A History of the Roman World (2 page)

In this volume I have attempted to provide an up-to-date account of the Roman world from earliest times until the Age of the Great Conquests. Political history naturally takes the first place, and while military history of necessity forms a considerable part of the story, I have tried to emphasize the economic and social life of the times, as well as the achievement of the Roman people in the fields of literature, art and religion. The reliability of any history of Rome depends to a considerable extent upon the reliability of the sources. Where the narrative of authoritative ancient historians survives, the margin of error naturally must be limited, but for the history of Rome before the fourth century such a source is lacking, and only legend and tradition fill the gap. The work of modern archaeologists has illumined many dark places, but unfortunately experts do not always agree among themselves. In this present work, in which at times considerations of space may have led to dogmatic statements where dogmatism is neither justified nor desirable, I have adopted a fairly conservative attitude towards the early history of Rome, but at the same time I hope that I have given sufficient indication of the nature of the problems involved and of the reasons of my diverence from those critics whose method is more iconoclastic. Finally, I am very conscious that history means ‘enquiry’, not certainty.

I acknowledge with gratitude the great debt that I owe to the
Cambridge Ancient History
, and to the
Storia dei
R
omani
of Professor G. De Sanctis; he would, indeed, be foolish who sought to avoid incurring such a debt. More particularly I would mention my indebtedness to the work of Mr Hugh Last and Professor F. E. Adcock on the early history of Rome, to Sir H. Stuart Jones on matters constitutional, to Professor Tenney Frank on matters economic, to J. Kromayer and G. Veith on military history, and to M. Holleaux on Rome’s
eastern contacts. I have to record with gratitude the general advice and the numerous helpful suggestions which I have received from Dr M. Cary; only he who has had the privilege of submitting his work to Dr Cary can realize the nature of my obligations. I am also grateful to him for allowing me to see the proofs of his forthcoming
History of
R
ome
during the final revision of my work. Finally, it is a pleasure to express my thanks to my friend, Mr J. M. K. [Sir John] Hawton, for his kindness in reading through the whole of my book in typescript and for his helpful criticism.

H. H. S.

October 1934

In this second edition I have attempted not only to remove some of the errors and slips of the first, but also to bring this book up to date in the light of the work accomplished in this field of Roman history during the past fifteen years. While retaining the original compass, I have rewritten sentences, paragraphs and even pages where this seemed necessary and have also added a brief summary of references to the ancient sources.

H. H. S.

September 1951

In this third edition the pagination of the second edition has been retained for most of the main text, and I have made those changes which seemed both possible within these limits and necessary in the light of recent work in this field. As our knowledge of early Italy and early Rome has progressed, I have added a new appendix on this topic, as well as making additions and adjustments to many of the others. The bibliography also has naturally been brought up to date. I have thus tried to make this work serviceable for another period of years, without at the same time radically altering its structure.

H. H. S.

November 1960

Since the third edition of this book was published eighteen years ago, a great amount of research has been done on this period of history, not least on its earliest phases and on the cultural environment in which the Romans emerged into the light of history. Fascinating material has accumulated, such as the Etruscan-Phoenician inscriptions from Pyrgi; the inscription which Sostratus, a Greek trader from Aegina, set up at Gravisca, the port of Etruscan Tarquinii; the thirteen massive Latin altars, some fifty archaic statues and probably the hero-shrine of Aeneas at Lavinium; the rich tombs and chariot-burials of the early Latin settlement at Decima. New excavation and the reappraisal of older evidence have taken place at numerous Etruscan and Italian sites. Archaeological discovery and reassessment of the literary sources have advanced together, sometimes hand in hand, at other times in conflict in areas where controversy is inevitable. Major contributions have been made by such scholars as Professors A. Alföldi, E. Gjerstad, J. Heurgon, A. Momigliano, R. M. Ogilvie and M. Pallottino. I have naturally tried to take account of their main viewpoints, although space has allowed only brief assessments of the extremely complicated issues involved.

I am very grateful therefore to Messrs Methuen for having generously allowed me freedom in revising this book. In addition to general revision throughout, I have largely rewritten the first two chapters. In the interests of economy and further revision the footnotes as such have been replaced by a large and extended body of notes at the end; these also incorporate the material that appeared in appendices in earlier editions, apart from a discussion of the sources, which now forms a separate chapter. The bibliography has of course been revised, and I have added a further map (a plan of early Rome). Thus I have tried to bring this book up to date, without at the same time
abandoning too much of its original structure, and so I hope it may be found to be of use for a further period of time.

My grateful thanks are also due to Dr Tim Cornell who not only cheerfully shared in the burdensome task of proof-reading but also saved me from error on a number of points thanks to his great knowledge of early Rome and the Latins.

H. H. S.

July 1978

The two crowning achievements wrought by the Roman people during the period covered by this volume were the unification of Italy and the founding of an overseas empire. The Greeks had revealed aspects of the spirit of man before undreamt of; the Romans could only gaze up at many of the peaks that their predecessors had scaled and show their admiration by a humble imitation and by passing on the legacy to later generations. But in one sphere the Greeks of the city-state, despite their genius, had failed: their rejection of permanent co-operation among themselves at length proved fatal, and noble strivings after independence often degenerated into petty bickering and quarrels. But the peculiar genius of the Roman people, their predilection for law and order, and their powers of organization and administration, unlocked the doors at which the Greeks had hammered in vain: a city-state proved itself able to weld the various peoples of a country into a nation and to govern an empire.

In the first half of the nineteenth century Prince Metternich declared that Italy was ‘only a geographical expression’; the succeeding century has witnessed the growth of a united nation. The Austrian Chancellor’s dictum could be applied with truth to Italy during the early days of the Roman Republic, while by the middle of the third century
BC
the whole country was united within the framework of a confederacy, designed by Rome, which was strong enough to withstand the disruptive influence of foreign invaders, whether Pyrrhus’ professional soldiers, drilled in the latest methods of Hellenistic warfare, or Hannibal’s untiring military genius. If the final unification of Italy was not achieved till the first century
BC
, she was at any rate welded by the genius of Rome into a confederation, the like of which the Greek world had never seen.

When Rome had transformed Italy into a world power, she came, partly by design, but more by accident, into contact with the Mediterranean world, with Carthage in the west and the Hellenistic monarchies in the east. Her struggle with Carthage was a life-and-death tussle, and modern western civilization owes much, if not everything, to her ultimate victory. In the east the older monarchies collapsed like a house of cards at Rome’s touch. ‘The surprising nature of these events is sufficient to challenge and stimulate the attention of everyone, old or young … events for which the past affords no precedent.’ So thought a contemporary Greek historian, Polybius, who was himself interned in Italy for sixteen years. What Alexander the Great might have achieved, had he lived, what, indeed, he even hoped to achieve, must remain shrouded in doubt. It was reserved for Rome to realize an ecumenical ideal, to introduce a unity into world history, and to embrace western civilization within one political system.

‘Can anyone be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means and under what kind of polity almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and brought under the dominion of a single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years?’ So wrote Polybius. To the Greeks the cause of the advance of the Romans was their moral qualities and their excellent constitution. To these we may add the advantages derived from their geographical conditions, their superior manpower and war-craft. As the Marquis d’Azeglio in 1839 prophesied that the new railways would ‘stitch the boot of Italy’, so ancient Italy was knit together by the roads and nodal colonies which Roman statesmen planned and Roman engineers constructed. But however many contributory causes there might be to this or that particular line of advance, all Rome’s conduct was marked by empirical methods and by a spirit of adaptation and receptivity: she was willing to learn from friend and foe alike. Guided by practical problems, not by cut-and-dried theories, the Romans adapted their constitution and methods to meet present difficulties. During the period covered by this volume their success was unbounded, but before the end a change is perceptible. Foreign influences began to undermine the moral qualities and the ancestral discipline of the Roman people, lust for power at times superseded desire for law and order, foreign conquest appeared to many as a source of profit, the institutions of a city-state were strained to the breaking-point in an attempt to govern a far-flung Empire, the revolutionary era ushered in by the Gracchi was approaching and the fabric of the Republic began to totter.

The history of a people is determined in the long run by their moral and intellectual qualities, by their character and initiative, but geographical environment has a profound influence upon racial characteristics. History is governed, if not determined, by geography, and the physical formation of a country lies at the root of the history of its early settlement. As from before the dawn of history until the Norman Conquest the flat south and east coastlines of England tempted wave after wave of sea-going adventurers to fling themselves on the rich lowlands and to drive the older inhabitants ever further into the mountains of the north and west, so the early history of Italy is essentially that of ‘Italy and her invaders’: Illyrians from across the Adriatic claimed a foothold on her eastern shores, Greek colonists established thriving settlements around her southern and south-western coasts, her north-western seaboard fell to Etruscans who were probably invaders from the eastern Mediterranean, and waves of other peoples surmounted the icebound barrier of the Alps and poured down into the rich plains of Lombardy, forcing the dwellers there ever further southwards down into the peninsula.

The development of any nation is conditioned by one or both of two factors: its land and its access to the sea. It was Rome’s achievement to build up a mighty empire which rested on both land and sea power, but it was from Mother Earth that she received her early nourishment and training. And the rigour of that training was due not a little to the mountainous character of the land. The great northern plain between the Alps and Apennines was long regarded as part of Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina) and was not incorporated
into the administrative system of Italy until the end of the Roman Republic. It is cut off from peninsular Italy by the barrier of the Apennines, which here run almost east and west to meet the western Alps. Turning southwards the Apennines then run down the length of Italy; in fact, they virtually are Italy, for at least three-quarters of the land is hill country. These mountains are not very inhospitable, but naturally they retarded the growth of unity among their inhabitants. In the northern sector they form a narrow and almost continuous chain, but after reaching the Adriatic they are broken up into a series of parallel ridges of rugged limestone, divided by narrow gorges and towering in places to nearly 10,000 feet. The southern highlands are less steep, and gradually marl and limestone give place to the granite of the wild forest-clad promontory of Bruttium. The main central chain lies nearer to the Adriatic coast than to the western shore; it approaches the sea so closely that in places there is scarcely room for a road until it expands into the windswept moorland plateau of Apulia. Apart from the cornland of the Aufidus valley the Adriatic coast has little fertile land and few harbours; it faces the wild shores of Dalmatia and Illyria, and is accessible by land only from the northern non-Italian plain of the Po: add to this, that the north and east winds render it draughty and cold, and it will be seen that Nature planned that Italy should turn her back on the eastern coast and face westwards. There the aspect is different. South of the irregular mountains of Etruria, which are marked off by the Arno and Tiber, the central highlands approach the western coast in the Volscian hills, but north and south they leave room for the two plains of Latium and Campania. Here the genial climate and the fertile land, enriched by volcanic ash, watered by generous streams, and fanned by the moist southwest winds, attracted many invaders. And it was in the Latin plain, to be described below (p. 33), in the centre of Italy that one city developed the sense of unity which created a nation.

Since the mountains dominate the land, and few parts of Italy lie more than seventy miles from the coast which stretches for two thousand miles, it might well be thought that the inhabitants would have developed into a seafaring people who aspired to rule the waves. But Italy lacked what Britain possessed: harbours and rivers to receive what the sea might bring. On the west coast the sea was shallow, and flat-bottomed vessels could be beached with ease, but there were few harbours. Tarentum and those in the bay of Naples were early seized by the Greeks. Many of the rivers were mountain torrents which in winter rushed headlong to the sea and in summer left their beds stony and dry. The larger rivers swept down such masses of silt that a port at their mouths would need constant attention: the Tiber, for instance, kept many an emperor employed in planning fresh harbour and dredging works at Ostia, the port of Rome. Such rivers did not favour shipping; Virgil tells how Father Tiber himself had to stay his course before Aeneas’ ship could
sail up to the site of Rome. It was laborious to tow barges upstream and no help was received from tidal estuaries, for the Mediterranean is virtually tideless. Thus the attractions of foreign trade were less than those of the soil and the peoples of Italy remained for many centuries essentially agricultural and continental.

But though the nature of the coast and the fertility of the plains might turn the thoughts of the inhabitants landwards, they were soon to find that they were part of a larger world. The Mediterranean united as well as sundered. Its climate, common to the lands whose shores it washed, helped to produce a feeling of unity in social and political life. The trader from Tyre doubtless felt much more at home in the rich kingdom of Tartessus in Spain than when sailing through the mists and gales of the Atlantic to the Tin Islands of the north and ‘perfidious Albion’. In this Mediterranean world Italy occupied the central position. The Alps formed a protective shield when Rome began to look around the Mediterranean, since they were comparatively easy to defend; at the same time they were a sufficient barrier to force Italy to make contact with the Mediterranean rather than with northern Europe. Yet had they been an impassable barrier Italy would have fared ill, as only by attracting peoples and trade over the Alpine passes did she equip herself to become the peer, and later the ruler, of the other Mediterranean peoples. As she faced west and lay back-to-back with Greece, it was with Sicily, Carthage, and Spain that she first came into contact. When once she had been united by Rome, her very safety depended on controlling Sicily at her toe. This involved conflict with Carthage who dominated the western Mediterranean. With Carthage conquered, Italy cut the Mediterranean in half; the west at once fell into her hands and the east soon followed. It was largely to her dominant central position that she owed this rise to power, after which she could call the Mediterranean
mare nostrum
.

Nature had prepared the stage, but it was the peculiar genius of the Roman people that enabled Italy to play the role of a world power.