Historical Tales Volume Xi Part 12

"The guarantee refers to the people of Carthage, not to her houses,"

answered the consul. "You have heard the will of the senate; it must be obeyed, and quickly."

Carthage, meanwhile, waited in gloomy dread the return of the commissioners. When they gave in the council-chamber the ultimatum of Rome, a cry of horror broke from the councillors. The crowd in the street, on hearing this ominous sound, broke open the doors and demanded what fatal news had been received.

On being told, they burst into a paroxysm of fury. The members of the government who had submitted to Rome were obliged to fly for their lives. Every Italian found in the city was killed. The party of the people seized the government, and resolved to defend themselves to the uttermost. An armistice of thirty days was asked from the consuls, that a deputation might be sent to Rome. This was refused. Despair gave courage and strength. The making of new arms was energetically begun.

Temples and public buildings were converted into workshops; men and women by thousands worked night and day; every day there were produced one hundred s.h.i.+elds, three hundred swords, five hundred pikes and javelins, and one thousand bolts for catapults. The women even cut off their hair to be twisted into strings for the catapults. Corn was gathered in all haste from every quarter.

The consuls were astonished and disappointed. They had not counted on such energy as this. They did not know what it meant to drive a foe to desperation. They laid siege to Carthage, but found it too strong for all their efforts. They proceeded against the Carthaginian army in the field, but gained no success. Summer and winter pa.s.sed, and Carthage still held out. Another year (148 B.C.) went by, and Rome still lost ground. Old Cato, the bitter foe of Carthage, had died, at the age of eighty-five. Masinissa, the warlike Numidian, had died at ninety-five.

The hopes of the Carthaginians grew. Those of Rome began to fall. The rich booty that was looked for from the sack of Carthage was not to be handled so easily as had been expected.

What Rome lacked was an able general. One was found in Scipio, the adopted son of Publius Scipio, son of the great Scipio Africa.n.u.s. This young man had proved himself the only able soldier in the war. The army adored him. Though too young for the consuls.h.i.+p, he was elected to that high office, and in 147 B.C. sailed for Carthage.

The new commander found the army disorganized, and immediately restored strict discipline to its ranks. The suburb of Megara, from which the people of the city obtained their chief supply of fresh provisions, was quickly taken. Want of food began to be felt. The isthmus which connected the city with the mainland was strongly occupied, and land-supplies were thus cut off. The fleet blockaded the harbor, but, as vessels still made their way in, Scipio determined to build an embankment across the harbor's mouth.

This was a work of great labor, and slowly proceeded. By the time it was done the Carthaginians had cut a new channel from their harbor to the sea, and Scipio had the mortification to see a newly-built fleet of fifty s.h.i.+ps sail out through this fresh pa.s.sage. On the third day a naval battle took place, in which the greater part of the new fleet was destroyed.

Another winter came and went. It was not until the spring of 146 B.C.

that the Romans succeeded in forcing their way into the city, and their legions bivouacked in the Forum of Carthage.

But Carthage was not yet taken. Its death-struggle was to be a desperate one. The streets leading from the Forum towards the Citadel were all strongly barricaded, and the houses, six stories in height, occupied by armed men. For three days a war of desperation was waged in the streets. The Romans had to take the first houses of each street by a.s.sault, and then force their way forward by breaking from house to house. The cross streets were pa.s.sed on bridges of planks.

Thus they slowly advanced till the wall of Bosra--the high ground of the Citadel--was reached. Behind them the city was in flames. For six days and nights it burned, destroying the wealth and works of years. When the fire declined pa.s.sages were cleared through the ruins for the army to advance.

Scipio, who had scarcely slept night or day during the a.s.sault, now lay down for a short repose, on an eminence from which could be seen the Temple of Esculapius, whose gilded roof glittered on the highest point of the hill of Bosra. He was aroused to receive an offer from the garrison to surrender if their lives were spared. Scipio consented to spare all but Roman deserters, and from the gates of the Citadel marched out fifty thousand men as prisoners of war.

Hasdrubal, the Carthaginian commander, who had made so brave a defence against Rome, retired with his family and nine hundred deserters and others into the Temple of Esculapius, as if to make a final desperate defence. But his heart failed him at the last moment, and, slipping out alone, he cast himself at Scipio's feet, and begged his pardon and mercy. His wife, who saw his dastardly act, reproached him bitterly for cowardice, and threw herself and her children into the flames which enveloped the Citadel. Most of the deserters perished in the same flames.

"a.s.syria has fallen," said Scipio, as he looked with eyes of prevision on the devouring flames. "Persia and Macedonia have likewise fallen.

Carthage is burning. The day of Rome's fall may come next."

For five days the soldiers plundered the city, yet enough of statues and other valuables remained to yield the consul a magnificent triumph on his return to Rome. Before doing so he celebrated the fall of Carthage with grand games, in which the spoil of that great city was shown the army. To Rome he sent the brief despatch, "Carthage is taken. The army waits for further orders."

The orders sent were that the walls should be destroyed and every house levelled to the ground. A curse was p.r.o.nounced by Scipio on any one who should seek to build a town on the site. The curse did not prove effective. Julius Caesar afterwards projected a new Carthage, and Augustus built it. It grew to be a n.o.ble city, and in the third century A.D. became one of the princ.i.p.al cities of the Roman empire and an important seat of Western Christianity. It was finally destroyed by the Arabs.

_THE GRACCHI AND THEIR FALL._

In the a.s.sault by the Roman forces on Megara, the suburb of Carthage, the first to mount the wall was a young man named Tiberius Gracchus, brother-in-law of Scipio, the commander, and grandson of the famous Scipio Africa.n.u.s. This young man and his brother were to play prominent parts in Rome.

One day when the great Scipio was feasting in the Capitol, with other senators of Rome, he was asked by some friends to give his daughter Cornelia in marriage to Tiberius Gracchus, a young plebeian. Proud patrician as he was, he consented, for Gracchus was highly esteemed for probity, and had done him a personal service.

On his return home he told his wife that he had promised his daughter to a plebeian. The good woman, who had higher aims, blamed him severely for his folly, as she deemed it. But when she was told the name of her proposed son-in-law she changed her mind, saying that Gracchus was the only man worthy of the gift.

Of Cornelia's children three became notable, a daughter, who became the wife of the younger Scipio, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, who are known in history as "The Gracchi." Their father became famous in war and peace, taking important steps in the needed movement of reform. He died, and after his death many sought the hand of the n.o.ble Cornelia in marriage, among them King Ptolemy of Egypt. But she refused them all, devoting her life to the education of her children, for which she was admirably fitted by her lofty spirit and high attainments.

Concerning this lady, one of the greatest and n.o.blest which Rome produced, there is an anecdote, often repeated, yet well worth repeating again. A Campanian lady who called upon her, and boastfully spoke of her wealth in gold and precious stones, asked Cornelia for the pleasure of seeing her jewels. Leading her visitor to another room, the n.o.ble matron pointed to her sleeping children, and said, "There are my jewels; the only ones of which I am proud."

These children were born to troublous times. Rome had grown in corruption and ostentation as she had grown in wealth and dominion. When the first Punic War broke out Rome ruled only over Central and Southern Italy. When the third Punic War ended Rome was lord of all Italy, Spain, and Greece, and had wide possessions in Asia Minor and Northern Africa.

Wealth had flowed abundantly into the imperial city, and with it pride, corruption, and oppression. The great grew greater, the poor poorer, and the old simplicity and frugality of Rome were replaced by overweening luxury and greed of wealth.

The younger Tiberius Gracchus, who was nine years older than his brother, after taking part in the siege of Carthage, went to Spain, where also was work for a soldier. On his way thither he pa.s.sed through Etruria, and saw that in the fields the old freeman farmers had disappeared, and been replaced by foreign slaves, who worked with chains upon their limbs. No Cincinnatus now ploughed his own small fields, but the land was divided up into great estates, cultivated by the captives taken in war; while the poor Romans, by whose courage these lands had been won, had not a foot of soil to call their own.

This spectacle was a sore one to Tiberius, in whose mind the wise teachings of his mother had sunk deep. Here were great s.p.a.ces of fertile land lying untilled, broad parks for the ostentation of their proud possessors, while thousands of Romans languished in poverty, and Rome had begun to depend for food largely upon distant realms.

There was a law, more than two hundred years old, which forbade any man from holding such large tracts of land. Tiberius thought that this law should be enforced. On his return to Rome his indignant eloquence soon roused trouble in that city of rich and poor.

"The wild beasts of the waste have their caves and dens," he said; "but you, the people of Rome, who have fought and bled for its growth and glory, have nothing left you but the air and the sunlight. There are far too many Romans," he continued, "who have no family altar nor ancestral tomb. They have fought well for Rome, and are falsely called the masters of the world; but the results of their fighting can only be seen in the luxury of the great, while not one of them has a clod of dirt to call his own."

Cornelia urged her son to do some work to enn.o.ble his name and benefit Rome.

"I am called the 'daughter of Scipio,'" she said. "I wish to be known as 'the mother of the Gracchi.'"

It was not personal glory, but the good of Rome, that the young reformer sought. He presented himself for the office of tribune, and was elected by the people, who looked upon him as their friend and advocate. And at his appeal they crowded from all quarters into the city to vote for the re-establishment of the Licinian laws,--those forbidding the rich to hold great estates.

These laws were re-enacted, and those lands which the aristocrats had occupied by fraud or force were taken from them by a commission and returned to the state.

All this stirred the proud land-holders to fury. They hated Gracchus with a bitter hatred, and began to plot secretly for his overthrow.

About this time Attalus, king of Pergamus, moved by some erratic whim, left his estates by will to the city of Rome. Those who had been deprived of their lands claimed these estates, to repay them for their outlays in improvement. Gracchus opposed this, and proposed to divide this property among the plebeians, that they might buy cattle and tools for their new estates.

His opponents were still more infuriated by this action. He had offered himself for re-election to the office of tribune, promising the people new and important reforms. His patrician foes took advantage of the opportunity. As he stood in the Forum, surrounded by his partisans, an uproar arose, in the midst of which Gracchus happened to raise his hand to his head. His enemies at once cried out that he wanted to make himself king, and that this was a sign that he sought a crown.

A fierce fight ensued. The opposing senators attacked the crowd so furiously that those around Gracchus fled, leaving him unsupported. He hastened for refuge towards the Temple of Jupiter, but the priests had closed the doors, and in his haste he stumbled over a bench. Before he could rise one of his enemies struck him over the head with a stool. A second repeated the blow. Before the statues of the old kings, which graced the portals of the temple, the tribune fell dead.

Many of his supporters were slain before the tumult ceased. Many were forced over the wall at the edge of the Tarpeian Rock, and were killed by their fall. Three hundred in all were slain in the fray.

Thus was shed the first blood that flowed in civil strife at Rome. It was a crimson prelude to the streams of blood that were to follow, in the long series of butcheries which were afterwards to disgrace the Roman name.

Tiberius Gracchus may well be called the Great, for the effect of his life upon the history of Rome was stupendous. He held office for not more than seven months, yet in that short time the power of the senate was so shaken by him that it never fully recovered its strength. Had he been less gentle, or more resolute, in disposition his work might have been much greater still. Fiery indignation led him on, but soldierly energy failed him at the end.

Caius Gracchus was in Spain at the time of his brother's murder. On his return to Rome he lived in quiet retirement for some years. The senate thought he disapproved of his brother's laws. They did not know him. At length he offered himself as a candidate for the tribunes.h.i.+p, and so convincing was his eloquence that the people supported him in numbers, and he was elected to the office.

He at once made himself an ardent advocate of his brother's reforms, and with such impa.s.sioned oratory that he gained adherents on every side. He made himself active in all measures of public progress, advocating the building of roads and bridges, the erection of mile-stones, the giving the right to vote to Italians in general, and the selling of grain at low rates to the deserving poor. The laws pa.s.sed for these purposes are known as the Semp.r.o.nian laws, from the name of the family to which the Gracchi belonged.

By this time the rich senators had grown highly alarmed. Here was a new Gracchus in the field, as eloquent and as eager for reform as his brother, and who was daily growing more and more in favor with the people. Something must be done at once, or this new demagogue--as they called him--would do them more harm than that for which they had slain his brother.

They adopted the policy of fraud in place of that of violence. The people were gullible; they might be made to believe that the senators of Rome were their best friends. A rich and eloquent politician, Drusus by name, proposed measures more democratic even than those which Gracchus had advocated. This effort had the effect that was intended. The influence of Gracchus over the popular mind was lessened. The people had proved fully as gullible as the shrewd senators had expected.

Among other measures proposed by Gracchus was one for planting a colony and building a new city on the site of Carthage. The senate appeared to approve this, and appointed him one of the commissioners for laying out the settlement. He was forced to leave Rome, and during his absence his enemies worked more diligently than ever. Gracchus was defeated in the election for tribune that followed.

And now the plans of his enemies matured. It was said that the new colony at Carthage had been planted on the ground cursed by Scipio.

Wolves had torn down the boundary-posts, which signified the wrath of the G.o.ds. The tribes were called to meet at the Capitol, and repeal the law for colonizing Carthage.

A tumult arose. A man who insulted Gracchus was slain by an unknown hand. The senate proclaimed Gracchus and his friends public enemies, and roused many of the people against him by parading the body of the slain man. Gracchus and his friends took up a position on the Aventine Hill.

Here they were a.s.sailed by a strong armed force.