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148-133 B.C.

years (148-139 B.C.) Viriathus was the acknowledged king of the Lusitanians, though never distinguished by any badge from the meanest soldier-a true hero, remarkable alike for his physical and mental qualities. In the end his brilliant and noble career was, as often happened in Spain, cut short by the hand of the assassin, three of his intimate friends having sold the life of their lord to the Roman consul, Quintus Servilius Caepio, in return for their own safety. With the death of Viriathus the war in Lusitania came to an end, and two years later the Celtiberians in the north. were reduced by the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus.

The struggle with the town of Numantia was more serious. The incapable consul, Quintus Pompeius, after several severe defeats, agreed to come to terms with its invincible inhabitants; but in fear of the reckoning that awaited him at home for thus concluding peace, he at the last moment took refuge in a base falsehood, and denied the agreement he had made. The matter was referred to the senate, who supported their guilty consul, and ordered his successor, Marcus Popilius Laenas, to continue the war. The total incompetence of the Roman generals and the demoralized condition of their armies caused the war to drag on, amid disgrace and disaster, from 137-134 B.C. In the latter year Scipio Aemilianus, the first general in Rome, was sent out, and after reorganizing the Roman army by treatment alike severe and contemptuous, he set about the task of subduing the brave Numantines. After a heroic defense, the city, utterly exhausted by famine and pestilence, fell in the autumn of 133 B.C., and its fall reëstablished the supremacy of Rome in Hither Spain. A senatorial commission was shortly after sent to Spain, and the provinces were reorganized. Thanks to the efforts of Scipio and other governors the country gradually became exceedingly prosperous, and despite the guerrilla warfare ever waged by the half-subdued native tribes, it was the most flourishing and best organized country in the Roman dominions.

Far more insupportable was the condition-intermediate be tween formal sovereignty and actual subjection-of the African, Greek, and Asiatic states. These had neither independence nor peace. In Africa there was constant war between Carthage and Numidia; in Egypt the rulers of that country and Cyrene were ever disputing for the possession of Cyprus; in Asia almost every petty kingdom was torn by intestine struggles, and several were at war with one another. The interference of Rome, constantly in

168-152 B.C.

voked, only made matters worse. Rome neither resigned her authority nor displayed sufficient force to bring the ruled into subjection. It was the epoch of commissions. Commissioners went to and fro, reporting and giving orders, to which the Asiatic states, feeling secure from their very remoteness, as a rule paid no attention. The Roman government conferred neither the blessings of freedom nor of order. It was clear that this state of things must be put an end to, and that the only way to do so was by the conversion of the client states into Roman provinces. The only question was whether the Roman senate would perceive the necessity of the task, and would put its hand to the work with the requisite energy.

In Africa we have to record the last act of the terrible Carthaginian drama. The Romans saw with ill-concealed envy the increasing prosperity of their old rival, though hampered in every way by the encroachments of Massinissa. At the head of the second commission, sent from Roine in 161 B.C., to settle points of dispute between the Numidian king and Carthage, was the aged Cato, whose inveterate hatred of Carthage was aroused afresh by the sight of her great commercial prosperity. Opposed though he was by the larger-minded Scipio Nasica, Cato had no difficulty in finding men at home ready to support his view that Rome could know no security until Carthage was destroyed, and among his most ardent supporters were the bankers and rich capitalists of Rome, who saw that the wealth of Carthage must revert to themselves.

An opportunity for putting the policy of Cato into effect soon arose. In 154 B.C. Massinissa appealed to Rome to act once more as arbiter between him and Carthage, and pointed out that the leaders of the patriotic party in Carthage, Hasdrubal and Carthalo, were amassing stores and collecting troops in violation of the treaty with Rome. The Carthaginians were ordered to destroy their naval stores and dismiss their troops; but the spirit of the people was roused, and the demand was rejected and preparations made to wage war against Massinissa. In 152 B.C. hostilities began, and owing to the miserable incapacity of Hasdrubal, Massinissa gained a complete victory.

The Romans now conceived that the hour had come to deal the death blow to their old antagonist. By making war upon an ally of Rome, Carthage had broken one of the stipulations of their treaty, and had thus given Rome a plausible pretext for war, and

149-148 B.C.

from the feeble display of arms she had made against Massinissa, Carthage seemed a certain and easy victim. In vain the Carthaginians made every submission to avert the threatened blow, and war was declared in 149 B.C. After dallying with the wretched envoys sent from Carthage, the Roman consul, Lucius Marcius Censorinus, who had landed at Utica, at last revealed the dire purpose of the senate, and bade the envoys tell the gerusia that Carthage must be evacuated and surrendered to destruction. At this the frenzied enthusiasm of the Phoenician race once more blazed forth. The most marvelous efforts were made to secure the defenses of the city, and to repair the blunder which had surrendered all the arms and dismantled the battlements in obedience to the Roman demands.

Meanwhile, the Roman consuls were deluded by pretended embassies, and though but a few miles distant, had no idea what was happening in the Phoenician capital. The precious respite was turned to good account: day and night the work of forging arms and catapults never flagged. Young and old, women and children, were all fired with the same zeal and the same hatred. With incredible speed the work was finished, and the city and its inhabitants ready for the struggle. Art had rendered the naturally strong site of Carthage well-nigh impregnable, and the two consuls, Manius Manilius and Lucius Censorinus, on realizing their blunder and attempting to prosecute the siege, soon found out how utterly incompetent they were for the task. After losses by assaults and disease the Romans were compelled, by the death of Massinissa in 149 B.C., to suspend all offensive operations. The youthful Scipio, who was serving as a military tribune, alone retrieved the honor of the Roman name, both by his personal bravery and his politic dealings with the native Numidians.

The following year saw two new commanders, Lucius Piso at the head of the land army, and Lucius Mancinus in charge of the fleet: they achieved even less than their predecessors and neglected the siege of Carthage for attacks on smaller towns, which as a rule were unsuccessful. A Numidian sheik passed over to the Carthaginian side with eight hundred horse, and negotiations were entered into with the kings of Numidia and Mauretania. At this juncture the Romans adopted the extraordinary measure of giving the command to Scipio Aemilianus, and thus made him consul without his having held the preliminary office of edile. His arrival.

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