Notes as of 4/3/95

IX. End as of 3/27/95

To Notes as of 3/27/95

1. Hannibal takes Saguntum, the Senate takes offense--

2. A bad day in Carthage: party time!

A. The Second Punic War: 218-201

1. A word about Sources:

a) Livy right in there chugging along with some of his best sources and stories,

(1) Used the earlier lost annalists and some state records

(2) Family histories--lots of pro-Scipio stuff and note the effort to make Aemilus Paulus look good even when he's responsible for half of Cannae, and (no family) Varro to look bad even though he continued to have a succes sful political career.

b) Cato the Elder's _Origines_, the earlier version of Livy, in which two names appear: Cato the Elder and Serus the Elephant

c) Polybius of Megalopolis

(1) Greek aristocrat, politician, Roman hostage from 169-150

(2) Intelligent man, decided to use his time to explain to his fellow Greeks why the Romans had conqured the Hellenistic World

(3) Struck up acquaintance, friendship, with Scipio Aemilianus, adopted son and

(4) Laelius, at Scipio Africanus's right hand during the whole time

(5) Watched Carthage burn, wrote book, Livy used it too and we've got a lot of it.

2. Both sides had the same strategic plan--invade the other guy's homeland at the start of the War.

3. Hannibal implemented his (Best defense. . .)

a) Military rule 101--Make your enemy react to you

(1) Moved so fast across Southern Gaul that the hostile natives and the Swiss couldn't stop him

(2) Winter crossing of the Alps (with Serus), thought impossible

(3) Rebuilt his army from the Po Gauls

b) Older Scipio: Missed Hannibal at Massilia, but sent his brothers to Spain anyway

c) Scipio & Sempronius get a lesson in the art of the ambush in 218 at the Trebia

d) People bring back Flaminius as Consul in 217

(1) Hannibal beats the Romans through the pass (eye, swamps)

(2) Lake Trasimene--Flaminius dies with entire army in box canyon

(3) Hannibal's (Pyrrhus's--remember general ranking) strategy: divide Romans from Allies

4. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator

a) Surviving consul appoints Fabius dictator, rebuilds morale,

b) Chess in Campania

(1) Hannibal urges allies to revolt, Fabius is there to remind them what will happen if they do

(2) Looked for an opening until he got it--Speaking of box canyons, Plu. 1.239-40

(3) The problems of playing with the 1st Team--Moo and the estates routine

(4) Senate on p.o.w's (Class warfare); People on aggressive war

(5) Insubordination (Minucius, co-dictatorship, 1.242-5)

c) Cannae--the last and final battle--216

(1) Single thrust by both consular armies, 60,000 men

(2) Hannibal's double envelopment and the dream of Western strategists since

(3) survivors

d) Hannibal got his revolts:

(1) Capua, Tarentum, and Syracuse, (Hieronymos=Jerry)

(2) Philip V of Macedon was incredibly stupid

(a) Aetolian League was ready to attack at the drop of a hat

(b) Romans paid lip-service to a land-war and sent their navy, which caused Philip ungodly trouble

(c) There would be a reckoning

(3) BUT

e) Hannibal had NOT destroyed Rome's ability to make war--cf. Civil War and Lee's invasions of Maryland vs. Grant's partnership with Sherman

f) Anecdotes: Varro, P.O.W's, grief, land under Hannibal's camp, etc.

5. Fabius vindicated:

a) They couldn't beat Hannibal, but they could take Capua (211)

b) And Marcellus systematically kept busy pacifying Sicily and took Syracuse, 212-1

(1) Archmedes was a genius,

(a) Cranes vs. ships and Penthouses

(b) Superiority of his technology to the Roman _sambuca_

(c) Layers of fire from weapons of varying range

(2) but Marcellus was a perspicacious man

(a) Noticed a tower and counted bricks (1.420-1)

(b) Fabius's tactic of awaiting an opportunity: Artemisia festival

(c) Tried to save Archimedes and Syracuse

(d) Sacking rich Greek cities got to be habit forming (1.423)

(3) It still wasn't a walkover--Marcellus killed in ambush commanding shadowing army in 208

6. Final abandonment of Fabian tactics--over Fabius's dead body! (Plutarch 1.255-6)

7. Scipio Africanus HAD been chipping away at Carthage's ability to make war

a) Survived deaths of his uncles in 211 and rallied the army (old Aristocracy)

b) Takes Hannibal's base in 209

c) Drove Hasdrubal to attempted dash across Metaurus, 207--head (Starr, p. 486)

d) Parlayed his prestige into African attack, 204, Hannibal heads home, 203, Zama (defection of Numidians), 202, Over--201.

B. Aftermath--Cathago delata est.

1. What do you think about Starr's comment on p. 487--weak, derivative culture? Anti-Semitic? Eurocentric? True?

2. MUCH larger indemnity, 10,000 T, Spain, no independent wars

a) Hannibal as the politician

(1) Briefly used his popularity to rally Carthage and begin payment on indemnity

(2) Had not been home in 35 years

(3) Rome applied pressure, funded enemies, got him exiled in 195

b) Carthage went back to its roots and started making money

(1) Offered in 191 to pay the next 10 years indemnity in advance--Roman NO!

(2) Supplied grain to Roman armies

(3) Two bewildered Carthaginian warship crews to Greece in 171

c) Cato in Rome, Massinissa in Africa double-team Carthage to death from 150 to 146.

X. Class Warfare in the Ancient World--Now that Communism's Dead

A. How did the Roman government, officially, work? (Starr, pp. 468 ff.)

1. Within the Roman values system--honos/honestus, gloria.

a) Cursus honorum: ladder of offices:

(1) tribune> curule aedile> quaestor> proquaestor>

(2) praetor> propraetor> consul> censor

2. The concept of Imperium--the inheritance from the King after 509.

a) Keep it divided in order to prevent a tyrant (bad) or a king (unthinkable!) except in emergencies:

(1) dictator, appointed by one of the two consuls on the Senate's nomination

(2) His orders (except for executions) not subject to veto or appeal

(3) Maximum term 6 mos., ideally to resign (Cinncinnatus) as soon as the emergency had passed

(4) Could not ride horse, had to appoint a Magister Equitum to command the cavalry

b) Two consuls, initially from the oldest settlers, the patricians vs. plebeians

c) In 366 a praetor--home defense, and then the addition of judicial authority, later two. Still had imperium, but subordinate to the consuls.

d) Proconsuls--leave the person who had the office last with the same responsibilities outside of the city. Generals, later provincial administrators.

e) Aediles--four, supervisors of markets, roads, and commerce, inc. foreign commerce., no imperium.

f) Quaestors--collected, counted, distributed state revenues, no imperium.

g) Ten tribunes, products of the secessions of the 500's

(1) Title is the old military one, 6/legion, coming from the Plebs in the army marching over to the Aventine and forcing the patricians to make terms

(2) "Slow Burn" revolution--protectors of the plebs, could forbid the action of any Roman citizen and the plebs had sworn to kill anyone who interfered with one

(3) ONLY Plebs could be tribunes or vote for them

h) Lesser officials: lictors, judges, scribes

(1) lictors closest thing to police

(a) Enforced order in the assembly, cleared paths

(b) praetor urbanus 2, consuls 6/12, dictators 12/24

(2) duo viri noctunales--night court

i) Religious Administration

(1) Pontifex Maximus

(2) College of 9 Pontifices to maintain ritual, open and close temples

(3) College of 9 Augurs to watch for bird sign

j) Outside, yet Inside--the Censorship

(1) Always elected from consulares, ex-consuls but no imperium

(2) Elected for 18 mos every five years, a lustrum linked to religious ceremony purifying the city

(3) Every Roman citizen asked to declare wealth, size of family

(4) Also let public contracts (since aware of the tax base?) for roads, aquaeducts, cf. Flaminius as censor and the Via Flaminia

(5) Could excersise the power of the purse, or control Roman politics by throwing people out of the Senate or their census rating for charges such as immorality, hence the modern association.

3. The Roman Assembly system

a) Oldest: Curiate Assembly, the 30 original neighborhoods

(1) Concerned with family matters: status, manus, adoption

(2) Maintained neighborhood shrines along with Collegia Compitalici, drinking clubs/mummers?

(3) Contrary to Starr (p. 469) the Curiate Assembly was still a going organization on 62

b) Next: the Centuriate Assembly, the Army in Council

(1) Centuries share common root with Census

(2) Every lustrum each citizen divided into one of five categories based on the original army organization

(a) Sword, breastplate, shield, spear--80

(b) Sword, shield, spear--20

(c) Shield, spear--20

(d) Light shield, Javelins--20

(e) Slingers--30

(f) 5 centuries of support troops

(3) Wealthiest citizens in 18 centuries of cavalry=The Equestrians

(4) "Knights" and 1st Class voted first, and elections did not continue after the decision

(5) Each class divided into same number of Seniores/Juniores, 46-64/17-45 year olds, fewer elders with same vote so even then...

(6) Summoned by officials with imperium, who could dissolve or cancel the election for religious or legal reasons

(7) Elected same, ratified consulta of the Senate into leges, declared war

c) Tribal/Plebeian Assembly, a relic of the Revolution

(1) Summoned by tribunes

(2) When Plebs resorted to joint action (secessiones to Aventine) to gain basic role in government, they formed their own deliberative body, and elected the tribunes.

(3) Plebeian tribes elected

(a) tribunes

(b) Two aediles: curules, city management, public games

(4) Plebiscita, with the force of law after 287

(5) Courted by vote-seekers and power-mongering tribunes

d) Last, but not even remotely least, the Senate

(1) Starr points out p. 470 that the assemblies were not often in session. Ask any bureaucrat--day to day control is where the REAL power lies.

(2) Membership originally king's praerogative, then consul's, then censors, then every office-holder from curule aedileship upwards. For life, unless thrown out by a censor

(3) Assembled first by kings, then by officials with imperium to advise them

(4) Could vote and pass consulta as way of

(a) Instructing magistrates: S.C.U

(b) Advising people--but remember the mechanics of the Centuriate Assembly

(5) Essentially the Roman upper classes in union to maintain their res publica against enemies foreign and domestic: Cineas, again.

(6) They did a good job of that, it must be admitted.

B. No time to go over the early rounds of the Struggle of the Orders but

End as of 4/3/95

To Notes as of 4/10/95