reek
world, where an old glory concealed so much weakness, they could not
accord too much to prudence. These pitiless enemies of the Volscians
and the Samnites will not proceed in their next wars by exterminating
their adversaries and wasting their country. "It was not with such a
purpose," said they, "that they came to pour out their blood; they
took in hand the cause of oppressed Greece." And that language and
that policy they will not change after victory. The first act of
Flamininus, on the day after Cynoscephalae, was to proclaim the liberty
of the Greeks. All who bore that respected name seemed to have the
right to Roman protection; and the little Greek cities of Caria, and
of the coasts of Asia and Thrace, received with astonishment their
liberty from a people that they hardly knew. All were captivated
by this apparent generosity. None perceived that in restoring
independence to the cities and States, Rome wished to break up the
confederations that sought to reorganize and would perhaps have given
new force to Greece. In isolating them and attaching them to herself
by grateful ties, she placed them almost insensibly under her
influence. She made allies of them; and every one knows what the
allies of Rome became. Thus the Senate was so well satisfied with this
policy, which created division everywhere and awakened extinct
rivalries, that for half a century it followed no other.

RESULTS OF THE ROMAN DOMINION

From the 'History of Rome'

Although in literature Rome was but the echo of Greece, she civilized
all the Western world, for which the Greeks had done nothing. Her
language, out of which sprang the various languages of the Romance
nations, is in case of need a means of communication among scholars
of all countries, and her books will always remain--a wise selection
being made--the best for the higher culture of the mind. They have
merited above all others the title of _litterae humaniores_, the
literature by which men are made. A cardinal, reading the 'Thoughts
of Marcus Aurelius' (written in Greek, it is true, but written by a
Roman), exclaimed, "My soul blushes redder than my scarlet at sight of
the virtues of this Gentile."

Suppose Rome destroyed by Pyrrhus or Hannibal, before Marius and Caesar
had driven the German tribes back from Gaul: their invasion would have
been effected five centuries sooner; and since they would have found
opposed to them only other barbarians, what a long night would