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territories. The conditions, which Viriathus may be said to have granted, much rather than asked, were ratified at Rome, where it would be cheering to fancy that his marvellous generosity of soul had awakened any sort of sympathy.

But the truth of the case with the Romans is unfortunately proved to be exactly the contrary to what a Christian would wish to suppose. In the very next year after the treaty, Servilius Cæpio, the brother of Servilianus, the Proconsul, who had been spared destruction, was sent to Spain as Consul, with secret orders from the Senate to take any measures he could against the Lusitanian. Almost as soon as he was gone, the secrecy he himself had perhaps commended was thrown off, and war was openly declared against Viriathus,52 who was attacked before he knew he had an enemy. Barely escaping destruction, but easily defying pursuit, he despatched three trusted officers to entreat some explanation from the enemy of the onslaught that had been made upon him, against all faith and gratitude, while to his followers he sent his summons on every side, calling them to arms. The answer of the Roman Consul to the messengers of Viriathus was to persuade them to a deed as base as any in the darkest passages of human history; and when they returned to their chieftain, it was to murder him, as he lay resting a moment in his armour. The Lusitanians chose an

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other leader; but it was beyond their power to elect that the spirit of him they mourned with unfeigned grief should go with his authority to any successor, and within a few months they yielded to the employer of his assassins, the Consul Cæpio.53

54

Some sort of decency was observed by Cæpio in refusing to reward the murderers of Viriathus; and it was so far forth creditable to the Senate and the people of Rome, that the returning Consul should himself have been denied a triumph.55 But the motive, in either instance, was not so much, it is to be feared, a feeling of sympathy for the fallen as a desire to disparage his importance, and therefore to contradict the merit of his murderers. Even Cicero, removed as he was from the alarm or the contempt with which Viriathus was regarded by his contemporaries, yet found it in his heart to cast a slur upon the Lusitanian hero.56 But it would have been far better to have lost than to have won the victory which thus deadened the sensibilities of a whole nation towards a foe of such a nature as Viriathus. The passions which laid Corinth and Carthage low were not nearly so fatal as those which first murdered and then slandered the Champion of Spain.

The larger dominion resulting from the conquests we have thus attempted to review was very apparent in the events and relations of the times. One sys

53 Appian., De Reb. Hisp., 75. Diod. Sic., Reliq., XXXIII. 22.

54 Eutrop., IV. 16. Appian (loc. cit. 74) says he referred them to the Senate.

55 De Vir. Ill., LXXI. Cf. Val. Max., IX. 6. 4.

56 De Off., II. 11.

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tem, if so it may be called, in which the Commonwealth betrayed its consciousness of expanding boundaries, was that by which it sought a surer hold upon its former possessions, as by planting colonies, or on its elder subjects and citizens, as by grants of land ‍5o or largesses of food 59 and games. Another sign, partially of the same sort, was the increase of the places in the prætorship from four to six,60 as if that the administration of the conquered countries might in no wise detract from the watchfulness with which order was maintained at home. Yet the same severity as of yore could scarcely be maintained, where one king, like Prusias of Bithynia, was suffered to prostrate himself before the Senate and call its members his guardian gods, or where another monarch, like Eumenes of Pergamus, was forbidden to approach any nearer to Rome than Brundusium, where he had already arrived when the edict 62 was issued against him, — not, as must be added, because he was feared, but rather because he was despised. Such things as these could not happen without encouraging the proneness for some time manifest amongst the victorious people to indulge in the pride, the luxury,

57 Vell. Pat., I. 15, and next Liv., Epit. XLV. This sort of adu

note.

58 Liv., XXXI. 4, 49, XXXIV. 45, 53, etc.

lation was getting to be very common. See the address of the Rhodian ambassadors, Liv., XXXVII.

59 Liv., XXIX. 37, XXX. 26, 54. XXXI. 4, 50, XXXIII. 42.

60 A. C. 197. Liv., XXXII. 27. Cf. XL. 44.

61 Χαίρετε, θεοὶ σωτῆρες, was his exclamation. Polyb., XXX. 16.

Beaufort has collected other instances, Rép. Rom., Livre II. ch. 3. 62 Ne cui regi Romam venire liceret." Liv., Epit. XLVI. Polyb., XXX. 17.

and the oppression which triumph had first given and security then confirmed. But it was not suddenly possible, either that they should escape all restraint, or that their subjects should lose all protection; and the repeated decisions of the Senate and the Tribes, sometimes against individual, and sometimes against numerous offenders,63 show plainly that there was as yet no open privilege of disgracing the Roman name in the eyes of those who bore it proudly or obeyed it tremblingly.

64

The cares of the Commonwealth in relation to its subjects in Italy were still the paramount part of what may be styled its foreign policy. A broken account of a conspiracy originating just after the second Punic war with some slaves and captives, and spreading, as is possible, among the people with whom they were quartered, exposes the dangers which were likely to arise from the contact of the Italians with strangers whose stouter spirit rebelled against the hardship and the ignominy of their fallen fortunes. On the other hand, the repeated complaints before the Senate from the Italian towns, which found themselves wellnigh empty in consequence of their inhabitants being drawn away from them to the metropolis, bring up to view the causes of discontentment, if not of sedition, that would be generated by the intercourse of the dependent people with their masters or superiors. Only an exceptional instance is to be found of these difficulties having been ag

63 See note 73 and text.

64 In Setia and Præneste. Liv., XXXII. 26.

gravated by any exceeding superciliousness on the part of the Romans, as when the Consul Postumius Albinus ran riot in authority and presumption at Præneste, commanding supplies and services beyond all that had been before proposed, and making a precedent, as the historian remarks, for the extortions of those who were to come after him.65 In general, the treatment of these nearer subjects was much more considerate; and while they were anxiously controlled, their complaints, like the foregoing in relation to their emigrants, were carefully redressed, and their feelings of attachment, as in other cases, were thoughtfully strengthened by privileges of greater or less importance. Some people, indeed, still brooded over the humiliation they had inherited from their forefathers; but, comparatively speaking, the agony of defeat was passed away from Italy into remoter lands.

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At about the time of the fall of Carthage, eight provinces were annexed to the Roman Commonwealth, under the names of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Nearer Spain, Farther Spain, Illyria, Macedonia, Achaia, and Africa, to which Cisalpine Gaul may be

65 Liv., XLII. 1.

66 As when 12,000 Latins, or Italians generally, were dismissed from Rome by orders of the Senate, Liv., XXXIX. 13; or when additional measures were adopted to satisfy the murmurs which still continued, Ibid., XLI. 8, 9.

67 Liv., XXXVIII. 36. It must also be observed, that the taxes up

on the Italians, as well as those upon the Romans, were much alleviated by the derivation of the great revenues of the Commonwealth from its foreign dominions. The customs, the returns of the public lands, and the tax upon the emancipation of slaves were all that continued to be raised in Italy.

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