uijote espanol_ married a Roman wife, and as Caius Julius
Corocottus "lived happily ever after." It was a change from the
'generous' Julius' treatment of Vercingetorix; but that Rome
profited by the precedent thus established, we may judge from
Claudius' treatment of the third Celtic hero who fell into Roman
hands,--Caradoc of Wales.

Spain was only one of the many places where the frontier had to
be settled. The empire was a nebulous affair; you could not say
where it began and ended; and to bring all out of this
nebulosity was one of the labors that awaited Augustus. Even a
Messenger of the Gods is limited by the conditions he finds in
the world; and is as great as his age will allow him to be.
Though an absolute monarch, he cannot change human nature. He
must concentrate on points attackable, and do what he can;
deflect currents in the right direction; above all, sow ideals,
and wait upon the ministrations of time. He must take conditions
as he finds them, following the lines of least resistance. It is
nothing to him that posterity may ask, Why did he not change this
or that?--and add he was no better than he should be. At once to
change outer things and ways of feeling that have grown up
through centuries is not difficult but impossible; and sometimes
right courses, violently taken, are wronger than wrong ones.
Augustus was a man of peace, if anybody ever was, yet (as in
Spain) made many wars. The result of this Spanish conquest was
that the Pax Romana came into Spain, bringing with it severa
centuries of high prosperity; the world-currents flowed in there
at once and presently the light of Spain, such as it was at that
time, shone out over the Roman world. Most of the great names of
the first century A.D. are those of Spaniards.

After Spain, the most immediate frontier difficulty was with
Parthia; and there Augustus won his greatest victory. At
Carrhae the Parthians had routed Crassus and taken the Roman
eagles. Rome was responsible for the provinces of Asia; and she
was nominally at war with Parthia,--so those provinces were in
trim to be overrun at any time. The war, then, must be finished;
and could Rome let it end on terms of a Parthian victory? Where
(it would be argued) would then be Roman prestige? Where Roman
authority (a more real and valuable thing)? Where the Pax
Romana?--All very true and sound; everybody knew that for the
war to reopen was only a question of time;--Julius had been o