The Roman power, till then confined to the West, was now to penetrate
into another universe,--that of the successors of Alexander. The
eternal glory of Rome, the immense benefaction by which she effaces
the memory of so many unjust wars, is to have reunited those two
worlds that in all former ages were divided in interest, and strangers
to each other; is to have mingled and fused the brilliant but corrupt
civilization of the East with the barbaric energy of the West. The
Mediterranean became a Roman lake,--_mare nostrum_, they said,--and
the same life circulated on all its shores, called for the first and
the last time to a common existence.
In this work were employed a century and a half of struggles and
diplomacy; for Rome, working for a patient aristocracy and not for a
man, was not compelled to attain her end at a bound. Instead of
rearing suddenly one of those colossal monarchies formed like the
statue of gold with feet of clay, she founded slowly an empire which
fell only under the weight of years and of the Northern hordes. After
Zama she could have attempted the conquest of Africa, but she left
Carthage and the Numidians to enfeeble each other. After Cynoscephalae
and Magnesia, Greece and Asia were all ready for the yoke, but she
accorded them fifty years more of liberty. This was because, along
with the pride of the Roman name and the necessity for dominion, she
always retained some of her ancient virtues. The Popiliuses were more
numerous than the Verreses. Now she preferred to rule the world; later
she will put it to pillage. Thus, wherever Rome saw strength she sent
her legions; all power was broken; the ties of States and leagues were
shattered; and when her soldiers were recalled they left behind them
only weakness and anarchy. But the task of the legions accomplished,
that of the Senate began. After force came craft and diplomacy. Those
senators, grown old amidst the terrors of the second Punic war, seemed
now to have less pleasure in arms than in the game of politics,--the
first, in all ages, of Italian arts.
Several other causes dictated this policy of reserve. Against the
Gauls, the Samnites, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal,--in other words, for the
defense of Latium and of Italy,--Rome had employed all her strength;
it was then a question of her existence: whereas, in the wars with
Greece and with Asia, her ambition and her pride alone were
interested; and wisdom demanded that some relaxation be given to the
plebeians and the allies. The Senate had moreover too many affairs on
its hands--the wars with Spain, with Corsica, with Cisalpina, and with
Istria--to admit of its becoming deeply involved in the East.
Therefore two legions only will fight Philip and Antiochus--that will
suffice to conquer, but would be too little to despoil them.
Furthermore, the Senate believed that in penetrating into this Greek
world, where an old glory concealed so much weakness, they could not
accord too much to prudence. These pitiless enemies of the Volscians
and the Samnites will not proceed in their next wars by exterminating
their adversaries and wasting their country. "It was not with such a
purpose," said they, "that they came to pour out their blood; they
took in hand the cause of oppressed Greece." And that language and
that policy they will not change after victory. The first act of
Flamininus, on the day after Cynoscephalae, was to proclaim the liberty
of the Greeks. All who bore that respected name seemed to have the
right to Roman protection; and the little Greek cities of Caria, and
of the coasts of Asia and Thrace, received with astonishment their
liberty from a people that they hardly knew. All were captivated
by this apparent generosity. None perceived that in restoring
independence to the cities and States, Rome wished to break up the
confederations that sought to reorganize and would perhaps have given
new force to Greece. In isolating them and attaching them to herself
by grateful ties, she placed them almost insensibly under her
influence. She made allies of them; and every one knows what the
allies of Rome became. Thus the Senate was so well satisfied with this
policy, which created division everywhere and awakened extinct
rivalries, that for half a century it followed no other.