by way of Massilia
to Emporiae, at least as far as the Alps--beyond the Alps it devolved
on the Massiliots to keep the coast navigation open for Roman vessels
and the road along the shore open for travellers by land. The
interior with its impassable valleys and its rocky fastnesses,
and with its poor but dexterous and crafty inhabitants, served
the Romans mainly as a school of war for the training and hardening
of soldiers and officers.

Corsica
Sardinia

Wars as they are called, of a similar character with those against the
Ligurians, were waged with the Corsicans and to a still greater extent
with the inhabitants of the interior of Sardinia, who retaliated for
the predatory expeditions directed against them by sudden attacks on
the districts along the coast. The expedition of Tiberius Gracchus
against the Sardinians in 577 was specially held in remembrance,
not so much because it gave "peace" to the province, as because
he asserted that he had slain or captured as many as 80,000 of
the islanders, and dragged slaves thence in such multitudes to
Rome that "cheap as a Sardinian" became a proverb.

Carthage

In Africa the policy of Rome was substantially summed up in the one
idea, as short-sighted as it was narrow-minded, that she ought to
prevent the revival of the power of Carthage, and ought accordingly
to keep the unhappy city constantly oppressed and apprehensive of
a declaration of war suspended over it by Rome like the sword of
Damocles. The stipulation in the treaty of peace, that the
Carthaginians should retain their territory undiminished, but
that their neighbour Massinissa should have all those possessions
guaranteed to him which he or his predecessor had possessed within
the Carthaginian bounds, looks almost as if it had been inserted not
to obviate, but to provoke disputes. The same remark applies to the
obligation imposed by the Roman treaty of peace on the Carthaginians
not to make war upon the allies of Rome; so that, according to the
letter of the treaty, they were not even entitled to expel their
Numidian neighbours from their own undisputed territory. With such
stipulations and amidst the uncertainty of African frontier questions
in general, the situation of Carthage in presence of a neighbour
equally powerful and unscrupulous and of a liege lord who was at once
umpire and party in the cause, could not but be a painful one; but
the reality was worse than the worst expectations. As early as