Volume Xi Part 9 (1/2)
The Samnites could well afford to let them wait. The rear was held by the bulk of their army. The obstacles in front were strongly guarded.
Every possible track by which the Romans might try to scale the hills was held. Some desperate attempts to break out were made, but they were easily repulsed. Nothing remained but surrender, or death by famine.
One or other of these alternatives had soon to be chosen. A large army, surprised on its march, and confined within a barren pa.s.s, could not have subsistence for any long period. Nothing was to be gained by delay, and they might as well yield themselves prisoners of war at once.
So the Romans evidently thought, and without delay they put themselves at the mercy of their conquerors. ”We yield ourselves your captives,”
they said, ”to do with as you will. Put us all to the sword, if such be your decision; sell us into slavery; or hold us as prisoners until we are ransomed: one thing only we ask, save our bodies, whether living or dead, from all unworthy insults.”
In this request they forgot the record that Rome had made; forgot how often n.o.ble captives had been forced to walk in Roman triumphs and been afterwards slain in cold blood in the common prison; forgot how they had recently refused the rites of burial to the body of a n.o.ble Samnite. But Pontius, the Samnite general, was much less of a barbarian than the Romans of that age. He was acquainted with Greek philosophy, had even held conversation, it is said, with Plato, and was not the man to indulge in cruel or insulting acts.
”Restore to us,” he said to the consuls, ”the towns and territory you have taken from us, and withdraw the colonists whom you have unjustly placed on our soil. Conclude with us a treaty of peace, in which each nation shall be acknowledged to be independent of the other. Swear to do this, and I will grant you your lives and release you without ransom.
Each man of you shall give up his arms, but may keep his clothes untouched; and you shall pa.s.s before our army as prisoners who have been in our power and whom we have set free of our own will, when we might have killed or sold them, or held them for ransom.”
These terms the consuls were glad enough to accept. They were far better than they would have granted the Samnites under similar circ.u.mstances.
Pontius now called for the Roman fecialis, whose duty it was to conclude all treaties and take all oaths for the Roman people. But there was no fecialis with the army. The senate had sent none, having resolved to make no terms with the Samnites, and to accept only their absolute submission. They had never dreamed of such a turn of the tide as this.
In the absence of the proper officer, the consuls and all the surviving officers took the oath, while it was agreed that six hundred knights should be held as hostages until the Roman people had ratified the treaty. Why Pontius did not insist on treating with the senate and people of Rome at once, instead of trusting to them to ratify a treaty made with prisoners of war, we are not told. He was soon to learn how weak a reed to lean upon was the Roman faith.
The treaty made, the humiliating part of the affair came. The Roman army was obliged to march under the yoke, which consisted of two spears set upright and a third fastened across their tops. Under this the soldiers of the legions without their arms, and wearing but a single article of clothing,--the campestre or kilt, which reached from the waist to the knees,--pa.s.sed in gloomy succession. Even the consuls were obliged to appear in this humble plight, the six hundred hostage knights alone being spared.
This was no peculiar insult, but a common usage on such occasions. The Romans had imposed it more than once on defeated enemies. They were now to endure it themselves, and the affair, under the name of the Caudine Forks, has become famous in history.
Pontius proved, indeed, generous to his foes. He supplied carriages for the sick and wounded, and furnished provisions to last the army until it should arrive at Home. When that city was reached the senate and people came out and welcomed the soldiers with the greatest kindness. But the wounded pride of the legionaries could not be soothed. Those who had homes in the country stole from the ranks and sought their several dwellings. Those who lived in Rome lingered without the walls until after the sun had fallen, and then made their way home through the darkness. The consuls were obliged to enter in open day, but as soon as possible they sought their homes, and shut themselves up in privacy.
As for the city, it went into mourning. All business was suspended; the patricians laid aside their gold rings and took off the red border of their dresses which marked their rank; the plebeians appeared in mourning garbs; there was as much weeping for those who had returned in dishonor as for those left dead on the field; all rejoicings, festivals, and marriages were set aside for a year of happier omen.
The final result was such as might have been expected from the earlier record of Rome. The senate refused to recognize the treaty. The defeated consuls themselves sustained this bad faith, saying that they and all the officers should be given up to the Samnites, as having promised what they were unable to perform.
This was done. Half stripped, as when they pa.s.sed under the yoke, and their hands bound behind their backs, the officers were conducted by the fecialis to the Samnian frontier, and delivered to the Samnites as men who had forfeited their liberty by their breach of faith. The surrender completed, Postumius, one of the consuls, struck a fecialis violently with his knee,--his hands and feet being bound,--and cried out,--
”I now belong to the Samnites, and I have done violence to the sacred person of a Roman fecialis and amba.s.sador. You will rightfully wage war with us, Romans, to avenge this outrage.”
This transparent trick was wasted on Pontius. He refused the victims offered him. They were not the guilty ones, he said. The legions must be placed again in the Caudium Valley, or Rome keep the treaty. Anything else would be base and faithless.
The treaty was not kept. The war went on. And nearly thirty years afterwards, as we have told in the preceding story, Pontius, who had behaved so generously to the Romans, was led as a prisoner in a Roman triumph, and then basely beheaded while the triumphal car of the victor ascended the Capitoline Hill. His death is one of the darkest blots on the Roman name. ”Such a murder,” we are told, ”committed or sanctioned by such a man as Q. Fabius, is peculiarly a national crime, and proves but too clearly that in their dealings with foreigners the Romans had neither magnanimity, nor humanity, nor justice.”
_THE FATE OF REGULUS._
We have followed the growth of Rome from its seed in the cradle of Romulus and Remus to its early maturity in the conquest of Italy. Its triumph over the Latins, Samnites, and Etruscans had made it virtually master of that peninsula. In the year 280 B.C. it was first called upon to meet a great foreign soldier in the celebrated Pyrrhus of Epirus, who had invaded Italy. How this great soldier scared the Romans with his elephants and defeated them in the field, but was finally baffled and left the country in disgust, we have told in ”Historical Tales of Greece.” It was not many years after this that Rome herself went abroad in search of new foes, and her long and bitter struggle with Carthage began.
The great city of Carthage lay on the African side of the Mediterranean, where it had won for itself a great empire, and had added to its dominion by important conquests in Spain and Sicily. Settled many centuries before by emigrants from the Phoenician city of Tyre, it had, like its mother city, grown rich through commerce, and was now lord of the Mediterranean and one of the great cities of the earth. With this city Rome was now to begin a mighty struggle, which would last for many years and end in the utter destruction of the great African city and state.
Pyrrhus of Epirus, on leaving Sicily, had said, ”What a grand arena this would be for Rome and Carthage to contend upon!” And it was in the island of Sicily that the struggle between these two mighty powers began. In the year 264 B.C., nearly five centuries after the founding of Rome, that city first sent its armies beyond the borders of Italy, and the long contest between Rome and Carthage was inaugurated.
Some soldiers of fortune, who had invaded Sicily and found themselves in trouble, called upon Rome for help. Carthage, which held much of the island, was also appealed to, and both sent armies. The result was a collision between these armies. In two years' time most of Sicily belonged to Rome, and Carthage retained hardly a foothold upon that island.
This rapid success of the Romans in foreign conquest encouraged them greatly. But they were soon to find themselves at a disadvantage. Being an inland power, they knew nothing of ocean warfare, and possessed none but small s.h.i.+ps. Carthage, on the contrary, had a large and powerful fleet, and now began to use it with great effect. By its aid the Carthaginians took from Rome many towns on the coast of Sicily. They also landed on and ravaged the coasts of Italy. It was made evident to the Roman senate that if they looked for success they must meet the enemy on their own element, and dispute with Carthage the dominion of the sea.