XIV.

B.C.

agreed upon, and before Pyrrhus could complete his CHAP. preparations for an expedition across the Ionian Sea. In the meantime the Romans might hope to anticipate 282-272 Pyrrhus, and in one way or another to make themselves masters of Tarentum. Their first step was not a declaration of war, as might have been expected after what had taken place at Tarentum and Thurii, but an embassy, commissioned to prevent the breaking out of a war and to re-establish the old friendly relations between Rome and Tarentum, which had been destroyed by that untoward event in the harbour of Tarentum. Rome demanded the release of the prisoners, and the delivering up of those who had instigated the attack on the fleet-that is, the leaders of the democratic party; moreover the restoration of the expelled Thurinians, and compensation for the damage done to that town. Had the Tarentines consented to these conditions, Thurii, as well as Tarentum, would have fallen at once into the power of the Romans. For, after the surrender of the heads of the democratic party, the Roman partisans would have come into power, and the consequence would have been that they would have put the town under the protection of the Romans, just as the democrats afterwards gave it over to Pyrrhus. Both parties tried their strength for some time. At length the democrats prevailed, and rejected the Roman conditions. Of these internal contests we find but slight indications in our authorities, but there is ground for supposing that the parties were not so violently opposed to one another in Tarentum as in other Greek towns, where contests of this sort generally ended with slaughter, confiscation, and the exile of the weaker party. The aristocratic party in Tarentum, which advocated a treaty with Rome, could not carry out their policy, but they

1 Appian, iii. 7, 2. Zonaras, viii. 2. From these demands it would appear that the Romans considered themselves justified in looking upon the attack on their ships as a violation of international law. But we shall think differently if we bear in mind that the Samnites are said to have delivered up their general Brutulus Papius (Livy, viii. 39), and that the Romans did not scruple to put to death their captured enemies who had been carrying on legitimate war.

BOOK
III.

282-272 B.C.

Alleged

of the

Roman

dors.

must have been very near doing so, as appears from the course of events which followed.

The most extraordinary anecdotes are related about the reception of the Roman embassy in Tarentum. L. Postureception mius, who was at the head of it, was greeted, it is said, with scoffing and abuse by the assembled Tarentine ambassa- people. His foreign costume and the mistakes in his broken Greek furnished some mountebanks with materials of ribaldry and insult, in which the assembled people joined, amidst shouts of merriment. At last a vulgar wretch is said to have thrown dirt on the white toga of the Roman, and this infamous treatment of the sacred person of an ambassador, instead of causing general indignation, was applauded as a merry trick. In a moment, when the highest interests of the state were being discussed, when every man knew that on the decision depended the safety of his property, his freedom, and his life, the whole people are said to have behaved like a dissolute company of revellers and rioters in the midst of a drunken debauch.1

Fictions in

tive, and

their origin.

It is hardly necessary to say that these anecdotes do the narra- not belong to history. They carry on themselves the very stamp of falsehood. They owe their origin to the servile spirit of those Greek historians who made it their duty to flatter and extol the Romans. Nowhere is that spirit more apparent than in this part of the history of Rome. Roman virtue appears nowhere so exalted, by contrast with the degenerate Greeks, as in the numerous anecdotes with which the story of the war with Pyrrhus is filled. It moves our disgust to observe the sycophancy to which the Greek writers could stoop. And in order to celebrate

1 Arnold (Hist. of Rome, ii. 478) gives a masterly description of the reception of the Roman ambassadors.

The account of Valerius Maximus (ii. 2, 5) is less improbable, inasmuch as in it the offence is offered to Postumius, not before the assembled people, but previous to the assembly being called. Valerius, moreover, moderates the disgusting part of the story. Dionysius (xviii. 7) makes the disgraceful scene to take place after the holding of the assembly. On the other hand Livy exaggerates the enormity of the offence by saying (epit. xii) that the Roman ambassadors were beaten by the Tarentines.

XIV.

282-272

B.C.

Roman virtue, Greeks had to be represented as cowards, CHAP. traitors, and fools, as gluttons and drunkards. The Tarentines owe their bad reputation partly to the spirit which pervaded these stories. But that they were not such despicable, wretched, and low scoundrels as Plutarch, Appian, and Dio Cassius represent, appears with sufficient evidence from a sober examination of the recorded events.

ference of

The embassy returned to Rome without having accom- Interplished its end. The dignity of the Roman people clearly Pyrrhus. demanded an immediate declaration of war, even if the disgraceful treatment of the embassy by the Tarentine mob had not taken place.' But the senate hesitated for for several days in its decision. The situation of the republic was not difficult. After the victorious termination of the war with the Boii in Etruria, no more danger threatened on this side, even if the condition of Etruria and the precarious nature of all treaties of peace with the Gauls demanded the presence of a Roman army on the northern frontier. The Samnites were exhausted, and unable, if not unwilling, to renew the war; the Lucanians had only just been defeated. But even if these peoples had given cause for anxiety, they could not have prevented Rome from declaring war against Tarentum without further deliberation. The delay of the Romans must be attributed to other causes. They knew that a war with Tarentum, if it did not lead to a conquest of the town, would be of no use, and that of such a conquest there was not the slightest hope so long as the Tarentine fleet protected the entrance to the harbour. The Romans, utterly inexperienced in the art of besieging a large town, could accomplish nothing by force against a place like Tarentum. It could not be blockaded, isolated, and reduced to surrender by hunger. If an ingenious coup de main did not succeed, treason was the only means by

1 It is self-evident that, if it had taken place, the Romans could temporise no longer, but were obliged to declare war forthwith.

BOOK

III. 282-272

B.C.

which Tarentum could pass into their hands. By treason the Romans took Tarentum twice at a later period, but never by force of arms. Through an understanding with a friendly party inside the walls, Tarentum, like so many other towns, might perhaps be won. The attempt certainly had once failed, but the Romans were not the sort of people to be frightened from their object by one failure. They therefore decided to possess themselves of the town, if possible, by the help of their friends. The attempt by means of a fleet could not be repeated. An army was now sent by land into the Tarentine territory under the consul Q. Æmilius Barbula, commissioned to repeat the offers of peace made by Postumius, and at the same time to support these offers by suitable operations in the field. The Tarentines were to understand clearly what they risked if they continued to reject the treaty with Rome, and to look elsewhere for support. The consul scattered the Tarentine mercenaries and native troops, and laid waste the country, but spared the property and persons of the adherents of the aristocratic party. While the war was thus exercising its pressure on Tarentum, the Romans still offered peace on the previous terms. The democrats were in a difficult position. Some of their most influential men were absent on an embassy which had been sent to Pyrrhus. Their opponents gained ground day by day, and they succeeded at last in appointing Agis, the head of the Roman faction, as commander-in-chief. The moment had now arrived when the shrewd and persevering policy of the Romans was on the point of being crowned with success. As soon as Agis should have entered on his office, the Romans might hope to be admitted into the town. But in the very moment of success, their hopes were dashed to the ground. The precious prize, after which they had already stretched forth the hand, was wrested from them by one more rapid in the race. Kineas, the ambassador and confidential minister of King Pyrrhus, appeared in Tarentum with the promise of immediate support from his master. Agis was deposed from his

CHAP.

XIV.

B.C.

office before he had even entered on it. The democratic party gained the upper hand, and from henceforth the fate of Tarentum was placed in the hands of the ad- 282-272 venturous prince who boasted of having sprung from the race of Achilles, and believed himself destined to be the champion of the Greeks against the barbarians and the descendants of the Trojans.