Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/296

* BOME. 270 ROME. enormous extension ot power and authority in loreign lauds, the national character underwent a complete and fatal alteration. The simplicity and stern integrity of life, the religious gravity of deportment, and the lidelity with which com- mon civic and household duties were discharged, which in early times distinguished the Roman burgess, had now all but disappeared. The class of peasant jiroprietors who had laid the founda- tions of Roman greatness was either extinct or no longer what it once had been. The long and distant wars made it more and more impossible for the soldier to be a good citizen or a successful farmer. Indolence, inaptitude, and spendthrift habits aided the designs of the capitalists, and in most cases the paternal acres gradually slipped into the possession of the great landlords, who found it more profitable to turn them into pas- ture or cultivate them by gangs of slaves. The rise of the slave system" — though an inevitable result of foreign conquest — was. indeed, the most horrible ciirse that ever fell on ancient Rome. If the Italian farmer strove to retain his small farm he was exposed to the competition of the capitalists, who shipped immense quantities of corn from Kgv'pt and other granaries, where slave labor rendered its production cheap, and of course he failed in the unequal struggle. Not less pernicious was the change that passed over the character of the rich. As the old Roman patricians lost their exclusive privileges, the plebeians gradually acquired a full equality with them, and the germs of a new social aristocracy originated, based on wealth rather than pedigree, and comprising both plebeians and patricians. During the fourth and third centuries B.C. the political power of this order immensely increased. In fact, the whole government of the ^tate passed into their hands. They became an oligarchy, and while it is not to be denied that they displayed extraordinary ability in the conduct of foreign afTairs. selfishness, nepotism, and arrogance grad- ually became rampant. But far worse than even the selfishness and nepotism of the nobles was their ever-increasing luxury and immorality. When Rome had conquered Greece, and Syria, and Asia IMinor, the days of her true greatness were ended. The wealth that poured into the State cofTers, the treasures which victorious gen- erals acquired, enabled them to gratify to the full the morbid appetites for pleasiire engendered by exposure to the voluptuousness of the East. Such results were, it is true, not brought about in a day. nor without a resolute protest on the part of individual Romans. So long as Rome chose to subdue foreign nations and to hold them by the demoralizing tenure of conquest — i.e.. as mere provinces, whose inhabitants, held in check by a fierce and unscrupulous soldiery, neither possessed political privileges nor dared cherish the hope of them — it was morally impossible for the citizens, either at home or abroad, to resume the simple and frugal habits of their forefathers. After Cato's time things grew worse instead of better, nor from this period dovm to the final dissolution of the Empire was a single radical reform ever ])ermanently efl'eeted. The momen- tary success of Tiberius Gracchus and of his far abler brother. Gains, in their attempts to pre- vent the social ruin of the State by redistributing the domain lands, breaking down the powers of the senate, reorganizing the administration, and partially restoring the legislative authority of the popular assemblies, hardly survived their death ; and the reaction that ensued proved that the senate could learn nothing from adversity, and that the rabble of the city were incapable of elevation or generosity of political sentiment. Henceforth the malversation of the public money by pra'tors and quaestors became chronic, and the moral debauchery of the mob of the capital by the largesses of ambitious politicians and the vile flattery of demagogues, complete. The old Roman faith, so deep, and strong, and stern, dis- appeared from the heart. The priests became hypocrites, the nobles "philosophers' (i.e. unbe- lievei-s), their wives practicers of Oriental abomi- nations under the name of "mysteries;' while the poor looked on with unmeaning yet superstitious wonder at the hollow but pompous ceremonies of religion. From the De.struction of C.^rtiiage to the tehmi^•at10^■ of the republic (b.c. 146-27). We have already alluded to the wars waged in Spain during the first half of the second century B.C. The humane and conciliatory policy pur- sued toward the natives by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, father of the ill-fated tribunes, brought about a peace, B.C. 179, that lasted twenty-five years; but in B.C. 153 a general rising of the "Celtiberians took place, followed by another on the part of the Lusitanians. The strviggle lasted, with intervals of peace, for the space of twenty years, but ended in the final overthrow of the undisciplined and uncivilized combatant. All the valor of the she])herd warrior Viriathus (q.v.), even if the asssasin's steel had spared his life, '0uld not have prevented the annexation of Lusi- tania to the Roman Empire, nor did the heroism of the besieged Kumantines avail against the skill of the younger Scipio. ToAard the conclusion of the Xumantine War occurred the first of those social outbreaks known as "servile' or 'slave' wars, which marked the later ages of the Republic. The condition of the slaves has been already referred to: but what aggravated the wretchedness of their lot was the fact that most of them had been originally free- men — not inferior in knowledge, skill, or accom- plishments to their masters, but only in force of character and military prowess. The first slave insurrection broke out in Sicily, B.C. 134, where the system was seen at its worst. Its leader was one Eunus, a Syrian, who, mimicking his native monarch, took the title of King Antiochus. The suddenness and fury of the revolt for a time ren- dered all opposition impossible. The slaves over- ran the island, and routed one Roman army after another. In B.C. 13"2 the Consul Publius Rupilius restored order in the island. In the East for- time continued to smile upon the Roman arms. Attains III. Philometer. dying B.C. 133, be-" queathed his client-kingdom of Pergamum to its protector, Rome ; and after a fierce struggle with a pretender called Aristonicus. the Romans ob- tained possession of the bequest, and formed it into the Province of Asia. B.C. 129. We may here enumerate the diflTerent provinces into Avhich the Roman Senate divided its foreign conquests in the order of their organization: (1) Sicily, B.C. 241; (2) Sardinia and Corsica, B.C. 238: (3) Hispania Citerior and (4) Hispania Ulterior. B.C. 205: (5) Gallia Cisalpina. B.C. 191; (6) ^Macedonia, B.C. 146: (7) Illyricum, circa B.C. 146; (8) Achaia (or Southern Greece), CiVca B.C. 146; (9) Africa (i.e. the Carthaginian