ith one another, and that the
poor would be ashamed of not making as good an appearance as the rich.
"And," said he, "she who blushes for doing what she ought, will soon
cease to blush for doing what she ought not."

One wonders he did not see that to have no enemy near at hand to guard
against was the very worst thing for the hardy, plain old ways he was so
anxious to keep up. However, Carthage was to be wiped out, and Scipio
AEmilianus was sent to do the terrible work. He defeated Hasdrubal, the
last of the Carthaginian generals, and took the citadel of Byrsa; but
though all hope was over, the city held out in utter desperation.
Weapons were forged out of household implements, even out of gold and
silver, and the women twisted their long hair into bow-strings; and when
the walls were stormed, they fought from street to street and house to
house, so that the Romans gained little but ruins and dead bodies.
Carthage and Corinth fell on the same day of the year 179.

Part of Spain still had to be subdued, and Scipio AEmilianus was sent
thither. The city of Numantia, with only 5000 inhabitants, endured one
of those long, hopeless sieges for which Spanish cities have in all
times been remarkable, and was only taken at last when almost every
citizen had perished.

At the same time, Attalus, king of Pergamus in Asia Minor, being the
last of his race, bequeathed his dominions to the Romans, and thus gave
them their first solid footing there.

All this was altering Roman manners much. Weak as the Greeks were, their
old doings of every kind were still the admiration of every one, and the
Romans, who had always been rough, straightforward doers, began to wish
to learn of them to think. All the wealthier families had Greeks for
tutors for their sons, and expected them to talk and write the language,
and study the philosophy and poetry till they should be as familiar with
it as if they were Greeks themselves. Unluckily, the Greeks themselves
had fallen from their earnestness and greatness, so that there was not
much to be learnt of them now but vain deceit and bad taste.

Rich Romans, too, began to get most absurdly luxurious. They had
splendid villas on the Italian hill-sides, where they went to spend the
summer when Rome was unhealthy, and where they had beautiful gardens,
with courts paved with mosaic, and fish-ponds for the pet fish for which
many had a passion. One man was laughed at for having shed tears when
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