The Historians' History of the World 05

[59] [The great original authority for the Third Punic War was Polybius,d whose accounts of striking incidents in the Hannibalic Wars we have previously quoted. Polybius was the personal friend of Scipio the Younger and was present, as we shall see, at the destruction of Carthage. Unfortunately his first-hand description of that memorable event has not been preserved. But the accounts of Livyi and of Appiang were based largely, if not solely, upon Polybius. Appian’s account of the war as a whole is too long for insertion here; but Keightley’sc description is virtually an abridgment of Appian, paragraph by paragraph, at times the translation being almost literal. For the concluding scenes we shall turn to Appian himself.]

[60] The lawful age for the consulate at this time was forty-three years, and Scipio was only thirty-eight.

[61] [Ihnef says of this: “We have serious doubts about the truth of this dramatic effect, which would do honour to any stage manager. A woman standing on the roof of a burning temple, and, in the midst of uproar and carnage, haranguing her husband, who is at a safe distance, is a scene passing all bounds of historical probability. What makes it particularly suspicious is the pretty little piece of adulation which the frantic woman has the politeness to address to Scipio: σοὶ μὲν οὐ νέμεσις ἐκθεῶν ὦ Ῥωμαῖε, ἐπὶ γὰρ πολεμίαν ἐστρατεύσας. Appian,g VIII, 31. Καὶ τῷ στρατηγῷ μεγάλας ἐπανῆγε τὰς χάριτας. Polybius,d XXXIX, 3, 6. All this is as much a fiction as any scene in a sensational novel. We have no doubt that Hasdrubal and his wife were retained by the Roman deserters against their will. At last Hasdrubal succeeded in escaping from them (λαθὼν ἔφυγε, Appian, VIII, 131). It is possible that thereupon his wife and children were murdered before his eyes.”]

[62] [According to Marquardt,j Achaia was not organised into a separate province till the reign of Augustus.]

[63] These Leges Tabellariæ

(as the Romans called them, tabella being their word for a ballot) were four in number: (1) The Gabinian (139 B.C.), introducing the use of the ballot at elections. (2) The Cassian (137), introducing it in all state-trials, except in the case of high-treason (perduellio). (3) The Papirian

(131), introducing it into the Legislative Assembly. (4) The Cælian (107), which cancelled the single exception made by the Cassian Law.

Ancient Tomb, hewn from Solid Rock

CHAPTER XIV. CIVILISATION AT THE END OF THE PERIOD OF CONQUEST

ORGANISATION OF THE GOVERNMENT

Now that we have seen Rome first become mistress of Italy, and then, after a life and death struggle, rise superior to Carthage; now that we shall have to follow her in her conquest of all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, so that this sea became what in modern phrase may be called a Roman lake, we naturally inquire, what was the form of government, what the treatment of the subject foreigners, what the condition of the people?

About the time of the Punic Wars the framework of the Roman constitution was complete. The only trace remaining of ancient severance was the regulation by which, of the two consuls and the two censors, one must be a patrician, one a plebeian. In a few years even this partition of offices fell into disuse, and no political distinction remained, save that persons of patrician pedigree were excluded from the tribunate of the plebs.[64]

In correspondence with the advance of plebeian and the decay of patrician families, a silent revolution had been wrought in most parts of the constitution. The assembly of the curies had become a mere form. They continued to meet even to Cicero’s time; but their business had dwindled away to the regulation of the religious observances proper to the patrician gentes. A few lictors, who were present as the attendants of the presiding magistrates, alone appeared to represent the descendants of the Valerii, the Claudii, and the Postumii.[65]