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Zama found Cato serving under a soldier of very different character. Scipio, though essentially a man of action, was broad-minded, cultured and magnanimous - a strange mixture of patriot and cosmopolite, mystic and adventurer. Convinced of Rome's imperial and protective mission, he applied himself to martial and diplomatic tasks with a worldliness far removed from the rigidities of Cato.
Long, dangerous campaigns, often far from reinforcement, had taught Scipio the value of rewarding his troops in victory and of showing restraint to beaten enemies. Meanness commanded the devotion neither of the Roman soldier nor his allies, and very real devotion had been Scipio's through a decade of campaigning up to Zama. In Africa, as elsewhere, he indulged both his men and himself generously in their triumphs, distributing spoil open-handedly.
Cato's austere sensibilities were duly shocked. The future censor did not conceal his disapproval of such wasteful extravagance. By the time the Hannibalic war ended, the political opponents of Scipio had gained an officious and outspoken friend.
In the opening years of the new century, Cato was prominent not only in administration but as a force for colonial repression. After holding a command in Sardinia, he acquired a cruel reputation in 194 subduing the resistance of Spanish tribes. Three years later he landed in Greece as a tribune under consul Manilius Glabro to oppose the Syrian invasion. As vigorous in battle as in the senate, Cato distinguished himself at Thermopylae by leading a column through the hills to take the enemy in the rear.
Back in Rome, his stature now formidable, Cato became the animating spirit of a series of attacks against Scipio and his brother Lucius for their handling of the Syrian War in its final phase. The generous foreign policy of Scipio, the easy terms he proposed for Antiochus, his approval of Greek culture - all became ammunition for the doughty Cato in a feud which had assumed bitter proportions since Zama.
Honourably, if rashly, Scipio managed his defence in a singularly unprofessional fashion - on ground dominated by the enemy, and with weapons in which they were more skilled. Though convinced of public sympathy, he offered no popular challenge to the senatorial power of his opponents, confining himself to formal political methods. With little talent for such, he was at the mercy of the anti-Scipionic camp. It was Cato's hour. The military command of Lucius was terminated, the treaty with Antiochus severely modified. The so- called trials of the Scipios followed.
In 187, Lucius was charged with failing to account for 500 talents received from the Syrian monarch. Publius may have been accused afterwards, but evidence of the prosecutions is uncertain. If Publius Scipio was not condemned, he was sufficiently disillusioned to leave Rome for Liternum, where he died within a few months. An 'ungrateful Rome' should not have his bones, he growled.
Scipio's death coincided with Cato's term of greatest power. That year he exercised the censorship, ruthlessly revising the lists of knights and senators. All those he judged unworthy by his moral standards, or lacking in proper means, were expelled in an abrasive purge. At the end of his censorship, Cato was fifty. It was to be his last public office, but by no means the end of his influence. For another thirty years and more he would regale the senate with predictable fervour, the arch-opponent of new ideas and old sins.
Meanwhile, a subtler force was working in Africa. It has been shown that the treaty of 201 had given Masinissa of Numidia a claim to such territories of Carthage as had belonged to his ancestors. Within the spirit of the settlement, this may have seemed reasonable, but the clause left room for exploitation. Masinissa set out to make the most of it.
Realistically, the king took account of Roman attitudes. Gratitude between allies had its limits, and Masinissa was far too astute to abuse his luck. Timed at prudent intervals, usually when Rome was elsewhere preoccupied, the Numidian's claims harmonized by remarkable coincidence with ostentatious demonstrations of his support for the Roman cause, or with hints of unseemly Carthaginian recovery.
Scipio had fixed the Carthaginian frontier after Zama at the historically familiar Phoenician trench, a line cutting the modern territory of Tunisia diagonally from Thabraca (Tabarka) on the northwest coast, to Sfax in the southeast. Masinissa's first advances, near the profitable Emporia region on the gulf of Gabes, were outside the new boundary but on lands the city had long held.
Though Carthage referred the issue of Numidian encroachment to Rome, and a commission was sent to investigate, no further action was taken by the northern power. A decade later, Masinissa took armed possession of land in the Bagradas valley, nearer the African city. Again, appeal to Rome produced no decision. The Numidians stayed put.
In 174, behind a screen of accusations against Carthage, including her alleged implication in a war-plot with Macedon, Masinissa made another grab. Soon, Carthage could protest the loss of seventy towns and outposts to her neighbour. Faced with an urgent appeal for their return, along with lands usurped earlier, Rome referred the complaint to Masinissa, demanding explanation.
But a new Romano-Macedonian war was looming, and Numidia's prompt contribution to the Romans of troops and provisions blurred the outcome. When Carthage scotched Masinissa's slanders by offering Rome ships for her campaign, the king found another charge. The city, he exclaimed, was contravening peace terms by embarking on naval construction.
The utter defeat of Macedon in 168 left no illusions to those who had continued to doubt Rome's might. 'For the future,' wrote the contemporary Polybius, 'nothing remained but to accept the supremacy of the Romans, and to obey their command.' An overweening sense of mastery, pervading the republic, was reflected in its changing diplomacy. Scipio was dead. Increasingly, the protective imperialism expressed in his philosophy gave way to a bullying, ruthless foreign outlook.
Toward Africa, this appeared in a mounting indifference to Carthaginian complaints against Numidia. From 168 to 161, Masinissa concentrated on the gulf of Gabes, annexing the whole of the Emporia to a realm which now ranged from west of Cirta to well into modern Libya. Anger quickened in Carthage. Not only had Rome failed repeatedly to provide redress for injustices, she had actually pronounced on occasions for Numidia.
Carthaginian government was shaken. Seemingly purged of corruption, the aristocratic party which had dominated since Hannibal Barca left had sustained a high order of economic recovery, but backed a forlorn foreign policy. Its view even now was that deference to the Romans would pay off; that Masinissa's ambition was incompatible with the reality of Rome's power, and that eventually the Numidian king would knot his own noose.
Many citizens thought otherwise. A second party favoured detente with Masinissa. While no arrangement was likely without concessions to his interest in the city, there were, it was argued, advantages for Carthage in such a course. Masinissa's growing nation, increasingly civilized in outlook, was a potential market of great value for its commercial neighbour. The king's co-operation could hardly prove less dependable than that of Rome.
But the issue was emotional. Obstructing any pro-Numidian policy was the tradition, evolved through centuries, of Carthaginian superiority among the peoples of North Africa. To parley on equal, let alone deferential terms with Masinissa and his 'natives,' was a prospect repugnant to most Carthaginians. Indeed, deference to any power, Rome included, was profoundly at variance with the psyche of a city steeped in independence.
Here lay the basic appeal of a third group, the 'democratic' party of Roman designation, though essentially nationalist. Its leaders, men of rank who based their platform on mass support, spoke alike against the encroachments of Masinissa and the travesty of Roman mediation. Disposed toward self- defence rather than dependance, their advocacy gained adherents with every futile appeal to Rome.
From about 160, Carthaginian government, under popular pressure, adopted a more militant approach to Numidia. The dangers of resisting her intrusions were evident, but the provocation had ceased to be endurable. Among a series of border skirmishes, a raid into usurped ter
ritory won acclaim in Carthage for its leader, one Carthalo of the democratic faction. Shortly afterwards, his party formed the government.
Still, the formalities of appeal to Rome were not abandoned. Around 155, Masinissa demonstrated unprecedented audacity, occupying the plains of Souk el Kremis immediately inland of Carthage, well inside the frontier of Scipio. When the outraged Carthaginians informed the Roman senate, yet another commission of inquiry sailed for Africa. It was to prove of grim significance. At its head, eighty-one years of age, travelled Marcus Porcius Cato.
5: 'Delenda est Carthago'
Probably in the summer of 153, the senatorial commission's galley and escort ships stood south for Africa, a voyage into memory for the indomitable old man of Roman politics. Half a century had passed since Cato fought at Zama. A generation had reached middle-age knowing nothing at first hand of the Hannibalic war and its horrors.
Italian trade with Carthage was once more considerable. Pliny described the founders of the city, the Phoenicians, as the inventors of commerce, and it was as a dealer, to be knocked down in the market rather than on the battlefield, that the world of the 2nd century b.c. saw the average Carthaginian. His commercial acumen, execrated by some, was widely envied.
As an alien entrepreneur in the ports of many countries, the Carthaginian was a tempting butt for national humour. Menander, Alexis and Plautus depicted him in plays as a comic turn. In the comedy Voenulus, Plautus, who died eighteen years after Zama, portrayed a Carthaginian merchant named Hanno as a self-confessed 'arch-rogue,' ready to turn anything to quick profit: a gugga, a shady character living on his quick wits.
Nevertheless, the fictional Hanno had good qualities. Plautus made him a fond father, a kindly relative, a loyal friend. As a pious man, he thanked the gods for his good fortune. So far as he reflected a Roman image of his race, it was, if less than flattering, hardly fraught with animosity.
There were Romans, of course, who took a harsher view. Many old enough to recall the terror and turmoil of Hannibal's invasion retained a bitterness modified but not dispelled by time. Cato had a particularly unforgiving nature. The situation he discovered on returning to Africa stirred a deep resentment in him, a hatred born of the campaigns of his young manhood.
The extent of Carthage's recovery from defeat and the impositions of 201 was something of an economic miracle. Within ten years, the city had felt able to pay off the war indemnity in full, though an offer to do so had been refused by the Romans, who preferred to prolong her obligation by the instalments already planned. In part, the revival was made possible by Hannibal's reforms, especially the steps against corruption.
There had also been an important effort to offset the loss of Carthaginian colonies in Spain by intensifying the productivity of the city's fertile, but hitherto underdeveloped, agricultural lands in Africa. At sea, a vigorous merchant service plied east to Syrian, Egyptian and Hellenic markets; west to Morocco, and to Gades (Cadiz) on the Atlantic coast of Spain. Trade with Italy was brisk. Other factors had played a part in the revival of prosperity.
Little of the Second Punic War had been fought in Africa. As Cato might well reflect, it was the Italian lands of the victor which had endured the greatest depredations. Anomalously, the lands of the vanquished state had suffered relatively slight damage. Nor had the manpower losses of Carthage in the war equalled those of Rome.
Carthaginian armies were largely mercenary, recruited externally by officials who travelled widely, often to remote parts, to contract with local leaders for their warriors. Carthage herself maintained a legion of young men of high birth to provide an officer reserve. Apart from members of this group, the casualties of her wars were mainly foreigners.
By contrast, the Roman army still depended on the old citizen levy, property-holders liable for service of up to six years at a stretch during sixteen years of manhood. Mobilization not only jeopardized businesses and livelihoods, but also robbed the state of its most adventurous and patriotic citizens. Prosperity diminished. As the 2nd century progressed, this system had come under mounting stress.
When Cato led his commission to Africa, Roman supremacy of the ancient world, a situation arising more from adept handling of a series of crises than by deliberate projection, was a new phenomenon with many probationary problems. It should not be imagined in terms of the established Roman empire of the later republic, let alone of the principate. Roman sway in the autumnal years of Cato was uneven, extemporary, sometimes savagely contested.
In the East, Rome had driven Antiochus from Asia Minor and abolished the monarchy of Macedon. She had 'liberated' the Greek states. A rich but weak Egypt looked for her protection. While none doubted that the Romans could deploy their armies anywhere, the imperial administration of eastern territories had yet to come. Meanwhile, an exacting patronage brought protests. Within a few years, the Macedonians and the Achaean League of Greece would be up in arms.
In the West, Rome's provinces in Corsica, Sicily, Sardinia and Spain, all captured from Carthage, were sketchily supervised. Of many rebellions and incomplete conquests, the wars in Spain most severely taxed the Roman government. Their bearing on its increasing irascibility as the century advanced is significant.
At first impression, the lands wrested from Carthage in the Spanish peninsula had looked favourable. Passing down the eastern coast region, then through the flourishing south toward Gades, the new masters had found mineral and agricultural prosperity. Here, where Carthaginian influence was most marked, the inhabitants had acquired some sophistication.
But when it came to the rest, the outlook was bleak. Mountains, forests and arid plains, combining with the fierce reputation of tribes which the Carthaginians had not disturbed, contributed to a general picture of inhospitability. Roman geographers described the typical Iberians, as they knew the peninsula people, as swarthy and tousle-haired, slight, wiry and pugnacious, practised horsemen and bold, fanatical fighters. Some lived in walled towns, others in more primitive mountain and forest communities. Local pride and independence of spirit were placed by many before their own lives and the lives of their families. 'Their bodies inured to abstinence and toil, their minds composed against death . . . they prefer war to ease and, should they lack foes without, seek them within. Rather than betray a secret they will often die under torment,' declared a Roman commentator.
Stories were told of mothers who murdered their children to prevent their falling into enemy hands; of prisoners who killed themselves rather than endure slavedom; of patriots who chanted songs of victory while being crucified by the Romans.
Few needed any introduction to violence. For many, including the Celtiberian tribes of the interior and the so-called Lusitanians of what is now central Portugal, the normal way of life was warlike and predatory. Sturdily-mounted, trained from childhood to find their mark with javelin and sling, the Iberians posed an awesome problem for the Romans. In the areas of Carthaginian penetration, the tribes had learned military lessons from their former enemies, including the advantages of solidarity against a common foe.
Rome's response to this awkward, if temporary, obstacle to expansion was in keeping with the change in her foreign outlook. Initially, the Roman authorities in Spain, represented by Sempronius Gracchus, son-in-law of Scipio, had employed constructive diplomacy with fair success. Later officials brought a new mood of self-importance and arrogance. Blustering in their demands, peremptory in use of force, they quickly provoked hot resistance.
Wild terrain and the unnerving guerilla tactics of the natives upset the Romans. Normal campaigns devolving on the siege of a rich city, or the decisive set-piece battle, were their forte; protracted colonial warfare was another thing. It required regular troops, experienced men led by good generals. It got neither. Inflated Roman commanders, fearful for their reputations, resorted to cruelty and treachery to gain their ends. They only inflamed the opposition. Within thirty years of the defeat of Carthage, Rome had drafted 150,000 r
ecruits to Spain, and the worst was still ahead. In 154, the year before Cato sailed to Africa, the most accomplished and impassioned of Iberian warriors, the Lusitanians, revolted under a dedicated leader named Viriatus. From his mountain hideouts, Viriatus waged remorseless war against the legions, outwitting the best of their captains.
One Roman governor, Galba, was reduced to the particularly contemptible ruse of pretending to grant a truce in order to lure the Lusitanians from the hills to their grazing lands, where he conducted a pitiless massacre. Another general, Caepio, unable to beat Viriatus in battle, plotted his murder by bribery. Joined by the Celtiberians, the Lusitanians fought on.
In Italy, protests against conscription for Spain reached unprecedented proportions, while the plight of sick, often impoverished war veterans contributed to a picture of economic recession. It was against this background of frustration and disgruntlement that Cato's commission exchanged the squalls of Rome for its spell in the sun of the sub-continent. What it found in the lands beyond the blue gulf roused strong emotions in the old chauvinist. Investigation of the African dispute meant travelling through fruitful Carthaginian territories which had never been richer in their produce.