The Longest and Harshest War in History
When this treaty was sent to
Rome the people refused
to accept it, but sent ten commissioners to examine into the
business. Upon their arrival they made no change in the
general terms of the treaty, but they introduced some slight
alterations in the direction of increased severity towards
Carthage. Thus they reduced the time allowed for the
payment of the indemnity by one half; they added a thousand
talents to the sum demanded; and extended the evacuation of
Sicily to all islands lying between
Sicily and
Italy.
Such were the conditions on which the war was ended, after
lasting twenty-four years continuously. It was
at once the longest, most continuous, and most
severely contested war known to us in history.
Apart from the other battles fought and the preparations made,
which I have described in my previous chapters, there were two
sea-fights, in one of which the combined numbers of the two
fleets exceeded five hundred quinqueremes, in the other nearly
approached seven hundred. In the course of the war, counting
what were destroyed by shipwreck, the Romans lost seven
hundred quinqueremes, the Carthaginians five hundred. Those
therefore who have spoken with wonder of the sea-battles
of an Antigonus, a Ptolemy, or a Demetrius, and the greatness
of their fleets, would we may well believe have been overwhelmed with astonishment at the hugeness of these proportions if they had had to tell the story of this war.
1 If, further,
we take into consideration the superior size of the quinqueremes,
compared with the triremes employed by the Persians against
the Greeks, and again by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians
in their wars with each other, we shall find that never in the
whole history of the world have such enormous forces contended
for mastery at sea.
These considerations will establish my original observation, and show the falseness of the opinion entertained by
certain Greeks. It was
not by mere chance or without
knowing what they were doing that the Romans struck their
bold stroke for universal supremacy and dominion, and
justified their boldness by its success. No: it was the natural
result of discipline gained in the stern school of difficulty and
danger.
