civilization
--with barbarians, as they were called. The whole civilized world
thenceforth recognized in the Roman senate the supreme tribunal, whose
commissions decided in the last resort between kings and nations; and
to acquire its language and manners foreign princes and youths of
quality resided in Rome. A clear and earnest attempt to get rid of
this dominion was in reality made only once--by the great Mithradates
of Pontus. The battle of Pydna, moreover, marks the last occasion on
which the senate still adhered to the state-maxim that they should, if
possible, hold no possessions and maintain no garrisons beyond the
Italian seas, but should keep the numerous states dependent on them in
order by a mere political supremacy. The aim of their policy was that
these states should neither decline into utter weakness and anarchy,
as had nevertheless happened in Greece nor emerge out of their half-
free position into complete independence, as Macedonia had attempted
to do not without success. No state was to be allowed utterly to
perish, but no one was to be permitted to stand on its own resources.
Accordingly the vanquished foe held at least an equal, often a better,
position with the Roman diplomatists than the faithful ally; and,
while a defeated opponent was reinstated, those who attempted to
reinstate themselves were abased--as the Aetolians, Macedonia after
the Asiatic war, Rhodes, and Pergamus learned by experience. But not
only did this part of protector soon prove as irksome to the masters
as to the servants; the Roman protectorate, with its ungrateful
Sisyphian toil that continually needed to be begun afresh, showed
itself to be intrinsically untenable. Indications of a change of
system, and of an increasing disinclination on the part of Rome to
tolerate by its side intermediate states even in such independence as
was possible for them, were very clearly given in the destruction of
the Macedonian monarchy after the battle of Pydna, The more and more
frequent and more and more unavoidable intervention in the internal
affairs of the petty Greek states through their misgovernment and
their political and social anarchy; the disarming of Macedonia, where
the northern frontier at any rate urgently required a defence
different from that of mere posts; and, lastly, the introduction of
the payment of land-tax to Rome from Macedonia and Illyria, were so
many symptoms of the approaching conversion of the client state