The American Historical Review/Volume 23/Reviews of Books/Storia dei Romani
After an interval of nine years since the publication of volumes I. and II., the third volume of de Sanctis's great history makes its appearance. In the first volume, a criticism of the tradition and a description of contemporary institutions were interwoven. In the second one, with the formation of the Latin League the narrative element comes into somewhat greater prominence, and when we reach the war with Pyrrhus, toward the end of this volume, a reasonably consecutive and trustworthy narrative is possible. In this last installment of his work the author has taken another step forward in his method of treating the subject, by giving us a continuous narrative in his successive chapters, and by consigning his treatment of critical questions to appendixes and foot-notes. In discussing in a brief review a volume which contains over 1100 pages and nearly 1200 foot-notes, we shall be obliged to limit ourselves to comments on the scope of the work, on the author's critical attitude, and his conclusions on two or three very fundamental questions.
Part I. of the volume opens with a sketch of the history and civilization of the Carthaginians, and closes with their occupation of southern Spain. Part II. carries us from the outbreak of the Second Punic War to the conclusion of peace in 201 B.C. The chronological limits which the author has chosen give unusual dramatic unity to this part of his history. We have set before us the titanic struggle between Rome and Carthage—nothing more. Even Rome's war with Philip of Macedon is treated, and very properly, as an episode in the Second Punic War and is styled "La guerra annibalica in Oriente". We cannot quite sympathize, however, with the author's neglect of the political, social, and economic history of the period for the sake of securing continuity to his military narrative. Perhaps a discussion of the economic effects of the war with Hannibal, of the leasing of great tracts of land in Italy, and of the establishment of the tenant system has been relegated to the next volume, but we have a right to expect in this volume something on the remarkable entente cordiale between the senate and the popular assemblies during the period of the great wars and on the violation of oligarchical policy involved in the retention for long terms of such commanders as the Scipios and Marcellus. The book might have been called Le Guerre Puniche rather than L'Età delle Guerre Puniche.
However, as a military history, it is incomparable. De Sanctis has both the critical and the constructive faculties in a remarkable degree. Characteristic illustrations of the acumen and the sanity of his critical analysis are furnished by his discussions of the sources for the history of the First Punic War and its chronology in the appendix to chapters II. and III., or in his study of the Sicilian tithing system (pt. II., pp. 347–354). In his critical methods the author has wisely steered a middle course between the skepticism of historians like Pais and the traditionalism of many writers of the Italian school. So far as the author's acquaintance with the pertinent ancient and modern literature is concerned, in a somewhat minute study of selected parts of the work the reviewer was unable to find a single important passage in ancient literature or a modern treatise of value which had not been taken into account. Next in importance to the author's reconstruction of the story of the Punic Wars and his critical appendixes are the technical analyses in part II. of the great battles and campaigns of the Second Punic War. These analyses are supplemented by maps at the end of the volume.
The most serious point in which the reviewer cannot follow de Sanctis is in the author's analysis of the situation which gave rise to the war with Hannibal. We believe with him that war to the death between Rome and Carthage was inevitable, and that the desire of the Barcid family for revenge and for the humiliation of Rome was the impelling cause on the Carthaginian side, but we cannot think with him that the Romans went into the war for the sake of taking Spain and her mines and her valuable trade away from Carthage (I. 425). The war was thrust upon Rome, and as Frank has said in his Roman imperialism (p. 125), "Rome doubtless intended if successful to demand an indemnity and end the affair". The only way in which considerations of trade influenced the Romans was an indirect one. The commerce of Massilia was suffering severely at the hands of the Carthaginians, and she undoubtedly exerted herself to the utmost to bring her Roman ally into the field against Carthage, so that trade interests played some part in bringing on the war, but not in the way in which de Sanctis implies. In the same connection (I. 418) de Sanctis remarks, "Ma essendo Sagunto città iberica a mezzogiorno dell'Ebro, è evidente che se l'alleanza con Roma era anteriore al trattato d'Asdrubale, a' sensi di esso i Romani's'erano impegnati, almeno implicitamente, a rinunziarvi; se posteriore, costituiva una deroga almeno implicita a quello". This reasoning is open to the double objection that it projects back into the third century before Christ the modern doctrine of the sphere of influence and runs counter to the fact that "in no ancient source is there the slightest indication that Carthage considered her rights in Spain to have been infringed by the Saguntine treaty".[1]
This volume has a peculiar interest at the present time, because no war in the past furnishes so close a parallel to the present war as does the struggle between Rome and Carthage, both in respect to the two protagonists, the questions at issue, and the course of events. That the author has kept his eyes fixed solely on the events of the third century, and has not allowed his interpretation of them to be influenced by conditions in 1914–1917, reflects no small credit upon the soundness of his judgment and his detachment as a scholar.
- ↑ Frank, Roman Imperialism, p. 124.
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