A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

ose as one man; Cassius was accused of wanting to become tyrant and executed. And when, in
440, a rich plebeian named Spurius Maelius tried to become a popular leader during a famine and
lowered the price of his corn, he was summoned before a hastily appointed dictator and murdered.
To pacify the people, his corn was distributed free; those who talked of avenging his death were
quietly disposed of. Rome was learning the arts of gangster rule. But at least it was administered
with an air of public concern worthy of Orwell’s Big Brother. Marcus Manlius was a national hero
who had been responsible for saving the Capitol during the occupation of Rome by the Gauls in
390 B.C. (every schoolboy used to know the story of how the geese sounded the alarm). Saddened
by the spectacle of brave ex-soldiers being thrown in jail for debt, Manlius began freeing debtors
with his own private fortune. Aghast at this spectacle of demoralising altruism, the patricians
accused him of wanting to become tyrant and incited the plebs to sentence him to death. Manlius
was thrown from the Tarpeian rock.
Perhaps it was the occupation by the Gauls that shocked the Romans into a new kind of unity. At
all events, Roman expansion now continued steadily for century after century; little more than a
hundred years after the execution of Manlius Rome ruled all Italy. Conquered citizens were not
regarded as mere subjects but were made citizens of Rome, with full voting privileges.
Understandably, most of them preferred this new status to that of enemy.
At this point, Mediterranean piracy played a decisive part in history and started the Romans on
their conquest of the world. The only city in the Mediterranean whose power compared with that of
Rome was Carthage in North Africa (what is now Tunisia). It had started as a Phoenician trading
post, which had swiftly expanded - rather like modern Hong Kong - until it became a melting pot of
nationalities. And since the Mediterranean was not only full of pirates but also of predatory Greeks,
Macedonians, Lydians, Syrians, Etruscans and Romans, Carthage had also become a maritime
power. For a while, Carthage united with Rome against the Greek general Pyrrhus, king of Epirus
(282-272), but when Pyrrhus withdrew he left the allies facing each other across the straits of Sicily
- too close for comfort.
Carthage fought its wars with mercenaries, and in 289 B.C. these included an Italian tribe who
called themselves Mamertines. Out-of-work mercenaries are always a public danger, and on their
way home from a war against Syracuse (in Sicily), these mercenaries took a great liking to a
pleasant little Greek town called Messana (modern Messina) which had offered them hospitality. In
the middle of the night they rose from their beds, slit the throats of the men and seized the women.
And, being adventurers, they decided that they preferred piracy to farming and trade. For the next
twenty-five years they were the scourge of the area, preying largely on ships from Syracuse and
Carthage.
At Rhegium, in the toe of Italy, another Mamertine regiment heard about this exploit and decided to
imitate it; they slaughtered their hosts and seized the town. But since they were supposed to be a
Roman garrison, the Romans sent an army against them. They took the town by siege and
proceeded to a mass execution of the rebels, four hundred of them. They were aided by a Greek
ruler named Hiero of Syracuse, who then decided to go and smoke out the nest of pirates in
Messana. The Carthagians agreed this was an excellent idea and sent help. And the Messanian
pirates had the remarkable impudence to send to Rome for aid. They were in luck. Although the
Roman senate said it would be absurd to help pirates - especially after punishing the rebels at
Rhegium - the plebs scented plunder and conquest and overruled the senate. It was, as the German
historian Mommsen called it, ‘a moment of the deepest significance in the history of the world’, for
it was the first step towards the Roman Empire. H. G. Wells says indignantly in his Outline of