XLI. End as of 4/18/96
A. Antiochus may have been "the Great," and he may have hired Hannibal, but
1. The Romans had Scipio Africanus, the Matthew Ridgway of the Roman Army--learn the enemy's tactics and use those against him. So much for the land war.
2. He used Hannibal as an admiral--that doesn't often work.
3. He had to face the Rhodians at sea and to get through the walls of Pergamon--meeting both of them at their best.
a) As allies, the Romans left a lot to be desired.
(1) During negotiations before the war, they had offered to let Antiochus have Asia if he'd leave them alone in Europe. Unfortunately (for him), Alexander had parts of Europe, and so that was out of the question.
(2) During the war, the Roman admirals, an AMAZING bunch, were obsessed about guarding the Hellespont-- whethere there was a Roman army to use it or not.
(3) The Rhodians had to keep reminding them that if they took no offensive action against the Seleucid navy, that navy would grow to where it didn't matter WHAT the Romans did at the Hellespont.
4. The Naval war had its downs and one glorious "up."
a) Antiochus's admiral was a Rhodian exile, Polyxenidas, and rather good.
b) Tried to fight the Romans and Pergamenes at Cissus, 191, but found out the hard way that you don't give the Romans a chance to board.
c) Did, however, catch half the Rhodian fleet between an army and a fleet at Panhormus (guess where the Romans weren't?), and wiped that out in 190.
d) As noted, Democracies can be hard to kill, as Hannibal found out when the Rhodian admiral Eudamus beat him at Side.
e) Polyxenidas tried one more time and almost got the Roman fleet at Teos, but found his countrymen eager to welcome him
(1) With open fire-carriers, and
(2) With a flank attack at high speed from behind the Roman fleet.
f) By 189 Antiochus staked it all in a land battle and lost it all, to Scipio, at Magnesia in 189.
B. Rhodes soon found out the Romans had found the enslavement of Greeks to be addictive and that the "allies rule" still held.
1. If ONE group of Greek speakers had given the Romans trouble, the reasoning went, ANY Greek speakers could.
a) Eumenes used this species of thought to make the Romans suspicious of the Rhodians for
(1) Trading with Macedonia and Syria--as they had always done, and needed to do.
(2) Supressing the populations of Lycia and Caria--which were rather inclined to piracy and lived about 19 miles from Rhodes
(3) And, in 179, providing a naval escort when the Seleucid princess Laodice married Perseus--when the Romans had forbidden the Seleucids to do it and when the Rhodians charged both sides.
b) Eumenes DID get the Romans into a war with Perseus from 172 to 169.
(1) The Romans spent most of their time grabbing up more Greeks--sometimes the Greeks on THEIR side--and taking everything and everyone who wasn't nailed down.
(2) The Roman admirals and generals didn't want the Rhodians around, since there were still Romans at home who would have been appalled at what was going on.
(3) Meanwhile, Syria and Egypt were going at it, and the war with Macedonia had closed the Hellespont--now the Rhodians are having to buy grain from Sicily, which required Roman permission and YET
(4) The Romans accuse the Rhodians of being disloyal when the Rhodians suggest that it might be nice if somone put a stop to all this nonsense.
(5) Fortunately for Romans who liked Greek slaves, Perseus BARELY got his at Pydna, in 169. His own Macedonians couldn't figure out why he was running!
C. Sparing a Hornets' Nest: The Events of 169-166
1. How dare those Rhodians! Siding with Perseus!
2. The same people who'd been grabbing Greeks and not molesting the Macedonians were all set for "Fresh Meat."
3. Juventius Thalna puts it to a vote and GETS DRAGGED off the Rostrum!
4. Cato the Elder, the most Greek-hating Roman who ever lived defends the Rhodians!
5. Why?
a) The Romans said that it was their honor, since they didn't want it to look like they'd attacked the Rhodians because of their wealth.
b) What's the problem with that? How had they acted in the late war?
c) Perhaps Cato was being merciful? Does the phrase "Ceterum censeo, Carthago delenda est!"
(1) Carthago, UTTERLY harmless, will be a smoking crater by 149.
(2) Corinth, stupid, but relatively harmless, will ALSO be a smoking crater by 149.
(3) Rhodes won't.
d) In 88 B.C., Mithridates, the King of Pontus, will plan things carefully and convince the Greeks of the East to KILL 10,000 Italians in 88 B.C.
e) He will throw the Romans entirely out of Greece and Asia, and nearly get to the point of invading Italy.
f) He will hit Rhodes with everything he has, including a navy of over 300 ships.
g) The Rhodians will stop him cold:
(1) Raiders will capture or sink his supply convoys.
(2) The fleet will sortie and exterminate a troop convoy trying to get more soldiers to the island.
(3) Catapults firing 120 pound shot from behind walls 10 feet thick will destroy his equipment.
h) Cato and his backers may have been vindictive, but they weren't dumb.
D. Brief note: Even the CAH2 thinks that the Romans wrecked Rhodes' economy by setting up Delos as a "free port."
1. Delos sold luxuries, but most of all, slaves.
2. For some reason, the Romans were remarkably lax about doing anything about the pirates, who sold their "two- legged booty" at Delos. More Greek slaves!
3. Eventually, note, the pirates would bite the hand that bred them.
4. Funny, though, that they never got the island they hated more than any other place on earth. They sure as hell got Delos.
E. How did Rhodes make its money?
1. Delos had small, shallow harbors. Can you get the big grain freighters into small shallow harbors?
2. Did Rhodes starve?
3. Did the Greeks starve?
4. End of discussion.
XLII. And finally, as must always conclude an ancient history class, Rome must fall!
A. The Roman volunteer army had, one by one, beaten the diluted and diffused Macedonian armies, although they'd needed a LOT of naval help, and had had to "spare a hornet's nest."
B. The "cornered Rats" in Spain killed off the best of the Romans there, and impoverished the rest by keeping them in the field for years on end with no loot to make it economically worthwhile (for the soldiers, at least!)
C. It took THREE years to take Carthage AFTER they'd surrendered every weapon they had!
D. In North Africa, a berber named Jugurtha forced a Roman army into a humiliating surrender at Suthul in 110.
E. The Germans would for their part defeat
1. Cn. Carbo's army at Noreia in 113;
2. Send Longinus's consular army under the yoke in 107, and
3. Annihilate two consular armies at Arausio in 105, Rome's worst defeat since Cannae.
4. Fun thought, isn't it? Rome COULD have gone down for good then, except that under that kind of stress, people get willing to accept the unthinkable (Like the Korean War vintage tax on Long Distance!)
F. A very good general named Marius destroys Jugurtha with his new army
1. Senate had had the idea of allowing proletarii (no property) into the army--probably their own clients
2. Marius allowed thousands of proletarii into the army, who then BECAME his clients
3. Better yet, Marius also got a great many people out of the draft, more votes
4. Tactical reforms
a) Cohorts (10/legion, 500 each), Eagles,
b) Marius's Mules: 80 lbs. equipment, 40 miles/day.
c) Pila, gladii, standardized (copper-containing--Marius owned a lot of mines!) equipment,
5. And a final principle: professional soldiers who owed everything to their commanding general, their "imperator."
XLIII. The Big Pattern
A. With interruptions, from 88, when Marius's lieutenant Sulla turned his army to 324 A.D. and beyond, what Tacitus called the dirty little secret of the Roman Empire came out: The strongest general would rule.
B. What Made a Roman Emperor: Imperator, a title awarded by his army
1. "Tribunician Power" can stop any legislation and shut down either Assembly or the Senate.
2. Imperial provinces: Huge private income for Emperor (until Caligula and Nero frittered it) to keep troops happy
3. Absolute control of the Army and Navy
4. Changing titles:
a) Proconsular Imperium at first for control of the army
b) Maius Imperium later
c) Consul at first to control senate, then "first among equals," and you thought Orwell invented doublespeak
5. Dynastic succession: The Senate voted Tiberius office after office BUT what really mattered was that Julius Caesar's army stayed loyal to someone named Caesar until 69 , when Nero finally got the point. (Claudius, 54)
6. After the year of the Four Emperors (69) the army realizes that the generals need IT! By the 3rd Century A.D. this will eventually result in the soldiers killing general/emperors who:
a) Insist upon unpleasant things like 'drill.'
b) Make them wear all that heavy armor and
c) Get them into battles where they're actually expected to 'Fight!'
C. Marius's Army becomes a self-perpetuating institution
1. Staying on the frontiers, permanent camps, the fortified border: _limes_
2. Citizenship after 25 years, BUT
3. Eventually more loyalty to the general on the spot than even the CONCEPT of Rome, particularly at the end when Barbarian Kings and their tribes found themselves appointed Magistri Militum: game, set, match
XLIV. End as of 4/23/96
XLV. Retrospect:
A. The Final will be on Thursday, May 9, from 8:30 to 10:30, in Williams 319.
B. I can't grade what I don't have, and you ARE going to look worse than someone who completed his or her paper on time.
C. Time for me to ask YOU to teach me something: Looking back at this course... So what?
D. Evaluations all read, those to the department the most important.
XLVI. End of Classics, 175, Spring, 1996.