Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/337

Rh were transported to Rome, and the town itself was reduced to ruins and remained a mere village till recolonised by Julius Caesar.

This was the end of Greek independence; but Greece was not as vet made into a Roman province. The system pursued was to abolish all leagues and to treat each city and its immediate territory as a separate and distinct entity with a local constitution of its own. Ten Commissioners visited the Peloponnese, now often called Achaia, and drew up a lex or charter for each city, assisted by Polybius the historian and son of Lycortas, who was commissioned to explain to each city the terms granted to it. So in other parts of Greece—as in Attica and the islands. Greece was in effect not one but many provinces, and Cicero enumerates among the "provinces" of the Roman people, Achaia, Thessalia, Boeotia, Lacedaemonii, Athenienses. Some cities were in a better position than others—such as Athens, Sparta, Sicyon—which did not pay tribute. Their status depended on former treaties made with them as sovereign states. But all alike were under the direction of Rome in regard to external relations and the right of going to war: and for certain purposes all alike were subject to the governors of Macedonia, who could levy soldiers in them. In Northern Greece the greater part of Epirus and Thessaly were united to the province of Macedonia. ilia was desolate and neglected, but in most of the districts large tracts of lands were made ager publicus; that is, the property of the Roman people, who received a regular rent from their occupiers. This