) in 197 BC with terms similar to those
ending the wars with Carthage:
a) Macedon had to surrender its fleet.
b) Macedon was forced to withdraw to its ‘ancestral’
boundaries – abandoning all control over city-states
in southern Greece, all control over Thrace, all
control over Asia Minor.
c) Macedon was forced to pay a huge war indemnity.
10. This effectively ended Macedon’s status as a major
power – which had, of course, been Rome’s intention.
SELEUCID SYRIA
1. Rome now became embroiled with the Seleucid empire
centred on SYRIA.
2. a) ANTIOCHUS III of Syria had formed an alliance with
Macedon under Philip V in 203 BC.
b) Together they had decided to attack and divide between
them territories of the boy-king, of Egypt, PTOLEMY V.
3. a) Their agreement had seen Antiochus, for his part,
attempting to control Egypt’s Ptolemaic interests in Asia
Minor.
b) This had led to conflict with Rome’s allies there:
PERGAMUM and RHODES – and led to a clash of
wills between ROME and Antiochus, exacerbated by the
presence in the 190s of HANNIBAL at Antiochus’ court .
4. The resulting warfare (“the Syrian War”) between 192
and 188 BC (in which the “Aetolian League” parted from its association
with Rome and supported Syria) included a Roman victory at
MAGNESIA in 190 BC against ANTIOCHUS III and
another treaty:
a) Seleucid Syria had to surrender all its
possessions in Asia Minor (which were given to Pergamum
and Rhodes).
b) It was forced to reduce its naval forces
significantly.
c) It had to pay a huge war indemnity.
5. There was now nothing to counter Roman influence in
GREECE where the two leagues (“the AETOLIAN
LEAGUE” and “the ACHAEAN LEAGUE”) were very
much brought within the Roman sphere.
MAGNESIA
AETOLIAN
LEAGUE
ACHAEAN
LEAGUE
CARIA WAS PART
OF GREATER
RHODES
PURPLE AREAS
WERE
EGYPTIAN
LATER WARFARE AGAINST MACEDON
1. Despite the restrictions imposed on Macedon by Rome
in 197 BC, the son of Philip V, PERSEUS, tried to
reassert the former power of his father’s kingdom and
to pose as the champion of Greek independence.
2. This led to “the THIRD MACEDONIAN WAR” (171
– 168 BC).
3. Again it ended with a Roman victory under Lucius
Aemilius Paullus at PYDNA.
4. The result with the abolition of the Macedonian
monarchy and the division of the former kingdom into
FOUR REPUBLICS very much under Roman
domination.
5. A. The impression one gets is that Rome
a) wanted more and more to take on the role of policing’
the entire region
but
b) was unwilling, at the same time, to add to its
administrative responsibilities by creating other
“provinces” and establishing a permanent
presence east of Italy.
B. Rome had “commitments” enough in Spain.
6. The result, in practice, of what Rome was doing in the
East generally in the 190s and immediately afterwards
was to end the role that other powerful states had been
playing in “controlling” the eastern Mediterranean.
7. In turn, this had contributed to greater instability.
8. And this had allowed such phenomena as piracy to
increase.
9. a) It is not improbable that many leading senators were
not, at this point, too unhappy about growing piracy.
b) Piracy was an important source for the slaves who were
more and more being used on their growing estates (a
major development, inter alia, which we will be looking at).
10. Direct exploitation of Macedonian resources seems not
to have been of prime importance, since we hear that the
silver mines there were closed down.
Macedon (continued)
1. The Roman approach in creating four ‘republics’ from
the former kingdom of Macedonia worked for about
two decades.
2. It came to an end, however, when a pretender to the
Macedonian throne, Andriscus, emerged about 150 BC.
3. He had managed to rally support and forces in the four
republics and defeat a Roman army in 149 BC.
4. He was soundly defeated in 148 BC and Rome moved to
create an additional “province” – the province of
MACEDONIA under direct Roman control.
Rome’s involvement in Greece (where Rome had been active only
against those who had supported Macedonia) upset the “ACHAEAN
LEAGUE” (city-states of southern Greece) which had
long been allied with Rome.
6. a) In what they must have known would be a hopeless move,
the members of the league rose up against Rome – because
of what they saw as Roman high-handedness.
b) Polybius blames demagogues in individual states for
whipping up the people.
7. The uprising was quickly suppressed and the Senate
instructed the consul, who had taken the command in 146 BC,
to make an example of CORINTH – the leading city of
“the ACHAEAN LEAGUE” by its TOTAL DESTRUCTION
(the same year as the total destruction of CARTHAGE).
5.
INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS IN ROME AFTER 200 BC
1. After the end of the Second Punic War, the political life
of the Roman state was dominated by two trends for
several decades:
a) a conservative trend, with MARCUS PORCIUS
CATO (Cato the Censor) playing a significant
leadership role right down to his death in 149 BC; and
b) a liberal trend, embracing new ideas, with PUBLIUS
CORNELIUS SCIPIO (Scipio the Elder Africanus”)
the victor over Hannibal, playing a leadership role
until his death in 183 BC.
c) When he died, the baton of the “liberal cause” was
taken up by other members of the SCIPIO family and
eventually by SCIPIO THE YOUNGER (consul in
147 and 134 BC), the natural son of Lucius Aemilius
Paullus and adopted into the Scipio “family” by one
of Scipio the Elder’s sons.
CATO THE ELDER
(Marcus Porcius Cato)
234 – 149 BC
Military tribune
Quaestor
Aedile
Praetor
Consul
CENSOR
214
204
199
198
195
184
SCIPIO THE ELDER
(Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus)
236 – 183 BC
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
younger
Scipio on
a signet
ring from
Capua
served at CANNAE in
Aedile
volunteered for Spain in
Consul (at 31)
Censor
216
213
210
205
199
served on commission to Carthage
in
193
7. ‘Leader of the Senate’
8. Served with brother in Asia
Minor in
190
[political career not outstanding
but listened to because of his success
against Hannibal]
2. The tension was always one between Cato’s solid
‘conservatism’ and Scipio the Elder’s more liberal
approach to changing circumstances.
3. CATO argued continuously that old-time Roman
morality, practices and traditions must be respected and
that there should be no concessions to new “eastern”
(Greek) influences and the growing fondnessis for
luxury which were beginning to penetrate society as a
result of Rome’s involvement in the eastern
Mediterranean.
4. SCIPIO, his extended family, and his ‘circle’ were
enthusiastically ‘philhellenic’, favoured Roman
involvement in the Greek world, and resisted attempts
to bring it to an end.
5. Perhaps the role for which CATO is best known to
history is his constant insistence in the Senate that the
CARTHAGINIAN STATE, despite being brought to
its knees in 201 BC, continued to represent a threat to
Rome.
6. We are told that he ended every speech in the Senate, no
matter what the topic of debate, with a famous
sentence (or something very similar):
“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam”
(“Moreover it is my view that Carthage should be
destroyed.”)
[This is also reported as “Carthago delenda est”]
THE THIRD PUNIC WAR (149 – 146 BC)
1. One of the terms of the peace treaty ending the Second
Punic War had seen Carthage agree not to raise an army
or engage in military activity without Rome’s
permission.
2. Again and again, Carthage’s immediate neighbour to its
west, King MASSINISSA of NUMIDIA, took the
opportunity to encroach upon Carthage’s territory leading to constant disputes which needed to be resolved.
PURPLE
CARTHAGE
AFTER 201 BC
THE KINGDOM OF NUMIDIA (under MASSINISSA)
HAD VERY ILL-DEFINED BOUNDARIES
MASSINISSA
3. His claims were based on Rome’s recognition of his right
(as a loyal [but recent] Roman ‘client king’) to his
kingdom’s ‘ancestral lands’ – a very vague phrase.
4. Time and time again, these disputes over territory were
subjected to arbitration but Roman commissioners
either ruled in favour of Numidia
or (more often, it seems) did not establish the rights and
wrongs of the case and King Massinissa was, as a result,
left in possession of territory he had seized.
5. a) SCIPIO the ELDER had been a member of such a
commission in 193 BC.
b) CATO was a member of such a commission in 157 BC
when he was 77 and he was so amazed at the apparent
prosperity of Carthage that he returned convinced that
Rome’s future security depended on Carthage
disappearing from the map.
He is reported as standing in the Senate and producing from the folds
of his toga some ripe figs which he said had been growing only three
days earlier in Carthage.
Was he stressing HOW CLOSE to Italy Carthage was or HOW
PROSPEROUS Carthage was or BOTH?
6. The destruction of Rome’s old enemy became, after this,
Cato’s constant refrain (as noted earlier).
7. In the Senate (which by now very much determined ‘foreign policy’)
CATO was consistently opposed by P. Cornelius Scipio
Nasica Corculum (the son of Scipio the Elder’s first cousin) who
a) held a consulship in both 162 and in 155 BC (with a
censorship between the two in 159 BC);
b) advocated a more liberal attitude towards Carthage; and
c) usually prevailed in debates.
[Scipio the Younger was still too junior to play the leading role in
opposition to Cato]
8. BUT in 151 BC MASSINISSA of Numidia launched yet
another assault on territory which the Carthaginians
considered theirs.
9. This time Carthage retaliated.
10. A military force of 25,000 was raised to repel the
Numidians but was soundly defeated.
11. By now SCIPIO the YOUNGER, the adopted grandson
of Scipio the Elder, was beginning to emerge as a
political voice – so much so that, in 150 BC, Carthage
appealed to him to act as mediator in this growing
‘crisis’.
12.
But those of Cato’s view were in the ascendancy and saw
Carthage’s act as an ‘act of war’, which did not have
Rome’s permission, and as a violation of the ‘Treaty of
201 BC’.
13. Carthage was informed that it must “satisfy the Roman
People” to avoid war.
14. Despite the Carthaginians agreeing to various measures:
e.g. a) to send 300 children of leading Carthaginian
families to Rome as hostages;
b) to hand over all their arms, etc. …….
15. ……Rome then demanded that they abandon the city of
Carthage (which would be razed) and move 10 miles
inland from the sea.
This the Carthaginians refused to do and, in 149 BC, Rome
declared war.
17. UTICA had already defected to Rome and Rome had
already sent a force of perhaps 80,000 to the area to
ensure Carthage took no action against its second city.
16.
UTICA
The city of
CARTHAGE
18.
The Romans soon did what they could to lay siege to
Carthage but things certainly did not always unfold in
Rome’s favour: e.g.
a) The consuls of 149 BC, setting out from Utica, were
repelled by Carthaginian forces;
b) A Roman fleet trying to maintain the siege fell victim
to Carthaginian fire-ships which were released up-wind
from them.
c) Lucius Calpurnius Piso, one of the consuls for 148 BC,
suffered a serious defeat at Nepheris (south of Carthage).
d) Roman troops trapped in a ravine were only saved by
the intervention of SCIPIO the YOUNGER who was
serving militarily as a subordinate officer.
i) SCIPIO’s success gained him one of the consulships for
147 BC, although at the age of 38 he was ‘technically’
too young for the office and an exemption had had to be
granted.
ii) He was assigned, as consul, to North Africa without the
normal drawing of lots.
20.
It took a year of military activity to force Carthage to
surrender.
21. a) Many Carthaginians had starved during the siege.
b) Those not killed during the final assault were enslaved
when the city fell (vividly described by Appian in his
Punica).
19.
c) On the orders of the Senate the city was razed and set
on fire.
21. The land was probably ceremonially ‘ploughed under’
BUT it appears to be a totally modern myth that salt
was sown in the furrows.
22. SCIPIO the YOUNGER, upon his return to Rome,
gained the agmen “AFRICANUS” – like his adoptive
grandfather, SCIPIO the ELDER, before him.
23. Carthage’s territory was declared a new Roman
“province” to be called “AFRICA” (roughly modern Tunisia).
APPIAN (fl. AD 140)
has left us a description
of the final fall of the
city of Carthage in his
PUNICA (based on Polybius)
24.
The speed with which the rich Carthaginian lands
became one of the major “bread baskets” of the city of
Rome (which may, by now, have had a population of
400,000) strongly suggests that acquisition of fertile
agricultural land was a motivating factor in Rome’s
initiating the “Third Punic War” – along with a degree of
irrationality.
NOTE: Neither CATO nor MASSINISSA of NUMIDIA lived to
see the destruction of Carthage, both dying in 149 BC at
the beginning of the war.
Whether there is a connection between Rome’s TOTAL
destruction of CARTHAGE in 146 BC and Rome’s
TOTAL destruction of CORINTH in the same year –
both acts approved by the Senate but undertaken by
Rome’s military commanders - is a matter of debate.
26. One modern explanation for Rome’s more violent
treatment of those who opposed it is that the increase in
the number of positions in the state – especially in the
praetorships, had meant that those who reached the
consulship [and there were still only two consulships]
tended to be more aggressive in outlook and were
more likely to wrap up operations with greater “drama”.
25.
THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF “AFRICA”
1.
2.
By 146 BC Rome had SEVEN “provinces”: SICILY (241), SARDINIACORSICA (238), NEARER SPAIN (197), FARTHER SPAIN (197),
MACEDONIA (with Epirus) 146, ACHAEA (GREECE) (146), AFRICA (146).
Even before the last three were formally organized for the collection of direct
annual taxes, enough income appears to have been coming into the coffers of the
Roman state for Roman citizens, in 167 BC, to be given an exemption from direct
taxation for three and a half centuries.
ROME’S EMPIRE AFTER THE ACQUISITION
OF “AFRICA” IN 146 BC AND BY ca 100 BC
1. Expansion
continued
apace in the
Iberian
peninsula.
2. “ASIA”
became
a ‘province’
by bequest
in 133 BC.
3. Southern
Gaul was
not
constituted
a ‘province’
until the late
2nd century.