History of Rome, books 1-10

The things which tell most in war are the numbers and courage of the troops, the ability of the commanders, and Fortune, who has such a potent influence over human affairs, especially those of war.

Any one who considers these factors either separately or in combination will easily see that as the Roman empire proved invincible against other kings and nations, so it would have proved invincible against Alexander.

Let us, first of all, compare the commanders on each side. I do not dispute that Alexander was an exceptional general, but his reputation is enhanced by the fact that he died while still young and before he had time to experience any change of fortune.

Not to mention other kings and illustrious captains, who afford striking examples of the mutability of human affairs, I will only instance Cyrus, whom the Greeks celebrate as one of the greatest of men. What was it that exposed him to reverses and misfortunes but the length of his life, as recently in the case of Pompey the Great?

Let me enumerate the Roman generals —not all out of all ages but only those with whom as consuls and Dictators Alexander would have had to fight —

M. Valerius Corvus, C. Marcius Rutilus, C. Sulpicius, T. Manlius Torquatus, Q. Publilius Philo, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, the two Decii, L. Volumnius, and Manlius Curius. Following these come those men of colossal mould who would have confronted him if he had first turned his arms against Carthage and then crossed over into Italy later in life.

Every one of these men was Alexander's equal in courage and ability, and the

art of war, which from the beginning of the City had been an unbroken tradition, had now grown into a science based on definite and permanent rules. It was thus that the kings conducted their wars, and alter them the Junii and the Valerii, who expelled the kings, and in later succession the Fabii, the Quinctii, and the Cornelii.

It was these rules that Camillus followed, and the men who would have had to fight with Alexander had seen Camillus as an old man when they were little more than boys. Alexander no doubt did all that a soldier ought to do in battle, and that is not his least title to fame.

But if Manlius Torquatus had been opposed to him in the field, would he have been inferior to him in this respect, or Valerius Corvus, both of them distinguished as soldiers before they assumed command?

Would the Decii, who, after devoting themselves, rushed upon the enemy, or Papirius Cursor with his vast physical courage and strength?

Would the clever generalship of one young man have succeeded in baffling the whole senate, not to mention individuals, that senate of which he, who declared that it was composed of kings, alone formed a true idea?

Was there any danger of his showing more skill than any of those whom I have mentioned in choosing the site for his camp, or organising his commissariat, or guarding against surprises, or choosing the right moment for giving battle, or disposing his men in line of battle and posting his reserves to the best advantage?

He would have said that it was not with Darius that he had to do, dragging after him a train of women and eunuchs, wrapped up in purple and gold, encumbered with all the trappings of state, He found him an easy prey rather than a formidable enemy and defeated him without loss, without being called to do anything more daring than to show a just contempt for the idle show of power.

The aspect of Italy would have struck him as very different from the India which he traversed in drunken revelry with an intoxicated army; he would have seen in the passes of Apulia and the mountains of Lucania the traces of the recent disaster which befell his house when his uncle Alexander, King of Epirus, perished.

I am speaking of Alexander as he was before he was submerged in the flood of success, for no man was less capable of bearing prosperity than he was.

If we look at him as transformed by his new fortunes and presenting the new character, so to

speak, which he had assumed after his victories, it is evident he would have come into Italy more like Darius than Alexander, and would have brought with him an army which had forgotten its native Macedonia and was rapidly becoming Persian in character.

It is a disagreeable task in the case of so great a man to have to record his ostentatious love of dress; the prostrations which he demanded from all who approached his presence, and which the Macedonians must have felt to be humiliating, even had they been vanquished, how much more when they were victors;

the terribly cruel punishments he in- flicted; the murder of his friends at the banquet-table; the vanity which made him invent a divine pedigree for himself.

What, pray, would have happened if his love of wine had become stronger and his passionate nature more violent and fiery as he grew older? I am only stating facts about which there is no dispute. Are we to regard none of these things as serious draw- backs to his merits as a commander?

Or was there any danger of that happening which the most frivolous of the Greeks, who actually extol the Parthians at the expense of the Romans, are so constantly harping upon, namely, that the Roman people must have bowed before the greatness of Alexander's name — though I do not think they had even beard of him —and

that not one out of all the Roman chiefs would have uttered his true sentiments about him, though men dared to attack him in Athens, the very city which had been shattered by Macedonian arms and almost well in sight of the smoking ruins of `Thebes, and the speeches of his assailants are still extant to prove this? However lofty our ideas of this man's greatness, still it is the greatness of one individual, attained in a successful career of little more than ten years.

Those who extol it on the ground that though Rome has never lost a war she has lost many battle, whilst Alexander has never fought a battle unsuccess- fully, are not aware that they are comparing the actions of one individual, and he a youth, with the achievements of a people who have had 8oo years of war.

Where more generations are reckoned on one side than years on the other, can we be sur- prised that in such a long space of time there

have been more changes of fortune than in a period of thirteen years? Why do you not compare the fortunes of one man with another, of one commander with another?

How many Roman generals could I name who have never been unfortunate in a single battle! You may run through page after page of the lists of magistrates, both consuls and Dictators, and not find one with whose valour and fortunes the Roman people have ever for a single day had cause to be dissatisfied.

And these men are more worthy of admiration than Alexander or any other king.

Some retained the Dictatorship for only ten or twenty days; none held a con- sulship for more than a year; the levying of troops was often obstructed by the tribunes of the plebs; they were late, in consequence, in taking the field, and were often recalled before the time to conduct the elections;

frequently, when they were commencing some important operation, their year of office expired; their colleagues frustrated or ruined their plans, some through recklessness, some through jealousy; they often had to succeed to the mistakes or failures of others and take over an army of raw recruits or one in a bad state of discipline.

Kings are free from all hindrances; they are lords of time and circumstance, and draw all things into the sweep of their own designs.

Thus, the invincible Alexander would have crossed swords with invincible captains, and would have given the same pledges to Fortune which they gave.

Nay, he would have run greater risks than they, for the Macedonians had only one Alexander, who was not only liable to all sorts of accidents but deliberately exposed himself to them, whilst there were

many Romans equal to Alexander in glory and in the grandeur of their deeds, and yet each of them might fulfil his destiny by his life or by his death without imperilling the existence of the State.

It remains for us to compare the one army with the other as regards either the numbers or the quality of the troops or the strength of the allied forces.

Now the census for that period gives 250,000 persons. In all the revolts of the Latin league ten legions were raised, consisting almost entirely of city troops.

Often during those years four or five armies were engaged simultaneously in Etruria, in Umbria (where they had to meet the Gauls as well), in Samnium, and in Lucania.

Then as regards the attitude of the various Italian tribes —the whole of Latium with the Sabines, Volscians, and Aequi, the whole of Campania, parts of Umbria and Etruria, the Picentines, the Marsi, and Paeligni, the Vestinians and Apulians, to which we should add the entire coast of the western sea, with its Greek population, stretching from Thurii to Neapolis and Cumae, and from there as far as Antium and Ostia —all these nationalities he would have found to be either strong allies of Rome or reduced to impotence by Roman arms.

He would have crossed the sea with his Macedonian veterans, amounting to not more than 30,000 men and 4000 cavalry, mostly Thracian. This formed all his real strength. If he had brought over in addition Persian and Indians and other Orientals, he would have found them a hindrance rather than a help.

We must remember also that the Romans had a reserve to draw upon at home, but Alexander, warring on a foreign soil, would have found his army diminished by the wastage of war, as happened afterwards to Hannibal.

His men were armed with round shields and long spears, the Romans had the large shield called the scutum, a better protection for the body, and the javelin, a much more effective weapon than the spear whether for hurling or thrusting.

In both armies the soldiers fought in line rank by rank, but the Macedonian phalanx lacked mobility and formed a single unit; the Roman army was more elastic, made up of numerous divisions, which could easily act separately or in combination as required.

Then with regard to fatigue duty, what soldier is better able to stand hard work than the Roman? If Alexander had been worsted in one battle the war would have been over; what army could have broken the strength of Rome, when Caudium and Cannae failed to do so?

Even if things had gone well with him at first, he would often have been tempted to wish that Persians and Indians and effeminate Asiatics were his foes, and would have confessed that

his former wars had been waged against women, as Alexander of Epirus is reported to have said when after receiving his moral wound was comparing his own fortune with that of this very youth in his Asiatic campaigns.

When I remember that in the first Punic war we fought at sea for twenty-four years, I think that Alexander would hardly have lived long enough to see one war through.

It is quite possible, too, that as Rome and Carthage were at that time leagued together by an old-standing treaty, the same apprehensions might have led those two powerful states to take up arms against the common foe, and Alexander would have been crushed by their combined forces.

Rome has had experience of a Macedonian war, not indeed when Alexander was commanding nor when the resources of Macedon were still unimpaired, but the contests against Antiochus, Philip, and Perses were fought not only without loss but even without risk. I trust that I shall not give offence when I say that, leaving out of sight the civil wars, we have never found an enemy's cavalry or infantry too much

for us, when we have fought in the open field, on ground equally favourable for both sides, still less when the ground has given us an advantage.

The infantry soldier, with his heavy armour and weapons, may reasonable fear the arrows of Parthian cavalry, or passes invested by the enemy, or country where supplies cannot be brought up,

but he has repulsed a thousand armies more formidable than those of Alexander and his Macedonians, and will repulse them in the future if only the domestic peace and concord which we now enjoy remains undisturbed for all the years to come.

M. Foslius Flaccina and L. Plautius Venox were the next consuls. In this year several communities amongst the Samnites made overtures for a fresh treaty. These deputations, when admitted to an audience, prostrated themselves on the ground, and their humble attitude influenced the senate in their favour.

Their prayers, however, were by no means so efficacious with the Assembly, to which they had been referred by the senate.

Their request for a treaty was refused, but after they had spent several days in appealing to individual citizens, they succeeded in obtaining a two years' truce.

In Apulia, too, the people of Teanum and Canusium, tired of the constant ravages which they had suffered, gave hostages and surrendered to the consul, L. Plautius.

It was in this year also that prefects were first appointed for Capua and a code of laws given to that city by the praetor, L. Furius.

Both these boons were granted in response to a request from the Campanians themselves as a remedy for the deplorable state of things brought about by civic discord.

Two new tribes were formed, the Ufentine and the Falernian. As the power of Apulia was declining, the people of Teate came to the new consuls, C. Junius Bubulcus and Q. Aemilius Barbula, to negotiate for a treaty.

They gave a formal undertaking that throughout Apulia peace would be maintained towards Rome, and the confident assurances they gave led to a treaty being granted, not, however, as between two independent states; they were to acknowledge the suzerainty of Rome.

After the subjugation of Apulia —for Forentum, also a place of considerable strength, had been captured by Junius —an advance was made into Lucania, and the consul, Aemilius, surprised and captured the city of Nerulum.

The order introduced into Capua by the adoption of Roman institutions had become generally known amongst the states in alliance with Rome, and the Antiates asked for the same privilege, as they were without a fixed code of laws or any regular magistrates of their own. The patrons of the colony were commissioned by the senate to draw out a system of jurisprudence. Not only the arms of Rome but her laws were spreading far and wide.

At the termination of their year of office the consuls did not hand the legions over to their successors, Sp. Nautius and M. Popilius, but to the Dictator, L. Aemilius.

In conjunction with M. Fulvius, the Master of the Horse, he commenced an attack on Saticula, and the Samnites at once seized this opportunity to renew hostilities.

The Romans were threatened by a double danger; the Samnites, after getting a large army together, had entrenched themselves not far from the Roman camp in order to relieve their blockaded allies, whilst the Saticulans suddenly flung their gates open and made a tumultuous attack on the Roman outposts.

The two bodies of combatants, each relying more on the help of the other than on its own strength, united in a regular attack on the Roman camp. Though both sides of the camp were attacked, the Dictator kept his men free from panic, owing to his having selected a position which could not easily be turned, and also because his men presented two fronts.

He directed his efforts mainly against those who had made the sortie, and drove them back, without much trouble, behind their walls. Then he turned his whole strength against the Samnites.

Here the fighting was more sustained and the victory was longer in coming, but when it did come it was decisive. The Samnites were driven in disorder to their camp, and after extinguishing all the camp fires they departed silently in the night, having abandoned all hope of saving Saticula. By way of retaliation they invested Plistica, a city in alliance with Rome.

The year having expired, the war was thenceforward carried on by the Dictator, Q. Fabius, whilst the new consuls, like their predecessors, remained in Rome. Fabius marched with reinforcements to Saticula to take over the army from Aemilius.

The Samnites did not remain before Plistica; they had called up fresh troops from home, and trusting to their numbers they fixed their camp on the same ground as in the previous year and endeavoured to distract the Romans from their siege operations by a series of harassing attacks.

This made the Dictator all the more determined to press the siege, as he Considered that the reduction of the place would largely affect the character of the war; he treated the Samnites with comparative indifference, and merely strengthened the pickets on that side of the camp to meet any attack that might be made.

This emboldened the Samnites; they rode up to the rampart day after day and allowed the Romans no rest. At last they almost got within the gates of the camp, when Q. Aulius, the Master of the Horse, without consulting the Dictator, charged them furiously from the camp with the whole of his cavalry and drove them off.

Though this was only a desultory conflict, Fortune influenced it so largely that she inflicted a signal loss on both sides and brought about the deaths of both Commanders.

First, the Samnite general, indignant at being repulsed and put to flight from the ground over which he had ridden with such confidence, induced his cavalry by entreaties and encouragement to renew the combat.

Whilst he was conspicuous amongst them as he urged on the fighting, the Master of the Horse levelled his lance and spurred his horse against him with such force that with one thrust he hurled him from his saddle dead.

His men were not, as often happens, dismayed at their leader's fall. All who were round him flung their missiles on Aulius, who had incautiously ridden on amongst them, but they allowed the dead general's brother to have the special glory of avenging his death.

In a frenzy of grief and rage he dragged the Master of the Morse out of his saddle and slew him.

The Samnites, amongst whom he had fallen, would have secured the body had not the Romans suddenly leaped from their horses, on which the Samnites were obliged to do the same. A fierce infantry fight raged round the bodies of the two generals in which the Roman was decidedly superior; the body of Aulius was rescued, and amidst mingled demonstrations of grief and joy the victors carried it into camp.

After losing their leader and seeing the unfavourable result of the trial of strength in the cavalry action, the Samnites considered it useless to make any further efforts on behalf of Saticula and resumed the siege of Plistica. A few days later Saticula surrendered to the Romans and Plistica was carried by assault by the Samnites

The seat of war was now changed; the legions were marched from Samnium and Apulia to Sora.

This place had revolted to the Samnites alter putting the Roman colonists to death. The Roman army marched thither with all speed to avenge the death of their countrymen and to re-establish the colony.

No sooner had they arrived before the place than the reconnoitring parties who had been watching the different routes brought in reports one after another that the Samnites were following and were now at no great distance.

The consul marched to meet the enemy, and an indecisive action was fought at Lantulae.

The battle was put a stop to, not by the losses or flight of either side but by night, which overtook the combatants while still uncertain whether they were victors or vanquished.

I find in some authorities that this battle was unfavourable to the Romans, and that Q. Aulius, the Master of the Horse, fell there. C. Fabius was appointed Master of the Horse in his place and came with a fresh army from Rome. He sent orderlies in advance to consult the Dictator as to where he should take up his position and also as to the time and mode of attacking the enemy.

After becoming thoroughly acquainted with the Dictator's plans, he halted his army in a place where he was well concealed.

The Dictator kept his men for some days confined to their camp, as though he were enduring a siege rather than conducting one. At last he suddenly displayed the signal for battle. Thinking that brave men were more likely to have their courage stimulated when all their hopes depended upon themselves, he kept the arrival of the Master

of the Horse and the fresh army concealed from his soldiers, and as though all their prospects of safety depended upon their cutting their way out, he said to his men:

“We have been caught in a position where we are shut in, and we have no way out unless we can open one by our victorious swords. Our standing camp is sufficiently protected by its entrenchments, but it is untenable owing to want of provisions; all the places from which supplies could be obtained have revolted, and even if the people were willing to help us the country is impassable for convoys.

I shall not cheat your courage by leaving a camp here into which you can retire, as you did on the last occasion, without winning the victory.

Entrenchments are to be protected by arms, not arms by entrenchments. Let those who think it worth their while to prolong the war hold their camp as a place of retreat; we must have regard to nothing but victory.

Advance the standards against the enemy, and when the column is clear of the camp those who have been told off for the purpose will set it on fire.

What you lose, soldiers, will he made up to you in the plunder of all the surrounding cities which have revolted.” The Dictator's words, pointing to the dire necessity to which they were reduced, produced intense excitement, and rendered desperate by the sight of the burning camp- the Dictator had only ordered some spots nearest to them to be set on fire —they charged like madmen, and at the first onset threw the enemy into confusion.