had been the subject of dispute in the war. They brought Carthage herself under contribution, and reduced her almost to the state of a province. On the side of Macedonia, in their treaty with Philip they retained to themselves considerable pledges, not only of security, but of power; and began to be considered in the councils of Greece as the principal arbiters of the fortune of nations. In Italy they were more absolute than before the war... The Romans were altogether men of the sword, or of the State, and made no application to letters or sedentary occupations.'

Such was the aspect of the Roman power when it first entered on its course of Eastern conquest. Stubborn and firm as iron, and like iron, devoted supremely to the uses of war, it had no share with the brazen empire of Greece in the tinkling cymbals of ostentatious eloquence. War, clad in its iron armour, was their sole and chosen employment. Mars was their legendary parent, and the fierce she-wolf of Romulus the fit emblem of their national fierceness. Even at this time their prophetic character had begun to appear; they were dreadful in prowess, "terrible and strong exceedingly," in the view of the surrounding nations.

But the iron kingdom forms a part of the great image, the glorious idol which dazzled the eyes of the heathen monarch. In the second vision it appears again, as a devouring wild beast of prey. In these two symbols are plainly implied the two kindred attributes of idolatrous worship and ambitious cruelty. These characters were both of them signally manifest in every successive age of this heathen empire. Amidst all the splendour of Roman virtue, and the iron strength and prowess of Roman warriors, cruelty and idolatry were found there, united in their perpetual and inseparable league. This truth appears with abundant evidence in the Latin historians. A few extracts from the work of Ferguson, and from Livy himself, will convey some impression of the mournful picture.

"To the simplicity of the Roman manners in other

F

...

respects, and to the ability of the councils of the state, was joined a very gross superstition, which led to many acts of absurdity and cruelty. A little before the late war, the senate, on the report of a prophecy, that the Gauls and the Greeks were to possess the city, ordered a man and a woman of each nation to be buried alive in the market place; supposing that by this act of monstrous cruelty, they were to fulfil or elude the prediction. They attended to the numberless prodigies that were annually collected, and to the charms that were suggested to avert the evils they presaged, no less than to the most serious affairs of the commonwealth. Fabius was no less celebrated for his diligence in averting the effect of prodiges and unhappy omens, than he was for the conduct and ability of a cautious and successful commander. Scipio is said to have pretended to special revelations.'

Let us now, by the aid of Livy, pursue the earlier steps of the Roman conquests. The war with Macedon broke out, B.C. 202. After a few years it was ended by the consul Flamininus in a signal victory. But the triumph of their arms was prefaced by an equal triumph of idol superstition. It was announced from Suessa, that two gates and the wall between them had been struck by lightning; by the Formian legates, that the temple of Jupiter was struck; the same by those of Ostium; by the Veliternian, the temples of Apollo and Sancus, and that hair had grown in the temple of Hercules. Minutius the propraetor wrote from Bruttii, that a foal was born with five feet, and three chickens with three feet apiece. Sulpicius, the pro-consul, wrote from Macedon, that a laurel had grown from the poop of a ship of war. For the former prodigies the senate had decreed that the consuls should offer larger sacrifices to whatever gods they pleased. For this last, the augurs were called into the senate, and by their advice, a public prayer was announced for one day, and sacred rites were performed at all the shrines of the Gods.' Soon after, the decisive victory of Cynoscephala broke the power of Macedon

(B.C. 197). Most of the army laid down their arms and fled. The king, in a hurried flight, reached Tempe. There he stayed one day to receive those, if any, who had survived the battle. The victor Romans rushed into the enemy's camp, in the hope of prey, but found it mainly plundered by the Aetolians. Eight thousand of the enemy were slain, and five thousand were made prisoners. Philip retreated into Macedonia.’ (Livy xxxiii. 10.) Peace was soon after granted on these conditions, "That all the states of Greece, both in Europe and Asia, should be free; that Philip should resign all his decked ships except one royal vessel; that he should have only five hundred armed men, and no elephant. That he should wage no war out of Macedonia without leave from the senate, and pay a thousand talents to the Roman people.' (chap. xxx.) At the Isthmian games (B.c. 196), proclamation was made aloud by a herald. The Roman senate and people, and Titus Quinctius, the general, having vanquished King Philip and the Macedonians, proclaim freedom, immunity, and the use of their own laws, to the Corinthians, Phocians, and all the Locrians, the island Euboea, and the Magnesians, the Thessalians, Perrhœbi, and Achoeans of Phthia.' In the following year, Nabis the tyrant of Lacedæmon was vanquished, and the power of the Romans silently confirmed. The war with Antiochus next ensued. The king was vanquished at Thermopylae, his army routed, and himself driven back into Asia. In the next campaign the Roman armies entered Asia for the first time (B.c. 190), and by a second victory at Myonnesus broke the Syrian power, which was now confined to the east of Mount Taurus. The Galatians were conquered in the following year, and the Cephallenians and Aetolians brought into subjection.

But the war with Perseus (B.c 179) formed an era still more signal in the progress of Roman dominion. Livy remarks on it in these words (xli. c. 1.) :—

"The Roman people had now carried their victorious arms through all parts of the world, and far and wide

had pervaded countries remotely distant, and separated by more than one sea. But in such extreme good fortune of propitious events, it had still gained the praise of moderation, and prevailed more by authority than dominion; and boasted of effecting more among foreign nations by policy than by force and terror. Towards the conquered people and kings it was not severe ; it was munificent to its allies. Seeking for itself only the honours of victory, it had reserved to the kings their dignity, to the people their laws, rights, and liberty; and thus, while its arms had reached on each shore of the Mediterranean from Gades even to Syria, and through immense regions reverence had been attracted to the Roman name, it had subject to its sway only the people of Sicily, and the islands about Italy, and most of Spain, which did not yet however bear the yoke with a willing neck. The cruelty of Perseus, who obtained the kingdom of Macedon by deceit, his avarice and inconsistency, ruined both himself, and whatever else could stand while this main check existed to the Roman power. For his fall spread to others, and brought on the ruin, not only of his neighbours, but of those who were far remote. Carthage and the Achaians followed the destruction of the Macedonians, and the state of all being shaken by their overthrow, the surviving kingdoms, suspected for a time, and soon after subverted, all fell into the Roman empire.'

This war, like the others, was ushered-in with the usual idolatries and superstitions. 'It was reported that at Saturnia it had rained blood for three days in the city; that an ass with three feet was born at Calatia, and that a bull with five cows had been killed by one thunderbolt; that at Oximus there had been a shower of earth. On account of these prodigies sacred rites were performed, and public prayers to the gods, and a feast held for one day.'

The speech of Perseus before the decisive conflict marks, in striking colours, the contrast between the time of the third and the fourth empire. Let them show

the like courage with their fathers, who, after subduing all Europe, passed over into Asia, and by their arms disclosed a world unknown even to fame; and did not cease to conquer, till space for conquests failed them, shut in by the Indian sea. But now fortune has announced a conflict, not for the remotest shores of India, but for the possession of Macedonia itself. The Romans, when they waged war with his father, used the specious pretext of restoring freedom to Greece. Now, they sought openly to enslave Macedonia, that no king might border on the Roman power, and no warlike nation retain the use of arms.'

The battle of Pydna soon followed (B.c. 168). "The Romans agreed that so many Macedonians were never slain in one battle. About twenty thousand fell; six thousand, who had fled to Pydna, were made prisoners, and five thousand was captured in their flight. Of the conquerors not more than a hundred were slain.'

The conquerors divided Macedon into four parts, of which Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, and Pelagonia, were to be the chief towns, and Edessa, and Beroa, assigned to the third division. These provinces were forbidden to intermarry, or have any commerce with each other, out of their own bounds.' Thus were the words of the vision fulfilled, that the fourth kingdom, like iron, should break in pieces and bruise the strongest and mightiest empires.

'Not long after the fall of Macedon, Carthage was finally destroyed. The city continued to burn during seventeen days. The tidings were received at Rome with uncommon demonstrations of joy. The victors gave orders to raze the fortifications, and even to destroy the materials of which they were built. And thus Carthage, the model of magnificence, the repository of wealth, and one of the principal states of the ancient world, was no more. By the milder law and practice of modern nations, we are happily exempted from the danger of seeing such horrid examples repeated, at least in any part of the western world.'