came within the Roman ranks, the men on each side pricked them with their javelins, so that some of them rushed clear through the spaces without turning to the right or left; others wheeled about and carried confusion into the Carthaginian lines. Meanwhile both Masinissa and Lælius had routed the cavalry opposed to them, and the battle grew hot in the centre. The auxiliaries in Hannibal's front line were soon driven in upon the veterans, who, however, levelled their spears and compelled them to advance again. Both parties kept bringing up their fresh men, withdrawing their wounded to the rear; and the battle continued with great fury, till Lælius and Masinissa, returning with the cavalry from the pursuit, charged the Carthaginians in rear, and decided the fate of the day. The Romans lost about 5000 on the field; the Carthaginians not less than 20,000, besides a vast number who were taken prisoners.

§ 25. Thus was Hannibal defeated, but not subdued. The Battle of Zama has often been compared to that of Waterloo. In both, the two greatest Generals of the respective nations met for the first time; and in both, the more famous chief, fighting with an army hastily drawn together in defence of his country, was defeated. But in other points they were unlike. Waterloo left France helpless; and her ruler had no hope but in withdrawing from her shores. After the Battle of Zama Hannibal could still have offered a long resistance; and if he thought it best to make peace immediately, it was that he might reform the government, and prepare for new struggles at a future time.

§ 26. As Scipio was returning to Tunis, he met envoys from Carthage. He sent them back with the following conditions of peace: "The Carthaginians were to be left independent within their own territories; they were to give up all prisoners and deserters, all their ships of war except ten triremes, and all their elephants; they were not to make war in Africa or out of Africa without the consent of Rome; they were to acknowledge Masinissa as King of Numidia; they were to pay 10,000 talents of silver towards the expenses of the war by instalments in the course of the next fifty years.' When the

* 10,000 talents weight of silver would be worth at the present day more than 2,000,000l. sterling.

VOL. I.

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Senate of Carthage met to debate on these conditions, Hasdrubal, son of Gisgo, rose to advise the continuation of war; when Hannibal, angry at the folly of the man, pulled him back to his seat. A loud cry was raised; upon which the General rose and said that "for six-and-thirty years he had been fighting the battles of his country in foreign lands, and if in the camp he had forgotten the manners of the city, he prayed forgiveness." He then went on to show that all resistance, however prolonged, must prove fruitless; and in the end the Council agreed to accept the proposed conditions. Upon this Scipio granted an armistice of three months, while he sent his brother Lucius, with two other envoys, to Rome to learn the pleasure of the Senate and People. The Senate gave audience to Scipio's envoys in the Temple of Bellona, and welcomed them into the city with the highest honours. At the same time ambassadors arrived from the old Government Party at Carthage, who had always opposed the Hannibalic War, and now hoped to obtain more favourable terms: but they were dismissed by the Senate with contumely, and the People were summoned to give their final decision respecting Peace. All the Tribes voted that Scipio should be empowered to confirm the conditions which he had already offered; and the Fecials were ordered to pass over into Africa, carrying with them Italian flints to strike fire withal, and Italian herbs on which to offer sacrifice, that the Treaty might be made in unexceptionable form. Accordingly, in the very beginning of the year 201 B.C., seventeen years after Hannibal had set out from New Carthage on his march into Italy, peace was concluded, and Scipio set sail for Rome.

§ 27. When the old merchant rulers of Carthage saw their ships of war delivered up to the Romans, and most of them burnt before their eyes; when they were obliged to open their money-bags to pay the first instalment of the enormous fine entailed upon them by that war, which had been begun in defiance of their secret wishes, and which had ended thus disastrously in consequence of their own jealousy and supineness, Hannibal made no secret of his contempt, and laughed openly at their rueful and dejected aspect. Nothing marks more clearly the character of this son of the camp. Kind and genial

as he was, frank and generous to his soldiers, he respected not the real sufferings of these civilians, and took no trouble to disguise his sentiments. He felt conscious that his power in the city was greater now than when he was conqueror of Italy. We shall see hereafter that for the next few years he became the absolute ruler of Carthage, and the reformer of her narrow institutions. If he had been permitted, he might have raised her to an eminence greater than that from which she had fallen. But the jealousy of Rome was easily alarmed, and the great Carthaginian was doomed to end his days in exile and disappointment.

§ 28. The Triumph of Scipio was the most splendid that had ever yet ascended the Sacred Hill. The enormous quantity of silver which he brought with him not only enriched his soldiers, but relieved the State from the pressure of the debts which during the war she had been obliged to contract. King Syphax followed his car, with many other illustrious prisoners; and, what was still more grateful to his feelings, many Romans who had long languished in captivity attended their deliverer wearing caps of Liberty. Among these was a Senator, by name Q. Terentius Culeo, who ever after considered himself the Freedman of Scipio. The General himself, the universal gaze of men, was saluted by the name of the country he had conquered. No one before him had obtained the honour of this titular surname: but the name of Scipio has come down to our own times indissolubly linked with that of AFRICANUS.

CHAPTER XXXV.

GOVERNMENT AND CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES UP TO THE CLOSE OF THE HANNIBALIC WAR.

§ 1. The present a fit place for a Review of the Constitution, &c. § 2. The severance between Patricians and Plebeians fast disappearing. § 3. Decay of the Comitia Curiata. § 4. Regulations of age, &c., for admission to offices of State. § 5. Duties attached to each. § 6. These offices professedly open to all, but now practically limited to the wealthy. § 7. Constant change in executive officers, even in those of the army. § 8. Republican nature of the system: its disadvantages, how counteracted in practice. § 9. Stability given to the system by the Senate: the Senate composed of persons qualified (1) by tenure of office, (2) by property, (3) by age. § 10. Power of the Senate, (1) in legislation, (2) in administration of home and foreign affairs, (3) in jurisdiction. § 11. The Comitia Centuriata, as remodelled. § 12. The Comitia Tributa: its gradual rise to power, coördinate with the encroachments of the Tribunate. § 13. Anomaly of two independent Legislative Bodies: how were collisions prevented? § 14. The Tribe Assembly far from a pure democracy. § 15. All laws in both Assemblies required the previous sanction of the Senate. § 16. Causes that prevented collision between the Senate and the Tribes. § 17. Predominance of the Tribe Assembly over the Centuriate, in legislation.

§ 18. Their elective powers. § 19. Their rights of jurisdiction. § 20.

Present supremacy of the Senate accounted for.

§ 1. Now that we have seen Rome first become Mistress of Italy, and then, after a life and death struggle, rise superior to Carthage; now that we shall have to follow her in her conquest of all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, so that this sea became what in modern phrase may be called a Roman lake, we naturally inquire what was the form of Government under which she made these great achievements, what the treatment of the Foreigners subject to her rule, what the Condition of her People, their Manners and mode of life, their progress in Art and Literature. To some of these questions an answer has already been given by the history itself; to others no answer can be given, so scanty are the records of the time. It may not be unprofitable to attempt to place before the reader, in a clear and compendious form, the sum of

our knowledge with respect to the social and political condition of Rome and her subjects at this period.

§ 2. About the time of the Punic Wars the framework of the Roman Constitution was complete. This Constitution was not created by a single legislator, like that of Sparta, nor due to the convulsive efforts of an oppressed commonalty, like that of modern France, but had grown up, like that of England, by slow degrees out of the struggles between the Patrician Lords who had originally engrossed all political power, and the Plebeians or Commons, who had by successive steps obtained a share in all the privileges of the Patricians. The only trace remaining of ancient severance was the regulation by which, of the two Consuls and the two Censors, one must be a Patrician, one a Plebeian. At the time of which we speak this regulation was in full force. Indeed the Consuls who in the Hannibalic War rendered the most signal services were Patrician; but, by a law of nature, the Patrician Families, being (like the Scottish Peerages) limited in number, gradually died off, while new Plebeian Families were rising to opulence and honour. In a few years even the partition of offices fell into disuse, and no political distinction remained, save that persons of Patrician pedigree were excluded from the Tribunate of the Plebs, as Scottish Peers from sitting in the House of Commons.

§3. In correspondence with the advance of Plebeian and the decay of Patrician Families, a silent revolution had been wrought in most parts of the Constitution.

The Assembly of the Curies, consisting wholly of Patricians, once the sole and supreme Legislative Body, continued to drag on a sickly existence. The Curies, indeed, still retained nominal powers of high sound. No Consul or Dictator could assume the Imperium without a Curiate Law to invest him therewith. But what at first sight seems a veto on the appointment of the first officers of State, was in fact a mere form; for the assent which the Curies were still allowed to give they were not allowed to withhold. They continued to meet even to Cicero's time, but their business had then dwindled away to the regulation of the religious observances. proper to the Patrician Gentes. A few Lictors, who were

a Both Consuls were plebeian first in 172 B.C.; both Censors first in 131.