ntlman, the finest fruit of an ancient culture, had
thought no scorn to marry a Spanish lady; as a king of Italy
nowadays found it nowise beneath him to marry a Montenegrin
princess. In either case it meant no unbridgable disparity in
culture. Among any of the Spanish people you should have found
men who would have been at home in Greek or Carthaginian
drawing-rooms, so to say; though the break-up of a forgotten
civilization there had left the country in fragments and small
warfares and disorder. If you read the earliest Spanish accounts
of their conquests in the new world, you cannot escape the
feeling that, no such long ages ago, Spain was in touch with
America; not so many centuries, say, before Hamilcar went to
Spain. Such accounts are no doubt unscientific; but may be the
more intuitional and true and indicative for that. When Augustus
turned his eyes on Spain, Basque and Celtic chieftains in
the northern mountains and along the shores of Biscay, the
semi-decivilized _membra disjecta_ of past civilizations, were
always disposed to make trouble for the Roman south. He could not
have left them alone, except at the cost of keeping huge garrisons
along the border, with perpetual alarms for the province. So he
went there in person, and began the work of conquering those
mountains in B.C. 27. It was a long and difficult war with
hideous doings on both sides: the Romans crucified the
Spaniards, and the Spaniards jeered at them from their crosses.
This because Augustus was too sick to attend to things himself;
half the time he was at death's door. Not till he could afford to
take Agrippa from work elsewhere was any real progress made. But
at one point we see his own hand strike into it; and the
incident is very instructive.

Spain had her Vercingetorix in one Corocotta, a Celt who kept all
Roman efforts useless and all Roman commanders tantalized
and nervous till a reward of fifty thousand dollars was offered
for his capture. Augustus, recovered a little, was in camp;
and things were going ill with the Spainiards. One day an
important-looking Celt walked in, and demanded to see the Caesar
upon business connected with the taking of Corocotta. Led into
the Caesar's presence, he was asked what he wanted.--"Fifty-thousand
dollars," said he; "I am Corocotta." Augustus laughed long and
loud; shook hands with him heartily; paid him the money down,
and gave him his liberty into the bargain; whereafter soon this
_Q