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Rh inactivity the disastrous results of which revealed themselves in the next period, in the rise of Mithradates of Pontus, the spread of Cretan and Cilician piracy, and the advance of Parthia.

Both the western and eastern Mediterranean now acknowledged the suzerainty of Rome, but her relations with the two were from the first different. The West fell to her as the prize of victory over Carthage, and, the Carthaginian power broken, there was no hindrance to the immediate establishment in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and finally in Africa, of direct Roman rule. To the majority, moreover, of her western subjects she brought a civilization as well as a government of a higher type than any before known to them. And so in the West she not only formed provinces but created a new and wider Roman world. To the East, on the contrary, she came as the liberator of the Greeks; and it was only slowly that in this part of the Empire her provincial system made way. In the East, moreover, the older civilization she found there obstinately held its ground. Her proconsuls governed and her legions protected the Greek communities, but to the last the East remained in language, manners and thought Greek and not Roman.

(146–49 ).—In the course of little more than a century, Rome had become the supreme power in the civilized world. By all men, says Polybius, it was taken for granted that nothing remained but to obey the commands of the Romans. For the future the interest of Roman history centres in her attempts to perform the two Herculean tasks which this unique position laid upon her,—the efficient government of the subject peoples, and their defence against the barbarian races which swarmed around them on all sides. They were tasks under which the old republican constitution broke down, and which finally overtaxed the strength even of the marvellous organization framed and elaborated by Augustus and his successors.

Although in its outward form the old constitution had undergone little change during the age of war and conquest from 265 to 146, the causes, both internal and external, which brought about its fall had been silently at work throughout. Its form was in strictness that of a moderate democracy. The patriciate had ceased to exist as a privileged caste, and there was no longer any order of nobility recognized by the constitution. The senate and the offices of state were in law open to all, and the will of the people in assembly had been in the most explicit and unqualified manner declared to be supreme alike in the election of magistrates, in the passing of laws, and in all matters touching the caput of a Roman citizen. But in practice the constitution had become an oligarchy. The senate, not the assembly, ruled Rome, and both the senate and the magistracies were in the hands of a class which, in defiance of the law, arrogated to itself the title and the privileges of a nobility. The ascendancy of the senate is too obvious and familiar a fact to need much illustration here. It was but rarely that the assembly was called upon to decide questions of policy, and then the proposal was usually made by the magistrate in obedience to the express directions of the senate. In the enormous majority of cases the matter was settled by a senatus consultum, without any reference to

the people at all. The assembly decides for war or peace, but the conduct of the war and the conditions of peace are matters left to the (q.v.). Now and then the assembly confers a command upon the man of its choice, or prolongs the imperium of a magistrate, but, as a rule, these and all questions connected with foreign affairs are settled within the walls of the senate-house. It is the senate which year after year assigns the commands and fixes the number and disposition of the military forces, directs the organization of a new province, conducts negotiations, and forms alliances. Within Italy, though its control of affairs was less exclusive, we find that, besides supervising the ordinary current business of administration, the senate decides questions connected with the Italian allies, sends out colonies, allots lands, and directs the suppression of disorders. Lastly, both in Italy and abroad it managed the finances. Inseparably connected with this monopoly of affairs to the exclusion of the assembly was the control which in practice, if not in theory, the senate exercised over the magistrates. The latter had become what Cicero wrongly declares they were always meant to be, merely the subordinate ministers of the supreme council, which assigned them their departments, provided them with the necessary equipment, claimed to direct their conduct, prolonged their commands, and rewarded them with triumphs. It was now at once the duty and the interest of a magistrate to be in auctoritate senatus, “subject to the authority of the senate,” and even the once formidable tribuni plebis are found during this period actively and loyally supporting the senate, and acting as its spokesmen in the assembly.

The causes of this ascendancy of the senate are to be found firstly in the fact that the senate was the only body capable of conducting affairs in an age of incessant war. The voters in the assembly, a numerous, widely scattered body, could not readily be called together, and when assembled were very imperfectly qualified to decide momentous questions of military strategy and foreign policy. The senate, on the contrary, could be summoned in a moment, and included in its ranks all the skilled statesmen and soldiers of the commonwealth. The subordination of the magistrates was equally the result of circumstances, for, as the numbers of the magistrates, and also the area of government, increased, some central controlling power became absolutely necessary to prevent collisions between rival authorities, and to secure a proper division of labour, as well as to enforce the necessary concert and co-operation. No such power could be found anywhere in the republican system but in the senate, standing as it necessarily did in the closest relations with the magistrate, and composed as it was increasingly of men who were or had been in office.

Once more, behind both senate and magistrates, lay the whole power and influence of the new nobility. These nobiles were essentially distinct from the older and more legitimate patrician aristocracy. Every patrician was of course noble, but the majority of the “noble families” in 146 were not patrician but plebeian. The title had been gradually appropriated, since the opening of the magistracies, by those families whose members had held curule office, and had thereby acquired the ius imaginum. It was thus in theory within the reach of any citizen who could win election even to the curule aedileship, and, moreover, it carried with it no legal privileges whatsoever. Gradually,