The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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he could subdue a country which had a million armed men to bring into
the field. He had taken it for granted that if he could gain some success at
first he would be joined by the subject cities. But in spite of his great
victories they remained true to Rome. Nothing shows so clearly the
immense resources of the Italian Republic as that second Punic War.
Hannibal was in their country, but they employed against him only a
portion of their troops. A second army was in Sicily waging war against
his Greek allies; a third army was in Spain, attacking his operations at the
base, pulling Carthage out of Europe by the roots. Added to which, it
was now the Romans who ruled the sea. When Scipio had taken New
Carthage and conquered Spain, he crossed over into Africa, and Hannibal
was of necessity recalled. He met on the field of Zama a general whose
genius was little inferior to his own, and who possessed an infinitely
better army. Hannibal lost the day, and the fate of Carthage was decided.
It was not the battle which did that; it was the nature and constitution of
the state. In itself the battle of Zama was not a more ruinous defeat than
the battle of Cannae. But Carthage was made of different stuff from that
of Rome. How could a war between those two people have ended
otherwise than as it did? Rome was an armed nation fighting in Italy for
hearth and home, in Africa for glory and revenge. Carthage was a city of
merchants, who paid men to fight for them, and whose army was
dissolved as soon as the exchequer was exhausted. Rome could fight to
its last man; Carthage could fight only to its last dollar. At the beginning
of both wars the Carthaginians did wonders, but as they became poor they
became feeble; their strength dribbled out with their gold; the refusal of
Alexandria to negotiate a loan perhaps injured them more deeply than the
victory of Scipio.
The fall of the Carthaginian empire is not a matter for regret. Outside the
walls of the city existed hopeless slavery on the part of the subject,
shameless extortion on the part of the officials. Throughout Africa
Carthage was never named without a curse. In the time of the mercenary
war the Moorish women, taking oath to keep nothing back, stripped off
their gold ornaments and brought them all to the men who were resisting
their oppressors. That city, that Carthage, fed like a vulture upon the
land. A corrupt and grasping aristocracy, a corrupt and turbulent
populace, divided between them the prey. The Carthaginian customs
were barbarous in the extreme. When a battle had been won they
sacrificed their handsomest prisoners to the gods; when a battle had been
lost the children of their noblest families were cast into the furnace. Their
Asiatic character was strongly marked. They were a people false and
sweet-worded, effeminate and cruel, tyrannical and servile, devout and
licentious, merciless in triumph, faint-hearted in danger, divinely heroic
in despair.
Let us therefore admit that, as an imperial city, Carthage merited her fate.
But henceforth we must regard her from a different point of view. In
order to obtain peace she had given up her colonies abroad, her provinces
at home, her vessels and elephants of war. The empire was reduced to a
municipality. Nothing was left but the city and a piece of ground. The
merchant princes took off their crowns and went back into the glass and
purple business. It was only as a town of manufacture and trade that
Carthage continued to exist, and as such her existence was of unmixed
service to the world.
Hannibal was made prime minister, and at once set to work to reform the
constitution. The aristocratic party informed the Romans that he was
secretly stirring up the people to war. The Romans demanded that he
should be surrendered; he escaped to the court of Antiochus, the Greek
king in Asia Minor, and there he did attempt to raise war against Rome.
The senate were justified in expelling him from Carthage, for he was
really a dangerous man. But the persecution to which he was afterwards
subjected was not very creditable to their good fame. Driven from place
to place, he at last took refuge in Bithynia, on the desolate shores of the
Black Sea, and a Roman consul, who wished to obtain some notoriety by
taking home the great Carthaginian as a show, commanded the prince
under whose protection he was living to give him up. When Hannibal
heard of this he took poison, saying, βLet me deliver the Romans from
their cares and anxieties since they think it too tedious and too dangerous
to wait for the death of a poor, hated old man.β The news of this
occurrence excited anger in Rome, but it was the presage of a greater
crime which was soon to be committed in the Roman name.
There was a Berber chief named Masinissa who had been deprived of his
estates, and who during the war had rendered important services to Rome.
He was made king of Numidia, and it was stipulated in the treaty that the
Carthaginians should restore the lands and cities which had belonged to
him and to his ancestors. The lands which they had taken from him were
accordingly surrendered, and then Masinissa sent in a claim for certain
lands which he said had been taken from his ancestors. The wording of
the treaty was ambiguous. He might easily declare that the whole of the
seacoast had belonged to his family in ancient times, and who could
disprove the evidence of a tradition? He made no secret of his design; it
was to drive the Phoenician strangers out of Africa and to reign at
Carthage in their stead. He soon showed that he was worthy to be called
the King of Numidia and the Friend of Rome. He drilled his bandits into
soldiers; he taught his wandering shepherds to till the ground. He made
his capital, Constantine, a great city; he opened schools in which the sons
of native chiefs were taught to read and write in the Punic tongue. He
allied himself with the powers of Morocco and the Atlas. He reminded
the Berbers that it was to them the soil belonged, that the Phoenicians
were intruders who had come with presents in their hands and with
promises in their mouths, declaring that they had met with trouble in their
own country, and praying for a place where they might repose from the
weary sea. Their fathers had trusted them; their fathers had been bitterly
deceived. By force and by fraud the Carthaginians had taken all the lands
which they possessed; they had stolen the ground on which their city
stood.
In the meantime Rome advanced into the East. As soon as the battle of
Zama had been fought Alexandria demanded her protection. This
brought the Romans into contact with the Graeco-Asiatic world; they
found it in much the same condition as the English found Hindustan, and
they conquered it in much the same manner.
Time went on. The generation of Hannibal had almost become extinct.
In Carthage war had become a tradition of the past. The business of that
city was again as flourishing as it had ever been. Again ships sailed to
the coasts of Cornwall and Guinea; again the streets were lined with the
workshops of industrious artisans. Such is the vis medicatrix, the
restoring power of a widely extended commerce, combined with active
manufactures and the skilful management of soil, that the city soon
regained its ancient wealth. The Romans had imposed an enormous
indemnity which was to be paid off by instalments extending over a series
of years. The Carthaginians paid it off at once.
But in the midst of all their prosperity and happiness there were grave and
anxious hearts. They saw ever before them the menacing figure of
Masinissa. The very slowness of his movements was portentous. He was
in all things deliberate, gradual, and calm. From time to time he
demanded a tract of land; if it was not given up at once he took it by
force. Then, waiting as if to digest it, he left them for a while in peace.
They were bound by treaty not to make war against the Friend of Rome.
They therefore petitioned the senate that commissioners should be sent
and the boundary definitely settled. But the senate had no desire that
Carthage should be left in peace. The commissioners were instructed to
report in such a manner that Masinissa might be encouraged to continue
his depredations. They brought back astonishing accounts of the
magnificence and activity of the African metropolis; and among these
commissioners there was one man who never ceased to declare that the
country was in danger, and who never rose to speak in the House without
saying before he sat down: βAnd it is my opinion, fathers, that Carthage
must be destroyed.β
Cato the censor has been called the last of the old Romans. That class of
patriot farmers had been extinguished by Hannibalβs invasion. In order to
live during the long war they had been obliged to borrow money on their
lands. When the war was over the prices of everything rose to an
unnatural height; the farmers could not recover themselves, and the
Roman law of debt was severe. They were ejected by thousandsβit was
the favourite method to turn the women and children out of doors while
the poor man was working in the fields. Italy was converted into a
plantation; slaves in chains tilled the land. No change was made in the
letter of the constitution, but the commonwealth ceased to exist. Society
was now composed of the nobles, the money-merchants or city men, and
a mob like that of Carthage which lived on saleable votes, sometimes
raging for agrarian laws, and which was afterwards fed at government
expense like a wild beast every day.
At this time a few refined and intellectual men began to cultivate a taste
for Greek literature and the fine arts. They collected libraries, and
adorned them with busts of celebrated men and with antiques of
Corinthian bronze. Crowds of imitators soon arose, and the conquests in
the East awakened new ideas. In the days of old the Romans had been
content to decorate their door-posts with trophies obtained in single
combat, and their halls with the waxen portraits of their ancestors. The
only spoils which they could then display were flocks and herds, wagons
of rude structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. But now the arts of
Greece and the riches of Asia adorned the triumphs of their generals, and
the reign of taste and luxury commenced. A race of dandies appeared
who wore semi-transparent robes, and who were always passing their
hands in an affected manner through their hairβwho lounged with the
languor of the Sybarite, and spoke with the lisp of Alcibiades. The wives
of senators and bankers became genteel, kept a herd of ladiesβ maids,
passed hours before their full-length silver mirrors, bathed in assesβ milk,
rouged their cheeks and dyed their hair, never went out except in
palanquins, gabbled Greek phrases, and called their slaves by Greek
names even when they happened to be of Latin birth. The houses of the
great were paved with mosaic floors, and the painted walls were works of
art: sideboards were covered with gold and silver plate, with vessels of
amber and of the tinted Alexandrine glass. The bathrooms were of
marble, with the water issuing from silver tubes.
New amusements were invented, and new customs began to reign. An
academy was established, in which five hundred boys and girls were
taught castanet dances of
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