VII. End as of 3/20/95
VIII. VIII.Pyrrhus's Legacy--Now the World's Out to Get Us!
A. Romans had acquired new borders, new enemies, with each acquisition
B. Now they were coming from outside of Italy
1. Pyrrhus, evacuates in 275, but the Adriatic isn't that big a sea
2. Tarentum: Carthaginian ships in the harbor when the city fell in 270
a) Rome past relationship--treaty of 509
(1) Roman ships not to enter Carthaginian trading sphere
(2) Roman ships CAN repair themselves and make repairs
b) Treaty of 306
(1) Carthaginians will intervene in Italy,
(2) Rome stays out of Sicily
3. Problems:
a) Coasts of Italy vulnerable to naval assault: Dionysius I's invasions of the 370's, conquest of the Greek cities
b) Romans worried by Carthaginian practice of hiring mercenaries from the Ligurians and Gauls to the North of them
(1) Romans hostile to both
(2) Carthaginians encouraging them to fight
(3) Note: Carthage (especially after disastrous 4th century wars) had no choice but to hire mercenaries and get supplies from Italy
c) Collapse of Syracuse as a buffer state
(1) Syracuse and Carthage had been fighting since before the Halorus, 491
(2) Dionysius I (401-367) had turned Syracuse into a very powerful militarized state that held its own and kept the Carthaginians busy until the old man bit the big one in 367
(3) Dionysius II (to 356) and Dion began to let things slide
d) Timoleon (Life!) pulled it out of the fire at Hadranum in 344 and in the devastating victory at the Crimisus river in 341, and tried to rebuild the cities and resotre democracy (see p. 365)
(1) Agathocles, Syracuse's latest tyrant, had gone so far as to invade North Africa in 310 and at least terrified the Carthaginians until he had to abandon his army there in 307
(2) Agathocles more or less left Syracuse and Sicily in ruins by 304, and Carthage was recovering faster.
(3) By 275 Hiero was general of the Syracusan army fighting the Mamertines (Pyrrhus's old enemies), proclaimed king by 265.
(4) Hiero was going to try and play Rome against Syracuse if it came to that
4. Pyrrhus had correctly reasoned that to defend Italy from North Africa, it would be helpful to hold Sicily,
a) He was trying to divide the Carthaginians from the Romans but
b) They did not really help each other more than just to fight the same guy at the same time.
c) Completely differing world views:
(1) Romans farming plains dwellers, suspicious of different things and people
(2) Carthaginians traveling sailor-traders
(a) Descendants of the Phoenicians,
(i) Colony of Tyre, founded in 814
(ii) Eventual North African agricultural empire out of Berber territories, longest war and oldest enmity.
(b) Finest sailors in the Ancient World, Roman poeni, hence "Punic."
(c) As traders "Red Dye Men", suspicious
(d) Practiced human sacrifice
(i) Moloch Ba'al, male children
(ii) Some animal substitution
(iii) For emergencies or other possibilities
(e) Attitude not unlike U.S. attitude toward Japanese, even after the 1st War, cf. Plautus's _Poenulus_.
(i) Carthaginian trader the hero!
(ii) Sells everything from sandal straps to panthers
(iii) Joke: he's looking for a little Carthaginian--"lots of little Carthaginians missing, these days!
(3) Romans fought their own infantry battles
(4) Carthaginians fought their own battles at sea, but nobody had fought them at sea since the wars with Phocaea in the 530's
(5) Carthaginian generals were professional commanders of mercenaries, crucified if they were defeated
(6) Roman generals unpaid politician/amateurs with citizen soldiers
d) Similarities:
(1) Carthage, too, dominated by clique of powerful ruling families
(2) Twin magistrates: Shophets vs. Consuls
(3) Like the Romans, at their very best in a crisis
5. Hiero, out to rebuild Syracuse, was attacking Messana
6. If Pyrrhus had wanted it, the Romans would want it--so reasoned the Mamertines.
a) Agathocles hired mercenaries and used other troops to kill them when payday came around
b) These had gotten away from him, Italians (sons of Mars) and set themselves up in Messana where they could prey on their neighbors and charge tolls on the strait
c) They'd asked the Carthaginians in after Hiero beat them in 265, and asked the Romans in to get rid of the Carthaginians
7. The Carthaginians had always wanted it, because they wanted to control the straits of Messana
8. After Pyrrhus and the ships at Tarentum, the Romans (at length) decided that they had better have it and threw the Carthaginians out.
C. 1st Punic War: 264-241
1. Hiero switches sides in 263--find the Romans more dangerous and makes a good settlement
a) Pays indemnity
b) Supplies Roman army
c) Italian trade rebuilds Syracuse
2. Romans bumping off old Carthaginian fortresses, Agrigentum/Carthaginians pumping men and supplies into attacked fortresses, raiding Italy
3. Roman counter: colonies along the coast, and building the fleet--261
a) Romans not nearly as land-bound as people would have you think
(1) Duumviri navales as of conquest of Campania in 311 for 10-ship coast guard
(2) 1st Roman silver coin cf. 300 had a warship prow on it, although it unintentionally (?!) resembled an Egyptian drachma
(3) Seven ships sunk in Gulf ot Taranto
(4) Had conquered seafaring Greeks of Southern Italy
b) Age of Immense Naval Innovation
(1) Naval arms race in the Hellenistic East
(2) Availability of Engineers?
(3) Availability of Naval Mercenaries
(4) Roman amicitia with Ptolemy II in 273
(a) Ptolemy II possessed the most powerful fleet the ancient world ever saw
(b) His arms race had fits and starts, plenty of times for the Romans to hire an engineer and adapt the corvus from his larger vessels
(5) Mock-ups, the Corvus and details of its use
(6) 3's, 100 5's
c) Carthaginians get a shock at Mylae in 260
d) Romans still can't take Lilybaeum, massive Carthaginian fortress
e) Romans take a page from Greek History (which they're not supposed to know!) and strike at North Africa (a la Agathocles), 256
f) Carthaginians take a page from Greek tactics and hire Xanthippus
g) Stories of Regulus and fate of his army,
h) Romans lose two fleets and survivors of Regulus's expedition
i) Peace offer in 249
j) 1st public loan to build new fleet
k) Claudius Pulcher loses in 249 96 5's vs. Carthaginians at Drepana near Lilybaeum: Sacred Chickens.
l) Aegaetes Islands, 241--it's over
D. Terms and Romaica Fides
1. 3,200T indemnity over 10 years
2. Out of Sicily
3. Carthaginian mercenary revolt in Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily--the Truceless War, 238-225
4. Romans DECLARE WAR on Carthage
a) Grab Sardinia, Corsica
b) Demand additional indemnity of 1,200 T
5. They got the islands, but the price they paid was Hannibal
E. "We taught them a lesson in 1918..."
1. Punic curse: Violation of the ancient treaty of friendship
a) Provincial Administration: City-State to World Empire
(1) Roman system of government: Imperium
(a) Praetors up had it, two of these sent to run Sicily, Sardinia-Corsica
(b) Difficulty in supervision, support
(2) Newer problem: Sicilians, Sardinians, Corsicans NOT Italians
(a) Original meaning of province: the Consul's allotted military area
(b) (b)Taxed to support Roman administration: the decumana (1/10th) in Sicily, payable in grain, from Greeks and Carthaginians (using their books!)
(c) Tax Farmers: Imagine the IRS run by Donald Trump
(d) No further extension of the citizenship WHICH led to to
(e) Revolts, and need for provincial armies, eventual doom.
b) Economic shift
(1) Overseas provinces=overseas trade
(2) Rome needed farmers for soldiers and grain
(3) Sicily and the grain-tax obviated that
(4) Flaminius(tribune, cos. 223, 217)
(a) Policy of chopping up the ager publicus lands above the Poe: more soldiers, more votes
(b) Via Flaminia--Northern military road as Censor, man who let the public contracts
(c) Attempted (we think) to allow his new voters to have more say at Rome
(5) Senate's opposition led to his blackened reputation, see Starr p. 482.
(6) He had his revenge--Lex Claudia Maritima of 218, no Senator could own a ship bigger than a coastal barge.
(7) Rise of the Roman mercantile cast, the Knights--Explain term.
2. Carthage, meanwhile. . . (Rage)
a) No navy, no island empire
b) Old Punic holdings in Spain for Silver and Tin
(1) Spanish extremely fierce, but could be bought
(2) Control mines and control wealth
(3) Carthago Nova=Cartagena
c) Hamilcar Barca
(1) One of the most determined and successful Carthaginian generals
(a) Raided Roman coast
(b) Negotiated Surrender while fighting in Sicily
(c) Defeated the Mercenaries
(d) Governor, with son, of Spain, 237-228
(2) Each of his three sons invaded Italy
d) Hannibal Barca, 247-182
(1) Governor of Spain from 221
(2) Systematically gathering army and conquering border tribes
(3) Story of the oath
3. Romans also getting ready (Paranoia)
a) Vengeance on Pyrrhus's ghost--Epirote pirate campaign, 229-8 (Stabilization of Eastern Frontier)
b) Use of short-sighted Flaminius's Road vs. Gauls in 225
c) Colonies in areas Carthage recruited Gallic, Ligurian mercenaries
d) Alliance with Massilia, Greek since 600, founded by Carthage's enemies, the Phocaeans
e) The Ebro trip-wire, 226
f) Alliance with Saguntum--SOUTH of the Ebro
IX. End as of 3/27