to say in the
regulation of Greece, we can understand why Corinth was singled out for
punishment, and why the Romans not only destroyed the city as it stood,
but also prohibited any future settlement on a site so pre-eminently
favourable for commerce. The Peloponnesian Argos thenceforth became
the rendezvous for the Roman merchants, who were very numerous even
in Greece. For the Roman wholesale traffic, however, Delos was
of greater importance; a Roman free port as early as 586, it had
attracted a great part of the business of Rhodes,(26) and now
in a similar way entered on the heritage of Corinth. This island
remained for a considerable time the chief emporium for merchandise
going from the east to the west.(27)

In the third and more distant continent the Roman dominion
exhibited a development more imperfect than in the African and
Macedono-Hellenic countries, which were separated from Italy
only by narrow seas.

Kingdom of Pergamus

In Asia Minor, after the Seleucids were driven back, the kingdom
of Pergamus had become the first power. Not led astray by
the traditions of the Alexandrine monarchies, but sagacious and
dispassionate enough to renounce what was impossible, the Attalids
kept quiet; and endeavoured not to extend their bounds nor to
withdraw from the Roman hegemony, but to promote the prosperity of
their empire, so far as the Romans allowed, and to foster the arts
of peace. Nevertheless they did not escape the jealousy and suspicion
of Rome. In possession of the European shore of the Propontis,
of the west coast of Asia Minor, and of its interior as far as
the Cappadocian and Cilician frontiers, and in close connection with
the Syrian kings--one of whom, Antiochus Epiphanes (d. 590), had
ascendedthe throne by the aid of the Attalids--king Eumenes II had
by his power, which seemed still more considerable from the more and
more deep decline of Macedonia and Syria, instilled apprehension
in the minds even of its founders. We have already related(28)
how the senate sought to humble and weaken this ally after the third
Macedonian war by unbecoming diplomatic arts. The relations--
perplexing from the very nature of the case--of the rulers of
Pergamus towards the free or half-free commercial cities within
their kingdom, and towards their barbarous neighbours on its borders,
became complicated still more painfully by this ill humour on the part
of their patrons. As it was not clear whether, according