Download
1 / 13
E N D
Following his expulsion from Rome, Tarquinius Superbus enlisted the help of the Etruscan king, Lars Posenna. When Porsenna’s army approached Rome, Horatius Cocles, with two companions, volunteered to defend the bridge over the Tiber whilst those behind him demolished it. He sent his companions back just before its collapse, afterwards swimming back to safety himself.
In about 500 B.C., as part of a peace treaty with the Etruscans that followed the expulsion of Tarquin, Cloelia was one of twenty children of leading citizens handed over to the enemy as hostages. She led he fellow captives in escaping from the Etruscan camp and swimming across the Tiber to freedom.
In about 508 B.C., whilst Rome was under siege by Lars Porsenna’s army, a young man named Gaius Mucius volunteered to assassinate the king but mistakenly killed his secretary. When he discovered the mistake he thrust his right hand into the fire and held it there to demonstrate that he did not fear punishment. He and his descendants afterwards bore the surname Scaevola (`left-handed’)
Cincinnatus was a Roman leader who was supposedly summoned from his ploughing to become dictator (i.e. chief executive for six months) in an military emergency in the 5th century B.C. The American city of Cincinnati is named after him.
In 390 B.C. the city was taken by the Gauls, a Celtic people who at that time occupied much of western Europe, including northern Italy. The enemy failed, however, to capture the Capitol because sacred geese gave the alarm as they were scaling the hill. The Romans had to pay an indemnity to get the Gauls to leave but they recovered and by the end of the century were in control of the whole of Italy.
In the early 3rd century B.C., some of the Greeks who had settled in southern Italy turned to King Pyrrhus of Epirus (a kingdom in western Greece) for help. Phyrrhus beat the Romans several times but his `Pyrrhic victories’ killed so many of his army that he had to withdraw.
At this time, the western Mediterranean, including the coast of Spain, was dominated by Carthage, a city in north Africa (in modern Tunisia), founded by colonists from the Phoenician (Lebanese) city of Tyre, whose Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew and Arabic, was known to the Romans as `Punic’ (lingua Punica)
According to the legend elaborated in Vergil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, theTrojan prince Aeneas, whose descendants were to found Rome, was received in Carthage by its founding queen, Dido. The pair were briefly lovers but Aeneas then sailed off to fulfill his destiny in Italy and Dido committed suicide in despair.
The First and Second Punic Wars (264 to 241 and 218-202 B.C.), which began with a dispute between Rome and Carthage over spheres of influence in Sicily, left Rome the dominant power in the western Mediterranean. There is a good summary of the conflict available at http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/punicwars.html
The First Punic War forced Rome to develop a full-scale naval capability for the first time. Under the terms of the peace treaty, Rome received full control of Sicily but she subsequently also insisted on taking Corsica and Sardinia also
Embittered by her defeat, the Carthaginians sought to extend their Spanish empire in compensation. Hamilcar, the general who led the Carthage’s forces in Spain,, is said to have made his young son, Hannibal, swear undying enmity towards Rome.
Hannibal succeeded to his father’s position in Spain and Rome declared war on Carthage again in 218 B.C., when she refused an ultimatum to halt an offensive against Saguntum, a Spanish city Rome had accepted as an ally. Hannibal then led his forces overland to attack Rome’s power in Italy itself.
