homes. Thus avarice, leagued with power, disturbed, violated, and wasted everything, without moderation or restraint, disregarding alike reason and religion, and rushing headlong, as it were, to its own destruction. SALLUST.

For when their dread of Carthage was at an end, and their rival in empire was removed, the nation, deserting the cause of virtue, went over, not gradually, but with precipitation, to that of vice; the old rules of conduct were renounced, and new introduced; and the people turned themselves from activity to slumber, from arms to pleasure, from business to idleness. —VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.

GREECE A ROMAN PROVINCE.

IN 146 B. C., the same year in which she destroyed Carthage, Rome also destroyed Corinth in Greece, and Greece became a Roman province under the name of Achaia.

"T is Greece, but living Greece no more!

BYRON.

The Greeks surpass all men till they face the Romans, when Roman character prevails over Greek genius. — EMERSON.

As far as intellect is concerned, the Greeks were in a state of complete decay; at Athens schools indeed still existed, but poetry was extinct, and even the art of oratory, the last flower of the Hellenic mind, had disappeared from Greece and established itself among the Asiatic nations, which had become Hellenized without possessing the great qualities of the Greek nation. Most towns were only shadows

of what they had been, and there were few which had not been destroyed several times. Corinth was one of the fortunate exceptions, and hence had become the most flourishing of all Greek cities. NIEBUHR.

The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to their engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, and the literature of the Western

world. In poetry, in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they had no rivals. Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane. But of courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. MACAULAY.

For should a man except the achievement at Marathon, the sea-fight at Salamis, the engagements at Platæa and Thermopyla, Cimon's exploits at Eurymedon and on the coasts of Cyprus, Greece fought all her battles against, and to enslave, herself; she erected all her trophies to her own shame and misery, and was brought to ruin and desolation almost wholly by the guilt and ambition of her great

In Greece the unity of the social principle led to a development of wonderful rapidity; no other people ever ran so brilliant a career in so short a time. But Greece had hardly become glorious, before she appeared worn out; her decline, if not quite so rapid as her rise, was strangely sudden. It seems as if the principle which called Greek civilization into life was exhausted. GUIZOT.

When we reflect on the fame of Thebes and Argos, of Sparta and Athens, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that so many immortal republics of ancient Greece were lost in a single province of the Roman Empire, which, from the superior influence of the Achæan League, was usually denominated the province of Achaia. — GIBBON.

It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was herself subdued by the arts of Greece. - - GIBBON.

The interior, or active political history of the Greeks ceases with the subjugation of their country by Alexander, or at least by the Romans; but it is from this very point that the history of their exterior influence may be said almost to commence. From this period we begin to learn how important a part the little corner of Europe, which gave birth to art and science, to politics and philosophy, was really destined to play in human affairs. MERIVALE.

When conquered Greece brought in her captive arts,
She triumphed o'er her savage conquerors' hearts;

Taught our rough verse its numbers to refine,
And our rude style with elegance to shine.

HORACE. Tr. Francis.

Where are thy splendors, Dorian Corinth? Where
Thy crested turrets, thy ancestral goods,
The temple of the blest, the dwellings of the fair,

The high-born dames, the myriad multitudes?
There's not a trace of thee, sad doomed one, left
By ravening war at once of all bereft.

We, the sad nereids, offspring of the surge,
Alone are spared to chant the halcyon's dirge.

ANTIPATER OF SIDON.

Where is thy grandeur, Corinth? Shrunk from sight
Thy ancient treasures, and thy ramparts' height,
Thy godlike fanes and palaces! Oh, where
Thy mighty myriads, and majestic fair?
Relentless war has poured around thy wall,
And hardly spared the traces of thy fall!

Achæan Acrocorinth, the bright star

Of Hellas, with its narrow Isthmian bound,
Lucius o'ercame; in one enormous mound
Piling the dead, conspicuous from afar.
Thus, to the Greeks denying funeral fires,
Have great. Æneas' later progeny
Performed high Jove's retributive decree,
And well avenged the city of their sires.

BYRON.

POLYSTRATUS. Tr. Merivale.

Ay, Paul denounced, and Mummius wrapped in flame,

The cup was full, the bolt of ruin came,

BYRON.

Three most remarkable triumphs, therefore, were celebrated at Rome at the same time, — that of Scipio for Africa, before whose chariot Hasdrubal was led; that of Metellus for Macedonia, before whose chariot walked Andriscus (also called Pseudo-Philip); and

that of Mummius for Corinth, before whom brazen statues, pictures, and other ornaments of that celebrated city were carried. — EuTROPIUS

IN the latter part of the century Rome begins the conquest of Transalpine Gaul, and also begins to interfere with the affairs of Asia, and forms of the dominions of Pergamus the province of Asia in 133–129 B. C. Nearly all of Spain becomes after 133 B. C. a Roman province. Rome has risen to the position of the one great power of the world.

Rome had its heroic age: the Romans knew that they had such an age, and we may believe them. Polybius saw the end of it; he saw the destruction of Carthage and the savage sack of Corinth, and the beginning of a worse time. But he has recorded his testimony that some honesty still remained. — LONG.

From Mummius to Augustus the Roman city stands as the living mistress of a dead world.-FREEMAN.

The submission of Macedonia, and the fall of Corinth, Carthage, and Numantia, brought the universe to the feet of Rome. MICHELET.

Rome was between two worlds. The Western was bare, poor, and barbarous, full of grass and verdure, a vast confusion of dispersed tribes; the Eastern, brilliant in arts and civilization, but weak and corrupted. The latter, in its proud ignorance, thought alone to occupy the attention and forces of the great nation. MICHELET.

That city [Rome] is for sale, and will soon perish if it finds a purchaser. SALLUST.

Pro pudore, pro abstinentia, pro virtute, audacia, largitio, avaritia vigebant. SALLUST.

The state was hastening towards its dissolution. No one thought of the republic being in danger, and the danger was indeed as yet far distant; but the seeds of dissolution were, nevertheless, sown, and its symptoms were already beginning to become visible. We hear it

generally said, that, with the victories of the Romans in Asia, luxury in all the vices which accompany avarice and rapacity, began to break in upon them. This is, indeed, true enough, but it was only the symptom of corruption, and not its cause; the latter lay much deeper. After so many years of destructive and cruel wars, during which the Romans had been almost uninterruptedly in arms, the whole nation was in a frightful condition: the poor were utterly impoverished, the middle class had sunk deeper and deeper, and the wealthy had amassed immense riches. The same men who had gloriously fought under Scipio, and then marched into the rich countries of Asia as hungry soldiers, now returned with exorbitant and ill-gotten riches, — the treasures extorted from conquered nations. They had no real wants, and did not know how to use the quickly acquired riches. The Romans had grown rich, but the immediate consequence was a brutal use of their riches. - NIEBUHR.

It is evident to every one whose observation is not superficial, that the Roman government during this whole period wished and desired nothing but the sovereignty of Italy; that they were simply desirous not to have too powerful neighbors alongside of them; and that, not out of humanity towards the vanquished, but from the very sound view that they ought not to suffer the kernel of their empire to be crushed by the shell, they earnestly opposed the introduction first of Africa, then of Greece, and lastly of Asia into the pale of the Roman protectorate, till circumstances in each case compelled, or at least suggested with irresistible force, the extension of that pale. MOMMSEN.

In the course of this century the cause of the Plebeians as against the aristocracy was taken up by the eminent and popular statesman, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, The who sought to introduce much needed reforms. Gracchi. He was violently opposed by the oligarchy, and, with about three hundred of his supporters, was killed in the year 133 B. C. Ten years later his brother Caius attempted to renew his work, but he was also murdered by the aristocratic faction.

Who can omit the Gracchi?

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.