B. C. obliged to send an army thither, and the kingdom was reduced to a Roman province. In these times Rome began to interest herself in the affairs of Egypt. Egyptian ambassadors appeared in 167. the senate-house, imploring the interference of Rome to prevent Antiochus, king of Syria, from making a conquest of that country. Ambassadors were despatched thither by the senate, and at their mandate Antiochus withdrew. Third Punic War. The period fixed by Providence to the duration of Carthage now approached. Civil dissensions, the sure forerunners of national ruin, ran high. Forty senators, driven from the city, besought Masinissa, of Numidia, to effect their restoration. His mediation was spurned by the dominant faction. The affair was brought before the Roman senate, who decided according to the wishes of Masinissa, and the pretext was gladly laid hold on for destroying their once formidable rival. The Carthaginians were ordered to surrender all the ships they had built: they obeyed, and saw them burned before their faces. They were then ordered to quit Carthage, and to build for themselves a new city in the interior, afar from the sea. This ruthless command to leave their temples and the tombs of their fathers, and the scene of all their ancient glory, was too much; the people was driven to desperation; the senate swore to stand or fall with Carthage; and war, now inevitable, was prepared for. Every exertion was made to replace the lost navy; all the timber that could be collected was brought to the dock-yards; all metals, noble and ignoble, holy or profane, were melted down for the making of arms; even the women cut off their long hair, that it might be twisted into bow-strings for the defenders of their country, and into cordage for the ships; all ages, ranks, and sexes took share in the common danger. Three years long did the ill-fated city hold out with amazing perseverance against all the efforts of the Ro mans. More than once were the legions defeated; two walls were taken, the besieged defended the third; the harbour was lost, they dug a new one. At length, the younger Scipio was appointed to the command of the besieging army, and his genius triumphed over the ingenious devices of the besieged. By stratagem he gained the new harbour; yet the city, though now open and defenceless, maintained, for six days and nights, an obstinate resistance. A party at length declared for the Romans; the city was set on fire by its own citizens, as it would appear, that it might not become a provincial town to Rome. The inhabitants slew themselves on the tombs of their fathers, in the citadel and in the temples of their B. C. gods: the city burned seventeen days; and the hereto- 147. fore mistress of the sea, the town which had numbered 700,000 inhabitants, which had flourished for nearly 1000 years, sank, never again to rise with independ ence. Achæan War. Greece, though nominally free, very soon saw that she had made an ill exchange, in getting the Roman instead of the Macedonian power into her neighbourhood. When Macedon had been reduced to a Roman province, the Romans sought gradually to make themselves masters of the strong places throughout Greece. They called on the Achæan league to surrender such places as the Macedonian kings had held in the Peloponnesus. Their embassy was insulted and abused by the populace in Corinth, and the pretext for a war was gladly laid hold on. Greece fought with her ancient heroism, but in vain ; her star had set, her troops could not resist the legions led by able and experienced commanders. Critolaus, the Achæan general, was defeated at Thermopyla, and slew himself. Diæus, like another Leonidas, vainly attempted to defend, with 614 brave men, the isthmus of Corinth. He hastened to his own country, satisfied that resistance was vain; collected his wife and children; B. C. distributed poison among them; and he and they perished, not to behold the slavery of their country. Corinth was taken by L. Mummius, in the same year that 147. Carthage fell before Scipio. Its pictures, statues, plate, and treasures were shipped for Rome; all the grown men were put to death, the women and children sold for slaves, and the city itself burned. A similar fate befell Thebes and Chalcis in Euboea. Greece became, under the name of Achæa, a Roman province; her glory departed; and for nearly 2000 years she has been a stranger to independence. The Spanish Wars. Spain was originally inhabited by nations of Keltic and of Iberian race. Its people were distinguished by valour, talent, steadiness, and perseverance: it had been, from the most remote ages, resorted to by the Phoenicians for the produce of its mines and its soil; the Greeks early visited it; the Carthaginians made themselves masters of a considerable portion of it. During the second Punic war, all their possessions in Spain fell to the victorious Romans. ́ After the conquest of Carthage and Corinth, the Romans began to turn their view to Spain. They attacked the Lusitanians; but this valiant people, headed by Viriatus, a man of distinguished bravery, prudence, and virtue, long bid defiance to the arms of the Romans, who now were so far degenerated from their pristine virtue, as not to blush at employing treachery to accomplish their objects, and Viriatus perished by assassins hired by Rome. The town of Numantia, with a garrison of but 4000 men, long withstood some of Rome's ablest generals, and often compelled the legions to withdraw. Even the great Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage, could hardly boast of having taken this heroic town. Famine preyed on the inhabitants; the Roman general would give no opportunity for battle; in despair they set fire to the town, and threw themselves into the flames. The Ro B. C. mans stormed the walls, and found all desolate and 134. silent. In several parts of Spain various tribes maintained their independence for another century. They fought long and obstinately; but they had no confederacies. Each tribe fought and fell alone; and gradually the whole country fell under the dominion of Rome, now grown thoroughly corrupt and tyrannical. CHAP. VIII. ROME TILL THE END OF THE REPUBLIC. The Gracchi. ROME had conquered Greece. The last will of Attalus, king of Pergamus, gave her Lesser Asia. The gift was destructive. Grecian and Asiatic corruption and vice proved too strong for Roman virtue. We are no more to look for the noble qualities that adorned the golden ages of the republic. Wealth and power are henceforth the claims to the high offices of the state; corruption and extortion the characteristics of magistrates and governors. Blood, which for centuries had not stained the streets of Rome, was now shed without remorse. Even his virtues could not save the conqueror of Carthage, the elegant and accomplished friend of Lælius and patron of Terence and Polybius, from the hands of his own relations, who dreaded his being elevated to the dictatorship; and the friends of justice feared to institute an enquiry into the causes of his death. Now it became usual at Rome to carry a dagger beneath the robe. In the early days of the republic, when the Roman people were divided into the two separate orders of patricians and plebeians, nothing could be more just than the Agrarian laws, such as we have described them above. * It * See p. 72. was but reasonable that the plebeians should share in the lands purchased with their blood; it was but just that all orders should contribute to the public revenue. But, in the present period, the distinction between patrician and plebeian could hardly be said to exist; and if there was a difference, it was, that the great preponderance of landed property was on the side of the latter. This property had been possessed undisturbed for generations; it had often been acquired by purchase, by inheritance, or by marriage. Yet, though their estates might have been legally acquired, the unfeeling rapacity of the nobles, in cruelly expelling the old tenants, whose fathers had for generations dwelt on their lands, to throw their little farms into pasture-land, was such as must have excited indignation in any generous bosom. The Romans were now, like a modern nation, divided into rich and poor, without the latter having the resource which the poor of modern times have, of following a trade or going to service. Trade was esteemed beneath a free-born citizen; slaves precluded the necessity of hired labour. No remedy remained but a B. C. violent and unjust one. 132. When the treasures of Attalus came to the Romans, Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, nephew to Scipio, one of the tribunes of the people, proposed that they should be divided among the people. This was unjust; for, since the conquest of Macedon, the Roman people had been tax-free; and the wealth now brought into the treasury was merely sufficient to enable the government to be carried on without oppressing the provinces. Gracchus farther brought in a law to prevent any citizen whatever from holding more than a certain quantity of land. Gracchus was a man of many noble qualities, but, looking to the end, he was not sufficiently regardful of means. He ejected by force, from the tribuneship, one of his colleagues, who was, in his eyes, too moderate. He then proceeded to require, that civic rights should be communicated to all Italians. The senate and nobles thus saw themselves at once menaced with spoliation |