Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 2 (of 3)Niebuhr, Barthold Georg
History
Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Niebuhr, Barthold Georg
Rome -- History
them, and thus he, or his son-in-law Hasdrubal, was led to found the
town of New Carthage (Carthagena). The stores which had been furnished
by Sicily and Sardinia, were just as well supplied by Spain. They now
got a population of millions, from which they no more took faithless
mercenaries; but there they made levies as in their own country. The
Romans no doubt looked with jealousy at the progress they were making;
yet they could not hinder it, so long as the Cisalpine Gauls stood on
their frontier, prepared to avenge the defeat of the Senonians and
Boians.
The whole of Spain consisted of a number of petty tribes without any
connexion whatever between them; whilst in Gaul, at least some one
nation or other, the Æduans, the Arvernians, held the supremacy. The
Spaniards were of various kinds: whether the Turdetanians and the
northern peoples, the Cantabrians, were of a different race, as the
ancients say; or whether all the Iberians were sprung from the same
stock, as is maintained by that great etymologist, Humboldt, we cannot
decide. Not being acquainted with the language myself, I must abstain
from giving an opinion; yet surely, notwithstanding the great weight
of Humboldt’s authority, the statements of the ancients ought also to
be taken in consideration. Certain it is, that the tribes south of
the Sierra Morena, the inhabitants of Bœtica, had quite a different
character from those of the northern part of the country. They were
highly civilized; they had a literature of their own, written laws, and
books; of their alphabet, which is altogether peculiar to themselves,
and not derived from that of the Phœnicians, there are remnants still
existing on inscriptions and coins. The letters have quite a primitive
form. Yet these peoples were quite as warlike as those of the north:
they were not, however, good for attack, but merely for defence. In
earlier times only, they succeeded in driving the Celts across the
Pyrenees into Aquitain; afterwards, we always find them confined to
their boundaries, within which they made a desperate stand; so that
what an Arab general said of them is true, that behind walls they
were more than men, and in the field more cowardly than women, which
has also been borne out in the latest wars. An exception to this,
however, were the Celtiberians; and the others also showed themselves
brave, when they were trained by great generals like Hannibal and
Sertorius, and likewise in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Otherwise, they confine themselves to desperate resistance, even behind
wretched fortifications; they kill their women and children, and defend
themselves to their last drop of blood. Now Hamilcar, and after him
Hasdrubal, spread further and further, drawing one people after the
other into the Carthaginian league, and training soldiers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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