Carthage lost not only her fleet and foreign provinces, but her sovereignty itself; she was not allowed to go to war without the permission of Rome, while an irksome sentinel was set over her in the person of her adversary, Masinissa, who had been enriched with Punic territory.
Even after this catastrophe the Carthaginians did not utterly lose heart. Their commerce soon revived and prospered, and Hannibal did all he could to restore the prestige of his native city as long as the Romans tolerated his presence there, and to raise up fresh enemies to Rome after he had been driven into exile.
Rome was not long left to the tranquil enjoyment of her victory. Peace had been concluded. Not the citizens of Rome alone, but all Italy, yearned for a lasting peace. And yet the Roman senate, in defiance of popular feeling, was constrained to embark promptly on the adventures of a new and perilous war or to be false to the whole tenor of its policy up to that time.
Rome’s success in dealing with Macedonia was due, as has already been stated, to the fact that she extended her protection to the smaller Greek states and thus gained a base from which she could hold the larger states of Greece, Macedonia first and foremost, in check. This policy obliged the Romans in the year 200 B.C. to go to the help of Egypt, which was hard pressed by the combined forces of Macedonia and Syria. Ever since the accession of the youthful Ptolemy Epiphanes in 205 B.C., Macedonia and Syria had united with a view to dividing the Egyptian empire and its dependencies between themselves.
Syria’s share was to be Egypt and Cyprus, Macedonia’s Cyrene, Ionia, and the islands of the Ægean Sea. Rome was the less able to be an indifferent spectator of the initial successes of these two great powers since they were won at the expense of the states of Pergamus, Rhodes, and Miletus, which were among her allies. In the case of Syria the Romans attained their object by the embassy of Marcus Æmilius Lepidus. Antiochus the Great evacuated Egypt. Philip, however, would not stay his hand, and thus the Macedonian War broke out, to be decided in favour of the Romans, after many years of indifferent success, by the advance of Flaminius into Thessaly and his victory at Cynoscephalæ (197 B.C.). At the Isthmian games Flaminius proclaimed that all Greeks were free, but the real effect of the proclamation was to reduce all Greek states to a common level of impotence and to give none of them any lasting satisfaction. The Ætolians, who had been the allies of Rome in the Macedonian War, and took no small credit to themselves for the result, were now the most bitterly enraged against her. Antiochus the Great, of Syria, profited by the prevailing sentiment to press forward in Asia Minor. Hannibal, who had been driven from Carthage, appeared at his court and endeavoured, though without success, to induce him to take the offensive against Italy. War was nevertheless inevitable. Antiochus had command of the sea, and crossed to Eubœa and Thessaly. The Ætolians rose in rebellion. The Romans, however, took up the quarrel with no lack of spirit. After the flower of Antiochus’ forces had been vanquished at Thermopylæ, and the Syrian fleet, under the command of Hannibal, had twice suffered defeat, the Scipios crossed over into Asia Minor and destroyed the main army of Syria at Magnesia. A sanguinary conflict ended in the conquest of the mountain cantons of Ætolia (191-189) and the subjugation of the Galatian hordes (188). Antiochus was forced to resign his pretensions to Asia Minor.
That the Romans did not, at this time and during the ensuing decades, take advantage of their success to incorporate fresh provinces into their empire was partly due to their just appreciation of the fact that the conquest of the Greek world could be better and more easily achieved by breaking it up into isolated and impotent states, and partly to their melancholy experiences in the case of their latest acquisitions. For nearly seventy years after the Second Punic War Roman armies were fighting to maintain Rome’s supremacy over her Spanish provinces, and even then the north and west remained free. From 151 to 133 a fierce rebellion was rampant in southern Spain and Lusitania (Portugal). The feats of the patriotic Viriathus and the desperate defence of Numantia showed the Romans to what extremities valiant races—however well disposed towards them in the first instance—could be driven by their execrable provincial administration. Moreover they were compelled to fight year after year, sometimes against Gauls and Ligurians, sometimes against Illyrians and Dalmatians. Nor was the strength of the Hellenic congeries of states by any means broken. The wretched empire of Syria alone, ruled by worthless monarchs and torn by internal dissensions, was fast falling into utter decay. A word from a Roman ambassador was enough to reduce the cowardly Antiochus Epiphanes to obedience and cure him of his inclination to join the enemies of Rome. But Macedonia was gaining strength under Philip and Perseus, and the latter actually succeeded in bringing about a great coalition of the states of the Balkan peninsula against Rome. In the Third Macedonian War the empire of Alexander was finally destroyed after the victory of Pydna (168 B.C.). Even then Rome refrained from dividing Macedonia and Greece into provinces; nor did she alter her policy until after repeated sanguinary revolts in Macedonia, headed by the pretender Andriscus, and the rebellion of the Achæan League (141-146). After that the turn of the west of Asia Minor soon came, and it received the name of the province of Asia in 133 B.C.
The keystone of the fabric of Roman sovereignty over the coasts of the Mediterranean was, however, still lacking. Carthage had once more risen to prosperity. Her commerce and wealth—insignificant by themselves—were only likely to become formidable if Rome were constrained, as in the year 150, to face hostile powers in both Spain and the East. Consequently Rome could not rest until she had swept the rival of her greatness from the face of the earth. After frequent quarrels with Masinissa, and after threats and humiliating demands of every sort, the Carthaginians in despair took up arms for their last fight for liberty. Scipio Æmilianus took Carthage in the year 146 B.C. Well might the victor shed tears at the sight of the city delivered over to the flames; reflecting that a like fate would some day befall his own birthplace. For with the fall of her last foe abroad the dominion of Rome began to crumble from internal decay. Sanguinary revolts of slaves (140-133 B.C.), the corruption of the aristocracy, the decay of the classes of free citizens and free peasants, were enemies which inflicted far worse wounds on the Roman Empire than the sword of its foes abroad.
Her sturdy peasantry and the moral worth of her citizens were the forces that had made Rome great. Her expansion by conquest had enabled her to ameliorate the condition of the poorer citizens by founding colonies and partitioning public lands, and thus to augment the numbers of a capable agricultural population. In proportion as the system of plantations worked by slave labour took the place of this healthy development the masses of the urban proletariat increased, while their fitness for military service diminished, and the ancient Roman virtus speedily became a thing of the past. We know too well how little such civilising influences as the Etruscans, and after them the Greeks of south Italy, brought to bear upon Roman life, could offer in the way of compensation. Many forms and usages of religious worship, many games and theatrical performances imitated from Greek models, found acceptance at Rome. Under the influence of Greek teachers a school of poetry and an elaborate style of Latin prose developed. With admirable readiness the self-contained Romans familiarised themselves, not only with the Greek language, but with many aspects of Greek philosophy and rhetoric.