61. The Second Punic War

Giving up in Sicily

Carthage tried for Iberia

Whose golden and silvery mountains

Could supply her expanding country.

Three kings came to Iberia.

Hamilcar who landed in Spain,

Hasdrupal who continued the campaign,

Hannibal who stepped on the foot of the country called Rome.

Rome declared war in a fit of rage.

But Hannibal surprised her

He crossed her great Alpine ridges

Bringing great and fearful elephants

To sac the fair city.

He was met by Roman forces and driven back.

His transgression was never forgotten.

A Scipio came

To take revenge for his country.

He traveled to Africa

Fighting the Carthage king at home

He won the name Africanus

A statue was erected

Among others

Decorating Rome’s streets

Like homages to gods.

Rome retaliated.

Her great band of legions

Relentlessly pushed outward.

Growing out of Europe.

Branching into new territories.

All of Iberia fell.

They came to Greece

After fighting through Macedonian mountains.

Where the marble men used to live.

They offered freedom and peace.

The Akhians bowed to them

Giving Aeneas his revenge for Illium’s destruction.

Rome made sacrifices

For her survival.

She dressed herself with Mediterranean blue

With hints of roses

In the bloody sacred spring.

60. The First Punic War

“Poor Dido!”

Carthage cried.

Our beautiful queen

Has died.

It was Aeneas

Who rejected her.

His descendants must pay.

Carthage looked up

At the growing Rome

Seeing that she wants the island of Sicily

“We will take it for ourselves,”

Carthage said.

You took our beautiful queen away

We’ll take the island.

Rome sent her men

Securing the island

Just as Carthage did the same.

Mercenaries,

Fleets of ships,

Legions clashed

For the beautiful island

To the south of her land.

Carthage’s navy had Rome cornered

But adapting well

The white republic

Built her ships

Overcoming Carthage in the end.

Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica

All fell to Rome’s might.

59. Roman Expansion

“With reason did gods and men choose this site: all its advantages make it of all places in the world the best for a city destined to grow great.”  (Livy 59 B.C.E. – 17 C.E.)

Rome became a powerful city.

Her neighbors feared the seven hilled city.

Veii, however, was to proud to bend to her power

For they had the support of the Etruscans.

Both cities fought constantly

Over land and leadership.

Neither gained advantage.

Wars came and went

The stalemate didn’t end

Until the city’s final ten year siege

With Camillus and his tunnel

Penetrating Veiian walls

Ending in surrender.

Rome had her first real taste of conquest.

She was hooked for life.

A Gallic sac later on

Fed the flame of bloodlust

That the Roman legion knew so well.

Rome eyed her neighbors

Like a hungry beast.

First she looked to the Latins

With their fertile lands.

Then the Samnites.

She declared war with them

Showing her great white fangs.

Pretending it was all in self defense

As she gobbled them up into slavery.

Peoples and cities fell to Rome.

The Umbrians

The Etruscans

Bowed down in forced dependence.

The Campanians were allies

But found themselves surrounded by their Roman neighbors.

Rome smiled brightly

When the child of Aeneas

Got her taste of Greek blood.

Tarentum sought the great king Pyrrhus.

Pyrrhus stood from his throne

Smiling at the opportunity and sent his armies west.

Many of those marble men fell to Rome.

Crumbling into dust

But Pyrrhus’s pillar still stood.

He raised more armies

Seeking help from neighbors

As he continued his march to Rome.

Even with the help he failed

Returning to Molossia to lick his wounds.

Rome continued to expand

Slowly filling out into the boot of Appenine.

58. The Roman Republic

After the death of Romulus

Six more kings came

Numa, who spoke to the gods.

Tullus, who saw the destruction of Alba Longa.

Ancus, who wrote down religion and ceremonies.

New gods were created.

Zeus became Jupiter.

Hera became Juno.

Athena became Minerva.

Ares became Mars.

Poseidon became Neptune.

Hades became Pluto.

So many others changed their names

New ones were added

From old Latium’s religion.

Lucius, who increased the senate.

Servius, who expanded the vote.

Tarquinius, who terrorized the people

Becoming a tyrant.

The rape and death of Lucretia

Was the last straw.

The tyrant was deposed

The government overthrown

By the faithful women of Rome.

Slowly they settled into a republic

As the social elite saw fit.

Orders struggled for two centuries and five decades

To get their government right.

Patricians were the elite.

Plebeians were on the bottom

But wanted their say.

For years both groups brought turmoil to their beloved city

Until an agreement was made.

The plebeians were granted assembly.

Then Twelve Tables were made

As people climbed the ladder of offices to the consulship.

The senate was reinstated

As judges decided on matters of the state.

Each piece of the republic fell into place

Balancing out government and freedom

Like intricate working cogs of a machine

If one failed

The rest went with it.

57. The Founding of Rome

Fearing their ambition

Two boys of godly birth

Were abandoned in the woods

By Latium’s murderous king.

Found and cared for by a mother wolf

Growing into humble shepherds

Who competed with those of Latium.

Their identity was found

The king deposed

But rejected rule

For lives as subjects to their grandfather.

For a while it was good

But then their fate beckoned

They left

Wanting a city of their own.

They found a place with seven hills

An argument arose

About where the city should go.

Picking two hills,

Both worshiping

Asking for a sign.

Signs came for them

But disagreement arose.

They started to settle.

The Roman on Palatine,

His brother on Aventine.

The brother criticized the Roman’s wall

Leaping over it.

He was killed by the words of the Roman,

“So perish every one that shall hereafter leap over my wall."

With his brother gone,

He continued his building

Regretting what he had done, the Roman honored his brother

With a proper grave.

56. Aeneas’s Journey

“Arms and the man I sing, the first who came

Compelled by fate an exile out of Troy…” (The Aeneid, Rolfe Humphies translation)

“Remember what they did”

Said the ghosts of Trojan women,

“Remember the fire.”

“The horse.”

“How they cut down our heroes”

“How they murdered us”

“Tearing our children from our comforting arms.”

Those words haunted him

As Aphrodite’s son escaped the mighty cyclopean walls.

His people burned.

They pleaded for help from Athena

But it was all in vain.

Hera’s hatred sent them to their doom.

Hector appeared to injured Aeneas in a dream.

“My brother,”

The fallen prince told him,

“Fate has given you a chance”

“To get even with those that did this.”

“Go west and you shall see.”

“In the land above Sicily.”

Aeneas and his family

Left the dead and ruined city.

To the ships they went

Eager to find this new promised land.

They came to Thrace

Where the black blood of Polydorus

Gave warnings of greed in the land

Sending them off once again.

Apollo’s island welcomed them

With great earthquake

They were off to Crete, the lonely Isle

Where, in a dream, he was told of Italus’ land.

Passed the turning point they traveled

Where flocks of harpies pestered them.

They followed Greek islands

Up to the lands that Alexander saved.

From there they sailed passed the boot

That will house their future home

To the land where Poseidon’s sons live.

They saved a man from the one eyed one.

Left carelessly by the horse maker on his way home.

Then between the treacherous rocky whirlpool and sister monster.

After surviving those two beasts

They met a storm stirred up by Hera

That brought them to rest on Dido’s mighty shores.

As Aeneas told his story

Aphrodite set the queen aflame.

In a cave on hunting trip

Came Dido’s poor undoing.

Aphrodite’s son promised marriage

But left her to fall to her grave

Cursing the Trojan race

And all who spring from them.

After a visit to Hades’ land

They went north to their promised fate.

55. The End of the Alexandrian Empire

On his death bed

Macedon’s lion lay.

His feet failed him

Being made of clay.

With his commander at his side

He was asked who the new king is.

“Where does he reside?”

Alexander, with dying feverish breath

Reaching up to his faithful general

“I give my kingdom to the most powerful,”

He said

Slowly sinking to his bed.

The empire soon crumbled

Under the fevers of war.

Bactria,

Parthia,

Seleucids,

The non-Greeks of Helen,

The Independents

Antigonids,

Egypt, where his lighthouse lay,

Thrace,

Macedonia, his old kingdom.

Yahweh saw his people in Greek hands

Celebrating like those of other Greek lands.

“Do you not remember me?”

He asked.

Then the revolt of candles started.

For eight days the menorah burned.

Antiochus fell from his lofty perch.

The lion's once great empire

Shattered under the fighting

Successor kings.