THE Roman Empire was an accident. No one planned it. It "happened." No
famous general or statesman or cut-throat ever got up and said "Friends,
Romans, Citizens, we must found an Empire. Follow me and together we
shall conquer all the land from the Gates of Hercules to Mount Taurus."
Rome produced famous generals and equally distinguished statesmen and
cut-throats, and Roman armies fought all over the world. But the Roman
empire-making was done without a preconceived plan. The average
Roman was a very matter-of-fact citizen. He disliked theories about
government. When someone began to recite "eastward the course of Roman
Empire, etc., etc.," he hastily left the forum. He just continued to
take more and more land because circumstances forced him to do so. He
was not driven by ambition or by greed. Both by nature and inclination
he was a farmer and wanted to stay at home. But when he was attacked he
was obliged to defend himself and when the enemy happened to cross the
sea to ask for aid in a distant country then the patient Roman marched
many dreary miles to defeat this dangerous foe and when this had been
accomplished, he stayed behind to adminster{sic} his newly conquered
provinces lest they fall into the hands of wandering Barbarians and
become themselves a menace to Roman safety. It sounds rather complicated
and yet to the contemporaries it was so very simple, as you shall see in
a moment.
In the year 203 B.C. Scipio had crossed the African Sea and had carried
the war into Africa. Carthage had called Hannibal back. Badly supported
by his mercenaries, Hannibal had been defeated near Zama. The Romans had
asked for his surrender and Hannibal had fled to get aid from the kings
of Macedonia and Syria, as I told you in my last chapter.
The rulers of these two countries (remnants of the Empire of Alexander
the Great) just then were contemplating an expedition against Egypt.
They hoped to divide the rich Nile valley between themselves. The king
of Egypt had heard of this and he had asked Rome to come to his
support. The stage was set for a number of highly interesting plots and
counter-plots. But the Romans, with their lack of imagination, rang
the curtain down before the play had been fairly started. Their legions
completely defeated the heavy Greek phalanx which was still used by the
Macedonians as their battle formation. That happened in the year 197
B.C. at the battle in the plains of Cynoscephalae, or "Dogs' Heads," in
central Thessaly.
The Romans then marched southward to Attica and informed the Greeks that
they had come to "deliver the Hellenes from the Macedonian yoke." The
Greeks, having learned nothing in their years of semi-slavery, used
their new freedom in a most unfortunate way. All the little city-states
once more began to quarrel with each other as they had done in the good
old days. The Romans, who had little understanding and less love for
these silly bickerings of a race which they rather despised, showed
great forebearance. But tiring of these endless dissensions they lost
patience, invaded Greece, burned down Corinth (to "encourage the other
Greeks") and sent a Roman governor to Athens to rule this turbulent
province. In this way, Macedonia and Greece became buffer states which
protected Rome's eastern frontier.
Meanwhile right across the Hellespont lay the Kingdom of Syria, and
Antiochus III, who ruled that vast land, had shown great eagerness when
his distinguished guest, General Hannibal, explained to him how easy it
would be to invade Italy and sack the city of Rome.
Lucius Scipio, a brother of Scipio the African fighter who had defeated
Hannibal and his Carthaginians at Zama, was sent to Asia Minor. He
destroyed the armies of the Syrian king near Magnesia (in the year 190
B.C.) Shortly afterwards, Antiochus was lynched by his own people. Asia
Minor became a Roman protectorate and the small City-Republic of Rome
was mistress of most of the lands which bordered upon the Mediterranean.