BOOK THIRD
Notes For Chapter II
1. II. V. Campanian Hellenism
2. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy
3. The Mamertines entered quite into the same position towards Rome
as the Italian communities, bound themselves to furnish ships (Cic.
Verr. v. 19, 50), and, as the coins show, did not possess the right
of coining silver.
4. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy
5. II. VII. Last Struggles in Italy
6. The statement, that the military talent of Xanthippus was the
primary means of saving Carthage, is probably coloured; the officers
of Carthage can hardly have waited for foreigners to teach them that
the light African cavalry could be more appropriately employed on the
plain than among hills and forests. From such stories, the echo of
the talk of Greek guardrooms, even Polybius is not free. The
statement that Xanthippus was put to death by the Carthaginians after
the victory, is a fiction; he departed voluntarily, perhaps to enter
the Egyptian service.
7. Nothing further is known with certainty as to the end of Regulus;
even his mission to Rome--which is sometimes placed in 503, sometimes
in 513--is very ill attested. The later Romans, who sought in the
fortunes and misfortunes of their forefathers mere materials for
school themes, made Regulus the prototype of heroic misfortune as
they made Fabricius the prototype of heroic poverty, and put into
circulation in his name a number of anecdotes invented by way of
due accompaniment--incongruous embellishments, contrasting ill with
serious and sober history.
8. The statement (Zon. viii. 17) that the Carthaginians had to promise
that they would not send any vessels of war into the territories of
the Roman symmachy--and therefore not to Syracuse, perhaps even not
to Massilia--sounds credible enough; but the text of the treaty says
nothing of it (Polyb. iii. 27).
Previous section |
Next section
Mommsen Table of Contents
