y ought not to suffer the kernel of their empire to be stifled
by the shell--they earnestly opposed the introduction first of Africa,
then of Greece, and lastly of Asia into the sphere of the Roman
protectorate, till circumstances in each case compelled, or at least
suggested with irresistible force, the extension of that sphere. The
Romans always asserted that they did not pursue a policy of conquest,
and that they were always the party assailed; and this was something
more, at any rate, than a mere phrase. They were in fact driven to
all their great wars with the exception of that concerning Sicily--to
those with Hannibal and Antiochus, no less than to those with Philip
and Perseus--either by a direct aggression or by an unparalleled
disturbance of the existing political relations; and hence they were
ordinarily taken by surprise on their outbreak. That they did not
after victory exhibit the moderation which they ought to have done in
the interest more especially of Italy itself; that the retention of
Spain, for instance, the undertaking of the guardianship of Africa,
and above all the half-fanciful scheme of bringing liberty everywhere
to the Greeks, were in the light of Italian policy grave errors, is
sufficiently clear. But the causes of these errors were, on the
one hand a blind dread of Carthage, on the other a still blinder
enthusiasm for Hellenic liberty; so little did the Romans exhibit
during this period the lust of conquest, that they, on the contrary,
displayed a very judicious dread of it. The policy of Rome throughout
was not projected by a single mightly intellect and bequeathed
traditionally from generation to generation; it was the policy of a
very able but somewhat narrow-minded deliberative assembly, which had
far too little power of grand combination, and far too much of a right
instinct for the preservation of its own commonwealth, to devise
projects in the spirit of a Caesar or a Napoleon. The universal
empire of Rome had its ultimate ground in the political development of
antiquity in general. The ancient world knew nothing of a balance of
power among nations; and therefore every nation which had attained
internal unity strove either directly to subdue its neighbors, as did
the Hellenic states, or at any rate to render them innocuous, as Rome
did,--an effort, it is true, which also issued ultimately in
subjugation. Egypt was perhaps the only great power in antiquity
which seriously pursued